Anita Lester

‘Erato’

Collection of songs and poems.

(Selected works below)
Cover art- Painting by 2018
Archibald Prize winner, Yvette
Coppersmith ‘Portrait of Anita
Lester’

Biography

Anita Lester is a multidisciplinary artist based in Melbourne, Australia.

An accomplished songwriter already, Anita is a published poet, author and screenwriter.
Making her living writing and illustrating children’s books, ‘Erato’ is Anita’s first offering
to the poetry world.
This collection is about love, sex and mental health.
Deeply feminine, the poetic prose is both nostalgic and modern.
(Small images are also to accompany each poem).

Contact
anitalester@me.com
+61432037168
A meditation/ode on/to the devotional word.

An ode to the ghosts in my life.

Thank you for the music.

I saw death with my own eyes at a young age.


I saw the rattle of the body letting go.

I saw my father’s giant soft lips struggle for air and his dying tired body contract

and shrink like burning hair.

The learning of someone’s passing is like a vicious vibration – a jumble of images
rupturing in a single moment – an intense release of memory.

It comes in waves, as does the feeling of frantic and desperate recollection. But there is
something beautiful about release and something sacred in the silence of mourning. The
transition of something tangible to something that exists in the space between.

My family belonged to a Synagogue called Shira Hadasha – Shul of new song. Their ethos
being that through song, one creates a deeper intimacy with the dance between god and
soul.

After my father’s passing, we were cradled by this community, as well as the multiple,
religiously inclined chanting groups my eccentric mother was a part of (I can openly thank
her for the music and my father for the words).

In between the deafening silence amongst the disbelief, I heard music.

I fell in love with song around this time. It became entirely spiritual and undeniably a
place of escape and freedom.

As an artist, I’ve also always been obsessed by religion as a vehicle for inspiration. I am by
no means god fearing, nor do I believe in a modern construct of god, however, I believe
that the innate human desire to search for answers to the unknown is where art is born.

Religion is brought to life by music and art. It’s carried by the illustration of story. It’s
immortalised by song and paint, and how fucking beautiful is that?

At its core, besides the telling of stories and attempt to create a societal construct, religion
is the foundation for which one prepares for death and the connection between the
conscious and unconscious.

The first collection of words I ever wrote was speaking to death. I was fascinated by the
subject as soon as I realised I could express my feelings about it through art.

Now, when looking back at traumas and recollections of change, specifically relating to
death, I hear soundtracks.
Even memories that aren’t my own. For example, the Holocaust, which is very much part
of my blood, is accompanied by a very specific period of music.

On the Yom Kippur of 2016 (the Jewish day of atonement), my mother and I travelled to a
Paris synagogue to listen to the Kol Nidre. We were in a place where her parents met,
listening to the same ancient song, sung in the same physical space, that my grandparents
would have been in just a year after liberation.

I was knocked off my feet by the emotion that the song carried. It immediately pulled me
into the bloodstream of my family. It was visceral and bigger than my body.

It connected me to the ghosts of my past.

When I want to write and am stuck, I find the closest church. I don’t mind if it’s
pretentious. It works. I am completely elevated by the whispers in the cracked walls and
wooden floors. I am illuminated by the repetitive light pouring through the immense
stained glass.

We’ve evolved into egomaniacs and spend life being opportunistic. So why not be
opportune about death? It’s such a painful process. It’s something even the most well-
adjusted fear in their own home. But if we can find some respite here on earth – whilst our
beloved are departed to the great silence – whilst we are stuck in the noise – why can’t it
be that we turn noise to music?

Every nightfall is the death of a day.


Every morning a rebirth.

Every breath, the death of another.

Every second the death of the moment before.

Scrambled memory to aesthetic order. Moments lost in the space between, into stories.

Death is the greatest muse. Living is an art. It’s a gift. It’s full of pain and challenge that is
endless like a fractal unfolding.

But I think once you can embrace the constant change, there is so much fire to use.

 
Echo’s Curse.

You walked toward the waters edge

To your reflection you so pledged,
“I will place you before love any that burns.”

Waiting for you bent my worth,

I was struck down by nymph Echo’s curse-
A record scratching deeper with each turn.

You were begging, broken, bent kneed,

Singing sorry’s all penned to me,
But when I turned around, you turned away.

Don't come back to me,

I’m exhausted,
Breathless, wasted,
Hooked on poison.
You drug,
You muse,
You never knew me that way.

Your face in pleasure is too close to your face in pain.

I’m bothered by forever, when you love too close to hate.
The greatest loss is when theres nothing more to say.
The greatest loss is when theres nothing left to say.
LA

Sitting on the exposed side of a brick wall,

Listening to my brand new love make music with his fingers,
I wait for the apocalypse to pass by overhead.
The cracking browning lace draped over chairs.
The termite broken wooden floors.
Cigarette butts shoved into corners,
Like prayers in the Western Wall.
That foggy smell of guitar case velvet.
That sweet desperation.

I felt warm knowing you wanted me so quickly-

As short and confused and dusty winged as I am.

I watched you jump into the Crystal blue chlorine

Like a winged fish, making no splash at all.
You had me,
Oh my god, how you had me.
Drag

I want to die with you.

