Seduction of a five year old.
She told them her feet were cold.

She was limp and uninviting
Short haired and dreaming
Of dragonfly wings in the morning
Of milkless Nutri-Grain
Of learning how to whistle
And a dog named Pixie.

It's the red on my lip
And the twenty dollar tip.
Umbrellas in my pockets
Child dreams of blasting rockets.

And still they launch.

It's the bile in my throat
And it's everything she wrote.
Your sweet naivity
Of baby blue and gold nativities.

And still they launch.

Will it take a body bag to believe me?
Will it take nothingness to relieve me?

(She's sweating in the middle of a cold night
Her grandmama says "it's not good, it's not right.")

Is it love? Is it gout?
I've left my door open
So you can walk out

Is there nothing beneath my coat, this doubt?

All I can smell is the gingerbread men
Marching between the sheets
With red hats and sweet treats

They don't know how to act
Which roleplay to enact

For the voice that pleases me
Is hiding in the deep blue sea
They whimper and they feel
All the things they could not heal
And run as far as their sweet calves
Can manage.

She is the glass woman
One look and you're shattered

Forget everything that mattered
Your heart is in tatters

There's some blood on your neck
That gets you unawares
It's her love, it's her love
The way to show she cares

She is the glass woman
One touch and you're in pieces

Spread out upon a linoleum floor
The stupid fool she couldn't hold on for.

My eyes keep rolling back into a perfect sky
I've learnt to become the silent passerby
My steps become a lullaby
Night is not the time to cry

I'll just keep passing by
Won't look you in the eye
Won't ask you for the time
The bus is not the place to cry

My hands are weak they will not grip
They cannot wave or point or rip
Hanging limply by my side
Screaming out loud is not the way to cry

A short black dress with two sugars.

Grinds in the pockets and in between the tiles
Kicking colt legs and tiny little smiles
Nails stained brown held fast to spinning dials
Flirting with the coffee drains, milk for miles.

He was tall and uninviting
Bald and simply frightening
Didn't knock or call to me
Just walked into the deep blue sea
And out again. One. Two. Three.

He piano played and tapped his feet
In my cold dark room it was a treat
Until he cried and turned to me
Reached out his hand and stared at me
And floated away. One. Two. Three.

In my mouth he'd placed a finger
For eternity it seemed to linger
Until he withdrew and he was done
And that was my dream. Three. Two. One.

I woke up in a cold sweat
Said it wasn't a real threat
Tried to forget his salty thumb
And went back to sleep. Three. Two. One.

I shall pull my hat down over my ears
And wear my glasses dark
Upon this world, so huge and white
I shall hardly make a mark

I shall lay still and smiling, composing things
And chased by dreams that won't forsake me
Waiting for time to sink deeper down
And a kiss from your lips to wake me.

You cling to your clothes and laugh, laugh, laugh
It's so much fun to be
Engulfed in space, treading on air
A thousand miles from me.

So I built a rocket and three, two, one
I'm flying towards you, my love
I can hardly see, it spins so fast
Until there is nothing above.

But I went too far north
And now I'm on top, sixty seconds too far,
We're destined to be, fated to be
Torn, me and you- apart.

I miss you so much that I can't hang up
We have to count and count and count
My mouth gets caught on ahundredandfive
The sum of my love's amount.

I am huge.

Entirely insulated and engulfing you
This city is nothing to my appetite.

I chew it up and spit it out.
It's the confetti on my carpet
I let the bricks and bones sit there for days and days.

My teeth are aching.

For the metal and the velvet, the glass windowpanes
That shine deliciously in the afternoon sun
With all the pride and innocence
Of a siren.

The pavement is calling me
From the roof of the high rise, I look down
And imagine the grit and blood
In my mouth.

And
sometimes
she
just
can’t
answer
the
phone

For
fear
of
the
uncertain
and
the
unknown.

They're scared of me
They're scared of me
They shut my door and shiver

(Just shut the door and forget her
She'll hurt you with her eyes
There's nothing worse
Than seeing that hearse
Within her dead doll eyes)

I'm a rarity
And they're scared of me
They shake their heads precariously
They shiver and spit on me silently
From behind the wooden door.

She's as lonely as a picture
And there's no one left to look
Upon her gilded glittering frame
Dangling from its hook.

Her angles have been touched and kissed
Caressed with crazy fingers
Wanting, needing something more
Than her eyes that never lingered.

But now she's back in the stock room
With the Klein that no one could stand
Waiting to be kissed and touched again
In that white-walled, art-filled land.

