It's just a shadow of the past
he says

So how come every morning
light seeps like blood through
the curtains, forcing my body
to turn and face the house
guest that's supposed to have
run its lease

It's a part of me now,
like some small spot
you notice in the mirror
one day and keep
picking, picking, picking
at until it's red and
bloated and fit to
burst

You have a pimple
the doctor says
you've been picking at it
for the last five years but
your nails were never allowed
to grow long enough to get
a good grip on it

And the scent of the ward
wonders off my clothes
through my nose
as I sit there and listen

I've tried soap and
bleach and caustic soda
but madness has its own perfume
its own way of clinging to
your skin long after your name's
been rubbed off the whiteboard

I'm drifting in and out of
dreams now that I've left his
office, waiting for the train
to take me back to my
husband and kids who will
smell where I've been
the moment the front door
shuts behind me

But they will never say

I find myself staring into
the mouth of memory,

wet cotton, fine needles
and wine

my mouth turns wet at
the thought of it

to hold such history
in my mouth

and twist the knives that
my teeth make

into it

Our sins, our secrets
those creatures that
fester beneath the
covers of our
bed

are visible from space.

If having sin made me
more desirable to you,
I would leap into
every wooden
box

and tell my deepest, darkest
secrets. To be laid out in
front God. Naked and
vulnerable, withering like
a rat trapped in a cat's
mouth

But I know that it
wouldn't be enough
to make you plant
your roots at my
feet

I am full of sin,
I am bloated with secrets,
my rib cage snapping,
sharp shards of bone
penetrating my heart

I bleed open, I bleed out,
and as I'm dying I wonder why
I was no match for the sins
that grew in you

I cried for you
a flash of silver
between my teeth
lips, scarlet and drip-
ing

at seventeen I knew
the weight of you,
each hair on your arms
as you pressed my back
into the stained carpet

the Japanese tattoo
that, tracing the thick
black lines with my eyes

a quick glimpse of my
grandfather, mixing bread
with milk and whiskey

flowers that grew, evergreen
in the garden where
he'd chase me

laughter ringing through the air
cheesecloth blue dresses
and black, buckled shoes

you eat me, heart first
then each sense in turn.
I welcome the loss of
them all.

The touch of your
nails in my thighs. The
taste of blood as your
rotted mouth envelopes
my own. The sound
of flesh beating flesh.
The sight of sweat beads
resting on your brow. The
smell of ***** seeping
through skin.

In a moment
I am no longer
a girl

but a woman eating
the words off my clothes, smarting, sinister ****

a ***** kitchen floor
is waiting. The cool relief
of the tiles on my
burning skin

a woman,
no longer whole
yet still
alive

It is winter
and I have had
no time to
prepare for it

tinsel tangled
around fake
trees

broken fairy lights
the flicker like the
wings of a trapped
butterfly

the smell of
cinnamon that
reminds me
of childhood

was I happy
back then?

was my heart
torn and troubled
with a quiet
discontent

do I remember
happiness?

I am sure it is
locked tight
somewhere
inside of me

a cage that
holds the ruins
of the past

it is cold and
wet, I am drenched
down to the bone

December shouts and screams
demanding my attention
like a crying, hungry baby

I am lost in its folds
a timeless tapestry
of snow and freezing toes

it repeats,
every year
like clockwork

and the cogs
are rusty and
creek as they turn

how many more years
can I stand it?

how many more
dreams of death
can I awaken from?

I fell for their promises,
the arrogant belief
that life begins again
as the clock strikes twelve

******* hell, it hurts
salt rubbed in an open
wound that people try
to fill with joy

I am breathless
and heavy with
the weight of
the future

when it feels
impossible to
imagine one

I conjure you,
out of yellowed newspapers
and matches.

I come to recognise the scent of you, through which you untie
the core of me

I swallow you down
as the hoards devour religions.

People banging on the doors of churches.

Swallowed up in scripture.

I wanted to see God
in the silver blades between your teeth.

To cut out your Adam's apple and place it between my lips.

Consuming your masculinity with a single, careless kiss.

Anatomy's foundations rocking like an antique chair.
Stripped wood that still sings of trees, chopped down in their prime.

This destruction of youth that should sicken me, thrills me to the bone.

Each blade of gentle green grass grows in the sunlight and I pick each daisy
as carefully as I pick my men.

Young men that touch silk sheets, glistening with sweat. I lick the knife, metal caressing metal, blood on
steal.

