There is an empty bird cage
where my heart should be

it flew the nest
when it saw you

your sunflower heart, tempting it
to stray

enticing it
to stay

yellow glowed contentment
radiates

from this simple red
part of me

creating a golden union
that does not need tainting

with forevers

People will gasp
when you show them
your heart

shocked that it still beats
beneath all of its bruises

let them wonder

let them stare

forever be a mystery

to unblemished mortals

as you fly, my darling
as you soar

my heart is pounding out
the beat of the last time I saw you

your face feels like nothing more
than a delusion

so happy in my fantasy that I
even imagined myself a new

reality, that I believed would
be the case in a hundred years

you and I
standing side by side

it is nothing more than a crumbling
daydream in the endless cavity of
my mind

in the depths
of your heart
I found a
home

in the crook
of your neck
I found a
root

in which
to grow
from

like a bud
I remained
tight

until your
touch
awakened
me

do you want me to pretend?

happiness, spread like a beach
of broken glass,

each tiny little rock aches
with its own weight,

the hands that break me
wrinkled and chalklike,

they do not care about me.

do you want me to pretend?

sadness, like a line a boats
each one begging to leave their harbour,

each one carrying an anchor that will both
keep them stable and refuse to let them move,

the known and the unknown.

I will pretend, for you.

I am not bathed in black water,
I am not soaped in sandpaper,

I am content.

my heart is not carved in the shape
of pain,

it does not cry in agony at the slightest
touch,

I am happy.

For you.

I am happy.

looking in your eyes

is as holy as any religion

and I shall worship at this temple

until the day I die

reluctant arms
are still arms
to run into

empty words
are still words
to fall
for

hollow love
is still love

heartless -

I am caving
in

we are free birds, they say

yet we will never forget
the cages we were once trapped in

singing between silver bars,
hoping our song would reach
the world beyond our prison

well, it reached you

but I still sing
so that you may always be reminded
that whilst you’ve found me, and released me

I am not a free bird
I am merely a caged bird, set free

We plunge into the heart of December,

its cold tendrils wrap around our hearts,
squeezing out the life the summer breathed

into us

we are nothing but a dark, dead *****,
a puppet of winter,

waiting for a New Year’s Eve firework

to ignite a spark of life

back into

us

the seasons change
the Earth turns
the moon to sun
the stars - undone

the clock ticks
memories dissolve

yet you and I
stand still
upon the sand

as the ocean
moves and
our hearts

revolve

around the single
point of
love

movement, motion, minutes

love is all

we are in debt to
the stars

each one carved
with our

initials

sighing our name
out to the

sky

we are children of
the moon

ever chasing its
craters

across an endless
sphere of

silver

London glows with pre-dawn light,

I roll my cigarettes next to the river
and stretch my limbs out towards the sun,

I cannot get warm,
my bones ache with longing,
and there is a hunger in my stomach
that no amount of pills or food can fill,

the dull ache of depression is a familiar friend,
yet it is really the relationship of a parasite and its host,

and I am so tired of being bled dry,
of having the life ****** out of me by
the angry mouth of this monster,

whilst time keeps slipping away,
as I smoke and watch the water
ripple, moving further and further away
from me

I leave the lights on,
it's better that way

I tear my heart in two,
hoping it will make you stay

your fingerprints singe my skin,
evidence that we once were

together

I wrap my arms around myself.
pretending they're yours

and

f a d e a w a y

without you

I watch you drown,
knowing that I could be
your anchor

I watch you sleep,
knowing that I could be
your nightmare

I watch you

I watch you

out of the corner of my eye,
I smile all the time

hoping you will never see,
the dark heart the lives

in me

**** fireworks

when I flinch at every

explosion

of my mind

scattering across the midnight

sky

my body trembling at every

blast

echoing back to the touch of

you

and I think I could settle

for the here and now

if it weren’t for feeling my bones break

under the weight of carrying

the promise of

forever

the smell of your cigarettes
lingers on my clothes

I have tried to overpower it
with expensive perfume

(that I could not really afford)

but always, it is there in the fibres
of my jeans

stubbornly refusing to be
erased

the war
she fought
against the
mirror

ceased

when she
saw herself
reflected in
your

eyes

we kissed, like young lovers do
on bridges, in the pouring rain
finding beauty in each teardrop,

making promises we believed
with our whole hearts
we would keep,

now the relentless turning calendar
has rendered us old,

our hands wrinkled
but still clutched tightly
together,

knowing that promises mean nothing

(and everything)

when I look God in the eyes

I want to have the courage
to tell him that he has
the whole thing wrong

for I will look in your eyes

and know that I did not
have to die to reach

Heaven

your holy wine soaked lips

find mine at 2am as the stars

sigh above us

a prelude to the cold November sun

that will come

chilling our bones until they

fracture beyond

fusing back together

again

shadows -

concealing secrets

time digging in like a claw

there are messages
ebbing and flowing in the tide

moons collapsing

footsteps -

like locks

we leave a trail of sugar

with our fingers

on everything we touch

contaminating the surface

of the Earth

with sweetness

as our own teeth

rot

I am forever

searching

for the things I’ve lost

whilst looking in the wrong

places

I don’t know how it happened

I’m just so glad that

it did

the forgotten ones move amongst us,
voiceless

shifting shapes in the sand,

faceless ghosts haunting
our early morning cigarettes,

echoing in the hollow chamber of

spite
and lunacy,

we can see them, sometimes,
out of the corner of our eye,

the shadow in the corner of the room,
that we try to blink

away

your edges
fold around me
soft -
I sigh into your flesh
I fit -
like a glove
each dimple -
a journey I want to map -
leaving my fingerprints
I, a thief -
your skin
my plunder -
a victimless crime
for your arms -
wrapped around me as I
robbed you -
blind

