waiting for a bus

I passed someone who looked like you today:
his hair was bubblegum pink.
He was looking up in that way you have, bespectacled -
or maybe the way he had, or maybe not.
It was only a flash of a hint of a look. From afar.
Nothing to go by at all.
It still broke my heart.
I've no idea why. I never lost you.


afterword: I don't spend enough time with you to differentiate your gestures from his, or maybe I simply overestimate how closely you two are linked in your physicality as well as your thoughts. I mean, zie doesn't hold too much sway over how I move, simply because I don't have enough knowledge/control of hir for it to be an issue, thankfully. I wonder how close the two of you are in your head, sometimes, when you speak to me (or speak past me) and dab at my forehead with your thumb. I wonder if you're alright. It's all just pretend, anyway, isn't it? 

cornered beast & i am needlefangs
i am snarled i am spitting
i am coiled like wire i am ready to attack
not patientwaiting not sleepslumbering
i am eyes glowing green&hot i am torn flesh
don't you dare turn your back
whipcrack necksnap flashback teethsmashed
i am tendons to point of breaking 
i am claws i am adrenalin i am a bushfire 
i am after you i am ready to defend myself
i am screeching i am dusky terror 
i am nobody's dog. 

you're all skittish elbows and bony nose
and your notched spine curls into me
dreamgaze milkclouded with cataracts
your eyes still warm
inhale, exhale, fall asleep, don't move.

chalice of osseous delights

come, pierce me through the heart, sister sweet
breath soft&loud in my ear.
I wish to share with you
that
which makes us strong.

The sickening earth calls for my blood
continents away from home.

The roaring, the roaring
the endless road travelled
my ribcage tightens like a curse or a cure, your
counting vertebrae lull me to sleep

pierce me through the heart and swallow me whole

futile

Keep the night, I don't want it.
Keep your night, keep your pride,
keep your smug irresistible smile.

I'll just -
I'll just watch my sunrise.
I'll sit and watch my sunset,
and I'll wake you afterwards.
(shaking slumber heavy from your shoulders)

Yes, I'll wake you afterwards,
and pretend I didn't miss you while you slept.

you'd open a vein each night
pouring shot after shot
to watch his head tip back
perfect curve of his throat

Becoming II

what did he sit you down and explain to you that you were nothing and would be nothing and therein lay your greatest strength laid sleeping in your crib and you'd never feel not really feel separate and distinct and lonely ever again no fear of solitude did it paralyse you kept awake all night staring at ceilings dark did you weep? were you a child prone to fits and starts groaning banging head&hands against the wall & did you learn to speak or did your eyes seek reflections out by your feet? strong back yes did you chop wood, carry loads? stronger stomach they could count on you yes to fold the little paper flags inked italic around the pins after they had cracked ribs open and flushed away the staining and they'd watch you lean over meticulous and polite & place just there point down puncture not more than a centimetre deep (smattering of applause) did you hear it or did you count the veins in your hands or the still bundles wrapped neatly in her stomach - weren't the little toes perfectly formed faces hairless closed eyes so sweetly in that sleepless state when you peeled them back so careful after the cat got her but didn't you cry for the darlings?

how can you sit so calm in someone else's skin? I still can't read your mind and there is nothing left to tie you down not language not name or face ageless mutable seamless you might be perfect you might yet be perfect you will be perfect do you even have a brain do you dream? what visions fill the frozen space behind the memory of your eyes what do you dream? does he still speak to you alone in that bluewashed sky mein liebe kinder you are not bound to yourself asche zu asche he ripped you apart you've infected me dearest you've sunk into me and I never know which face you'll smile out of can never count the grinning teeth when they held you over the sink and shattered your jaw but they were scum and couldn't see flesh masquerading as flesh gripped your shirt sneered and you tasted his blood in your mouth - was your tongue red stained after all these years with that powerful sweetness richer darker than any before sent your nerves reeling drunk & delirious & couldn't stop wouldn't stop - and felt spine bristle and smiled

--What the fuck? In a public fucking bathroom? You have to be fucking kidding me. And now the pack's half gone. Who's gonna fucking tell him?--

and he didn't harm you no not much you learnt the words well I will not compromise I will not fail god&father&teacher&friend listen to him as the meat listens to you let it lead you strip back start with a finger a little one. you knew the theory.
no tools not this time you remember the first word start with the first word
it got easier each time patterned inside&out

Becoming I

These are things that might have happened.

1. This is your greatest strength -

 a. You are nothing.

 b. You will be nothing.

   (i) Praise it

   (ii) This is your goal

2. You will be alone -

 a. Don't cry.

   (i) I said stop

   (ii) She's not coming back for you

 b. You are not separate. 

   (i) That is false

 c. You will not be alone.

