For Him, Who Has Not Come

What am I going to do now,

With all this love?

I always end up back here

Feeling trapped. Regretting it.

Knowing he isn’t you.

And however much good I get

It’s never enough. And,

However much I’m catered for

It always wears off.

It feels OK in the quiet

But I don’t want to own it

Out in public.

Why do I do that, to men who want me?

Shrug away from them

Ensuring I look free?

Is it for you?

In case you should see me somewhere

Unexpectedly? And I can’t have you put off

By a man with his arm around me?

Is that what I’m always waiting for?

You? To show up with unapologetic recognition?

Me? Unreserved forgiveness for those I’d abandon?

At traffic lights, in a queue, in a café?

Its selfish, but

I like adoration too much to turn them away.

So don’t pause or stop to think,

If you should see me

Sitting somewhere, or passing on a street, fleetingly

Alone or otherwise

Any man past or yet coming…he means nothing longeved to me

Except self-satisfaction of my vanity

I’ve been weak, it’s something I shouldn’t allow or do.

All you need to know is;

I only ever have and ever will

Belong to you.

This Is For My Attempted Thief

Get off your knees.

No, no, a quiet death won’t do

That’s too good for you.

I’m within my rights to slaughter you;

France probably has a passion law allowing it.

Let me load a gun

And let you loose in a field,

I’ll hunt you down

In a jeep with headlights

I’ll stand on the bonnet

And make you dance with bullets.

Trespass. Burglars may be murdered

If they pose a life endangering threat;

I’ll slit your throat whilst you’re sleeping

And hang your carcase in the bathroom, swinging…

Break. I’ll oil the stairs… total paralysis.

I’ll lean over you in the hospital bed

In my favourite lipstick, hugging flowers

You’ll dribble when you try to talk

I’ll blot your mouth tenderly

Hell, I might even kiss you!

Enter. I’ll walk in holding your phone

While you’re soaking in the bath, oblivious

‘Both your parents are dead’, double tragedy

I’ll watch your world collapse, oh pleasure terrible

But no, that’s not enough.

Accident. A knock, a tidy slip. The radio falls into the bath.

And that my dear, is it. Rest In Peace.

Thought you could do what you wanted with my history;

No, this womb’s not for lease.

The only problem with these just punishments

Is that they end; and that’s too good for you

I want you awake and feeling

I want to hear your pain, your begging, your screaming.

Come here, give me a kiss

My little death wish;

I saw you, pricking condoms

To force upon me, incubator submission

Mother to some bastard kitten

No, no, no. What lunacy are you entertaining?

You want a piece of me, irrevocably

Too bad, too fucking bad

You don’t get to own any legacy of me

Or commit me to consent

IN ABSENTIA

You fucking loser.

The Retreat

I’m going on a ‘retreat’

They’re going to hold me down

Talk sense and rebuke the devil.

Usually I don’t have time for these new evangelists

But I’m so far gone, I need it.

A dose of sense and extinguishment

Yes, I promised myself I’d stop this.

I haven’t.

Guitars and tambourines;

I’m sure both will make an appearance.

I’m going down all alone

Only I have brought myself so low

Bad music isn’t punishment enough

For the time I’ve invested –no, wasted.

Oh hell, do you know what I’ve been doing?

I’ve been calling psychics.

I blew all my money, and

I was unlucky enough to find a good one

Who knew too much.

All the while I knew Lucy was telling her stuff…

But did I stop myself? No.

I'm nowhere near him, or nearer to home

But I listened as she

Put her finger on …all this useless information about him

And now she has me believing he’s confused too,
Loyal and dutiful all the way down to his doom

She says he's battled, worn and unsure

And needs me as much as I need him...blah blah blah

Oh yer, I actually paid to drink this steaming lying cup

I thought I was over this, but I’m not 

She re-fuelled my insanity
When I thought I'd kicked thoughts of him into touch...

Oh invisible man,

It didn't take very much.

The Wish, 3

It’s hard for men, I think,

To watch their cherry blossoms

Turn into women with blackberry stains

On the turn of a season;

Life is hard for women.

We’re closer to the ethereal

But chained daily to the mortal

We never conquer completely our earthly bodies

Whereas men dare and scheme, strike, turn and beam

Can I find one good enough to take the lead?

It’s unlikely.

This much I know; men need women

And I need the unexplained freedom

Of union with one final man

Who still has one foot

In the pre-adult mist of

Dreaming.

Enough Is Enough

I’m sick of all this suffering and

Dutiful countenancing;

I’m unhappy.

I know I have so much to do,

It doesn’t excite me;

Oh look, more responsibility.

Just when I thought

I was about to reach a clearing

I slipped and toppled up.

I’ll only get this one mortal round

Yet I find my score buried beneath stuff;

Stuff that should have enhanced it.

I’m frightened

Without a soul to help me;

It’s just too bad, it’s just too tough.

Happiness is the only shield I need

I’ll take whatever ammunition they’ve got

All I know is, enough is enough.

Hunter

Love's hard to give up

In case there’s nothing better

But true love refuses to entertain the inferior.

