racing

spectres haunt my peripheries
as the road coughs up dirt(

there's a pulse racing
between my fingertips
but it's n
ot yours.)

the finish line is here
dangling over the edge of a cliff.

                                                       some leap of faith.

hooded

sunburnt scarlet skies
fleeing as fierce
emerals emerge
heralding the hues
of sapphire to sink in.

sienna eyes drinking in,
flooding with cut glass,
cool hard translucence
against leather against skin.

earthy work boots planted
firmly on inky stretch of metal,
headlight eyes flickering shut
reprieve from the thousand star
glare.

kiss-starved lips pucker up
to wrap around the bottle neck,
expectant gushing, bland, bitter
beer,
intoxicated.

tipped back, black waterfall,
curls tumble over,
pale column as an altar offering,
breaths leaving like smog,
like prayers form a cynic.

lacquered nails
tap out the low, lusty
lumbering drumbeats,
light movement on
the sleek, slick
'67 chevy impala.

harp song
carries the melody away
drumbeats
out of
place.

sunburnt sienna eyes
flicker shut
as red recedes
golden pendulum swinging
dragging a curtain of almost cobalt
more like peacocks
fanning out
yellow blurs like stars
tormenting.

snow angels

i'm drawin' little snow angels
on your frosty windows

you've got the A/C on high
and the radio's nothing but static

each raindrop thuds against my fingers
and my pulse, in venn

your misty exhalation brushes across my bare legs
little ghost kisses as you switch the dial from FM to off

i burrow into my cocoon of cotton and candy and cutting words
and flowers and elegance and dior flood the air

your lips, as red as my eyes, press thin to stop a litany of my name,
and a little golden shackle, glares at me.

burnt opals

liquid sapphire drips away into
a blood red ruby
bevelled burning opal
(dips and furrows darkened
by the opaque night)
sneaking down to meet
jagged jutting topaz
rays tumbling over each other
to press fleeting, shy kisses
burning opals
illuminated.

and liquid sapphire drips away
                                              away
                                                      away
                                                                                                  away
as blood red ruby
floods the sky.

smitten

there's a milkyway pooling

in the indentations of my heels

and the air's a little thick with lust,

                                     with static,

                                     with stardust,

the back of your knees bump mine

and there's a thunderstorm gathering

in the small of my back, twisting tight,

your face embraces mine like an old flame

warm, incandescent and affectionate,

and if you're blushing,

                 well,

                        we can always

                                     blame it

                                               on

                                                   the

                                                       damn

                                                              good

                                                                      beer.

con[temporary] lucifer

                you are lucifer beneath my fingernails,
                all proud and sinful and seductive,
                all graceless and broken and wrecked.

silhouettes and shadows spill around us,

like great, sooty wings.

                your howls are in my throat,
                and my heart is on your sleeve,
                and if you squint hard enough,
                headlights can be stars, reflected
                in kaleidoscope eyes.

and cigarette smoke could be moonbeams,

like smoky gabriels to send (m)(y)our

damning thoughts to heaven,

charcoal voice keeping this spit-slicked fire

burning through the night.

                 and if i kiss you, like i could taste
                 your soul, feel it dancing on my
                 tongue, don't judge me.

because you are lucifer beneath my hands,

all spineless, and wrecked and wrecked.

lemonade

and it's just a glass of water

you're staring into

and you're the cup's

half-full

kind of girl

and the water tastes

a lot more bitter than it should

it's the corners of his smile

that reach out like chains

to wrap around your ankles

and p u l l you in

and you're drowning in it

drowning in your reflection

soaking up the reflected light through your pores

you drink it in

the condensing beads of self-hatred and loathing

running d

                o

                     w

                                                         n the side of your glass

and you're caught in this m    z    of thought

                         a    e 

itunes on repeat

                                     how did i miss this?

what's wrong with me?

                                                   what did i fuck up this time?

and maybe, maybe a part of you is asking

what did i do right?

what did i do so perfectly that it managed to push you to this?

[and maybe a part of you thinks

that this is all you'll ever deserve

-- it's not.]

a lone droplet

sends a thousand ripples across

the inertial waters

and it's stained your cheeks

and let's not kid ourselves, here.

you've never been

a

glass

half

full

kind of girl,

and maybe,

maybe

that's just fine.

for thedreamer

i love you, always, and be strong.

string jupiter

do you know?
                      do you know where you are?


you're here:
                  in the breathy exhalations between my words,
                  in between each line of this novel i'm reading
                  in the little spaces between each electron and nucleus


the memory of your voice
                                        petals pressed on my cheeks


and if your hands fit against mine
                                                   like pieces from different puzzles,
then, well, baby,
                         i won't be the one to mention it.


