Incendiary

we're incendiary
see how my heart sparks at the mere thought of you
on mornings when the cold would seem too cold for anything to burn
there’s fire

this feeling scratches against my insides
like a hot match
like a warm cat pawing
like a cup of tea in my palms, handmade by yours
like a new sun out of our old crackling smoke

you light candles under my skin

i see all your words in fireworks
my eyes shot with soot and sea and sentiment
stowing the ash of these secret declarations like stardust on my hearth

and when you smile
there's small explosions between your teeth
boom
boom
boom

i am alight for you

misheard (song)

you opened me up like an old radio
all those voices and stories and songs, dizzy pieces in your hands
but listen, all I hear is static
and distant lies, and the past

the sheets swallow our skin slowly
unsure of the taste
my wrist falls onto your back
confused by the sounds in the night
i think i misheard you
think i misheard you

all the inflections we missed two years ago
the quiet of ships marooning and aeroplanes flying overhead
my eyes keep broadcasting refusals
wandering when something will really hit hard again

thursday

sounds like
chainsaws
children playing at school
helicopters searching

your heart throbbing palpably
beside me

deafening scenarios
playing out like bullets in my head
bang
bang
bang

i move closer
clinging to your shoulder like a parachute

feels like
warm poached eggs
another beer
songs about denial

routine

love is always
after you leave
these fine elastic threads between us
stretching and bending

i let you go to her
without my hands pawing at your face like a child
without getting on my knees

shaking your touch
from my hair
brushing away the warm flicker of your smile

lips together
we blow the unfinished
into thin air

descent

a trickling of intent at the window
fingers seeking knees
losing count in desire
and in my hair

your one thousand fathom eyes
ascend my neck
while our mountains beckon honesty

(you climb quietly
as if it were there to be conquered
expecting you)

this moment is months out of sync
and too wet, too new
too prone to washing away

the space between us
crackles

you’ve been so far from me
so wrapped in unmade plans and worry

i forgot the simple rough of your cheek
your steady arm
your lived-in skin

teetering

a broken one moves differently
hides in corners
seeking out the dark
takes photos of each day in negative
counts drinks and phone calls

we could keep these sad stories to ourselves
let our mouths dry
with old addictions

but my spirit dusts itself off like a scraped knee
for this smiling clock creaking
and starting to tick

a broken one is all too aware
of it’s beating
loud bravado smothering fear
so we can emerge glistening from the trenches
giggling at fate’s plans

our hopeful tongues
flicking softly to the last page
to see who rides into the sunset or waves the flag first

this teetering happiness
brave
like it’s already broken

unknown

the unknown is a secret
you can’t tell it
you can’t coax it out with words
or make it answer questions
you ask

i want to be with you
to slide quietly through fate’s fingers like warm butter
smiling together
tasting yellow joy on our skin and hands

to hold each other at night
like we know forever’s use-by-date
and laugh at time
and the wind outside

the unknown will make me yours
as surely as it will send you south
while my heart flies east
and carries a photo or two of your eyes

i remember the faith required to fall in love
the wounds freshly healed

and still, i want to be with you

milking sweet salt from our lips
the feeling that we know nothing
the unknown dazzling with nowhere to be
but here

vanity

in a t-shirt, in heels, in pigtails
i am all properly dressed
for you to messy me up again

but vanity is a luxury for those with better contacts
networking their way through hairdressers and mascara
with unbroken nails
while i use eye cream and glue to merely hold it together

i do not always see so clearly
and cannot bottle the looks that you give me

your itinerant eye
toils adoringly through toasty nights and hours of skin
skirts and white cotton socks

i fear you will lean to the next all too soon

not securely fastened to your side
i worry about slipping
when you are presented with shinier lips and thighs
or a newer piece packaged just right
faultless where i falter, clear where i am green

everything

i won you by default
(oh if only such things could be won)
yet you stand out of reach still
a grey-ribboned first place

you say i should pursue something new
like you cannot feel me rubbing on you
hungry for mere flakes
for whatever falls

i thought i could keep a secret
but telling you everything comes far too easily

shift

i will crawl back behind something solid
until i see you over walls and across valleys

i will shift a little to the right
in the hope of nudging myself out of your orbit

the absence of a white horse should have given you away
my kingdom will rise and fall just fine without you

cut all the ribbons, untie all the string
and that well-worn thread that keeps you by my side must be torn

my heart lacks the faith to keep you like this
darling, i’m all out of storage space

lemonade

being with you is all fresh lemonade

lips and lips
tongue and tongue
fizz

being with you is everything in half measures
your sentences half air
my eyes half tears
my longing half hating
half of my heart held halfway from yours

being with you is like leaving the house and forgetting everything

stripped
lying on your couch
legs spread

hands and hands
arms and backs
fizz

underwater (song)

secrets don’t sleep at night
oh honey look at how we lie
these decks creak and bend beneath us
and the mornings won’t stop passing me by

well I waited Saturday alone
and I rode my Sundays out on loan
while loving you, and hating you this way

but it’s all underwater now
it’s all on your floor
it’s all underwater now
look at all the rules we tore
it’s all underwater now

i'd take your smoke and mirrors
i'd take the parts you stow to just one side
unsure of what to say now
the way your tongue keeps changing with the tide

well I drank to lighten up our load
and I drank from the men who took me home
still loving you, but hating you this way

but it’s all underwater now
it’s all on your floor
it’s all underwater now
look at all the rules we tore
it’s all underwater now

just call me now, you know it won’t be long til you do
just call me now, there’s really nothing more to prove
just call me now, I’m really hoping that you do

