hey hello wassup

do you remember can you pinpoint the exact moment when a god became a man - not just a man, but a flawed creature cracked and fractured bones that could once support now simply sustaining don’t idolise, no idolatry but childish naivety and innocence don’t know this so how far the mighty can fall as you see shoulders once the ridge of mountains the glossy backs of roosting eagles become just tired shoulders, hunched over a half eaten bowl of cereal dented by years of failure and wrongs you see guilt in glossy irises for mistakes you know and don’t know of and you wonder how it has been possible to see but still be blind perhaps you are being harsh because there is a child still in you but it cries now of betrayal, not trust so you distance yourself like tectonic plates fissures from friction because it hurts less when you do it yourself rather than let him do it for you

it is less pretentious to admit you are lost in the ocean still

you soothed the sting of your teeth with your tongue but blood can’t be washed off guilty hands so easily so be still, steady eyes, silent tongue and hold me with vein-mapped hands but with no guile

you were my spirit you were my soul but I’m bitter black coffee so it’s time I let you go

I packed my bags in the silver lining of a dawn, And left a burning kiss on your lips -  A kiss like the sharp edge of a knife - Bitter, full of hope. I peeled an apple And left it on the counter, Glistening coils of a ruby And pale, starlit flesh underneath -  Veins exposed, all emotions bare. You were sleeping, shoulder blades rising Like the slopes of a mountain ridge, But the soil is all barren, ashes in the forest. Nothing glamorous, everything gone, So I packed my bags And left in the silver lining of a dawn.

Bones on bones On bones Skin stretched taut over cheekbones That are more like the sun bleached animal carcasses in a windless desert Than the structure and tissue of a human vessel There is strength in the knuckles But it is the strength of a ghost, a figment of imagination, holding onto a cliff edge Than than of Boudicca Fingernails sharpened by whetstone But not to slip into the ribcage of an enemy But to peel off layer and layer of skin on the blank spaces of a face You are a warrior, for there are war markings on your face in your own blood But you are a warrior for all the wrong reasons For underneath your skin, is only Bones on bones On bones

Once upon a time (for that is how most children’s stories start), there lived a little girl who called herself Red Riding Hood. The world is an inky place, but she was one of the rare few whose hearts were still crimson red. One day, she climbed into a cab the colour of bright mustard, and traversed a forest of pines and oaks and metal skyscrapers. She met a wolf, and she chose to trust him, for his fur was slick and the colour of a grey rabbit’s downy pelt, and his words were colours and poetry conjured from thin air. She rather thought he was a magician. But there was no sheep under the wolfish pelt, and the wolf didn’t even ask her nicely before swallowing her whole. And he lived happily ever after. The End (for that is how most children’s stories end, although this is not one of them).

Being with you was a sanctuary in a storm Was being cradled in the earth and rock of a cavern Your fingers twined through mine were like vines and ferns climbing their ways through the gaps between my hands Brushing my palms until my skin was stained a forest green There was a snowstorm raging outside, Howling like wounded animals on a stake But no cold could seep into my rocky hold Because you buried me into the earth And held me warm and tight throughout the night You helped me sink into the soil, surrounded by a silhouette of rocks Until I was a woodland creature -  A nymph that had no place in the mortal world Being with you lulled me into a beautiful sleep As earth swallowed me into its womb and I became the centre of the earth

Some days I am the sun And people revolve around me like planets magnetised As if sent spinning in concentric circles by unseen magnetic force fields Other days I am the darker side of a moon Quiet and still Breaths ghosting silently across the air I become deadwood Deadweight And I curl further and further inside an empty shell Watching other people glitter and fade

I know you must have a heart Because you are alive and breathing before me And blood the colour of rubies must flow through your veins I know your lungs contract and expand themselves To push and pull air into your body Just to keep you alive But why then, do I sometimes lean my head against your chest And hear no heart, nor feel no heartbeat Pulsing beneath your skin and ribcage Nothing to prove that you are really alive And that the blood coursing through your body Does more than keep life within that body - That it carries memories of pain and a girl And reminds you that there is a flame still burning But when I put my ear to your skin I feel no warmth And your heartbeat is lost in the dark Are you just a walking carcass, love? A shell that was hollow before it even washed up to the shore? Humans have heartbeats (so they say) But you have no heartbeat at all