it's all these names that spill from the column of my throat,
                                                                                       your personal fountain of youth,
keeping you young in this world after it all
                                                                c r a s h e s.
love, heart, mine, sweet, beautiful, angel, 
                                                                  tiger, rose, sayang, amore, more, more more.
no one
           else
i'd
    love


and you're my michael, the prince of all my heaven's,
                                                                                and i'm in rapture.
you're my lucifer, the prince of darkness,
                                                             and spill those slick, sweet secrets from your silver tongue onto mine.

shut up
           i'm almost done


you drive a shiny sleek car,
                                         and i couldn't be bothered to get a license because
there was something about roads,
                                                   and good intentions,
but i can't see past our emerald city,
                                                       we were never in kansas, dorothy.




how do i forget you,
                               when you're everything?


tell me that i'm not the only one
                                               that's swallowing this sea up whole
that's drowning from the inside out.


tell me that i'm not the only one
                                               who's so in love it makes you sick
and it's blood and orange and useless little love poems,
                                                                                 curdled up on the blue floor.

tell me that i'm not the only one
                                               who's miserable


i'd string jupiter around my neck,
                                                 and it would kill me quicker than you.
a whole year,
                     what's your poison?


it's a sunny day out,
                             well, i'm watching through blue-tinted windows,
and yeah,
               yeah, baby,
i fucking miss you.

just going on

there's this story you want to tell. you're pretty sure there was a moral and you're pretty sure he'd like it but you can't remember how the story goes. but you're not worried.

it starts like this.
    it starts like this.
        it starts like this.

(i)
you have too many houses and not enough homes and the terracotta buildings have sunk so far into your skin, you don't think the earthy smell will ever leave you alone. your favourite place in the world is with a pair of green eyes and blue ones -- and maybe a brown pair or three, if they're not too busy today -- under a canopy of grey sky and greg the gargoyle.

instead, you've gotta be happy with blue walls and wood panelling and a green door.
             you push it open and fall into a surprised sea.
                                       

and suddenly, you've found a kind of home you've never known.



(ii)

your pulse flutters like there are butterflies trapped under your skin. it would explain the black and blue, wouldn't it? but you bite back the early spring and he smiles at you, soft and slow and symmetrical except for that one dimple in his right cheek, and you kind of stopped breathing ten minutes ago. he says a line -- and you're too slow to wonder now how many women he's used this on, how many women he's been with, how many women he's loved -- and you can only blink as he runs because, when the fuck did you ever become something worth pulling a line on anyway?

                he runs,

                and you've always, always been good

                                                                          at hide and seek,

                so you chase him down,

                and make the biggest

                                                                          mistake of your life,

                because he was playing tag and you

                                                                          aren't too great at that,

                sweetheart.

(iii)

there's a purple dress and a beautiful woman and you don't know who she is. the silver lining to every cloud and sea and mirror but you just want to rip it out of this one, turn it into a cloak and make yourself this gorgeous forever. there's a purple dress and a beautiful man and one night to make it real. your face would match your dress if anyone found out but you think he's worth the risk he's worth everything this is all for you.

you buy a pair of black stilettos and a flower clip,

and your best friend buys you a velvet purse.

                                                                              there

                                                                                       are

                                                                              three weeks left.

(iv)

she talks to you till four a.m.,

and you write him mocha letters in red ink

of all the things you can't say,

                                            it's short and concise,

because that's what he taught you,
and experience teaches you best.

(v)

you feel like you're about to puke all over his perfect, cream floor. he wouldn't get offended even if you did because it feels like there's glass clawing it's way from your heart and out your throat to decorate his floors with miserable crystals.

there's a purple dress and a beautiful moment where you hoped it would be different.
you were wrong again.


(vi)
he's the kind of guy who gets lost in the details but never forgets he's in a painting and he's drowning in it, you know, drowning in colours. and you, you're the kind of girl who paints and paints but never gets it right; there's always something wrong. he'll tell you it's this dot over here, why is it here? and you'll say, that's the dot, the dot that's you and how you make me feel and everything that you are and he'll still say why, why is it here? and how do you explain then?

you don't.

(vii)
you've never been good at holding things together; not yourself, not her and not anything else. and he can't keep it going; not himself, not her and not anything else. he's a beautiful man in a blue shirt and things are falling apart. you think that if you press your fingertips into his bare back enough, that maybe the whorls on your thumb could be enough of a map.

but there is no map to doing this right,
and you're both doing it wrong.

(viii)
you've never been whole,
but he's pretty fucking broken too.
(he's fucking pretty broken too)

and, maybe, all of your pe i c es will fit together and you wouldn't need to be fine, or whole, or flawless, or perfect. maybe, you could both just be you.

hope is the most fragile thing,
and it presses angel kisses to your sternum,
flickering with each of his smiles.

love you till you're whole

.
 i'm wearing this pendant, small and round and blue,
 you bought it for me at this carnival, and i snuck out to see you,
 and my dad had never been so angry
 and my lips still ache
 from where you kissed me
 and my cheek throbs,
 from his slap.

