Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Paper Shell

My latest poem for Creaturemag is called ‘Paper Shell’. Its about saying goodbye and trying all you can do to hold onto some element of something that isn’t there anymore. Its about love. Its about endings and its about dealing with what is inevitable.
It is the final collaboration between me and illustrator Steven Jarvis but I will continue working with Creature Mag with a brand new format. I will be in control of both the words and the illustrations and I am very excited about the possibility of what I am now able to create.


I will lay paper on the ground
and draw lines around your shadow as you go
so that when you're gone I will have something to look at
and a part of you will have stayed.

The outline of your body,
now pinned to my wall,
will have to be enough
because your inside was clogged with
a truth that was not my own
and I never saw all of you.

I will take coloured pencils and fill the paper shell with yellow lines
each one starting at your heart
and ending where the pages stop.
I would have breathed light through your lips
if you hadn't gone
but staying was beyond us both.

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