I am ready to receive him.

I have always had an uneasy longing to be
Godless in a world ful of Devils,

as I walk blindly down an unfamiliar road, I force my keys between my fingers,

I hear the sound of glasses breaking,
the aftershock of a fist making
contact with a jaw

someone is following me and,
despite myself, I pray

later, when I wake from the haze
of a Rohypnal dream

catch sight of my siren red bra
on a hostile floor

inhabiting a body that aches,
beating to the rhythm of a clam -
like heart

head spinning, a brain that has been
suddenly stunted,

I wonder how I could have turned
to God?

To have turned my back
on the Devils, to be caught
unawares

is this my punishment for a fickle faith?

the boy who cried wolf,
eventually burning beneath the sun

why do my legs shake with rage
at the thought of ever

praying?

We are born without teeth
yet, instinctively bite
peach lips forming circles
around fingers,

I remember the first bite,
he was pale and wore dusty
jeans. He came into my
bedroom, offering wine
he had laced with crushed
pills, unknowing that
to me his skin was laced
with ecstasy

the numbers mount up
in the same way they
fade, days disappearing
when a calendar turns,

memories are meant to
etch themselves into
our bones, but I  realised
that it was blood, blood
that preserved our former
selves, each drop a day,
each mouthful a moment,

they think I bite out of
spite, out of fury and
rage

but I am merely a collector
of moments that do not
belong to me, a predator
of the passage of time

I am gluttonous, I admit
but feeding on men that
prey on women does not
seem like greed,

I remember....
the night I was bitten.
He was tall and tattooed,
I liked his shoes,

***** flowing like water,
clear, crystal water
purifying (I thought)
until it hit my brain
paralysing all thought
and then...

Hell moved inside me,
a self-gratifying demon,
inked with a dragon,
as gunless as I
was Godless

I bite these men now,
these haters of women,
who **** and drink and dare
to slip a finger in,

I am reflection -
less and yet I know
what a mirror would show
about me,

the exit left of the battered
woman, who dared to change
her set, her scenery, her script

no, I am not ashamed of the
blood I take, but I am not
an animal who kills
for sport, for fun, for food

I am vengeful, I am every woman
sick of settling for less,
I am that woman you pitied
then despised,

I am that ******* a cold
bedroom floor, reborn

with fangs

Suicide, I thought,
would be my stage exit

(left)

until the pills got stuck in my throat, the doctors got stuck into my heart

pounding, their television screens bleeping

bringing me back
to Hell

when I was just a
step away

from Heaven

Estranged, I am
shackled by steel

a secret bursting like fruit
behind my lips

they do not let me taste
the strawberries

I must gorge, fistful after fistful
until my chin turns red

the madness of hunger matching
the madness of me

tied, belly filled with lactose
capsule coatings

reality unravelling like a badly
sewed dress

the whisper of the world
reaching out to you

a spike in the black heart of
nothingness

The tulips grew
under a patch of shade,
half warmed by the sun
yet still, protected

flowers used to mean
stuffed noses and watery
eyes. I never looked at
one through a clear lens

we would sit out in
the garden, the gentle
buzzing of heat, electricity
in the air. The oncoming
storm

now, roses are red
beasts that bite like
a vampire, drawing
blood into the stifled,
stagnant earth

I wait for frosts
that freeze,
turning green grass
to the white blades
of winter

the unforgiving morning
chill, robins perched on
iron railings that snap
like a steel rod,
submerged in
liquid nitrogen

I am callous and
cruel. I do not look
at the world in
wonder. I am
distant and dull

but I can't help but think
of the tulips, how they
are half hidden in
darkness, yet still

grow

It is the fiery breathe of the sun
that blows bees off course in
their search for honey
nectar; what I wouldn't give
for a mouthful. Sickly
sweet, wrapping it's way
around my fingers,
licking off the golden
sugar as if I am a child
licking a cake bowl
I am fearless of their sting
the bitter sweetness that
demands their death
I am that bee, that sting,
deciding where to place
my pain, weighing up if it
is worth my life

I remember the first time we met;
you were a lightning bolt that
stricked a fire in my heart

they were dark days,
I was resting on the shoulders of
hopelessness, dancing with a two
left footed devil

it took me less than a heartbeat
to trust you, to test the water,
the wild white waves of my madness

nuzzled into my neck, as if
God himself had designed for
our spines to lock

man of the stars, wandering
the skies to find me, a held out
hand pushing though the galaxies
that tie us to reality, to longing

roaming far from my chest. An
empty cage where fishbones
rattle,

I pray for rain, for thunder,
for the slightest sign of you.
I am not soft and warm,

