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.

we were standing so close together
that i could not hear you breathe.

but i could hear
fragments of guitars humming.
the reverberations from your ipod.

and you from mine.

you were listening to godspeed.
i was listening to sigur ros.

and i thought,
this is post-rock love.

I smelled his neck,
She said.

Dancing around me in circles
we were
listening to early U2.

Sunday Bloody Sunday.

The neck belonged to Bono.
The Zoo TV Tour.
She was 15 years old and staking out the band at their hotel.

Bono had singled her out of the crowd of fans, and arms flung open to pose for the cameras, pulled her in close, to the nape.

She had mumbled into it,
“You smell good”.

He smelled of cigars and whiskey and aftershave.
I could see the remains of that schoolgirl in her guarded grin.
Just how I imagined a rock star should smell.

“Well”, he had said. With that accent of his. “Take a deep breath”.

And she had inhaled the musky scent so deeply that all of her other senses dissolved. She became colour blind and deaf. Her skin numb, her tastebuds taken.

The song finished. Another 80s track came on. Simple Minds.

All these years later, I could still sense that smell faintly on her skin. The brush with fame. Lingering still.
The way a scent does.