Have you seen the Lost Boys?

sixty nine. a lover [is] crossed [out]

i smattered glass like they were
globules of water on the floor:
they sparkled and gleamed
like tears that streamed
when your love made me its whore.

my shoulders soaked sadly through the satin
of my nightgown, hair sodden as reeds, i moved
my feet through the shining splintered sky
and set about amongst blood's drip drops
to gather my grief from the firmament below —

life floundered in the lily pads
a moment too long and i felt
my mouth turn inside out to eat itself
whole. insect bite: i take the words that were chewed
over instead across the bed sheets
and the lungful that i hurled at your woeful head. i can never find the words
to undo the hurt and make it
bearable again.

"what exactly did you say?"
nothing and everything swirls
in a burning tree's branches —
i remember the patterns i drew
and the spoons that i pressed
and hot quick silver shone through
the cracks between what i thought
and what i said — love was liminally
lost in the gaps where our sides
did not touch —
thighs spread across mattresses and in the night grass.

[she nods] "carry on"
for uselessness, saying, pretending
that she was just like me.

i think of what i could do
to take me back to that chair
where i sat and sobbed over your shoulder —
gazed and glazed my watery eyes
settled on a blonde girl similarly hurt;
smiling from her seat next to us.

i never asked her name
nor knew what pain brought her there —
but i saw reassurance on her mouth
as my leg bled into my shoe
when she and i waited hours for safety
that never saw anybody through —
the break in the blinds that night;
watching street lights gleaming
like amber water in their eyes —

i floundered in flight the fright that threaded through me in the lily pond lagoon love drowned me out did not see the crocodile coming —

(25/08/2018)