you traced an image
of a desperately celibate skyline
somewhere on the back of my hand.

all of these cities
we’ve built beneath my body
will melt like dynamite
in time.

i woke up at 6am,
still drunk from the night before,
and gave myself a hair cut.

i’d got drunk on everything,
on every liquid i could find-

on saliva.
on humidity.
on tears running down the sides of old buildings in country towns.
on science fiction.

i’d left my best friend
in the city
with a man who told us
‘my brother and i are down and out’

i’d adopted the soft sort of vultures
and the hard sort of pop songs.

all night long i’d roamed the perimeter of town,
looking for people to attack with the stem of my guitar.

i’d channelled the most vicious diminished chords
through gritted teeth

but

you hung me
like a noose of fake pearls,

kissing me in the same breath
you told me i looked like marlene dietrich,

and i was still choking from the lies.

it took you months to come to terms with my magic powers,

-although now i think you find them quite charming-

the way i can read your mind
the way my eyes change colour every time i blink
the way i only sleep for six minutes every night

and that for every waking moment
i make a star or a hurricane or a traffic light
go off for you.

sometimes i find myself
sitting in the middle
of an empty room
trying to string together
random movie titles
in the form of dada poems:

in the naked jungle of a prozac nation
a master and commander
find a time for dancing
with the princess bride.

at 10 to midnight
the children of dune
hold a monsoon wedding-
oh, the secrets and lies
of quiet days and random hearts.

this exercise reminds me
that there is no such thing as poetry;

only simple collisions
of the words you always wanted to say

only simple collisions
of the words you could never say.

it was as if we thought the exact
same thing,
although we thought it in the opposite way.

we kept edging closer & closer together
until we were standing

so far apart

that normal emotions
were no longer recognised or experienced

and it takes a

full circle

to bring you back to where you started.

all of our footsteps
occur in this formation

spaces & shapes
that never end
but collapse back into themselves
as they go round and round again.

he spat something in my ear

i think he was saying
that i looked sexy
but the words were muffled
by thick daubs of sweat and testosterone
sticking to his upper lip.

he walked with a posture
that certain men cultivate-

shoulders attacking the air before them,
each step thrusting forward
like a sex act.

ramadan was over in the western suburbs,
an event
marked by a miraculous collection of shoes
splattered on your landing.

sequined thongs & coloured slippers
congregating on the lino like prayer matts.

i’d spent the night with you in an
industrial estate
trying to capture
something for the ages,
but returned with only
an empty bag of twisties, a chemical
induced headache
& the thought that
keeping this up
is something akin to locking eyes
with a stranger on the train:

caught together for a moment
& then apart

unable to stay staring
unable to look away.

she spat a mouthful of acid into the night
& looking up mumbled
you know when there are so many
stars in the sky
that it looks like fireworks?

when i used to call to ask where you were
you always answered simply
on my way to wherever you are, baby.

& i would wonder
where on earth that could be…

It was just after 9pm
and a sharp pain on the left side
of my chest
suddenly convinced me that I had
breast cancer.

In a silent spree of hypochondria,
I began mentally evaluating
the implications of my condition.

I imagined telling my family, my friends.
I envisaged their distress, their devastation.

I however, felt surprisingly nonchalant about the news.
I was overcome by a zen calmness
that bordered on existential enlightenment.

I believed, quite abruptly, that our earthly bodies are merely transient vessels.
I knew that my sickness would enable me to transcend my physical form.

I flexed my upper left arm and tried
to comprehend how my chest would feel with this absence.

I considered options such as
silicone replacements
and a life of padded bras.

i feel like i’m coming apart without you.
this devastation does not take place in a dramatic way.

it happens in a tiny pieces,
one at a time,
kind of way.

it’s not like bridges are falling.

there is no celine dion crescendo to my longing.

just pieces

like a phantom limb
like an arc of pink cherry blossoms
like a masonic temple
like a tiny painkiller in my palm
like a whole list of metaphors that,
despite the tricks of language,
cannot quite convey

these days without poetry
where i can walk beneath a wall of colour…

& not a thing.

feeding myself on sweaty bodies
& kylie minogue
while planes crash all around me.

i want to put this
to pictures.

i content myself
by sitting with you in the corner
pulling out all of my piercings

one by one

until my empty body
is perforated and un-jewelled. i find its

eastern-most-point,

it might be a rib or a shoulder,

and break it.

in my hands
the bones come apart like bread.

i consider, for once, thinking about something
other than my self

and we all begin to eat.

all kinds of dirt
all kinds of words

& you always know exactly
where to put the punctuation.

put it right there between us

and dance around it

dance right on top of it

pull off its shirt and dance right
up against it.

the longer i watch you do this
the more i abhor politics and art

the more music stops making sense to me.

& the only things i care about
are hats and dresses and shoes.