Nerohal

I’ll devour your every exhale Like oxygen is for mere show, I’ll caress the shimmering sweat That glistens across your neck, You be the salt-lick, I’ll be the rabbit. I’ll release the songbirds from your chest, Ringed until they glide home, sonorous And vivid, there are entities within you; They’ll immolate the sky and guide the lost In ways the North Star never could. I’ll harbour your ineffable fugitives; The limpid logophile, the iridescence Of the ineluctable tangents and thespians, My consort, delicate as cygnets, the hierogram, Sacred and irrevocable. I’ll leave your regrets reeling, I’

Drawers and crumpled contents with Haphazard bundles of black and white, Socks reeling in inside-out pandemonium, Distraught, their flayed flesh no longer drapes. Coat-hangers, mangled and marooned In solitary islands, sinking into stained carpets That bear the marks of late night escapades, Sanitised of dirt and dignity. Full bin-bags and unlaced boots Lathered across the landscape, Swathes of monochrome filth Undermining this Ikea metropolis. Bank statements and charity appeals, Towered atop the wax-stricken desk Like paper skyscrapers, refusing to bow To the draught of the cracked windows. A calendar which made it as far as March, Date

                                         We warrant no constellations, don’t      Celebrate our mutual solitude, don’t                                                     Smile at the clouds when we rain, don’t    Pretend that we live flawlessly, don’t                                        Mistake our quiet miseries for strength, don’t                     Tell me when I invade your subconscious, don’t                                                            Stitch up these festering slices, don’t   Think it’s passion when your heart murmurs, don’t                                

I’d had a few, I said I wouldn’t that night; Work in the morning, had to face the light, I’m an obstinate creature yet lost my resolve, Started up the tab and began to devolve. Bad with names, I spat yours until I spewed On a bench in the churchyard, lost what I accrued, What a sickly goddamned mess, just rub my nose in it Until I forget the words that grind in the mouth like grit. My mouth bled with my stepdad’s left hook, Delete the number, burn the phone book Because she’s alive and these mounds are not, With glaciers in my eyes, I cannot, I cannot.

Eulogies shorter than credit card receipts Creeping over plywood caskets, hungover Guests fumbling for their phones, leaving For taxis, back for the post-service buffet. Water seeping through the chapel roof, Bleeding into hymn books and cheap Rental suits, curses and sputtering, And this day is now ruined. Lower this deep down below the ground, Maybe the worms will love me better.

If I told you I was a writer, would you let me etch your name? I could call you a word, yet the definition never seems the same, Because you flinch like someone once carved it deep down within, As a fallen guardian trying to scream above the unholy din. You’ve nothing to fear, the nib has since dried up Into a dormant crust, more parched than my coffee cup; When an amain mind strikes that block, you’ll start to see What it truly means to taper into an eburnine cacology. Please don’t forgive this immolated, ashen expression That runs too deeply aberrant, too petrified of indiscretion; Nor this gelid ichor that leaks from lo

I never adored the petals when they were still vibrant, I dug amongst the roots and rubbed myself in the dirt Trying to realign the structure into perfect symmetry, I organised the pots yet the clay hit the ground. The sky since sewed itself shut and the warm yolk has fled, So here I am, running in circles in the greenhouse, Crying over the shards and dry leaves about my feet.

I’m a hollowed out Bible, I save face With a golden font and burgundy cover, My leather withstands nails like Kevlar And people wield me like I am the only power. I’m terribly sorry, my Lord, But my bottle of Holy Spirit has begun to burn, 37.5% in a 35cl package, and maybe I’d see ghosts And believe what you have to offer.

Suckling the iron between your teeth You know mama’s milk never tasted as sweet As the grind of those pearly whites clashing Before fingers lusting for trigger thrashing. Another tired cliché caught in a stitch You’d dispense hot lead before the twitch With a twinkle in your eye and a grunt in your throat Leave the corpses for the rooks and zip up your coat. With a flash of your renegade smirk, your drinks are free Won’t keep the criteria of chaos between you and me Ain’t a list of dead names or flourish or glamour Only a pulse and a reflex and the barrel’s clamour.

I am a hand grenade pin in a child’s hand I am a page three girl when the rain seeps through and I invade the front cover like the minds I’ve broken to make myself seem less desolate and I don’t think I’ve ever broken a heart but God knows I’ve frozen a few to drop in the chaser glass that I finish every fucked up venture I embark upon and I wonder why I’m so difficult to stomach I’m human iodine but no one else is sick and I’m consuming myself to purge these things from my system yet I don’t think the system is holding at all because I’m erratic I am anarchy I am failure of the high