nine times out of ten
there are spots of blood on my lower lip
because my teeth are struggling to keep words i can never say
locked inside my throat

and if Rudy Francisco compares falling in love
to learning how to ride a bike
i could decorate in black and gold marker
every square inch of wall in my room
with ten thousand metaphors
that describe falling in love with you

and my mother doesn’t know that i write poetry
because the blankets i weave out of strings of words
would be too thin to keep her warm at night

and two years ago i starved myself
because i wanted to be as lovely as the flowers outside my window
but my heart and my stomach were connected by tiny threads
and all i was left with
were empty organs

and i’m a believer but i’m still searching for God
and sometimes i see it
in the way a boy looks at a girl he loves
when he thinks she isn’t watching
or the way two people’s chests seem to rise and fall
as if they were twin tides pulled by the same moon
and maybe this says that i’m not really searching for Him
but for love

they told me that God would make me cry
just because i made messes that could have fit snugly
into a square unit of forgiveness
and because i believed that my heart existed 
because the pressure that built up
from pumping seven thousand litres of blood a day
caused the stars in my body to explode 
into supernovas
and i believed that’s how people fell in love

they told me i was the reason this family fell apart
because there were fireworks underneath my tongue
and currents coursing through my veins
and because despite the fact that i was made of electricity
i still dared to dance in the rain

they told me i’d always have trouble making friends
because i spat at men who looked at me for too long
and women who told me i was wrong
and when life got too hard 
i would duct tape over doorknobs that wouldn’t lock
and drape black sheets over the windows
and hope that the world would forget 
that i existed

they told me i’d never find love
because i was made of flames
and the rest of the world was made of water
and all i’d ever be able to do
was destroy the things i loved

because i have bruises 
the colour of oceans
scattered across the atlas of my body

and because there are tea stains
all over the carpet
next to the where i sit on the couch

and because sometimes
i cuss in front of the customers at work
and i’ve come really close to tripping old ladies up
with the vacuum cleaner

my mother calls me careless

but i’ve duct taped my wings to my sides
so that i won’t hurt myself
trying to fly

and i’ve sealed my heart inside an agee jar
because preserving something
is the best way to keep it alive

and i tuck my blankets under the mattress at night
so i don’t dream about falling
off cliffs
and in love

and people always say that prevention
is always better than cure
but if you never learn to get hurt
how the heck are you supposed to learn how to live

my mother calls me careless
but i think i have a problem 
with caring too much

he’ll stand in the rain with me
only because he hopes my white t-shirt soaks through
so that he can catch a glimpse of lacy bra
the kind that people wear when they have sex
because it’s about the same as being naked

but i own bras with huge S’s on the cups
in yellow and red and blue
because i still believe in superheroes
that can kick your ass
from here to planet fucking Krypton
if you really ask for it
because my mother taught me that when the going gets tough
we somehow teach ourselves 
how to move mountains of pain
from one end of the earth to another
if it means that there’s a valley of happiness
waiting for us underneath

and he’ll wake me up
in the early hours of the morning
and press his lips against mine
and probably try snake his tongue into my mouth

but i wear a retainer when i sleep
and to be completely honest
i can hardly say my own name
let alone tongue letters inside
someone else’s mouth
(is that what you do when you french kiss?)
and that’s because i grind my teeth
in my sleep
and that’s because little things stress me the hell out
like why it’s so fucking hard
to colour inside the lines
of the picture God’s drawn for me
and why it’s so fucking confusing and the lines keep blurring
and i swear they move from time to time

and he’ll probably want to touch me in weird places
and ask me to take my clothes off
and touch his dick
and make love to a john mayer cd

but penises freak me the hell out
and honestly i’m not even sure what’s going on down there
and in health class one time
i stood at the back of the line
so i wouldn’t have to put a condom on the penis model

and i guess what i’m trying to say is
that if a boy ever took me to a coffee shop
i’d probably order a hot chocolate
with extra foam and extra marshmallows
and if he wasn’t okay with the fact
that i wasn’t ready to grow up
i’d pour the contents of my cup all over his face
and tell him that he sucked eggs

don’t fall in love with the boy who fucks you
as if he were the storm
and you were a paper boat made by trembling five year-old hands
fall in love with the boy
who kisses the translucent skin covering your voicebox
and looks into your eyes as he runs his hands up your thighs
because he knows how scared you are 