.
 you told me once that you weren't all that poetic,
 and i told you that sometimes it felt like i had butterflies,
 in my bloodstream and you pressed a kiss to my wrist
 and my neck, as my pulse fluttered wildly, like a dove
 in a gilded cage.

.
 you have, i say, really nice hands,
 and you cup me in them, like i'm a prayer,
 something important and to be blessed,
 and i feel like i'm worth something, that i can
 still be (w)hol(e)y.

.
 and i'm in the backseat of your car and it's
 not all that comfortable, the seat belt buckle
 is digging a cave into my back and the soft
 black material is pressing into me the way
 you do.

 stars blink and shine, reappear and disappear,
 in time to your staccato heartbeat,
 and the world is titled on an axis,
 stuck in permanent contemplation of you.

.
 if i knew how to love you whole again,
 i would.

flying colours

i think i'd like to make you a science.

at least then, i could recreate p e r f e c t l y the blue of your eyes,
                                                                        the gold of your heart,
                                                                              the tornado of your thinking.

i think i'd like to make you a math.

i could recreate a c c u r a t e l y the angle of your strength,
                                                       the slope of your shoulders,
                                                             the factors of your soul.

i think i'd like to make you a song,

i could recreate e x a c t l y the depth of your voice,
                                                the shards of your ego,
                                                      the glint of your sincerity.

i think i'd like to make you into something

quantifiable,

measurable,

tangible

but i'm glad you're not

this way, all these moments are frozen

just for me.

flutter

you're so close that i think that i could just s

                                                                  i

                                                                    n

                                                                      k

into your alabaster skin; so that the blue

of your trainers pools an ocean around

my feet, so that the beige of your trousers

melts into me like cream on coffee, so that

the red of your shirt spreads like a blush

across me.

and now i ask, how do i tell you?
there's silver fire and gold ice in
eternal salsa across my skin; all
that from just a smile.

how do i tell you?

my mind is in a perpetual autumn; 

monotone,  sepia leaves falling to the ground,

gathering up like gold dust,

or just plain old dust.

all it takes if for you to leave the room,

and it all disintegrates, you know,

all those beautiful, effervescent thoughts i have,

thoughts i could sew into stupid little love poems.

you're so close that i think,

butterflies will fly o u t of my mouth,

instead of the words i should be saying,

with the way you make my p ul s e

flutter.

almost-burnt apple pie

1.
so, there was this car. it was a nice car. black. sleek. handsome headlights.
      the only reason i liked it was because the
      thought of you driving it gave me shivers like
                                                   i'm in a personalised winter.

2.
i think it was your eyes that i fell for first, but i won't tell anyone. if i was more poetic, i'd say shit like how your eyes had all the days i pretended to smile and all the nights i cried in them. but i'm not. to be honest, they kind of remind me of my ceiling back when i was ten, the one with the stick-on glow in the dark stars on them.
                      i f
                          e
                             l
                               l for your eyes first, and your soul second and yeah, i can be pretty poetic.

3.
last night i had a dream about our car. you know, the black one. we were lying on the hood and pulling cliches like looking up at the stars. and you let your hands take up the space between mine, like shuffling grains of sand, and i dreamt that you told me you didn't believe in wishes. that, if you wanted something, you'd go out to get it.

i woke up alone.
it wasn't a sad dream.
but i was miserable anyway.

4.
i wanted to tell you something. it was probably something important. but my tongue doubled and twisted like a cherry stem or a vine and squeezed the words to oblivion. oblivion keep those words, oblivion can put those words where all the lost people go, where car keys go when you need them, where your left sock goes after the washing machine. i can make new ones.

they weren't important, anyway.

5.
when you're angry, you smile like knives. i wear the pants in this and i like to say that i'm always the one to find you. i am. but you're always the one to find me. and i'm the only one who's lost. your smile cuts apples into bite sized pieces and i don't lament that we're not adam and eve.

when you're happy, you smile like the sun.
we could bake an apple pie life together, if you'd like.

