so come home, said the voice from the stars.

they kiss and i hear you

make a noise, not loud or obtrusive,

but i am listening, so i hear.

it emits from the back of your throat:

a meek, distinct tut.

i am listening in the car, on the way home,

when you say the film was great, apart from ‘that bit’. 

i am quiet, my tongue held.

my tongue is so good at being held by now,

resting in the cradle of my gums 

like a plump, sedate child.

a snake in the grass, spider under the cupboard.

i hold my tongue while you talk about the man 

selling the perfume, while he stands a few metres away.

i hold it while you slip the word like an infection

around the sides of your mouth, 

let it fall to the floor like spit.

i am all quiet, every atom of me.

my skin is shimmering, prudent and affable,

incognito in the streetlights that outstrip us

on the motorway.

my tongue is a doormat and 

my gullet is the hallway to the storage space 

where all my bite backs lie. 

you taught me to fight for what i know to be right,

unless what i know did not come 

from your mouth. 

your mouth, faded noise in my ear 

through the hushed dark,

a whisper at my shoulder blade in the airport,

the venom and lullabies, perfume and nightmares.

one day, though, my mouth will spring open, 

and my tongue seize forth like a greyhound 

from its gate, finishing first before anyone 

the day splits the sky open

dripping and gushing 

like segments of a blood orange

and it looks like a fresh wound 

but a clean break, clean start 

startling to see raw

but free from disease 

and gaping wide,

asking to be healed, sown up,

covered over with a white cast 

and scribbled on by new hands 

grasping for the right words

to make amends and bring comfort.

maybe this is how you begin again,

acknowledging all the patched up mistakes 

as they lie, visible, just under the surface 

but knowing they will heal, as they always do.

and you can go back to it, 

the sliver of hope as the 

sun washes the world into perspective 

and it looks better now, right?

a little bit of time changes everything.

a new day, wrapped in gossamer, to make better

what have you seen,

my straight backed beauties?

tip top monsters of the air,

taking all the oxygen for your own 

sweet, crumbling lungs

daring travellers to take a sip 

before you push them over the edge.

what have you seen,

melted into the earth?

the backdrop to the play of the world,

circling in endless cycles for eternity.

do you ever get tired of your view?

restless of a presence that towers, engulfs,

threatens with its peace and solidarity and 

silent, breathless knowledge?

have you ever wanted to sink

alice style, crash down

the rabbit holes that pockmark your surfaces

and lose yourself in a world

i walk with my little brother down to the river, 

and the sun dapples his scalp,

crashing brown elf through the thick,

thorns whipping his calves.

i take a picture and he notices and asks why 

like there is no moment to be captured here,

or anywhere, ever again. 

i shake my head. no reason, i lie.

we find the bridge and flick sticks over the side,

and i drop my foot into the water and he 

laughs like a bell, like a high throated bird, 

like a storm.

he teaches me how to skim stones 

with his forefinger and thumb, 

skip and spin into the dark with a careful aim,

finding me the smoothest pebbles until my arm aches,

and he looks at me with stern eyes and asks if i want 

to go back,

and i say no, not yet, 

with a pebble sized ache

i am a blunt force to the back of the head,

striking unwelcome with a dull thud.

last kid to be picked for the team  

as i stand, stand,  

forlorn and glazed 

so the hurt doesn't stick in my gut 

quite so firmly as the last time.  

i am so far gone that i flitter

amongst the planets and watch  

with indifference as the world  

brushes my feet in a dizzy cycle,

a frantic, billowing rush, 

simply too many minds expanding

to notice one less soul.  

the air is thinner up here  

but emotions stretch out like skin,  

holding less with every light year 

until they disintegrate, paper 

in the last turbulent wash of the day.

i gaze down as everyone slowly forgets

and it feels like a gentle, curling knife  

to the stomach.

my scream is quiet and muffled 

against the hot dark,

because this is nothing new and

i am already  

i feel empty in the 

utterly definitive

kind of way

scraped out raw till my skin stings

and the rivers run dry

as bones

cracking each other apart.

i have scratched out everything

for you to snatch

and i thought maybe, this time

it could be a two way street.

i had my holy vision and

i ignored every scorched red stop light

to plough through

straight into the sun and now

i am burned beyond belief.

nothing left to retch up.

the crowds ignore the body

on the corner

like i am already a ghost

and i see there was always something else.

i was a pit stop on the way

without awareness of my own use.

you have sucked the petrol to the

last bitter drop

and set me ablaze without even noticing.

what a talent.

