wrinkles and winkles

this is a colossal mistake

Tootsy! <3

i. See

I am not your girlfriend's eyes.
My greys and greens and blues are my own,
Only my own,
Mine.

I do not care about your lost love's face.
The froth on my waves is not reminiscent of her curls;
I am not a metaphor
For your own failed words.

I have no thought for your broken heart,
My depths are not a reflection of your tears.
It's just salt water,
Salt and seaweed and shifting sand.

Leave me to my formless shape, my endless boundaries, my dark and light and in-between. Leave me, look at me, leave me.

ii. Jigsaw

When i was younger,
i hid myself in books,
and watched life,
and never let it touch me.

i thought—
a broken heart will make me whole
and
then I will understand.

And then
in the in-between times,
he and i met
and laughed
and talked
and, i thought, loved.

But then
my books didn't save me,
and life took its revenge
for my untouched youth.

So now my heart is broken
but i'm still waiting to
understand.

iii. Come Out (and play)


i began with the saddle.
Leather gleaming like the sunrise,
like the sunset,
and i eased it over my horse's back,
slowly,
carefully,
trying not to spook
or offend.

Then the bridle,
and i coaxed the bit into my horse's mouth,
gentling,
hushing,
there now, it's not so difficult to swallow, is it?

The reins were the hardest part.
i needed to take control,
to guide my way out,
but my hands were shaking and unsteady,
and I was conscious of the low ceiling, the slippery cobbles.

Gently, firmly, I guided my horse outside,
and sat in the saddle.
My horse grumbled over the bit in its mouth, but I looked forward
and I took control in my hands,
squeaking leather, jangling iron,
and I
I
stared into the infinity and directed my horse into the horizon.

iv. Fries On The Side

In McDonalds,
that golden utopia of modern progress,
I saw a boy at the hot fat fryer.

His arms were long and skinny,
his body long and narrow.
Like a piece of string,
like a twig.
His skinniness was the skinniness of a teenager,
of a human not yet grown to its full bloom,
a half human,
part-cooked,
half-baked,
but ready and waiting for those final hours to complete the cycle.

I looked at the boy,
at the half human,
with his half human weight
and his half human height,
and I found a certain satisfaction in recognising those traits within him.

The order of things,
the rituals of being,
where we are those recognisable dimensions
that signpost to the world our place within it.

v. A Conversation With You

We were outside,
in the darkness that I thought at the time was romantic.
You were smoking.
I was watching the sky.
You were silent,
and I asked you why.

You said:
"I'm disappointed you don't want to."

And I said nothing.

That is what happened.
But like a genie in a bottle,
like a butterfly wish,
in another timeline,

I would have said:
"I'm disappointed you don't like reading."

And you would have said:
"Sex is more important than reading."

And I would have said:
"After careful consideration,
I think we must parts ways.
You are not right for me.
Our priorities are not the same."

But that is not what happened.
There was no magic lamp,
there are no butterfly timelines,
and that is not what happened.

Instead, you smoked your cigarette, and sulked.
And I stared at the stars, and thought that everything was fine.

vi. These Dangerous Pronouns

I would like to reach a place
where I can use pronouns without connotations.

To say the words without your face
lacing each letter with notations and sensations.

I'd like to speak without the shame,
the words dancing and spinning without restriction.

Without the knowledge of your name
haunting the syllables and twisting the diction.

But I am stuck within the slough,
the crippling place where the you is always you.

That was then, and now is now,
but still I'm trapped inside the place where you is always you.

vii. Origami

start with the simple Bird Base
fold me
crimp my wings
follow the instructions
(yes just so)

your hands
turning me
folding me and moulding me
these are your specifications

the twenty-two steps to completion
and then you think I will be finished

but you're wrong
for I will never be finished

there will merely come a time when I am
strong enough
to slide out of your hands
and fly away on the creases that you created.

viii. Circular

The sky is a rose, the rose is the sky.
Blooming with fire, and dewed with rain.

It's my perfume, and it's also your scent,
it's all of us reaching around and up again.

Think in a curve, think in a spiral,
the rose and the sky and you and me.

I'm Henry the Eighth, I'm a hermit as well.
See how it's wheels, see how it's viral.

It means that while I'm a star, stardust and comet-birthed,
I'm Lindsay Lohan and Bieber and Fozzie Bear.

Shakespeare and Blackbeard and the rose and the sky,
connected and severed and everywhere.