[A dewdrop contemplates their neighbours]

I'm the special one, not you. You are a pearl believing itself to be a dewdrop, and not a milky calcium deposit. I could live with that, maybe. Live with the way you present yourself resplendent in necklaces, declaring that liquid sunrise was meant to be entrapped and imprisoned this way, like confining music to the five songs everyone else is listening to. 

But then you cower in the face of harsh winds, rolling, refusing any longer to hold your place in the web, and suddenly I'm not so sure I can tolerate your presence, and sit back in the rose light while you blunder. 

[Food poisoning]

I thought that you were light cream whipped
and made for everyone, democratic,
but when I folded you I saw 
the silver sprinkles in the curd
you couldn’t see. You’d choke on
the knowledge, like a cormorant
that was trained to catch fish, not dairy.
So I slipped off my golden ring
to bind you deep in blustering earth
and sleep – metallic ignorance.

[Two Things]

There are two things that are hard:
washing just the tips of your fingers, and
caring just the right amount about people.

It's as if
the gods have written in sacred ink
all along your palms, and
if you drip water just a little further than your knuckle
you lose a part of yourself.

You lose
rivulets of sweat that wash away courage
in the centre of an old ballroom
with disco lights hanging from the ceiling,
losing the confidence of your tongue,
losing the security of your spine.

There are just two things that are hard:
washing the tips of your fingers, and
caring about people at all when
it's so easy
to slip on cold feet.

[Like you’ve already won]

I just don't want to deal with feelings, okay?
Especially if they're yours, red-and-black hole-like,
a mosaic crawling up both walls until the walls are sliding,
and you there skateboarding like it's nothing --
stop flexing your feigned emotional intelligence,
it's a skill like a lottery -- most of us don't have it.

Chessboard broken in half at my feet,
I kick it and make it snap into even more pieces,
picking up a pawn and swallowing my fate,
I don't mind being alone if it means the games end.

With people like you, who needs romantic love
to go through stages of break-up angst?
You treat my heart like you've already won it,
purchased it, knocked it off its marble pedestal
and the thing is -- you haven't.

Seaside Host

My cousin used to barge into my room
 and flop like a seal atop the bed,
 her hair fanning out over the sheets,
 jet-fire black, coals in her eyes.

 Maybe it's because I'm a prude, or
 I have feelings too. 
 But I can't let someone in here
 who doesn't knock. 

 I hold this memory like a pebble
 in my hands, which I skip
 on the roiling seawater surface
 to see if the waves rise, or sink.

 Maybe I’m not meant to host
 every wandering walrus. 

A Friendship on Pain

I have never based
 a friendship on pain,
 pain, pain, which ebbs
 and flows like the light
 of the sun, and don't we
 want to say friendship
 never dies? What if
 tomorrow the ache
 recedes into the sea,
 will the ache recede
 within your thoughts,
 and alongside, me?

 Let me not base
 my friendships
 on the way light 
 careens from one end
 of the Earth to another,
 and instead love here
 on the floorboards,
 on the ground.

Sweet Sisters

Sweet sister dearest would not let me sit inside,
 the sharp winter chill, she said, is where I must reside,
 beyond the broken mirror that I left to love the floor,
 beyond the bloody shards, they cannot use anymore.

 To use a glass, a looking glass, to see what lies inside,
 the sharpened winter chills the core of my frame inside,
 my frame of death and bones, my sisters know to fear,
 I am the broken mirror that my sisters know to fear.

 The broken image sings in dancing light!
 distorts the dinner stew, a siren in the night,
 a siren tune in minor key, eminently dark,
 and sisters know as sisters do: do not love the dark. 

 Do not love the dark, they said, I must not sit inside,
 for when I cast a shadow, glass will crack and fall beside,
 for sisters learn from sisters true, they are made of glass,
 the daughter with a hammer-hand they cannot let to pass.

A revision of ‘Although I Do Not Disagree’.

Red Brick Walls

Red brick walls
 stretching, rolling on
 the horizon, with barbed
 black spikes from the cracks between.
 I can’t help but feel they were built expecting me
 to walk by and see them, with my umbrella
 prepared for rain, but not for this,
 the path blocked high
 and me without
 a ladder.

Winter’s Tale

You lost us the fairy tale, my friend,
afraid of losing, and of winning also,
burning love letters, afraid of the dark
and I cut my hair for kindling.

Afraid of losing, and of winning also,
you lost us the fairy tale, where only dreams are,
and I cut my hair for kindling,
but you heard that from someone else.

You lost us the fairy tale, where only dreams are
real filters for mountain-stream tears,
but you heard that from someone else,
words seeping through cracks in the lens.

Real filters for mountain-stream tears,
was the crackle of light, red in the dark,
words seeping through cracks in the lens,
flowing and gushing like blood.

Was the crackle of light, red in the dark,
enough for you (to listen)?
Flowing and gushing like blood,
my throat, already slit for you.

Enough for you (to listen)?
You answer “No”, like it’s never been (a lie).
My throat, already sliced for you,
I brought the poleaxe down myself.

You answer “No”, like it’s never been (a lie).
Am I some fractured mirror? Am I not clear to see?
I brought the poleaxe down myself,
so the smithereens seem aligned to me.

Am I some fractured mirror? Am I not clear to see?
The ocean remains in depth uncharted, but not I;
so the smithereens seem aligned to me,
I can’t understand. You bring down the poleaxe.

The ocean remains in depth uncharted, but not I.
Iron is the grip that sinks me – won’t you loosen it?
I can’t understand. You bring down the poleaxe.
Won’t you see? and look at me differently, just this once?

Iron is the grip that sinks me – won’t you loosen it?
You lost us the fairy tale, my friend,
Won’t you see? and look at me differently, just this once?
I should not have cut my hair for kindling.

Was the crackle of light, red in the dark,
burning love letters, afraid of the dark?
flowing and gushing like blood.
You lost us the fairy tale, my friend.

Contact: Deleted

When I stopped answering
your call, seems ages ago,
steeped in deep blue waves
where sound travels strangely
and your voice irritates me.

Why is it you have to speak
in red-crested sailboats? You are
as impractical as most tropical fish.

But let us not be distracted
by colour, by contents of conversation.

Explain the eyes averted, the maps
rerouted as lightning, avoiding my path
to small benches, hoping for quiet sits
in simple company. Futility.

I have never seen friendship
this intangible.