I want to be your last heartbreak.
Your freedom dance
And your sometimes mistake.
I'm my own best disaster,
You'll kill me faster
If you drag me along.
Babylon

In the place that I live

There are towers of brick
Cement where there was
Once trees growing thick.
And the heat waves they come
And they last for too long
As the bodies they sweat
Fevered regret
In the towers of modern Babylon.
Rust

In the slow moving pain-

In the fall of my trust,
You were etched too deep
In my sentimental rust.
And now I can't lose you,
Even when I run to fly,
So I'll bury you deep
In the trenches of my lies.
Dog

What do you feel when you hear my name?

Are dry eyes strong, or wrong?

Do to me what you want to do with her.

I don’t mind,
As long as I get my fix and a little more of you.

This is how I watch you now;

Hiding in the shadows,
Collecting the gravel your feet left behind.

I’m a dog down here at your toes.

I came here to beg.
I’m not above that.

Touch me like I’m your lover.

Break me on the inside.
I don’t mind, as long as i get my fix.

I close my eyes to disappear.

You close yours to see her when you feel me.

You don’t like my sex, only my warmth.

I want to be with you.
It is as simple, and as complicated as that.
The Actor

Where do people like me go?

The people who build up enemies like friendships.
Where do people like me go?
The ones who want to be on show.
But fear the light and sun’s harsh glow…
The actor.
The liar.
Eight Lovers

I feel my inherited Slavic feet drag across the new and dirty Melbourne concrete.
It’s cold and I have that old Autumn ache in my throat.
I’m living in a cupboard with an elevated bed, two kittens, a piss bucket and a phone full
of lovers.
These men, I count them one to eight.
Each desperate, lonely and denying of love - except for with me.

Lover 1.
My longest ride. My deepest fall. My child somehow.
He- more beautiful than most-.
His Jaw, deep voice and calm.
But he- my realest love- he challenged my mind not.

Lover 2.
The grey-haired boy. That old Peter Pan. That popper of pills.
He- soft skinned and vain.
His body, like milk, his mind silenced by chemicals.
But he- my one time escape- he bleeds no sex.

Lover 3.
That green-eyed vagabond. That rusty young thing. That aberrant poet.
He- dirty and tall.
His nails, cow-shit-stained, his tongue, apprehensive and delicious.
But he- who so easily fits- he is too unfamiliar.

Lover 4.
The jaded handsome son. The digital infatuation. The lover I cant touch.
He- grinning and insecure.
His face, ageing, his teeth sharp, his eyes, scared.
But he- who loses patience with time- he is my passing ship in the night.

Lover 5.
That tree of a man. My addicted, effected crush. That father, that fiend.
He- simple and broken.
His gaze before copulation, that of a stranger- but once he cums, he is softened and old.
But he- who keeps me like a trinket- he holds me too tight.

Lover 6.
That caramel skinned feline. That lover of drink. That talker, that charmer.
He- Long and dark eyed.
His hands are soft and unbroken- he calls me ‘Baby’ straight away- he knows how to kiss
me.
But he- who feels already like mine- he looks like my mother.

Lover 7.
The sculpture. The follower. The ever-present spark.
He- perfectly etched yet hollowed by grief.
His voice has never stuck to me, yet his words are always flowing and constantly
declaring.
But he- who I know not- he loves too close to hate.

Lover 8.
The actor. The man. The stranger.
He- familiar through screen.
His face, aged and cracked,
His past, painted with naked bodies of perfect women.
But he- who I have met just once-
He is too far to touch.

Like counting sheep, I see their faces- but none are mine.
So many men before me.
But none are mine.
The rain is falling now- stirring up the frost from the ground.
I’ll just touch myself to that.
One Night

I woke up alone,
Sweating to my dream
I miss touch, my phone
Is all I have it seems.

I want skin, so I pray-

I call out for ride,
And I take the first man
Who turns up by my side.

Not your stranger,

Not the one you love.
Not your woman,
Nor the future you speak of.
Lessons

I’ve tried to hard just to simply learn.

Damn the lessons my mother sings about-
They turn bad inside my crying mouth.
The fortitude I've found
Does not sabre my fear.
There's comfort in distance-
There's safety in silence -
I hope I’m forgiven
When my rage comes to play.
It's as big as my love,
As loud as my call.
It's sudden and wild.
It's the hand on my strings.
We're just moments in time,
Echoes of life
That will surely be forgotten
These words that I write
Have been written before
These thoughts that I make
Are simple and dying
And will forever be gone
In the dust beneath us-
In the worms that shit us out.
Steel Winged Bird

I finally found the courage to look down

At the glittering lights from the far away towns.
I'm frightened of steel winged birds and the air that they drink,
How far they can fall for I’d rather sink.
Tantrum

He stands here yelling at me,

Telling me I'm so close-
But I shut my ears and pull myself further away,
Swinging on ropes hoping one will catch my neck.
I'm choking on my misery.
I'm suffocated by my tragedy-
I'm a victim, a coward, a liar, a child.
Where's the top of the ocean?
I can see the freckled light on the surface
But I don't think I can hold my breath long enough to reach the big sky.
A lazy, unattractive messy woman, am I.
The madness of my crying womb, is as violent and loud as a scorned Siren.
I feel the ghost of our baby that may never be,
Scratching at the walls of my belly like it's a stone windowless prison.
I play like I've lost- like forgiveness doesn't exist.
Ramble, ramble- lose myself.
Dear Anita, don't be so scared.
Jealousy

In all the glossy magazines

Are all my favourite enemies.
Jealousy, you ugly bastard,
I never asked you here.
A lonely woman

Her face was wearing the mask of a broken girls dream.

