Bull's Eye

I like it when you smile so sweetly and say

I’m out of my mind

Like you don’t mind, like it’s not so bad.

And I’ll hold you to it,

I hope you mean it,

The fear of otherwise might just make me fall apart—

When you said you’d like me in any way I hope it included that.

When you talk about the things we could do, in three months, on my birthday, in a year...

Do you really want me to stick around that long? Promise me it’s not just talk—

It’s not all talk.

I’ll try to keep my skin intact 

So you don’t cut your lips on my wrists or cheeks or thighs,

Is that alright?

Let these horns that run through my bloodline not take you as their bullseye.

Oh but darling I come from the future—

(It was all talk). 

Tidings

The charred skin peels off to reveal tidings of the end

Come forth, loved one, let us make an emend

My pretence sounds like poetry but I whisper it through rain

The images pitter-patter into dreams I will not deign

Then the cold drops burn my fingers

And the place where your fevered kiss malingers

Honeycomb on Toast

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.

Tinfoil Soldier

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.

Shiver

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.

Verse – Garden

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.

Pantine, Panting

Pantine, panting,
She cries.
Sinks her teeth into white lies.

And you insist
that you've been truthful,
but six feet below is where the blessing's fruitful.

Arms in thee pieces,

Long dormant and strapped tight,

Wriggling beneath the lantern, biting the knuckles white.