There is air to breathe, now
with daylight
creeping through
yellowed glass

Wandering amongst Oyster card
holders and paper faces, they aren’t
beautiful at all, but when was
life?

You look after
my heart, he said
on fearful, fitful
nights, spent waiting,
gazing between
bars of light

Your eleventh girl that day,
caught out of the corner of your eye,
a fully stocked bar, a familiar face,
you came in here on the hunt
for the innocent fox

(drink up, shut your eyes
breathe, don't forget to
dream)

a rolled joint, turn the radio up,
shut the windows, lock the door,
you're doing nothing wrong, after all

(lie down, count to ten
you're free to leave, in your mind
imagine so many things, anything
but what's really happening)

cover your tracks, throw out the blood
soaked sheets. tell yourself she asked
for it, tell yourself it's just *****
laundry, just the taint of
another girl

(run, through the pain,
it'll stop stinging soon,
just keep moving, move
get away, get away, let the air
wash off his scent)

purple... green... a two inch scar,
please stop asking me to describe him,
swallow hard, he's not inside you now,
you're free to breathe, it's over,

but in my mind

the pictures still play,
like a movie scene,
a scratch on a track,

he's the other side of this screen,
I can taste him, salt and sweat,
they see what I saw at first
a decent man, not an animal
who devours women as if
they're meat

tell them I'm crazy
tell them I was drunk
get some sick satisfaction
out of lying through your
barely concealed wolf grin

you're free to prowl again

Kiss me on the inside;

can you feel my heart
shake? Do your fingertips
read me like a Carpenter’s
reads wood?

could you re-build my life
in your shed? Re-paint
the years that have
chipped away at my
skin

do you have tools
that can mend souls?
souls that have escaped,
eloped with promises
telling you to hold
tight and wait

Wait.

You didn’t fix
the clock, did you?
The hands still
move too fast

instead of the beginning,
middle and end
you told my story
in a flick book

My childhood is
a paragraph, I was
young for a page

your hands are
hard but your heart
is harder

unflinching,
throwing out
the parts of me
you can’t fit

In

To

You

I forgive you,
of course, when
you show me the
sculpture you made
out of our tomorrow's

the wood has
beeb sanded down,
the edges, smoothed
as you place your arms
around my waist
and lift my face, slightly
to the sky

and there,
where the stars meet,
there is where
our hearts beat

burning out the parts of me
that don’t fit

In

To

You

The sun has set
and left me here

bones stretching out
towards the heart
of the heat

as my spine cracks
across the sand

I press my lips
together and
taste

the salt on
the air

the black mist on
the sea

the promise on the
wind that reassured me

that you’d come back
to me

In the evening
the house is
buzzing

with bees that
sting and

we eat their
honey as our blood
sugar drops

with the temperature

you squeezed my
hand and thought
that we connected

but the sound
of your voice
is more of an
echo than a
hum

and the darkness
in your eyes
frightens me

we've met before,
you say,

we used to swap
our hearts beneath
red sheets

but your
face is not one that
I see when I
close my eyes

your grip on me
is not one that
comforts me

and the darkness
in your eyes

(that frightens me)

just makes me think
of a man I met once
blind drunk on a
Wednesday afternoon

and the hold he had
of my arm
when I tried to turn
away

She is eight
standing on the top step
staring at the stars
twinkling with the promise
of a new year

eyes now closed,
she drinks them in
lets the ***** of fire
warm her, the heat
of the flames burn
into her heart

in her head
a voice whispers
'make a wish'

without moving her lips
she swallows the
freezing darkness,
the air

M
A
K
E

M
E

T
H
I
N

she expels
the letters
like smoke
rings

let my hands
shake and bend
like dead twigs
in the breeze

my eyes to
retreat back
to safety

into secrets

my chest to shake
like a spider
undet a glass
trapped but safe
contained

'Please eat away this flesh'

