ghost

Her nail polish was chipped and her hair was wet when she arrived on my doorstep.
I thought she was a ghost so I offered her a cocoa

She seemed of and not of
in and out of the hour
Spinning whilst standing still

It made me dizzy
I closed my eyes and she kissed her hand to mine, with strength and gentleness.

She told me her life in still images,
in screen shots and flashes

It didn't all make sense, but it felt like sense
it was made up of ear pops at high altitude, and endorphin rushes,
Of wrong steps and cigarette burns
Of hard breathing and the smell of bleeding

She stabbed me with the memory of the knife. 
And with the memory of dying she killed me.
And with the sensation of ending, she calmed me.

She showed me her life.
She showed me it all. 

don't scald yourself on the bathwater
Burns your feet, makes them so hot they feel cold.
And you always expect it to get better
You boil slowly without noticing
A frog on simmer
Need to count your heart beats
when you talk
boom boom     boom boom     boom boom
getting faster aren't they?
Speeding up?
You're in the hotseat now
It's only a matter of time and money
and time is money
so really its all about the cash.
Pay up
run
run your rat race
on it spins,
don't fall - no take 2s allowed

Because it's weird when women shave their arm hairs

They told her the clothes clothed her in self respect.
The coverings covering the body.

They told her freedom freed her, from control of men.
And from female concepts of feminine.

They told her working would be working towards equality.
House wives and house husbands in proportion

They told her to carry on, carrying on until things got better,
An indefinite juggling act with inexperienced jugglers.

They told her progress couldn't progress overnight.
She'd never asked it to.
She just waited patiently in the kitchen

She walked the streets naked,
With old dried flowers clenched in her left hand,
Lillies, and babies breathe withered and brown,
Long stems grazing the sidewalk

The street lights were on at dusk today, and the sky was clear and smelt of wet dogs and car fumes and takeaway containers abandoned in the sun.

She veered to the left and to the right, keeping no pace and forcing no direction, she staggered in sobre drunken circles,

She wasn't crying, her stare was vacant and blind, she curled herself around an oaktree when she found one.
encircling it, and by encircling it, being encircled by it until it felt warm and soft,

Until vines crept up her ankles, and stole her dried flowers, until the weight of branches closed her vacant eyes, until the hole in the trunk where creatures lived could be seen through her stomach.

She left the world through willing,
 She become part of the world with willing. 

Open eyes

My eyes’ve gotta be open when I kiss you – see?

It’s a bad habit,

the biting of fingernails of sexy times.

Don’t like being watched?

Figures.

Not watching. Showing.

Thought you’d understand.

Eyes are windows right? Transparent and fragile, fragile to a fault.

Can’t poke ‘em.

Fractures occur,

Cracks that dribble all the way down your cheek.

I paint my love on your face with fingers that shake and feel every prickle of your beard as they trace,

Down.

Voices are loud in my head.

I'm not crazy.

Not crazy voices, just ones that tell you he’s not perfect, but neither are you, or over think things.

Often.

Sometimes banging music quietens the cacophony, sometimes it doesn't.

In bed, in once clean sheets, 

It’s cold.

My arm hairs stand to attention and the electricity runs up my spine

And hot,

The sweat droplets on your back coat my fingers.

Arms get in the way of holding you so tight.

This is making love.

Can't voice the look so I just hope you see it.

I hope I see in your eyes what I see,

Not just my eyes reflected back at me.

Red and blue

I died,
In a room with yellow walls
In a bed with blue covers that I'd slept in before,
In a moment much like the one following it and an echo of the one proceeding.
I exhaled.
After drawing my final breath. After seeing the loneliness beyond the moment. Of hearing the world more loudly, less clearly, a faint rumble of the end.
Distant but no longer distant.

I cried,
sobbed after I died, lying on another bed in a room with red walls
and blue flowers in a vase by the door.
Words hung in the air - floating like literate plumes of smoke
from mouths that exhale truth and pain
on red lips,
that catch blue tears - salty and scared.

I ran
After crying, after dying, after the moment had passed.
Ran for miles in the wrong shoes.
Till blisters formed and bled.
To see beauty in the world.
To watch the sunset reflected in the lake in the heart of the city,
To read shakespeare cross-legged on the floor of the library
To hear eclectic music played by eclectic people on street corners
And see families shopping
ad people fighting, eating and living
To carry on,
The way humans do.
Ran to keep running

I laughed.
At the absurdity of rain
At the coolness as each droplet tattooed my face,
At the journey it had made from a muddy puddle,
to a blue, clear sky
Only to fall back down and hit my face in order to float back up.
At the smell of rain,
At the women who run, clickity-clack of heels in puddles and newspapers held over heads to avoid getting wet, as if it will help.

I laught at myself, alone walking through the rain and laughing.