blackbird braille

my parents ran away on the back
of a motorbike

now she lies in bed for days on end
as her body pulls her apart,
while he orbits us,
pulling in a living from meeting room tables.

they’re happy.
we’re happy

but I still want to escape.

blackbirdbraille:

there are concerti enrgaved in your fingernails.
you fascinate me.

you are the swirling of lemongrass
in my Limoges violet pot,
the dragonsbreath steam
that tickles my lips.

i want to feel your eyelashes,
your reflection, the words
that spill from your fingers
into my empty lap.

i will never be anything beyond largo
to you.

blackbirdbraille:

summer

the heat stretches in waves of yellow,
old and languid.
we sit on the baking sands
and eat grapes and shapes
and quench the fire of our skins
in the bay.

i think about growing up;
you shake your head,
and are camoflaged for a moment.

i dig my toes deeper,
and find approaching winter.

blackbirdbraille:

autumn

summer sun falls from the sky,
caught in dying leaves.
the air tastes of iron, rich earth,
and bitter sleep.

the cold creeps in to the edges
of our haven, and your fingers thin;
this season breathes blown steam
and peppermint tea and the smell
behind your ears.

another year will break me.

blackbirdbraille:

winter

the cold tastes like rope burns
and icy tiles and missing.
winter is always hard.

i sleep, caught between
hemlock and aconite and cyanide.
i am choked, my oesophagus filled
with ice and sorry and death;

i spend a year apologising.

blackbirdbraille:

spring

finally: delerium.

i am life-mad, and you-
you-

are the gift of fire and water
and hands held in sercret and
burning before we’re too hot.

i escape into you,
the want in my veins tempered only
by rain and kisses

and the promise of orange-heated days to come.

blackbirdbraille:

first: breathe
      (you are the moss-filled valleys
      of home and desire; you are
      the coffee-apartment filled with
      sun and sleep and Oxford love; you
      are a bitter ocean of rest, of return,
      of I love you.)

then-
allow the sunset dusk of your quiet fear
fall down the street and skin away the
hair your mother brushed and braided and
loved; let your memories of then tumble
through almost-thoughts. feel the salt
of the beach at the bottom of the hill and
lick it from your lips. think about the girl
with the sunshine smile; think about the
heart she broke. curl yourself home
in the warm dust that fills the clouds.
careful. careful. breathe in once more

and

finally.
release.

blackbirdbraille:

this morning i woke from turbulent sleep folded into the creases of my sheets with words etched like a streetmap into my lips. paris flew across my skin, a spiderweb of varicose metro lines and dusty footpaths. i was made of the essence of me; my skin was milk-thin and i broke around the thought of leaving.

my heart is a lodestone, pointing away from you. last night i stretched awkwardly into unconsciousness and found you. i ran. i am running. i am an old creaking machine, dark, clogged with the lost ends of half-breaths and fingerbones. life took bites from my fifteen-year-old thighs and spat me out, and i am a hanging bedraggled thing, caught on star skyhooks. everything here is so old. i am young enough to still be dust, the dust of ages, of aeons, of you. i blow in the wind. i fade and sleep, and wake again, folded into shape for another day. i creak and stretch.

life is fleeting.

blackbirdbraille:

my back is patterened
with pavement cracks.

keep living your imaginings,
sunshine girl;
keep dying your dreams.

blackbirdbraille:

it’s raining again;
water is worming it’s way through
my cell wall and phospholipid bi-layer.
(i am not semi-permeable)

i released stagnant nights to you,
but you only smiled
through miles of fibreoptic cable.
today, you told me of the boy you will date.

i’m melting in this rain.