24 Valentines Alone

At 18
I didn’t feel the click of the counter
Counting the years I had spent
Valentines alone
Like the other girls could

I couldn’t hear the metallic click of failure

I didn’t see the appeal of
A dollar rose from Tesco
A night out at the local Nandos
Or Pandora rings
From someone who would leave me next week

Why show someone you love them in a day
When there are 363 others

At 20.
I first heard the hollow click.
When I expected roses at the door
And they, never came.

I watched as my friends’ gifts went from
A dollar rose to homes with gardens
A Nandos turned to a weekend in Paris
Pandora rings to engagement rings
With a promise of forever
While my partners mysteriously disappeared.
Off the face of the Earth.

I guess I wouldn’t have minded
If they had done these things
On any of the other 363 days of the year.
Any one. At all.

At 23,
I still hear the click.
Almost fatalistic now.
Like a death march.
It reminds me.
How many men.
In this patriarchal society.
Have deemed me unworthy.
Of a dollar rose.

Letting Go

I once sat on a bench,
In a watermeadow,
At the end of summer,
Under a burnt orange sunset,
With crimson poppies beginning to turn.

I could tell that
My childhood dog,
Who I had brought there since she was small,
Since I was small,
Didn’t remember it now.
Her honey-coloured eyes were glazed over,
She was half the weight she used to be,
But she still turned her grey muzzle
Gently towards the warm sun.

I knew the decision was coming.
It was time.
Even though I desperately did not want it to be.

I softly whispered in to her deaf ears,
It was ok to go.

I wasn’t angry.
I didn’t cry.
I would do that
When she was no longer here
And I had to figure out how to live,
Without her.

It was time.

~o~

Hia, darling.
The other day I sat on the bench where we first met.
You know,
Outside the red-bricks of the university.
By the black water of the canal,
With the flowers,
Remembering us during our Masters days.
I smiled.
I know you loved the flowers.
And the water.

I want you to know
I’m not angry.
I didn’t cry.
The last thing I want is for you to carry any guilt.
I will be ok.
I will figure it out.

But, it’s time.

When

TW-Images of death and suicide

When did you think the pain would set in
For me?

Apparently,

Not when
You told me you didn’t know what you wanted
After you persuaded me to sleep with you.
I couldn’t breath

Not when
You let the ice of your doubt
Give me frostbite
While your mind leisured in a warm summers day.
The glowing romanticism of your drama
Failed to resuscitate
The blackened person you were holding.

Not when
You let me drown
In the oceans of your emotions
Of why you no longer wanted me
With no boat of solutions in sight.

You hurt me a long time before you cared about it
I had grown moss on my stone-cold skin
But I always thought it was an accident.

‘It was merely a flesh wound my Lord’.

But when
I realized the pain was purposeful,
I was the nasty smell you wanted to wash away,
The subtweet to your publicly written tragedy,
The villain in your pantomime,
I died a little
And then began to rot.  

Maybe a better question is
When
Did you decide you didn’t want me anymore?

Forbidden Treasure

He could have scratched his itch
With one of the many women in this world
Who justifiably enjoy casual sex.
Instead, he thought it would be more fun
To see if he could break
The heart of a demisexual.

Now, I am at the centre of his debate;
Of whether he loved me
Or merely lusted over my body.
I regret that I let him do either.
I wish my body was still
Mine.
Rather than the chest he buries
All of his sins in.

Maybe I am being too harsh.
Maybe at some time
He saw me as more than hollow wood
But those around him
Wanted me to
Burn in hell.
Maybe my burial
Was his last hope at happiness
In a different time.
In that case,
Who throws away riches
To appease those around them?

To wait for him to build the perfect island where we could be happy
Is a wish that will always be washed away in the waves of
Others. I will dig myself out of this hole he dug for me
And sail away so he never has to
See me or
‘My evil’
Again.

Breathing Memories

Now you’re gone,
People keep on telling me
There are many more fish in the sea!
You deserve a man who treats you right!
He is sat out there somewhere,
Waiting for you,
Go find him! Have fun!

I appreciate the thought but
No thank you.

For now,
I want to sit on the bench
Outside the train station
Where I first held you
And sit with some of the
Most beautiful memories
I will hold in my life.
I want to walk through the town
And remember how pretty the fairy lights were
As they glistened in your eyes
While we walked to dinner.
I want to listen to the silence
That only comes when you
Run your hands down my back
And kiss my neck in bed.
I want to remember
When I look in the mirror
How you were the
First man ever to say
I have pretty eyes.

Yes, some of that time
Will be sifting through the evidence to
Try and find the answer to the cold case of
What went wrong.
It will take me a while to give up
Looking for the
Non-existent body.