6.
no one's ever made me cry more than you do. 'broke my heart' is too light but 'breaking me' seems too harsh. you make me want to save myself, 'cause you're sure as hell not doing jack, to put on my rusted armour and fight the lions and wyverns and tarantulas curled around the back of my mind, because i could actually be worth something to someone.

no one's ever made me cry more than you do.
it's weird, but i don't regret anything.

fiat lux

god asked me to bow down,

so i did and he said, you are for adam.

in my peripheral vision, you are the brightest thing in heaven, 

and i said, yes. yes, i am his.

trembling palms meet in a palmer's kiss,

and you shied away with each step i took,

adam runs his fingers across my pulse,

and you watch with hungry, thirsty eyes.

my skin feels too hot and too tight,

and i want to burst through in a symphony of light,

so that you'll look at me, so that you'll see me,

even for a brief moment.

i wonder sometimes if you can hear it,

the pathetic thud-thud of my lone heart,

wonder sometimes if it matters, you press a thumb to my sternum 

to leave a wreath of purple flowers and i don't think it does.

i remember the apple tree and your wide, wide eyes,

as your fingers spread starlight across my ribs,

and between my thighs, and your voice, exultant,

gloria patri and you are so beautiful.

beautiful. that's what you are, so bright and pure,

and when i kissed you for the first time,

my tongue snaking around yours,

you tasted like fire and mornings and the sweetest fall.

you taught me to feel, to take,

and the first thing i did was spread myself all over,

your thousand-sun skin and drag out little noises,

with my hands and felt myself roast alive.

i writhe under the canopy of your wings and grace,

as you bless me with your hot mouth in all the most secret places,

throwing my head back, i shut my eyes and pray to soak you in,

the vowels of your name fill up my throat and adam's eyes are green.

my knees burrow in the ground, brackets to keep you grounded,

and my tongue paints a honeyed molass love, and you burn,

brighter than ever, brilliantly,

and eden watches you come undone, silent and salient.

you are the heat of fire and the cool of water,

your words are slippery slick and silver-tongued,

your touch is midas-blessed and golden,

and you are mine.

god told you to bow down,

obey them

and i was in your peripheral vision,

when you said, no, i will not.

and as god turned his wrath to you,

i kept you in the circle of my arms,

and stopped praying, trying to keep you 

from being swallowed by the sea of despair.

horrified, i watched something break,

and i watched my glorious morningstar,

shatter and shine with an impure light,

you turned into lucifer, the light bringer.

just when i don't think i know you anymore,

you stumble in, lips trembling and eyes flooding the earth for days,

and your fingertips mark springs of green and blue and purple,

on my arms and you say, i've never needed you more, and how do i resist?

i told you i love you,

and you brushed off my affection like a snakeskin,

and you wind down my arm, fangs sinking in,

sweet cyanide cider spilling from prayer-cupped hands.

adam's fingers trace my lips,

he walks away, cheeks stinging with shame

and anger,

in the shape of my hand.

michael pushes you through the gold gates,

and held me as hellfire burnt our hearts,

where you are, the fire only serving to illuminate the dark;

you took all the light of heaven and wrapped it around your broken grace.

i trace the red snakes around my wrists,

my lips become crimson with my heated kisses,

on your scars of love,

and if i kiss hard enough, i can almost taste you again.

i count each of my blessings carefully,

collecting them and coveting them,

and since you left,

there has been a grand total of zero.

my teeth bite the forbidden fruit, liquid lust burning,

and it gives me the courage to say,

i hate you; do not touch me; 

i am not for you, adam.

it should be harder to walk past those golden gates,

harder to leave eden and fall to earth,

but it's not, my morningstar,

it's not.

i left heaven for you,

and the gates of hell embraced me.

a/n: based on a dream and not meant to offend anyone. it's just creative licence and i'm sorry if anyone is offended by this.

we're going round in circles

1.
    i tried to write you a letter once,
       and i felt like spiders crawled out my throat,
    leaving cobwebs where all those words should've been;

        i tried to pass them off as silk,
     and i've never seen you so terrified.

2.
   you told me you were a growing boy,
      and i could feel you under my skin,
   you bloom, flowers of blue and purple,
      spring time love and part-time lovers,

   it is winter again,
     and you're taller than ever.

3.
  i dreamt that i told you what each crack in my skin meant,
      and you flooded me with your liquid kisses and pacific eyes,
  and called me your sahara.

      your eyes are thirsty now,
  and i am still your sahara.

4.
      the sun leaked blood secrets into the sky,
  and i watched the dawn arrive.
      he told me he loved me,
  and all i could say was goodnight.

5.
  you think you're funny
      and sometimes i think i'm the joke,
  i bite your punchline and fall,

      hook, line and
                             sink her.


6.
      you can't draw and i can't sing,
  but i write you love songs with my lips,
      and you make me mona lisa-smiles with your hands,

  and maybe, we don't need to be perfect,
      just happy.

a/n: sorry for the hiatus. exams and personal issues have reduced my muse to a whimpering mess.

bundle of joy

our skin and eyes and lips meet,
in a little bundle of electric blue.

we call him daniel.

jumping in puddles

moonlight's stifled by the choking curtains,
and it's something like love, something like heartache,
that curls around my heart, curls around my thighs.

i think, if i could bottle up all the empty wishes i had for you,
the pacific would look like a puddle.

