not my things

there are seven deer
and sixteen swans
dancing atop her bedside table
in the room that is not mine
but is trying to be filled with my things

my things are not really my things at all
they are a collection of things i could not leave in one country
somethings are very special
not because of what they are
but because of how they came to be
the things in this
not my room
in this
not my house
i am slowly coming to terms with the fact
in essence
i really own nothing
except the thoughts in my head
which of late seem stolen and regurgitated
like bird food
i hope one day
i will know what it is to earn something
and in earning
truly own
however important that is.

upon waking on your birthday

today i woke knowing what my day lacked before i'd the chance to change it

having found comfort in the idea that time had the ability to dilute the strongest of emotions

i was unpleasantly surprised

and have found

as though by some ill magic

i am once again

waking and once again learning

you are gone

and yet it is still your birthday

NMSP

no
more
sad
poems

my sweet friend across the sea

a letter is sent to you

you see it on the floor

by the door

beside the table

upon the rug

the handwriting

easily recognisable

and yet

it will stay on the floor

until you are ready

to know

all i want to tell you

how much i miss you

how much i need to hear back

just to know

all that was

all that has changed

and all that remains

of my sweet friend

across the sea

a hand scribbles something down
on a napkin in a busy cafe
inspired or just bored
i cannot tell
how is it you write
what you write?
or who is it you want to read it?
i must believe
what you say
still imaging what you really think
leaves me afraid
what might you say
if i ever think to ask
what i cannot promise burns holes in me
what i cannot say
sits waiting on my tounge
for all my excuses
for this silence i have none

asking of whole

is it
you are
not half
not a third
not even a quarter
of the man i thought you were?

or

is it
i am
not half
not a third
not even quite a quarter
of the girl
you could ever hope to love?

my indifference
is not half
not a third
nor nearly a quarter
of what it should be

sisters

a little grief in the dark

sometimes he is not dead
he has just passed into another room
of the big house we all wander about in
he is waiting now
for the interlude
or is it just that he waits for the moment before i wake
where he can be beside me
as i sleep
watching and loving me silently in the dark
and it gets hard
sometimes i am lost
i cannot find the light switches and i trip on issues and judgments
i search the house
wrought with grief
slamming cupboards and breaking glasses
the darkness lets the fear tight in my chest grow like weeds
the sickening feeling of alone claws at my sides and i curl smaller and smaller
seeking comfort in the foetal position
his eyes smile back through the photographs
still images of what was
and i realise
i am looking for something that has never left my side
and i am grateful

pressed flowers in the post

how is it she is able to sustain his idealistic fantasy without burning out in the heat of all her efforts?
he lingers still in her presence
she is in love with him
or at least thinks she is
yet he rolls over each morning
stirring her once again from her slumber
and he makes love to her with a half hearted sigh of relief
angst still plaguing his eyes
she is the void he fills with further emptiness
in their sad excuse for a relationship
he is a silly man
and she should never have taken him to her bed
let alone into the garden of her heart
allowing him to harvest all there was of her
she has now not a petal to show for the past eight months
tumble weeds blowing carelessly through the barren wasteland of her chest
should she not press herself
some small white flower
and iron herself in grease proof paper so she can send herself in a card to his mother
a card explaining that her son is better kept at home
out of sweet young girls hearts
his mother hears nothing of it though
the card will be put on a shelf in the drawing room
until a new pressed flower card arrives in the post

my new old bicycle

my new old bicycle is so pretty
it has pink ears and rusty shoulders
i walk beside it because right now it has a broken leg
but when it has been mended
i will ask it to take me to work in the morning
and to the house with the birds on the walls
and it will help me carry the shopping home
and when we are both feeling excitable we will go down hills and squeal
i love my new old bicycle

burnt toast

what a joyous occasion
this Sunday morning
half asleep in your cereal
you are beautiful
i am in love with your tired eyes
and dark expression
this why i burn the toast
all the time

little brocken pieces

the first time i loved him
i broke his favourite cup
it splintered across the floor
the pieces spelt his name on the dirty linoleum
he is passing through
as i am passing through
this multicoloured kaleidoscope of emotional turmoil
only to come alive in bouts of undesired passion
there is no peace in his heart
and the closer i get
the more i cut myself on his broken pieces

kettles in the sky

my grandmother, my sister and i will lie on the grass
in our grandmothers front garden
we will create creatures in the clouds above
the sun warm on our faces
my grandmothers wispy white hair playing across her weathered face
there is a rabbit
turned to a spaceman
that is now a kettle

there is soup on the stove
biscuits in the jar by the bread box
an out of tune piano
and chalk over our fingers
i am home

the curtains

the shadow of a horses ghost flies surreptitiously past my window
yet i know i must sleep with the curtains open
it is simple
i am afraid of the dark
and i long for the morning
i want to know when it comes
i want to know it is there
so even in my sleeping
in the time my soul has to be independent of my body
in the time i surrender to natures kind nurse
i must know all the fears
plaguing me
dancing like demons across this night
have faded in the morning light that graces the cracked window sill
i will sleep with the curtains open