eskimos

lights reflect just a little
from the glow here
a city all of your design

where looking up is the science of hope

but in tunnels
under bridges
there is work to be done

remember the time it takes
for the Eskimos to warm their hands?
wrapped in the skins of those they have ravaged
and been ravaged by
forgetting the dark takes longer than a night

in tunnels
under bridges
the work goes on

long-lost atoms whirr away
at speeds that are incomprehensible
as the sweetest background noise descends

jaw

your idle chat infuriates me

i invested in you

i took a small piece of my heart
and quietly embedded it into yours

so tiny that i'm sure you could hardly feel it
resting there
waiting patiently for a call to action
a reason to grow

but when you told me your truth
(days after i had told you mine)
i could feel the tiny shard tugging at my side
trying to work it's way out
but just getting stuck
the way something becomes wedged between your teeth
or caught on a thread
tangled by your jaw's resolve

cinder

i will steady myself, love
for i have won races like this before

firecrackers and bluebirds
that should have been signs
they just sanded away
with our well spent time in the dark

the beach lay on the floor
with your dirty jeans
and my t-shirt

the salt in my hair just tasted
salty

the next morning i tried to write to other boys
but couldn’t

after all
i let you smoke in my room
i let you put your cigarette out on my heart
i let you watch me turn to cinder when you touched my face
and look quietly
while i glowed

soon we’ll both ask where we're at with us again
and i’ll make some stupid decision
based on the look in your eyes
under the dark

so damn typical
that same smoky spark

archer

it was your archer’s shoulders
your straight shooting eyes
the muscles turning in your back

your hardest hooves
that left the deepest tracks

now you draw my wrists towards you
bow-like, bending, light
curving taught and tight
right
on target

our resolve cracking under
the tiny working bones
still working
almost implausibly

yesterday our words were crammed with arrows
and other such sharp things

so what did we miss?

knelt at your feet
with your calves in my hands
my whole world in the way I rode you in the night

my thighs crossed
like weapons cocked
always armed or aiming
for your equine heart

kitten

i will sharpen my claws on these other boys
and let them scratch my back sometimes

but i just want to rub a little against your leg
and preen for you

i slink through the days
padding quietly
all soft paws and tales

i'll meow coyly when i want milk
and nestle warm and content at night
purring in that warm place near your skin

i want all nine lives to be with you

clean

across legions of cheap shots and ash
collecting dirty looks
and second-hand smoke
like small scars
like a scratch

these are the places you refused to drink
the streets you hated to walk down
the bitumen i stumble home on
linked with the wrong arm

some nights the seaward wind
blows in too many directions
and all the places where we kissed
or stopped to hold each other at traffic lights
whistle hollow now

like muddled glass hollow
greasy plate hollow
unanswered call hollow
hollow like a lie

and lies no worse than yours
or mine
are told here

it’s easy to lose things leaning out over a bar
it starts with the tongue
brushes against the thigh
and leaves in the morning

despite your disapproval
i think you would like it here
the non-committal twang in every order
the way they wipe the tables so clean after meals

painting

the man that i love could not love me
then he fell in love with a painting

he stumbled into the opening one night
where she accosted him on the wall

arching back
stallion-like

oh
the way she is hung

her nipples point at the corner of his dining room
as she rides proudly over his couch

her face is listless and her eyes look
at no one in particular

i wander if she reminds him of me
ever

or maybe of another lover he could not love
as much as this canvas and oil

he once told me that metaphorically speaking
all i needed was someone to sit in the lounge with me

well now he has her
in this painting

and i have a kings of leon poster that i haven’t framed yet
and a black clock ticking over the mantle

ribbons

though i enfold you in my words
i cannot always find or
reach for you

tentative as autumn's cool
my faltering heart beats quiet and
intermittently for you

i cannot wrap you in these ribbons just yet
so today i will tie string around my
ankle for you

peering down at the knot
will remind me you are here

click

close your eyes and half smile
in that way that you do
one side of your neck offered to the sheets
and one side stretching for me to lick

those bracelets all on one wrist
like medals of conquests and troubles
clinking over and over
as your hands do their work

paparazzi in the dim light
click, click, click

my small tongue making you shiver
whilst we melt and sweat puddles between our skins
i'd take you somewhere pretentious
and you could take me anywhere

...but all those tickets marking pages in your books
you were always going somewhere darling
you were always going

now i just want to ride you in the morning
with your hair all scruffy like that

open the blinds
click, click, click

and then let me write a poem for you on your fridge
as i picture you running from me

milk

you had hoped I would solidify
that’s why
you did not invite
me around sooner

instead you let me curdle
and sour

but i am still tea drinking
and thinking
of you at night

even as stranger tongues
lap salted skin
and dark saucer eyes
dry

the milk, your milk
is a morning delivery
that will not arrive

attaching such sentimentality to the contents of your fridge
is just like something i would do

and you know that
i know that
you know
that i do

but it’s April now
and you’re worried about expiries in May
and in June
as if you hadn’t planned to see me before then

i crumpled like a carton
when i knew
there was no use crying over what’s been spilt here
or over you

green

i wait for you to find loopholes in my design

to draw unseen lines above me
that i cannot fathom to reach

i am afraid
of filling spaces they left behind

jealousy is rubbing
cheapening your words
dulling my love

continuing in green
i know i will end up lying in some low, low place

without you

fridge

you drink the one with milk that was made by mistake

while i sit on the floor in your kitchen
and paint my heart all over your shiny fridge door
you wash the sheets
would you put the words back in place before she arrives?

you refuse distraction
with such endearing purpose
your pretty eyes already looking to the next

and you know why i tried to leave without saying goodbye

when i go
i wish you were walking next to me
to watch everytime my skirt blows up in the breeze

excuses

This morning he told me that I am hurting myself and using him as an excuse.