“Come into my world” she said.

“I’ve got a comfortable place to die.
Nothing is wrong here.
Because nothing is right.”

She knew she wasn’t wanted, until she made them want her.
She knew she wasn’t loved, until she broke their hearts.
Like a myth- like a muse.

She speaks:

“Turn around you bastard,

Don’t you walk away again.
If leaving is this easy,
It’s now time to forget.”

She cleans dirt from her nails,

She lights fire to his photos.
She awakes, insane.
And then when he calls on her,
Beyond when she is free,
She is back again.”

She speaks:

“Oh love of mine you don’t understand,

I’m not as sane or simple as you think that I am.”
Homesick

I’m homesick,
For a place I’ve never been,
A house thats not yet built.
A bed I’ve never seen,
A love I’ve never felt.
Screw your head on, Baby

I’ll tell you a story about how I’m so fucking crazy.

Afraid of the fear of the fear of the fear.

Unlike my family,
I’m looking to be stronger than my prophesy.

My library is an archive of longings,

Swallowing all other belongings.

“Screw your head on baby”

You told me as you left-
Again.

Hopped up on store bought painkillers,

I can’t see myself in mirrors.
I claw my skin to feel something,
“Screw your head on baby”, still sings.

My scars are fading tiger stripes-

I earned them from this foggy life,
On stacks of books I left behind,
Bookmarked by my running mind.

I found you and told you:

“I was a song,
A free flying bird,
Then you broke my wings
And strangled my words.”

But you replied:

“Don’t blame me and maybe,

Screw your head on tighter, baby”.
Snake

Romantic rebellion.
He told me he wanted to blow down my throat.
Mindless exception.
He's rich but he uses his gold to leave a glittering mess.
Lustful destruction.
He tore through my mind with knives from his eyes.
Messy perfection.
He is what I want but everything I hate.

He failed to have me-

I failed to forget him.
He won the battle I charge-
I won the power he chases.

I want all the riches,

I want all the fame,
I want to be wanted ,
I fucking love the game.

I'm more of a snake than you could ever know.

I'm not your sister, I'll seduce your lover.
I'll take you all down to find my way up.
I'm vengeful and dark.
I'm a witch I'm a poet.
I'll suck your soul dry,
And I'll use it for art.
His lap

It’s strange to be here in the winter again,

The world has flipped round as it comes to an end.
I like your warm skin under my feathers and dust,
My arms pull you in light;
My thighs hold you tight.

My lips, hot and pink are pressed on your back.

The kiss of a king keeps the queen on his lap.
And the music we dance to will stain memories,
Of young broken us,
Still wild and free.

Your crooked smile,

Your half opened eyes.
Your holy words
Strip my simple disguise.
I am naked, I’m frightened
The better you know
Gives me more to lose
And farther to go.

My secret flower,
My secret my glittering sex
will haunt you if you leave,
And enter the next.
I’m soaked by this city,
I’m wet by your side.
In my rain, in your storm
Together we ride.

Oh, that’s all that I wanted,

To be touched - to be conquered.
Fragile life cries out for pleasure,
I’ll touch you back and make it better.
Don’t you leave me and fuck this up,
I’ll be your dog, I’ll wake you up.
Conscious life is not forever,
So let us burn and blaze together.
The Wrong Alter

Get your dick out of your raw hand.

Look at me boy, I'm your fan, man.
How many times do I beg for you
Before you know that you want me too?

I'm a victim of the Hollywood stories-

Holding on for that Hollywood glory.
So I bury my mournful painted face
In my imaginary wedding cake.

Last night you fucked me on the floor.

I grazed my knees, I begged for more.
Will you marry me -be my one?
Romance my body till I cum?

I am desperate, I am stoned,
On the smell of your sweet cologne.
And I will watch you across the room,
But you won't see me trailing you.

I don't know why I want the white dress

I'm not ready for your family.
I'm not sure of you or I-
Not even sure you're right for me.
Snakhole

I can't help thinking about you with another girl.

You tell me I'm crazy and it's a waste of time,
But suffering is a drug.
And I know I’m wrong,
But the only way I can feel better
Is by making someone not you,
Want me.
Hisssssssssssssss.
Golden Dice

For years I have been kneeling

Before a silent god.
A god I don’t believe in,
With faith I barely had.
My father taught me worry.
My mother taught me fear.
I held on to a vision
Of promises unclear.

I don’t want to be a mess like me.

I’ve lost myself to fantasy.

So I cry out for love.

So I run after love.
So I pray for the love.
Where the fuck is this love?

I rolled the golden dice,

I sold my fragile soul.
I held on to a vision
Of holy rock and roll.
And somewhere in the distance
My fate was yelling stop.
STOP
STOP

So-

I Pinch my skin to feel.

