the father left but someone needs to be blamed
let a small body thrive off wrongful accusations
and its only instinct will be to apologise
i keep the questions to myself
i keep the things i want to tell you to myself
until you tell me not to so i don’t
but it always ends with screaming, or crying, or both
you ask why and i say i’m sorry
i think about how you taught me to never talk to strangers
but how we probably should
in an open room on a sage couch, across from one with a notebook
maybe it’s time to talk about forgetting to turn off the hallway light again
or leaving it on purposefully
it’s hard to be sure when you’re that scared of the dark
and because you calling me selfish for wanting to be happy
hurts almost as much as it does to remember being 7 years old
when happy
was all i ever wanted for you
i promise
Tag: spilled ink
not everything belongs to you
to read the same book over and over
and expect a different ending
let me rewrite the story, my version
don’t worry, we still don’t end up together
but at least the season we pass through will be a little less winter
the silence not so static
and then maybe i can toast the memories
where the rain has funnelled to my cheeks
crying until the air is too bitter to breathe
to own the heart that will never stop trying
run hours to the beach just because
there is a higher chance of shooting stars here tonight
he sweeps me off my feet and i hate myself for having legs
fingers absentmindedly reaching and i am terrified of having hands
i tell my mother about the tall boy and she thinks of you
like your leaving was broken glass and i’m still swallowing
but some nights i fall asleep on the couch
dream of enough moonlight to wash me breathless
that’s how i know i made it out
that’s how i know there is still a chance to become
poetry
a long time coming
when they ask to hear the story years later i will tell it in the moment
how it was so near to the beach
if you closed your eyes and the trains were far enough
you could feel the jetty creak beneath the weight of glowing bones
a summer dusk in october
we watched the sun set for an hour
until the sky was dark enough for three-year-old words
to crawl out from our lips without the other seeing
our bodies softest when we wore the ocean
the mid-autumn moon nods you have waited long enough
so i let the waves drench an opportunity into my hair
your fingers searching until there is no skin left untouched
captured in noisy grainy footage
carried up the staircase
i say i’m ready and i think a part of you is terrified to be first
innocence stretching sterile white
a hospital hallway you navigate all too easily
how much does it takes for a heartbeat to rupture the stethoscope?
how dare the universe let it hurt so much to be whole
your mouth pressing petal skin bruised
no veins left unfound
whispering promises in a voice spun floral
pursed lips blossoming and then
broken
afterwards, i think i am thankful
for your body, your hands
your timbre in the dark
when i leave in the morning you ask if i’ve left anything
i say no
but i have
i know i have, and you do too
don’t tell me this story
unless it has a happy ending
i have heard how it goes
summer romances wilting under the heat
voice signals lost along the distance
a shiny new toy has-been discarded
there is no way to miss broken into whole
and i think you know this
it’s not hard to hear a heart that pedals your name
there is not enough time for us
even when it is all i have to give to you
here is where the time signature shifts
i lose count of the beats and fall out of step
outstretched fingers not enough to make contact
and i think you want space, i think you want space
i beg but you say it out loud anyway
and then it is real and i want to go back to sleep where
in dreams someone hands me a phone
and your voice is already waiting
in dreams someone hands me a sledgehammer
to break down the walls
and there is enough room for me to stay
sensitive souls
turn off the lights so darkness may smudge
your silhouette outlined against the sycamore and
i may not have to feel how vividly you leave
hoping the universe can forgive
the twelfth time i got it wrong
how i crashed into the echo of a changed mind
listening to ringback tones bleed out
silent phones and empty mailboxes
awaiting hardcover books sun-faded
music scores played yellow
go easy on this abandoned cactus heart
too grating for berceuse hands
empty it into the air your voice used to wrap around
wound it back into my chest and ask her to try again
how badly i didn’t want it to be like this
i smile and then cry about it afterwards
plead to forget the night you spoke about fragility
reprised with slow voices and hushed hands
spinning vulnerability so lyrical
i wanted to give you all my softness
letting me read to you all the
scriptures of a hopeful heart
praying it wouldn’t ricochet an epitaph
then finding myself on the synagogue floor, hating
that you proved me right
like fish to water
tonight is feeling vulnerable and
i don’t want you to be two years away
wearing moonlight and lying in cotton sheets
the hues of your voice threading
