out the window there is a river

noisy

people flow by in the river, drowning, but not asking for help

passing by faster than i can grab

watching, always, but the eyes are switching

there is a full story of what happens behind my window but it is in pieces scattered through every little pearl of consciousness that flies past the window.

someone saw me stretch up, naked, to close my blinds

they could be anywhere

they could be anyone

they could be focused on the road, more endless and winding and bright than i could ever be

You look at me like you're waiting to be broken like a promise, but I don't break promises, they fall apart in my hands and I snap their necks to put them out of their misery, they beg me for it, they lie there broken legged in the grass with tears rolling down their crooked faces, and they look me in the eye and say 'please', they enunciate it so it sounds round and soft and easy, and I bend down and hold them as gently as a baby, and when the first fat round tear falls from my eyes, I break my promises with a sharp wringing gesture. They are dead before it splashes on my hand.

there is (truthfully) not much left here for me

i love you (for sure) in what way (i’m not sure)

i love you for longer than the stars (that are all long dead anyway)

and i love you faster than the stream (who will surely grow sluggish with time)

i love you more than all the steps between us (i know you will never take them and find out if i’m telling the truth after all)

all i know is i remember the last time i saw you (was it yesterday?)

if tomorrow never comes (then did yesterday never exist?)

and if yesterday never happened then where do memories come from? (there must be just one yesterday, tucked deep in the folds between our birth and today)

i say our birth (for the birth of the universe was the birth of us all)

and the tangling sinew that pulls us together (it’s running like a ribbon, like a spine down the middle) and thoughts come (in brackets)

sort of like the words (i never thought to say aloud)

Pull me apart I am nothing but

a bundle of sinews raw pulsing

To be truly open is to be duly forced

I want you to peek between the gaps in my wasted muscle

spot the bloodied capsules on my lungs

the tumours metastasizing slick with off-red blood

pull one free of its hold leave nothing but the raw tissue beneath eaten away

eat it away let my cold blood hang off your lips

open my cells with the white freshness of your teeth stain your tongue with it

feel my disease my cancered love take it

take my broken bloodied sickly love

consume every brutal shred of it

Split the fibres with your canines

grin to show the mark of it the colour i make

hours later struggle to keep it down close the door in your throat

keep the little piece of my pain in your stomach

don’t let it crawl out let the tendrils

take your heart move on love someone new now

so they too can suck my tumour off your corpse when you die

what is love but a broken

glorified

disease.

soulmates? are you asking me if i believe in you? nothing weaker than fate could hold us like this for so many years. we hang in the almost, the inbetween, the 'i love you but i am too afraid to say it'. it's been so long, and maybe that's a good thing. now if the strings of maybe are cut and we fall, fall towards each other, then surely it's better that we can reference time with our love. 'i have always loved you i have alwayslovedyou ihavealwayslovedyou'. stronger, fiercer, slower than anything i've ever touched, immune to the swings and carousels of soul-kisses, of the fleeting moments. but fuck, i'm just a hopeless cynic. what would i know about the inbetween other than it's where i lie because i'm too scared to move.

songs and cheap beer

cheap glances and remarks

drunkenly leaning, she's going to tip us over

glasses spilling and mixing

brewing something new underneath the cover of my skin

undress it and stop it

i've never had such a smile

not in a long time

i'll thank you for that and curl everyones' lips into one too

smilesmilesmile

and go to bed the next morning heavy with the night

but take a little piece of this into your dreams

the puppet behind your eyes will show me what you can't

and these crappy candy hearts haunt my dreams

it's stupid

i know

i'm being stupid

i just want to see you and for you to press one into my palm

sticky, sweaty

like third graders giggling

from between our crooked teeth

for the blush to kiss my cheeks

as you kiss it back

and to just hold your hand under the table in maths class like an idiot

there is nothing worse

than a young crush

the thing is

i just want to be grown-up with anyone but you

and yet i'm sure

we could swim all day

and i would feel nothing but happy

to go home with a crinkled flower clasped in my hand

with it's bitten nails framing the purple portrait

of love that grew on a tree

sweet as a little heart

i know you ate the rest of the packet

it lay around your lips

but the caption

small message among millions

pumped out of a smog-spewing factory

but let's be children

and forget that

all i remember is the individuality of that stamp

right on my heat

be mine.

The sky is always a companion to me

i can bask in its light

and remember how

at five am

it was getting light and I didn’t close the curtains

i would want to see the smile

of the sun as it woke up and kissed the world

Oh and the moon will sing her victory

glory dance

watching with her crater eyes

as I lie alone

outside

feet to the sky as if to run across her patterned bedsheets

like child to mother

crumpled linen around her eyes

as I smile

these endless sheets

aching to swallow me

in their darkness

oh how I long to join that web

of sewn stars

i could use the point of a needle

to paint my way into that coat of dreams

the moon sings a siren song

who knows who wants it more

for my bleeding heart to hang there

inbetween her tangled strings

holding me safe

safe from any harm

First

Time I ever saw you in that way

laying out

your spearmint gum pathway

sticking to the gaps in my fingers

so I couldn’t open my eyes anymore as you decided to

Kiss

Me and make my heart flutter

I’m sure this is harder in hindsight

I’m sure it didn’t feel like tar in my heart

when it happened

but now I’m tainted by what you broke of my

First

Love with arms wide open

and all day to spend with me

yours and mine and ours

all yours

I know now that there was nothing

in your eyes

but how could there be

nothing

in those eyes

as he leant in to

Kiss

My teary face

in memories

and the occasional fever dream that leaves me shaking

waking, shaking

cold sweat

fever

First

Goodbye

first time I wanted to die and just forget you

oh but I could never forget you

I snarl as I think of how I could forgive you

for

anything

even a stolen

Kiss

I wish I never pined for

never wanted

want

need

to let you go

and yet there are first kisses clinging to the atoms of my face

in insurmountable quantities

have you

forgotten me yet