I am calamity, child of the
night, woman of the Earth
holding an entire universe
between my teeth

and waiting, wild eyed and hungry
for your electric

kiss

Robbed of dreams
I sleep -
in silence

a quiet that starts to
hiss, snake like, at
my feet

fangs flinch at the
smallest twitch,
ready to bite off
more than I can

chew. I am a
woman, again, built
up and battling with
my soul

fierce fires of blood
shoot from the tips
of my fingers

stuck in a web. Oh God -
I pray, word by word
reaching the tip of my
forked, forsaken

tongue

God, plunge me into a sooth -
ing lethargy, from which
I do not want to

wake.

At dark

a murmur in the hungry wind
asking for the moon to shield
us from the unforgiving night

a blank canvas dotted with fire,
flames the will engulf
and eat us whole

we are made from the dust of
the universe, constellations,
transfixed

I knock on the ribs that hide
your heart,

can you hear me?

The black spot on
my heart that has
spread through my
body like a plague

The great river of
ice, confessing to
the coldness of
my soul

I swim, battling
the tide of my
innermost thoughts

A wanderer who
hates the loneliness
of the road

The palm of my hand,
empty

A kiss in the dark
lips meeting beneath stars

we are the burning embers
of the night sky

the moon shuddering
under the weight of hearts

we are fearless,
Godless in the dark

who are we to meddle
in the ruins of

our fire

You have rolled away
from me - in your
sleep, a nightmare
that lives inside
the person next
to you

and not in your
head -no, you
dream, still

a beach, an empty
bar - people
reading over
cold coffee,

a quiet room.

Our room is so
loud - thunderous
roars of regret

hurricanes trapping
our hearts

not touching,
ever

as if your skin
is flames

as if those flames
have wings

that could fly
into my soul

and burn, burn
burn

leaving me a pile
of ashes

and hate

(thick, black
hate)

At what point
did it start?
they ask.

An endless rhetoric,
slyly demanding
unremembered
histories

I don't know.
a simple answer

feelings  do not
come into your
heart with
warning

they bang on
your rib cage,
a dull echo
shuddering through
your body

I am not
a moment
captured  in
a photograph

stained sepia,
a sliced negative

It did not
start with
the click
of a clock

stopping the
hour hand
at twelve

it consumed me,
slowly. The sea
does not devour
the sand with a
single wave

it is the
onslaught of
sadness creeping
into your blood

a parasite,
a lowering of
cells

it is
criminal,
and I am it's
victim

as you try
to execute
my misery
with pills

(electric shocks)

crisp white sheets,
pulled so tight
they feel like bandages.

Wrapping around my limbs
until I am paralysed
with emptiness

one bed, one desk,
one chair

a tick sheet of
sorrow that I am
now pinned
to

like a butterfly,
living for only
one day

but pressed and
preserved

indefinitely

I rejected myself
at seventeen,

twisting my fingers
around a half-smoked
cigarette

my eyes turned red
from fear, blown
pupils,

I wanted to inhabit
it all, to press my
hands into my

soft thighs, like he did,
taking my hands and
holding

them tight,
I did not struggle

or shout. I was
trapped in the
amber of

my mind, between
the legs of a thorough
bred, respected and

encouraged.

No, I could not tell,
let that snake crawl
from my mouth.

Instead it grips
around my chords,
humming gently like a bird,

the caged creature that
I have become. I

did not want to
own myself,
to shout or write
my name

consumed by the
stench of silence,
quiet deeds that
are nameless,

emerging from the
caverns of lust

Don't worry, darling
the ocean will be only a
memory, one day,

the wild waves a footnote
in the story of your
meandering life

we will meet occasionally,
drinking espressos in
the heart of London

imagining we are somewhere
(anywhere) else

but eventually, you will
forget me, and I will

not shake my limbs
into yours, worrying
about breaking the

skin. We are not
endless and forever
is now

I am myself whole,

no longer a fraction
of a second away
from fading

imagining an ocean
to stop my heart from
hammering

through my ribs,
bursting through
my chest

birthing something
unknown, unwanted
and caged

I am a timid bird but
nervous wings still
flutter, still fly

I am reaching into
the darkness,
arms outstretched,
eager, fearlessly
facing the future,

running blind

I was prey to him,
fighting against his bare
teeth, white and diamond -
like

I was less than a jewel,
less than a girl bending
under the quiver of
his sharp nailed fingers

the arch of his back
stretching out
above me

I am frozen solid,
an iced over lake
somewhere between
two mountains

I do not thaw at his
touch, I am winter -
set, swallowing salt

that rises to the top of
an ocean, a blue mass
spreading

covering the Earth,
and me, wet with
regret

shaking below his
chest, consumed
by his cigarette
stenched kiss

his thunderous hands,
holding me to
ransom

Murderer
they called me
Murderess...

