Now

I remember you
against the pink of my bed
your eyes followed me
like the opposite 
of a sniper

no one had ever looked 
at me like that before

you were as pure as paper
but I was cynical
even then, with you eating me up 
with your eyes
I knew:

that the chemical of
lust and love
can change and become
a questioning of

‘why did you put you hand on his leg?’
or
‘your friend is coming between us.’



________________________

A written rap battle

You took my skeleton hand

down streets

where red and pink lights

had twinkled days before

Now naked buildings

shivered in the cold

but my hand was warm in

your gloved embrace.

Back in your room

you told me a story

of colours like ice,

nazi dictators

and a place where everyone could

read each other’s thoughts.

Then you looked at me,

and I knew.

You promised me tiles to build

a safe place to hide.

You showed me another way,

A way to be free like you.

Later,

In my dreams

we were covered in snow

Tiles painted with ravens

cracked like mirrors.

But when I woke

you were laughing

Everything around you

was pink

and orange

and I was yours.

______________________

Lunch

Before…

his pupils were massive

as he knelt between

my legs,

As we said

‘no we shouldn’t’

but of course, we did.

Afterwards,

he looked like

he’d just been told

someone had died.

He looked like a victim.

Or was that me? 

Back to the old house

I am transported there
My heart and head
Is where my home is
Nothing has changed, everything has changed.
The shops shrunken and shabby and stuck
I have moved on but they remained forever
The kids on the street meaner, nastier, stupider
Or am I just getting older?
And those words
That spelt the name of the street
That I lived in for eighteen years
Once as important as my own name
Now unfamiliar.
I walk walk walked
Past the dead end alley
And the berries crushed
into the ground like brains
As a child
I tried to avoid them
But now
The street is a photograph
And I am a giant
So I step and step and step.
Finally I reach you
My heart, my mother, my father,
My brothers and lost best friends.
Home.
It could have been then
The cat skitters by
Crying, left behind.
It feels like you were my lover.
Behind my doors and windows
A new family lived
The plaque, ‘Roseland’, prised from the wall
I see me within you
Ghosts
My dad throwing my mum out of the door
My brother punching a hole in the wall
I lost my first tooth
My glasses, my braces
My virginity
And my mother between these walls.
Inside
We were still inside
The five of us inside
The golden lion knocker on the door
I remember a time
When I wasn’t allowed to cross this road
Was I ever that small?



_______________

Threesome

You should listen to your cat

when you get home tonight

as it follows you

to the kitchen

as it followed us

up the stairs.

It will watch you squeeze out

food from a pouch

Impassive.

Like it watched us

fuck on your bed

Impassive.

Your cat keeps my secret.

Afterwards

I used your perfume

your brush and

your shower.

I stroked your cat and he purred.

I want that cat to

tell you

what it knows.

I will make it talk.

Verdana

Nights we spent spewing words

Trying to impress

You were my Verdana

before we even met.


 

Studio

My new life

without you

makes me wonder

what the old life was for?

why I hung around

in the face of such wrongness

when it was so easy to leave

it took a month

in the end

and I was gone.

I don’t think of you now

but if I stay up all night

sometimes it hurts

not because I miss you

but because 
yet another 
bit of my life

is done.