oyster or trying to running away while standing back to back in a room full of mirrors

he seeps in like a migraine. the fingernails of his memory digging into my temples. to the mirror, skin vanilla-white, i say his name and choke on the ashes. his existence is a splinter i can’t get out so i’ve learnt to grow around.      this crack is raw; no preservatives two people that

Two-hundred and Eighty-three: Hanoi Hell

It has been 933 days since that time we lost ourselves in the Hanoian alleyway labyrinth. We walked in whorls, turning corners like Tetris blocks, holding our courage with chopsticks, shocked that we could be so lost in such a small space. I remember the skinny shadows, sinister and deceptively distant, stretching and scaring us

Two-hundred and Eighty: purgatory

he left just before the opportunity, taking his shy smile, his dark mystery and his golf hat with him, and leaving me nothing but fucking potential. story of my life. everyone else got nothing for something. as if i usurped their good luck. and then They rose from the underground on magic stairs, hungover on

Two-hundred and Seventy-nine: itcouldhavebeenaversary

i like to play around with the letters of their names, pretending that the ghosts of their broken hearts do not haunt me.  they banded together to make a boomerang of his single rejection. i never knew my ribcage was so fucking useless. we add -aversaries to everything; to celebrate pain is to give it

Two-hundred and Seventy-eight: Give Me

Lips so kissless, they split, little red lines like clits, sick with stillness. Lips so kissless, they crack from lack of smacking other lips. Give me kisses.  Give me full stop kisses to end a fight. Give me acupuncture kisses on my neck, your lips clapping on my skin, your lips applauding. Give me waterfall

Two-hundred and Seventy-seven: No Entry

Her laughter sounds like a glass full of water but she is mermaid-mute, and too cute to be a wolf, all elfin limbs and goblin grins. She likes to use smiles to run away from questions, toothed lessons taught to her by broken risks and gauzes on ivory wrists.

Two-hundred and Seventy-two: Shark Heart

Stop! Drown. Polar Bears think in monochrome, and hold microphones to disaster. Keep going in circles, or sink. Feel here, the way my shark heart thinks in film noir quotes, all the while reeling in plastic laughter. I think there should be more floors between the penthouse and the basement. But what do I know? I’m

Two-hundred and Seventy-one: the dreamer

the dreamer is a lost and found of puzzle pieces. magic is strapped in like a roller-coaster ghost. most of his words are superfluous, not super at all. this fall, he broke, choking on secret tunes: fine, fine fine. it’s time he stopped dreaming and touched himself. shelves and pedestals are not different. he’s always

Two-hundred and Seventy: Laundry

My leotard, the one I wore as armour to protect myself from old amores, swings like a lost wing in the wind. I reach for it as I reach for things these days, upwards, arms and eyes wide open, to add it to the bouquet of my laundry. Falling into my hands -like life these

Two-hundred and Sixty-nine: strike

black anemone hair post-traumatic goggles fogging sharp mouth not shouting hide harp-playing heart loneliness is an art drip drip drip love is a pollock wait, they sing don’t fade blank lines tighten the night suspend winter thighs strike matches thin and out kiss mirrors tease like a feather shiver like an orgasm

Two-hundred and Sixty-eight: The Real Tears of Grief

The real tears of grief do not jump from your eyes. They do not grip the edge of your eyelashes and say a prayer. They do not seek tissues or applause. They do not smash onto your cheeks like waterfalls, or origami your face into a picture of pain. They are not an orchestra of

Two-hundred and Sixty-seven: A Rhyme A Dozen

Steve Martin shakes my hand. It’s weak. He sits down, crosses his legs and winks. He has a voice like a hairdryer but still my nails dig into my knees, scrawling amateur caligraphy into the skin. Chin up. No, chin down. The hard part is deciding you want to ask the question at all. He

Two-hundred and Sixty-six: The Perfect Breeze

It’s the evening of The Perfect Breeze. The one that feels like kisses and safety. I am walking on a road framed by neon signs, one little anonymous atom in a big city pond. There is honeysuckle to my left, scents leaving trails of sighs across my cheek like a lover’s touch. I long for

Two-hundred and Sixty-four: Sunday

Ladies and gentlemen, I am going on a boy hiatus. Not because I hate them. Au contraire, I rather adore boys. Actually, that is the problem. They are all boys. As Salma Hayek said, “I keep waiting to meet a man who has more balls than I do.” Right now though, I am a bit

Two-hundred and Sixty-Three: I Count My Heartbeats While He Looks at Me

Shrugs, the sharpest insult. Transparent heart. The art of crying on street corners. Popping cherries like balloons. Sober and boring. Whoring out secrets. Feel this. Boom, boom, boom. There’s a bomb in my chest. Rummage through my bag of boys. Choose one. Let him stroke my neck. Vote for better days. Stray charms; challenge one.

Two-hundred and Sixty-two: Smiles

Feathers and Golightly cigarettes, borrowed trenchcoats and lights out! Stubborn lamb noses and doctors tickling toes. Flowers and  macaroons, washing my hair alone. Shooting star, thirty-three, talks on the dock, back scratches and Beowulf. Catching hearts in silken mitts, fitting lips into kisses with wine. Neon, plastic, midnight pools, dirty dances (two of those), young gardeners and

Two-hundred and Sixty-one: Solitaire

I’m speaking cigarette smoke, joking about cuts made like crossword puzzles, hoping to hear bells ring for beers and red lipstick. I’m lying on dirty floors just because they’re not as cold as my bed. Sometimes I’m nowhere, not even in my head, and I split up words into fractions that don’t make any sense.