Spring is ending

. f r a g i l e .
i am her and she is
[ me ]


and soon my existence
will wilt
like summer flowers.

note: sort of mini collaboration with thedreamer

spiced wine poets

add your syllables to my pentameter,

voice like wine; it's a rhyme in thyme.

venice

your tongue twists around mine,

like the r-r-rolling r's in italian.

you are my little italy, savoury skin,

and i'll discover all your canals,

humming mamma mia 

over your bubbling,

in your gondola arms.

poseidon's child

i am an ocean and you broke the moon,

still silent surface like salient sapphires,

you are a drop in me, a ripple in a pond,

leaving no corner untouched or

undisturbed.

i am a river and you are a rock,

swirling over smooth surfaces soundly,

you draw out my unending laughter,

low like a babbling brook,

unrestrained.

i am a waterfall and you are the edge of the world,

staccato stuttering as blue is crushed,

you make me hold my breath, leap of faith,

as i tip over you, spilling, falling,

endlessly.

i am water and i am flooding

the whole wide world

for you.

sixwordnovels

you're like chocolate;
i'm lactose intolerant.

my sammael

  stars b-l-i-n-k to the rhythm of your heartbeat;
you're a fallen star, forced o u t of heaven,
  for shining too bright.

angels don't feel,

and envy is a s i n.

  you blessed my brow and confessed love to my chest,
with all the Grace of heaven,
with nothing but a slow, measured blink,
  of stained-glass eyes.

midnight maze

you're the kind of guy who'd take me to see the world,
but we can't go before i show you home,

streets alight with swinging lights,
winding lines and coloured umbrellas,
shadowed faces, side by side, and where
no one matters but us.

we'd stop by a vendor, and take a drink,
cold and condensing carelessly,
mine a soursop ice blend and you get lychee,
because you're predictable, like that.

there's dust, flying up from the uneven road,
sweet meat's smoke, swirling and scented with spices,
fleshy fruit, cut open and raw, mouthwatering,
the smell of the night, musky and heated and subtle.

we'd buy satay and eat while we walk;
the night won't wait for our lunch break,
succulent meat and cool as a cucumber,
snowy rice cubes and greasy fingers entwining anyway.

flip-flops fill with grating gravel,
mosquitos bite braille up our legs,
and the stars are a map in morse,
blinking us a way out of this midnight maze,

back to a carpark, hondas all in a row,
and we have a nissan, now, so
turn the air-con up high,
as this gets pulled back from the surface of our skin.

you can show me the world,
but i can show you home.


note: 
pasar malam : malaysia night markets.

strangled moon

your curtains stifle the moonlight,
and no one can see us.

fingers trace sigils of love and protection and mine,
on your cheekbones and wrists and spine.

dusky, dark; an empty sky,
eyes woven with all its colours and brushing stardust on your skin,
blinking, flickering across, effervescent.

you're gone, tomorrow morning,
but only because he wants you to be.

pause

                             in between all these dramatic...pauses.
                                                                        p
                                                                    m
i write in ellipses...                                      u
                                  ...hoping that you'll j


safe to say, you never do.
how can you, when you don't even know,
what i'm stopping for?

leave me

take me away from empathy,
it's just a|pathy.

reflect. then deflect

i've got shards of glass and silver where my soul should be,
and whenever someone smiles, it's not really me they see.

you shield your smiles behind closed lips and closed eyes,

eyes are the windows to the soul

and your smiles are light



and i curl in to hide this emptiness.

glass cuts,

and it cuts deep.

roman goddess

don't build so many walls,
a someone whispered to me, sometime
it'll only bury you when someone
comes crashing in.


i forget the details,
and he is insignificant
(well, he is!)

walls are stupid. i'd have to
go through the effort of decorating
them with wallpaper and dulux paint
and pretty pictures. it's easier to build
pillars to hold up my temples so i
don't crash, any time soon.

rome wasn't built in a day,
but it was burnt in a night.

and my flames are blue.

grand staircase

my heart's like a winding staircase,
in an old palace fit for a queen;

it creaks every single time
you walk past me.

mannequin

when i think back to my childhood,
there is a doll.
                      no wait, that's not right;
                      i was more a mimicry of humanity
                      than something so easily different

so, daddy carved me arms and legs and
a mind of diamonds and rosewood and
sugar, and big glassy doe eyes complete
with a set of curled eyelashes as i wrapped
men around my fingers like a chinese finger
trap or a set of rings, three sizes too small,
                      but he was never really happy with me,
                      not really because there was always something too plastic
                                                                                                glassy
                                                                                                transparent about me,

this isn't a case of the bitch biting the hand of its owner,
not when the maker calls his child a whore
but you made me, goddamnit

and these are the words i will never be able to tell you,
because my mouth has been sewn shut by my web of lies;

-

i'm an unfinished work of art,

but i'm still art, right?

