part the sea

they said 
great art is born of pain

i've had no dearth

yet i feel poetry
leaving my veins
and in its place
i got grime
muck
a pretty persistent fall

stripping my heart bare

if i knew then 
what i know now
would i 
do and be
differently

someone who isn't a fool

would i let other loves in
would i let me in

ducklings and a llama

that rare Sunday
where I find myself
without plans, an agenda
only an afternoon
stretching into infinity

that rare Sunday
is a glimmer
that lives in my eyes
my green wilderness
vines, creepers
peeping out of their
cautious corners

and in the silence of
that rare Sunday
I adore that you and I
are on our phones
not talking
not needing to
only filling this space
with a chuckle
reserved for dogs, cats
some ducklings and a llama
a song I just discovered
an intermittent ankle
on my arm
a new recipe

it is here
in this Sunday languor
and this meshing
of my world
within and without
that I’m yellow

remember and rob

sometimes I crave
the friction of a new notebook
undecided
whether I have enough poetry
to be able to ink
through its daunting thickness

the truth is
I'd rather pour my heart
into pages that are going to be 
forgotten tomorrow
like parts of me 
scattered
across time
and geographies

I list out the digits
that mark today
reluctantly
almost as if I 
want to remember
and rob this timelessness
in equal measure

but this - forever 
being stuck
in paradoxes
in loops
but also endless playlists
is perhaps 
as comfortable 
and familiar 
as it's alienating

how many instances
along time and space
can I point to 
that felt exactly 
like this
a lover's arms
home's windows
streets that had
scraped my knees
people who had
felt mine

this life
is nothing
but an act of 
nerve-wracking
courage

some pluck it
from the bottoms
of whiskey bottles

and others from
withdrawing to
the pillows laid out
by their soul
only to emerge
as music and melancholy

failed states

the fairy lights are up
some evenings we visit
the bottom of a whisky bottle

it seems like my 
field of vision 
has forever featured 
the silhouette of
two attentive ears
taut, velvet

a constant jarring 
is at work
like sandpaper 
against my heart
wonder whether 
it will come down to 
making choices between
tempered chocolate
or war-ravaged towns

it's either too little 
or too much

cold sun

one night
when the only colour
painting the canvas
between the earth and the sky
is green
titillating
choreographed

a lone light bulb
casting shadows
of ascending lengths
while she sings of
the cold sun and the chill
of exhales

the heart is better for
the love it feels
the love that tears it apart

paisley

drenched rainy clouds 
hemmed into
the linings of my skirt

greens around me
and my heart
heavy with
the groans of the sky

crying freedom

do you

what do you do
when love starts feeling like
sea salt

home and heartbreak

at some point
how I felt about love
was a song

it was against
rain streaked windows
red and purpled from
street lights reflecting
off of wet roads

it was in smells
that were at once
home and heartbreak

and in the
dusty, forgotten memory
of my mom
bursting into laughter

it was also in
a book I knew
I could never re-read

it's the stuff
that gushes out of my heart
on seeing Milo
comfortable within
awkward angles of my body

in loss
in sights that left me breathless
and in evenings with too much wine in them
love. there was love.

cursive

just one of those evenings
a warm balmy september kind of indigo
in a quiet house
that was just too chaotic
moments ago
with a random spotify playlist
about love
the kind that stays
that heals
your dog's full belly
warming your feet
and the purple of your heart
neither too happy
nor too sad

it's been quite some time
since you wrote poetry
in all lowercase
it's been escaping you
as most things have
making you wonder
if they'll return

return to inhabit
the cracks and crevices
which they occupied
when love was untainted
and unencumbered

love you see
is an act of courage
it looks deep within
and calls on hope
it sees the wreckage
without disavowing it
making it its own
going on all the same
like an orange post card
that smells a little bit
like a clementine
just hours past its prime

the bells

cities and towns we built
daisies we planted
and roads we named
in our semi-drunkenness
statues we erected
in our arrogance
and a false sense
of invincibility

are now under attack
by wrath
and fire

other parts of this
snow globe
seem naive
and happy
they seem so far away
from the havoc
we seem determined on

what will it take
to stop for
just a moment
and consider whether
it's these fires
we want to walk through
while both of us seem
to have been burnt
quite enough