She is eighteen now
and the years have changed her

yet not tamed the whisper
that beats like sea water
crashing into the rocks
that guard her thoughts

sitting rigid
on a hard red sofa
trying to keep her eyes dry

she watches the screen
that stands between her
and the rest of
the world

the only stars tonight
are the ones bouncing
off the glass

there is no air in here
with the three of us
eating the only thing
we still can

Christmas decorations
still standing and
watching, catching
the dust that's like
the splatter of cereal
over a breakfast bowl

we are supposed to be
in bed by eleven
with someone coming in,
a dark shadow, checking
that the windows are shut

but tonight
we are allowed to pretend
that we are part of this
world, beyond the television
screen, that still dances
and kisses strangers at
midnight

allowed to pretend that
the chimes of Big Ben
stir our hopes
that the explosions of
coloured flashes
scatter away our fears

in her head
a voice whispers
'make a wish'

without moving her lips
she sighs, fatness for
freedom or a prison
sentence of bones

that wished in herself
all those years
ago

Once again
the sound of magpies
hunting fill my head with
images of daylight

and picnics we took
under ash trees
on top of itchy
blankets

I know you only read
those books for me

to make me feel
safe in having something
to say when the conversations
turned to salaries and
mortgages

or maybe that's
unkind. Maybe you
just wanted to understand
me better

when the four ninety-nine
red wine reaches me
I taking about the poems
I'm writing

grape glazed eyes
stare, squinting through
the sun, trying not to
smile. They move on

when we are alone
again we still pretend
I lie about the friends
I met for coffee and
you tell me I look
beautiful

I wonder if you know
the way we sleep

I hope not

and you've never asked
why I crawl out of the
sheets when sleep has
taken you

I sleep on the floor
and slip back beside you
just before you
wake

we never mention doctors or pills
and you know not to hug me
too tight

I make tea for both of us
even though we don't drink
it. It's hard to shake
off the words our mothers said
about a cup curing
anything

when the birds are
still I open the window
and think of flying
to have a body light enough
to break free of
the mind

I take my first
lungful if air
but you reach out
and hold me
where my wings
should be

(they're broken now)

and I realise I'm not the
only one who pretends
to be asleep

you wrap me up
like old glass
in soft blankets

slip another book
off my bedside table
into your bag

and don't cry
until you've
shut the door

This is the aftermath
of my heavy living
the reflection of
a streetlamp
in a ***** puddle

the ringing sound
of keys being threaded
through fingers
Awaiting attack

strangers find me,
under the orange haze
of light, as if my body
is a broken truck
waiting to be
recovered

one of them tells me
to never trust a man
who walks in step with
his shadow

they say that ***
has a smell and
they’re right

the air itself
is choking on
exhaust films, on
the curling, reaching
smoke of a cigarette

my skirt (my skin),
is torn

some of the older ones
take trophies, tearing bits
of fabric away from
my body

as you would separate
a phone number from a
scrap of paper

I can afford new clothes,
of course, and the powder
that hits my mind and settles
it, the way that sand
thrown over snow
softens it

the racing thoughts,
the tides of red and gold
and yellow memories wash
over me

stinging my wounds
with their salt

no-one remembers pain
that can't break the skin

and on those nights where I
satisfy a lions need for meat

neither can I

Like food,
dreams are rationed

children slip through holes
in buzzing fences

like bees

the light touches
of a fly

unconcerned by chemical spills

and broken hazard
signs

He could tell I wasn't real
somehow. That the space
between us was longer
that the length of his
arm. I talked less
than he did, yet he was
quiet and still

I was to go out
and find a (some)
body to build a house
with. But he is too
much of a person
to shelter under

I never wanted a
garden but I wanted
a place to lie,
to let the sun
lick my back
as I read

I read everything
I couldn't think or
say for myself,
especially to him

He is kind and
tender and
I'm not

It's getting harder to fill
the silences. For my words
to reach my mouth

and I am desperate
to be more than a
ghost searching for
a body to climb
into

It's getting harder to believe
that this crack in the wall
is not, in fact, a gateway
to another universe

you stand beside it
beckoning, sweetly
smiling, and you know
that I would walk hot coals
to follow you,

what is a crack in the damm?

