Something

My writing is heavily inspired by animals, nature, relationships and Queer experiences.

it’s getting harder to ignore as my eyelashes no longer block out the sun,

it’s hot and thick.

Everyone I know longs for her arrival every year,

they wait in trepidation for her first touch,

her first hot breath,

her harsh kiss on our skin is welcomed,

I don’t understand it.

I have no doubt that she is beautiful but she instilled fear in me that only a second chance at childhood could erase. Insects in the warm grass, paddling pools, the sunset covered parks and bicycles of my youth.

“Did something bad happen?”

I don’t remember.

Memories are discarded like dead flowers,

I find them in the vast fields of my mind, sometimes I stop to try and identify them

Are they bluebells? A rose? A dandelion perhaps?

I don’t remember.

Apollo my love, my sun, so shining and golden.

I feel embarrassed that I have to shield my eyes from your light,

I am quite embarrassing am I not?

Do you think I'm embarassing?

The way I often speak too loud in the quiet night,

or perhaps when I forgot myself in your prescence-tracing your skin a few too many times with rough fingers.

How can I not with you lying so still beneath me?

No sign of wakefulness or ruggedness of breath.

I'm am certain no man or woman could ever resist your beauty and I am sure no man in Greece or even Olympus herself would ever come close to your light. Everything you are is faultless but I'm sure all you Gods are made that way.

It is strange, I find, I am a ruler of men- to them I am everything and yet... to you I am nothing.

A mere grain of sand in an endless desert of passionate affairs. You would think my ego would reject this but I find it comforting. To be absolved of responsibility for a short while, to mean nothing in your arms.

You told me you loved me once, do you remember?

My mind rarely lets me rest these days but when sleep takes me I dream only of you.

Do Gods dream?

If they do, do you dream of me?

I'm sure you don't, in fact I am almost certain of it.

But one can only hope

Yours,

Lavender growing soft,

I feel it silky under my fingers,

tenderly held in my palms to be carefully studied like a butterfly under a magnifying glass.

It smells warm,

it smells like you,

like the dried flowers hung above the door, like the candle lit in the kitchen as you cook,

or the familiar soap wrapped carefully in it’s dish.

The one you used to wash my hands with, when I was a child.

When we would lie on shaded spring grass hunting for hidden creatures,

a precious dog at our side,

black happy tail wagging in the sun.

Now I sit warmly,

comforted by lavender as I think of you and how much you care for me,

I can’t help the wetness in my eyes and heart as I write,

this poem for you,

but you must know…

a soft shadow,

of you,

feathers in your fur,

a bird in your mouth,

it's spine broken like glass.

Shattered as you strayed from my path,

no longer the pattering of hooked claws on wood

or lose teeth hidden in carpet.

I still catch your shadow sometimes, dancing in

the grass of summer dandelions,

an illusion of the betraying eye

and hopeful heart that I might

one day,

Their brush drops blood paint onto beige carpet,

stained and ruined.

My breath-taken and fragile heart murmurs quiet whispers of love.

Could you want me to?

I feel that empty guilt as I grab their ankles and pull them down into the thick water of my darkness.

They gasp for air as I dig my fingernails into flesh deeper, leaving blood-red crescents.

They scream and gag on my salt, it isn’t supposed to be ingested, but they do it anyway.

I could let them go.

But I don’t.

I want to.

But I can’t.

a soft shadow,

of you,

feathers in your fur,

a bird in your mouth,

it’s spine broken like glass.

Shattered as you strayed from my path,

no longer the pattering of hooked claws on wood or lose teeth hidden in carpet.

I still catch your shadow sometimes, dancing in the grass of summer dandelions,

an illusion of the betraying eye

and hopeful heart that I might

one day,

because I never was.

I was never the pretty girl,

and I am rarely the pretty boy.

Not the person you chase down the streets for a simple glimpse of them,

their hair shining as your eyes catch those sparkles,

they smile at you and you feel so incredibly lucky,

they take your heart with them as they float away into the stream of people who seem to feel the same as you do.

I never was that person.

I feel it would be easier to be “that” person,

perfect teeth and perfect smiles make quick friends,

quick and easy lovers queue up for a moment of your time,

it seems so easy,

the world could be handed to you on a plate and you refuse with a soft pattering of eyelashes,

I am afraid,

I am so afraid you have slipped through my fingers like old water,

I am afraid I will never feel that sensation of wetness against my skin,

I thought I was holding your tears in my palm,

but you rarely cry,

I’ll never be a child again,

to run carefree through fields of wet grass,

small stones cutting the skin on the soles of my feet.

I’ll never be a child again,

those summer evenings and warm skies make me cry now,

I mourn for my childhood,

why did I want to grow up?

Insects have always been my sign,

a fluttery brown moth trapped in my bedroom curtains,

a woodlouse dancing around the shower drain,

a lady bird glowing inside a train light,

Oh to be carefree and swim in the water of ignorance,

to trip and swallow a mouthful of coarse sand and still find the breath to laugh,

to live and love in delusion- those rose tinted eyes seem so beautiful from afar.

I want that pink in my head,

People rip chunks out of flesh from my body and i let them,

I stand there and I let them,