Unwanted

The cab door closes the night

Leaving footsteps of broken glass

And paper napkins

Soaked in tears from a bottle.

She is unwanted.

(Just found this little piece written last summer - I quite like the first four lines.)

Just words

It stings, does it not? They trickle into your conscious. Then, like hot oil they burn slowly through the layers of defence, get under your skin and linger. Fester. You can claw at them, but once said they dig deeper and deeper until they discover the softest and most vulnerable spot.

And they are just words.

I watch you now, as the edge of my voice breaks you. It feels good to be able to knock the air out of your lungs just by using my vocal cords. You may think it is not taking any effort on my part, that I like doing this. But it is as painful for me as it is for you. Yet, there is satisfaction as I watch the impact of my words reach your eyes. Flickering uncertainty.

If I wanted, I could turn a single syllable into a weapon, a sigh into an insult, my lips into hatred. I chose this one sentence with care. The words I knew would injure you most, make your life falter. See, I know how to get you, where to get you, when to get you. I bet you wish you had not let me this far in.

You stand there, silent, as if I have deprived you of air, placed you in a vacuum. Your arms cling motionless along the sides of your body, the wine bottles sit in front of you on the mat like abandoned children, and the one lace you had time to undo before I demolished your world looks like a dead vine that has lost all its leaves.

But they are just words.

I love you. 

The Saint Annabelle

Alcohol (preferably rum, bourbon, whiskey or gin)

3 oz impudence

3 oz sarcasm

3 oz hussy

1 ½ oz incorrigibleness

1 ½ oz trouble and troublemaker

1 ½ oz sweetness

½ oz manipulation

½ oz madness

½ oz inappropriate flirtation

3 inch piece wit

1 inch piece total disregard for authority

Stick of fresh shamelessness for garnish

No modesty

Served straight up in anything that can hold it.

Fin

So sweet the scent of dejection.
Like honey mixed with caramel.
And white lilies at the funeral.
To not dream to not hope to die.
End what never began.

It's cinematic.
Fin

Your Bed

This bed.

Where you lay sleepless in the dark, tracing imaginary outlines of a body you once knew so well, listening to occasional sounds of footsteps and fragments of conversations drifting through the open window, hoping to hear her voice.

Inside is your silence.

This bed.

Too big for one. In a house, with dust-covered memories. Before the dust, before the silence, this bed was made for two. Now you sit on this bed, trawling Facebook for pictures; wondering if the guy next to her is someone she's fucking.

Inside are your shadows.

This bed.

Its posters covered in cobwebs of what once was your truth; a game where the pieces disintegrated each time one of you made a move. This bed is haunted by fragments of conversations, the heat of her body, as you lay sleepless inside your darkness.

Ugh! Been working on this for weeks now and can still not get it right - all I seem to be doing is shift sentences around. I'm just not a poet (though some nice lines in there, which is why I couldn't let it go - will plagiarize self and use in novel!) so I give up - fuck your bed! 

Inamorato

It’s always like the first time. The way your touch me intoxicates me. Every strand, the myriad of molecules, every neuron in me is tingling in anticipation as I look up at you, explore your skin, your hardness, your softness, with my body. I taste you. I fill my lungs with you. I can never get enough of feeling you inside me, under me, on top of me, moving slow, moving fast. And when I’m exhausted, you lull me to sleep. Our moments together are so tender, yet so rough.

You never cease to surprise me. There is always a bit of you that’s unknown to me. As you lead me to new streets, new bars, new adventures, and tell me tales of times past, of ghosts, of greatness, I forever fall more in love with you. Time stops; it doesn’t exist. But somehow, it always ends.

Thinking about you, even when I’m with you, makes me breathless, my chest tightens and it hurts. Because, I know, you will never truly be mine. To you this means nothing. As soon as I leave, you will forget about me. You will tell other women your stories, show them your heart, take them to your bed and make love to them. And then watch over them as they sleep.

But I can’t stay away from you. I have tried. You’re in my blood; you pulsate through me. I hear you as I put my head on my pillow to rest. I feel you as I'm running along the Thames in the rain. Do you ever think about me when I’m not with you? Do you ever miss me, miss having me next to you? I sometimes fool myself into thinking that if you knew how I feel you’d confess your true heart. And then we could be together.

Our relationship is breaking me. But I am forever yours, New York. And as we kiss goodbye, for this time? forever? I close my eyes. I don’t want you to see me cry, so I walk away without looking back. I don’t want to know if you are still standing there, watching me walk away, if maybe our parting is upsetting you too. I don’t look back because I don’t want to find out that you’re not standing there watching me walk away.

Still there's a light I hold before me
You're the measure of my dreams