i know you stand naked in the bathroom
sucking in your pale stomach
and pulling at the insides of your thighs
wishing you had a chainsaw that sliced four inches off your legs
and arms and stomach and face and butt
but baby, you are an ocean
and no barbie-shaped cookie cutter could contain you
because you are not a body
you are a current
you are waves that crash and sing and fight and resist 
you are the ebb and flow
the push
the pull
you are the pink shimmers at dawn
the navy blanket at dusk
and the reflections of stars at night
and people lose themselves in everything that is you
and when the actions and words of something can be so beautiful
everything else turns to dust

eat when you are hungry
sleep when you are tired
love with all your aching heart and soul and body
never, ever deprive yourself of something that makes you happy

if you are ever sad i will hold you in my arms
and it will feel exactly the same as the first time i held you
and looked into your confused little brown eyes
because you’ll always be my baby
and if that doesn’t make you feel better
i’ll drive you to the nearest ice cream shop
and we’ll talk about boys

do everything:
jump off cliffs and swim with dolphins and write poetry and fall in love
so that you always have stories to tell

and baby, i want you to always remember
everything happens for a reason.
all the big, small, crazy, strange, trivial things that happen in your life
are connected
like a patchwork quilt, except messier and more confusing
and you need to remember this every time you feel insignificant
you are here for a reason
you are alive because life needs you to be
i promise.

i listen to cee-lo and drink hot chicken soup
until i feel like throwing up
because if at least one is good for the soul
maybe i’ll feel better in the morning

i dish out advice like i throw around insults
like bits of confetti made out of ripped up paper
and zero fucks left to give

i pile up books issued from the library
until they’re two weeks overdue
and unopened
like the last two oreos in the packet
that go soft because no one bothers to close the tin

i don’t know how to love
but expect love in return for what?
the absence of physical contact
the complaining that kind of resembles the moan
of a dusty old vacuum cleaner
that should have been taken to the dump
a few years ago

i’m like a pair of old man slippers
that no one would ever buy second-hand
because they smell like death and sadness
or something in between

i act like i’m better than everyone else
but that’s only so that i don’t drown
in a thousand feet deep pool of self-loathing

i fell in love with a boy
with sharp nails
so that the kisses he left
would stay 
engraved into my back

-

i fell in love with a wallflower
who climbed his way through me;
a bed of sharp thorns
and nestled into the gaps
between each rose

-

i fell in love with a musician
who fingered the veins
on my inner thighs
like the strings of a guitar

-

i fell in love with an artist
who would wake me up at sunrise
every day for a year
so that he had someone to make him tea
while he painted the sky

-

i fell in love with a boy
who had eyes like mine
so that i could learn to fall in love
with myself

In india

A marshmallow palace bathes in a pool

of life and love and thick air

milky white hands fan beet red faces

hands reminiscient of those cut off

so that its graceful splendour

like the way a feather dances in a thunderstorm

could never be recreated in honour of another queen

the occasional zephyr breaststrokes through

the ten rupee chai tea aroma in the air

stealing piles of dust from the cracked heel ground

tiny rogues

that lodge themselves into the laugh lines

of english-speaking tour guides with accents like lead

calls of fruit vendors

slyly beckoning foreigners with too much money

and not much sense

Once, my dad drove my brothers and I up to a place near the airport, off a small exit off the motorway, that led to a narrow, dusty road. There was a small area, allowing for maybe two or three cars to stop, facing the hilly green running for a few kilometres before the airport.

I remember climbing up onto the bonnet of the car and looking out toward the airport, watching planes take off and land from a distance.  Watching seventy tonnes of aluminium somehow managing to stay in the air; a sardine tin of people, most with swollen ankles and tired necks. Each with something important to do. The suited man in business class about to make the biggest business deal of his life. The young couple daydreaming about their honeymoon suite. The two elderly women practising how to ask for black coffee in a foreign language.

As the afternoon breeze blew dust particles around lightly, making them dance in the periphery of our vision, I marvelled over how nice it was, sitting there, watching different people live their ordinary lives. Something so simple, yet somehow powerful enough to evoke a sense of peace. I think that sometimes it’s the little things that we tend to overlook that can bring us the most happiness.

She is a temperamental clock
trying to keep up with the constant beat of time

She is a tight-fitting bracelet
imprinting patterns upon a thin, fleshy wrist

She is an empty piercing
waiting, wishing to be filled by something golden

Whenever I open the dog-eared pages of an old, yellowing book
She curls under sheets and pillows
and loses herself in the printed word

She is an isolated land
She is its hills and valleys,
the deep and shallow contours of its foreign topography

Woven underneath a mat of rushing traffic, bustling commuters, whirring machines
there is a quiet, buzzing hum; the song of the city.
It’s near impossible to hear alone
but if you listen very carefully
and tune out the cacophony of the material world
you’ll hear her.

