indent

my head :

I had to indent it
to stop the Fury from rising,
had to roll my knuckles 'round the back of my skull
to avoid repeating fifteen -

(plate intersecting window;
she made me pay for it -
despite my first two orbits dizzy inside their fighting)

- supposedly its better
to damage one's self over material property

the Fury
surges
a current through me
wants to explode
                            OUT
but I push it down,
I push it down,
it boils in my abdomen
and rots my insides
and wrings my organs

the tumorous energy seeps slowly upwards
and clogs my throat, forehead, eyes

so far from flowing / or
giving without exhaustion
never hurting
always beautiful

always open
and radiant, abundant

instead -
I feel heavy
bruises forming inside me
lesions of agitation
scab my cheeks and chin

my world is insular
I forget everything outside of me

I'm well off the path
before I realise
I'm lost ...

head, meet ground
meet fists
meet shower wall

heels, meet floor
meet bed legs
meet air

forearms,
meet pile of blankets
meet thighs
meet ears

I can't hear
I can't feel
I can't feel
if I can't hear

flying

they were eleven,
and he was
perhaps
in his mid-twenties -
as old as I am, now -

and they were pale white, fair scandinavian beauties
who knew things - they really knew;
I understood
what he meant
when he said,
they knew - know:
they weren't children, they were
women
on the brink of womenhood
totally self-aware
as they pressed their lips, breasts against one another
in an act of permission
for him - they let him watch
independent of their own eyes
he was privileged
independent
of his own eyes
they found their navels searching one another

did the screens teach them to do that?
I doubt it -
I remember
being sixteen
sitting on the edge of bathtubs,
learning how my best friend's lips
were softer than any boy's I'd kissed
finding the complex of edge
of platonic intimacy

I also see that deep, aching beauty
that exists in certain adolescents
they know it's there
and how it makes them power-full
we all witnessed it yesterday
as a fifteen year old boy
lay down in the spotlight
and opened his throat, heart, body
and we all ached with wonder at his being
and ached with pity for the woman who birthed him

and I, too, wonder how far I could go
with manifesting my own fantasies
both in words and in body
and the corners my curiosity could drag me into
if only I let myself
surrender fully to my mantras
nothing is real, nothing actually matters...

the line, the line
he asks us where is the line,
if there is even a line at all
or just a fuzzy, murky blur









written in response to Bastiaan Vandendriessche's play, De Fuut, Edinburgh Fringe Festival

berlin 2.0 / 3.0

this whole city hold echoes of you, now
-- like those denim shorts did for five years, after Ohope
until they literally frayed apart -- and then I'd
gotten new atoms, anyhow...

falafel smells like the nostalgia of you
and anxiously holding my bag close seems
less inconvenient
but more achievable
than containing my unkempt heart

and the whole city feels
like the achingly-full emptiness
of knowing you briefly
and of knowing another for many past lives prior
and wondering
about the interchangeability of souls
across time and space
and the faint foreboding echo
of home-songs
whose authors have long departed,
cradling the surreality of it all,
reassuring me I won't spill red
all over the floor
(just water
and shame)

and I hold on,
though the arms of my womb ache ;
I breathe in the salt that sits in the corners of my eyes
I press myself into the frames of old lovers
and echo their names
until I pass out
with love

beer - bus - bled

quietly fucked up in public
the ultimate serenity
the most private of secrets
more intimate than stewing in love
the furtherest from Earth whilst still
/ anchored in the planet
the deepest adventure into my own
/ capabilities and composition
a subtle "fuck off" and "fuck yes" : to and for the world

sometimes I can see myself / easily an addict
festering furiously, wonderfully, in the corners of my mind
venturing with too much courage into the flight of my veins ---

but I also enjoy my coherency, my health and my innocence
--- so I stick mainly to coffee, and marijuana
(and sometimes adultery, though that's far too close to love)

I want my body to bounce around between higher spaces
I want to unravel in front of people
I want to remind us all that nothing's real

hEART

heart is dancing

heart doesn't know how but

it still / moves 

it's supposed to keep rhythm

but it's out of time

it's growing old so early

and refusing to grow up

it's stuck in the centre of the spine

green but not with envy

it's breaking its host body

refusing to mimic regularity

its swinging blood around this miniature world

but it doesn't work towards a life

it permits organs of sadness

and cells of confusion,

atoms of melancholy

to float around, meandering

it desperately needs coffee

it knows it's not good for it but

it wants to fuck itself up

it wants to lie on the floor

it wants to feel allowed to fail

it wants to stay at the bottom --

why must it climb 

to sit so high on the spine ?