It’s hard to shut the door of my heart

And refuse to be a receiver;

But this transmission

Isn’t coming

From my One True Keeper

It’s kinder, I know,

To let unsuitable men go.

Just Another Breakup, 2

Don’t say you love me

You have all the peripherals..

I could be anybody

I don’t want a piece of you

Inside of me

Growing prawn flower

Beneath my heart

I can’t let just anybody break into my DNA like that

To shape it into some new person

No, no, I’m not kidding

My pelvis will never be your cradle.

Guess we’ll have to break up now

Oh yes we will

I can’t talk to you anymore

Now I know what you're thinking

Really wish you'd kept this to yourself,

How can I trust you?

I should’ve known

You’d have plans.

Me too.

The Wish, 2

Love is freedom

If you’re feeling burdened

Baby it’s no good

You’re in the shit again

Get off your knees

Take me like a man

I’ve got the answers

I’ll take you for what you are

If you’ll receive me for what I am

Just Another Breakup, 4

I’m sick of warfare

I carry out acts of indiscriminate hate

A soldier rounding up girls in woodland

Well, not quite

But the violence resonates

Sick with shame and loathing

I'm a better thing, than to find myself here

Punishing him, for not being an elusive figment I imagine

Is out there

Of what fault is that to him?

Unfair. Love is unfair and ugly. 

It will not stand for inferiority

I’m sorry I haven’t met my mate

I’m sorry I’ve handled measures in hate

I’ve got no one to take it out on

That he’s not here, beside me.

Let us just breathe together, that would be gold

For me.

Just Another Breakup, 3

Fun is fun, no problem

I can ignite magic anywhere

It’s a type of profession

Playing with boy’s obsessions

But where’s my own best boy?

Let me save my work for him- oh, this is boring!

What’s he doing?

Who’s he screwing?

Doesn’t he want freedom?

Why is this most important union

So elusive?

His signal was made for me,

So I’ll receive him, no option.

Then I’ll wash him down against a wall

Shave his head,

Prepare him for his new prison.

Just kidding.

Just Another Breakup, 5

I broke a man

I took him down to the skittle wood

Of his bones, and

That was a bad thing;

To let him get away with thinking

He could ever possess me.

Oh I know, men do this all the time-

But, I don’t belong there

Wish I cared…

I only apologised because I knew I should

It’s human to look a little hurt-

Really, it’s tedious and dry

The death of a counterfeit relationship

I hoped and held my breath, we flogged that beast

And felt disgust at the carnage

My tongue the butcher’s knife

I traded in unwanted love for strife

And, on my way out

Put him on a daily regime of glucosamine.

Shit, why am I so mean?

Potential Ex Girlfriend

Leave her. Put on your shoes

Get out of there. I don’t care-

She’s rot within the wood.  Burn her down.

Because life’s too precious

To make believe you’re happy

You can’t be happy

Not without me, so

Leave her:

Because the day you were born

You took in burning air

Not knowing anything

The unlikely eventuality of your life

Is reason enough to trust in an idea

Without guarantee -
Accept that you can sometimes believe in

What can't always be seen.

I’m not asking you to do the wrong thing

To plot, grievance or sin. No, no

None of those things;

I just want you to stand like a man

Breath in my air

Speak the truth, tell her ‘I don’t know where, but I know it’s not here. Sorry’

Leave her. Put on your shoes

Get out of there.

Come here.

Collateral Damage, 2

I remember when we first met

You spent a week’s wages

To buy me a dress.

I’d never have let you

If I knew what you were up to…

I saw your girlfriend at the supermarket

Pregnant, belly hanging out

Looking like a second hand orphan

I think it’s some new fashion, this

Non dressing

She had that triumphant look

That lasts a moment

When you’ve got that special thing

He put inside you

All to yourself

And everyone knows it,

But

It dies, that pride, like a sunset.

She was in an old t-shirt of yours,

I recognised it.

It’s been so long

Since I suckled that honey,

No, it’s not jealousy-

But sweetness of the memory

Of when we first met.

I knew for certain that you loved me

And you lied and schemed

To surprise me.

I see her now, carrying around

Everything you didn’t want to be…

And I think it’s strange, how we allow ourselves

To be caught and entangled

What we call love begins to strangle

And you're looking so weary, now
You buy things obligingly

But

When you were innocent

I’ll never forget,
You spent a week’s wages

To buy me a dress.

Collateral Damage

Some women take

What isn’t given;

They have no manners.

They believe they have the right

To ignite

And then wait smugly for you

To reach agreement.

You said, ‘you’re just jealous’

What a sorry fool you are

I was trying to help you

But men like you can’t be helped

You’re ink in the nib

Scratched into shape on the paper.

And here she is, wearing your clothes

Buying crappy plastic baby things

Oh boy,

I know you’d trade out of this for anything.

You corner me in the feminine hygiene aisle

You dully say,

‘I’m sorry I called you an envious vixen,

I’m sorry now I didn’t listen’

Your eyes are strange; you’ve gone away.
It’s not ‘love’ when a woman fulfils her own mission,

Hey, don’t worry about me

It’s you that’s been sentenced;
Daddy prison.