you tell me to wipe my hands

my dirty little paws

and wipe my mouth

and walk, don’t run.

you know me like I don’t know myself

and see danger before I do.

I’ll graduate to that level too

just wait awhile

your little girl will grow up.

It’s a chilly night and the city lights

make me want to twirl and dance in circles

you may not be with me

but it sure feels cosy.

.

I imagine it’s snowing stars

the ones we picked out while we were at the beach

and it’d be like christmas everyday

except it’s reality.

.

hope it’s you on the phone

that I’ll have a home with you

with days we can live out endless possibilities 

I’m allowed to dream, let me.

.

As I lie in bed before I sleep

and it’s quiet and I come alive

of coloured walls and cutlery

and plans for eternity.

.

I’d pick your clothes and you pick mine

tighten your tie or wish you goodbye

and know that you’ll be back at the end of the day

you’ll be home.

.

pray we’ll always be together

held up in each other

with days we can live out endless possibilities

I’m allowed to dream, let me.

You don’t visit this place, I think, but in any case, thank you. For your disapproval and ellipses enunciated, then retracted when you listened to me. For sitting by my table those days I came in gloom, which would be almost everyday. For rejoicing with me, finally.

In the old I find my faith restored

and some endings being sold.

Under wooden signage of offered deals

the realization lives on.

Maybe it wasn’t the time to carry on,

but now the ends have met again.

Like the broken string I made, we mend

and it’s crawling trips and dreams on land.

.

To my brown-eyed girl, with love.

On the road of time

along the streets of forgotten grime,

I’d walked alone, never turning behind.

I didn’t realize.

.

I put my feet on the line even while my palms faced behind

Run so far, I’d come to believe the road I’d past was mere history

Couldn’t see the signs that touched my eyes

or the sounds that tried,

or the dreams magnified.

Invisibly visible like a dream in the fog.

.

Reaching roots that planted my feet firmly in the ground whenever I ran,

from the world and myself,

And shadowy branches that provided direction

and foliage that took care.

I kept you in my pocket, sewn into my wounds,

because it kept the emotions from spilling out.

.

go home, little girl.

.

Who knows what this life will bring, stranger things have happened.

Under the rock I found some sand and inside every grain

the world created, melted and redeveloped,

and in it flowers died and bore fruit.

I held my life, something I’d put in your hands

because time no longer mattered.

As it began, so it shall end. I was born to do this, and if it takes my life, so it shall be. For though the end may be life condemned, I couldn’t deviate if my feet did. You were my life and will be the death of me.

To my all kinds of awesome, who I called crying one night.

I wish I learnt to speak before I grew dumb,

to show before I lost my limbs.

To forget my fundamental movements,

before I learnt to pick the knife without fear.

To lose my limbs before I wanted to slice myself, cleanly open.

To convert myself into a mere picture, at the morgue,

into black and white, old school film.

To a friend, who I think has been a gift to my life. Through coffee and strange men, sideburns and balls that can’t be thrown over fences, postcards of Cambridge, love, life and lament.

You’re awesome.

It’s really, really quiet and it’s almost close to morning

I turn the blankets inside out and creep out to go running

Coz in the silence all I hear

is my own breathing

and it’s easy again, so easy.

.

For the people fade from reach

I’m alone and all I want with me is my own footsteps

Even shadows disappear.

And my mind is clear

I’m looking for home,

gone all quiet.

.