infinite

Every electrified particle and atom of matter 

Every casual brush of clothing, accidental 

You're there.

Every workaholic stressor with creases round his eyes 

Every unassuming comment made with darkened, laugh lined smiles 

You're there. 

I can see your face, all made of Greek letters and stormy Michelangelo pencil strikes. 

I see you. 

My dear, last night I lay in the grass and you were there in the night. I closed my eyes and you asked me, "Are you happy?" I wasn't sure. 

My dear, I caught your eye across the street and fought the crowd to find you, but when I arrived you were gone. 

My dear, I saw you across the street and waved at you, a smile on my face and electric bones. You waved back and in that moment I saw you more clearly than I ever had. You are infinite. 

wretch

Here we stand
In an era of texts and wretched selfies
Where I hide my words away
Because secrets can be stolen
And I would rather keep them hidden
From the public prying eye
Than watch as your pretty lips
Mouth goodbye to any shred of dignity
That I retained
My ideogram language
To stay sane in a down and out
Eclipsed society
And I would say
Stay away from my friends
If I had any to save
Here we go again
Kissing stars and keeping hearts
Escaping all our preconceived loneliness
Beauty forgotten but not gone
Forgotten but not silent
You never heard me leaving
And now I'm never
Coming back.

glassghost drifting

the remorseful cut is made dismissive we had a deal a compromise so on impulse I lean forward lift your shield it is heavy and tired but I must be armoured against the hiddendark in the shadows with a needle waiting there lies our secret anesthesiologist with contempt in his eyes for the bittersweet irony of our reunion while I strangle you choke choke choke on your defiance I abandon you with a blackblue face and an empty mind full of chandeliers as we push off the goodbye gondola I see your glassghost drifting delicate I no longer have faith in you dear firefly lying in that hollow grave of yours oh the irony I see it but no one else does line my eyes with extra kohl and then we're in liplock stasis passing lost lying letters between tongues like no one else ever could eyes like the aurora borealis high tide begging for justice well maybe I will give you mercy is it a sign is it an omen of silkpoison ribbons screaming their siren slaves in spiteful vice thread wind round my fingers until it goes purple and a pulse forms inside oh me oh my what a wreck what a wretch as we slip slide fall downtown to the ellipses eclipses of widowed wives who still hold the luxury of flesh through the gateway the goosegirl dances over the waves in harmony harbour machinery clicking clockwork gears humming numbers inkstitched inside eyelids to drown the hovercraft iron keyboard and as it falls there's a millisecond of silence complete stillness and then gone to the platinum disc the carbon world plastic and nylon in december winds with cigarette smoke floating through the monday rain.

white lace doilies

i played with pretty white lace doilies when i was younger, colouring in the fragments piece by piece with the occasional eureka moment of cathartic ecstasy and i think Archimedes said once that he had “got it” but i don’t know what he thought he had gotten because really no one has anything at all and there are stars stars stars with a wrong light all wrong but still singing and the crystal wine glass is full of dark red with little white lines of reflected light like i am watching raindrops plink to the ground full of hope but it is washed out of them and i want to seek you out but i don’t know who you are or what you look like or where you live i only know that you are oh so beautiful and i want you to be happy there’s a terrible knowledge sitting in my heart that tells me you’re sad and i don’t know why but it makes me cry as i look at you in all my favourite photographs like a model on the catwalk and you don’t know who you are without the heels and the makeup but i’m telling you never let anyone tell you how to live or who you are because media is hiding you away and you need not be hidden i promise you there are promises and then there are promises and this is the second kind the kind that is always kept cat-silent and the horizon isn’t really so far away you know it is only that it is always moving like a dream ahead of me and i can’t – quite – catch it – and there you see gone again like the horizon i can’t follow you wherever it is that you go when your eyes are distant and you don’t focus on me when i say your name i used to think that the moon followed the car when we wound round twisty intersections copper-snake-like and you fell asleep with lavender eyelids fluttered deep dream sleep bone tired scar tired high wired

choke me

hold me foetal           
like a precious, brittle thing  
easily snapped           
my bones are made of tight-packed sugar   
and I think if I stand now they will    
collapse
into shadow    
shatter glass  
if this is your revolution         
taping the authorities to the wall and trying to be  
more mature than they ever were   
then I think you could have done better than           
militia born and bred on coffee and blood   
veins was always a favourite word of mine  
don’t get confused     
there’s fear of not breathing
and then there’s having water rising, choking up     
lungs  
until breath is a thing of the past and you can’t remember how to            
inhale even if there wasn’t a flood inside of you      
forcing you silent       
and thrashing.
vultures settle on the wires   
oh, waiting for something just like you and I           
darling           
tumour flowering open and infectious         
rainless and brushfire           
and I thought about saying    
love isn’t a romanticised idiom        
the scientists say love is survival      
love is evolution and it lives parasitical in our hearts          
keeping us from throwing our minds into a pile and mingling our thoughts until   
we are indistinguishable       
though sometimes that’s all any of us want 
stumbling with a twisted tie and your hair isn’t slicked back           
you always drew a queen
running joke and your eyes light up like optical fibres too many sparkling stars

