A poem

It was a wet Sunday
when I ate buttered toast
and imagined myself free.

And I was free.

Because the reasons I found
to stay stuck
were not reason enough.

And so I ran.

If I had my way

If I had known
that then wasn't always
I would have put
each word you spoke
carefully between
pieces of tissue paper
inside boxes
on shelves
in my room
so that now
when you are not here
I could take them down
and out
and live
in a different now
made up of befores
with you.
Again.

Do you not remember what we had

I sat there
with one foot in the past
and left a record that I was searching 
for days that were bigger than I.

Took deep breaths
in an attempt to fill myself with air
and float above
what I know I cannot hold onto endlessly.

When music plays you should sing
and if you get to choose
always run towards arms
that are open.

And keep looking,
be willing
and know for sure
that I am here,
searching with you.

If there is each other
then we already have everything.

Because it is you

Sweet is the sound of you
and you are all that I hear
as I go about my day
eating custards creams
and watching cars.

And my steps are heavy
each time I walk
the long way round
farther from you,
and wait once again
for you to follow.

Each minute only seems
like one minute
if each one of those
was made up of ten.
I am taunted
by passing time
passing slowly.

And still I wait.

Because it is you.
It is always you.

How I see it

Each line that I write is a rope
that is tied to an anchor
in the middle of everything else.
I will stare at the sun
until the light obscures what I see
and alters the steps that I take
so that each line I write
will become a rope
that is tied to fighting chance.

And I will walk
with a souvenir in my hand
of what it once was
and
will be silenced only by death
and not the fear
that what I say is meaningless.

A reason for being

I have built
words
on top of
words
in hopes
that there will be a day
when all that I need
will be inside my pockets
and I shall run til comfort
is all that I am seeking
and all that I will find.

It's OK to fall down sometimes.

Then,

Then
I realised that you would end
and untied the strings that tethered
my heart
to
your hands.

I walked through days bound only
to an indefinite call from a future
that had been freed
from definite calamity.

And I walked singing.  

It should have been me.
But it wasn't.

Until I realised that it was wholly
as it should have been
and it was only me
crying for otherwise.

Something I thought I'd forgotten

I wore your skin for too long and
became myself in your likeness.
Danced steps
over
and
through
until my face disappeared into yours
and spoke only words
to ease the distance
between
you
and
he.

Carelessly you wrote stories on your hands
and held them to my chest
so that my insides would know only you
and would wither when you were not here.
And you are not here. 
And you were never here.

Now I hold onto time
like I will find answers there if my grip is tight,
knowing all the while
that I will find only what you left
and that even nothing won't grow into something
no matter what I do.

A possible solution

I'm going to give you a pencil
and walk you to the foot of a mountain.
Standing there
I will watch as you draw what
is in front of us.
I will study each line
and curve
and detail
as we stand,
side by side,
pencils in our hands.
I need to know for certain that
what you see
is
what I see
because as of right now
you've made nothing clear
and I don't know
how else to be sure.

Nothing but your name. The Illustration

There is nothing I can do but

Today
I won't eat any food
or drink any water.
I won't walk outside
or answer
any questions
asked by
any people
in any place.
I won't turn on the radio
or dance in my kitchen
or do cartwheels
in the hallway
in my pyjamas
with a smile on my face
and my phone in my pocket.
I won't answer my phone at all
in fact
or pick up books
and read the last page
and put them down
again.
I won't take a bath
and make shapes in the bubbles
or put a flannel over my eyes
and count in multiples of seven
trying not to use my fingers.
I won't rearrange my cupboards
or sort out the medicine cabinet
or flip through the TV
until I find infomercials
selling hair
or cushions
or hot dogs
or more time.
I won't.
I will just sit still
on the top stair
with my hands by my sides
hoping that if I stay here long enough
I will dissolve into the floor
and reappear
where you are.

It is only today

It is only today
I realised
that days spent wishing
are days spent poorly
and
that waiting for change
is no better
than watching
time become something else
to forget about.

It is only today
I realised
that I am not Tracy Chapman
and I never will be
no matter how many times
I repeat her name in the mirror
and blink three times.
No matter if I braid my hair
and sing fast car
whilst driving
a fast car
'cross the border and into the city.

And if I work at the market as a check out girl
then I will be no closer to being her
because it will just be I
in a market
scanning tins of macaroni
and asking a middle aged man in an apron
and old trainers
for a price check on brown rice
over the tannoy.

I won't be Tracy Chapman
even if I drive so fast
that I feel drunk
and start talking about a revolution
at the top of my lungs.
And if it sounds like a whisper
and I run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run
I could never run far enough
that I would somehow shed my skin
and be re-birthed as a middle aged
American
singer-songwriter
with four grammys under my arms.

