Always look back

over your shoulder twice,

you never know

if there’s a chance in hell

to see them again.

A time,

sometime before the last time,

or even a little more lost

in a dusty box

the time even before,

I wanted to tell you something, sweet.


When you press against my skin,

or hold me at length,

you are wearing, shredding,

tearing and smoothing my very

surface.

I wear myself upon my skin;

internals are external,

I don’t hide behind mirrors or imagery;

magic tricks, pops of champagne,

dazzling details or embellished,

encrusted, coated

and processed

goods.


Those who are privileged;

ungrateful and cursed with ignorance,

little awareness for the multiplied demons nesting

in blackened hearts,

sipping sour emotions and rancid feasts,

those are the people who hide what doesn’t need to be hidden.


Those who are privileged;

independent and cursed with anxiety,

pressure behind their eyelids at night

and a very heavy head to move and keep

the walls up, guarding against the terrors and the screams

and the glistening shadows, slick with grief and

self-pity, self-loathing and what people judge

as an infernal mental contagion,

but really is just an unfortunate, battle of imbalance and chemicals.

Awry and lost and deep trodden in a mind that never rests,

always misses a beat chasing other beats

and fearing the biggest monster in the fields called mistake.

Those are the people who wear it all like skin, coloured by bruises and patterned

with cuts, carvings,

soothing over the outside and deciding its already faulty,

can wear it on the outside because its already broken,

not really worth protecting

and don’t hide would could and would mostly be hidden.


Sweet,

this is me.

I’m rough, I know.

I rest

in your bed

when I’m scared of being alone with myself.

Depressed again and as I lose control,

realising I never really have an end

keep pounding and chipping at

every word I’ve ever though and every feeling

I’ve ever had to succumb to,

I’ve ever always had to feel,

sending for help and working on strength to rebuild,

shoots flares in a black blanket of sky;

lending your little demons the opportunity

to find you.


Jealousy is the most dangerous form of punishment for us.

Me.

These people that we are.

We crave respite, sweet.

Out of earth and mind and here and now,

out of beats and taps, clicks and repeats.

Out of straddled cycles and digging into ourselves with

our own fingernails.

But really, I can’t call you sweet.

You’re just the person I imagine

so I’m never caught alone with myself.

You’re just the person I want for myself,

and can’t reach towards, afraid and corrupt and broken to you.


Blacking out with my eyes open.

A blank space, a blank knot and a blank guess,

rolling over inside.

Short-term memory shot.

Feeling the weight

and the hatred of my omnipresent self,

mind disheveled, unraveled,

fighting a battle you can’t even see;

takes one to know one.

I deal with my pain,

no one else digging enough to find a spring,

land-locked and bone dry,

questioning the mirage I stumble through a desert for.


Questioning what real is,

something everyone can pick and grasp,

smoky cloud and bitter wind to me.

I try and see some reasons,

stumbling in the finding

of plain ground, nothing else.

Perpetually uninvited yet constant host,

parasite,

addicted to everyone else’s company.

Asymptomatic to symptomatic,

mind the bickering beast,

same person, same bodysuit,

but I,

I’m locked inside with you,

yet watching you wreak your havoc,

vicious, bitter monologue ringing wall to wall,

grating and wailing and driving me broken

and twisted and pinned like your own art.


This is what I wanted to tell you,

eventually.

When I noticed a break in the internal racket,

a clear view from my cell into yours

I realised nobody wants to hear about this abuse,

not even you;

avoid, ignore, pretend it isn’t real so you can sleep

alone in your cell just one more night, again.


I just want people to better understand what this is like.

Why I simply can’t explain it.

Why I can’t tell you.

Why you will run.


Now here’s your cue.

Stand up and

Walk out on me.

Starry eyes

soft hands

red lips

daring smile

brushed cheeks


Cool silences

heated touches

under clothes,

sparks sizzle

mouthing lust

cradling hunger

******* seduction

pressing desire


Stolen glances

furtive nods

open legs

graceful back;


sprawled apart

lights off

always are,

fingers invade

hands clasp

playful bites

exercised tongues

mouths explored

rough caresses

skinned alive,

beneath you.


