soft morning light:

    & i am naming my desires,

    settling back into my memories,

        kissing teenage girls by campfires

        & lying to my mother.

i do not admit to wanting,

    even as i wake up beside the river,

    spilling water from my chest,

        considering dreams

        of white birds & cathedrals.

watching women

    from across crowded rooms

    is not enough —

        so i move to the other side

        of town & drink there.

a tender rain passes

    over the sleeping city

    as i pace restless

        in & out

        of my childhood bedroom.

violence, then —

    i would have preferred a hurricane,

    someone real to love,

        not faceless, whom to lose

        would be unbearable.

so besides how much i love you,

what else can i say?

i just keep kissing glass

and stumbling through your kitchen,

listening to rain like roses.

for the two tongues i am inside,

this is desire that makes my jaw ache.

you tell me fear is relative

and catch your breath; bear up,

beat down, asymmetry.

now this landscape is a crime scene

and you are flipping pancakes

circus-style, alive with remembering;

so even though i am hungry,

i paint by numbers.

—it makes me cold—

home is a lost cause,

inverted commas 

upon inverted commas

of blank dialogue,

capturing the conversation

of dry eyes looking for somewhere else to look,

and eventually looking everywhere 

but my face.

home is the pause in the conversation

where everything lulls

and i hasten to say something,

anything,

but my tongue is stiff and dry

and their empty eyes 

carry their empty bodies

to the road like dust.

home is what we've already given up on,

something made entirely of 

dreams 

and memories

and stories

and words,

thickening the air.

home is what we feed our children,

spoonfuls and spoonfuls of a home

now long gone,

that we salvage 

with all that we are.

home,

as i say,

is a wonderful place.

a place full of laughter and smiles and happiness.

and it still exists, somewhere, 

just for a different person.

for a different mind.

looking for another heart to warm.

this cross to bear,

    bending, graceless —

    sun rising over budapest

        through a round

            aeroplane window.

wilfully ending

    warm light, cold days,

    constructing bridges out of

        pipe dreams,

            and lying beneath them,

                pretending not to

        love the stars.

only stillness:

    still remembering

        white snow melting in

            the rain,

        while the sun

            is just too loud

            and incessant.

before a gasp for air,

    these bodies carried so far

        from shore,

    so we cannot

        have funerals for terrorists;

            such shallow earth.

if those are silhouettes,

    then touch them — go inside,

        try to make love

            to what is

    not there.

and april lays down

    between these foam-green

        fenceposts,

    where past is blurring

        into the sound

            of cracking ice.

last night, i couldn't sleep.

    i took the a line

        to the city centre

            and took photographs

        of the mist.

I wanted to tell you many things, about pain and patience and people. I wanted to hold your hands and feel them in mine and close my eyes as I learnt the shape of your fingers. I wanted to be with you through blood, sweat and tears. But what was there to want if I could never get?

Stranger, you were the part of my heart that I’d emptied in preparation for you. You were the baby shoes on our doorstep. You were the still blue walls, unforgiving and inscrutable. You were the wooden crib below the window. You were the nights I spent crying. You were the days I spent laughing. You were the calm in a world of cruelty.

Stranger, you are the space that was not filled. You are the baby shoes stuffed with haste into shoeboxes. You are the walls now white, white as pain and brutality. You are the crib we couldn’t bear to sell. You are the nights I spend unsleeping. You are the days I spend crying. You are the calm in this cruel world, asleep when we can only dream.

You are the way love gets choked between my teeth.

You are the day that passes, and you are the same day that returns.

You make me realise just how repetitive life is, how monotone and inevitable.

You make me shake when I see someone else’s child.

You make people pity me; pity which is a useless, practised thing.

You make me convulse on the floor as I cradle my head, seeking consolation in my migraines.

You make me love pain, pain for its stability and certainty and cold, hard cruelty.

You make me forget about patience and pain and people. My eyes blur and the lights dim and for a moment I feel you in my arms, the familiar weight of a small child. My knees buckle and I lurch and the world returns with sharp, painful clarity.

You make me never want to want again, if only I could get you back.

You're gone,

You're here,

You're gone again,

Now my bed is growing cold.

You're here,

You're gone,

You're here again,

And now my heart is whole.

pour me

your strongest cup

of poison

we will drink

as foes,

live

as friends,

and die

as lovers.

I'm a lady.

I am not a beast with a belly of fire.

I am not shards of ice that have melted with rage

Refrozen as I gather myself and rescind from the flames

So to jackhammer your pupils with jagged words meant to scar you for life

I am not the dish shattering

Hole punching

Mace in your face

Tyrant bitch

Barbed wire teeth

Liver twisting

Maniacal demon

Who breathes fumes

Straight from hell

Scalding down your spine

Peeling skin from your back

With my screeching

Digging

Shredding

Nails

I am not angry

I am a proper lady

I am leather-laced and encased

Lined with steel from whence the anger cannot escape

I am floral over sewage

Masked with sugar encrusted

Pink lemonade cupcakes

The razors within me

Will melt on your tongue

And go down just fine

Honey

I swear

I am the caramel after it's cooled

After it's pulled and boiled brown

Wrapped up on the shelf

In clear plastic

Pretty and poised

All in a row

Twenty-five cents or five for a dollar

Add me to coffee

Or eat me alone

Your means of my consumption 

Not for me to decide

Because I am not angry

I am a lady