candle smoke
and dark dark dark

feedback onstage and the audience doesn’t wince because they’re too caught up in it all

nicotine stained teeth
it was always a favourite song of mine

vowel-slipping round your tongue through your sugar-bones and skulls

you wanted and you wanted and you didn’t have
so you took. 

imperfect

uninvented
rewritten
mind choked up, absorbed
and thrown back polished up like brass
you must remember that you are not broken.
you do not need fixing.
you never needed fixing.
and Ariadne, the girl with the string to guide me home
remember.
bright side
creativity
and four different words for love.
i love you with all four of those words and more besides
because you never needed fixing
and yet you knew you were imperfect.
remember your imperfections
cherish your flaws
banish pain and you banish who you are
beloved
poison your water in small doses
call up your immunity
and know
every second was worth it.

a letter to you from you

yesterday you came home and put your head in your hands 

"worthless," you said to me, anger in your eyes and frustration in your hands. 

"useless," you insisted, and i sat there and took it like i always do.
my comforts were nothing in the face of your grief.
my words were drowned by yours.
you sat in front of the mirror this morning for an hour with a brush and straighteners
your hopes and dreams bottled up in foundation and mascara
but when you were finished it was still not enough
and it will never be enough
because you hate me more than even i can fully understand.
you loathe me with a passion
you hate my crooked, too-large nose
and my ears that stick out too far through my wild hair
you hate my skin that breaks out
and my lips and breasts that aren't full enough
and my body that isn't slim enough
you can't see that my face is proportional
pretty, even
you are blind to my healthy weight and size
my mostly-calm skin
and my expressive mouth
because you hate me far too much to ever consider me beautiful.
you hate the way i talk too much
and the way i say the wrong things
you hate the way i make things awkward
the way i can't make friends.
you hate the fact that i see things that others don't
because it separates me still further.
you can't see that my conversations are beautiful
full of philosophy and fascination
you can't see that i don't need the kinds of friends other people depend on
because they don't give, they only take
you are oblivious to the joys of my sight
the world i see.
love me.
please.
you're breaking me apart, and i deserve better. 

look at you. look at me. 

we are beautiful. 

isolation (and: NANOWRIMO IS OVER THIS BLOG CAN LIVE AGAIN)

My head is in my hands and I am sighing, crying. My mind is made of teeth, little white incisors and molars that bite and draw blood in the parts of me that are carpeted corridors. Here, where sound is squirreled away like treasure that you don’t tell about, blackened secrets are stained by fire and stained by her.

She peeled away my layers and tutted with a disapproving air floating around her, sticky and dark. She came back from her white nurse uniform in jeans with a long, sharp knife and I shrank forward both terrified and desperately yearning, wanting to be perfect like she promised -
The cut was clean but it was long and wide and she dug inside me and found all of my flaws prodding and exploring until she was unsatisfied enough for satisfaction. She deliberated, her cogitating clockwork spinning faster as her mind raced with the speed of determination and faulty networks, and she said,
“There

is

no

God.”

-

You used to break pencils when you were angry.
I remember the snap as they broke and a few splinters embedded themselves in your hands. Your face was white and your fists clenched and your fear as obvious and hidden as anything could be. You had broken ends in your pencil case for weeks, and I – I have a theory -

You used to cry when you were happy.
It’s not so unusual, but you used to cry so much that I’d ask you what was wrong and you would have to explain, and then we would laugh together and sit on the broken heater in the classroom singing stupid songs until the bell went, talking about celebrities and thinking about the dichotomy of the world.

You used to laugh when you were sad.
I think it was because you didn’t like to talk about your feelings, so you talked about everything else instead, and when it all became far too much the laughter was a distraction, so you could cry with isolation watching mindful of your fear. Isolation came to you once, trying to talk to you because she more than anyone understood, but you fought her off with one hand, hiding your tears with the other and punishing yourself with people.

-

And I tried to argue, present statistics and facts and distract her with probability but she kept saying it like an automaton – there is no god – until I almost believed it simply for the sake of repetition before my rationality caught up with me, out of breath, frayed and coming apart at the seams but still there, stuffing falling to the floor.
-
And the teeth clicked together in my mind and tore apart her words and my world like shredded fragments of memories or a white cloud savaged by the wind.