I press my aching bruise.
I know this world is mine,
But all of mine to lose.
End Of The World

Where are you?

The world is ending.
Where are you?
I need a kiss before I die.

Come find me.

Lets’ run together.
We’ll face the end
With fire in our eyes.
Silent Whistle

I am not them.

All those pastel girls

Who curate their hair,
But whose pussies are bare.

I am hungry and I’m broken,

But you will never know
I;
Chameleon.

I am poison
But you wouldn’t know.
I cursed you,
Now just wait for the curse to show.

You crossed me.

Shocked me into bed.
Congratulations-
You laid your rotting eggs.

Damn you boy.

Your act doesn’t fool me.
You’re nothing,
But I still let you hurt me

And I wasn’t okay,

And that’s not alright.
I spent two years
As if all day was night.
And in the shadows
I grew horns,
And in your garden
I planted thorns.
Godless vomit
Here you preach-
Your empty songs
Have nothing to teach.
And you can smile
But it won’t hide
That ugly soul
You lock inside.
I tried to tell you
How to stop,
But I fanned the flames
And lit you it up.
Alone you lie
In your sinking bed.
Alone with yourself.
Alone till’ you’re dead.

I didn't need this lesson.

Others, yes.
This one,
Not.
Red Thread

I’ve been bound in grey.

In orange and pink.
I’m a tapestry of cool colours.
And never, but for on my wrist,
Given to me by a beggar woman
On the streets of Jerusalem,
Have I seen this thread.

Her wrinkled hands took mine.

“A shekel for your destiny?”
She asked.
I, lost, 31 and losing blood
From the heart on my sleeve,
Gave her all in my pockets and purse.

“He is close, but oh so far”.

She wrapped my forearm,
Twice with flimsy red cotton.
Took my palm to her mouth,
Muttered psalm to my spouse-
Somewhere in the world without me.

I hear there is a red thread.

A thread connected from my heart

To the heart of he who’s meant for me.

Some may dangle over lifetimes.

Some will break their thread with vows unbroken-
Sewn to the wrong chest.
Some will braid their red into other threads;
Yellow, green and black.

I walk to the hot wall-

Prayers of threads folded into corners.
The sky above is angry.
The clouds are not full of rain and thunder-
But of anguish and devotion.

Orison.
Orison.
Who will give me my son?
Who will be my son?

I touch the ancient brick,

Feeling it’s veins and it’s heartbeat.
The sky it opens.
The people run for shelter.
I alone stand at the vibrating wall,
Under torrential rain,
Wrapped in a cocoon,
of invisible red thread.
Words Words Words

You told me you want to lick my pussy.

You told me you hope to eat it slowly-
With earnest care.

It’s clear-
I want you now.

And here is the power of words-

For without touching your skin,

Sucking your lips,
Biting your neck and nipples,
Tracing your inky body with my nose;

I walk around with an invisible cock,

Penetrating my wet and longing sex.
Your invisible warmth wrapping me.
The ghost of you beside me as I sleep.

I want to taste you.

Drip to your thrusting.
Drip, thrust, drip, thrust.

And here we remain,

In pending longing-
In limbo,
Waiting
For triumphant,
Loving,
Confident,
Cumming.
The Serpent and The Rose

If all we are dead men,

Then why are we still walking-
Can't you see I'm barely holding on?
I am for the reason,
I am for the knowing,
I am for the love,
I am for the song.
Where are we bound for?
The ground is what we live for.
The earth will swallow skin,
Until with earth we’re one.
I am for my mother,
I am for my brother,
I am for my sister,
My lover and the song.



Carry me out slowly.

Play my favourite melody.
Romance me to the grave;
It's somewhere I don't know.
I dressed like an angel,
I thought that I was special.
Watch me now I'm changing,
No more waiting for the show.
I am for my mother,
I am for my brother,
I am for my sister,
My lover and the sun.
I am for the knowing,
I am four and doing,
I am for the love,
And I am for the song.

I stare into the great grief,

It’s painted for me brightly.
I’m desperate to forget
And driven by despair.
If evil has a heartbeat
And no one can replace it,
Underneath this rose,
A serpents waiting there.
I am for unknowing,
I am for undoing,
I want to no forget
And rid myself of fear.
I am for my father,
I am for my mother,
I am for my missing lover,
The ground and the air.
Sixshooter

I hung myself
With my own hair.
With skin exposed
And swinging bare,
I knew the wrongs
From my past rings
So now exposed,
I call you in.

I called on you,
I dreamed you here,
I lured you in,
Stared down my fear-
Roared to her face;
Her stubborn grin,
I cradled her
And pulled you in.

And there you stand,

Across the sea,
You call my name,
You called for me.
Your voice, familiar,
Words, like mine-
We waited for this,
Needing time.

Is it strange,
My stranger man?
You have my love,
Before my hand.
Before my skin,
My longing lust,
You have my heart;
I’m yours till dust.

I’ll dress up,

All just for you.
I’ll wake up
Right next to you.
Your ride or die,
Your cowgirl too,
Your sixshooter
Tears me through.

