skimming

it’s not a question of stopping,
but suppressing. am I becoming
corporate: suits, cases, an over reliance
on coffee that doesn’t create new ideas
but sustains old ones. am I losing
the younger me – with a freedom
never acknowledged, always assumed to just
be. hell what is this skimming by. once
the water is still it remains – and
the invoices need to go through before
the alarm rings again again again.

Ocean End

she at last
stepped into the ocean
and was welcomed with
every kink of salt
she brought.

for too long the city
was important,
it fed into her
conscious and hacked
at her lungs –
the edge
of her life
was needed
here.

the sea calmed.
waved. spoke.

once she felt the call / there was an accepted nothing / she will have bananas in the evening / peaches in the morning / dress in windy fabric / and write letters to never send

once she felt the call / she realised
she would drink
an ocean
to feel clean again.

and once the ocean felt the answer /
it would never let go.

peaches

for months that winter I went with her to get peaches in the night.
to find out if I had vanished we needed to see our eyes devour
fruit and when the supermarket gleamed in ecstasy
I gleamed back – listening for another year, another door –
give up or go mad she would say – affectionately.
a beloved saint. I can’t taste peaches now –
am I growing or repeating. giving up
or going mad.

irritated

sharp pins lodged in the skin
rising shivers of energy
rising skin rising energy rising rising I am

irritated. I know this doesn’t matter
I know this is stupid insignificant blah blah
I am irritated and I don’t take stupid feelings lightly –
I lean. I give them weight and depth and little lives
and little jobs – these irritations
are a part of me. will stay with me
long past the settling skin.
I can’t let this go.
I’m feeling something.

establishing

shadows can climb but they never settle.
a hand shudders and all day I wonder
if it’s mine. I’m not who you think I am.
I don’t exist all the time.

slain

ever unknowable –
the answer is
moss. the heart is
the brain. the
touch is death

and if you think I could exist
in this, fill up my ears
and blind me because I fear
nothing more than the promise
of again. and again. and again and

mondays

questions are heavy
so I let them all rest
in the home of my tongue –

they have a place here
and so do I

Business Poetry

What is my USP? I will tell you. I will write it. For you. My USP USP USP, my USP is my USP. You are my USP. No. I am my USP. No. Anxiety, depression, OCD. No. Do not capitalise on illnesses. Do not contribute to other illnesses. Countless lawsuits. Moral reasoning. Female? No, more exist. I think. Jewish? I never write about it though… Bisexual? Maybe, but am I? Lets reframe the question: why am I writing?

Oh.
It’s poetry.

one of those days

the house is empty
and the lights are off.

it’s one of those days.

the radio

I was going to write some poetic bullshit about liking the radio on low to soothe me on those cold lonely winter nights. but the truth is I can’t stand the radio – shocking I know – but I’ve never had the concentration for it. or for anything. sometimes I think the only reason I write poetry is because it’s short and subjective and that means if you think it’s shit I can think it’s the most magical fucking thing in the world. and how this relates to the radio – as everything does really – is because I’m tired of these watered down depressions of a soft winter sadness. people can be sad sure I’m not depriving them of that pleasure. but depression is this broken hole you feel in your gut. on a good day. on the rest then it’s just a broken hole that nothing can begin to pierce and you begin to wonder if you’re human if this is real if this is life – death – if it matters when it builds and unbuilds and tightens every bone every thought you can’t think so instead you just go fuck it. maybe I should just listen to the radio.