it feels embarrassed about being a heart

it hurts to beat

it throws itself at others, not out of need

but out of a desire to touch, to connect, to feel..

that's different, it insists :

a heart needs a ribcage to sit within,

it needs a pulse to follow

it needs hands to hold it

bump

I don't have a Wednesday.
Wednesday disappears from me -
it scampers away like the mischievous child
that time is, climbing up the rafters and
tripping people over when they least expect it

Wednesday is the steam evaporating off the bathroom mirror:
I wipe a small clearing with my perfumed fingers
so I can see myself better,
stare into the forever-abyss of
my own reflection

time winds back and forth and back
and forth

My Wednesday is
the last pages of a very good book,
but my weekend is the world
in which the main character comes alive.

a poem that shouldn't be written but I'm writing it anyway, in what I'd like to think is a moment of bold honesty, but probably is more like embarrassing stupidity

i.

I want to fuck you
like the dirty fucking whore
I once was
/ still am, but
not practising, like a bad catholic who's
skipping church

I want to
open my mouth
wider over yours, and take giant gulps of you
run my tongue along your teeth
and smash my jaw on your edges

and even though I get off
every time with you, without fail, and even
almost always
more than once, I just...

feel complacent in my climax
coz it's just so
goddamn easy

I want the performance back.

I want to dress up in thigh-high socks
and short skirts
and still be wearing them
when you come inside me
(my top off,
but in my bra)

I want to find you in a gutter at 4am
and lick drugs from your sticky palms
I want to wake up on your floor
with broken wine bottles everywhere
and stains in the carpet
that aren't from the wine

I want to smell myself on you
when I walk back into your room
after pissing in the morning
and walking back through your lounge
your conventionally good-looking flatmate
half glaring, half gawking

I want you to smack me across my face
I want you to dig your nails into my spine
I want you to chuck me around your living room and break a
very expensive heirloom

and tell your girlfriend all about it

and write poems about it

I want things that grate entirely
with my actual
ideologies

I want the sordid satisfaction
of you thinking I'm something I'm not
and knowing you can't comprehend
human duality

(or you know it entirely, and
that's why
you're here)

I want the pleasure of having power
over giving you an alter-ego
like, fuck yes this same
binge drinking, cock-sucking slut
also votes green, shuts down the patriarchy and
recycles correctly

and sure you can take me home
if you buy me a vegan burger first
coz I'm a dirty little hippy
with zero dollars to her name
but you're gonna buy me breakfast -
not because you're the male
but because you fucking owe me,
because you already want to see me again
and it's only
the morning after

and I'll answer your 10pm texts
coz it feels like summer,
and we all want that

I'll walk through the park at night for you
I'll risk my life to open my legs
I'll play the right song
and postpone sleep

just to feel in control
just to feel like the mad seductress
just to bear the weight of your form
and hear the aliveness of your breath

and conquer
and know
and decipher
one by one


ii.

here's what I don't want to do:

I don't want to go back to your windowless apartment
I don't want to hold your soft, spineless back
I don't want to pretend I'm enjoying it
I don't want you to shove yourself inside of me
I don't want to eat your fucking pumpkin seeds
you sad excuse for a vegetarian
I don't want to
go fucking slowly
I don't want to be fucked the way you want to fuck me
I don't want to wear a short skirt because you told me to,
I want to wear it because I fucking want to wear it
I don't want you to tell me to be quiet
I don't want you to be such an ugly, pathetic excuse for a man
I don't want you to
have me

I don't want to cry on your bed afterwards
and try to politely, kindly
explain why i feel revolted,
disgusted,
sick to my stomach
in a way i can't even comprehend, yet
and tell you sweet little lies
about not being attracted to you
when really the truth is

you fucking shoved yourself inside of me
after I literally said no
what the fuck was that ?
what the fuck was that

the time I stepped outside of myself
the time I played the game but no longer for the game's sake
the time I put myself in danger
the only time i wish i hadn't


iii.