Do you like
My generous ass?
Do you like
My heart of glass?
Do you like
My running legs?
My kneeling knees?
For you I beg.

Fuck me,
Touch me,
Hold me,
Take me,
Know me,
Want me,
Have me,
Wholly.
Erato

Am I destined to be the lover of a legacy;

Because I want to be one.
I don’t want to seasick on the waves;
I want to ride them.

Im an unwilling muse.
An ageing Aphrodite.
Riper, thicker, juicer-
Eratus. Erato.
I am glowing coal,
But I never make fire.
Hotter, brighter,
But without smoke to signal.

I sit on the edge of my bed,

As if like a cliff-
Gazing across the stained-carpet ocean.
That old record came back around at the right time.
Like a perfume I’d forgotten.
And there it was.
That smell of Autumn.
Of fall.
Of new love.
Of my birthday too.
Of someone I’m yet to meet.
Wandering the roads without me.
Again

I felt the end approach like a storm.

The churning sky was laying ground to mourn.
Do you remember when we first drew close?
I felt the fear right then, that I was lost.

The broken words

You whispered to me refrain;

Again,
I followed you again.
Buried my desire to follow you again.
My love.
Please martyr this for us.
For I am weak, for I am running from the end.

I knew the angels had a plan for us,

But I was ties to Israel’s earth and lost.
I found a way to keep you in my mind.
A sleeping pill and you to float my high.

My friend.
If you see truth my friend,
You’ll leave me here and let me start again.
Again,
I want to start again,
Please let me go, I need to start again.
Sleeping

You told me I’m most beautiful when I’m sleeping.

Damn you for not hearing my voice.
This could have been great.
Necklace

I bought you
A charm for your sweet neck.
But when, you left,
You left it on our cold bed.

I wrote you a song

And painted your face.
You so easily left-
So easily chased,

That damn ticking crocodile

And all the lost boys.

I’ve become one

With failures hidden grin.
I deserve loss
When I can’t help but sin.

I took the wrong pill.

The wrong stiff drink.
No one knows me this way,
No one knows how I sink.

And I’m the best damn liar, this frightened town has ever known.
I was awake when I knew you were with her.

You told me I was everything,

But I didn’t believe you believing yourself.

I can’t be better, for you

I cant be softer, for you
I can’t be silenced, for you
I cant be changing, for you
I can’t be distanced, for you
I can’t be dumbed down, for you
I can’t be a mother, for you
I can’t be hidden, for you
I can’t be mistaken, for you
I cant keep waiting, for you
I cant keep faking, for you
I cant keep lying, to you
I cant keep changing for you.
Jew Dog

Im a jew dog.
Im a blue fog.
I am cold feet.
I am fresh meat.
I’m an enemy.
I’m a foiled queen.
I’m a deep cut.
I’m an old slut.
I am childless.
My womb is lifeless.
I am desperate
To find an exit.
And I inherit
The ancient spirit.
My old blood
Fears the great flood
To wait for exodus
From poison next to us.
Stop the preaching,
Start the teaching.
You look a fool to me
As you disguise the greed.
You sing a noble song
But got the words all wrong.

I was clinging to tradition,

Stealing notes from my mums kitchen.
Pressing flowers from her garden,
For my memory-
For the parting.
Broken Mary Magdalene

I made my way to Bethlehem,

A broken Mary Magdalene.
A whore for all the lonely men
Who fall in love and fight the end.

I’m worn and torn from inside out,

And all the sleepless endless doubt
Moves through my throat; a muffled shout,
But babe I had to end the drought.

I followed him, I watched him teach,

I watched the women at his feet.
But every time I heard him preach,
I felt nothing but empty speech.

An empty home, an empty room,

An empty lasting piece of you,
Your empty heart broke mine to soon,
You’re left in there, always to loom.

I was a dagger from the start

Of everyone who felt my spark
A witch, a sorceress, a part
Of their simple broken hearts.

But here I stand alone again

My family, my only friends
I broke the chains from all of them
Those hungry lonesome desperate men.

And tell me god what do I seek?

Your booming voice is now too weak
To hear, to preach, fall from my feet
Onto my knees to find repeat

And am I here to multiply?

For many loves just pass me by.
These boys, the vultures, can't see why
They need me, want me, hold me high.
Dolly

I was just your blowup baby.

A plastic mess that you took straight to bed.
But when I awoke from all the thrashing,
I was looking at the back of your head.
White Sheets

These white sheets

have undressed
The secrets
Of this mattress.
Im sleepless,
Im restless.
Your echos
Ring from my chest.

And is she
much like me,
Your young love,
Your cool breeze?
And will you
Forget me
Inside her
Killing memories?

All
I asked
Was for
just one dance.
So when I saw you
Moving
With another
You lost your chance.

And how
Do you
expect me too
love you again?
And how
I miss you,
But not enough to
Want you back.

And I can't tell what we're fighting for

Don't want to raise a baby in the middle of a war
Farewell Note

Something is changing
Fast around here.
I cannot shift the rain;
Lift longing from your pain.

This magnets force.

This tender fear,
Has sung this old refrain,
Now we’re back here again.

I can’t recall where this went wrong.

My farewell note is in this song.
I’ve gone on waiting far too long.
My farewell note is in this song.