Two-hundred and Sixty: Potato

Fuschia lipstick, ripped stockings. Not supposed to smoke but my mouth needs to do something when it’s not joking. Can’t breathe during Pilates. I’ve never broken a plate in my whole damn life but I’ve got a sweet collection of hearts. She says, Tell me about the phoenix. But I don’t want to. She says,

Two-hundred and Fifty-nine: I Have to Find You First

  I want to crawl under your skin and sleep there, listening to the tattoo of your heartbeat, soaking in the heat of your sweet words. I want to graffiti my name in the little lines of your irises so that every time you blink, you think of me. I want to sew our fingertips

Two-hundred and Fifty-eight: Ghost, Revisited

Lollipop nails stalling answers, stopping zigzag glances. Whispers falling like joking snowflakes, and too much wine swells as imaginations go sailing back to poems she used to write about you. Goldens chores save grace. Lacing nude words with a little bit of crazy, she is always worried that the chemicals are just lazy. And rolling,

Two-hundred and Fifty-seven: Sixteen

There’s a smile with my name on it, and shots with no numbers at all because I can’t count anything anymore; not even sheep. Time fades like words in the sun and I wrap my arms around porcelain boys, stain their lips with my kisses, keeping one wet finger up in the wind, waiting for

Two-hundred and Fifty-six: Pixie

she smiles through golden screens, spinning dreams like wool, too clean for london sidewalks. and i find it hard to fault her, but then i lose it again because our shadows overlap. i like to take pictures of her, silhouettes of her soul. she is a pixie tourist living on peanut butter and mai tais. shy eyes and leigh

Two-hundred and Fifty-four:

i am the idea and you are the lightbulb. my lullaby is your silence and yours is her breath. i am a shooting star that’s run out of fire. does she know you’re a liar? i am hiding phone numbers like easter eggs. i am trying a different saddle because i’m riding a different cowboy

Two-hundred and Fifty-three: Lie Alone

The moon’s moustache teases me: all men are like my father. Sweet puppy dog tails, the love of fables, but I am stubborn as a donkey, and just as ridiculous. Pop, pop, pop. Eighteen year old fire-cracker gone dusty with naivety. Mental soundtrack on a loop. Playing hula hoop with ego. Losing my seventh id

Two-hundred and Fifty-two: Secrets for Sale

We are oceans of secrets: pebbles of pain, butterfly wing crushes, filthy pleasures. And we measure them inside, stack their worth on an abacus to calculate the risk: darkness of confession + compassion of audience= ? We walk around with our secrets all day. Like junk in our pocket tainting us like ghostly fingerprints. Like

Two-hundred and Fifty-One: My Experiment

For 333 weeks I have dropped question marks like bombs, sewn seeds of jealousy into lapels just to see a tree of mystery sprout out around their eyes. I have thrown glances, faked a good hand, pirouetted empty promises like oases. I am not proud of what I have done. Their broken hearts are not

Two-hundred and Fifty: concentrate

the bottle is permanently empty but if i cut myself (just one more time) you can drink some dirty wine. it’s the sixty-nine of emotions (but i can’t if you hang a picture of New York on your wall and wait for night to tumble in, its reflection will make you hungry for the biggest

Two-hundred and Forty-nine: pig promises

he wants me to use his pig promises to write a poem about him, but today, inside, i am a relentless monochromatic kaleidoscope, and all i can hope for is to get through it without too much gin. my eyes feel thin today. weak and easy to pop. the rain has stopped and i’ve picked

Two-hundred and Forty-Eight: i gave up

i can’t count sheep to help me sleep anymore. they jump over stiles in my mind, screaming, so red hot in their dresses, they don’t even remember to swear. i need to dream in vegetarian these days but every now and then, a wolf strolls in, or maybe a stray dog -dirty, aggressive. they hunt me.

Two-hundred and Forty-seven: Show Me Who Your Muses Are and I’ll Tell You Who You Are

I played hopscotch with the squashed figs by the side of the road until it rained. The drops tasted like Plath’s tears. I vowed to name a cat Sylvia one day. Thoughts swarmed like de Berniere’s imagery, only not as sweet. I smoked a Bukowski number of cigarettes. Later someone said, ‘What’s the story of

Two-hundred and Forty-six: Let’s Undo What They Did To Us

My daddy taught me not to think and love. When I stopped being a child, I started drinking. I waited for trains every night, throwing my weight (what weight?) on the track marks on my arms. Constructive assholes sheep-whistled at my wolf-heart. They taught me everything else: Do not indicate when turning left. It’s not like

Two-hundred and Forty-five: the one

jiving at five in the morning, yawning without wanting to sleep, but duty is ringing on the phone and grandmother nature is singing a tune you love (but hate today). shy goodbyes bite you in massive waves: you should have let him kiss you  good night. but this is not you. you are the one

Two-hundred and Forty-four: a poet and a liar

rolling his cigarettes, i drift, sifting snowflake thoughts into powdered words I can snort and breathe out into glittery promises. she would not stop weeping. her cellophane eyes kept leaking there was me, holding her hand, not watching someone stealing a letter from my name. are you a cop? she said. no, i’m a poet and