But, mostly,
I want to enjoy the memories
Before they fade
Like an elder
Enjoying the calming golden glow
As the sun slowly sets.

A pause. A hiatus. A breath.
The only thing that could mark
Something that was beyond words.

Pinch Me PTSD

I learned never to leave the trodden path
By walking into a wasp nest.
For the 150 wasps that attacked me,
Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt that much.
Each sting didn’t hurt more than a pinch.
But I suppose trauma sometimes doesn’t care
About how much it hurt in the first place.
When you re-live the helpless fear of running through a forest
Like a rabbit from a fox
It is not the stings that burn into your soul
But the horror of death
Flashing before your eyes.
I just wish never leave the trodden path
Hadn’t translated into other things:
Never enter the forest that you once called home.
Always shower evening and night to try
And hide from death in the water
Never let anyone else in
Because they will kill you in the end.
Where is the pleasure
In living your life
Like a 28 mile sprint
Rather than a marathon?
I am still sprinting through that forest
Letting the trees pass me by
To avoid the blackness seeping in.
Maybe its time to slow down
And see whether the wasps are still there.
They can pinch me to see if I am
Still alive.

Shameful Valentine

He published a love poem on Valentine’s Day
To his One,
The Creator of the Universe.
He wrote about lust and darkness
And I knew
My body was burned on his brain
When he wrote it.

It wasn’t a shock.
In the cracks of his voice, I could tell
I was his dirty secret.
Never staying the night,
Stealing an hour here or there with me,
Showering immediately when he got home.

My body was the personification of his sin and guilt,
The devil that took him away from everything that grounded his identity.
I threatened to isolate him from everyone that ever loved him.
I don’t blame him for these thoughts.
For a long time, I blamed Eve for eating the apple.

Religion is messed up.

Because
Every kiss
Made him hold me closer.
Every touch
Led to knowing that neither of us were alone in this suffering world
Every moment
Of pleasure caught on fire because we
Burned together.

And I never could believe how bright we were.
Just the two of us.
Two loudmouth academics who wanted to make a better world for the oppressed
But could finally relax in each other’s arms.
Afterwards, in the embers of passion,
The cuddles and the quiet,
I swear I felt the closest I could to the love of God.  

Shame.

I guess he was taught too well:
Never love your inner demon.

The Unwilling Ghost of Your Ex-Lover

I do not linger in your room at 4 am on purpose.
I wish you could sleep through the night
Without the lamp of my eyes
Piercing through your mind.
I wish you could sleep in your bed
Without tingles along your spine.
But my ghost can’t leave.

When we fell in love, our souls recognized each other
Like a squirrel making a home in a tree for winter
Or when two pairs of green eyes meet.
Our souls thought this was it,
Stitching their veins to each other’s hearts,
They wanted to make sure the other was eternal
And blessed each other’s skin with feeling alive.

I suppose souls are too pure to consider
The fallibility of a human.

I don’t blame you for leaving.
You deserve better than negligence.
Please move on to something better.

But, when you left,
Our souls didn’t know how to untangle.
Couldn’t untangle
Refused to untangle
It would destroy them to tear away the other’s eternal lifeline
They gripped to each other desperately in prayer
Slowly bruising the other.

Despite the damage,
They could never let go.

So now you are left with my hauntings on your skin
And I am left with no soul
Or light in my eyes.

What are you thinking?

You present me with perfection.
You tell me all the things I want to hear.
Never an angry word or sharp jab.
Just whitened teeth and
Botox smiles.

They hide that you’re no longer breathing.
I hold you
But you are limp in my arms
Still fucking smiling
But eyes no longer staring into mine.

Synthetic beauty is deadlier than hemlock.

Who is the creator that demands
He paints your face
To cover the tear stains?
Is he still here
Or did he brand your iris
With his blurry figure?

Is that why you cannot see
That I already love the parts
You refuse to let out?
The ugliness makes this real.

Please talk to me.

Are You Lying To Me?

They used to say to me,
‘For the smartest girl in our year
You really are the dumbest bitch of them all.’
They would say I’m too easy
But not in that way.
They knew they could lie to me
And I wouldn’t be able to see it
Because a brick wall laid between my shinning eyes
And their second face.

A bank where the door was left open.

I believed their pleas of innocence
And stood up for them like an advocate.
Teachers would look at me.
I know now it was disbelief at my ignorance.
A face which would have advised me that
Friends don’t make you face the firing line for them.
I couldn’t hear them when they baaed
Behind my back.
A naïve lamb.
It would be their entertainment
If I was slaughtered.  
I haven’t heard from most of them in years.

Do they know I still curl up
With my back against the wall,
Crying,
Because I will always be here?

I will never know what lies behind that wall.