Just Desserts - Poem

Soft fingertips brush together as

deep luxurious breaths pass over

lapping tongue.

Teeth clench

and relax

in wait of exotic

cravings.

“Your dessert.”

Silence broken

with eyebrow cocked.

One pot, two spoons.

“Your move.”

Caressing the spoon

she lays it down

flat on its back

and taps

hard,

Harder,

HARDER,

Crack.

Thick cream oozes

and smothers the crisp sugar

and steams in plumes like

warm blood blooms in cheeks

And throbs.

Hot breaths entwine

and kiss as the soft

moistness coaxes fingertips to

plunge and tongues to hiss.

Too hot to touch.

Soft lips smack

as he sucks her finger clean.

Again, she plunges in the heat

Indulging in sweetness

that drips down her chin.

He smirks

and braces for

a daring crescendo.

His broad hands dip and slide between

And gasp.

The cool clank of cutlery and

icy stares of

fallen expectations

and Slap

“Bite me!”

Heels tap

faster and

Faster and

FASTER

away…

A lone cab home.

The waiter smirks.

The place that I call Home - Poem

Sometimes I dream of dark and hollow lands

in the hours between dusk and dawn

and of a house I once abandoned

in the company of spiders

and of a beast,

tall and green,

lurking in the shadows

of that lonely house.

I thrash and writhe against my sheets

as it crawls towards me

with snarled teeth and hooked claws,

a frightful sight indeed.

So I run,

usually,

until my lungs explode and choke me.

But the ground never moves beneath me.

And the wicked beast always captures me

in it’s vice-like grip

and drags me to the sea

and drowns me in a whirl of memories.

But now that I am in my summer

these visions do not startle me

or wake me from my slumber.

Now I can lie and wave as those glimpses of a life pass by me,  

fixed in time,

like grains of sand in an antique watch.

And now I can confront that beast

and pet it on the head,

for it can be so placid

on a leash 

left to its own devices.

It is a pitiful sight,

unarmed and drooling,

peering through the window of my dreams.

But sometimes I let my dreams ensnare me

and for a moment we become one:

the darkness, beast and me.

But in my waking

I know that we will never be

together as one.

Because they will not consume me

and I will not drown in that lonely sea

for I have already conquered these dark and hollow lands.

To Never Staying Young - Poem

I never knew why he needed such a big bed

but now I know

that no other bed was big enough

to contain his

monstrous ego.         

He drank nearly as much as a fish that night,

slurping aged whiskey from a crystal decanter

and choking us

with tar-laced fumes.

I don’t know what he said to you

in that gigantic room

with the mahogany dresser and the bone comb set,

because all I heard was muffled voices

and the crash of glass on concrete.

Such loutish, unruly sounds.

I know you cried that night

when you thought you were alone.

But I was there

waiting in the darkness,

holding back my tears

Your eyes had always scared the monsters from under my bed

but you couldn’t keep them from your own.

And I grew up in that moment

because my world grew dark

in the absence of your light.

Too-tight boots - Poem

Those boots were too tight.

Yours from your youth,

too small for me.

Still you forced them onto my feet and

dragged me to the river

of ice too thin for me and my too-tight boots.

The last of a hard winter.

You pulled me along,

kicking against the dead weight of too-tight boots.

Hot blood soaked through my socks

as toenails broke adjoining skin,

but I only felt your pain

as you sank your claws into my wrist,

deep impressions of tiny crimson crescent moons,

just to remind me of your unnatural strength.

I tried to prise your fingers open

and begged for you to let go

of my wrist, of the hold you had on me.

But I tripped over my feet,

numbed from too-tight boots and

snow crunched beneath my knees.

In that moment, you stopped

and hunched over me.

Thought maybe you had seen yourself in me.

And you did.

Still you grabbed me by the scruff and

threw me to the ice.

I grappled for the shrubbery

to centre me, to hold me down

and I remember looking back to you

for sympathy, foolishly longing for a fleeting comfort,

for the assurance of a secret harness or shallow depths,

but your eyes were dead

clouded glass marbles,

shattered orbs

awaiting disaster.

And then the river groaned

beneath my bladed feet,

weaponised to secure me.

But my too-tight boots dragged me down,

and splintered the too-thin ice

and I fell through

blindly thrashing against the surging vortex.

I reached for you

to pull me up to the safety of dry land,

to suck the water from my shrunken lungs

and cut away these too-tight boots,

But I never found your hand.

So I let the raging waters embrace me,

carry my body beneath

until my hair tangled in surrounding briar

and abandoned me,

a white pain across my scalp,

too much to bear,

so I suckled sweetened algae bloom

until this winter faded to eternal summer.

By the time they pulled me from the water

my face was hardly mine.

Wax lips, purple torn skin,

red voodoo eyes,

like one of those dolls you never let me play with.

I had years left in me,

but now I will never know

what it is to love

as you did those too-tight boots.

Hush - Poem

I was born in the wrong skin.

Started off too loose,

too comfortable for me

to breathe.

So they took me back and ripped my seams

and stitched me up again.

But now it shrinks around me

when I sweat, or cry

or bleed.

Then that one time I popped a seam

and everything spilled from me.

So you plucked a patch of your own cells,

and said the change would do me good,

said it would fit me perfectly.

So I stitched the pieces to myself

and it worked,

for a while,

until your life grew dull to me

and I ventured beyond the limits of your skin.

Though maybe it was my own fault,

that I was too bold with the liberties you granted me,

that I had it coming really,

the name-calling, the humiliation,

the violence towards me.

Maybe I should have just lived as I was told to,

seek the life I was supposed to,

not stray the way my tattered shrunken skin wanted to.

Now I know

your skin’s not meant for me.

Once it might have,

before you told me my skin was wrong

and they had it cut away from me.

Now this skin’s too tattered to be fixed

and I must hide myself away,

hide the scars, the jutting bones and arteries

so I don’t scare people in the streets

with the damage that was done to me.

This world of yours is too small

for guys like me with patchwork skin

to ease through and carry on.

Because there is nothing wrong with me.

I know this skin of mine is torn

and it will wound and scab with time

and rot away from me

but it’s the skin you gave to me.

So go ahead,

hang me by the toes

until my nostrils bleed.

Sentence me to hard labour

until it drives me Wilde,

because this skin of mine will never stretch

to fit my bones more delicately,

but it will hold me together in fleshy stitches

while yours itches and burns.

Just because you patched this skin once

doesn’t make it yours

to do with as you please,

because your skin fits so ‘perfectly’.