midnight
sunset
dusk

isn’t it funny
how the absence of light
reminds me of you

it’s funny
because in the night of me
you are my moon
my stars
my galaxies

but i guess those things
wouldn’t seem so bright
without the darkness
so maybe
i make you shine

and, well, that makes it all
worth it.

don’t take them all, i beg
don’t take them all

rain like smoke
go to drink in a bar, too loud
go to wash you away

graves like a checklist
calligraphy hymns
adorned in black
a starless midnight
with no birds to break the silence

whiskey isn’t enough
your favourite drink
don’t take them all, i beg
but no one’s listening

rain like smoke
go to drink in a bar, alone
go to wash me away

i am the starless sky
the one without a moon
i am a cup of cold coffee
and a rainy afternoon

i am that cheap bottle
of maybe whiskey or gin
i am the preacher
that teaches you sin
i am the ocean
with a floor thats too deep
i am the memories
that play as you sleep

i am the manager
that makes you work late
i am the lessons
you learn from mistakes

i am the date
who never arrives
i am the cashier
who waits by your side
i am the lover
who christens your bed
i am the voices
you hear inside your head

i am all things
the details you miss
i am words of anger
and a sweet kiss
i am your last hope
the truth and the lie
i am the rock bottom
and i am the sky

i am the one
the only
and the true
i am the world
i am me
i am you.

it took seven days
for god to create the world.
he sprung it out of nothing
so that there was something
and when i look at you
stretched out across our bed
i know why.

the mirror against my back
is cold like ice
compared to the warmth of your tongue.

compared to your blistering heat
i am just winter frost.
the sun rises within you
and sets at your feet.
you melt the memory of things like
darkness and fear
and my own name.
you hold my rebirth
like a feather
in the palm of your hand.

he made you on the last day
when everyone thought he was resting
he made you
after light
after water
after land
he made you and then he was done.
and though the bible forgot you
each hymn that is sung
is sung in your name.

i speak the language of your flesh and bone
syllables collect in the small hollow of your back
they catch like dew
on the gentle curve of your shoulder.
i find your whispers left behind in rooms
like red lipstick on champagne flutes
and i gather them in my hands
to read like sheet music.
your alphabet is imprinted
in the cursive of my spine.
you are a stolen love letter
a tale beyond myth or memory.

you are a language
and i am your ink
i will write you across the plains
of every country
and every land
i will let you sink into the earth
so that generations to come
will travel the world just to read you.

my love,
you are everything i could ever say
words hang from you -
i trace them with the tips of my
calloused fingers on the
cocaine lines of your collarbone
and hear them sigh;
i taste them with my tongue
on your outstretched thighs
and hear them scream.

i thread your words into a rope
and string myself up in the docks
of your silence
and every time you speak
i am lost in the linguistics
of my requiem
you are the language of angels
the warriors of god
of salvation
of both peace and war on earth
a language that spans a thousand lifetimes
but can be felt in the heat of one kiss.

what are you?
i cannot make up my mind
except that i know you are a language
my language
and if i never speak another word again
i will find a million more
in the lines of your palms.

it’s no wonder they hate the night
said the Moon to the Sun
without you to light the way
the world circles you
you are all they know
and they do not want to know anything else

you shine too, said the Sun
and the Moon laughed

no, i do not shine!
i have no light of my own
i have only the light you lend me
no - i am just the darkness
the night that they hate

but you are not the night
said the Sun to the Moon
you are the one that shines through it

you light what i cannot
you see what i don’t
you are what i cannot be
and though i rise every morning
they can never really see me
for if they look too close
i burn them

but you -
you are the oceans and the tides and the waves
you are the minutes in the day
you are the ambition of Man
i may be their days
but you are their months
you are womanhood and witches
calendars and falling in love

haven’t you read the stories?
you are as much the earth
as the earth itself
and without you
the world would be blind to the stars
and the sea
and themselves

you conquer the darkness i leave behind -
i know the world can sleep safe
with you watching over them

and there is nothing brighter than you
in my sky.

I thought that you were fire
but you are just the match
that sets everyone else aflame

You think that you’re a god
but the myth only remembers
the name of the man that robbed you

You are a statue of gold
and I use that stolen fire
to melt you down into ash

You put cigarettes out on my skin
but now people use me to light them
and you’re just the smoke they exhale

You told me that you were fire
but you are just the lighter
that taught me how to burn

when you started calling me
flower
petal
sunshine
more than my actual name
and when you spent more time
holding your pen
than holding my hand
I asked you what you loved about me
so you got out your notebook that was full of poems
and threw it down at my feet
as if that was the only answer I needed
or deserved
but I had never asked for poems
and of all the words you have ever written
not one of them was my name
and how can you see me
when you spend so much of your time
looking at all the pretty things you compare me to
because I am not a poem
and did not ask to be one
and you cannot reduce me to metaphors
and simple rhymes
so when I asked you whether you loved
the words I inspire you to write
more than you loved me
you finally had nothing to say.