I do not trust the air
that I breathe,

a trick of God, made to make
me believe in

life

but I am dead, and I stare
blankly,

a dead stare,

through these rusty bars
that shatter like ribs around
my shaking heart

I dare not -

breathe

Word that once twisted
on my tongue like dancers
now stick, like sugar, to my lips
sweet honey locks that trap
the fire the eats me from
the inside - a body,
a cage, that echoes
bird less in the night
as I sit smoking out
the nightmares that wait,
like patent lovers, for me
to join them

When two words meet
there is a crack
running like spilt red
wine from one end of
my room to the
other

there are voices
living in it
young girls that
scream and laugh
as they fly through
the air on swings

old men that creek
when they move
and breath heavily
as if the weight
of their decades
is a physical onus

before my train leaves
I stand in the middle
of the room and spread
my arms as if they
are wings

my fingers don't touch
the plaster, which is strange,
after spending so many nights
convinced that the
parameters are closing
in on my dreams

I was brought up
to believe in last
looks and I have
grown up to believe in
railway stations and
airports

looking back it seems
cruel to be told that
your address isn't fixed
that there is no point
in learning to live with
the cracks

I leave a pink post it
over the crack
'Theres no place
like home' and as
I leave to front door
unlocked, I wonder how
full the carriage will be

and if the stranger
next to me will carry
a portmanteau

The spot where I split open
my heart like a vein
is marked with

white pebbles as smooth
as bones

in the centre
there is a pool of
ice water

I like to pludge
into

submerge myself
and fold into
the wrinkles

that appear in
crows feet

on every inch
of my skin

the shell of
my body

shaking

the bird inside
my chest

dying

as my organs
freeze

Bounced

a mother figure
to two, a name
on a Christmas card
to four

when I realised
I was still a
child

and bitterness
wasn't an
option

I grew up
like a broken
nose

out of joint

Bounced

at the service
there are tears
beside me

I imagine a
body burning
and feel
warm

the lick of flames
on gray skin

my indifference
grows like I
imagine the
fire roaring

behind the curtain

heating up

Bounced

the house is
empty and
smells

unusual

like something has
been left in there
too long

they are not
there now but
it lingers

I tried to take
her dresses but
she was thinner
as a girl than
I am now

jealously

is a feeling
I'm familiar with

and it's easier
to understand

Bounced

we are waiting
for a buyer

and I imagine
how it feels
to have a piece
of your heart
trapped in bricks
and mortar

Bounced

one time,
I wanted to ask her
how it felt to
take notes of
the war

if she'd ever thought
of waving a white
flag and crumbling

drowning in the
rubble rain of
The Blitz

I wanted to hear
her say something
human

so I could
visualise and
see a bit of
her in myself

Bounced

I'm still caught up
on the autopsy
like a piece of
fatty tissue on
a scalpel

and my thoughts
are metal and
cold

the number of
zeroes on a
cheque

Bounced

at night
the gray whispers
of smoke that
weave like ghosts
from the end of
your cigarette
reach my window
and freeze on
the glass like
a handprint
that presses gently
through
my dreams

I imagined we’d grow gray together
and take winter sun holidays
somewhere we could warm our bones

cut out coupons from newspapers
stacking up in a jam jar
next to the fruit bowl

you’d rent guidebooks out of the library
and I’d take evening classes
so that I could understand
black tied waiters

you’d find it cute and impressive
and you would hold my hand tightly
during take off

the plan was that we’d walk around
foreign supermarkets and guess
the contents of the cans

they’d be faded beach towels
and the sticky scent of tanning lotion

our antiquated skin would burn easily
if we didn't smother it

but I’m not sure it matters
anymore, fretting over factors

we already have tumors
growing like doubts in our chests

we have nurtured them,
tended to their hungers and thirst
until we have none of
our own

