what is green?

not even the promise of the sweetest honey between my thighs is temptation enough to convince you to stay. my silky skin hardens every day that passes, green weeds pressing their way through to the surface, angry and ready for war. they slip over my freckles and promise to protect me this time. gnarled and pointed, they carve their way over my body, alongside the thin scars i gave myself in that corner, huddled on top of our dirty clothes. i will let them take over, and i will let them propel me forwards. they will do me no harm.

your eyes are not green like emeralds.

they are the colour of the dress i wore the first day in poland and spent days communicating through movement, a soundless dance, with grandparents who had never tasted english. it was the first time i left my family, the first time i set roots down somewhere other than my parent’s house. mosquitoes ravaged my bare legs in the forest on those nightly cycles, and your eyes reflect the leaves on those tall, tall trees. we could barely see the sky. do you remember the evenings on that dirty bench in the courtyard, necks craned backwards into the bushes, squinting towards the heavens?

they are the green like the matcha you promised to try with me, but chose instead to test it with her. i hope it tasted like betrayal. bitter. are there weeds clogging your throat? are they dragging their edges along the inside of your mouth, drawing hot blood?

when i visited the ocean last week, i swore i felt your breath on my neck again, your hands holding my waist in place. as i turned to plant a kiss on your lips, there was nothing but seaweed drying in the sun. your eyes may be green, but mine are as brown as that brittle seaweed.

the weeds are growing. shall i allow them to devour the memory of you and your green eyes?

jealous

we lost a calf yesterday.

stuck in the grate, the oxygen running to his brain cut off, he died beside his frantic mother, less than a year old. he will never see the next winter, and he will never feel the frost again. his mother has been crying all through the night, her sobs bouncing off the walls, grief echoed in my own body. her pain is electric and intensified through the thunder storm, each time the lightning stuck the ground, she wailed, a banshee carrying her screams through the open windows.

sleep will be evading her for a while, until the leaves darken and rot, like her son’s body fading into dust in the ground. will she dream of him when she finally succumbs? will she search for him among the other babies trotting around the fields, unaware their play-partner will never return?

i whisper prayers for him, for her, for me. but they are hollow and float like rose petals in the wind, towards a god that never even existed. and i taste the emptiness she feels in her gut. and i ache for her. i ache for her loss, for my loss.

and even though i am still inhaling and even though my neck is not trapped in metal, i feel like it is, i feel as trapped as that calf.

the air may fill my lungs and the cold may attack my skin, but i feel as lifeless as that calf.

we lost a calf yesterday, and i wish it had been me.

saltwater

call it how you want

but the ocean is churning restless inside my bones in its fury.

jellyhellfish wrapped around my legs, stingers grasping my ankles, bound.

the sand is shifting underneath and i am a child and i will drown here,

sinking, sinking, sinking.

 

the shadow of a whale looms ahead;

it will swallow me whole

like your lies slipped down my throat,

burning like impossible lava.

i will rot inside its belly.

 

no waves weep into the shore for they are filling my lungs.

 

call it how you want but i am drowning.

the frost

shrill screeches from a prepubescent male lead in the circus tent carry on the breeze to the steps at the side of the church and it’s frosty but the sun is cherry-staining your arms and the icicles on your back are gliding further, further, further down;

a woman and her child pass by, asking what is going on there, is it a children’s event and you look into her eyes, straight into her eyes, and you see her disinterest in your body curled against the wall like matchsticks avoiding the flame, she is not your mother, she will never be your mother;

and you want to answer her, you ache to spill it to her, the words are slipping from your mouth but they make no sound:

you’ve run away, you’re calling for god, you’re begging him to flip things and cast it all holy again, but it is empty, god is not real and he certainly doesn’t care. neither does he, and as you glance around, he is still not running towards you, he is not backing up and re-thinking, and this woman’s child is calling to her to hurry up and christ, you bellow silently for him to hurry up, hurry up and say you didn’t mean it –

instead you shake your shoulders and tell her you don’t speak german, and she sighs, her breath burning your skin as she marches onwards. but you do speak german and you wish you didn’t. you wish you didn’t understand as she blasts you for being useless, because that’s all you are. helpless against the avalanche rushing towards you, ready to claim another lost soul, prayers be damned.

there is no remedy for memory

i) an eskimo air kiss.

we would never allow the holy spirit between us

’cause that’s wrong, wrong, wrong.

 

ii) my eyes emptied that first night here,

splashing the ocean to our floor;

i wished to be ariel so i could sway in the salt water.

floating on the scales of fish,

weightless.

 

iii) the soft pressure of your hands on my sparrow-shoulders,

your legs curled into mine, twisting bones.

soon spineless under you, pressed against the wall —

we shattered the ground.

trembling while stealing the breath of a lion,

using cheshire cherry stained lips.

 

iv) these white-on-white walls are too bright in the night.

they take me back to the hospital visits;

the freeze-gel on my stomach, the grip of the nurse,

her voice crackling like autumn leaves under foot,

windswept from their homes.

 

v) i am always foreign here.

so when we come together, it is with the heat of volcanoes.

tasting fire, flames lashing at my teeth.

lightning lacing into my veins, popping between my ears

unsteady inhalations.

 

needing to withdraw from this unfamiliar ache —

an addict craving the spark’s ignition.

elements of love, of self, of you

you can try to fold me like a paper crane until my bones shatter and crack with a snap that will shake the earth’s crust, but i will clasp our lives in my left hand and curve my right palm to curb the sound of our sighs, as you struggle. i’m right under your grip so go ahead and force me to fold in two like a fresh book. i just want to be under your spell. so go on and entrance me, please. don’t leave me hanging, waiting to let it happen. i am at breaking point, plates being forced apart, unwilling.

so then sellotape my bones back together and press your forehead to mine, murmur that i’m your only hurricane, that i’m the only one who can breathe in air and exhale beauty. i’m shuddering and shaking, quaking in my shoes, holding out for you. i don’t care if you bend me or if you pull me close to you and keep me still.

watch me tremble with the strength of an earthquake and feel my wrath as i erupt like a volcano, spewing this bubbling heat, this fear everywhere. hush me and calm my rage, because this is what you’ve signed up for. i warned you and promised you that i’d be as fiery as they come. i told you that your geography skills would come in useful – for i am not a tranquil lover, no; i am the earth, the wind, the fire, the air and everything that alternates between each.

you told me i was powerful and you could handle me. after two years, i believe this. so i will bow to you and allow you to console me when i descend into my water stages when i can no longer handle these storms.

so crash against me like the waves down the beach where i once dove with you under the scorching sun,  my freckles darkening under the sun and your eyes squinting, emeralds glistening. force me to make peace with myself and learn to endure my language, as i try to swallow these foreign words for you. i’m here and now and you told me you were prepared to lock yourself to my side and contain me when i am spinning out of control. i love you and even when i’m covered beneath the world, i will feel my heart beat in tune to yours.

i once held the world up in my blistering palms, praying for salvation. my hands, charred and blackened, fit perfectly into yours now and without pain, our veins a mapway to each other. you told me that we were one of a kind and to trust you. you keep me hooked on your enthusiasm and confidence and i never want us to part. i told you that i’m selfish, i’m lonely, i’m frightened and angry but i’m one of the world’s greatest wonders. you told me that if i was taken away from you, it’d be like surviving a tornado when you have nothing to grasp onto.

this is how i know you are my rock and i will stomp my iron foot on those who try to harm you.
i’m not just a girl but i’m a girl in love.