and it’s always me, in the carcass

how normal is it

to enjoy isolation like this

bouncing off the four walls

i have constructed myself

and sealed perfectly,

this is intentional

this was a planned trap

and i am fabricating my own web

like a smug liar

hanging up when i want to,

when i’m tired of being awake

when there is nothing to prop

my eyes open for.

sometimes i think

the only time i could cry for joy

is if someone plucked

the moon when it was ripe

and placed it in my palms

and maybe i could shed a single tear, then.

mostly i am sedate like a child,

like i was built either newborn

or almost dead,

waiting for an excuse to curl

into my own arms

while the cars spin past

but i have left that merry go round

a long stretch of road ago.

i was only stealing someone else’s place

who knew the horse’s name

and didn’t throw up

after too many turns

wasting everyone’s spare change

and there it goes

that pang again

slipping in and out of consciousness

the dark undernote of a feeling

that life is running past my window

and i refuse to notice it,

turning blank stare to corners of my room

like this is normal and

will i never know?

keep every emotion sealed in a pristine case

to polish and reflect

on its useless state

but never bring it with me

just to become ties holding me down

and promising to slowly pull me apart

with every person who leaves

without a backwards glance.

maybe this pang isn’t the beginning of a feeling

but the start of an end

a glimpse down an empty road

of what will always be

as each room is vacated

and the windows stare inwards

and that’s the truth, isn’t it?

when the lights die

it is me

standing in the dark and wishing

i don’t think you understand

how this functions

how i am always available to you

and eagerly waiting

a loose-limbed puppy

scratching up your legs  

begging for a minute more of your time.

i will drag every conversation into

the depths of the sea

if it means i hear how you are,

and i don’t think you realise

nothing matters until i’ve told you about it.

i heard someone say their life was a series of orbits

and i think i’m creating my own,

wrenching them all to spin on your axis,

god, every second moment of the day,

i zoom out of my skull

stare at the splayed delirium

of splintering loneliness and missing parts

and hope so fervently my knuckles whiten

that this is not it.

not the forever state

the grey blur before morning

that no one is awake for

the sharp wait in the cold for the taxi

where you stare at the wall

and black out.

i dig nails into yielding skin

and pray there is a future me,

an alternate universe,

reincarnated, seraphim, spirit me

casting lazily back to this snag in time

and feeling glad i held on this far.

that i stuck around to see it end

to watch the horizon turn pink,

to find the strength

to get out of bed,

because i've known that for a while

and know it after every double, triple text

and missed phone call

and i feel like i'm standing

in empty bleachers

cheering for a ghost game

when everyone else has left long ago

and eventually the grass grows twisted

and chokes me to the soft ground

gorged on corrupted fantasies

until my throat aches from

a lifetime of tears in a night again,

like this is easy,

like someone asked for it.

spinning that web around my skull

as each layer folds back on itself

and i ignore the sugar

corroding my gums to splinters

until i can't taste

anything anymore

but it was worth it, right?

for a night full of tears and a high

and this is a phase

the one where i shelter behind another light

brash and sure,

while it floods everyone it touches.

i hope this is a phase

and eventually i will inch forwards

and cast rays

into people's bedrooms

to remind them they are not

on the edge

of our conversations

a chick ready to fall from the lip of a nest

the tip of a tongue

plummet for the pure thrill of the drop

and i cannot reach you down there

can only offer you these downy feathers

and sticky leaves i have gathered and gathered

until my palms bled out

and i just hope that is enough of a spectacle

to make you stay a half second more this time around

and promise to listen to my story until the end, darling

because they're all about you

we were never meant to end like this

lives a warped version of the original,

pristine vision.

some picture perfect, a glazed replica

until the eye swoops in close

and catches the hairline cracks

ghosting the surface.

others fly beyond the mark,

clinging loosely to the idea

but veering away with each stroke,

the result a heaving, shifting abstract,

but straight backed in it's strange glory.

it is mine that hovers in between,

the piece eyes don't bother to lurk on,

slipping past with ease and a disapproving glance.

i am a crude sketch of the original,

a pencil skimming first draft

designed to be built upon,

but never reaching it's potential freedom.

instructions say 'best to burn'.

running my throat raw until

every inch of adoration

is splayed on the ground at your feet,

my tangled no flash fury

battered behind belief

but here, to beg you

to stick around.

to stay one more night,

until watered down splash of sun splits

the floor open

and you have made it

through another darkness.

and love, i wish i knew when it will end.

the clock a veined battlefield

and each tick a gunshot,

nearing your cracking point

and love, i wish i knew.

but for now, there is just this;

the sick reality

and me, the voice on the end

of a makeshift line

spliced together in the hurry to reach you,

asking if you could hold my hand