And we have both been burnt,

From the flames of both our hurt.
The alter cried for us,
But you let yourself get lost.

When we ran away that day

We were lovers on the roads alone,
I’d die to call you home.

I’d leave my life to make yours mine.

I’d change it all, hand over time.

Be a blessing to your curse.

Be the sober to your thirst.
Idle in the wind,
Rise up when you descend.

And how I would have loved you-

You will never know-
You just let me go.
How can I forgive you?
You threw dirt on our road,
For something else to grow.

I shouldn’t need to ask.

You shouldn’t need to bend.
On my knees I shouldn’t rest;
It’s just simple in the end.
Leave Me Alone

I come alive when you go.

Leave me alone.

You gave me air-

But I want Earth and fire to fear.

I broke this vow-

The curtains shut-
I took my bow.

Nude;
Inside the home
Of an old lover
I take cover.

I will lie
To hide my tracks,
But I will still
Keep looking back.

My mind;
Oh my mind.
You can conquer my time,
But my mind is all mine.

Though you see

All the people
I used to be
You will never see me.
Stone Cold Nobody

Im a stone cold nobody.

Distilled

Somebody once told me;

“Cigarettes and coffee is a hookers breakfast”.
You see, you know me as mind healthy,
But you don’t know me when I’m reckless.

There’s comfort in distance,

There’s safety in silence,
When I’m wearing my Nasty red dress
And my middle-mind violence.

I’m cursed with this blessing of feeling,

And you’re blind in mindless believing
That I’ll hide all my dark in the light for you,
Just because you will me to.

So many men have felt between my legs.

So many girls have secretly begged.
But you would never know,
For I will never show,
The way I collect spirits,
And take them as shots, row after row.

I wasn't gone;
I was drunk and drinking my way back home.
I wasn't lost;
I was seeking to be held on a different road.
And I hear my women ancestors whisper
“Come back to the place you belong-
You witch, you bitch, You're not so strong”.

So clean, I come, to the edge of the water.

Sand tween’ my feet, I’m earth’s true daughter.
I feel it all.
I feel it all.
And when I fall,
At least I feel it all.
Alice

I've slept with one too many men,

I question if you're one of them.
We run for red like raging bulls.
We fight and fuck too see the good.

But when you took Alice's hand,

Held it like you were her man.
You knew better, but won't admit
You hurt us and I took the hit

This high on pain won’t last for long.

It’s sweet, so good but far too strong.
Pigeon Song

I saw you when we were younger

Hand in hand with your life.
Saddened by the space between us,
I couldn’t make you mine.

When years had past I saw your face

Beneath my tired eyes.
I called on you; A pigeon song,
A bottled message down your line.

I got lost between my lovers

Looking for my life.
Hardly moving in this grief,
I was swimming in slow time.
Unbroken still from my last one,
Stained ankles from those chains.
I wasn’t ready when you found me,
But I’m starving for this change.

This brand new touch,

This ancient game,
These steps towards the bed.
The rain outside
Silencing troubles
And voices in my head.

Commotion with the motion

Of you moving with me now.
I am here, but yet so far away
Not knowing where to vow.

A footnote:

To the man I gave up on;

I’ll always be sorry.
I was possessed by lust
In a raging lonely fire.
I didn’t want to have to beg you-
I wanted you to just want me.
I cheated on you, but I’m not sorry.

I lay there in the dappled light, 6am, facing the back of a man I barely knew.
I saw his unfamiliar skin, freckled by the Australian sun.
Heard him breathe; sounds as foreign as a language unknown.
I smelled our sweat interwound from merely hours before.
I felt the immense weight of the silent morning- for in the night I was somehow safe
beneath the thunderstorm thrashing his tin roof.
What a beautiful day the rain has made.

I thought him plainer than you at first- my new lover. But with every crooked smile and
jagged laugh- with every dark joke and knowing wink- he became beautiful to me.
We walked along rivers before I ended up here in his bed.
We built this tension- this reticent bond- before we even touched.
Our first kiss was weeks before this, in a park I played in as a child. We sat on ornamental
canons and he grabbed me hard and fast.
We kissed again the next week- he pushed me up against a tree. I felt so hot I could burn
straight through it.
We touched on my couch- then in his car- then I became trapped in his home during last
nights flood.
I asked myself - If I am truly heart-bound you, why am I laying beside this rugged
stranger?
Why is the taste in my mouth not of yours?
Why is the hair between my fingers that of another mans?

My lover stirs from my touch and turns to face me.

This is not a film. I do not pretend to be asleep or put together.
My eyes are ringed with tired skin- my cheeks are pink from his heat and my nerves.
He smiles at me in a way that only exists between those falling hard and fast.
He grabs my naked waist and pulls me towards him.
Something posses me- perhaps the need to suffocate the actions of the night before- but I
find myself mounted and falling into a passion pit once again.

He held me like you never could.

