disproportionate

this love is disproportionate
give me more of you
leave me more
of me

joy

I did not see

this joy coming

it covered its tracks well –

dreadful timing

unwarranted absences

sudden withdrawals

selfish silences

drunken delusions

this messy trail of clothes

you watching me, silently

folding them

smiling.

slow burn - III

how will my heart

let go of you –

who will tell it to?

I dare not listen to

this fearful tattoo

it now beats

one day it will hear of you

loving someone else

break again all at once

for now let it hold on to you

and break slowly

every day

you walked into a bar

you walked into a bar

you walked into a bar

and you forgot to phone

you walked into a bar

and you forgot to phone

so I phoned you

I phoned you and asked

how you walked into a bar

and forgot to phone

and you started explaining

how you were there in the bar

with the men talking business

you explained business to me

but mansplaining takes time 

so I heard her

I heard her.

time

I have started

thinking about

time again

it does not help me

but it helps me

understand

because time –

time can measure
how hearts work

in silence, space, distance

time can measure love

in that measurement

I can understand

loss

I didn't realise I loved you until I did

I didn't realise I loved you
until I did

until you stopped me mid-sentence
and said this is love

and I have a word for this ocean
that has engulfed me

muting the screams that haven't stopped
since I can remember

where I can fully breathe and I am floating 
weightless and free, a balloon

your fingers hold the string gently
I don't want to break free.

complete

when you look at me
I look at me 
through your eyes

I see you see the scars
and cover me 
in something 
changing me
from more than just 
open wound

through your eyes I am 
more complete
than I have been 
since I was a child

calm yourself

calm yourself

watching
someone on a carousel
that won't stop for you

you wring your heart out 
with your hands
watching

calm yourself

this is a story for our children

this is a story 
for our children—

how I surrendered
with a simple 'you win' 

and walked so far in, 
your heart screaming 

'run' 

followed, only to find a love 
that makes you cry

depth and tenderness
an intimacy unimagined

now you won't apologise
for dreams of children

we won't have

feeding time

there are people
you should not return to

who would have you
tearing your heart out

there are people who 
turn a blind eye

for they must feed

decipher

how are you able
to see the writing
carved into my skin

read this language
understand this blood
how it ebbs and flows

hold this breath
measure its weight
and know its depth

you have not
known enough
of this life but yet

when I see
your soft hands
I want them

cry

I want to forget
how I loved you
with a love 
that made you 
want to cry

[unable to 
reciprocate -
heart swollen
with wanting
head trying to
stay afloat]

I will take 
nothing from you
when I leave
you will feel 
everything you are
disappear

no words

you brought out the

dictionary

made her swear on every

synonym

for over, left, broken

framing your questions in

all possible ways

covering all bases in

uncovering

your guile nowhere near

sufficient

for her deceit

my aunt looking for

proposals

for her daughter, adjusted

her shawl

and with a youthful laugh

once said

an old man marrying a

young girl

is like buying a book

for other people to read

love is warfare - II

love is warfare

we both know

only one of us 

comes back alive

journey

you are yet
to draw
lines between
my scars
see the shape
that emerges
draw parallels
and you would
speak of love
we have far to journey
I am still mapping 
your birthmarks

you break me

you bury your face in me
like you are starving 
I am left gasping

clawing at the sheets
your arms gripping me
held by the hips

I am helpless,
breathless, 
bound

and then you break me

happiness - III

happiness is fleeting 

but loss lines your bones

after I break

what you call serendipity 
is a weight inside my chest

you give me too little of you 

how did you learn to be 
so careful with yourself?

watching me hurl myself into us

standing there calmly, know this -
I will turn away after I break.