There's a hickey on his heart
But he has nothing to complain
He got it from a cigarette
A velvet smiling flame

All fingernails and lipsticked lips
Made trails down his spine
He didn't feel a single thing
Just laughed and mumoured "fine"

And now it's just too fucking late
To realise what she'd done
The hickey on his little heart
Grew big and then it won.

You’re just a small white dot in the middle of the sea
Barefoot, blind and entwined with me

Took off your shoes and said nothing at all
Was easier that way- not to fall, to fall
Into something else, out of our depths
Where my toes don’t touch and I take small breaths

Drag your eyes over here and show me
Just how pretty you can be
Drag your mouth over here and teach me
Just how pretty we can be

The other night I was on your shoulders real tall
It was so easy to fall, to fall.

(The butterfly bird was in my hand and shook
Its death feathers quietly into the sand.)

Then we were back in the middle of the sea

You

Barefoot, blind and entwined with me.

Do you hear that sound?
It's called rain.
Do you feel that sound?
It's called pain.

That curtain really is too sheer
The businessmen, they get too near
They know they have nought to fear
Because that girl, she cannot hear.

She's deaf and blind and mute and dumb
Barely dares to chew her thumb
Just sits and beats upon a drum
Waiting for that man to come.

It seems she was just another fleeting impression
Meddling amongst your moments of transgression

Tired, dog eared, tucked into your retro suitcase
Memento of some eighteen year old embrace.

And sometimes she just can’t answer the phone
For fear of the uncertain and the unknown

She just lets it sit and hum, what else can she do?
And in any case, anyway- it’s never you.

It’s never you.

Growing divorced from that town, those faces
Falling into this city, these spaces

But somehow never quite learning to stay awake
Sleep is the only thing she doesn’t have to fake.

(It’s free and it’s clean

It’s safe just to dream.)

(and the heart, well it hurt- and it turned out that nothing could separate the vertebrae and from that day on he only got to look at children.)

So there we have it.
With string beans and string dreams
I am touching my hair
Waiting for you
And a piece of toast.

The toaster belonged to the other people
With elusive identities and close acquaintances
(People to hug at night, to bake a casserole with)
You never know if they are not at home
Or just pressed against their pillows
Listening to the trombone next door
And waiting for me to get out of the kitchen.

So I am as quick as I can
Hands over the toaster steam
Don’t get distracted, don’t remember previous slices of bread
Previous hands and eyelashes
That have fallen down into the network of wires
Sitting next to a group of crumbs
And discussing the political climate
Of the one bedroom flat.

It’s unnatural and cruel, a perfect ridicule
Of everything that’s right.

Spat out of bed, Labrador limbs
And a heart to match- awkward and angled
Stardust spangled
With all the words of a newborn
But no strange greetings.

It’s silent and still dark, trees in grey bark
Gowns.

They are cold against my hands
As I caress them and wait for the 373

It’s peculiar to see, the strangers and me
Our fumbling of cards and change
Some weird ritual, and yet
United and helpful
(Her arm on mine as the bus lurches).

It’s absurd and a shame, this strange little game
That comes to an end
Just as our eyes loosen themselves of sleep
Just as the sun raises an arm in salute
Of us little men.

And suddenly it’s clear.

I am crying with the man whose hips take up the whole seat.
Everyone is avoiding his eyes, stepping wide
Trying to hide
From the noises he is making in his sleep
(Wild dreams of skin and toast).

The business man
Don’t understand.
His wife just swept her hand through her hair
Across to the other side of the bed
And found it cold.

Sedimental sentiments
Are sinking through my skin
Past the realm of compliments
And things to put them in

The tupperware is cracked, you see
It's sticky garlic-plastic
Has refused to hold another phrase
Of sickly staunch sarcastic

I trust no one, not even myself
Crosslegged at the botom of the Great Smog
Listless, pill-less, heartless
Nothing to write home about
But the power built on powder
The castles made of candy
And thirty thousand lakes, rivers and reservoirs
Taking their toll on my budget.

He reached for her hand but she pulled away
He reached for her wrist but it was withered and grey
He reached for her hem but she coughed and shook
He reached for her face but she had swallowed a book

Poor darling, my darling
All limp and lame
Un-crossing your legs
To star dust and fame.

Tumble dry now and sleep for the night
Tucked into my pocket of the shirt with the kite
You know? You know!
All is not lost
Just a look to the left
To see what your heart hates most.

I brought out my deadest pan
Showed it to the biggest man
Reeled him in and kissed his hand
Then pressed it to my deadest pan.

He drew back and shouted, just didn’t understand
Why it burnt, why it stank upon his hand
With such putrid ferocity, with such vigor
When on the exterior it made such a pretty figure.

Well I laughed a bitter laugh, but never moved my tongue
My eyes remained as cool as a Thursday
(As steady as shoes).

