poetry

I hear the shower running at half past two

It is cold, I think, I assume that you

are sleepless. I close my eyes

and the rain begins, droplets

relinquishing life on the pavement

the skies are fading black to sea-sick

in the morning it is strange

breathing the cold air, watching

the breeze blow past my neck

the weight of a hundred thousand stitches

yet none are warm like you

and countless spheres of brown-pink flowers hang from their hooks, spinning aimlessly

i take one down, and hold it in my arms

with every blow my heart expands

I don’t feel it now

Hair wet and cold and dripping

Floor shining with unforgotten dreams

An inch outside myself

These bricks that once contained me, just

A blackened well of failure

Because I still hear you in the lichen;

I can hear you in the seaweed;

I can hear you in the sunlight:

It passes above me, cold and sharp and familiar

It takes the sky. I become smaller. Compressed in, and I can’t

I can’t I can’t get out of here. Everything

is mud between my scrambling feet

And now your lipstick stains into my skin

Red fire-worms seep across my vision

All sense escapes me, and

Anemones flounder in my throat

The sun is gone, and water flows above me

The world is a little blurry now, but

I can still make out your name

and i look at the clock on my wall and it reminds me

that i am only dirt and i am only a balance of chemicals

only one small structure and i sway in the wind

because it blows faster here and every word

a brush of silk on my cheek, yet yours

a pale cloud still, because i have come to realise

that you will never leave this town

everything is like you because i wish it to be

and so i will watch

the world become a little colder, the people frost around the edges

each wooden door lock in turn before

trails of smoke part your lips

your irrevocable softness and

your darting, cruel eyes

stare me down and shrink me into myself

please, let me grow towards the light

hopefully your suffocating presence

will take my mind off of things

was it enough?

enough to dismantle every city here

climb like a giant over the rubble

running limitlessly over these grey plains

was it enough?

enough to pluck every ripe flower

leave a jagged scar in its place

their sickly spirit running over my skin

was it enough?

enough to pour your mind down my throat

give your endless, double-syllabled apologies

look at my tears on your face

i walk so close to the edge i can hear the waves crashing down below

bone dry grass crunches beneath my feet

lie to me again:

my thoughts are pliable to you

but you could do no wrong - just how far would you have gone?

and now your lipstick's stained into my skin

sore, red marks of your vain devotion

self effacing mirror of dejection

I am but a folding-chair

My limbs are not stiff:

Inhale, and the smell of deep, overgrown forest

Jigsawed undergrowth, the sun upon a clearing

Still air, festooned with innumerable articles of life,

Do not appear. There is nothing alive in my body

Only a long, weighty road I must traverse

A crawl into the horizon, and

The songs of those lost in the desert -

The sweet scent of fermentation, of death

I see just to see and I hear just to hear

Yet how flammable I am, and how torturously heavy

It is so much to move, it is so much to think

And whilst I have been here all this while

My joints begin to rust: my grip begins to weaken

Do not ask more of me, because you kill me with every blow

My mouth opens

Can we be buried side by side so we can watch the stars together?

I drag in the breeze, and watch you pulling me along – I as the kite, and you as the child

Or I’m the leaves, and I’m

Shivering, curled, furled, red-brown leaves cocooned to a branch

It stings when I’m with you, and it aches when I’m not

Can I curl up inside of you? Can my veins join to yours?

I’m suspended by the pull of constellations—

You’re weightless, lifeless, effectless, existing only in the shine of the stars around you

The world spins and spins, and we spin on different axis, alone

I am nothing without your chains around my wrists

dark red syrup drips from my mouth

my tongue is sandpaper

my eyes itch, swell, green and puffy

all sense escapes me

aneonomies flounder in my throat

i love you so much

i love you so much

but i am worlds apart from you

but i am worlds apart from you

stop clinging on to me

scratching the pavement for attention

you give me rashes when you touch me

your nails are bee stings

sharp icy claws upon my throat

i take the bitter splinters and i drink

what is there in this pit

sticks and stones and mud to play with

let it seep into your pale-white dress

i can't see the moon from this far down

every night i press two palms together

tremble as the silt trickles down from above

burn my paper fingers into ash

i miss the memories of you i held

The clock strikes one: the stars are heavy

floating across pale lands

Stillness washes over us, and

The rain keeps time -

Echoing the leaves’ quiet whisper

The tent flaps as a lonely bird

an actor in the scenic hills

Murmurs roll past us, driftwood anchors

In an unrelenting ocean

Millimetres of fabric stretch between

pull of the moonlight, and i remember

your face in the midnight water; large round eyes

floating like pebbles in a bowl.

i was in a cigarette-case

dangling from your necklace, a little hinge

So now I just watch every tear drop

Follow it rippling through this puddle,

Disrupt the surface for a moment and

Dissipate into nothing

I forget how it is to be ephemeral

I lit a match to every sodden discrepancy

As to not lose my footing amongst discarded emotions,

i forget where i saw you last

pretty bright glow worms pacing through the darkness

yet no one thought to tell them

they hung from string all along

sea-foam floods up to the windowpane

insensibly i lose myself to the noise

the blue light smothers the floor

water pummels itself against the glass, and

i miss our old seafloor bonfires

i wonder when i got lost in the tide

and let the clams click-clack in my ears

the day i took myself out to sea

knelt weeping on the shore

the sand stuck in my throat because