fallen - II

for the first time 

it doesn't scare you 

didn't you see 

my hands shake as I lit up 

yet another cigarette -
I've been scared for weeks

my face against your chest 

helps me breathe

you are home
I am lost

no bearings, 
no ground, 
no sky

supplant

today my heart
is beating outside my body
today my heart is crawling
into you

tomorrow I will
grow myself a new one 
and you will wake up
lost

paper-bag balloon

heart,
he has turned you
into a paper-bag balloon
easily fluttered
easily crushed

easily explosive

explodable

things my mother taught me - I

my mother taught me

to leave when no one’s looking

when there is no danger

of being stopped

or getting caught

she left past midnight

three children in tow

attempting an escape

along dark beaches, rail tracks

heart pounding

but I say

leave in the light

before being left

leave when it is least expected

– that’s when no one’s looking

some mornings

some mornings

I wake up broken

wash the blood

from the sheets

after he goes

they do not dance

in the breeze

or dry stiff

in the hot sun

but seethe in darkness

beneath a ceiling fan

swirling slowly,

heavy,

bearing witness

to too much

kite

you let me go

like you let go

of a kite

like I was nothing more

than paper or string

unravelling

nothing worth keeping

nothing worth saving

nothing

beautiful

do you know 
how beautiful
you are?

someone's going to 
want to break 
your heart

well-woman

the woman

in the house

behind my mother’s

forever leaping into wells

got on my mother’s nerves

‘why can’t she do the damn thing

when the well is full?’

she would fume

knowing full well

it was only a cycle

rinse, rise, repeat.

we were not so poor then

we were not so poor then

we spoke English

had running water

and tins of food from England

from those who left 

before us

our possession

of this tongue alone

was enough for mothers

to send their children 

to our garden

even after our mother left

(but what gave us street cred

were those instant soups)

we were not so desperate then

even when the same blood

running in our veins

started running in the drains

for our mother

in short, sharp sentences

told them what we were (not)

but then

we had running water

tins of food from England

a mother who could speak

their tongue

who told us to

SHUT UP

I should have dated losers

I should have 
dated losers

people 
who would eventually
slip through the cracks
into near or complete 
oblivion

who wouldn't turn up 
in newspapers 
unless arrested 
or in death notices
read by no one 
but those waiting 
to die

who would disappear
even from memory
face forgotten
footprints erased
invisible

as if - unlike you -
they never were.

love left, III

I am practicing 
being left

today 
I won't say anything

tomorrow
I won't feel anything

soon enough
I won't even know

you are a poem

you are not defective
you are not a body bag
you are not an embarrassment
you are not your political position
you are more than an aspen
you are kinship with trees
you are existential joy
you are a poem

love left, II

what do you do
when love
leaves?

like leaves falling from a tree
all too suddenly and all too slow
and you are 

left

the station is an empty echo
the train is gone
the dust motes dance no more

you wait
your waiting
is not waiting for

you wait in silence, in stillness
the blood roars in your ears
heartbeats hoof-beats in the dust

you will not leave

love left, I

when those
you love leave,

they are suddenly
everywhere -

step out, turn left
there they are!

right behind you,
oh they're there!

on the balconies
under the stairs

up on hoardings
everywhere

you can barely
take a step

for tripping over
some love left

or stumbling into
love that's left

when those
you love leave

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

omission V

another day of 3 a.m. sadness
waiting for you with my
heart in my mouth
this silence is
choking me

omission IV

not even this late sunset

enveloping me in golden light

can melt these shards of ice

you stabbed me with

so many times last night

omission III

your careless words
falling so effortlessly
from those fingers

those careless hands
so deftly breaking
my heart apart

so blinded by you
I just didn't see
that knife

omission II

funny how you can break a heart
without ever laying a finger
on the one who loves

omission I

tonight's going to be another night
of lying on the ground at 3 am
but tonight I won't wonder
where you are

precipice

you are a precipice
and I like to live 
a little too dangerously

rushing headlong
when I see the fall
shattering ecstasy

such delicious violence
colour me sated
when blood is drawn

numbers

the numbers can't go wrong
you said, but I know 
how they lie

tunnel vision

today I am that girl on the train
red notebook, blue pen
scribbling your name

do you even know
I want to sink my teeth
into the side of your palm?

do you even know 
you hold my heart 
in those careless hands?

everything is too bright
with you colouring my days
shading them in a slow ache

let me put this book away
return this borrowed pen
erase this scar I can't name