My stoic eyelids
Flicker and crush
The dreams of the biggest man
Into finest dust.

One day you'll look to see I've gone

Some day you'll know I was the one

And now the time has come

And, my love, I must go

And though I lose a friend

In the end you will know, (oh).

Allergic to lead- and yet he still swallowed my toast!
Licking my elbows and circus smiling
Thy cannot compare...
What is it that I want most?
Slowly, slowly.
(As you wish.)
The parenthesis on the bus and my head in your lap
If only you knew/ if only you were new.
And now you belch.
Great big noise.
You care nought of me or my dreams-
They buzz around you as flies might
Circling me in the night
Lying next to me
In place
Of you.
Hilarious? I autosave, I spread, I slave
I try to give back what I once savoured, saved
Inside your mouth and laughing now
Ought, ought, ought
To try?
To clarify?
I cannot yell, these clarifications!
For you are so small
In a ball
On my bed.


Don't go.

Of old origin, a stamp-
Your eyelash in my eye
Your laughter in my throat
How could I be anything but you?

Of new origin, unknown, uncared for-
The day you shaved your head
(You alien, you bastard)
Your bastard- in a basket
I wear a sack
How should I know any better?

Of your origin, you organ-hater-
Ripping the tape out of my cassette
Tying knots into my hair
Wrenching a spoon out of my mouth
Making conversation between years, between tears
Retching goodbye
Changing the sheets
And wishing you’d never met her.

Fingers, thumb
Toes are numb
A hairy pen
Beside someone

Ink in nostril
Tiny tendrils

Washing squashed
I am sloshed
Stuck inside,
Beside your bedside
Inside your insides.

Her hair lay in sticky threads, escaped from a long plait, which perhaps once ran straight and dignified down her back.

She had been running. Banging herself against the frames of the little room- housing not much more than a steel cabinet, a writing desk, a chair. She had splinters in her palms, under her fingernails; she had scratched at the walls, frantic- some posters of pin-up girls had been torn down in her frustration. Their torn faces watched her sadly, their bodies posed in absurd positions, a leg here, an ear there...

In the time it took for her toungue to release itself from between her teeth, he had already walked to the bathroom and washe his hands of the filth.

Of the fifth.

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

They tried to put their fingers in
Gagging reflex, salty skin
To tickle and persuade the back of his throat
Still flaking, red raw
From last time.

Those words had come out all wrong
Now they must go back
To be redigested, re-gurgled
Prettified, and spat
With vigour
Back into the waiting, ticking hands
To be judged, assessed and criticised

They must not be too harsh, not too subtle
Their intonation must be perfect,
Collaborative, kind.
Working like an oiled robot
With the muscles of the throat, the neck, the jaw.

Teeth: poised and ready
For this is perhaps your last time to impress
To leave tiny marks in vowels and sibilants
To escape the fingers and the vomit

And instead, smile in mock confidence
At your suitors’ hands eagerly awaiting
Their fresh meat.

I did not mean to do her harm
Her orange shine, her rusty charm
Was certainly undeserving.
And yet
It was I
And I alone,
That forgot the important things.
The kiss goodnight, the clean water.

And so it was.
She ran over my smallest finger first.
What use is there in naming,
Pinky, Mr. Ring Fing,
When they all end up ground, inseparable
A despicable and bloody marriage.

And all because of a flat battery!
Flat chested, flat footed, flat hearted
The fuel tank flooding and weeping,
Seeping its acrid juices
Into other organs, folding and bubbling like intestines.

Mother, mother
Don’t cry.

Soon they will attend to you,
Your eyes, your mouth
Shall be caressed and bandaged
Praised, for your long-lasting courage, your will
To survive against time
Abusive men and
Me.

Dear little dirt bird
Tell me what you see
Girl writhing blindly
One two three

Dear little blue toe
Tell me what you smell
Books rotting madly
Spore mother cell

Dear little frozen ghost
Tell me what you hear
Skin scratching paper
Vestibule of the ear

Ignite! Ignite! Ignite!

Dirt bird, blue toe, frozen ghost
Take what you sense
And sensibly salute me
Alone in nothingness.

Mercantile and ridiculous
Lowly of the low
O sparkling, laughing needle:
Tickle us! Tickle us!

(They rubbed their wings against the bars
Their bones were de-fortified
De-mortified)
Little mortal eye-catchers, how you

Changed my world.
Sliced and diced
Sluiced and juiced
Eye liquids- melt and bubble!

Seventy Two hours to go
Until darkness, darkness.
Sans moon, sans stars
Starkness, starkness.