Devoured clean

each gasp

shuddering ecstasy

tastes tangy

mouth over

mine whole.


Rolled over

pinned down

held up

crawled over

arched high

we come

clean.


Long received

wishes unveiled

want realised

fancies overturned

lust cold

power charged

but

empty socket.


Leave me

opened up

spooned out

messy bruised

cut bare.

Hollowed out

carried away

with sneaking,

light feet.


Wondering lonely

your whereabouts;

touching who

under covers

right now.


Lost darling

snatched love

tapered heart

stranded crush;

sing alone

sad songs

without me.

Empty rain,

weak winds,

nothing everything;

you’re lost,

without me.

Newspapers are only covered in ***** print;

of despair and distress and danger playing master of our moves.

So I can’t talk to you through that.


Paintings are for love songs left unsung;

they are the inner kept journals of unrequited dreams,

scrawls of abuse or lumps of hurt, growing like tumours.

You wouldn’t understand.

So I can’t talk to you through that.


Music is only for the sunlit realm of lovers found;

of certainty and confidence and devotion above the sordid,

tangled affairs of wayward souls.

Living in a fantasy to escape the loneliness aching in soft spots inside.

So I can’t talk to you through that.


Letters are lost in nostalgia;

a celebration to be had, words unspoken for decades,

births and deaths, reserved for life events detailed in the past.

So I can’t talk to you through that.


Movies are just reenactments of dreams;

stunning heroes, masters of skill, justice seekers,

adventures of awe, loves broken but patched together with stronger yarn.

A world of little lies to helps better cope with heartache and grief.

We can’t immortalise ourselves in something

when it runs the risk of breaking.

So I can’t talk to you through that.


But I can do something much harder

then writing or filming or singing or painting…

I can give it all up, over to you.

I can trace patterns across your shoulders as you wake,

our special language which tells you I love you, I’m trying to trust you.

I can write you little notes, decadent words and sultry ideas,

and make a trail for you to follow to me.


I can be vulnerable in your arms, more than skin and internals

and a framework of bones.

I can be more real with you than I have never known to be possible.

It’s not just me showing how much I need you by the length I hold your kiss,

or how long it takes for us to disentangle ourselves from sleep, how often

we see each other naked.


It’s more the heart I dare draw on your skin with my lips.

I’m so scared of what you’ll do to me.

I push you away at the start because I care.

I’m all cold fingers and neck as you inch closer.

I know that giving my heart over to your hands is delicate and dangerous;

I realise having it injured by you is more fatal than another, more blood loss,

more bruises, more painful blossoms.


I always want you nearer; no one can comfort as you can,

until you turn off the lights

for the night

and all I see are abandoned impressions of you around my room.

But I need to stop you. Right here.


I need to keep you an arms length apart from me;

stop you kissing and touching me.

Not because I don’t want you;

I will always reserve a place for you, always part of my dedication.

I want you all over, from head to feet.

But I need to stop myself from falling into the one abyss

I know too well.


I need to prevent you from loving me for a time,

or at all.

To keep you from breaking the blissful illusion I conjure;

to keep you from lying to me about why you can’t love me anymore.

To stop you from taking me over.


To stop you from making me believe you are like all the others before you,

inked and stabbed on my skin like knife cuts.


To keep me from imagining you were never there;

a dream that swirls with reality where it has no place.

To ensure you don’t start picking me apart with your teeth, while I sleep,

and you begin to fade.


I don’t want to meet the same river of conclusions, fussing and moaning and

screaming about the agony as you pull me apart one final time.

Take what you need and run.

Scoop it out like melting ice cream and disappear somewhere out of my reach yet

close enough to invade me again when you need to.


I don’t need to feel this again.

With you of all people.


So.

Stop.

This.

Now.

I’m worried for you.

I’m worried about what I’ve done with you.

I’ve buried you in the sand, grazed your skin with fingernail cuts;

half moons pattern your arms and back like wallpaper.


I shouldn’t succumb to this.

I’ve dragged you into a pit and stored you in a hollow.

I shouldn’t need to pick a random lover, I shouldn’t need them now,

urgently.

I shouldn’t crave the physical I know you yearn from me behind the

silence

that snakes around the room.