a softness i wish i could be hugged by
i speak and speak but there are
not enough words
to build a hand to hold
so play a key to unlock the pianos and
write a fantasia so red
they’ll see spilt wine scrawled on bold walls
splashed over shower thoughts and 3am giggles
speech soaked to start the same and silenced
only when you kiss me light-bodied
a nocturne so blue
we’re drawn to a beach where it is dark
you’ve picked me up and i’ve let you pay
the shore stretching on for seconds
consecutive thirds and perfect fifths
i think i am ready to leave
the candle light flicker and melt
into the magma once more
we can cross borders instead of minds, fall
off the grid into vibrant monochrome and return
to the city we hold beneath our tongues
chase sixteen subway lines to an alley so foreign
so late, i almost mistake it for a dream
but then there is your voice, glowing scarlet
settling onto my cheekbones and it is so real
say one day you will let me win and
finally tell me everything
wrap stars around the syllables of my name, then
memorise a constellation into my eyes
that i am your horoscope, and vice versa
like fish to water
how to exit a body
there are good days and there are bad days
then there are days when they hold a broken mirror
to your face and say
this is a self-portrait
press seven shards of bad luck into your palms
like petals between pages
under the weight of a thousand words in every voice
except your own, but
you read them all anyway
let them take up space
your head, so heavy
and the bones in your legs aching like steel rods
this is how a lost train must come to resent its cargo
this is why people hide from store windows, and
calm lakes and silver spoons
you pour and you miss and you’re still left half empty
you want to speak and not hear your voice
you want to crawl out of this skin
burn the bad bits, then return
but you’re scared of being left with nothing
chaos theory
somewhere
a bat flaps its wings and
you
storm into my life
this is how we bloomed, in the distance strung by RNA
behind locked doors and masked smiles
you call me before we sleep
my face so close to the phone when i blink my lashes sweep the screen
and you fight to be heard over my heartbeat, a voice
so soft that it makes me want to fall
(again)
into a dream about the sage rural town
where we spend the days making smiles and the nights love
and you are never far enough for me to miss your laugh
but then i was afraid
the light would fall asymmetrically and you would hate
trees that grew enough to give shade
maybe you were scared i would let go of your hand
in library aisles where the words eat
you, like the beast inside your head
your voice on the phone too soft
for my hands to catch, i let it go
out into the cold draught
where we nurture the dying orchid
but somewhere
we manage to hold off june for a little longer
i roll your name off my tongue without fear of losing it
we watch foreign tv shows and dance on the three-point line
sing lyrics to songs we cannot name in the key of every goodbye we’ve heard
tell me the story again
the one where he spelled her teeth so loose
when her tongue asked him to stay they filled up her mouth
and there was blood and space and nothing to bite
tell me it will never happen to us
say it, even as you hold
the pliers behind your back
leave this behind
let the wind carry you away
it will stop raining here
someday
silence
you call me on the phone
crying, because you do not think you are a good person
they said we could be anything but we chose to be silent
and it is so beautiful to be alive
but only until a man is just a body
until our taped lips kiss the chest motionless
until teeth grind the tongue into a stone
upon which racism sharpens its blades
the silence
that means
there is a grown man on his knees we cannot pray for
a grown man pleading for his mother we cannot save
sirens sounding more like warnings than rescues
somewhere there is a boy who kisses his mother goodnight
and the silence nurtures that same mouth
to one day spit bullets
in the morning the stillness gnaws like a guilty conscience
awaken from a veil of sleep so deep and
there is nothing left but to use our teeth and knives
cut through the layers like razorblades to skin
promise to push our voices up against the glass
and scream
until it breaks
man
silence, man’s favourite food for you
feeds you every time you call
eating more but becoming less
ride up the hem to let them see skin
draping over your ribcage
so you never forget where you came from
only a part of something so much more whole
man likes to see the top of your head
your wings his favourite punching bag
fingers leashed around your neck
pray your knees bruised
swallow
the words you want to speak
swallow
everything about him
smile, but don’t show too much teeth
dentist hands hunting for a cavity
filling you with sweet lies
waiting for him is still time spent with him
11pm, the first time you hear from him all day
man likes it when you wait
for him, but not for your first time
give, give, give
he asks your camera lens dirty
man loves it best when he pushes you off a cliff
so he can talk about saving you
