The sheets are rising around my neck
I am in a sea of cotton
My legs tread water

I turn to you
And then we are laughing at the hilarity of it all,
The irony of it all.

I don’t like to imagine your hell
So you show me a heaven that I lose myself in.
Everything will be alright, alright?
I’m here.

But now I am being called, summoned
By things with sexy eyes, winking and nodding
They sparkle and tempt me; they envy my freedom.

I must live for them.

They tell me to stop kicking my legs
To let myself be overcome.

I float to the bottom of my bed
And you walk away.

Thirteen years has made a tradition
Of itchy shirts and eyes cast down
Of umbrella hair and thick underpants
Of pencil shavings and cheese-and-jam-sandwiches
Of fingers jammed in the hinges of smiling faces.

I stand in the centre of a football field
I am patted on the head
I am told to stand up straight
I am asked to catch the ball
I am hit in the face, the face.

Trumpets cry and spit at me
The cymbals rock and hiss
Creating the perfect cadence
Into sweet, sweet loneliness.

His face was pressed against the wall
And his hands were shoved, so tight
Into the pockets of a skirt
With flowers of pink and white.

Her hair spilled into his mouth and ears
She smiled three smiles at once
Until her smile cut open his palm
Which leaked for months and months.

From then on sunshine filled up all his clothes
And laughter poured like lead
Into his throat that happily choked
And coughed until he was dead.

Sometimes when I'm alone at night
I lie stock still, frozen in fright
Of evasive smells
And roaches, white.

What will become of me? I hardly know
I eat air, promise cramm'd
Until my lungs won't grow.

But then, p'rhaps, I might just cling
Onto a word, a look, a pink something
That may or may not have taken place
Within or around interplanetary space.

It's what you say, it's how you say
These things you say
To me
Each day.

Rosie, my rose, my rose of prose;
You push me gently by the nose.

Sam, Sam, my sunshine man,
Together we make (M)eggs and (S)ham.

Erin! Erin! You laugh and cry
Simultaneous-lie inside my eye
Like music to calm our butterflies

Ali, my dear, so pretty in pixels!
Talents that lie in fingers like pencils
Bionic hand attached to the screen
You move, it moves, I laugh, it gleans.

Trirro, O Trirro, you fill my thoughts with interesting things
Like poo and pastiche and paradigmings.

My Clancy, little canary, with tongue so long
Lizardine girl, thou cannot do any wrong.

Sasha's, dear Sasha's, I chop, I blink
I smile until my face hurts and I cannot think
Whilst slicing sweet potato at the canyon sink.

There is more to this list
That my hand fails to write,
But thankyou for reading,
And to all, a goodnight.

I am the fantastic instigator.

Not just hating, not just despising.
But moving beyond, over and through
Up and in,
Dip and spin,

And suddenly I am gone.
Quite gone.

I fit the saucepan on my head
Open my mouth and softly tread
Through fields of fire, fields of red
Enough to make him wet the bed.

Not just loving, not just trusting.
But thrusting.

Further and further
Until the salt burns my eyes and ears
And all I see is white

Ulcers.

She stands with a towel and ushers me away
I sit and sway
I dance and pray.

The house is full of drawers,
Filled with smoke,
Casting tight black shadows across my head.

I found out how to disappear completely:
It came to me at 3 am.

Take one dead deer: Empathise.

You are humming whole-heartedly beneath me
And the sky is writhing with stars
They are shaking and smiling at us
In our stupor of flow'rs, flow'rs:
Swaying behind my eyelids.

In mid-air, mid-breath
You become gigantic
You are ridiculously tall
Your scalp is in line with the trees
Your hands engulf my entire body
I don't understand but I do.

Now my smiling face is but the size of your thumb
I clamber to reach you, gripping onto hairs
Your shoulder is a mountain
By the time I reach your chin,
I am as small as the nib of a pen.

I curl myself into your ear
And sing you to sleep.

Someone's been injecting custard again
It's seeping, dripping
Thick and yellow
Onto the jetty
Sustenance for an ant
Who escaped the flick
The pinch
The thump
Of my hand
This morning
When it crawled onto my stomach
As I lay above the water
Contemplating
To be or not to be.

He couldn't grow
He couldn't grow
He didn't like to
Let them know

Legs detrimental
Dead legtrimental
Lead deg-tree-mental.

Oh box man, what are you?
You are jolly, you are sweet
You are sweat, you are meat.

Sweet tea, sweat tea
"Would you care to pet me?"

Thicker and blacker than
The river bubbling, boiling over the rocks
Whilst sitting, knees to chin
Observed by men with shirts and cameras
They cluck their tongues and
Flash, flash.

Their holiday not so holy anymore-
Polaroids. Of women, dirty, sweaty
Eyes wide with fear; others blindfolded
Tucked away between neatly pressed trousers.

But not for the box man,
He shall curl himself between two rocks
And think of fish with wings
Attacking pieces of Wonder White.

I was wrong, I was wrong
You knew it all along

Two wet feet
Sweating in the fluorescent heat
Enough to make me sick,
Make me kick
Myself sick.

The infatuation is swelling
It's dwelling
In the Bad Places
In the tonsils, the armpit, the follicles.

"I hate that shit."
(You don't know hate. It rips and tears at your ignorance. I smile.)

I have had to leave you, before
A scare tactic
It left you in a cold sweat, beneath, between, the soaked sheets
In the dark room.

You lay there tangled and crying
Until they came and unfurled you
There was yoghurt rotting in the fridge
Maggots in the steak
Left over Birthday cake

I was so happy with our brick walls
And our bucket stilts