Behind the intensity and firmness of your face.

I wish I didn’t see it all so keenly, a sensory power I dredge up

from secluded stores and hidden vaults.


I shouldn’t have fallen into my own snare every single time you

pull closer, warm breath and lips and teeth,

and I push your chest away.


I don’t understand why I have to do this.

Puppet pulled on strings to do strange and filthy acts;

gaining strength and poise not necessary but pleasurable,

lying with you knowing I’m with company but feeling so alone,

so cold and dusty and ***** on the inside.


I lose myself in a moment, spending all the time

thinking in the moment.

I’m so wrapped up, I don’t hear you mutter to relax.

I will not do this with you, because it means

ultimately hurting one another, in particular you.

I will not try to encourage you, because me lying next to you

knowing you will hand yourself over, is like slipping on ice.


I taste blood in my mouth.

I think it’s yours.

I bled out years ago, over the bedroom and into the bathroom;

showering off filth and wetness and ****** handprints.

That lingering, thick smell of sweat and fluid and nothing.


I’m so sorry I can’t be strong enough to resist my shadows,

my faded lights and creeping tongues;

I’m so sorry I set them on you, like vultures given

the scent of already culled meat.

I am your predator, hunting amongst the heaving animals,

long into the stillness of the empty dawn.

I’m so sorry, sweet, that I will reach around and take something from you.

I’m so sorry I tried to protect you and betrayed myself.


I wanted to embrace you and welcome how you felt in my arms,

I’m sorry I just couldn’t express it.

I wanted to make sure to uncomplicate us; secure that safety you felt

with me guiding you too all those vulnerable places to touch together,

I’m sorry I just couldn’t express it.


I still long to try again.

Will you let me try again?

I’m frightened.

I try to follow the rules, but danger is contagious.


When you breathe, something breathes back.

When you start to truly feel the sun, the rain clouds settle in.

When I take a chance and smile at you, you don’t even see me.

When I try and tell you to protect yourself from me,

you unburden your chest before me.


When you try to take my clothes off, I don’t let you.

When I try to hold back from needing your skin on mine,

I give myself over to you and succumb to what I can do.

What we are always free to do and make and see and need and feel and

lust for.


When I tell you all my truths, you reply with homespun lies and

glistening dreams

far too slippery to hold on to.

When I donate half of my order to you, you run from the attention;

hiding out in the deepest shadows and insecurities that are threads in

relationships.

When you push me out and let me in, I only try to destroy your walls and

invade your lands.

When you make me feel like a woman in your eyes, I fear you in the dark;

where your hands are going, what you want today and what you’ll need

tomorrow.


When you lean in to kiss me, I can already feel the metallic tang of

blood on your lips.

When I get to pull you closer, it’s a second of spark and minutes of

emptiness.

When I desperately want to savour what you say, I can’t begin to make

the words stay still.

When I dream of you, I can never remember what it was about.


When you prepare yourself to invite another into your sacred spaces;

witness the shadows, the creatures of your thoughts, the past and the

present you,

you must also prepare to bleed.

Prepare to kiss back and notice the cracks in your lips.

Prepare to touch and notice the bruises beginning to burst beneath your

skin.

Prepare to love and notice the heart the begins to hurt and skip its beats.


I go to bed and wonder why I was never

obviously

good enough for you.


When she says no to you, think of me.

Because there are always two sides to every argument, every process,

every feeling.

And you are entitled to bear them too.

Flailing limbs and burdened hearts,

made heavy in the leaden air,

all silence and endless questions,

running off the walls.


Trying to make sense,

from long forgotten body language,

words and fluid messages,

lost spellbound to a sea of worries.


Will you still be there when I wake?

Can I hold your hands in mine now?

What is your reasoning for disappearing?

Is it time for me to let go, because you already

have released your threads, cut the strings and

tied the loose ends?


I circle your reasons like a hungry bird,

circling and devouring the strength from the land below,

for all these stormy days and listless nights,

left defenceless in bed and devoid of touch.


I only wish I knew your why.

A hungry heart left with scraps as morsels of

dried up affection and cracked pieces of disappointment.

