Streams of Consciousness

There is this moment to the morning . 

Where the light hits really soft and the air is a little cold. 

And you think about all the things you’ve written. 

All the people you’ve been.

You study the grumbling rocks in your stomach and the crinkle in your brow. Somewhere – a crow is calling. 

You worry about money. 

You worry about failure in the sense that you won’t get to define success in all the ways you want to. 

You know there needs to be nothing to prove – that you have to know your worth is inherent. 

And there are deep parts of you who whisper of how far you will go. But it hasn’t happened yet so you really don’t know. 

And life seems the shortest when you are young sometimes. And it’s easier to grieve than to be proud. And what to write next? It must be perfect, it must be so beautiful, tangible, unique. I fear being thrown away. I fear being idolised. Do you see that neither of these are in my control? 

I sip warm tea on a relatively empty stomach. 

It’s hard to be home. 

Somewhere – a crow is calling.

What comes after painting your guts on the wall?

dribbling onto floors and sheets of white paper.

what of the morning after?

do you still wake alone?

even though you love so deeply and i am waiting and aching for you too. 

• from a hypothetical lover

She studies the lines of you with a soft gaze. 

You watch the slight dippling of her brow. 

It all falls as her breath touches your ribs.

how deep can you go?

kiss kiss and grief like honey. 

I’ll catch and hold everything I can.

warm sullen slickness between your legs

A slow spread of desire.

Where does it paint your body? Does it paint your mind? 

Where are my colours?

musky rage like the wildfires she longs for. 

I pause. My toes clinging to the gravel and breaths of air.

pull me in – can you? – will you? – do you want to?

leaps of faith have left her the most stunningly shattered. 

Break her heart until it opens.

Fingertips in the hollows of arched backs

– within you. 

hooked from the inside of your pelvic bone. 

she pulls you in. 

And moves with the waves deep in your womb. 

Didn’t i come to bite?

Now I’m sick to my stomach at how much i could love you.

loved in third person

What happens when a painful body is stronger than a desiccating mind?

is it a natural consequence, or an unconscious self medication of cruelty – to cling onto both corners of life and death?

dreaming all the while of heaven. 

I hope for your sake heaven is true. 

Even if it takes away from mine. 

And i hope if we ever meet there – we can coexist without hiding. And you won’t be afraid of the scars I let show. I know you are only scared because they are your wounds. 

And yet there is nothing you do

so i hope in the kingdom come, it will have been done. 

Maybe not on earth but in heaven.