The secrets of us were tucked between my ribs
With writings of love and loss and
inklings of passion, betrayal
The story of a goddess and a sailor boy
her palm pressed against the milky moon
How she tried to keep him close with incantations
But always knew he belonged to the waves of the sea
and there was no keeping him from it
The goddess was seasick but the sailor was free.
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 warm
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.
Maybe it was,
Perhaps it’s all just a transaction in the end.
Perhaps now I’ll make my own cocoon
And
I will stop waking up at 3am, wondering how a pillow replaced your chest.
It’s always hard when someone is in love with the idea of you
Like One false move
One wrong step
And your porcelain image will shatter in front of them,
Cracks will appear
To reveal your weaknesses and your downfalls and your past mistakes
And you will no longer be this out of reach
human
beauty
porn-star.
You are real and raw and you shit and you cry
And you are so imperfect
So wayward
So backwards in your flawlessness
It’s the artificial parts of you that they bloodlust after
Not the thoughts, emotions and feelings that overwhelm
you
It scares them that a pretty little thing can feel so much
And so
Of course, they run away
As fast as they can
With the hope that cracks do not appear
in the next porcelain beauty.
Distance came to me a year later,
Tall and handsome,
he had not changed.
But, You haven’t known Distance.
Not until he says hello,
and you can’t recognise his voice anymore
Until he hugs you
and his arms
feel foreign,
Until you breathe him in
but his scent has been
forgotten.
I was certain I only knew Distance
once you were no longer familiar
to me.
But two years later,
Distance came again,
and
I welcomed him back
like an old friend.
My willow tree/
dream
All bark and brown and
leafy green/
Suddenly changes/ the weather tugs
At milk clouds/birds disperse/
A storm ahead/ humid grey and orange streaks
The rain almost disbands in on itself/ Then
An explosion/
A thousand tiny drop-
lets
see what happens next/
The sky said to the willow tree,
As the sun tickled my neck to say hello
And ‘don’t forget about me’/
the sky a purple florid
Then dusk
a pop of white/
I welcomed the milky way /that night
in willow tree dreams
I went to the Irish countryside
to get away from you
To breathe the clearer air in
To breathe you out for good.
Myself, ah, I found myself again!
I found Laughter
a cabin in the woods.
Thank goodness
Ireland made me a home,
Because I was never home
with you.
In Rathdrum, County Wicklow
mountains, streams,
and forestry,
A little farm
away from you,
You far away from me.
How refreshing to wake up to birdsong
instead of your mother tongue,
When you would drown me in water kisses.
How you would laugh
as I held my breath
counting, 1,2,3
screaming
internally
1,2,3
Let me go let me go
let me leave.
You reminded me of a Monday morning cigarette break.
That between awake and asleep
Feeling,
Wishing
the day away,
With my rolled-up heart
Charred around the edges
lusting
for the blackness
That came with your presence.
Your kiss with its darkness
And your charcoal throat
The same warmth
that arrived with a raspy inhalation
of smoke through nose to chest,
My tar lungs and cigarette breath.
Burnt out amber
Of orange and black
Sparks against pavement,
The miniature fireworks
Under my fake Laboutin shoe.
You were my
Narcotic, Insomniac Addiction
Darling, Come Monday morning,
I thought of you.
“Am I still your favourite person?”
I asked, eyes wide,
Arms wrapped behind my back like folded
Linen laundry,
Egyptian cotton.
Can you unfold me and
tug at the frayed edges until we forget they existed,
Kiss me clean.
“Am I still your favourite person?” I ask,
Or just forgotten
dirty
laundry.
You had made me cold.
You left. You were always good at walking away.
You did not look back this time.
You should have told me that you wanted to fight.
NIC- newly industrialised person
And the word boyfriend sounded foreign to me
As if it should be spoken from another girl’s lips.
When I did say it, it was through a gravel mouth
as though I was cursing your half smile and rough hands
that furrowed brow, how everything was a thought process to you. (Love cannot and should not be analysed, databased or calculated).
And as though I had not heard from you in one hundred years,
I Extricated Myself.
Your ice eyes and my tense body
parts
How quickly
something falls together
Is not how quickly it will fall apart.
Distance can drown your lungs as every gasp of air is filled with someone else’s laugh
maNIC
DNA
That water laugh
all light and salt,
Dead-ly.
End-ed.
tinarosepoetry 