Free of burden and fear.
You were always trapped in the promise of tomorrow so you couldn’t commit to our
future. I am much like any other woman in her early 30’s. I too want a family. I so wanted
one with you. You hated being reminded of that.
I’m attempting to leave the last six years, you see.
Attempting to break down the wall we built around us- every brick and line of mortar, a
day in the time we gave each other.
I’ve chosen to shut my mouth, block my ears, close my eyes- just for now.
Praying in the car, stuck in traffic on the way to my lovers house in depths of summer,
sweating from my skin and eyes, I call out to a god I don't believe in: ‘Help me make the
the right choice, for this is my only life’.
I arrive.
I look at him.
We speak no words.
He carries me into his room.
I make love to him every hour to fuck away the feeling of you.

The hardest part is that you didn’t hurt me in one moment- there was no guillotine.
You just tortured me with distance and fences and limbo.
You broke me with silence and deprivation of touch.
You hurt me with my own reflection.
You cracked me accidentally with your youth.
In those last flickering moments- those final glittering days- when I- the one you vowed to
love- got to finally hold you- I was already gone.
Bored by the solitary future.
Hardened by an inability to speak of you to other people, for I myself was unsure.
My body tattooed with hundreds of question marks.
I don’t want you to change, but I’ll want to change you. That may be one of the problems.

I find myself at the airport with you, not one month ago- kissing your face with clarity,
only to then watch you walk away…again. One time too many it seems.
I find myself seasick on the waves of this.
I find myself sinking you beneath them.

And then when I least expect it, this man- my new lover- vibrates through my pocket sized
neon light.
A man I knew from years before- young and married with a child.
When I met him, his fate was sealed, but I could see in his eyes he was in the same lifeboat
I am on now.
I remember floating around him, dropping breadcrumbs, too small for anyone else to see.
It turns out he savoured every one. Savoured them over a decade.
I told him once, whilst drowning in wine rather than thoughts of you, that I was deprived
of your touch.
He remembered that too.

Phantom heartbreak cursing me for years, is now perched above his nightstand, like poe’s
raven, taunting my half sleep.
Awaiting a fevered shaking anxious state like the angel of death- I hold my breath for
when I leave my new lovers home.

You left me. You always left me. I always waited and chased.
I never strayed before this- even though I wanted to- even though you did.
Between hello and goodbye we had fountains of love.
When I weep for you the blossoms lain dormant bloom and I crumble completely. But who
amongst us has not been torn apart by memories?
And now I am shattered, but not broken- just using someone else to help glue me back
together.

It’s funny.
I realised that I met you and my lover in the same place, although not the same time.

One New Years eve, our three stories collided.

My lover was drunk and spinning his way around warm women, dripping with the sweat
born of MDMA and summer dancing.
He couldn’t take his eyes off my body, vibrating with the masses.
I saw his wife looking at him looking at me.
He didn’t care. He came over and whispered in my ear. He told me I was beautiful.
I ran from him like a scared child, flushed and tingling, afraid I may be reckless.

Not ten minutes later you arrived to drag me away from my snake like mischief.
I pulled you onto the roof of the convent and we kissed until sunrise.

I never forgot that night- perhaps that’s why months later, I allowed myself to fall so easily
in those Hollywood Hills.
You charmed me with your boyish innocence.
We- two vagabonds- two makers of music- on adventures of our own somehow woven
together.
You were easy to mould- I was easily taken by your ethereal painterly presence.
Oh, and your face. Your beautiful face.
Your glass cutting jaw.
Your hazel bright eyes.
Your firm lips and milky skin.
You were the most perfect man I’d seen. You still are.

But you see, you began to break me so early on- I became stuck in this holding pattern.
This dysfunctional and sometimes toxic love became normal. I think I grew out of it.

I didn't forget him either.

I remember meeting him some years before you.
The first time I saw him, he reminded me of my father. A man I have freudian inclinations
towards.
He is a giant, my lover. Strong and thick like a redwood. He towers above me even when
crouching.
We drank tea beneath where you and I first kissed. It was raining that day and I found
myself knowing him in a way I still cant explain.
I looked up at him- milk and honey scenting the moment.
I asked him who he was- he replied ‘I was wondering the same about you’.
He and I arrived at this solitary place at the same time and though I am not ready for my
heart to be held by another, my lover is rather persuasive.

And now, with you, It’s the moments in between that burn.
Everything I’ve touched, you’ve touched before.
I’m scared to see you for the first time since leaving suddenly, but I feel you drifting gently
away, maybe breaking my heart for another version of me.
And oh, how you will make them happy.
You will be the heaven for a softer kind- more beautiful than I- more refined and with a
light always on- rarely lost in dark corners. You will find this person and they will feel as
though they have discovered the rarest man. They will laugh at me for leaving. You will be
grateful I did. In the end.
You- my false idol- my spiders web.
You- my weakness and gentle soul.
You are not my father- you are not my brother.
You- unfamiliar and broken winged.
You- confused and lead too easily.
You- the one I’ll always regret leaving.
You- the one I always questioned loving.

So tomorrow I will tell you what I’ve done.

But today, I will savour the seconds where I am able to exist in the space between
heartbreak.
I will look into my lovers eyes and be there just for him.
I will kiss him again and again. I will feel the warmth of his skin on mine. I will taste him,
smell him, bathe with him, thank him.

I will continue to cheat on you today, but I just cant be sorry.

Shopping List

I don’t want to be your monthly holiday.