-

weight on my shoulders

you're scary and you know it but we both gotta admit

i can be pretty fucking terrifying too.

i can see the gratefulness in your eyes as i bite the

insides of my cheeks raw and my overbitten nails

cut into my palm and my teeth grind into nothingness.

i hold back my words because you don't need to

see this part of me, not ever and you know it, and

you're just sitting there, harsh words falling on my skin

uncommittedunfocusedundisciplinedlazyunrefinedclumsystupidstupidstupid

like a new brand of morse-code bruises.

and, maybe, that's what hurts;

you expect too much from me,

sometimes.

block

i let you fill up the silences, whispered words and stuttered sighs,

until there's this e n d l e s s rushing in my ears,

so that maybe, i won't feel so alone,

so that maybe, my screams won't sound so

c h i l l i n g.

and i let you fill up the s.p.a.c.e.s between my words, each i and t

dotted and crossed with your eyes and smile in mind,

so that other memories don't se e  p where,

where i should've apostrophied your name,

to show you're mine.

and i let you fill up the sp.a.c.es. inside my soul, because i 

never knew emptiness could be so heavy and liquid

and viscous and it's better to have you there than that

d-r--o---w----ning me in endless misery. but there's these things lying

[                   in wait between my thoughts and memories and they're                  ]

murky and malicious and malevolent and they look

and awful lot like

em|me. 

but sometimes, there's nothing left to fill, because everything,

everything is you and it scares me because there's nothing

but you where something used to be. and it scares me because

then, then i have to talk about myself instead, a broken sob and

endless crying and i have to write about myself instead, in brackets

as an afterthought or even a post-script (p.s.don'tlookoverme) and i

have to face the fact that i'm so broken i don't think even my

mother loves me.

it's not healthy, being broken

there are some days where i'm sh a tt e r ed, completely wrecked,
but more often than not, i'm just                          t                                 e
                                       e
                                                                a                                                                   t
                                                                                     d
     c
                                                      s                                                                  
                                                                                                                        r

and it seems like i've been waiting ohso long for someone, anyonepleasepleasepleasehearmeseemeloveme
to [pickup] the pi e ce s
because god knows
i can't do it myself, anymore.

yellow brick road

sometimes, i think if i squint hard enough,

i'll be able to see a road from here to you

materialise out of the ground. 

but then, i squint

too hard and the world is dark as my eyes shut

and i get too scared to open them again, especially

when i can feel these dark, shadow-folded creatures,

baring teeth and claws and talons and hate, waiting for

me in the edges of my peripheries. 

my love is bright, brighter than the stars and they'll

lead you home. but i am endlessly lost in darkness,

forever wandering, afraid and without light;

you don't
      can't
      won't love me, no matter how much i want
                                                           need
                                                           plead you to.

steps, baby, steps

hot lust threads between my talus and calcaneus, 

pulling my medial arch into a curve, 

settling behind my peroneus longus 

and gastrocnemius muscle before 

surging up my hamstring 

and that's what makes me takes the first step.

but it's the sound of your vocal chords, 

writing themselves into the staff of my heartstrings, 

the small bird fluttering around in my ribcage, 

the angel sheltered in my clavicles, pressing grace 

notes to the thudding behind my sternum so that my 

blood sings in acciaccatura in the presence of your name 

that makes me take the second one.

she is

she's always lived in between,
in grays,
and hesitation,
and dreams.

there is more to art, she says, than just technical ability.
and so i make my words t a k e  u p all this s p a c e so no one see how hollow they are,
[how hollow i am]
whilst hers--

                             inky hair and parchment skin and candle-lit eyes;
                             watch her cadenza crescendo and split a p a r t at the seams,
                             each note and simile and metaphor and feeling
                             a thrumming baseline in her head
                             as her muse tangos with shadows,
                                 and makes love to light.

i am a streetlight amongst the backdrop of a meteor shower.

for thedreamer

meteorite

i used to wonder about the stars and i dreamt that an angel told me the pagan gods of old, once angels, had compressed themselves into tiny beads and weary and tired, threaded themselves across the night's blanket, trailing feet and galaxies across the skies, looking for heaven - for home - once again.

there's a meteor shower, the night you were born,
countless shooting stars f
                                      a
                                        l f
                                          l a

                                              l

                                                l

                                                  i

                                                    n f

                                                      g e

                                                               l

                                                                         l to the earth,

pinpricks of light unfurling into tall, forgotten goddesses, all ice-cut beauty, flaxen hair and diamond-cut smiles, and they hunt for you, feet flying over the rough ground swiftly, teeth bared and voices crying out in a cacophony of harsh cries and they're hunting, hunting for you and the call of your soul is mesmerising.

seventeen years later,
they climb their way
back to the stars, weeping
like harpies as a bundle of
blotchy pink skin, tousled black
hair and henna eyes are born
in the south, because they'll
have no chance to devour
your soul, not anymore.

leap of faith

it's not right, and everyone says that, if i tell them.

but this tastes nothing like original sin,
this "i love you" whispered between the confessional
heart's lattice layer, looking for penance, words heavy
and heated, like warm blood pooling in my stomach.

but this tastes nothing like sickly sweet
apples from a fallen tree, a snake whispering
between the two of us to eat, eat, devour;
no one's looking.

