She’s blooming in the sunlight,
moonlight, glimmering like seaside salt.
Melting in her arms as if
we were honeycomb on toast.
Sticky kisses, curls and freckles,
never hungry, bless your soul.
It's the rose flavour in the water
that somehow brings my breath to halt.
Why do I hurt myself so?
Beat myself to your own drum,
to which I march in vapid squalor.
I soldier on, step lead and glum.
Why do I rescind my valor,
my misery worn on your tongue.
I watch it dig up old wounds, shallow,
deliver my heart to a loaded gun.
Anew your smile triggers my scorn,
ere had I hoped my thoughts would hallow.
I thought this fear was long since shorn,
But it's ingrown deep, to my bone marrow.
I feel an itching sense of ruin
as if everything will go wrong.
Like a black cat on a dead man's chair,
I disregard where I belong.
I feel an uninvited presence
of imminent, unknown despair.
Yet I've no hints of what will tumble.
I only know, somehow, I'll break.
What's it worth to wish for
a lover singing in the garden,
when your heart is trained forever
on all the shadows of the house.
You're the spider, pretend lover,
Dye me pink when my blood runs dark.
Paint red my cheeks that slowly hollow;
Drink me, neglect me, tear me apart.
String my wrists up where your illusion
can make-believe his full control,
You're webbed so deep into delusion
you've made saints of what sinners brought.
Here you play house with ceilings burning,
cat-and-mouse to where it's found no more,
your sense of self and your sense of loving
have warped and wrapped and worn your core.
You and I had our last dance
Barefoot on the blueberry shrub.
On the green and blue, the black and violet,
Where cattle bells rang and turned mountains violent.
I wonder if you knew?
As we spun and smiled and stomped the yew.
I wonder if you felt, in your bones as cold night fell,
That the day was soon to come where I would leave you.
I alone had our last dance
as a lone dog tied on the terrace,
Sang unheard by any other, howling at the sun.
Barefoot on the grass, chewed the leash and ran back home.
June, July, August, September,
On November fifteenth,
Yes, I remembered.
Your kisses taste like hawthorn,
your words prickle just the same.
You could not promise not to strike me,
now I wonder why I stayed.
I chewed up holly berries
and licked my wounds until the day:
the day the wind took pity on me
and pulled me up and far away.
Far away across three borders,
across the seasons I would race
to where you could reach me no longer,
to where I’d never see your face.
Darling, I only think about you
when there’s poison in my veins.
Beneath your lips and your fetters
Every piece of my body festers.
It’s those mornings of coffee and tea,
Sweet and heavy from milk and honey.
What was it for, drinking such candy,
With the bitter spiel you spilled inside me?
I take bitter swigs of the morning now;
Masking the taste never made it better.
I am full of the things you left behind
But at least the see-through glass is honest.
The deference, romantic, of an artist to their muse.
She's the statue that grows from stone on her own accord,
unlinked to human ruse.
As I stray further away I feel the sun slip through my fingers.
The heat does not burn my hands, but somehow my heart still tingles.
The memory of my cheeks red-kissed, feverish,
malingers.
The honey burned like whiskey but it could not set me ablaze.
Yet this is the mellow warmth that melts sugar, skin, and candle wax.
Enough was the temptation for pen to lay itself on paper,
to willingly spill ink from the glass, on her dress.
Dilated pupils and open petals, giving way to a heaving chest.
Sticky kisses, heat-hazed roses, licked my lips and laid to rest.
The sun swims ever farther from our place along the shore,
And with bright strings it plays the tune of raindrops on a glass door.
Why do you keep me here?
What are you trying to prove
To yourself…so stiff and stubborn…yes.
Isn’t it?
That only men can clip the wings off of birds.
It’s not the truth but you insist
on imitation
of all the other keepers that revolved the door before you
in our prison.
And I remember an ugly vision,
wretched words and rough limbs on olive trees.
No longer am I crushed beneath you,
But I still sometimes succumb to
the pale reverence of that which is beautiful.
I'm completely useless
at anything other than friends.
I can't do good for anyone beyond that,
and that's alright,
thats fair.
I was just not made for the rest.
It's not inside me, my shallow depths
are clear and blue, but shallow nonetheless.
Throughout the listless pools and restless waters
I am fine as I was made.
Regardless of how I would like to,
I'm an argument that holds no water.
I'll remain a leaking pail, and spill
your feelings,
all, like rain.
When the tears slow down and the ripple's settled,
When the tide has fallen once again,
Back at you, what is reflected?
Is it your face?
Something lurks in the call of night,
Transparent and black glass.
Stacked of crystalline thin bones
breaking apart the light.
Glittering sounds under the rain, it's singing
Songs of eons and love and pain.
Long along had it cast far the stinging
world that bore them, and bound the chain.
When the ink begins to bleed the paper
And the morning begins to pry,
crawling its way along the horizon.
Mischievous, charming, they crack a smile.
At night the black, bright, crystal howls.
Deep in their castle, upon the clouds.
And they're breathing whispers come near the daybreak,
sunlight's performing, dapper, devilish heartache.
You say your lips are bleeding and you can’t tell why.
But there you go, you keep
Licking my heart up from the blade side.
You say you’re burning up, with feverish cheeks.
When your lips bear the stain of liquor,
And your tears crawl down my drain like rancid cinnamon tea.
You say your skin runs cold as the linens fall, unfold...