-

change

i don't need you and your silverfish-memories
i don't need anyone.
needing is dangerous.
or is it not needing that is dangerous?
i'm not sure
anymore.
both have done me harm.
maybe
it's just life that's dangerous.
the cracked stone
the divide
ashen skin and pallid hands
i force breath back into you. you will breathe.
you will.
you don't.

disconnected

maybe when God made the world He left the moon unfinished
and that is why there is a dark side
that we are always reminded of, reflected in ourselves

-

don't panic.
if you panic, you'll lose it.
keep calm
breathe
remember.
a day at a time.
remember.
you don't owe anyone anything
remember
this is your world and you decide
remember
where you've been is who you are
it's true we make or break ourselves
we don't have to be pretty if we're strong
this is who you are.
breathe.
remember.

-

i pull my knees up to my chest
make myself small as dust
that's what i am
nameless, i drift
and i don't need anyone to tell me who i am

-

the eyes of the people follow me around the room
and i cannot hide in the light
you wanted something i couldn't give
didn't have
but i suppose i provided solace for a while
i knew you couldn't be grounded for long -
not like that, not by me -
and sure enough, after a time
you flew free.

-

she knows something is wrong.
"be kind to yourself," she says
but i want to work until i'm lost in it
the way i'm lost in this.

floodgates

open the floodgates
whatever you've got
hit me with your lowest blow
i'll take anything you can throw
until you're out of ammunition
this will be my retribution
because i am the strong one
the brave one
and if i cave we all cave
if i break we all break
and it doesn't matter that i already have
if you still see me as the same.
and so, you see, i must be selfless
though i am selfish and alone
i must be brave though my cells scream run down to my bones
i pretend i don't deserve every wound you open.

the dying is nearly over

Do you ever walk out of the house in the morning - school run, shopping, work - and the air is cold and crisp, without autumn damp? Do you ever think, it smells like winter?
I do. And yesterday morning that's exactly what happened. And I was glad, because although autumn is gorgeous, it's dying, and winter is death - which as far as I'm concerned is easier to live with. Dying is a slow process where the watchers are forced to accept that they're losing and there isn't anything to be done. Death is an absolute, and it ends that dreadful period of waiting, knowing.
Spring is wet and chilly and the only good thing about it is when the snow melts and you think, wow. All of this is still here. 
It doesn't die, under the snow. When everything thaws, frost and hearts, the warmth and the life is still there. 
And so winter isn't really death, because every single leaf that falls in that dying autumn - yes, those leaves will rot and be trodden underfoot and swept away by men in green jackets with silly-looking, glorified brooms, but the tree itself will grow new leaves. And the tree is alive. The leaf itself, whatever purposes it may serve, is simply an organ of a greater organism.
Yes, this is basic science. Yes, I'm still repeating it. Because no matter how many times people say it, it's still amazing. In the human body, we lose and replace cells all the time. We barely notice. The short moments when we graze skin and wait for it to heal - they are inconveniences.
Such is winter for a tree.

frost

past my eyelids there is a bird lying on the ground.
the sky is grey and clear and the ground is frosted over as though it is winter already.
the bird does not move.
the trees are still and the frost is cold. i shiver and my eyelids nearly flicker open. my feet take me to the bird and i touch the feathered body.
warm and alive.
i like life.
there is a song that is not sung, a story unread that tells of life. it tells of tears and of happiness, sleeping and not sleeping, loving and hating and never knowing where you're going. it says look! here is something you could never have imagined. so dream new things, dream of everything you hoped you would be, everything you hoped you wouldn't.
my rambling words are etched into the frost.
the bird is motionless against my hand but the heartbeat that pulses into my palm is full of promises. the sky has clouded over. spring is far away, and light is fading. light always fades.
but nothing on this earth is permanent! the sun is not permanent and we are not permanent. this world is not permanent. darkness is not permanent! the light will come again.
the bird takes flight.

temple

build a temple around me
of marble and oxygen
place me in the doorway
a body that is no longer real.
build a temple around me
plant vines that coil and twist
up around my skin until i am among the stars
my roots wrap around the earth.
build a temple around me
sing songs that thrum a primal drumbeat
stitch my skin senseless with words
and drench me with the sky.
build a temple around me
in ecstasy and hidden things
so that i can become the landscape that worships
hands stretched forever.