I am the pale small moon
and I am nothing
but a beacon for the lonely
a symbol of madness
and you are glory ablaze
your fire and passion
providing power for a thousand homes
and I could never hope to match you
in size or stature
in beauty or greatness
but when we come together
we are an eclipse
a halo in the sky
and though we are naught but light
the whole world is cast in our shadow

When we meet again
I will relight the pyre
and watch the smoke
that will dance
upon your grave
and oh how the stars will shine
out of where your eyes used to be.
I will snap open my rib cage
and reveal the heart that you forgot
in your last moments.
I will show you the scars
that you left behind
when you left me behind
that won’t fade or heal
like yours did in the ground.
I will read you the letter
that you left on your desk for me
and will expect you to
look me in the eye
and though I hope you regret it
I also hope that you
stand by what you wrote
because I had to stand by it
when they cut your body down
from where it hung
and lay you down to rest.
I hope that you stand by
the reasons you gave me
written in ink
of how no one loved you
or cared
and how you thought sorry
could ever make up for
the absence of you
I will never know
though it plagued my dreams
wondering.
I will hand you the ashes
all that was left of your body
that your parents let fly
over the open hills
of your favourite place
and I will tell you
how your mother cried
asking why
and how your father
fell to his knees
and pleaded for forgiveness
but you weren’t there
to hear him.
I will kiss you
and hold you
and hate you
and wish I could have saved you
because I loved you
but when you took your life
to escape your nightmares
I was left alone with mine
and your corpse
and no one
to warm my bed at night
but I had no ink
to write a suicide letter
and no one to say sorry to
nothing but the space
where you used to be.
When we meet again
I will tell you how
you forgot me
but never let me forget you
because though I know
how so very hard life can be
you let your pain consume you
and let the bad
outshine the good
and I think it’s unfair
that you weren’t there to see
how many people
cried at your funeral
and how many people loved
and cared for you
and while people may call you
a coward
you were always the strongest person I knew
but you let your demons win
and forgot that hell only exists
if heaven does too
so I hope you can forgive me
for hating you sometimes
and thinking you hated yourself more
than you loved me
and that you took away my heaven
and left me in hell.
When we meet again
I will remind you that
when you took your life
you kind of took mine too
except that I was
awake at the funeral
and that resting and peace
were never options for me.
When we meet again
I will tell you that I loved you
but that I moved on
in a way that you never could
and maybe
just maybe
I will thank you
for letting me go.

I.
I squeeze this body I have
into something the industry made
for only half of me.
The mirror tells me no.

II.
The girl in the expensive makeup store
shows me her nails which are
I-did-them-myself perfect
and every time I look at her
I struggled with the desire
to claw my own face off.
I remember to smile.

III.
With a well-rehearsed smile
I insist that I do not care
and my name is marked off
in a weigh-watchers meeting room
for being yet another narcissistic statistic
who apparently has missed
the point.

IV.
A magazine article tells me
that I am beautiful no matter what
but the next article admits
that it is a lie.

V.
I wait and waste my life away
caring about my weight and waist
and if I forget about either one
someone else is there to remind me.

VI.
Tape measures are left on my pillow
like complimentary chocolates
and though I try
every morning and night
I am still confused about what exactly
they are meant to measure.

VII.
My body weighs nothing at all
but my shame pulls me down and
sometimes I feel like Atlas
holding up the weight of the world
on my shoulders
and it is a world
that will not thank me
for it.

He cupped it gently.
Blood dripped, staccato, to the floor.
Ruby red and luscious; thick like paint.

There was a fleck of it on his hand so he wiped the back of his knuckles against the rough fabric of his white waistcoat - 
the stain would come out. He tightened his grip, cocked his head and stared. His shoulders lifted a little, lazy.

What would you have done with it? he asked.

There was a hole in my chest. I traced it with my fingertips. 

Not that, I said.

birds flew from her mouth
golden wings
white tail feathers
an apex predator
a queen
a funeral pyre
the gravestone
she would push aside
as she stalked through the jungle
of her own denial
thoughts developing
like photographs
in her crooked claw
free and absolute
no escape.

lightning flares 
dusk is yellow grey
thunder beats
against the window 
like the pulse of a dream 
in my centre 
there is an ocean 
the waves lap at my ribcage 
there is the lull of an
undisturbed earth 
my spine is made of the lead
of blunt pencils 
and the pages of
forgotten books

there is sadness
in thunderstorms

i will disintegrate into april rain
and overflow into the empty
space around me 
i will erupt across the sky
as your lungs expand 
a slash of lightning
burning into the barren valley
sharp hot bright
unquestionably strong

i am a thunderstorm
and there is sadness
in me 

living
is freefalling through an
endless
empty
all-encompassing
abyss
there is no light 
there is no warmth 
you can only fall
torn between the terror
that you will someday
hit the bottom 
and the hope that someday
the falling will cease

a clockless tower
tolls in the night

there are footsteps
of ghosts
marks where chains
were dragged

in the distance
a church
no one enters
no leaves

eyes look out
from behind the glass
the altar
is scratched
an empty cup
rolls gently
across the floor

chimes sound but
there is no wind
no one enters
no one leaves

the mass continues
their prayers

amen
amen 
amen

there is nothing
and no one
but those
so afraid of death
they climbed from their graves
barred the doors
so no dead could pass
and no dead could come

no one enters
no one leaves
they are no one
but ghosts
who hate ghosts
who pray
not knowing what they pray for
but so very afraid
of what would happen
if their hymn
was to cease.