let me explain.

last night i dreamt that i woke up
covered in blood.
don't make that face - let me explain.

last night, i dreamt i woke up
covered, in blood.
the force of me was not - in me
now staining sheets, smeared across my walls
along my arms and
my favourite shirt - the one that belonged to the partner that never was
blue and stripey with the hairless doll pins on the pocket
was now purple.

purple is my favourite colour

and in my dream, i was awake
and searching for my fear - the fear that is supposed to come
when one wakes up covered
in life.
but then, i paused, i did the math.
and blood + heart some how summed up to love
and i began to rejoice-
like women of  yesterday who once taught daughters to dance
at the altars of life.

i began to make snow angels in me
rolled around in the liquid of my heart
lavished myself, in my self
i tasted like...gin.
for finally, it seemed
in this strange dream,
that i had learned how to love
me.

i had learned to bathe
in the love i willingly
bleed to others with no recourse
those who felt no remorse when i am dry
but it seems, not this time.

last night i dreamt that i woke up
covered in love.
i wish all dreams were so wonderful.

a loss for words

I am trying to write you.
words are eternal and i fear that your flesh,
which first taught me
the treasures of warmth and love,
does not hold the same magic.

And i need you.
so i am trying, to build you with turns of phrase,
that cannot be undone or erased
somehow trying to explain how sweetness bleeds
through all of you.

but i can't remember... how.

when i was young, i breathed you in, slow and deep,
so that i could always follow my nose to find my way home.
Vanilla and honey - dusty florals. The bottle was labelled 'beautiful,
And thus I and Estee Lauder named you so.
But there is something else that i have always known to be true:

that beauty lies in far fewer flowers,
and within the power of your simplicity.
And your shoulders, though they are so often squared straight
a careful glance will find that they are heavy with the weight
of decisions made for all, but self.

So I want to tell you that i saw it all.
use metaphors to prove
that nothing was invisible to me,
let personifications unpack
the multiplicities of  our family's mendacitities.
so you can be sure, that it was you that i drank in,
my glistening oasis in a desert of his untruths.

And as his words wrought lashes across your back,
I watched, and knew you would not break,
though venomous tongues coiled round your light
seeking to suffocate joy
with hate.

You looked at me, and smiled,
while forgiveness shined its halo round
your face and this, is how I learned to live
and laugh another day.

So now I am trying to write you,
as champion.
I seek alliterations that personify your grace
to make idols of your smile

But i find this language useless.
Perhaps I require words from another realm,
places we have yet to discover.
For now, I will simply call you love.
for now, I'll will just call you, mother.

The first time

The first time you don't really
notice
that it's happening. it's slow
insidious, sneaking round
corners and lurking
in shadows.

and the strangeness of it all is
mostly
strange
and suddenly i'm tripping over tongues and losing my place
losing my
mind

and all that once was
crystal to me -
glass like pools, visions of still silent seas
the oceans of your eyes
turn to storms
raging and
angrily tossing me from tranquillity
the space I once mastered is
under new management

and it only took three seconds.
no blinking-
slow smiles working like warm waves
welcome,
crashing into my peace.

the first time you just don't see it coming.
this thing, they call
'love'.

This is not my thesis.

I watch time
intersect with his hands
that are weathered, worn.
The fingers are heavy, and thick, a labour to lift
each one making a distinct click
words are loudly shaped to screen, lacking the melody behind
my own.

He's watching my hands, floating above the keys
and i watch his brow wrinkle at a new found inadequacy
the product of worlds suddenly so remote, where
participation is predicated on mastery of
magic that translates words to wires, to ping to life in the
purses of granddaughters
a million miles from where we sit.
The 25 min that pass on the journey from his hands to her smile
happy sweet 16, from grandpa, rings warm and sweet.

My smile secretly seeks to congratulate,
though I fear he'll only read condescension
for time has suddenly made me master
and left him him, mostly
lost.  

Body Clocks

Seven Sunday runners passed us by.

This, is how we kept time.

How I, kept time,

for tears flowed too quickly to be counted.

And I hurriedly erased them from view with the edge of my sleeve

so you wouldn’t see the truth behind my disguise:

that I wanted more than what was available to me -

Less sunsets, more sunrise.

That I was pretending, not to love, your lust.

The whole thing, felt useless anyway. 

So I watched the runners, keeping time –  it shouldn’t have taken so long

to end something that never started. 

That ring, never left your finger.

Above Rocks, Retirement

These are the places that time, forgot.

That history and memory etch into emerald canopies over mud floors.

Cast iron burns hotter, in dutch pots that wear scars as old as

Her hands and mine,

which after all this time, still cannot scrub as hard as

hers – so smoke smears and stains still remain

on dresses and drapes.

Breezes call me to gullies deep

so I follow nature’s litter.

Trails of coconut leaves and gourds –

empty caskets that we once drained in refuge from the relentless sun.

My childhood is repainted through eyes that remember

her hands, at work

and the time it takes to

turn nothing,

into something,

and her story

into my own. 

untitled

I'm sorry.
But it always rains here.
always.

And when it rains my glasses blur
and I can't see the faces of those
who pass my way.
And I know, that today
was meant to be 'special'
But I just couldn't see.

And I think I just let you walk right on past
everything that you dreamt 'we' could be
babies and birthdays and basketball games on sunny Sundays.
I'm sorry. But that's what happens
when it rains
and it always rains here.