midnight iridescence

aren’t we still young
enough to have everything we can get our hands on?
but say you’ve stopped searching and i’ll put away the telescope
don’t you know by now how truly this laugh belongs to you
pulled from a hollow of my body only you can find
spun to wrap around every single one of the jokes you make
overspilling like if an ocean were poured into an empty river bed
i rush to catch it in my mouth
your open lips giving mine another breath to catch
a voice folding like evening fog until it covers my entire body to sleep
promise to visit my dreams and i’ll pray for arms
strong enough to pull you through into the morning
that smells of more than smoke and mirrors
the windows clean enough to let through sunlight
we’ll wake up in the city we balance on our tongues
name metro stations so far we won’t be able to find our way home
and even you are lost in an alley so foreign, so late
we could never be strangers again

metamorphosis

still a silhouette weighing like an ache that
yearns to be written into words
the pile of love letters in the desk corner
an sos for anyone whose heart still has enough
untouched land to call home
his smile glimpsed in the flash of a light change
a midnight street crossing and i am young
but not this young to fall again inside a kaleidoscope
sealed into a november evening

the bravura of a violin concerto brushing back my hair
bare hands breaking open old habits to bottle
let the rain tonight sing songs other than missing you
unclasp the hammer wedged beneath my teeth
because there is nothing left to fix, but so much to build
let my tongue be a cocoon, not a nail
not penning the words to bring him back home

with you the light always falls in the right places
so much honey we forget about sunset
and it stays golden all through the night
the water ripples so soft i mistake it for being still
your body so close i mistake it for being mine
and you say
it’s not a mistake

following in your footsteps

how long does it take for a raindrop to fall
from a cloud to the ground? i want to hear your voice
filling from spaces other than a memory
washed out on an empty shore, fading
high tides until there is no sand left, no message
no bottle, no footprints but it continues to rain
the sound of a ventilator being switched off collecting
into a puddle around my feet, your silhouette stolen
by the unassuming waves until i cannot pick your hand
out from a line-up, holding an umbrella, my palm
at seven years old, an iv drip pierced like a rose thorn
into a gardener’s wrist like some kind of sick joke in my dreams
you die, over and over, i am twelve years old
and i cannot find my next birthday

another ten years for me to chase the road that you walked
practice medicine and what i would have said to you
over and over until it fits in the space it takes for the graduation
cap to be tossed to the sky i love you i love you i love you
this is for you this is for you this is for you for it to fall back
into my hands, with your reply i love you i’m so proud of you

and here you are again

condensation groping the car windows
conversations where the others always left
pinned like a butterfly, broken wings and you don’t know what to do with your arms
him, writing with a pen you have seen too many times before
pressing so hard the next six months are bruised hungry
there is so much more of you that you want him to hold but he has run out of hands
run out of patience
run out

run

silly girl, here you are again
you don’t know how to be afraid in front of anyone but yourself
so you spit out all the teeth and fill your mouth with blood
redness all you can see and he hands you an apple to swallow whole
looks into the exit wounds pierced through your pupils and asks why he cannot enter
the bones consulted clean and there is nothing left to wait for
just you, a body strategised down to a joke all his friends are in on
and him, a punchline force enough to make you cry

one-way street

tonight the streets are clean
enough for the traffic lights to change for no one
and i cannot help but wonder how your voice sounds in love
heart racing the indicator of a red sedan
bright enough to burn the flames cold

now we are in the same city again and last time you swore
that meant a second chance for us to make it right
but that was before you held her hand on the drive home
her body proving close enough to hear without speaking
how easily the pillow learns to memorise another skull

i crack open my chest and instead of a heart there is a car
sinking in a river with water flooding the shape of your name
there is drowning in every vein
but the breathlessness feels so familiar
when my body is on your receiving end

say the end of the road was always meant to drive like this
two copies of the same polaroid, one in a four-year landfill
the other pressed between lungs like a beating heart
because if it was always going to be like this
maybe i was never to blame

tequila lips

twenty five platforms but he flips through bank notes
manages to find yours
sun-kissed cheeks burnt red like blush, an alarm
or maybe we were just that close to christmas
the bells didn’t sound out of place
like how blood belongs in an operating theatre
scalpel eyes kinder under the siphoned light of dusk
in dim lighting of a mexican bar
spiced corn popping beneath his tongue
uber backseat and the tequila begins to taste like a mistake

he turns off the lights and you can no longer see his eyes
just skin on skin and his teeth investing into your consent
no, no, no
dangling from your tongue but still yours
leans in to bite, over and over
push and pull like a newcomer surfer who cannot reach the shore
he finally concedes but it rubs like defeat
like margarita glass rims and a dried-up ocean, cracking

afterwards, his eyes do not look at you
your voice bubbles an olive branch into the air
fill silence that is your fault, your fault, your fault
the smoke clears and there is only one body left on the bed
he leaves and you can’t find an earring
maybe there is a butterfly in his pocket
if so, let its wings effect a nosedive, a recession so sharp
he almost wants to apologise

open up

hi, i’ll be your student dentist today

to be 18 and alone in a city that taps the back of your teeth
retracted in lime green and lemon verbena
to fall in love in turquoise blue on tipped toes
and let down a summer later, gently (?)
into plastic ridges and rubber sulci
clawing 12km up fractured metal cusps and diamond drills
open, she opens and you miss it
secrets tucked in fascial spaces spread hands shaking
to skirt an icy border without losing balance
hush, one day at a time
him and him et al.
red lip stains on red wine glasses

now we gather one last time
the mouth of a crossroad ready to swallow us whole
farewells i’ve prepared closing up my throat
roll them like marbles but keep them within reach of my tongue
afraid to let them fall because if they do then it’s real
if they do then this is goodbye and i won’t see you again
you tell me to smile because the end means we made it
and i laugh, because we’ll have a career for that

hi, i’ll be your student dentist today

it’s not your fault

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

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