Just Breathe

And you always had to remind me

to breathe

as though you were not the one

suffocating me

My lungs in your hands. My shaking body,

begging you to stop squeezing.

Go on, tell me again,

tell me how much you love me.

The Wolves They Came In Packs

When the wolf fell in love with the girl.

When the leader of the wolf gang looks your way in

worn out leather and faded tattoos

Believe him when he says he is no good, he had lived longer than you

Ah but his smile, that jawline, his hands on the small of your back

You felt safe for the first time in your life, really, despite the bad. 

He always smelt like hard whisky and smoke

Handsome with age

Hardened with age 

You wouldn’t cross him

If only by mistake like the time you smiled at that man across the bar

But you knew this whisky wolf loved you, really

He would scream it at you all the time, he’d steal flowers from the cemetery too, See I can be Romantic, he’d say, 

absent mother, abusive father, you never once saw him cry

You remember the wind in your hair, wild motorbike rides, 

Dancing on bars 

and tequila shots backwards, 

That time you were so drunk you nearly got his name tattooed, 

It almost felt end game, in bed, your head on his chest

the first time he told you he loved you,

The first time you told him you didn’t. 

That Hollywood Girl

They say she was born with a Marilyn Monroe fate

And many a handsome James dean came her way

How she was always ready with a flash of a 

Californian girl smile and a Hollywood laugh

Dressed up to the nines, pin-up girl thighs,

With that Dita Von Teese show girl vibe.

Well,

What’s a girl to do?

Why…

Break their pretty red hearts in two.

Laughing Together

Laughter is everything in a relationship.

When the clapping stops and the theatre is quiet, isn’t it time to leave?

The Mermaid and her Human Loves

At the edge of the deep green sea 

There lived a mermaid with auburn hair

Blue eyed, she was beautiful and fair

With a smile that could cut a man in half

And a heart of fire and glass.

She wore

a necklace

Five ivory

Sea-shells

each representing five lost loves.

For to fall in love with a human when you are part of the sea was forbidden and rare. There are mermen for that, her father would tell her.

The first human love was soft and kind, but when human lips met mermaid lips, death stole him for his own. 

The second was brave and bold, but he had a jealous heart and fought the mermen, hard. It does not do to fall in love with mermaids and the mermen took him soon enough.

The third would bring freshly plucked purple flowers every day and would place them at her green, enchanting tail. 

The fourth grew cold and impatient at her mermaid ways and moved away.

The fifth grew obsessed with the ways of the sea and he drowned.

The mermaid never really knew what happened to the third love, but strangely, once a year, she would find a lavender flower by her tail. The mermaid began to dream in vivid purple and she went mad with longing in the end. The years passed and when death visited her, she left with him gladly.

Her third love, in grief and madness, returned with a small boat made of pine wood and purple flowers. For many years, he sailed around the deep green sea in search of his mermaid love, scattering violet flowers into the waves as he went.

Yellow Hope

That little room with bright yellow walls

How we laughed our way through the winter and summer

 

I hope yellow paint will always remind you

of my sunshine smile

My outdoor inside voice

My head on your chest

I hope you look back and think of that year together as magic

a time where you felt true happiness

 

I hope you meet another girl with a wild soul too

I hope you will be kind when she finds you.

 

-Yellow is the brightest color of the visible spectrum, and it is the most noticeable of all colors by the human eye. It means happiness and optimism; it is the color of sun shining, or bright light and creativity. … It is the color of high energy, enthusiasm, hope, fun, and cheerfulness.

With Him

With you,

 

I didn’t write for a whole year Because I was so happy 

La la la In pretty dresses

My Sunday best

Your arms wrapped around me like a fuzzy cocoon

I didn’t want to wake up.

 

I wrap myself in blankets now

I traded dresses for trousers

I don’t wear much makeup anymore

I am starting to think it was all for you

 

Perhaps it’s all just a transaction in the end

 

But maybe now 

I will make my own cocoon 

And I will stop waking up at 3am  

wondering how a pillow replaced your chest.

 

By Night

By night, the map of your body

is like the warmth of sunlight on my hands.

I swear

I could,

with     dancing    fingertips 

trace your outline continuously

Until insanity      

came for me.

My Joy

I am convinced I had not known pure joy until I met you.

Of course, I had felt sunbeams on my face and seen beauty in sunsets and the sound of the ocean. Heard a baby’s laugh and slept in someone’s arms that I loved. Seen snowflakes and sunrises and many wondrous things. But I would have given up all pleasures of the world for you. It is not a secret that you will never stop dazzling me. I had never known beauty until you and I would not be surprised if I lived my whole life and never found wonder again.

Love Equations

Our Love pencil smudged.

How you could not help but make it anything but mathematical,

How I could not help but hate you for it.

Our Tracing paper love ripped

Your logical brain and  my rubber heart a useless eraser,

Erase-her

Did she feel how I feel?

Will you keep on the straight and narrow

don’t you dare pencil me out now

and fall in love with the point of the compass

whilst detesting my soft projector  curve,

Was I too woman for you?

The sharp  point of your own silver compass, cold and piercing,

How I would always come back to you, scratched,

my heart a fistful of crumpled equation paper.

How I would try to multiply and add whilst you would divide and

subtract our relationship.

How you could never quite let me go.

So go ahead, Tell me Again,

Tell Me you love me 360 degrees.