(they're always looking,
and this? God's always
known.)

this can't be wrong,
this tastes sweeter than heaven and it's hotter
than hell, and more bitter and tangible than earth.

this is a blessing,
pressed to our foreheads,
like a fleeting angel's kiss.

(this is for you, because i saw the way you looked today, when they mentioned we all had original sin.
you did look back, not at me, but at something and i wanted to tell you that this is not wrong. it never will be.)

pour your heart out

my hands are laced in your hair,
glimmering golden in the sunlight,
like an intricate crown on your head.
                                                    you're not the king of much,
                                                    but i've never been a princess;
                                                    i was always, always the queen.

and i don't know how this works,
but my heart's leapt out through
my throat, a silly little effervescent
thing and flown into you, humming,
content across your skin and yet,
it's crashed down, down, d
                                         o
                                            w
                                               n
curling like a small sun in my instep,
heavy as concrete, holding me to this
moment for eternity, making sure i
don't float up && away either.
                                              
                                                   i was the woman with no spaces in
                                                   her head and in my chest and skin
                                                   which stretched over her just a little
                                                   too tightly. my fingers and bones and
                                                   the gaps inbetween my atoms have all
                                                   been filled up by my loneliness and fear
                                                   and heartache and shame and if it's all
                                                   going to spill out now, it might as well be
                                                   in your hands; i've always really really
                                                   liked them.

kissing you is unlike anything it's
like trapping a storm in a glass jam jar,
like speaking in a forgotten language,
and it all just pours out of me and you
build brick houses in the spaces left
behind so that you'll always feel like
home to me.

-case study

you speak in lowercase letters, unless you're saying MY name;
don't you think i notice?

I SPEAK IN PERMANENT CAPS LOCK, HAVING TO TRY SO MUCH HARDER
JUST TO BE SEEN ; EXCEPT WHEN I SAY your NAME, BECAUSE YOU'VE
NEVER NOT SEEN ME, HAVE YOU?

i don't know what this means, but i think i'll just keep my mouth -shut-
because, don't you think they'll notice?

elastic time

i'd like Time to stretch out between us; he slowly
braids my blackwave hair into silver chainlinks,
as your long fingers s lip in the gaps be.twee.n,
your plain gold band clinking against the identical
one on my left 2ndlast finger, like the wind chimes
we'll have on our front porch: i want to grow old with you.

la petit mort

eternity's reproduced an infinite amount of times,
in the span of time it takes for you to touch our lips together.

and it's never felt like this before.

and this can't just be simple lust;

not when the brush of your skin against mine

has me breathless already.

it's a bite of apocalypse when you do finally get round to it;
i'm stretched out underneath you, earthy expanse of brittle
brown shaking and quaking with tremors as your light-white
skin moves across mine like lightning; your voice an echo of
Gabriel's Horn, signalling the end and your fingers stroke
angel-harp ribs and i make the most jawdropping sounds.

my death is little,
and i am remade, reborn,
in your large warm hands.

verbal picture

i think, if i could be any book,
i'd be a dictionary. you'd read me,
always -- i'd be an oxford dictionary,
of course. (the best kind, you said to
me) and then i could make you words,
so that there's finally a word for the 1000
shades of blue in your forget-me eyes. so
that there's finally a word for the little half-
sigh laugh you give when you're amused.
so that there's a word out there, just for you.

if i was a dictionary, i'd make sure that you
could be [captured] on paper, scribbled on
scrap paper and stuffed in squishy pockets,
typed out in a million fonts across mac and
window screens, traced lovingly by frosty
fingers on glistening glass; you're forever.

but i'm not; i'm human and all these sighed
syllables, similes and sibilant sentences are
frag me n ted and just kind of die; there's just
not ever really enough words to take your
verbal picture, literally.

eden

you've grown into oak,
tall
               and overpowering.

sometimes, i'm the sun which
makes you thrive.

sometimes, i'm the driest leaf,
fallen too

f a r

from your tree,
the crunchy kind that's always
the best ones to step on.

sometimes,
                  sometimes, i'm a vine, smoothing out the tough knots in your bark,
                  almost suffocating and i can s . e . e  that.

sometimes, i'm just plain old yellow gorse,
huddling, dispersed under your canopic branches.

