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.

Ring

Something’s missing, from your finger,

A please remember of your previous body,

Of a forgotten love

Of a broken promise,

You rub it absentmindedly,

Its absence sits in your stomach’s pit.

In a misjudged extra step of a staircase,

Your foot falls like you through surprisingly empty space.

Nothing’s forgotten, not forever,

But nothing is forever either.

Time will change,

Your new hands will become your own.

Your fingers will learn new shapes,

Hold new hands,

Caress new bodies.

But for now, he still lingers,

In what is missing,

In the knowledge of what is gone.  

To the boy that I've been stalking for over a year, I'm sorry - but I thought you would have noticed by now.

I've been harboring this 'not so secret thrill', this 'spinal chill', this 'if looks could kill' deal for you since, since,
since Jesus was pre-pubescent, since moses was sent, since I didn't get asked if I wanted a plastic bag at the supermarket.

For a while right?

And this is all secondary - my point being that if looks could kill - then man -
you would drown me, or burn me, or maybe just complete me.

Drowning in the need to be surrounded by you, to fall deep into this well of love- I would sacrifice my air and my life to be held by you till the end, 

On fire because well, you're hot, and I'm worried it's superficial, a simple delusion and that touching you would destroy the illusion.  

But not worried enough to stand back - hence the death by fire and the life by desire. 

1. You are fundamentally attractive - and by fundamentally I mean - you define attractive for me, the closer someone looks like you - the more attractive you are.

2. I often walk past where you work to see you, even after dark falls and my chances are small - I cut myself of their fine and hopeful edges.
3. You have a great smile. it hits me in the chest and sends me floating spiralling away.
4. You hold my story -my indiscretions and my glory - my bumps and bruises and lovers and abusers in that simple and solid storyboard of bus-stop emotions when we check in. Cause we check in. A 'what's been happening with you' 2 minute conversation that gets uploaded to the data bank of ''I share to much with practical strangers'' - but any way.
5. I like your girl friend. I think she's down to earth and beautiful - but hey, I can pray for the rubber band man in you to decide on a rebound relationship and smack into me latter.
6. Part of me stays in this city for you - and the hope that these hopeless hopes will come true - see I've been broken like glass - resurrected myself with equal parts perspex, glass, glue and spirit - and broke a few other peoples in mis-directed revenge. I'm ready to sit on the wings of the bird that thinks to itself at every moment of its journey "I'm exactly where I want to be" 

But this is not a 'think quick! heart drop kick moment- it's percolated for a while - its strong and at risk of leaving that bitter taste of another mislaid plan of mice and crazy women.

I think I like you

You were carrying my heart at a distance like you didn't know what to do with it.
Would it stain your shirt?
Would it hurt?
You can see the answer now- trust your senses.

We fit - like hands clasped on cold mornings
or old couples snoring
Or jeans stretched and shrunk into the shape of your ass.

Ask me - I'll speak truth
For I'm convinced you could steal it from my mouth,
swallow it with a kiss
and heal my scars

Words aren't necessary,
just read my body - my forehead against yours,
my body tescelated to your curves.

In uncomfortable comforting crazy embraces
In upside-down spoons and long lazy conversations
Take me
I'll run with you,
I'll chase the days you've seized and the hopes you have.

I'll fill your self with self esteem,
you will fill mine with safety.

Before you leave
like me,
say it - tell me in more than bedroom eyes

Find Your Name

Find your name,

in the dust where lines are marked,
in the puddles where water hits, and hits and hits,
in the smelly bits,
in the uncomfortable conversations and the awkward silences,

Find your name,

in the ruins of your ancient relationships,
in the adventures of your hormones during puberty,
in the indentations your feet make in the sand at the beach,
deep and chaotic and unique.

Find your name,

this is for the 14 year old convinced she's too old to have a first kiss,
to the soccer player's near miss,
to the quiet tsss in a moment of anger.
to the child in all of us, that sometimes doesn't walk on cracks.

This is putting the I in ID, the me in meaning,
this is about who we are.
Your story is the only story I want to hear,
who are you?

Are you your mother's daughter, you sister's brother, your lover's lover?
Are you the friend till the end, the workaholic, the flirtatious drunk or everyone's bad day tonic?
Are you defined?

Find your name,

We hurtle in tandem,
in a frantic silent disco,
to our own music,
our own beat,
our own rhythm,
our own song.

