Sanctuary

For twenty-four years, my
body has been the resting place
for everyone else’s wandering ghosts
– my bones feel broken and
my heart is nothing more than
an empty grave

“Don’t ever apologise for not being comfortable. With any man.”

I’m sorry that I slept with someone new 115 hours after you left my heart to bleed out on my brand new bed sheets. He is nothing like you and tastes like cinnamon toast.

Actually, I’m not sorry.
I’m sorry that my eyes were tinted rose and saw you in such vibrant shades that you seemed to glow, but all the red flags just stood frozen in the winter snow. I’m sorry that I was too fucking warm for your cold soul; your hollow broken shell pierced my softened skin which I had sanded down just to let you in for safety. I know you were only lonely, so
I’m sorry you weren’t a man who couldn’t stand to plant himself in this dirt-stained existence. My unnatural disaster, I’m sorry that the ground on which we stood upon will be salted so you will never walk the plains of my earth again.

Starfish

Serene waves of relief washing over cracked skin
knuckles bruised fighting for the will to live and
legs tired running from reality
thrown into the deep end without the ability to
swim, spent days drawing breaths of salty indecision
and became an anchor of despair until the
lifeboats of an isolated mind dumped the deadweight and
I began regrowing the desire to watch the sun and moon
disagree in the sky while the ocean
sighs in resignation to be a force controlled
by darkness.

Disentangle

I’ve been performing autopsies on
conversations we had so long ago
and placing empty kisses along
hollow collarbones, leaving a
heavy sickness that sits upon shoulder
blades and unsettles stomachs,
missing something that is there but not
here
never quenching the desperate need
for arms of ghosts, wrapped up by
foolish truths, I’ll
fold myself into the inevitable destiny
of nights by a silent phone and
people that could never feel like
the home you were
making out of me.

Once

We once had love and I don’t know how to turn that into poetry.

Religion

I don’t know why I write about love all the time –
I must have been descended from Atlas because
my spine is burdened by the weight of an
inexplicable desire;
something divine has poisoned my veins with a
fire that flows through my body,
burning my insides and
scorching my bones

I don’t know why I write about love, but
I know that climate change
isn’t the only thing that makes the world cold;
we have sold our souls to the notion that
we’re better off alone
with money and cars and iPhones but
a house isn’t a home unless your heart
ignites at the sight of someone’s shadow in the
morning light

I don’t know why I write about love every damn day, but
there’s something sacred in the way it feels
as though I’ve given up a bone from my own rib cage
in biblical desperation whenever you leave
like Adam to Eve, I have grieved the absence of
your shape: you were my saving grace, your bed
a grave of salvation
you are holy wine,
I have sipped on your eternity throughout history
and time

I don’t know why I write about love, but
I know the nights my bed has a dip
on the side, my hands find a resting place where
they feel just right, like a prayer to your bloodline
and I don’t need search the dark for peace
when I can hear our hearts beat at the same pace, I’m
not faced with the usual fear that sings me to sleep
most other nights, I know

It might not be the answer to the meaning of life, but
on the days where I am damaged goods labelled fragile,
the moments when you hold me tight make
all the white noise in my mind become quiet,
in our eyes, a shared look
never recorded in the books,
that says
you are the
only temple I want to worship the rest of my life, so
please don’t ask why I write about love

Infect

Poured a coffee,
let it go cold — my
stomach is turning with
the taste of your lips;
your fingerprints still
burnt on my bones
this soul will forever be soaked
in your sins and I’m
no longer sure how to patch
up wounds that only
exist under my skin

[Draft Message]

A message I couldn’t bring myself to send to you
would sound something like this:

The suburbs are lonely here with
your silence shutting me out of every open space.
I thought of you today while
I faced the biting cold of the streets and
watched the sun settled into the west.
A stormy sunset kissed the coastline with a tidal wave
of lilac, grey and peach
crashing against the periwinkle evening;
I marvelled at you in your wondrous beauty of
mystery and danger as the storm
retreated to the ocean.
By the blanket of night,
I was left wondering if you were
thinking of me
beneath the same coloured sky.

Phantom Limb

Favourite smile,
you have been missing from my
photographs for the longest time,
I’ll never forget your eyes
lighting up at their sight of me or
the way you fit
just right
into the chaos of my life — our memories
can’t be dusted away with
the cobwebs in my mind.
Notebooks have forgotten your name,
but your face
is committed to an aching memory bank and
the agony of reaching out to an
invisible skeleton frame
can never be erased

Bad Trip

Last night I learned
no matter which drugs
get into my bloodstream
nothing can numb the immense
agony of being empty
after pouring so much of
myself
into other people. I have
been dying so often, diving
into deep ends and going
off the rails;
someone just push me in front of
a train because every hangover
is composed of aching memories
and a desire to black them out