psalm for heartbreakers

discard discord
into splintered order, perfect chaos
oh i don't even know what your tumbling words mean
why do you insist on speaking
are you so incapable of feeling silence
can you not hear the quiet
no
in the same way that you cannot
understand why the ones you leave behind have broken hearts
you move like a song
and you make them love you while adamant that you are unloved
then you grow tired of their need
without realising it
you move on searching for meaning
and leave them junkies without drugs
without any hope for what sustains them they waste away and
you don't care
you don't even notice
because that is who you are, my dear
killer!
murderer!
and still i am no better than the rest.

staring

something a little different today

Her mind was far away and falling headlong into waves and wonder, and her thoughts wandered away from her body. Earth and sand and paperwork were songs of other places, because she was gone into lights on the ocean and the moon over the sea, the evening streetlights orange over the water.
The gentle touch on her shoulder startled her, and she jerked away.
“Don’t stare too long,” the man said. He had kind eyes. “Your mind wanders, down and deep and away, and one day it won’t come back.”
“I’ve stared before,” she said, still looking, still lost.
“Your mind is used to wandering. You are on top of the world, and you’re not afraid to fall.” She felt herself begin to reel back in, back to the empty shell of her body. She managed to glance at him. His kind eyes smiled.
“Why is that a bad thing?” she asked.
“In itself, it isn’t. But you go places, and if you stay away too long you forget who you are.”
“Sometimes that’s why I go.”
He nodded. She dug her toes into the sand, gazed past the cliffs and down into whatever lay beyond.  “I want to go places,” she whispered into the wind. “I want to live by the sea and sit on the sand every day and lose myself. I want to work when I want to and not have responsibilities I don’t care about. That’s why I stare. Because the sea is fickle and free and it doesn’t care about anyone else.”
“You can still care,” he said softly. “I still care.”
She glanced sharply at him, and saw his fingers begin to lengthen; his legs slowly shortened as his hair grew to flow down to the sand in a gentle wave of salt water and the memory of a smiling man with kind eyes.  

roses

the desired girls
pretty little girls
can tilt their heads coquettishly
and say
'they are all pages
from the same book.
doesn't he know roses have been done before?
can't he see I'm bored of the same
lines?'
they can go through
those boys
like a passionate, vicious wildfire
without a care in their pretty little minds
but I am neither desired nor coquettish
i just want
you.

swallowflight

swallowflight
autumn came and left again
spurned her lover
begging the sky to
take her away
and time was never her friend
nor mine.
swallowflight
rain on tarmac in a crying city
headlights find her
pleading the wind to
take her away
and the light fades into
evening and i.
swallowflight
winter passed through quietly
spring came looking
for the girl who could
take him away
but she broke a heart that was
never hers to break.

didn't you want this?

do i begin in the early hours
for owls
and stolen kisses
hidden in the dreamtimes
- or -
is it you who started there
in secrets and shadows?
those were our moments
when i carved my name
deep into your skin
rewrote your soul
so it had me in it
and we danced under the light of the moon
because it said so in the stories
take my hand, darling
just take my hand and we'll go down falling
nothing to cry about, honey
we're just destroying all we've got
didn't you want this?

addicted

i think
i'm addicted
to falling, tumbling
out of control, oh yes
tossing me around, half crazy
no direction except where the wind is
taking me, spinning like a leaf and oh the sweetness of
dizziness, a euphoric moment of 'this is it'
because it reminds me of you
and how you set my mind
aflame with newness
i'm addicted
i think

paper doll

my faithful paper martyr
tearing
little paper doll - oh!
your fragile skin and
snap
of paper bones
a broken paper heart, oh
little paper doll
in a graveyard house
can you see?
not through your paper eyes
you are
my dear
for all intents and purposes
blind
little paper doll
in a cage of
paranoia and starvation
no fear, paper doll
oh no!
your heart's too old for that
too fragile
too tired,
my little paper doll.

chasing shadows

a new blog for my writings, because i need somewhere to put them or i will go mad. sitting in the sunlight thinking about half-formed poetry and this came along. note: alexithymia - the inability to communicate one's emotions verbally

such a tiny little
edging smile
tiptoeing
as beautiful as curiosity
rare upon your face
i’m not sure
if i like
how you wear it
with a shade of lipstick that
whispers
lies
it might be lying too
underneath
and you laugh
my tongue tied in knots and my
mind bound by alexithymia
juxtapose of old and new
chthonic  in your clandestine
operations,
and that lipstick
its tune has changed
now it sings
you are wearing your skin
all wrong
it’s not the dark
i fear
it’s the things living
inside it
things like
you
you step into the sun
a silhouette
falls where it should not
and your lipstick says
your prayers go unanswered
the bloodhounds
bay loud and clear
in silent air
as you fall
there is no grace or beauty
in this descent
just falling, and then
you’re gone
nothing poetic
just empty space
where once you were
and now
you’re not
and i’m still chasing shadows