Get some poetry in your soul

Ankles

I am not who you would imagine me to be.

I am not a rock, a constant,

Something solid and firm;

I am a pliable, malleable verb

And my love is not a solid fact.

That is what I hate – my fragility,

The fact emotions run away with me,

That one minute I will dedicate my heart to you

And the next I am indifferent.

I am not “girlfriend” material

In any sense, really.

In a high school movie, I am not the cheerleader

To your jerkass-but-gentle jock.

I will not cheer you on at football games,

Hang on your arm for your friends to envy,

Be an angel in the kitchen and a whore in your bed;

I will not bear your babies

Or soothe your fevered brow

Or tell you how lucky I am to have you…

Sorry.

You will call me, late at night,

And I will be in a rainbow-coloured club

Drinking rainbow-coloured drinks

And shouting the importance of equality.

I will be out marching,

Talking of bisexual erasure and trans* discrimination

When you are tucked up in bed and craving my company.

It will take chains around my ankles,

Hands around my neck

To stop me from shouting out.

And one day I will love you and your peacock tail feathers,

But the next I might be gone.

The dream catcher will still be spinning in my wake.

That said – I am not who you think I am.

I do not speak the language of love

As a cunning linguist;

I do not echo bodies like some cursed Greek nymph.

I do not kiss your peachy lips

And smile at the innate similarities.

I suppose it is because I am scared,

The way Bono is in With Or Without You

And I can’t live either way;

I am scared of my empty sheets,

The ebb and flow of my heart,

The tide that scrapes away my strength grain by grain.

But I am scared of lying next to you,

When you expect complete devotion

And the best I can offer is a lacklustre lust.

I fear the girls, the guys, the inbetweens –

The people who see right through me like the cellophane I’m wrapped in.

I only love you when the lights are on.

At night my thoughts run away

And I elope with my imagination

Back to the freedom to kiss whoever I so desire –

That’s a lie, really it’s “whoever I so desire

Who also desires me

And doesn’t have attachments to get in the way

Or is otherwise in an open relationship where it’s okay”.

Really, I love the absence of you,

Knowing you will be there when I come back;

I love the smell of your skin on mine once you’ve gone.

I love the warmth where you lay, cradling my spine.

I love the way the wind-chimes whisper when you close the door

And leave me choosing if I want more.

It’s the photographic negative; the reverse of your presence,

The wet sand where the wave used to be –

It’s the pulling in both directions that gives me clarity.

Maybe I am greedy, wanting to be held down but set free;

Yet I am young

And do not yet know my own mind.

Tie the twine round my ankles and let me billow like a kite –

And as long as you don’t let go

I promise

I will come home.

perfectworth:

Faint as a wan, worn myth,
Faint and exceeding small 
On a boy’s murdered mouth.

Though from his throat    
The life-tide leaps
There was no threat 
On his lips.

But with the bitter blood  
And the death-smell
All his life’s sweetness bled 
Into a smile.

-“Has Your Soul Sipped?” by Wilfred Owen

(via greasepaintandregret)

Literature

All literature is sex

And death.

Here’s the sex:

It starts with the longing looks,

Stolen glances across a lunchroom

Which culminates,

Finally,

In liquid caresses and a throaty

“Oh! Oh! Oh!”

and a lingering sense of disappointment.

And here’s the death:

It starts with the breaking news,

Relayed by a calming voice

About the funeral date.

You stand there,

Crying,

Your eyes liquid and throat full of

“No. No. No.”

that you can never quite shake off.

Are we done now?

“Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes” by Robert Browning

Lost In Translation

Once I thought I was Braille

a new language to be decoded through touch

through feel, through your lips

running soft over the hard of my bones

and biting at my skin

eager to learn

and curious to translate.

I wanted to teach you

how to feel with only your tongue

and speak with actions, not words

a new translation ebbing over you

trying to wash you away

as I clutched your thigh in the riptide.

I guess that will never happen.

It’s funny; I can see it all

how it could have been

all the maybes and perhaps

lapsed per chances

spread out, a storyboard

for a film yet to find a producer.

Maybe the girl on my arm is another

who doesn’t have your death glare

that you give life whenever it deals you a bad deck;

a girl who would rather be on stage

performing

than behind it

co-ordinating

and smiling at the satisfaction of a perfect piece.

Maybe I am foolhardy

because I know I am foolish

but I am not hard;

I am soft,

melting, blushing,

fruit, and autumn leaves before they fall

hopelessly for you

and gather in piles at your feet for your gentle boots to nudge away

and scatter across the path

of the house where neither of us lives.

I could write you the whole universe, you know.

And here I am

smashing open my chest with a blunt rock

and gouging out my heart

which is small, but beating, frantically,

trying to speak Morse code

to my fingertips

while I lay it on a table, saying,

Here is my heart.

It is yours now.

Find a good place for it

on display somewhere,

proof that once, a girl wanted

to whisper “light” in your ear

until all your blood glowed like fireflies.

Keep my heart safe,

somewhere you alone can glimpse it,

shining like a lucky penny,

and one day,

let me lead you out the dark closet

where you keep the cobwebbed skeletons

your hand in mine,

fluttering against your wrist like a second pulse

in some new sign language we are yet to decipher,

and let me take you for a fucking coffee.

For Chelsie

Over-indulge in dreaming.

Eat éclairs of ambition.

Drink too much wine for a change.

Hijack a bulldozer and drive it through the fences all the doubters built.

Let life inebriate your senses so everything you touch feels like a cloud.

Watch suicidal stars throw themselves across the sky. They are birthday candle flames being blown out by the universe.

Wish on them.

Wish like there’s a lucky penny lodged in every pavement crack.

Wish like time is a Frisbee that’s never coming back.

Your tongue is Midas; every word is gold.

In the end, we’re all just stories

So make yours great.

Have minstrels sing about you for years to come

And call you nothing but brilliant.

Imagine everything.

Grow fat on ideals and hopes.

Store up faith for the winter of doubt -

Don’t let the bastards grind you down.

Yesterday Girl, by Richard Hill

I remember her face (I think)
and a summer evening
standing on the shore
watching the Mersey
turning in its sleep
and the seagulls crying
sliding down the sky
like kids on banisters
while we wrote
I love you
in the sweaty summer sand
with sticks
and skipped across rocks
and both held hands
to keep from falling
out of love

But we couldn’t.