It doesn't matter what I do
because I will never be her.
I can only build my life up from here
and do my very best
to not fuck up the only one I have.

A pond of blue dots and thoughts of you

If I drew a blue dot on my hand
for each time
I have thought of you today
or written your name
on paper stacked high
upon my desk,
they would have joined up
hours ago and
become a bottomless pond.

An aquatic archive
of what my day is.

And, as minutes tick by
and the water gets deeper
I sink further
and further
into a pond of blue dots
and thoughts of you.
I do not swim against the tide.
I am powerless to even try
and I'm not sure I want to.

The night between rock and ocean

It was you.
It was you who stood with me in darkness
and spoke colour through your lips
and painted pictures on walls with the words
that you spoke,
there in a darkness I had not recognised
until you coloured sentences
and showed me how bright light could be.

For a second,
in that darkness,
I thought the moon was closer
than it had been before
but I wouldn't be certain
of that being true
because I don't remember much
of anything clearly.

I want to help

I want to hold your hand
and pull you up
and out
and remind you that
I am inside your heart
and that you are not alone.

I want you to remember
that there was a you
once before
who,
drenched in light,
danced barefoot through days
and held your hands up
in surrender
to what was going to be.

I want you to dance again.

I want you to realise
that what you are now
is just shadow
and that shadows are cast
where light shines
and that there will always be
something
to run towards.

I want you to know
that I will go nowhere
if you do not come
because my hand
is in your hand
and we are in this
together.

Where are we going?

There is a minute
between the end
and the beginning
when neither one is more
than the other
and nothing is better
than what was before.

Because knowing that change
is the only choice
does not make it easier.
It only becomes harder to find
salvation in what you have
as you move farther from what you know.

The farther I walk
the faster I realise
that I know not nearly as much
as I thought I did.

It doesn't matter

It doesn't matter what I am told
or what I know
or if I know nothing at all.
It doesn't matter if I smile
and you look someplace else
and pretend you didn't see.
It doesn't matter if
you get up each morning
and go to bed each night
walking through each day
without one single thought of us.
It doesn't matter
if it is matter of fact
or matter of opinion
or if I'll never be certain either way.
Because all that matters
is that you are here

and I am here

and that maybe one day
we will be here

together.

Where light used to be

I have left a piece of my heart in so many places
that there is none left
and I can see only what is wrong
and nothing else.

Now there is a gap where light used to be
because people told me their truth
and disregarded mine
and I was silent

and I was silenced.

Pulled under and into days
made in somebody elses likeness
and disappearing beneath words
that are said only to fill holes
is still not enough to quieten
the one truth I know for sure.

That there is something else.
Always.

Nothing but your name

If you could see inside my head today
you would see nothing but your name
scrawled on every surface.

Each letter written in marker pen
and drawn with an unsteady hand.

Though each task I face
has become most impossible to complete
it is a burden that I bear gladly.

With relish I will walk through today
unable to behave accordingly
if it means my thoughts are filled with only you
and you are here
without really being here.

What the Reb taught me.

There is nothing underneath my feet
because I don't believe
and I don't see how I can.

Whilst I move even nearer to nothing more
I consider opposing ideas even less
but come no closer to unshakeable truth
only further away from where I started.

And I am envious.
And I shouldn't be. 

I have spent too much time preoccupied
by the need for certainty.
All the while knowing,
that having faith
means needing no proof
at all.

I need only be willing.

My New Years Resolution

If I was brave you would love me. Attempt number two.

I am tongue tied when we speak
because in my head you are somebody else entirely.

We eat sandwiches in the park and you talk about your parents.
Your mum was raised by the ocean
and skimmed stones in the water.
She's frightened of most things now
because life didn't turn out how she thought it would.
Except for you.
You are her anchor to the good she used to see everywhere.

You are the good that I see.

I write notes on scraps of paper and tuck them into the pockets of your jeans
so you'll find them when I'm somewhere else
and you're missing me.
And when you come home and I am there
I know for sure that it is right
Because it is us.

And I am the good that you see.

So when we speak I forget my words
and make jokes to fill gaps between your questions
because I remember what we are somewhere else
and I want you to know.

Me. January 3rd 2012.

How can I be anything
when anything is,
in equal parts,
both too much
and not nearly enough?

I acquiesced and am to blame.

I am tired.
I am tired of waiting.
I am ready for this to be what it is supposed to be.

Until then I will stay
because I don't know how not to
because there is nowhere else to go
because faith that it will work
is sometimes better than
nothing
at
all.

Not Big Enough

I’ve discovered carbon paper. I knew it existed of course but now it’s become all that I think about, sort of.
This poem is about being a carbon copy of what you were before without any of the substance. Forgetting yourself in order to survive or get through rough, horrible, awful life shit.
Its about putting on a brave face and keeping on going, even when you don’t know how.