save yourself

how many odes 

I've written 

to the deep caramel honey 

that are your eyes

how many times 

I emptied my heart out

longing for their gaze

for the melody in my head

to play in the space

electrified

by your lashes

and the corners on my mouth

what's it going to take

fingers

unintertwined

sights 

empty

a heart that lies waiting

like a chained puppy

home alone

waiting to find out

its fault

call out my name

drunk on the moon
sat there with you
my heart knows poetry

the night seeps into my skin
as the skylight
the cityscape
and the trail of airplanes
reflect
in the honey of your eyes

your tongue traces
the syllables of my name
juggling one for another
for the sake of
endearment

somewhere
in the wrinkled fold of some galaxy
stars must be fusing
dying
aging

and I remind myself
of the hopscotch
we play
drawing eights and threes
in the wrong places

my heart has always been
yours
silly

pushing and falling
but yours
silly

google play

your lips
my lips
apocalypse

how many times I loop
these words
during glistening rains
and suffocating tuesdays

we all have sub-plots
don't we

that we will never
think or stop thinking of
the stones we skip
across the mirror surfaces
of lakes and hearts

that are at once hate
and longing

paper kites

you traced routes
on the small of my back
coarse fingers
your atlas hands
painting their blues
making oceans of me
and leaving ships in my chest

the crazy that was my heart
and the things
left unsaid
in the long couple of seconds
I shut my eyes
against the storm
hitting my sky

cages we form
that I would happily
never breach

some have names
but most do not

nothing left but to leave

know that when I write you
in lower case
is when I'm feeling like
guitar strings when they
are listening to the
music silence weaves

many middles of spiral notebooks
have seen a sudden midnight inspiration
sleep stained haiku
that may never get discovered
they make a home
in dusty corners of my heart
using melancholy as hats

we'd often use buttery yellow
or the colour that night is
when moving towards resembling
wings of a dragonfly
on the walls of this house
the morning sun
nestling comfortably among
the dreams that left my eyelashes

you went rat-a-tatting
at my kitchen door
stood silent among my garden herbs

shadow and light

a sunny, empty house
and a heart beating hard enough
to want to burst out of my chest

I am on the inside of
a cube of ice
time seems frozen
and I watch life go by

picking flowers from your lips
I adorn myself
borrowing the bass of your laugh
to colour my skirt's hem
and just about enough
storminess that we share
to ensure that the words
are never said
that they remain caught
in your throat
on the tips of my fingers

and as I run
against the wind
my hair writes a story
in the wind
that wafts to find itself
in the warmth of soup
on the corner of a hill
late one evening

cravings get better of me
to be lost in the indigo of
the sea that are your arms
and overflow all at once

slight glances out of the
corner of your eyes
that walk over to me
drug me, wash over me
leaving me heady
invincible

oh love
let me find my way home
my way to you
pluck starlight out of the night sky
store it in mason jars
and light up this tent
made of our night sheets
make music of your breath
and life out of the entanglements
of my hair
our fingers
and souls

shining down

have you ever felt like
sending music

to an absolute stranger?

like nobody you know
would understand
the bass of this song
that has you
silent, and wondering
in the middle of the night
in the star light

that's the thing
about music and poetry
and love
they pull you in
shifting your dimensions
until you and infinity

you're one
and endless

on loop

grappling

you took your life, as lovers often do
but I could've told you, Vincent
this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you

to love so

hearts fluttering

like laundered summer clothing

hanged on drying lines

the porch

recently a witness

to indecision

he'd rather stay in

while I want

the skyline to 

be part of 

our evening

colouring my heart

with wine and hurt

your lullabies 

fill my eyes

with an intimacy

my heart knows not

how to muster 

otherwise

it's an act of courage

to love so

to love you

when you go

everything goes
when you go
so go slow

my eyelashes
are a little heavy
from kohl
or liquor
I can't tell

everything falls apart
when you go
so go slow

is everything
supposed to be the same
or is my heartbeat
telling

of the erratic stories
you and I penned
over the moon cycles
and the waves
crashing and ebbing
on my heart

everything breaks down
when you go
so go slow

your fingers traced stories
on my back
and the crests of my waist
leaving magnum opera
and sagas
of love and a little drunkenness

now they're my story
my life
in ways I can't erase
from my blood

how easily
we draw lines
between us
between your heart
and mine
like blood on battle fields

honey, let's not
make battle fields
of our hearts
cause the rivers
of our beings
lead to the same sea