Our fingers searched

Like foxes rummaging through

Bags of trash

A cigarette packet

An empty Jack

bottle

I think we kissed in the dark

Before tonight

I never wanted to read
the letters you left
me

black ink bleeding
across the page
like the letters on
tattoo'ed skin

that touched water too soon

I imagine the pen-
nib scratching, stinging
like a thousand, angry
bees

you're smoking cigarettes
they don't make anymore
and your yellowed fingers
remind me of caterpillars
that never made it
to butterflies

swollen with new life
and coloured ugly from
the effort of trying
to transform into
it,

and failing

You are a liar
not a poet, he said,
and your feelings
are as meaningful
as an invitation
made in September,
that new year bliss
that covers you in
new notebooks,
fresh pencils and
friends. If you could
only love a person
as much

if you could only
love me

At some point,
I think everyone
dreams of fire

to burn bridges
down, tumbling
rubble, metal
melting back into
lava

you could start again,
then, It would be
easy enough

I’m not saying
that I like to
watch the skins
of structures peel

but who doesn't
look at a burning
building and feel
something more
than fear

something more
than loss

something more like
hope

and excitement

a racing heart
that soars above
the sirens

and sends
voices, through
pulses, into your
ear

you could run into
that, you know

you could pull
someone out

save something

you could make it
beautiful

He's everywhere
again

the blood that sticks
my lips together

when I wake

the dogs that bark
behind  white washed
gates

the cold grab of
the village drunk

the heat that's taken
from me in rare moments
of sleep

the dark rings under
my eyes that I wear
like rosary

so the devil
I picture holding
hands with you

becoming you

can't see my insides

organs, scattered

rotting

the red, anxious rash
that covers me

the knots and filth in
my hair

He is everywhere

I'm writing this
on the back of
a bank statement

it's from our joint account
and, circumstances without,
I smile slightly at the thought
that I was ever close enough to
someone to share names on
an envelope

the money doesn't matter,
we are none without our vices,
little human weaknesses
that creep through and climb
the tallest if walls

I drew out note every morning
from the ATM on the corner,
to buy cigarettes and chocolate

often, I'd ingest them together
like a double dose of Aspirin,
a double shot of whiskey

slightly reckless but
essentially harmless

The smoke would coat
my throat, the sugar
settling like a layer
of film

I know, it sounds disgusting
so, shall we talk about you?

I'm almost disappointed
by the banality of it all
fake names, hotel rooms
and guilty ***

I'd known about those pitfalls
since childhood but I still
married you thinking you were
different, original

If you had to leave I wanted
a storm. That you would
fling a fist towards the sky
and declared your hatred of me
your boredom, your lack of love
for me

and I'd spill my own guts,
violently, coughing up my
own bile for you

but no

I'm running out of space
now, and I'm scrawling ink
over our branch name
and sort code. The paper
constricting, closing,
pressing me for an
ending

I wrapped myself,
tight. Wired myself
to the fabric of time

became invisible.

I never knew why
the Earth started to spin
away from me

so I blended myself
into the background
and waited

patiently

for it to stop

My senses remember it
better than my
memory

and maybe it's the memory
of you that's lead me back
to this place. Where my skin
shakes like small coils of wire
shot with electricity

but it's a nervous,
nerve reflex and not proof
that I'm alive

my limbs hanging like
the branches of a
tree

a cool breeze
shuddering the
roots

I always felt new with
winter. Ice beneath
my feet. Itchy woollen
jumpers and the smell
of cinnamon

but you stole my seasons
the way you stole my
heart and now a cold
breeze sends me into
darkness

***** footprints on
dead ground. Black
coats and boots

and the smell of your
body, missing, and
the sound of my neck,
caressed by a white scarf,

breaking

I am sharpening my teeth,
preparing for the taste of
your flesh,

I am hesitant to take the first
bite, but I have a hunger that
nothing else will satisfy,

(revenge, revenge)

I am a creature of hate, now,
I am what you made me,
what you moulded me
into with your

bare hands. Toss back
the sheet and lay down
your gun,

show them what you
really are, open up
the scars you've forged
into my skin,

branded into my thighs,
white hot and stinging.
You say it's what I asked
for, with my ***
soaked lips,

but you knew how
the story would end
before you had even
seen me

knew the weight of your hand
smothering a scream

you came to me armed
and I was defenceless
but I am no longer
gunless

my bullets will hit your
heart, and I will forget
your smell, I will
shake of your
stale breathe

I'm not here to forgive you

(This story is mine)

At five, we dragged
sticks along railings
and walls

holding hands
carelessly, obliviously,
without knowing we
were linking our
hearts forever

then we were ten,
twenty, forty...