I have turned over every piece left, trying to salvage the decay

left behind.


I was once strong and beautiful in your wake.

I smelled of fresh sweetness yet burnt hot as newborn flames.

I only why you abandoned your beauty?

I wonder why you left your stunning creation behind?


The one thing you didn’t take with you,

along to new hands and new hearts,

is my ability to be me.

I can still circle like a vulture in flight,

but I can also soar and sing like no woman yet

to touch her feet to this earth.


For all the reasons I still don’t understand.

For all the reasons you spoke and the volumes you

left unsaid, words brandished between us like knives

yet to pierce skin,

for all the reasons you left trailing behind your choice…


At least I know you helped strengthen me.

You gave me the room to spread wings,

You gave me the light to paint my colours by,

you gave me the boldness to reach out for new lovers,

and you gave me the endless questioning I seek to answer.


Only you, could have been responsible for such worries.

Only you, can still be responsible for such worries yet still to appear.

That is your lasting message scrawled across my skin.

Voices weave words around and behind me,

softly burying me in whispers and whims.

I’m a wallflower, pressed and trimmed inside

the neat frame you placed on me.


Cool, clean, crisp and curt,

I belong shrinking from the light, so you clearly say.

Clinging to the shadows covering the walls,

I have a voice but I only long for you to hear it.


Fanciful freedom lost on summer breezes,

fine lines drawn on hidden walls.

I’m the flower that blooms in the shade, in the night,

whilst you frolic and fade away.


Hiding hurt and shying from prying eyes,

huddled, hastened to escape the trickling lights.

You back against the wall, folding into me,

you can tell something weeps behind you, but

you just can’t see the petals.


Languid, lost and lonely beneath the silence,

I lurk in wait for your eyes to spy mine.

I linger over words unspoken, shared through time lapsed

between you and me,

I’m your wallflower, forever more.


I long to be over you.

I long to make you hear my voice.

But I don’t know how to press out from the wall,

to make you see my blossoms against such a wall so tall.


I ache to hear words spoken,

even lost in the static air between us.

I need to hear you notice me breathing, me whispering

sweet notes in your ear.


I long to feel touch, to know warmth and craving,

I’m in dire need of you, so please, just notice me.

I long to tell you of the tears I spilt for you,

that you didn’t notice on your shoulder, that you never see.


I am so tired of being quiet,

I have words to whisper but I can only be so hushed.

I need to tell you I’ve been there for you from the start,

but trodden and paled and left in the dust.


Everyone sighs over you.

Everyone mouthes and soothes and steals your gaze,

but I’m the one you press against for safety,

I’m the one you seek in you winding maze.

You don’t know it yet, but I know in time you’ll see.

It truly is, me.

Nights of thinking alone,

gathering my proofs,

I’m still unsure you were real.


I loved the sweet caress of your voice,

the way your mouth shaped my name,

your eyes hovering lazily over mine.

I loved the soft touches and frenzied hands,

as you carried and explored me, explored together

in bed sheets and a summer night’s heat.


Balcony doors embraced the ocean with open arms

before us, the tingle of adventures together

left tickling my skin.

It was a night that brought so many gifts, so many

tender looks and sprawling affections

laying waste to the floor.


But it was a night left to my fantasy.

No videos, photographs, Facebook statuses

or afterwords of gratitude.

A night left as bundles of touches and

portions of tangled desire beautifully coiled like

ropes inside my head.


I need those proofs.

I need to know that love-nest even happened.

That it wasn’t some sickened dream I had,

whilst I cried in bed alone that it would soon

all end;

a frayed and ***** heap of pity left in place of you.

My heart would conjure anything to protect me from you.

My heart would drill holes in those fragments if it meant

lies from you, if it meant little pieces of love you could

hurt me with.


My heart is grateful for what you showed me,

the love you painted with me, for me, over me.

My heart is still in love with the times we shared,

the memories that glide around silkily in my sleep;

but my heart is also still frightened, of you.

And what power I gave you, over me, to make me

weep and search for evidence like this.

To finally know you loved me, or not.


Because that is what it needs doesn’t it?

Prove that it needs to, that it’s real.

Were you real beneath my fingers?