But somehow you suppurate warmth, insistent, onto the mattress.
And you cling to the knife, affection virulent, rife, uninvited.
Violent.
Then you blossom on my skin,
reddened, purple, crystalline.
I realized tonight:
That it is not wrong of me to be afraid,
That is it not wrong of me to be affected.
To think about you
To still think of you.
To breathe heavy, to speak of my memories and feel
as shivers and shakes slowly crawl from within my bones.
I shall not be embarrassed, I mustn't.
Because it was not a simple heartbreak
for me to heal from quickly and forget,
it was horror, it was pain, your screams pulsating in my brain.
The desire to vomit out my heart and my guts,
to say goodbye to any piece of me that could feel,
is nothing of which I shall draw any shame.
And I needn't accept the blame.
I realized the guilt you paint on me is not my business.
You who cannot see the role you play in your own misery.
If I was so evil, why am I so afraid?
I realized the sting is not love but lightning.
The quick heart beat and the electric static, making my hair stand up on end.
I am not embarrassed to feel afraid even though I am stronger.
And the reason you hang around my mind is not any love but unfinished business,
the me in your arms is but a ghost of past days. Of you and I, all that remains
is the splintered bones and skin I've shed.
Your slender fingers weave the web
As the ring-tone rings I lie in bed.
Hostile whispers from the telephone,
When the key clicks the door, say:
Honey, I’m home.
A poem I do not remember,
A room that I cannot forget.
When I burn the papers they spill, under the bed
letters I have no memory of writing
whisper my name, songs laud and dread.
As they sing me to sleep, caress me,
their small grips force my head.
A heavy hand spins threads entwining, holding
me down, I'm Gulliver.
When your call disrupts the telephone
Open your throat from the depths and roar
Your belligerent pleas of affection.
On your knees weeping the contradiction
of a lover feeding on prey's affliction.
A martyr preaching polluted prayers,
whose words of love are built like fetters.
Kiss my husk and bring it tender,
ever closer to the ember.
Somewhere you linger in seclusion.
Arachnid, languid, lilliputian.
From death-like stupor our lips turn blue.
Split apart your ribs and coo:
Darling, I Love You.
I feel an impending sense of doom.
Thin bottled pills won’t cull the gloom?
I wonder why I sprout this fright,
Blooming as the clock signals for night.
Beneath my skin I tremble, weak,
Yet my eyes won't seem to weep.
I know when I feel the call of dark
it's time to wait for the morning lark.
Why does the clock strike at my heart,
the hands at ten and two tear me apart.
The hands at eleven and twelve pull me closer
to the edge of despair which I won't muster.
I feel an impending sense of doom
when it's time to quiet beneath the moon.
I rip at my face with determination
for blood and scabs whisper me absolution.
Tonight I call to you with music,
I want to see you in my dreams.
I want to tell you all the new things
I’ve learnt from plucking out your stings.
Tonight I summon you in hushed whispers,
Puzzle-piece you from memories,
To let you know how much I hate you
I want to see you in my dreams.
I have no memory of your voice now
But I still clearly hear your words.
I want to spit the truth back at you,
I want my tongue to cut like swords.
Tonight I’ll force you into my dreamscape,
I’ll wrestle you into my sleep.
So I can spill on you forgiveness.
So I can pull apart your seams.
I shall uproot that meek box garden
Where I was bound lifetimes ago.
I see the bars and taste the water
Of that grey room in summer's core.
Oh angel! how low you've fallen,
A bad dream calling from the depths.
I shall rename him Prince of Slumber.
Tonight I'll see you in my dreams.
Dear mother, father,
I've grown tired
This world won't let me disappear.
When I was young I thought
that I’d be dead by seventeen
But I kept following orders and now
Somehow I’m still here
It becomes increasingly difficult to follow orders
Because they want to convince themselves
That they’re good people, that “do what makes you happy”
is the right thing to say, when even they don’t follow it themselves
You won’t just let me disappear
So tell me what you want from me!
You want me to stick around, then give me orders
I’m sick of pretending I want to be here
There’s so much I love, people and things
That make me happy, but it’s not enough.
It’s not enough to justify another ten or fifty years
I don’t want it
They won’t just let me disappear
When I was young I thought that I’d be dead by seventeen
Now I’m twenty and I hope I’ll at least be dead by fifty
Please just let me disappear
How dare you call me selfish
When it was you who put me here
I don’t want to pay for someone to convince me
Please, fuck, just let me disappear.
You had no plan, why put me here?
If you love me, please,
just let me disappear.
And you can’t see it because I can’t let it out.
I look like I’m taking a nap but in my head I’m losing my mind
Im hitting my head again the wall, scratching my knuckles until I bleed, screaming, rolling on the ground
Im breaking furniture and my mood swings so violently I can’t keep up, I can't even look at myself
But I can’t let it out
I don’t know how to let it out
I’ve lived like this for so long, that I physically can’t let it out
My body just shuts down
I get aggressive and I get angry and sad and crazy
And my body gets sleepy, so I lie down
And I close my eyes and disconnect
All the while inside I’m losing it
And I’m afraid of what it would look like if I ever snapped and let it out
Because there’s so much of it
But all my body lets me do is cry
All I do is scratch my skin and cry
And fall asleep again
And my brain forgets what I even thought or what I even felt
Until it comes back up and I remember
And I fall asleep again.
