1.

I started this poem at midnight
with cigarette smoke choking my skin
and the outside air clogging up
my cold lungs.

The damp floor stole my seat, so I just stood in the dark
looking up.



2.

I see nothing-ness, just black with the occasional
pale yellow moon clambering into my view.
I like how eyelashes curl upwards
and the blue of your irises, but that doesn’t matter,
not now everything has squeezed into shadow.

And the clouds -
well they just hold onto happy things,
letting go of the ugly
                hard-hitting rain drops
                and gasps of wind.
Don’t laugh but sometimes
I think I'm like a pomegranate,
too many bits and pieces
and I’m slipping out everywhere,
leaving a trail of sweet-peach sadness
on every floor I hit.


3.

Something about callous atmospheres draw me in.

You spilt bottled sea water  
on the carpet last week

all because you wouldn’t take me to see the ocean for myself
‘it is just a big puddle with too many secrets’ you said
‘and would only splash against your pretty new clothes.’

Ever since then I can’t stop obsessing about how perfect everything was before you came.


4.

I am a grey water-colour wash.
there is nothing special about me
apart from deep deep down
where pink-tipped matchsticks play hide and seek with the world,
but that is just between the two of us.


5.

At 20:59 this evening I decided I write too much poetry,
words are slug coloured and pressed inside paper.

This could be the last time you hear from me
so I’m going to try make it perfect
                                                beauty never suited me,
                                                but I’ll try.

Speaking of beauty
you are much like a pale porcelain tea-cup,
bitter, half empty
and you hate every damn crack
as you chip away from the inside.


6.

I am in love with your uneven cuticles.
Underneath I imagine the deepest blue to run around,
nothing else, apart from behind your chest bone
where a tiny tiny red heart sits.
I scratched my name beside it three years ago -
but you do not remember details like that.

Your eyes are two moons
falling through a dirty pink sky,
but you blame that on the late nights
and all the coke you did yesterday.


7.

Did I ever tell you that without you
I spin around and around?

I’m like a child in a park tugging at the stray threads
that hang loose from my skirt
and you are watching
as I come undone.


8.

It is now 00:08 and I don’t want to say
I miss you
but I do.