Did you?

What did you do with the rest of your yesterday?

Did it turn out just the way

You wanted it when you flaunted it

without a word

You just turned and burned all bridges

From the arch to the banks

Did they stand at your flanks and

drive you once more into the breach?

Did you reach a conclusion off your own steam

in a dream that seemed so real at the time?

Did you find the way you move has changed,

your steps and nods are now so strange

that friends don't know you on the street?

Do you point your feet at a new angle

while you try to untangle the strangling grip

of the strip around your gut that pulled and cut

you almost in two?

Did you stay true to who you deeply used to be

when you were free to see the holes in the road?

Did you fold under the pressure to reassure those around you that

you were really okay?

Did you stay away so they wouldn't know how slowly

you dragged you feet to your seat under the strip lights

and how much you struggled to fight the lethargy

with feigned energy and a smile

all the while dying a little inside with every handset clicked down?

Did you?

Or did you quickly do the math and change your path,

throwing down one future of the living dead for something

new instead?

Did you change your head and heart through and through?

Now I barely recognise you :)

A letter

Another rainy Monday ends

With a letter in my pocket to send

To my mother, ink running down the page

In lines, across her face, showing age.

Laughter lines on her eyes

Show no surprise at anything I say anymore.

She knows me better than I know the lyrics to my favourite song

And I can do no wrong in the

Apple of her eye

Though I've tried

To shock

To mock

To take all I can and give nothing back.

A letter, a hand reaching out, to touch a heart

So far apart.

Anniversary

I died a year ago today.

I cannot count the ways in which the word 'died' applies.

Physically, emotionally, potentially.

An entire future blown away in an instant of 'I'm sorry'.

Yes, I had seen that look before, but

Somehow had managed to pull you back

From the edge

With a pledge

That if you kissed me ever again you'd better

Never let go

Don't say you weren't warned.

My reaction was not even close to a woman scorned

because, fool that I am, I loved you. Yes.

My heart beat on, weak and distraught

but not a tear did I shed for the pain that you wrought

and ravaged on my being in every sense of the word.

Blame doesn't even come into it.

Feel and remember as I do, yet what do I do now?

In this moment, in this place, in this 'new life'

that I've made for myself: What am I to do?

This longing for comfort, for warmth, for Something, anything I reckognise

puts thought in my head, things so unwise.

Like fucking a coworker just to feel the weight,

and the effects of big strong hands.

One night stands are for the faint hearted

and my beat is coming loud and clear.

A single step.

A flash of winter in my approach to summer, you are.
Snow glittering on the pavement, melting in the road.
Cars drive fast, over my neck, as I walk away
Away.

Away from the memory of the moment, of the movement
Trying so hard to walk, not run, away.

Planes fly so fast above white clouds
and blue skys, through the stars
But even stars cast a shadow.

The memory of the moment, of the pressure, receding
I missed, I hated, I longed for, I ache.

Halfway around the world.
Now it's you turn to run. Don't walk.
The rest of the way.
All the way back into me.

Smoke and Mirrors

You were my sweetest downfall.
Sweet like the sugar in my coffee
Too much quickens the heart,
sends shooting pains through the legs
and dizzies the head.
I dread the day we meet again.
I will always remember when
my whole being was yours
and I gave myself over to desire and greed and
self-preservation and lust and fear and envy and
You were my sweetest downfall.
Sweet like the chocolate on my cake
that sends chemicals rushing through my blood
and flood my brain with an illusion of being in love.
From dizzying heights my heart would take flight
taking dives towards knives that would cut and slice
Mental scars and the shards of broken mirrors
left in my chest, knowing what's best for me
despite my own struck perspective that I may have been all you needed me to be
if only I'd let you be and if you'd let yourself be happy.

You were my sweetest downfall.
Falling down from a place too high to catch
my breath or a glimpse of the beauty for the brightness
blinding me to the truth within your blackest eyes.
YOU were my sweetest downfall.
Sweet like the wine that pushes the blood tearing through
the neck you bit down on in passion and desire.
All an illusion. Just false hopes and empty threats
of the loss of something never possessed.

Where the home is

Called my mother the other day.
Said she wasn't feeling too great
The house is a mess with the rest of the
stuff we kids left behind and the stress
is turning into loneliness
when my Dad doesn't prioritise the way
that she thinks is wise.
But he tries to disguise it with smiles and words
like 'I love you' and 'I'm so lucky just to have you'
These are not lies.
But the rooms are never neat
and the bathroom's incomplete
and between the sheets of paper in her letters I read 'Help!'
If only I had magic hands and
could take away pain replaced by gaining
trusts that things will get better
With acceptance of things just the way they are.
But I don't, and my arms don't reach that far.

Light as

A feather falls from the whitest stained wing
Falls, drifts, floats on a breeze, through space and matter
Always down, down.
Light as it is yet it sinks, nothing to catch it
Falling forever, in silence, in solitude, in submission.

A breath, an exhalation, an inspiration stirs this
token of what once was flight.
It trembles and flutters like the heart of a sparrow
caught in vast, soft, warm hands.
Oh to answer the call of the wild, yet so safe
and endlessly present the unexpected haven.
A breath, a blow, an updraft.

Caught, spiralling, throwing patterns through air
in billowing lace.
Up, up, always up through shadows and dust and
faded memories.
Ascending through mist to the clearest sky, painted
with indian ink and neon blue and red flecks across the moon.