to take a life
into my pale,
sculptured hands

to mix bone
and blood
into a thick
paste

to shatter the heart
of a mother, herself
reaching into the
abyss in fear of

nothingness.

I did not tremble
from top to toe

my back arched, catlike
sensing danger

where there was only
love, taken from me

beaten, burnt, corrupted
until only this shell

remained.

I take God into account,
hold him to his word,
beg him to remember
that night when I was

six

when heaven and hell
mixed as my mouth
filled with sweat
and blood

the taste of fear
caressing my lips

murderous,

the shadow on the wall,
the whistle of wind
through long hair

I take, plunder, delve
into fields of red
Poppy's

remberence

dear God,
remember me

I take you
into my mouth

pierce the purple
skin and expose

the tender flesh,
your yellow reminds

me of bruises,
thawing like snow

blind hands over
a coal fire

you are whole
and full

my tongue rippling
with expectation

the soft brush of
an uncharted

inch of you
against my stark

white skin. I am
broken and

bitter, but your
sweetness spreads

into my pores
like lava

and I explode
with everything

I've pressed into
my breast

every thorn, every
wound, healed

by the taste of
your plum

I belong to you -
your body gleaming
white under the
unforgiving moon -
we can hack the
silver out of the
sky, swallow
stars like Asprin -
each circle of
relief bringing
me back to
you, folded into
the corners of
your mind -
whispering to me
that you are
still alive

I smoked twenty-seven cigarettes
in an hour, once

but the black spots on my lungs,
that the doctor says
will **** me

the breathless wheeze
when I try to talk

the
shudder
of
air
escaping

as my veins collapse
into the cavernous
shell of my b o d y

all
come
from
you

Old age hit me
like a fist

I was planting roses
carelessly, never anxiously
avoiding their thorns

my teeth were my own,
I could bite into a hard, green
apple easily

there was no consequence,
no fear of an explosion of
false enamel

vegetables grow into
something beautiful over time
if you treat them right.

unlike the shell of a woman
bleached, oversaturated,
badly composed, framed

by misery.

A seventeen year old girl
bending into the hands of
a childlike man

unaware of the flames
she was igniting,
her body slamming
into the kitchen floor

you will cry in the morning,
weep for the innocence
you lost, the shock of
surviving your own
******

unwantedly.

I was thirty before
I tried to disappear
back into the oblivion
of filthy London streets

thirty pills, one for
each year, a litre
of ***** and a
badly written
death note

I survived. Just long
enough to paint a
picture of adulthood

a husband, a wife
a son, a daughter
I was everything
and nothing all
at once

old age hit me
like a fist

a rattle of dust
in an urn
and a hundred of
the flowers I have
always hated

they cry, thinking I am lost,
I smile, knowing that I
was never found

Your mouth is wild;

teeth like jagged rocks,
cliffs that I must climb
to crawl inside

of you

the sea is senseless,
salt scattering
dreams

in segments

we must master
the waves if
we are

to swim

our survival dependent
on something deviant
an echo of

the past

we are all surfing
our secrets, serving
the part of us

that hides

your tongue as
temptation, Cyanine
spiked kisses

and I

in sync with
the ocean,
sailing blind

Thunder roars around me
as I lay curled under
thick covers -
a cotton cocoon
where I am safe and
slight -
I am not your
average less than
nothing girl -
the shape of a cross,
a lie wrapped in
layers of the truth -
I took myself to the
ocean one night,
bruised feet touching
the waves -
I stood, shakily as
they rolled through me,
rocking me back to
the past

Does my body not
frighten you?