I want them to enact my nostalgia

I imagine them sneaking across the hallway
at unholy hours of the night
mis-matched lovemakers
sharing rooms within a shared home
existing between the spaces of the house's other inhabitants

I imagine them indulging in the easy tension of holding a secret in the kitchen
the morning ritual of opening the fridge
and boiling the jug
the sterile intimacy
the stoic lust of taboo
the heroic triumph of doing the forbidden thing

sometimes the only way to appreciate someone you don't get along with
is to put yourself inside of them,
let them wear your skin
and shower together afterwards

revisionalry

I wonder if I should
                                 send my poem to you,
                                                                      Ella

   .

imagine
every'neI've
ever
   written
      a poem about

reading
             about
                       themselves

and knowing
                      all their own

secrets,
and

maybe that's why I 

                                           

                                                  (of course it's why I)

,why I                                    

tipped you off, Nicholas

                            because 

                           I wanted

                                     to

I wanted

you

to

know

the things

you didn't know

I 

knew you didn't

know

I knew about you

\ so 

that in 

twenty seventeen

I could write poems about

yearning 

about you

forever

whilst being

perfectly

happy

in love.

i.
sometimes all it takes
to feel powerful again
(read: normal)
is boots and a denim jacket
a short puff on a small blunt
and walking in to a dimly-lit, music-less bedroom --
alone --
while the rain hits the veranda

and I wonder how I could
ever
not be
good


ii.
when I was getting high
and writing foreign poems
late at night
every night
about the night
and didn't have steel pins in me
and didn't mind getting caffeine\drunk

then I felt like an artist
then I felt like I's creating things

then I felt
like a
human being


iii.
I feel like i'm on the precipice
of being 18 again
thick in the hea(r)t of it
melting into regular epiphany
bordering on genius,
all the while complaining
about being 18 again --

but here's the trick:
I knew more then than I know now,
but I didn't know it

san/

you keep talking about that trip
like you didn't experience the paranoia
I did
like you
weren't afraid of burning the house down
a second time -
I was

you keep talking about it being earth-provided
but there's nothing natural
about my head

dancing out and away from my body
a tiny me-ghoul reminding me
of my own
creeping mortality

every time I am high now
I remember I will die
and I imagine all the ways
it might happen

including you turning a knife on me

there's nothing natural about that

and when I am awake,
alive and
not in other states
I'm caught up in the most
unholy, unworldly of heads -
I'm not even here
I'm culling myself thin

thinner than when I vomited for two days straight
thinner than my bones feel on acid
thinner than the line that's driven itself
between I
and
you

thinner than my bank account
thinner than my ability to talk sense
thinner than my ferritin levels
after rice-bread-potatoes
for three months straight

thinner than the space between my eyebrows
as it slowly collapses in on itself

India #4 of 5

India feels like
being squished onto the knees of a stranger
in a tiny state "bus"
neck right-angled under the
luggage compartment, the
juddering pot holes
of neglected roads

it's a spice-licked stomach,
a flush of water around my thighs
the infected rash of a toilet-paper-less world

a stranger pressing himself in to me
and the adrenaline exerted
in whacking away his hand, my
other hand
in my boyfriend's lap

a scarf enveloping my shoulders
and constantly rearranging it

it's the light step of coconut feni
the heavy pace of too many chappati
the aching backs of poor women
who have no choice but hard labour

the tension of a furrowed brow
that's argued too long about the price
the stiffness of a neck shaking "No, thank you" -
over and over -
and eventually, just "No."

the feeling of India
is suffocation by smog
a billion consumers burning
plastic day into
dusky warmth

a drafty train window
jammed open, forever un-fixed

dust between your toes
dirt in your eyelashes
heat-itched scalp
salvaged by Mysore oils

the rising of chilli
from gut
               to throat

this place locks firm your shoulders
between strong, callused hands
and shoves you sideways -
a hundred humans
desperate
for a single seat

the cold concrete floor
beneath your sitbones
as you find a place on the floor
to eat.

India #3 of 5

the taste of India

is vague, accidental goat

a potent aftershave that chokes your throat
mouthfuls of years of jaggery but never a toothbrush
milk tea politely declined -
or taken, in shame - it
swells the throat with
confusion and
guilt

India tastes of
practised love kneaded into chappati,
soap lingering on fingers
while shovelling rice with your right hand,
the dirt stuck under your fingernails

papaya after pineapple after pomegranate
fennel seeds stuck between your teeth
deep-fried, plastic-wrapped everything

a whole potato-stuffed chilli
stuffed into your salivating mouth,
despite the heat on your forehead,
despite the heat in your stomach;
un-named and unpronounceable
treats, oddities, commodities

the putrid after-taste
of a deeply wounded culture
asphyxiated by its own identity
the hard-to-swallow-truth
of disappointment, bewilderment
and disdain

