To Love

I want every moment to be sacred. I want to be in it. Guzzling it down like warm milk. I want to lose myself to it again and again. Exclaim “how did we get here!?” Revel at the fortune of it.

I want to know, deeply, that every second unfolded in order to bring me here, to this point now. And not understand it, but believe it. 

I want the next time I put my feet in grass to feel like the first time. Because I never really sunk into it before. My feet there, yes, but my mind elsewhere.

I want to gaze out to clouds and feel the magnificence of insignificance, a kind reminder that smallness does not mean scarcity.

I want to fall in love with washing dishes, to its quiet mundanity. I want to be utterly present, let the water wash me clean.

I want to gush every time you curl your body into mine. Not for the excitement of newness, but for its vulnerability. The trust it requires. 

I want to remember every second of every day that we are connected. We are one. All of us.

I want to live every day in ceremony.

I want to love and love and love some more. 

arrivals and tiny deaths

Do you remember it?

Mine arrived in the bath.

Not bad really,

for all the circumstances it could have been: 

gym class,

public swimming pool,

a sleepover.

I'd imagined them all. 

It was a strange kind of turning point.

Full of expectation.

It was a beginning,

and an end. 

And soon it became a thing to navigate

between new lovers

I'd say coyly:

I can't, it's my time.

"My Time"

Oh dear.

So enigmatic.

And then, after contraptions are pulled out

and hormones allowed to reconfigure, 

I wait ...

And this time, when it arrives

It’s like a tiny death,

and gigantic defeat.

A mournful echo of 

I'm not enough.

But one day it will be gone,

and I'll probably feel sad.

Because it will have been 

one of the only constants in my life, 

reminding me to surrender

to my magnificence.

T h e S h a d o w R o o m

The Earth rumbles, as it always does 

at rush hour, but this morning 

no-one hurries to save the frames 

from their dancing walls.

Outside, your footsteps tread the gravel,

quieter and quieter now. She’s forgotten 

to lift me, her eyes pinned 

to the place you’d stood.

I imagine you turning back, but

as my toes grip the orange tiles,

especially cold today, I see the reflection 

of a ghost in the window.

Months later, in the dark hours, I hear

the piano call to me. I run downstairs

but find no-one.

One day I try on your combat boots,

refuse to take them off, stomp around

to scare the silence, rather than wait

in your shadow.

Someone forgets to pull apart the curtains. 

They stand there kissing each other,

making us all envious of such affection.