the years doubled
then doubled
again

we're eighty

milk white hands
like chalk

ice palm meeting
ice palm

yet still
we smile,
faces cracked
and

careless

I miss sharing bathtubs
with you, the way our
fingers linked together
to form webs of skin
that stopped our hearts
slipping, like stones
beneath the surface

I heard that drowning
was the worst way
to go. The way that
skin wrinkles away
from the bone in
shades of blues
and grays

The subtle difference
between immersion
and submersion,

the line between trying
to restart a heart or
leaving a chest cavity
to fill with waves

life's oceans are
endless in their
meetings with
death

and some hearts
are meant to
cross the sea

I have been here
a hundred times,
where the walls shake
and shrink around
us. oceans. woods.
and skies spinning
out of reach. out
of control but
destiny has it's
own map and
words that
weep like ink
black. bleeding.
where do the
trees end? the
leaves that rip
beneath my
feet. and I am
the air. the soil.
the orange red
flame that dances
from branch to
branch. spreading.
smoking. choking.
devouring.

Words, put together
on strings, made to look
like pearls

instead they're drops
of blood, bits of ourselves
that tell, like fingerprints
that show up under
certain light

we let it seep
through the curtains,
as we wait for each
other to wake

our nails
clawing, digging, sinking
into each others flesh

lightly
tracing the red
stutters that
appear

we forget about
the taste of
iron, the smell
of it rising through
our bodies as

they spread

A winter romance,
of frozen fingers wrapped
around hot cocoa with extra
Sugar in cups with Disney
characters and chips along
the rim. Monday mornings
were for promises. we’d
drink less wine and you’d
smoke out in the garden,
where the frost lies on
the grass in a blanket
of ice and
I
Can
Feel
It
feel the chill of that
biting air in the way you
crawl inside me
as if I am hollow
without you
and the way you turn
you head afterwards
(it's the way
we sleep now)

Like ancient Greeks
crafting words onto patched
papyrus, we are the split
at the bottom of a
kalamos with enough
ink to sign our names

We were born of
water reeds. Our salt-wrapped
hearts still float amongst
the long leaves

in the river where we drowned

Your smell lingers
on my skin,
caught in the scars
you forged,

a purple bed -
spread, to match
my legs

contoured to your
pleasure

my screams silenced
by your hands, that
start to wander
down,

between my legs,

a radio blasting meaningless
pop songs, that will become

a horros, hollow
soundtrack, every time
I'm caught off guard

blood - so much
blood, searing agony,

as you force your way
into me,

I am ice, frozen
solid and cold

I do not want
to thaw

to carry the scars
outside this
room

to take this nightmare
into daylight

I run, as soon as
I can,

I fumble at the
lock,

picking it apart
as you picked
me

apart,

I'm not going
to carry these
scars

I am not going
into battle

we are not
at war

no, I will
surrender

and leave our
story in this
room

I discovered then
that love was not
the clenching of a
heart, or the pattern
of a pulse in
double time

but the
emptiness of
the seat opposite
you at breakfast

and the bitter taste
of coffees laced with
goodbyes

I thought the light in your eyes
was for good, so I never tried
to light it

It's teeth, it's
teeth wear down,
eroded with the
acid of time and
memory

she told be this
but

the memories, the
memories bite still
sometimes and the
distance

the distance between
who I am and who I
used to be
is growing

growing like an
unweeded garden
and the weeds

the weeds, too
bite and the
bites are

as hard, as
consuming as
fire and
ice

I remember the ivy
that grew in the side
of our first house

year by year, we
watched it shake off
its dead leaves and
tremble, naked through
the winter

in the Spring,
we'd take tea underneath
it, sharing the sugar spoon
like we shared sheets
and secrets

we watched it beat
again, like a heart
restarting, rising after
the fall

the wrought iron
chairs are rusted brown
now, and no-one sits
upon them

we're dead
but breathing,
blood pulsing on

and on

hearts beating backwards

and sugar spoons left
out for the
ants

Every Autumn,
my grandmother would
sweep away the leaves
from in front of
her house

she believed my grandfather
was always watching, still
sitting in his wicker chair
chipped white paint
peeling away from the
wood

in the kitchen,
the smell of bread
rose, licking the
ceiling with its
sweet tongue

she still bakes,
hoping the dough
will stretch as far
as his fingers

through swept leaves
and breadcrumbs,

down to the very core
of the Earth

the very core
of her

I am -
a woman of
science and skill

I am -
a collector
of facts and
absolutes

He is -
the anomaly

a cruel contamination

he says I
count and in
my mind I
imagine

not with my
head but my
heart

the rules of
fantasy are still
mine to learn

how far does it go?

does it
have edges?