the scars that run from
elbow to wrist. The pieces
of memory that vanished
with the flick of a Bic
lighter

my solidness. Like a rock
gathering moss, weather
beaten to look at,
rough to the touch

my thighs that have
greeted Lucifer, the firm
push of his hands.
Spreading, swallowing
the dessert, sand sticking
to the back of my
chipped teeth

my eyes, robbed blindly
of innocence. A storm
cloud swirling, frequent
showers of rain that
soak my cheeks

my mouth, that has
tasted strawberries, picked
fresh and kneaded into
a pulp

my knees, bent praying
at my bedside. For forgiveness,
for freedom, for tomorrow's
fling

does my body not
frighten you?

lacking heart, rotting flesh,
the deepest pores of
regret

God fearing -
we kneel before altars,
sipping red wine,
a representation of
human blood when
we are already
bleeding

to death -
there is nothing
but the illustrated,
yellow pages of
a chained bible
that fails to reach

us -
dancing naked
in the storm;
a storm child
born under thunder,
black clouds that

swallow -
us whole yet,
you are made of
the darkness,
swimming in it's
mirky waters like a

mermaid -
I take Heaven
into my mouth
when we kiss,
hungry for a taste
of that forbidden fruit
that will take us both to

Hell

I know the touch of the
palm of your hand against
my thigh, the well thumbed
lines that lead me to your wrist.
I know that wrist, I know
your neck and shoulders,
knees and toes. The curve
of your spine, the sand dunes
of the moon. There is no
part of your body that I
am not acquainted with.
Your heart, rattling like a
milk tooth in the folds of
my fist

The curves of your sleeping body
leave me on

tenterhooks -

the space between dreams
and waking

a pause -

the arch of your back shining
like the moon

translucent -

a slice of time preserved in the
maze of my

memory

Flesh, flesh and
bone

the grave digger
clawing away at
the dirt

a shovel first
then hands

years of nail
biting offers the
earth a home

under his skin,
I am not one
to sift

patiently waiting
for old coins
or gold

the broken skull
of a cat, a chipped
molar

that belonged to
a father, forgotten
in the yellowed papers

of time. Skin,
skin and bone
I died a year ago

hollow, rattling in
the fist of my
mother

white sheets that
wrapped my
limbs

are pulled tight,
a half ghost
human shaped

my mouth is wide
with the Earth,
taken in and

****** like a plum,
skin and flesh
swallowed

whole. There is
only bruised
fruit on the

funeral table. As
the grave digger
claws out my

hole. My first
fixed home,
a house of

soil and acidic
tears. Minerals
and salt

mixing like the
marrows of
lovers

buried in the
ground. I will
never leave

rotting, skeleton
shaking, the deep
breath before the

plunge. A war
lost, my final
hour and I am

home

I am nothing but embers
in the fire pit of
your heart

a Godless girl, kissing
with tongues, skin
burning at

the touch of a
weather beaten man

I fell for you, headfirst
into the abyss of desire

warmth rising from my
toes, through to my finger -
tips

inhaling the scent of you
by the lungful

my capacity is called
on, and I am a Phoenix

stunted, hatched too
soon, eternally shell -
less

I am sleepwalking through
the depths of your heart,

the ghost of you hanging
like a noose around my neck,

I am no swan, no, not elegant
as gracelessly I float,

from shallow river to sea,
white waters, wild tides,

forever anchored by your lies

My heart is racing
chasing dreams
falling over my
own feet as
I charge head
first into
the future
the present
merely window
dressing for a
soul that has
nowhere to
call home

It was the cruelest thing,
to be told you had to fall

(in love)

to hear that anything would do it,
that it was needless to be picky.

Do not wait for an animal
breath on your neck,

warm and wild
with freedom,

to be a stray woman, abandoned
on the shores of

unrequited lust. To be Godless,
yet pray, as you crawl

between sheets, his heat
rising like yeast beside you

beg, let me stay fearless
and upright,

as my teeth unhook, as I
once was

looking, looking, looking

(love)

The tendrils of your heart
wrap around me like barbed
wire,

puncturing the pale skin
that shields my bones like
a sheet,

some half hearted ghost
that knows the secrets of
near death.

I have been there before,
tangled in tubes, belly full
of Aspirin, blood thinning

in a hospital bed. Shackled
by secrets, a blunt knife
beneath a filthy pillow.

I have looked into the eyes of God
and found them to be merely
mirrors of

my sin

I am told to grow a
backbone -

thicken my skin.

I forget about the burns
on my wrists,

branded by childhood fears
that never fade.

But you took my hands
into yours, stared into my eyes

at the witching hour. 4am is
when the ropes start to

bind. Black dust that fills my
lungs, like tar,

my rib cage shakes when
you circle my heart with

your finger. I was warned not
to give in too easily,

that head over feet, that heat
fizzled out and left you cold.