3. There are things unclear -
 a. Fits.
 b. Anger.
  (i) directed and general
  (ii) violence and retreat
c. Tears.

4. You are strong -
 a. Strong back.
  (i) set to fetch and carry. No?
 b. Stronger stomach.
  (i) Procedure.
  (ii) They cracked the ribs open and left you to place the pins
  (iii) Mother rat
      - oh yes I know about her
c. You can bear pain.
  (i) Start with the first bone, little finger
  (ii) It will get easier
  (iii) This is important
d. See (1)

5. There is nothing left to tie you down -
 a. Not language.
 b. Not name.
  (i) See (1.a)
  (ii) It is a title, do not forget that
 c. Not face.
 d. Not yourself.
  (i) See (1.b.ii)

6. You will not fail.
 a. No compromise.
  (i) They are scum
  (ii) flesh obeys mind 

 b. You will listen to me.
  (i) flesh obeys mind
c. You will be perfect.
  (i) flesh obeys mind

inexplicable

felt the shock of cells twisted

realigned growing new patterns of waste

naming ancient fires to light within your breast

it's not wrong to have knowledge

it's not wrong to feel your conviction twining

worming its way through chest cavity

speaking in your sleep, words unformed by mouths

not wrong to see his face under eyelids mirrored 

not wrong to mimic heartbeat bone-encased 

an echo yet of life within veins 

step across the threshold freely

you are welcome here

you can commit no error

you cannot falter cannot fall cannot fail.

it stirs within you and you can do no wrong

can sleep none 

no dreams come

still you only ever see his face

still you sank above drowning

still what mattered it how the ashes blow in the wind

you know every name there was. 

you can read the lines between flesh and flesh

and feel the distinctions 

melt

you can speak with a thousand voices 

and a thousand voices more

and a thousand eyes to see a thousand tongues lick clean your thousand wounds

a thousand hands to shape a thousand feet to march

a thousand bleeding vessels cry out to carry you onwards

onwards ever onwards

to it, to him, to the only conceivable

end

Asche zu Asche

and so I return home

all i want is your wine-sodden tongue

your words pour straight
through me like the rain
outside gentle syllables

doghair

the world is full of small prayers for you to make
sunlight on the withered tomato leaves, there's one

the white hairs Mina left on the couch, a blessing

the phone call from your sister, she's in Hong Kong,
big business money while her fiance vaccuums
it's been years since you saw her, you talk every week

tell her about this guy
what guy?
oh, he's a bartender, real charmer, you'd like him
look after yourself, doll

bite your tongue, hair brushed back from your eyes,
I love you too, talk soon, I promise,
echoing ten thousand lives away.

Mina shifts in her sleep, dozy thud of muscle and drool.
Sometimes it seems like she's the only real thing in your life.

these don't feel like my words
I want to slip into another skin

If I could take this boiler room of hate and use it to fire the engines of my mind, surely then I'd travel continents

Butterfly

There are no windows in this place.
Taste the soil beneath your feet
and grub your way across the floor.
No mirror here to see your face -
an image of your change complete -
although your skin might still feel raw.

Sit up slow, it's not a race.
Try not to tear the stitches neat,
otherwise you may need more.
I've done my best to leave no trace,
but - oh, no, honey, take a seat!
Did you think there was a door?

The healing process may take time
but when it's over, butterfly,
I'll give you ample chance to shine,
your altered form my point of pride.

Sky is Low

Gather your gods
   hold your palms upturned
                            outstretched
            the steam exhaled from your gut
the sweat pouring down

the knife embedded
right where it fell.
     Shear the sheep,
     bleed the calf,
     notch the wood
to find your way home in the dark.
I promised you I wouldn't leave a mark. 

They won't believe you anyway.

Azhi Dahaka

sit and stare
as vertebrae line my forearms
sending spiraling messages
to cells I never knew existed

tender skin shifts and settles
shifts and settles
and he's speaking to me
through the world:
these pale lines are wormholes to his love
to his message

knuckles darken
the bruises rearrange
and my tendons are exposed:
you, inside me,
you of age and mystery,
the ashes of your mind alive within my flesh
-the decay and regrowth-

the clouds are dancing for me
and the whole word is under my skin

- a king sits in your veins
skeleton apparent beneath his proud face
crown elaborate, heavy as his duty
- ravens wheel on your wrists, dragons devouring their tails
- your pores open and close, your neck twists, majestic
-  the plantcell tracery overlying knights battling
- your dance flows fingers whirling

it's all glory and understanding
and you fit neatly into my web
I'm not letting go, now or ever.

Shift and settle.

retreat

this is it
my world where blood
drops like ink
into water

not too much
further on, you'll see them
misty hills crowned with gold
bottled glory

warped fields
they make sense in time,
not in space,
not with eyes

but oh,
oh,
how I'll be watching
craving your sidestep magic

while the camellias bloom
ripe from my palms
and the hush of wind
strangles your thoughts