I feel the edges
of his body blending
into the shape
of me

the taste of tobacco
of tea on his lips
that are now
my lips

I am -
a woman of
passion and
warmth

I am a woman
curled into the
crook of a man

It’s a fallacy, ‘to be or not to be’
actors strutting and pouting across
a stage, their black shoes burning
holes into the painted wood,

Their words lacking conviction
each action, merely an action,
but it’s what they have to work with
that holds the key, he secret ecstasy,
The escape route from Hell

Knowing that, given the choice,
‘to be’ is not where the scales will
settle. We are wanderers clutching
at straws of adventures, but we will
pick the short one, eventually

Where then do we go? When there is
no ladder made of gold to climb.
no pearly gates nor a wizardly,
kindly face

‘The play’s the thing’
wherein we catch
the conscious of
ourselves

I love you for the dark corners
where the dust settles

the way you bend your arm
tho cocoon my head when it
is heavy

they say that love is complex,
that it is an architecture that we
build with our bare hands, fingers
in the dirt

and I don't know if I believe that,
because it seems so simple to me,
that we have built our story on a
foundation of angles

I saw her
in a crack
of light

a shard
of broken
mirror

I am the
flames of Hell
burning

up, combusting
into ash

only footprints
of where she
stood

only echoes
of where she
laughed

only half
a person

a shell
without
a soul

I imagine myself
as an architect
crafting buildings
out of broken
bits of rocks
pencil lines
on paper
shaping into
something
beautiful

it must have
been beautiful
in the beginning
when our mind
had no pictures
to compare
to the ones
our eyes could
take

I imagine the
start of the
universe
dark matter
and energy
and how it
would feel
to absorb
any light
that hits

to hide where
even Galleo’s
gaze can't
reach

He came to me,
bloodied and broken
and for once I saw
the beating heart
beneath the shell
the touch of his
cheek beneath
the bone
the quiver of his
hand upon my
shirt and the
look in his
eyes as I
unwrapped

It occurred to me,
suddenly (as I
watched his face
in sleeping sunlight)
that he was a thing
of soft flesh and
warm blood
and not of  
cold deductions
and brutalities

There is something

other than a man

about him

eyes bright, 
lips
locked
 tight

his fingers

are not that

much longer

than mine

they too
 know
chemicals

the touch of glass

between your bare

skin and acid

I tap words
through the sheets

with my finger-

tips

dot dot dot

dot dot

dot

and through the

haze of sleep
he smiles

his mouth titling

towards mine

we don’t call it

kissing

it is the pleasent purple

colour of neutral

litmus paper

it is our data
spreading

from the corners

of our mouths
into my
 cheeks

my body betrays me
and colours them
red

but it is more
than a flush
of a fantasy
made present

to be able
to touch

this man who hides
(and lies)

to know
this light touch
of a man in
a mask

which he allows 

only me to
see 
through

I've murdered half of
the people who stood
between us to clear
the view

I've been inside
your mind and carved
out love notes

they are on the
bodies you read

on the lives
you try to
reconcile

but there is
no chance
of that now

promises lie, dead,
with the motionless
grave fillers  

in a moment
I am holding your
hand in autumn,
watching winter
born

ice and snow
to purify
the way I feel
tonight

I left my finger –
prints on your face
a kiss that lingers
and dies as you
turn cruel

I smell your
aftershave in
their hair as it
rubs off me
onto them

as you
rub off me
onto them

we won't be
meeting like this
again

we won't be
sharing spit
and blooded
bed sheets

and though you
say your heart
is frozen, I promise

it will thaw