I do not need to be strong,
when I am held in

your arms, soft and
safe wrapped in the blanket of

your kiss

Mornings turn to noons
that turn to nights

and I am quite content
to wait through the cycle
of time for you

to serve up each hour
in the shattered bowl of
my heart

for you to eat,
for you to meet

me beneath the bridges
that I burnt finding my
way to you

sacred seconds to spend
on holding hands and
kissing through a storm.

It is my destiny to shake
my bones dry,

to carve initials into
rotten trees, nature's
disease

it is a sickness, it's true
to wait for you

We are all humans,
eating sweets from the
palms of our enemies

we are greedy, lustful,
animals. Swallowing air by
the gallon because it's free

our lungs turn black as
coal, black as a starless
night sky

in the garden of discontent,
before Eve tainted the taste
of apples

before Adam bit through the rubbery red skin, down to
the white flesh

taking hope into his mouth
and spitting it straight
back out

God, I am not yet dead,
merely bleeding

from the corners of my mouth

a trickle of red wine,
stained chin

my body is not yet stiff,
it will still bend into the

arms of the right man.

I haven't eaten for days,
a stomach empty of substance

I contain nothing and yet
I am full

stretched skin, silver lines of
greed.

I asked for it, with my wondering hands,

the touch of a soft girl, folding
into my thighs like a castle of

cards. I have sinned beyond
forgiveness and I have nothing

to say. Remorseless, a cold
heart that is shaped like a fist,

a flash of coffee coated teeth
biting into an apple of flesh

God, I am not dead

(yet)

but you can no longer see me

I'll be brave this time,
as I remember

you. Memories folded
into my mind like

love letters stashed
under a bed.

I am a coward, though
and I am unashamed to

cry. Unabashedly run
my own fingers through

my hair. As if recreating
a moment can bring it back

to life. Second hand kisses
that linger, like sugar on my

lips. I did not ask for
forever. No, nor plan for

it. I just wanted one last fix
of you, as your *****

chases my dragons away

The blue-green ocean
spreads out like a fan
before us

our dry, sand imbedded
feet approach

we are timid birds -
uncaged

fearful of the gait
of our shadow

but sand is forgiving
and we step

inch by inch towards
the water

we are so close
that I can taste
the salt

brown seaweed
sticking to my
naked soles

what did we come
here for?

I wanted to see the sun
reflected on a liquid
mirror

I wanted to forage
and find

treasure

but we are stolen
by the waves

carried out across
the shore

we are made
of yesterday's
passion

our bare skin
wrinkling

with age

we have found
nothing but

ourselves

hopeless drifters, now
unclothed, unhinged

and tethered to

the tide

I said
'I miss you'
and I meant
it

but time
does not
stop

and the
world pulses
on around
me

too bright
and too
loud

the beginnings
of panic
when your
pillow is
empty

the way
my heart
hurts

each valve
faulty as
if disease

is wrapped
around my
core

I see your
face in the
night sky

a full moon
glowing over
empty streets

in the stars
that swell
and shrink

I am looking
for you
always

I am the
waves of
the ocean

beating
back to
you

We are picking through the
roots of flowers we have left
to die. Imagining there is
something we can salvage
from the chemical soaked
soil. But we are no experts,
and we cannot tell the
difference between a **** and
a stem. We are blind, hungry
children. Rummaging
through the grains of moon -
rocks that fell to Earth. As
they say that stars can only
shine in darkness, and that
planets steal the oxygen
from human lungs, but -
I am sure we will be able to
breathe somewhere. That
we will find a sparse,
unpopulated land with clear
air that heals, that spreads
through our bodies and sings
that we are home

I imagine us
collecting affections
like loose change

bits hidden everywhere

in couch cushions,
in strong, stitched
seams

pennies hoarded
in an old sweet
jar

cluttered coppers
at the bottom of
coffee cups

we count,
meaningless amounts

building neat piles
of insignificant coins

until they become
our fortune

I am sure -
certain
that you buried
your head into
the hot sand
and now I am
kissing glass
each night -
running my fingers
through a million
splinters of hair
burned black at
the root -
dead as
the dandelions
you plucked -
when I fold
my hands into
the cotton of
my pillow -
when I scream
with pleasure
or call your
name -
I am only
an ocean,
an island short
of ship -
wrecked