But throw your arms around me,
'Cause I'll hold on,
I'll learn your beat,
I'll feel your story,

Welcome to the world
rejoice at its simplicity,
it's complexity

its tragic communities,
and its joyous solitudes,

Find your name - its in that music,
its in those spaces, the corners that lurk in murky moments of confusion, of gray morals and self made delusions,
It's the first step in this conclusion,

Find your name.

Welcome to the New World

Keeping pace and holding tight to habit.
Fattening your hollowness with McDonalds pregnancies and memories of lost futures,
Split second moment miss-steps.
You need to twist the lense of your focus to the left - pull in closer.
Make moment to moment decisions, don't predict living in 20-20 hindsight fashion. It cannot be forecast or foretold.

Life is a present moment on indefinite repeat - each one different, each one related, but not Newtonian. No causation found.

Life By Firing Squad

My back grazes gently against the brick wall of my past- graffitied with a WRONG WAY GO BACK sign, it rudely presses into me to remind me forwards is the way forwards.
I savour moments between shots, air to drowning man, water to the desert wanderer. Bare feet in sand curling toes on the final goodbye to a summer holiday.
'Come back', they say - expectant of abandon.

I breathe in the air of clarity - of remembering the last time life shot me.
Didn't see it coming the very first time - that was nice, lamb turned away from the knife.
Nor the second, as it tore into me from a different direction.
Now life has shot me so full of holes - I am shadow - bullets have trouble finding their mark.

A shot of heart break finds no heart beating.
A shot of death ache finds no tears leaking
A shot of regret finds no stomach dipping
A shot of failed hopes finds no purpose slipping.

I am shadow - light and flitting through the murk of night - the shades of gray I paint upon my body - spread my story to the wind. I am the shadow of the girl who was shot by life, I am strength and weakness in one.

Oh yes - come at me life! Hit me with your best shot, fire away!
 

Trace the story untold,
through misty eyes,
pools collected
unattractive statements are falling.
words.
All you have now,
Control
All you haven't
Mother knows best seems a venomous phrase,
Which mother? Is all the voice echos,
Which mother?
Regrets collecting in the footstep impressions you leave on your path.
Showing your route through time.
Through dimensions of emotion you never thought were real.
Through hiccups of contrariness.

'I want to break free' plays on the radio in your lunchbox car.
You hum along with absentminded accord. 

I'll trade you a lifetime of no regrets, I'll trade you better safe than sorrys. I'll trade you one drink too manys and a few wrong turns as I leave you.
I'll leave you.
Breathless with running late.
and strong with catching up.

6 o'clock

From one dandelion blew a thousand wishes - too many to place limited hopes and dreams upon.
They danced through space in chaotic pinswheels of untapped potential.
One lighted upon a nose...before....aitchoo .....off it flew, tumbling into the adventurous unknown.
So every wish that is sighed, under cloudy skies, when the wind propells the dandelion seeds through, may catch the spare magic and may come true, the wind, it whispers,
"make a wish," it says, " wish on me."

Stolen Youth

I stole a child today,
from a life she was set to lead,
adorable innocence standing, eyes wide, hair clean,
put her in my pocket and snatched her away from a mundane world,

Showed her the city skyline ablaze with lights, reflecting purple haze across the skyscraper sights
took her for magic carpet rides on the floor on my living room rug,
Held her close,
Made her honey on toast,
with butter dribbling down her chin,

Taught her foreign tongues, and the madness of the imagination
Saw her first successful bubblegum bubble,
and her first whistle,
Built the tallest card castle, and then knocked it down,
And danced in the rain -
yes,
danced in the rain,
like our lived depended on it,
like the clouds were performing for us,
like the clash on the crash was the thunder and
the strobe of the lightening was lighting our night,
As each puddle shivered,
As each pellet splashed our faces,
laughing in the face of cold and wetness,

Held her hand,
Listened to classic rock
she should have known,
before the boy made her feel small,

Gave her a gold fish in a round bowl,
to realise the subjectiveness of reality,
And the tangible is ephemeral.
It sparks out, and dies,
like all beauty,
like all things
end.

Stood facing into mirrors,
so she would see how she'd grow,
into me,
to be
a little girl chasing butterfly and boys all her life.


rubber band man

The man rebounded, tennis ball on elastic,

trampolining through another heart

in order to repair his own,

Vicious cycles of like attracts to like,

Relief sighed through his shoulders,

that she didn't love him,

need him,

forsee a future for them,

temporary recklessness suited them bother,

use each other,

balance against,

counter,

till strength returned,

and blinders would fall

and for the first time,

in a long time

he'd see he wasn't alone at all. 

snowglobe

you invaded with pruning shears,
secateuring your self in unsuspicious friendship,
into my heart,
seeped into my habbits, steeping in the liquid of my life,
becoming quietly important,
solidly permament,
in context.
Don't break out,
I hold you in a seperate snowglobe of security,
don't disappear, or invade my bubble,
I'll visit yours,
It suits me better. 

