The water is hot
and the
heat clings
to my skin and

turns it pink.
a blush to
my unnatural 
skin.
The pink is 
spreading through
the water 
as
red drips
down my legs in
a steady stream. It 
tickles the back of my calf
and I scratch.
There
are clots in the water.

Blood under
neath my nails.

My coffee is hot too
and everything
is warm
but I am 
cold 

blood on my 
palms
sticks to the sides
of the bath and
my mug
and
still i
dig deeper with
my fingers.

it no longer
hurts
everything outside
feels warm and
I feel
very
cold.

I was accustomed
to being sad and
spending my nights
in the dark
dark with only
glow-in-the-dark
stars on my ceiling,
a makeshift galaxy
overhead.

After a while they would
tire and fall,
but I could not wish 
upon sticky-back plastic. 
Eventually I stopped
sticking them up and took to
melting them against my radiator. 

And whenever someone told
me they loved me,
in the same breath
they could etch words into my
hips with their teeth,
penetrating deep into
bone
that stuck with me and
mined away till
I was a hollow
cavity.

One wore my heart on his
sleeve and stuck it
with pins. Made me dance and
burned me with cigarettes.

And now I realise
where those stars fell to.
Whenever I look out
to the night sky and
watch the moon between
silver-grey cloud.
There is a supernova in
my chest that
glows bright when you
laugh and say my name.

I am worried
you will burn me out faster
than before-
I have never fallen
so fast or so hard and I
worry more for the falling
stars I see now than ever before.

you have
sparked the birth
of one-thousand stars
inside me. 

I’m terrible with words-
but we’ve been through
that and you know it. 
But I think that when I 
kiss you 
everything I wanted
to say doesn’t matter
anymore. 
All of the words that
were on the
tip of my tongue
get swallowed up and
you steal the breath
right from my lungs as
i press my mouth to yours.

and then everything
i wanted to say
bleeds through me
like ink.

I am very good at
writing poems 
of metaphors
about how he
broke my heart
and birthed
new scars on my hips.
They litter the floor
on old
newspaper and
blotted ink and
blood. 
Sometimes I rip
them up and scatter them
in the wind.

They dance in the air
and the wind reads
out my words.

I am not
good at poems about
nice stuff or
feeling good or
encapsulating
a single
happy moment. 
And I wish
I could say
these things to
your face but
I am too shy and 
nervous.
But I like
your smile
and your laugh
and I like it
when you tell
me to shut
the fuck
up.

Which is what
I am going to 
do. 

2AM With Coffee

Nights like these are
the longest.
When I can’t
sleep and pain richochetes
up my body.
I can lie in bed
all night and
stare up at
the ceiling or I can
move around the house,
silent,
barely human,
a haunting.
Floorboards creak and
I click my fingernails against
the bare wallpaper.
I exhale and
the sound is lonely.

I can hear the clock
ticking down and
it does not echo
or reverberate
the sound is just dull
and dead in the
night.
it is as if
everything is being swallowed.

I turn the TV on
just so that I am
not alone and I can
pretend the conversations
are mirroring
my own.

Coffee lies untouched
and stone cold.
I drink it anyway,
seeking that kick. 

I do not know how long I 
will stay awake in the
house
perhaps the entire night.
All I know is
that
the darkness is better
than sleeping.

Quiet

It is very quiet up here
but my head is very loud.

The wind blows through the grass
and whips my hair against
my forehead, which stings
perhaps more than it should.
And it is sunny, so very sunny.
And the birds are dotting the horizon
and the sea is an impossible
blue. 
I sit by the edge
of the cliff of
Tintagel
and listen out for the whales which
I hear dot this coast.
There are no whales but
there is the 
gentle whisper of the
sea and the
crashing of waves against

the caves.

And it is so very quiet and
serene but I cannot focus
upon everything.
I cannot focus upon
Arthurian mythology
and seagulls
and the fact that ice-cream
is making my thighs sticky,
because it is melting into my 
skin.

Because my head is very
loud.
It is a susurrus and the crash
of lightning and
the scream of a fox at 
night and a car-accident
all at once.
And I wonder if
I will ever find peace.

A Nervous Tic

My anxiety is an intrinsic
part of who I am.

I chew my lips till they are raw
and chipped like
porcelain. And my fingers,
and the skin around them?
I chew that too.
I’ve another nervous tic
where I fiddle with my
earring.
Sometimes I curl
my hands into fists
to imprint upon
my palms.

count to ten
and breathe.
always
i need reminding of that.

You were a distantstorm on the horizonthat I

You were a distant
storm on the horizon
that I could
not prevent
no more than I could
escape the downpour.

Even after youTore me toShreds with yourRazor-lined words,From

Even after you
Tore me to
Shreds with your
Razor-lined words,
From sharp silver
Tongue.
Sharp enough to
Slice into me
But soft enough a
Metal that
You could melt
Into the core of me
And harden
To destroy me from
The inside out
I would still
Take you back
With my
Dying
Breath

I listened to allof your favourite songs withthe

I listened to all
of your favourite songs with
the lights dimmed and
tried to see inside
your head.