The intimacy of a naked skyline had always been a bit too much for the girl who had grown up tracing her thoughts on the moist windows of skyscrapers that tore through the emptiness  of open skies and lonely hearts. The city would always be her first lover, the sea winds her first kiss, and the inhuman slums her first heartbreak - this wasn't your ordinary girl.

The arch of the Sydney harbour bridge reminds me of how her back arched the first time I kissed her neck and the horizon melted right in front of my eyes. The bridge's arch might be a testament to human civilization, but hers is the reason why you can someday justify the pain of your first heartbreak to your daughter as she breaks down before her high school prom. The  bridge's arch might stand tall against the trials of time, but hers is the reason why you will see your past flicker in the flames fanned on every bonfire night.

But before you fall in love with the arch and wish bridges could heal all distances, you need to know there are some that even the best and the most beautiful can't.

You know, sitting on the docks of Port Jackson reminds me how I was born in the small port town of an insignificant island and I had grown up with more sand in my slippers than tongue in my cheek. Everytime you swing your legs from the edges of the dock to feel the spray of the recurring waves on your naked calves, the waves seem to sing about how they taught me never to give up on a shoreline, no matter how close or distant its breath on your face.

Its funny how I never ended up finding that Italian place by the harbour where I taught you how to soak in the flavour of a single malt scotch while you taught me how to soak in the flavour of life. Its funny because you always wanted me to find us that spot, in case we wanted to relive the mistakes we made that night.
But then I guess,
There are some mistakes, you are not allowed to make twice.

The sun setting on the city still looks beautiful from the edges of the harbour each day,
But it makes me wish we had stayed behind long enough to see the sun rise from underneath the sea.

I could delve deep into my self named brain,
or just trickle yours,
I'm the trickster of the lame and helper of the poor, minded.

Ill come at you until you gobble all I have to say you'll have to force it out like puke. So take a deep breath, let the venom in these words seep into your eyes and travel through the chains and locks reflex-fully shut on your heart, to the deepest most brittle parts of your fingernails. Let this feeling bring frisson to your back and spine, give it the power to move your body, slash at your sleep and keep you ever so small at night. Let yourself sleep.

Im not one for romance but

Her hair, all of the beauty leftover from a palette after a masterpiece is created, who said brown was the colour of ****?
Her eyes, the green of mother nature that gives my heart a buzz to infinity and beyond.
Her nose, the reason I need to smell good.
Her lips, the cushions that keep me up at night.
Her smile, a capital U, the bliss that eclipses my own and blacks out my thoughts whilst it revs my heartbeat.
Her voice, it can babble on like early civilisations but im happy I met-her, for I have so much love to give.
Her words, have magnitude to dig holes which would make the sea sunk and send waters to hell to drown my demons, my own revelation.
Her jokes, they're pretty bad actually however
Her laugh, a record stuck on repeat of all the things I want to hear, the perfect rhythm that sets my soul ablaze and makes me laugh back senselessly.
Her hugs, a second home that has everything right with the world inside.
Her love, the warmth that sinks its way into every crevice of my heart, with the heat to break bedrock and boil Satan to the heavens, a heatwave of affection that I could surf like a beach ***. I love her, I love

You.
Until time is forgotten or matter and anti-matter stop fighting.

I will think about you.
The reason I'm still writing...a silly love poem.

Terra Nullius born from the ashes of colonies past,
from a nation over seas far,
the white cliffs of Dover show their colour,
they reached a land of beauty rich and rare,
they saw and they conquered caring none for those that stood in front of them,
for years this ravaged,
destroying ancient culture,
until a man realised that the land he loved was not his,
taken from him unbeknownst,
he stood in despair,
the system against he fought,
until he died a young man of pain from tortures past,
in his grave he heard the victory he won,
Terra Nullius is gone,
Long live Eddie Mabo.

and that one man
blinded
distraught
stuck there in the middle
of that no man's land
that abattoir
that circus
walking round in a ring
and falling down
stumbling round in a ring
and falling down
till somebody
finally
put a bullet through his head

I needed safe schools because my parents did not have the education to teach me what my feelings about myself were.
I needed safe schools because I did not have the education to know about myself.
I needed safe schools because I was educated that liking people of the same *** was a sin.
I needed safe schools because I was taught that I was wrong to feel the way I felt about myself.
I needed safe schools because my peers do not know how to talk respectfully to a trans person.
I needed safe schools because I had no refuge from the judgement of others.
I needed safe schools because I didn't know that transitioning was a possibility.
I needed safe schools because I felt I had to suffer in silence, believing I was the only person who felt like I did.
I needed safe schools because education is key to a functioning society.
I needed safe schools because it is a chance to better the future.

And the very last, the endling,
Caged in the sunlight at Beaumaris Zoo,
Tired of the poking and the prodding
Paced out of existence into history,
Into emblem and icon
Legend and label,
On to things protected by copyright,
Footage and fable,
And the internet's electric jungle,
And into that great white emptiness
Of extinction,
That giant ship which we are building,
Stacking and storing,
Fitting and filling,
Recording into the grand voyage
Of oblivion.

At this deep pool
Where no light is reflected,
Where small birds come
Clinging to the vine
Amongst fallen logs and silences,
The crush of leaves and the rot of years.

At this dark edge
Where now unassailable trees tower
In a brief clearing,
At this still centre where the wreckage lies
Of river's breach and storm's rage.

Here at the heart.

Where once the workings of long-ago men,
The wild, roaring, toothless ones,
Desperate and dislocated,
Their fierce eyes blazing through dark,
And bodies by day burning through timber,
Cut sunlight in shadow
And nation in nature.

And these men that made the land,
That wove their dreams with dust and dirt,
That needed death to know the flower,
Men of the corrugated country.

Men of bones,
Propped in the rusted windy ruins,
Who watched the movement of the birds
And bartered life with sky and earth.

Men of the drought's bare-cupboard cradle,
Biblical through plague and famine,
Who struck the water in the stone
And fought with flesh to swell the soil.

Time's weathered toys,
Who sought a garden in the sand,
Where the withered streams of the dry season
Flowed with flooding summer rains.

Men of the dark deserted spaces,
That masked their ruined stars with drink,
That fed the shadows with strange desires
And drowned the broken plough with tears.