i have been letting go
of years

just so i can sleep
for one moment
in your smile

Quiet

When a feminist is raped
It is the quietest she has ever been

When a feminist is raped
All of her anger
All of her hope is
Useless to her in that moment

Her anger will return after, with force
But not directed at him

He will stay the skeleton in her closet,
in her bed,
Because to even admit that he exists
That THAT happened, to her,
Is to dissolve her completely

Her hope never returns the same way.
It has been smeared with some one else’s sweat and anyway,
Nothing helped her.
Not then.

When a feminist is raped
It is the quietest she has ever been.

So.
We need to hold hands and
SCREAM for her, loud and long and hollow and raw,
To hold her anger
To heal her hope

Building

We are building on
Spiderwebs

But it is working.

Slowly, slowly
Step only this way,
Careful, careful
This one falls and
That one falls

But we are
Slowly
Slowly
Rising

We are building on
Volcanoes
here

Round the bubbles
And sink holes
Careful here, this
Ground looks stable but it's
Just crust, really, building on red hot
Red hot

We all get burnt
Battle-scars painting songs on
Our faces

But it is working
Slowly
Slowly
We are rising

We are building on ghosts
here
Comrades
Careful of this one’s
Face,
That one’s mouth.

We need to understand
what they need now,

To build them into our
Bricks like graffiti
So they can still sing
So they can still scream
And we can not forget

So we can see them clearly
And lay flowers before them and
Not pretend. Not pretend.

Because this one fell
And that one fell
And tears, tears fell

But we are building.
We are building.

Fireheads

I want to climb inside your coffin
Lie next to you
Cheek on your chest

I want to have those conversations
We never had

I want to hold your heart
But I want to feel it beating

I want to kiss you warm,
Feel your fingers start to move
Watered by tearsprings onto your chest

You will wake
You will hold me weeping
You will tell me this has all been a bad dream

We will sit in your coffin like it was a bath
Feet to feet
We will speak of growing up
Of learning to put our hearts in men and watching them
Shattered and shattered again

We will laugh at first loves
Remember the wildness with which we ran
I will soothe you with rhymes about sticks and stones
You will remind me that it was words that broke you

We will grow sombre at ‎last loves
Death strung between us

He placed us carefully each at one end of the rope
We looked down and pulled
Blood
Sweat
We thought prince charming was at the end

He sat on the sidelines waiting to see
Which of our fire-haired heads bowed first

If I had known that
Death lay in the middle of that tug of war rope

I would have screamed such a scream
That would have left him paralysed

I would have dropped the rope,
Run to you and felt your pulse

I would have held your wrists in my hands
Shocked into the silence of 'almost'
I would have breathed out a bridge in front of us
Lead us together into starcountry

Two fire-heads turning away from death

We could have sat facing each other
Playing clap-games
Until it was safe for us to return.

Now I face you in your coffin.
You have no words for me.
No words of comfort
No words of malice.
No pulse.

You lie back down
My tears have turned cold on you.

I must climb out of your coffin
Because he will pick you up soon
He cannot hold the weight of both of us.

One imagined kiss on
One cold cheek
My heart aching
My head filled with the conversations we could have had

HomeSong

Go well.

Go with shells in your hair
Wings on your feet

Go with snake-familiars in
Your belly and
Calligraphy on your map

Go well
Go with all the tears for you
Making waves for you to ride,
Laughing.

Go with no broken bones
Or bruises on your body
Or you heart
Go with desert flowers
Cacti
Holding your hands, their needles
Bending soft for you.

Go well
Go with no unease
Go carried on carpets of autumn leaves
Go with God's laughter calling calling calling
You Home.

In Her Flight

An owl visited me last night
A spotted eagle owl Sat on my balcony
While I was gathering scraps of my heart
In my bed

It hooted at me
Clucked
Looking lost, out of place

I opened the door to let it in
But it stayed outside
Where it was safe
Watching me

I collected my fingers:
I had sent them wandering
Looking for my heart.

I phoned you,
Told you about the owl

“what does it want?” you said
I had no words to answer

You felt her in the owl.

In its wings, found her flight
Where she had taken the first jump off the chair

In the possibility of flight, movement
Where her feet had just been left treading air

In it’s hoot, you heard her voice
Where her broken neck had swallowed her goodbyes

“Hello” you said to the owl
237 kilometres away

“I love you”
you said to the owl, to her

Me, a conduit for your love for her.

A dam, a holding cell, anything contained
I wanted the dam to burst to unleash my
Heart pieces
Unrestrained
In their grief
In their rage

“I love you.” I said

The owl flew,
Taking, in her flight, some of my grief
Some of my heart

my heart pieces clucked,
confusedly
to themselves
staying outside of me
outside of you
where it is safe