I’ve always loved a magic trick. Especially cards. You can have endless fun with those. I’d love for you to teach me the one where you guess the card I’m holding by looking into my eyes. closely. For a very. long. time. Here. Let me practice some more. On that bench there. But you always preferred to perform bigger and louder tricks. On stages. With audiences. And sometimes daggers. Your most notable one? To disappear completely.

a thirst for trust

Under the willow tree, this little fish can breathe out of water. I sip on a cider and wonder when he leaves today with the empty bottles if he’ll ever come back with another.
And so there’s a rhythm to my heart at the moment, opening and closing like tired gills.
Opening with a calm pool of patience, when arms wrap around me and the sudden safety, the deep comfort, the belly of a double bass is teasing.
Closing with my lips pushed on yet another strangers when his kiss is a barely there, eyes over there, he could be anywhere type of revelation.
It’s a smack then a sigh, a hollow and a high.
And though the wind through the branches is a sweet lullaby as I stay awake, licking my fins, listening for his returning footsteps on the moist grass, I do hope he arrives with crates of apples. With time to sit with me discussing the fresh bubbles that will slither down our thirsty throats and the sweetness on our tongues as we watch them ferment together.

honestly

The truth is that it isn’t. Words can’t carry truth, because it twists and contorts at lightening speed and neither a black or gold heart will ever truly sing it. And sometimes life’s just too short or too long to second guess a smile.

fine and mellow now please

My silly anxious pit would like to make me curl up today inside myself where I don’t speak and I don’t need to answer. If there’s the urge for words, I can learn a new French one – a bout de souffle (breathless) - and make it my new favourite. I could take the big mug and sip on hot honeyed milk, then hurt my teeth, sinking them into a cold magnum ice cream. There’s a button to press play for characters to come alive on a screen. They could be in the south of France. She could wear jeans really well, and, … and, …and he could tell his friend about her smile that kills him so. They could kiss to the soundtrack of my coco pops, pop poppety pop smack, swilling in my bowl while I sink into the cloud bed and imagine it to be more like this:

obnoxious anxious

There’s a pit
in the bottom
of my stomach
where a tired
ol beastie
growls
when he yawns.
He’s
a strong arm
strong coffee
coughing
on caffeine
and pulls the reins
hard
on my jaw
with a paw
full of scratchy things
he sings
like a roar
and makes me clench
the bench
under the sky
full of storm
that was only just blue
before
in his room
doom
is the only shade
of bright
from this belly fire
I might
have to look
to the wind
for guidance
you see
perhaps if I sat
by the mango tree
could it smell like the sea?
my feet free
of shoes
and my toes
remembering the grass
my fingers
can dig away
and clutch at the dirt
the hurt
this shirt’s
hard to button
with these dirty
fingers
that shake
when it wakes
this tired ol’ beastie
when it stirs
in my tummy
funny
how he knows
oh
with his weight
and that sneer
but I’ll kick
him back good
with a trick
or three
a paper aeroplane
a popsicle and tea
under the tree
of the fruit
with the stones
we’ll stone him
with those
and glue him
with the juice
the syrup
to shuttup
and leave me
alone

bedtime stories

You sleep too much she says as he wipes the crumbs out of his eyes.
She didn’t understand the feathered doona offered him a feathered reality. He shuffled out of the sheets and into the late morning sun, blinking away the rays with the remnants of an all enveloping dream. He’d have gladly curled up a little longer like a hurt and wriggling worm in the belly of a dark numbness, but scratching the dog good morning behind the ears seemed like a stronger, manlier thing to do.
___________________________________________________________________
We stretch out on the Sunday sun canvas of your bed and paint the ceiling of your room with crayons that we have attached to long sticks, so that reaching up doesn’t jeopardize the position my hip is in laying next to yours. We’ve drawn a pathway between trees and a river that I can almost hear. You blink away specks of light traveling up and up in your eyes with each blink.Little fluoro diamonds. And you ask me where I think the helium balloons go when tired fingers release their strings.
Anywhere you want them to go darling, I say. Anywhere you want.
___________________________________________________________________

He took her milk wrists with the young veins and pinned them to the bed. She dug her nails into her palms until they bled red ribbons into the white sheet creases. Looking down at them as he nuzzled her raw with a gravel beard, she thought of them as baby whales being harpooned. She wondered if there was a ship over that crease there, that little big wave, just around the corner coming to rescue her, but as he reached right up to her wet little mouth and blew a cloud of smoke through her lips and his wheezing made the bed tremble and the sheets, the sheets, the waves were getting higher until she felt herself sink in them and knew they’d all be swallowed up under the force of his storm.

control the brakes or go skidding into it all

I punch the walls in the shower with a lame fist.
I’d love to give it a proper go, but I’m a little embarrassed.
Even in front of myself.
So instead,
I write an affirmation on the steamed up shower screen with trembling wet fingers,
like stiff little ghosts.
Keep the drama under wraps.
Keep the drama under wraps.
Smile.
But you see,
it’d be so much easier to be your own puppeteer
if your limbs didn’t always get caught in the strings.