India #1 of 5

the smell of India
is shit mixed with wafting jasmine flowers
lotus incense masked by sun-stenched, fly ridden fish
asphyxiating leather varnish
and Ayurvedic oils
rose petals delicate with curdled milk
exhaust fumes and cinnamon
sugary tea and rotting rubbish dumps
masala sweat
and
overpriced marijuana

Murali

she's sitting on the floor,
cross-legged, bare-footed,
bright yellow gold and jingles,
peeling the vegetables with some heavy iron instrument
her eyes salt up slightly
as she sheds the skin off the onions,
wiping her sweaty cheek with the
chaste edge of a pungent hand --

she's so happy,
all smiles
and cackling
laughter

(her age inflates and deflates -- I'm not sure
if she's forty-something
or sixty-five... no
grey hair, body soft --
and that brattish beautiful grand-daughter,
that cackling glee...)

but when she squats below the steps
to feed the hysterical chooks
her face falls tired, empty
her head drops to her open fist one side of her neck
and I see she's worn,
desperate, pitiful

exactly as I feel, and I've only been here
five weeks

on an overnight train to Mysore

we're like boomerangs
going in reverse
returning back to where we
came from

part "Fantasy Hotel"
past the coconut palms
back into the cold
to come out the other side:
into the scorching heat, again -
we search out the extremes, we
won't settle for mediocre

except there's
no such thing, in this country, anyway
so we couldn't find it, anyway, even
if we
tried

I've never seen so many mangled bodies
I've denies them my four cents
because that's the rule here
and then I mourn
my own apathy
and console myself
by holding your head
with the
two good hands
I have

I walk past a
foetus of a man
nestled between the motorcycles
almost certainly an empty body
and I wonder why nobody
does anything
while I also do nothing

we descend back into the mountains
there's barely any streetlights
but I recognise their shadows
from the last time we were here

the settlement

This place is filled with echoes of you.

I wonder why the fire isn't going.
I wonder where the guitar is.
I remember to boil the water first.
I imagine the chaos if you'd done
what you said you'd wanted to.
I imagine if I'd fallen into habit, instead
       of saying no (thanks).

I imagine -

I fall into habit
       anyway,
But I insert You into the conversation.
      open, I flow,
I flow with loquacity -

This place is filled with echoes of you
I remember dropping anchor
Six-teen-times,
      I remember
being woken at 2am
to make polite conversation
with a stranger
I remember this oceanic palette,
these fabric folds of the shore
I remember
reciting
my vows to this place,
myself; these thirteen

I remember these same blisters
in the palms of my hands, like small jewels
now I hold
two sapphire shells instead

I remember walking to the end
and finding you behind me
and feeling afraid
and feeling alive all at once
(the same reason I ever do anything)

I remember these soft orange colours
over these wintery forest peaks

I remember two-fold
calls on the walkie talkie: do you
copy?

I remember the smell of you
and I wish I'd brought
your shirt as you suggested

I remember
your warmth
I remember your arms locking mine into my
body

I remember
kissing your cheek
I wonder how many people here
saw
She certainly knows.
(for the first time ever, I lied
at exactly the right moment -
or at least, I choked
just in time
on the truth)

This whole place reeks
with the smell
of you
And still I invited you in -
I allowed you both to kiss my cheek
- why do they
insist
on doing that?
after
everything?

On paper, on paper,
but we didn't see
into the water together

I've borrowed from you a-plenty
to give everything
to him.

"The destruction of love can be brought about most swiftly when one love constantly demands of the other, 'Do you love me? Do you really love me?' while the other, at first, replying, 'Yes, of course I do' and being met with 'Are you sure?' has no place to go but away."

- Janet Frame, The Caparthians

S16

not many people like
the smell of Rotorua
but to me, it's lovely,
like

the earth's come home
from a hard day,
or,
just woken up
mouth laced with the night's dreams,
like

resting my face
against you, softly breathing
in the scent of you,
after / wards, like

catching us
on me
for the better part of the next day,
like

when my flatmates
burn flesh
I don't want it
but it fills the room

I edited it your poem.

Maybe you'll find it soon.

old

I want to be not sleeping again
and be alive in it
and be alive in it
and be alive in it

I want to feel the endlessness of night
and still
hear the sun
in the morning

I want to spend hours curled into you
and still
hear the sun
in the morning

I want to create hundreds of versions of myself
and still
hear the sun
in the morning

I want to be not sleeping again
and be alive in it
and be alive in it
and be alive in it