Extol

I was wrong

before

about falling in

love being about

me

It’s not.

And fitting together

Is one thing

But I’ve never ‘not’

fitted

with a lover.

All people fit

If you hammer hard

enough.

So love isn’t that,

either.

Our love is about

light up deities,

pop gods

and seasides.

And how you came

from space to save

me,

did you know that?

  

The story is

upside-down

from the way you

tell it.

___________________________________

Horror film

On my knees

at your feet

with the light

from the camera

in my face

I felt wild.

Watching it back

felt like watching

childbirth

or a car crash.

_____________________

Gulls

Two years

we kept

two stones

as we stitched

and laced our dream.

Two stones from

Brighton beach.

We pictured

drives along the coast,

healthy living

and a little life

waiting for us

when we got back home.

We got salt,

that much we got.

We filled up buckets

but not with our hands.

Now we ride back to London

Not defeated.

I can still see us

sitting in deckchairs

I can still see the sea from here.

_____________________

Better off

After you beat her

(not straight after,

but soon after)

My mum left

me with you.

She repeated

like a prayer

how you would never

hurt me

Never lay a finger on me.

I was safe with you.

And I was.

Each month

I would call her

hysterical

over some

act of non-violence.

A door torn off

A smashed TV

My brothers

fighting,

but not play fighting:

one throwing the other

down the stairs

one (the same one)

hitting the other with a

baseball bat.

And my dad,

Well, he did his best

Gave me money for the chip shop

and told me mum

loved her new family

better

that she had new children now.

______________________

You are my nicotine patch dream

You came via electro mail

And gave

the crushing drudge

of twenty four

after twenty four

after twenty four

some punctuation.

Before you

I was

chasing a hearto

mainlining sweets

of both kinds

Now,

I’m still part

slow motion suicide          

But laughing

Let’s cuckold old age

Who wants to live in bungalows

via panic buttons

anyway.

Marks

Two little bruises

give you away

one on my right wrist

one on my left.

Imprints of your thumbs

as you held me

like I was the only thing

keeping you afloat.

Now just smudges,

like newspaper print

but the stain of you

lingers.

I touch them

to remind myself

for one moment

I was needed.

Now I watch them

yellow

into the pink of my skin

like leaves

rotten.

Death wish

Sometimes

I wish

I was terminally ill

so I could quit work

forever,

guilt-free.

We could sit

on the bed and

play board games

and you’d make my dinner

for me.

And when you weren’t here

I could read magazines,

write a diary

and watch trash TV.

And you’d have to be nice,

if you liked it or not

Whatever I said,

You’d agree.

____________________