Tag Archives: love

float

I know. I know
it feels so unavoidable after
all the things that have cruelly
unjustly happened to you
I know. I know
that it is so unfair how
you have suffered and trialled
and how it seems impossible
not to stand in front of the mirror
and cry at the girl there,
imperfect and scarred and
lost
I know. I know
how it feels to want nothing
how it feels for dreams to exist as
nothing but a dull black hum
how sleep is the only thing
that takes the edge off of your
jagged existence
but I know. I know
that misanthropy is not forever
it does not have to be your way
the purity of living is here
for you and you
do not have to drown yourself out
of being
you are bigger than the
sum of your tragedies
come to the healing pool
expect pain in every
new place you go
float on its salt waters
and throw your heart into life
again
because you know. you know
that whatever you have to fear
is not worse than
isolation and hatred.
survive, darling
I promise
you will love
your life again.

blonde

little child, blonde
eyes blue as welsh waterfalls
it is not your fault
that you were hurt
it is not your fault
that you found things hard
little boy, blonde
with clouds in one eye
they told you that you
were not innocent
you were bad
and well
you need to know
that a few broken toys
stitches in the lip and
scribbles on the wall
were not
deserving of beatings
on school mornings
you need to know
that when you cry
you do not need to be ashamed
that when you cried
because you were hurt
that it was valid
you did not deserve
to be punished
for things you
could not control
little child, blonde
showing off your missing teeth
I wish I could hold you
now and whisper strength
into your young ears

new

I stood at the door to my new life
full of fear and tears
so desperate to find the key
under the piles of newspapers from 2004
that littered my desk
the smell of brass was a taunt
from morning til night,
knowing it was so close to my hand
but still lost.
then he came and shook me
awake at two in the morning
opened my eyes
“I am just
like you.
the papers are yours
they don’t belong to god
so get a
fucking move on”.
I found my key
and I walked into the
world that had been waiting
for me
I in my rarity and he in his
reminding each other that
our gifts of perception
are not gypsy’s curses.
my friend,
thank fuck for you
and here’s to our health.
my brother,
you’re more than a diamond
in a sea of glass shards

prince

I used to think he was a prince,
and I wrote about him with diamonds
flowing from my pen.

I stared at him in wide eyed
wonder whilst he slept
in my bed, and I so wanted to
plant myself in his soil
and grow my smothering bindweed
around him.

I let the waves of
obsession and lust
wash over my heart,

and oh,
those waves were so
lovely for a time

(until they came crashing down
and I screamed for three
whole hours when I realised
he did not plan on falling in
love with me).

then he was gone and
I was powerless and
angry and consumed by
my need for his
royal validation.

“I hate you!
come back,”
I whispered into our letters,

and my pen flowed
not with diamonds but
poisoned well-water.

then time passed
and I grew and
flowered and blossomed and
shed my buds and became
an oak.

and
when he came back
(because that is what
always seems to happen),

he wasn’t a prince and
his hair wasn’t spun gold anymore.
he was just a man.

I wasn’t his arrow
and my burns had healed

no longer so susceptible to
drops of water and kisses.

I revelled in our connection
and nothing more.
I looked at him and he at me.

uncomplicated and free
and true in our humanity and our
normalcy and our faultery
and our fuck ups.

maybe now that I am a tree
and not a twining unwanted stem
I can be like this
and feel joy for its simplicity
instead of dissecting its
fragile meaning.

or maybe I will muse and see
that my desire for his turrets and towers
ebbs away with the moonlight
trickling down my thighs as
the lap of the warmest tide
goes out. 

we shall see, little prince.

torches

yes, she brings me flowers
wrapped tight in a tesco bag
more than one smile
dances on her face, and
so I look and learn there
in that great establishment of education

she never grieves
she lives
she puts pain in the
wicker basket on her bicycle
and cycles into the sun
no matter how heavy it may be

she is a stream, river
and a fountain waterfall all
together at once, not
without mud or silt but
flowing, flowing, flowing always
washing us clean of
our sins and sorrows

with this power of water
she could erode us
but she chooses to make us float
she could drown us
but she chooses to cleanse us
she could guide us foolish sailors to our deaths
but she chooses to hold great torches up as guides

thank god,
thank god for her
I think as milk comes out of my nose
while I snort and shriek with laughter

threads

there is a
wall there now
I can’t see it with
my eyes but
I can feel it with
every jangled nerve

your elbow
permeates brick
and cement
to rest on mine
it is rude
and tenacious

you don’t
look at me
the way you
used to
so I wonder if
you felt it too

surely you did
I was picking
shards of cement
out of my hair
for days
on end

the hair on
my skinny forearm
stands up
to attention
soldierly
full of electricity

I look and
the golden threads
on yours
are laying flat
with no
visible disturbance

so I suppose
I won’t spend
any more time
wondering what
you dream of
when you’re alone

rope

he is a
wooden a-frame
an old one,
resolutely standing
at the side of
the school hall,
just waiting
to be climbed and clambered upon
by the tenth generation
of children.
you would think
time should have
weathered the pine,
should have
made it splinter and break
but still it retains
its polished surface
and strength,
somehow.

I am
not a wooden a-frame,
more a hanging rope
that burns the hands
and sways unpredictably
fun to climb
hard to
get down from.
but a treasured
piece of
school gym equipment,
nonetheless