Nothing to go by, I have
But one faint scar
(‘Tis but a scratch! A scratch!)
Left upon my left
Palm.

Right upon my write.
I sneer and spit
I cheer and kick

It is the barbed wire, the silver snare
The flesh, the scar, the broken chair
The croak of your larynx
The nicotine lips
The small sips
Of me.

And the end, so near!
You probably smelt it
So that was the end
Our hearts a-melted.

You sat up, you tasted, you spat me out
Just as we went through that roundabout.
And this scratch, but a scratch
Upon my left palm
Was your gift, but a gift
Of your love and your charm.

You love me! You love me!
They all said it was true
I swallowed that love
So.
Goo goo g'joob.

The hat shall not be worn, from this day forth
It lies dormant and subdued
Tattered, elastic teetering on its edge:
Teeth marks around the fringe.

Headwear to restrict, to confine at first,
Had become flaccid and comfortable
So much so that it’s owner became immune to its presence
A second layer of hair, membranes to remember-
Precisely, the effects.

Purpose, intention, audience
And always a deep ‘hum’ sliding down each hair follicle
Trickling lovingly, albeit hideously into the ears.

This hat, this hat
And to think it was herself that bought it in the first place!
Tight-fitting, professional- the perfect mask
To trap the black, the nausea, the upside-down men.

But soon it realized its capabilities transcended such meager thoughts
Instead, it lengthened its ribbons, bright and velvety, serpentine
To coat and cover and choke the eyes.
Arrest! Arrest! Indeed, it was a crime.
But no one noticed, in time, in time.

The hat became one with mind, with body
It could control… things.
Like- the time at which the wearer brushed her teeth,
Or- the specific emotion which one would wear
(Anger, a neatly pressed suit)
Until, the tendrils of straw had grown so fat and confident
That they stretched down over the mouth and nostrils.

The hat(e). The hat(e).

And to this day, one can see the little scratch marks in the fibre
The loose threads
The gnawed heads
Of the ribbon.

The wearer, face pale and unassuming
Can lie back now.

Down, right down
Like wax off a candle
My skin. On fire, as it were-
Flesh of a hue, Burnt Umber
Care of you.

Twas the unintentional intention
The slap on the knee
The cigarette poised between two fingers
The frantic dripping eyes

Sweetheart, I disappoint
This wine with which I anoint
Your forehead, your chest-
Was too warm.
It left shiny scars and heavy breathing, sliding

Down, right down
Things could have (should have?) been so different

She hopped into the saucepan
With the other jigsaw pieces
Masticating the cardboard
Until, until, it ejects out of her mouth as
Moist and mangled as swamp muck

The theatrical comeback, the final embrace
The tears, the begging
The teddy bear crayons and
A pathetic, puny stream of words as weak and inconsistent as yourself
Inflaming her four year old heart.

This smell is like no other
It is entirely inescapable
Rising like hot air in this little room
Makes me scream, it makes me cry
Any logical person would shake their head and laugh
At my theories
Of corpses, of angry ghosts, of people with limbs flexed in the wrong direction
This room is not welcoming
It is pushing me out with its solidness, its solidarity, its smell
The walls are nodding and sneering at me
They look to one another and conceive plans
To push me away
Or, to crush me in my sleep, mangling my bones and flesh into mattress
With pajamas unrecognizable from skin
With hair wrapped around my throat
And both my arms asleep
Until I have become absorbed, like them
I shall haunt, haunt:
Burn my own flesh, sing songs in minor keys and breed horrible smells
In preparation
For the next one.

This hand I place across that mouth,
It is not unkind.
But rather, it possesses a pink jealousy
And is quite egotistical.
For example, it would sacrifice a plate of vegetables,
A glass of milk,
A flaking piece of baklava,
For you.
The hand is not un-patient, nor is it angry.
But rather, it moves with a grace and ease
That deludes its target
Like a possum on a pole about to be trapped
By two gentleman.
If everything is poison
It has no right to exhale, that mouth,
It has no right to inhale.
And thus the hand, soft and unassuming,
Knows what is Right
And what is Wrong
(Natural law, mon ami.)
I shall not dwell on such things, however,
Instead I shall allow my eyes to be preoccupied
By the shiny things
By the intricacies, the idiosyncrasies, the idiocies
That come to me, like babies
Swathed in old white coats,
Slipping down my throat-
They are so sweet and digestible!
Turning brick into mattress
Knife into loving, stroking, hand.
I close my eyes and all the world drops dead,
I’m out of my head, out of my head.
And this hand, it is now full of rust
Driving it into my mouth, my eyes, my nostrils
Little specks of orange mix with all of my blood
Vitamins now.
It is not unkind, this hand,
And yet it smothers.