you pulled up all the blue  roses in your garden; you  were afraid that they were  going to strangle you in your  sleep (all the hedges have 

prying eyes in this red palace) the lion cub that sleeps in your  bed has claws which are sharper that he will ever realise (you 

you emerged from your  husband’s pyre all red and  burning and covered in 

hot ash; a hissing dragon  wrapped around your hips like an obsidian girdle - you  were born to consume the 

so what if we burn? i want to feel this  heat (this holy fire):

you’re all i can see -  bloody lips and gold  hair and starburst eyes; maybe if we scorch  enough of this world  you and i will be the 

not even holy water can  save me now - i’ve been  sitting at the bottom of this  swimming pool for too long:

(lily soft skin and milky  smiles and honey dipped  eyes and swelling curves)

everything’s a mess but i  can’t stop thinking about  you: draped in midnight’s 

inky shawl; swimming  pool water gracing your  face; eyes edged in blonde  starburst eyelashes that 

sunlight trickles off your  skin like molten gold; a  face carved from sunshine 

stretched over soft human  bone - an effigy cast from  bronze: parchment skin 

you plant gardens bursting  with flowers bedecked in  hazy colours - pastel throats 

bared to the light and stitched  petals glowing pink as lemonade  fizzing in the summer sun; you 

if love is pain than  darling i want to hurt  tonight: cut my palms

on your glass heart;  bruise my lips on  your calloused skin -  drown myself in your 

you breathe out sweetness  the way others breathe out  air; softness tinted with 

the taste of your flowery  perfume - fingers holding the  promise of gentleness:

i can’t stop looking at your lips; pouty and swollen and bowed like  the gentle curves of my violin - 

cheeks flushed as sunburnt skin  (a glowing pink, the pink of dusk)  glossy as the salmons darting in 

you’re gone now; somewhere  far away where i can’t reach  you - on the desert floor under  an unforgiving blue-green sky - 

you’ve probably forgotten all  about me; wrapped up in your  new purpose, in the calm  of being an empty machine; 

don’t be afraid of your rage; let your chest glow red with  your unholy anger - dare to 

carve your name in the ivory  pillars of history (who will  remember you if you don’t?)

do you feel that shard of hate  in your mouth? turning your  words to rivers of blood? 

embrace it. take that knife  embedded in your lungs and  wash the red off the blade - 

your hand is draped across  my stomach, inching under the hem of my shirt, burning hot against my skin (like holy fire);

your lips are turning as blue as  your eyes, winter blue, bright  and pure and wide and strange:  eyelashes like the rays of a dark star;

‘when the stars look down  on you, what do they see?’  they see a girl with a cotton  candy heart and no idea how 

to show her love; a girl who’s afraid to confess her feelings  (it’s still not really allowed, is it?)  a soft face, and a softer heart 

you are a boy with soft blond  hair and dreamy eyes that  turn caramel in the sunlight; 

soft boy, with a tongue begging  to speak poetry, mouth aching  with the need to form the words 

i’m not sleeping anymore - purple  moons under my eyes and a burn in my throat: like i’ve swallowed the sun

whole; you’re in love with him and  he’s in love with you and i just want  you to be happy for once, dammit 

cherry blossoms fall as quickly  as they bloom; pink as the blush of new lovers drowning in the  sudden surges of this new feeling

dusk the colour of watery blood and morning burning with the hint  of Homer’s rosy-fingered dawn  (the herald of Apollo’s warm embrace)