He noticed the creases of women’s mouths
The down or the up of them
The twitch of them, the teeth of them
Or the line left by their
Bra strap on their
Bare shoulder
He could remember the
Earlobes of every woman
He’d ever kissed
So many tiny moments of softness
He collected them
Pinning their memories to the
Walls of his brain
Like hundreds of powdery butterflies
He was mine and I owned him.
Yes
I owned him
Every piece of him
Every part
He was mine and I owned him.
My head was full of having then
Mine, I’d say. Mine.
Is this bit mine?
Yes.
Is this bit mine?
Yes.
And this?
Yes
Yes yes yes
You always get what you want
He said
No
I said
My life is largely defined by absence
She is not mine and neither are you. This is just a game.
But I am yours
He said
And I smiled
Because the lie was more palpable than his living body and her dead one
Still
We both pretended
That we belonged to each other
High
black wedges
with gold bits sexy
dress big earrings
lipstick made my hair
pretty
shaved my legs
slicked
my nails red.
And absolutely
most
importantly
of all
I wore
individually
applied
semi-permanent
false
eyelashes
they
lasted all week
until yesterday walking
around the science
museum I tugged
them
away from
my skin
was left bare
faced
by the brontosaurus
he was
a fake too
When we used to whisper
Dark and secret things to one another
I promised to love you
Always, everywhere, with everything I was and had,
Entirely yours yours yours
Anywhere you went, anywhere
My love
Always, always
Everywhere.
I had no need for
Paris
Love me in the industrial places of the world
I’d say
Love me in the grey parts
In the faded peeling dim
Our love shines too bright for
Venice
Our love deserves
Arncliffe Billingly Cottingham Drub
Emmotland Filey Grewelthorpe Hull
Ingleton Jaw-Hill Knaresborough Lund
Micklebring Nafferton Oxenhope Paull
Queensbury Rotherham Saddleworth Thorpe
Uckerby Wigglesworth Yockenthwaite York
Even Bridlington?
You said
Even Whitby?
And I said
Oh my darling, I would fucking adore you in Whitby
If we were in Whitby
Winged mythical beasties would appear in the sky
Mermaids would be spotted in the bay
Minor deities would run naked through the town
The moon would grow large
And hairy chested men would stop in the street and howl in its pale light
Women would bare their breasts and bellies and dance wildly,
Soles and souls connected to the pulse of the earth.
That’s what would happen if we went to Whitby
My love.
And you said
Blimey
I had no idea that such things could happen in Yorkshire at all
But I think we should go there
Immediately.
I love you
You said
I love you
And I loved me too.
The me-that-morning that found
Not Jerusalem
But something hot and gorgeous
In the dampest part of
England
The times that I have lied
Have been pathetically inconsequential
A matter of face
Rather than
Disgrace.
Instead I rely
On admission
To survive
I use my frankness like
A shield
My truth’s my boldest ally
It’s never let me down, you see
This constant revelation of the core of me
It is its own reward
The way our elders promised it would be
But for others, I think
Honesty prefaces punishment
Up-front and forthright
Become effrontery
Yet lying is a mockery
So what are they to do?
Their lie becomes both fight and flight
It is their best resource:
Say anything to stop the pain
Then hope you don’t get caught
I used to have space
To debate
The nature
Of perception versus reality
But now my experience is a constant
And everyday illustration,
An endless revelation,
That some things are true and some things are lies
And I don’t give a flying
Fuck about famous paradoxes
Or influential philosophies
I wish that when someone told a fib
Their knickers would
Spontaneously combust
And I could sniff the air
Take in the scent of burning fabric and singed pubic hair
And look them in the eye
And say
Excuse me friend
It would appear
That you are sporting
The requisite pants on fire
Of the proverbial liar
Desist at once
Or be prepared to suffer
An undercarriage underworld
A perineal perdition
A haemorrhoidal hell
A scrotal scourge
A fanny inferno
A gluteal Gehenna
Netherworld nethers
Dante’s derriere
Hades’ hindquarters
Or in its plainest terms
A BURNED BUM.
That’s what I wish.
When we were
Eleven
I told on her
And another one of
Our friends for
Being slightly
Snide
About my
New blue blazer.
She was in my class
Very smart
Straight A’s
All the way.
Like me
She struggled
With the soft and round of her
Like me
She had a wild heart
That loved the wrong men
Like me
She was ambitious, strong
Worked long, rose high
Like me
Her baby died
And as I stood by her side
As she said goodbye
I wished that we were
Different.
Do not feed the birds
They plead
A ploy to avoid
Mucky monuments
Still the pigeons cock their heads
Until for pity’s sake
Some bleeding heart
Offers them bread
Feels the warm glow of a good deed
And the gratitude
Of a creature fed
The birds mean more than bricks
And bit by bit
St Philip’s Cathedral is
Covered in shit.
An addict is denied
The belief that he is not in his right mind
And so the choice is mine
A sip. That tiny moment
Between cup and lip
It is so small
But to ignore it now
Imperils all
That I have carefully designed.
I wonder where the line was crossed
Whose line it was
And where lies the real cost
In the balance of many needs to be met
And all of them real and deeply felt
Intentions become moot
When the outcome is
The destruction of
Our careful construction
Or the sensation of
Sticking the boot
Into someone vulnerable
Men are not birds to be fed or not
Yet every morsel
I have granted
Is turned to dirt
As if shit were the natural product of pity.
I want to ask you
How life is without me
But I am here so I don’t think you’d know.
It’s true that you don’t have the
Ooh the oh the ah
Of me the
Lick
Of me the
Salt
Of me the
Bite
Of me the
The whispered words
The sticky joyful nights
With me.
But somehow in the giving
I have disappeared
And now I’m left with just the meat and bone
Of me
Yet I am here and so you still retain the
Useful thriving parts
Of me the
Smart
Of me the
Will
Of me the
Earn
Of me the
Things that serve
And so you need not yearn
For me.
But somehow in the telling
You have disappeared
And I am left with just the endless me
Of me.
(and me and me and me and me and me and me and me and me)
All in pursuit
Of the root of me
The truth of me
We try to identify
The start of my heart
The cause of my flaws
The science of my emotional reliance
Do I intend harm?
Or is this martyrdom?
Or an alarming addiction to drama?
I feel so thick
Sick with it
Only an idiot
I suppose
Would know themselves so little
I’m turned to tiny fragments of mirror
And in those myriad reflections
So many different interpretations of
Why
Then I wonder if the problem is going to Therapy in the first place.
When it was time to
Love
My husband
Without condition or reserve
I did my best by
Leaving
He knew me then
My clues
All of the
Twitchy
Little things I do
Revealing
Now I desire
Insight
Mired in doubt
I turn to one
Who claims a mystic gift
Believing
He reads my palm
And clutches at
My hand my arm my hair
Trying to divine
The pale things of my
Concealing
He speaks into
The air
I stare
And mutter
Yes I see your truth
Dissembling
I long instead for
The chest
Of someone beautiful
My stranger man
Undressed and head thrown back
Unknowing
To take off clothes
And masks
To laugh and be undone
To share our marks
And be the witness of another’s
Trembling
Instead I’m left alone
I reach into the night
And taste the dark
My blood pounds in my palms
The lesson and the pain around me
Flowing
Little Losses 