(inspired by The Iain Sharp Poem)

we listen to each others’ late night ramblings
as the autumn listens to the softs and louds of the wind
and during the brief pauses where she calms down
and the leaves stop rustling
our eardrums falter
and the blood filling the ventricles of our hearts take their place

i watch your chest rise and fall
as you stare at my lips;
cherry flavoured candies with the texture of flower petals
you tell me when we’re old we’ll have a spectacular garden
home to flowers of every shape and size and colour and scent
so that when i’m not there you’ll still have a hundred square metres of kisses

i reach over the gap between us
and realise that time and space is nothing but perspective
for the space between my ribcage and your breastbone
covers several eternities in the space of half a centimetre.

my hand finds the regular thud of your heart
which, with each pump,
each beat of a sparrow’s wings
fills the lines in my palms with you
you, like the stars that scatter the sky at night
a constant.

the kisses you plant slowly on my forehead
and the tip of my nose, like seeds
shoot up and blossom into balls of lukewarm fire
spheres with sharp corners, paper glass, lungs that only inflate
you’ve always been good at defying the impossible.

you’re like the first sip of tea on a shitty morning.

no, scrap that, you’re like the endless brews of cardamom and ginger and milk and too much sugar mixed into my favourite teacup with the pink roses on it that looks big enough to be a beer mug. 

because once i start, i have to have all of you.

no, scrap that, i hate you. i hate you for being the seven cups of tea i drink throughout the day that loads me up on water and sugar and empty calories and leaves me feeling like i need to piss all of you out.

because i want you to stay in me forever.

no, scrap that, i don’t actually need your physical presence. that’s easily pissed out or burned off walking from one end of sadness to the other. what i need is your emotional presence. 

those who drink coffee don’t understand. for them, you are a mind game, an object to keep them sane while others gnaw at their skulls. you are a necessity, like water and air, they use you to fulfill their need for something slightly less daunting than love itself.

for them, you are an addiction.

for me, you are a desire. i do not have needs. i am indestructible, immortal, and selfish. i do not need you, i want you with every ounce of my being. you are the tea that warms every inch from my throat to the spot below my navel, not the coffee that somehow travels into my brain and leeches at my self-control, leaving me hungry for fulfillment of basic, mortal needs.

i am not addicted; i could leave you in a heartbeat.

but i won’t, because desire is much more powerful than desperation.

the chapstick on my lips
would taste like the last drops of the sweetest nectar
on your own soft petals
left behind by a drunk bee

take it, and all of me as i am
feed me your soul and your thoughts
and your dreams
and the things you think about when you can’t get to sleep
in the early hours of the morning
when the quiet feels like a glass about to shatter

speak to me
in a language only our lips would understand
don’t edit its speech,
let it flow
like the stream we’d skim rocks over
when we were naive enough to believe in happiness

let its waves lap the shorelines
of my teeth
which squeak as your tongue traces them in a curve through your smile

fill the tiny creases in my lips
with your laugh
with your heartbeat that i can feel
in the back of your throat
with the silver chain you wear
around your heart
with the rusted old lock
the guards the precious metal

we could exchange DNA
like two bacteria
to create resistance to every kind of hurt
including the papercuts i get from cereal boxes
and the bruises i give you
when we’re intertwined

i want to lose myself
as if i were exploring a foreign land
memorising its topography 

for no country is more beautiful
than you

i told you i wanted to see the lights. i wanted to see the way the trees shone under the loving gaze of the moon. i wanted to trace our names into constellations in the sky. i wanted to lay atop a hill, overlooking the specks of dust floating in the yellow and orange swirls of lampposts and skyscrapers and streetlights. to look into the pools of your eyes and see the stars and the moon and the universe looking back at me. 

you smiled, and showed me a light a thousand times more beautiful than the stars.

if you ever feel like killing yourself, remember that someone, somewhere out there loves you to death and back. someone, somewhere out there closes their eyes and sees not darkness but you, and all the parts you want to rip out of yourself and incinerate, and they’ll smile and marvel at how beautiful you are. someone, somewhere out there wants to trace the veins on your wrists, kissing your scars with their fingertips in the hope that they’ll fade away. someone, somewhere out there gets tiny goosebumps that travel from their fingertips to their spine every time you speak. someone, somewhere out there wants to tickle your ankles and kiss your neck and play with your hair and hold your hands and memorise the contours of your body and breathe you in and lie next to you with your hand on their heart to prove to you how much they love you when their hearts beats in the shape of your smile.