Here Again

I wake to your breath.
Stale echo of laughter.
Mine was pretend.
I faked it to lure you
back to this bed.

Betrayal of daylight.
Jeans on the carpet.
Trying to find meaning
in clawing, frantic.
‘It’s over,’ you said.

Do you remember
that weekend in Paris?
Palais de Tokyo.
Fondue. No future.
I got drunk and cried.

You wanted ice cream.
I tasted like tarmac.
I tried to tread water
but drowned in the pity
which pooled in your eyes.

This
is what
it feels like
on the worst days
all those black days
oil slicks on the brain
residue of my regret is
clogging up the veins
slumping through
something like
a heartbeat
say bad things
to the good people
only fuck the bad people
doubling over at the sight of
blue jeans ripped at the knees
leather jackets studs in noses
as I’m transparent now so
weightless cold drifting
can’t feel the breeze
the colour of petals
can’t remember
the taste of
her hands as I
count each nail
with my tongue
scared to sleep
scared to wake
scared of not
feeling this
tie me to
the bed
tie me
to
a
n
y
t
h
i
n
g

5am on Portobello Road

Close the front door,
step out into the street
where litter clumps like fallen leaves.

A girl shivers beneath an awning –
pale skin, Aphrodite’s eyes.
She reaches down to tie her shoelace.

Streetlights flicker dim memories
of a million lives which once played
out on these rain-slicked cobbles.

I pass an empty coffee shop and inside
I see myself at twenty-one,
longing to be held.

I opened

the window

to see the snow falling

and resting upon frozen ground.

That day I was petrified

of who I was and inside me a voice said, ‘Believe

in the beauty of wonders so far beyond our control,

sometimes we all need to let go and simply fall.’

Melt

into

the earth.