Moon Echo Morning

Breathe in, out.
exhale night on morning air,
           moon dreams on light
and hear,
bird songs and wake up calls
and snooze late alarm bells
and early appointment nightmares and...
                 stop.
skim your leg across his waist,
drape yourself,
skin on smooth skin
lips, not quite touching,
bodies, not quite solus
eyes, not quite closed.

Breathe in, out.
finger paint lazy figure-8s on his chest,
as it rises,
               and falls,
he brushes your cheek
feather light
touches your lips
slow
kisses your eyelids
tender

hard not to feel naked, watched, admired,
with feather light gentleness on a moon echo morning,
difficult not to want more,
                   not go faster
                   not push stronger,

but this burns longer, you say



hassle house

A husband lied to his wife this morning,
         5 o’clock shadow cast across his lips
Still poised open
         As his eyes flicked sideways.

A sister went to school sick to the stomach,
Fearful of staying home,
           of being a hassle
           In a house of hassles
And cracks above doors that slammed

The boy who played cricket left handed
Left silently, like usual
After sleeping silently,
         Living silently

Tucking under his left arm,
His four leaf clover collection
in a postage stamp album,
He ran away from this hassle house
And never said goodbye

The house sat in the city
By the park that measured time by the back and forth of the swing set
and the light that blinded off the silver slide at 4 in the afternoon.
People played and fought
Made love and sandcastles and dinner and lies.
Told secrets.
Threw tennis balls
                           and sticks and stones insults
And tantrums.
Heart beating,
Children breathing
Passionate life,

It all surrounded the hassle house this morning

Surrounded a lying husband, sick sister and silent boy

each following their calling, each falling as Alice down the rabbit hole,

making life altering decisions, with little thought,

because this was the only path,

And it looked straight from the road.

she couldn't lie and he asked difficult questions

Broke through small talk constructs,
Knew her face through story board life lines
Key points and summerised chapters
He was the exception to the rule,
The trust singular
Couldn't stroke the cheek or grasp the secure embrace,  but each could hold their stories straight.
Would not break,
Fixed and permanent
Constancy, amongst the mockingbird world

Mind

Stranger you are
                  -stranger than me.
in that way, everyone is.
what thought migrate across your mind,
do they ricochet? pinball style.
do they flow?
Do they move in
          saccades      stochastically      st--turring
their way through,
are they firm?
fixed?
honey?
Plasticine?

Mind
I Mind.
Yours is sex to me
let me arouse your mind,
I mind.

Turn me on with theoretical physics and philosophically conclude.
Argue right wing economics and left wing politics
and that
intelligence is beauty,
beauty is intelligence.

Tease me,
I'll rise to it,

thwack it back, relaying wit until its thick in the air,
until sarcasm and superiority hang in the air,
like unwelcome tobacco smoke.
Mind me,
home in arms long enough to encircle my spirit.
it's big.
stranger,
we've never spoken
romance is fabrication
carry on with your book,
and don't mind me.

cool
wet,
interlocking chains,
held beneath
cool
wet
interlocking fingers,

Seated, on thick rubber,
kicking woodchips with absent-minded abandon.
places, phases
chapters in life,
locations
are warped by memory
of years of self produced propaganda
Reinforced bad days by added gloomy weather.

On reminiscing, music disappears - lost sounds dim and smell rises.
Of food and sweat and soap and sunscreen
of petrakor
the smell of rain on dust.  

Discover you,
adventurous explorer me
mapping your moods, your faults,
to see the unmasked hero
weakness
don't be an open book
a face-value man.

Have to run a mile before I give an inch
but
if you get even an inch
you have me,
I'm yours
hook line and sinker
lover
loyal
I don't trust easily,
I fall hard
graze my hands and knees when I hit the 'in love' concrete mentality.
But I've always been running on netball courts.

Shower

We shower for longer now,
as children protesting water -
become adults who
demand it.
Shower longer, scrub harder,
later soap into sinful crevices and
dirty surfaces.
Shave growth,
wash away the dirt of the day
of a life that never used to leave you
                    unclean
Stand in the downpour, as the tears fall, silent splashes in a room of splashed,
melding into shower water,
condensing,
diluting,
washed away so quickly,
they were never really there.