hate is hot coals on cold nights

love endures,

but hate –

hate gives you the hottest fires

a burning that won’t ease

flaming in the pit of your belly

eyes alight, skin ablaze, heart afire

brilliantly aflame

searing through life
hate is hot coals on cold nights

love is a warm blanket for cold days

that first time, a Christmas tree

the kindness of strangers

towards children

we didn’t know what we didn’t have

making do with what we did

stringing popcorn on the tree

the girl next-door would eat it up

but we were wrapped up in love,
that warm blanket for cold days.

lust is a hot knife through hard ice

it was easy

to pick you

to pick you up

to keep you

for long enough

[all these years,

a long time

for something

that wasn’t love]

lust is a hot knife

through hard ice

but some things

melt easily –
only to harden again

scar

I want to be the scar 
you talk about
the one that you 
can't name

enough

I never
have to wish
you love me more
you love me enough
this enoughness is 
just enough
for me

journey

travelling back to where you are
this train hurls itself forward
I am forever rear-facing

the outside unfolding in reverse
no surprises there, it's all passed by me
before

I don't know if I have passed you too
or if you have left

sobriety

you used to love me when you were drunk
sobriety never became us

but I no longer answer your drunk texts
a spoilsport, I won't play the game
direct your calls elsewhere
to someone who will stay
when the liquor ends

I didn't love you at all
no, not even then.

broken child

broken child
surely someone loved you 
broken child

Molotov

loving you
has too often been
a lesson

in the many ways
the human heart
can bruise

sometimes 
in the tender shades
of ripening fruit

sometimes like 
a war that I 
will lose

love is warfare - I

you have crossed borders dismissing sanctity

surmounted barricades once unassailable

to lay at my feet an explosive gift

love is warfare

I am left shaking in anger, engulfed in guilt

when I have done nothing but listen, unwittingly,

to a confession I never saw coming

love is too often a bullet

you are a separatist movement

aiming your guns right at my head

an attempt to dissolve sovereignty

love is a violation of territorial integrity

there is no legislation to deal with what you propose

I cannot draw parallels where there are none

this act of terrorism completely blindsided me

love is stumbling in the dark in a hole you dug in me

meantime

you are dust in your grave
sand and dirt

I am warm in my bed

I never thought I could 
bear it; to think of you
consumed by worms

but here I am
alive and well

sometimes even happy

home, abandoned

I always believed I would remain a place you call home no matter where you went or with whom now I find myself standing on the shore staring at an empty sea

hunger

I have known what it is
to starve; I have not
forgotten

but to be without your love
is a hunger gnawing
at my very bones

I sit here listening;
let it consume everything
inside me

topography of tears

laughing tears

trace our map

of happiness

did you know there were types?

I know of

only one kind
with you

north star

on the other side of the world

you hold me in your heart

as home, your north star

I sit here hoping

you never return

I once held your name

so precious in my mouth,

saying it only with tenderness

it took me three tries

to remember it today

how cold,

to love a woman like me
who only loved you once

dancing lights

another new day
I find myself freezing in 
another airport lounge

face against the cold glass
watching the endless lights 
dancing in the distance

they warm the heart - 
flickering, fading, 
flaring up again...

I place my wishes for you 
on them - love, joy, peace, 
time, space, bliss...

somewhere a voice is calling
breaking through the memories
it's time now to fly away again.

wait until she leaves II

wait until she leaves you

you will learn the names of 
all the gods in this universe

as you learn to scream hers
in a hundred different ways

wait until she leaves

wait until she leaves you

when you wake up to a life 
drenched in grief, limbs heavy
her scent still on your skin

the coloured-everything-and-then-left 
ache of her unloving, 
the absent presence of her

everywhere, every minute, 
her laughter, her warmth
her throaty, brazen whispers 

wait until you wake up 
feeling her hands on you and then
remember she is gone

the echoing emptiness
when the once-abundant waterfall 
of her love is still

and she is already far away, 
her ghost left behind to haunt you
with every heartbeat

then you will know what it is 
to be loved by a woman

you will weep