and, more often than not, i'm an azalea plant,
growing right there beside you, always.

lumen love

      i get jealous even of your carotid artery...
                                  ...
                                  ...i wish i was oxygen so you could b r e a t h e
                                      .         .          .                          .   .
                                      ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
                                           .           .         .    .     .     .                                                                          
                                       me in and i could diffuse into your cells.
                                             .          .            .           .       .
                                      ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
                                          .           .                             . .
                                    ...because i need to disperse into your s k i n,
                                                                     ...
                                                                     ...
                                                                      .
                                                                     ...
                                                                     ...
                                                                      .
...and move to the drumming of your pulse, forever.

there's nobody else to impress

she strings moons along on a silver chain to tie around her neck,
and plucks stars from the sky like it's a tesco to turn them into
earrings. she's wearing halos as a belt and dances to the wind
like she's got diamonds on her heels.
                                                               she doesn't need that from you;
                    the man with the common accent and thousand-shaded eyes
  and heaven locked away underneath his skin, Grace leaking through from
                                                         raking cuticles is more than enough.

turn up the volume

there's sunlight pouring in through your windows and i can see you wince

with each step i take across clear cream floors, each sound

amplified like a surround sound system to your heart

kickstarting it like a refibrillator, jolt by jolt.

"don't be an idiot. anyone could walk in."

"so what? have i ever cared?"
a brush of the lips is all
it takes for you to
give in to me,
all of the
time

en avril

anger clings to my skin,
the way the humid air does,
in the fourth month.

it builds up, unbearable,
and grimy and dirty,
like a second layer of
thick, heavy scratchy
burning skin.

i tell you, i'm in april,
and it does mean more
than just the month that
makes us destined or just
my birthday.

slowly, spirals send
my temper away, as
water, cooling and
clear like diamonds,
wash everything 'till
it's all so so clean.


i surround myself
in water, hydrogen
and oxygen pouring
around me like my
own april shower.

i need to let out some steam.

shall i compare thee to a summer's night?

(for the earthgoddess. i love you and keep strong.)

this is easy, you think, and purse your lips.
pillows are deppilf to the cool side as you press your feverish skin,
and you're sure you can't sleep tonight.

it doesn't take much to forget, you reckon, as red strands caress your cheek.
push them away and huff some more, soles (souls) of your feet pad-padding against linoleum ground,
his voice and hands follow achingly in your steps, thick molasses stretching out along your shadows.

you still kind of love him, you admit, and drink freezing, condensing water,
it's not that which drips steadily onto the table in front of you and each droplet shows you a thousand moons;
the stars are dead, long before you see them.

three little words

     there's something
     [trapped]
     bet-                                        -ween
            the net of my vocal chords
            like ~fish in the sea. i
p-u--l---l them kcab, that tide
    of feeling and force a different
         iambic triameter past poetry-
                                     kissed lips -

                    "how are you?"

scattered

if only, she thinks, there were enough words in the world.

.

if only, she thinks, there was enough time in the world.

.

if only, she thinks...

.

if only there was enough of me left to love you.

dear dryad daughter, time's a-tickin'

(for thedreamer)

-tick
        there's a grandfather clock adorned in twisting oak,
        and it looms above you, ancient, mad and menacing,
                                                                                       -tock,
tick-
        the pendulum's burnished edge reflects his g-g-green
        eyes and it swings serenely from one side to the o-
        ther like conversation and banter 'tween you should,
                                                                                      -tock,
tick-
        there's clear glass covering the gold as hands worry
        away across a glinting face and you've always been
        a tad transparent to those who know how to look,
                                                                                      -tock,
tick-
        marble floors just create a thousand overlapping
        shadows, parts of his personality you never ever
        wanted to see; he walks away, the best things end.
                                                                                      -tock,
tick-
        there's a grandfather clock adorned in twisting oak,
        and it looms above you, taking up it's old bad-paid
        job; it looms above you and shields you from the
        world.
                                                                                      -tock.

"i think we need to get that clock fixed."
"no, leave it. it's always been like that."

blackout

                        the air is cool and its like all the electricity in the powerlines
                        were sucked out and trapped between our brushing fingers,
                        sparks igniting like flames in the dark between us. it's all dark,
                        all around and everywhere, but you're careful, careful enough
                        to scratch, light the match to bring to life the candles whilst we
                        flutter around them like moths, not to the flames but more to
                        each other. your eyes are trapped days, a sun and sky all in
                        one, and your kiss is far too brief but your arms are on mine,
                        squeezing to keep me from melting into the darkness
                                                         ["happy birthday," he murmurs against my
                                                          lips and i just trace the powerlines of blue
                                                          electricity on the skin of his neck, quietly.]
                        the thin striped candles make the shadows glow and the
                        silences golden.

happy birthday to me.
wishes this year, include you.