I cannot promise you

forever

only this red wine soaked moment of

bliss

under a carpet of stars, sighing as our hearts

collide

infinite and unfathomable

a mystery for the universe to

unpick as we sit

waiting...

for the moon fold around us

safe and complete

a second of ecstasy

amidst the chaos the turning Earth

but I promise you

this

I think
that rain
if Mother Nature
weeping
looking down
at her creation
with regret
watching your
reckless fingers
break another
ingénue
heart

venom got into my bloodstream
the first time you smiled at me,
it runs through my veins,
shaking my spine,
breaking my bones down into dust,
my arteries are clogged with
longing for you

I make coffee at 3 am
and take it out to the porch
nursing the heat
between my freezing fingers

the stars smile down on me
I spell your name
like a new constellation
but I can't find you

here

I walk into headlights

it’s safer that way

I have known it... not

and so I play

by the rules of a game
of archaic fears and victim blaming

I walk into headlights

I walk

I hope

I pray

a car will come my way

(straight in my way)

and I am not blamed

(anymore)

you’re in my blood, like black ink

rewriting the next pages of my book

before I’ve closed the last chapter,

you’re in my bones, like calcium

laying the foundations for a lifetime

when I’ve only just begun

We are not strangers,
and yet, our names unknown
our lives, unspoken of

we navigate a see of,

first glances,
first dinners,
first dances,

I do not need to know your name,
for it is already woven into my own

I never believed in love at first sight,
I still don’t believe in it

but magic,
bewitching, spellbinding, enchanting
(magic)

I believe in that

You will triumph over the
battlefield of your brain

even when it’s clawing
white hot fingernails
behind your eyes

even when a scar seems
a million times more familiar
than a smile

(you will be okay, my darling)

you
will
be
okay

Stars are pinpricks reflecting
our footprints on the Earth,
in the sky, you can draw rings around them,
lines between them,
to see how you came to stand in one spot,
the route you took to get there,
unlike footprints, they can pass,
unseen on a cloudy night,
you can walk the sky, invisible,
not leaving a single breadcrumb behind you,
you can trick yourself that you will
never be found, but you will,

for pinpricks or footprints,
they always lead home

(whether we want them to or not...)

A fall

(in love)

comes after

(losing)

all resemblance of pride

you cannot be

(proud)

and

(in love)

love strips you

(bare)

and leaves you

(childlike)

innocent and raw

now I have

(fallen)

and I am a hundred times

(stronger)

for it

Hell itself does not contain

fire enough for my heart

when my eyes see you

souls soaring into

a twisted wreath

to be laid at

Heaven’s door

What is necessary for the heart

cannot always be translated by the mind

we live in the space between what is

what we wish wasn’t

and what we long will be

I am terrified of being

cut loose

I long to rip open the seams of my wound

and bleed, bitterly

***** stained breath
and the ruin of my family’s name

in the gaps of my bared

teeth

It was a lie when they said
that the power to change the world
lied within you

but the ability to transform
the small square of Earth
on which I stand

with a smile

lies within your heart and hands

Standing on the river bank,
looking down into the murky ripples of time,
ebbing away from me as I stare deeper,
I crunch leaves beneath my feet,
their brown and orange skin separates and sticks to the soles of my shoes,
a surprisingly strong autumn sun warms my face
and my heart,
a rare scene of peace and tranquillity
that soothes my soul
a moment of calm to contrast the
chaos in my mind,
and my spirit lifts into the sky,
at one with the unseen stars

forever, they say

you will not feel this way, forever

and I try, with every breath in my lungs,
to believe them

with every fibre of skin
on my bruised and beaten body

but I realise that I have already had
my chance at breaking free from
the shackles of sadness

this is it, I think

that ship sailed before
I even knew it was possible
for me to board it

and now, there is not even
the flicker of a candle light
at the end of the tunnel

hope has been squeezed from me
like the juice from a lemon
leaving only the bitter pips
for me to spit out

I realise, too late that
I am forever

forever lives through me

I follow the arteries from your wrist

to the centre of your heart

and nestle my head into your neck

following the breadcrumbs of memories

and stolen minutes of bliss

I have found my way home

“Do all poets wear masks?”

a stranger, unwittingly flung
into the path of the flurry
of my pen, asked me

No, I said. Only the sad ones...

“Aren’t they all sad?”

he said

(Check mate)

cracks appear

when I look in the mirror

and see your face

reflected back at me

those ocean blue eyes

and whisper thin smile

it’s as if you’re mocking me

with your beauty

the beauty that left

my heart in

cracks

my skin singes
with the love you
left

a bitter burning
that will leave me
forever branded

when I was eight,
I would pick blackberries
and eat them straight from the bush,

their purple juice would
stained my lips with
childhood joy and
wonder,

now I'm the wrong side
of thirty, and melt those
blackberries into
jam,

as if I am seventy

there is no joy left
in me, these days

only a weary
tiredness that aches
with longing for

what was,

those blackberry bushes
and purple fingers,

now fraught with
frailty

as I boil jam,
playing it like
a snake charmer

so as not to
spoil my mixture

(as I have spoilt
my life)

of blackberries
and regret

Autumn
falls back through my memories,
ripples of remembrance that ache
in agonising sweetness,
an echo of a time when sunbeams
danced off your face,
in twilight dreams, I walk these streets
of past joys and past pains,
tasting the black cherries from your Cupid
fingers
that stained my lips red, a template for your kiss,
the day I dropped anchor in
your heart

my fingerprints unlock a world

of magic and mystery

when they brush lightly against your spine,

the curve is stunning, ancient architecture

that could take away my breath,

a sacred temple of wisdom lives at its base,

each vertebrae aches with longing

and lust,

but I only feel these things with my fingers,

my heart isn’t in it