I don’t want to be your sometimes lady.
I don’t want to be your mother anymore.
I don’t want to be you weekly whore.
I don’t want to be desperately praying.
I don’t want to bow my head in shame.
I don’t want to be chasing you over land.
I don’t want to be grasping for your hand.
I don’t want to be crippled and silenced.
I don’t want to be still on two paths.
I don’t want to be imprisoned in our bed.
I don’t want to be a vulture hunger led.
I don’t want to take another man right now.
I don’t want to deceive our precious vow.
I don’t want to be just your entertainer.
I didn’t want to hold the hands of a stranger.
Stagnant Water

Stagnant water
Running through my veins.
In place of blood;
My body rusted by your chains.

And when it finally stopped

I was naked in a river.
I was baptised there
To an audience of strangers.

This fragile courage,

This regret of change,
This mighty howl,
The eery calm of the day.

I want a tree of a man,

Not foliage in the wind.
I woke up babe;
You were a dream in the end.
Dirt

Sometimes I forget I put my father in the ground.

He is now just a myth with a lingering scent.
Asylum

Tonight I feel a madness coming on like a brave wind.

Wrapping my body in it’s cold frenzied wings.
As the man I once love fell asleep at my door
And waited for someone he now knew no more-
I lay in my room, as small as a shoe,
And shook like a leaf, making way for the new.

I had battled the tears I had made over months,

And with brandy and pills, I swallowed at once.
And somewhere in sleep, I wandered the halls
Of a frozen grey madhouse- where fevered cries call.
As the deluge of summer sang out to the night,
I clung to my bed, sinking down out of sight-
And crazed with a venom of lust and dark sex,
I conquered my conquests, making way for the next.

So I took him one last time, as my madness prevailed.

‘Dear lover of yesterday,
Your floating heart failed-
For when your lips met another,
That took my mind’s eye.
Then the wind, it took our love,
And there I watched it fly.
I sailed away our love,
And there I watched it die.”
Perfect Tide

We met in rain on summer’s open sand, close, eye to eye.

You only saw the way I looked at almost-perfect tide.

It was hot as hell and I knew that the bridge I’d crossed had gone,
The waves that once were under it were moving to the storm.

The last time that we kissed, I can’t remember through the heat.
And held my hand and felt my crying heart stampede.

Oh I knew this day would come around.

You’re leaving as I’m watching you take off from the ground.

I will be a speck as you easily move away.

And water is all you see as you carry red dirt rain.

Now I’m all alone for the first time in in my life.

The holy ghost was there too, but he turned to man and died.

The moon that night had fallen on to open, broken road.

Then all I had was change and stones and a soul that once was gold.

Oh I knew this day would come around.

You’re leaving as I’m watching you take off from the ground.

I will be a speck as you easily move away.

And water is all you see as you carry red dirt rain.
Hunters

Stepping over fallen trees-

Over holes in the forest,
The Hunter smells the weak
Like a fury-painted madness.

A shot is fired-
He falls down-
Another gone
And never found-
A dancing shadow raises him-
It swallows the Hunter there.

No one is asleep in the city where the lost persist-

Though they may walk together,
Forgiveness does not exist.
Some are dying,
And some have barely kissed.
But you know each man-
Yes,
Every man
Kills the thing he loves.
Hypocrite

Sick of my own hypocrisy.

Sick of being plugged in constantly.
Sick of feeling like my mind and soul have been hijacked.
Sick of feeling dumb.
Sick of feeling numb.
Sick of lying.
Sick of failing when trying.
Sick of drama.
Sick of Karma.
Sick of feeling so damn entitled.
Sick of feminists.
Sick of men.
Sick of starting over again.
Sick of fucking of war.
Sick of fearing being sick.
Sick of shaking on the floor.
Sick of the voices in my head.
Sick of being haunted by the dead.
Sick of being so alone in my bed.
Snake Bitch

I am lying,
Luring men.
Stealing hearts
From all my friends.

Whilst I’m young,

With skin still soft,
I’ll be a snake,
Till youth I’ve lost.

Will I break
under my sins?
And with myself,
I race to win.

Mascara stained
Beneath my eyes.
The night before,
It tells no lies.

Hollow chest-
My sex is leading.
Craving touch,
It’s sex I’m bleeding.

Hunting down
Men not mine.
Vindictive melodies-
My crime.

Flawed, oh god,
So flawed am I.
Desperately
Just stumbling by.

Farewell old friends,

I’m raging hard.
Lost in my wake
Leaving all scarred .

Hot moonlight,
You are no friend.
My lust has won
And spawned the end.

Goodbye good man,

I will regret
The love we have
Not realised yet.
Orange, Yellow, Red

I want to run-
I want to go so far from here.
Away from the city
And it’s dead eyed cavalier.
Something was telling me it’s alright
To get good and lost, far from my life.

I am not who I thought I would be by now.

Reminded daily, that for me, the world won’t bow.
And something is telling me it’s alright
To be still in the motion of this small life.

I’ve crawled amongst the beggars.

I've lied beside the thieves.
I’ve gone for days on end with nothing but my fire to eat.
I’ve jumped from ship to rowboat,
Without an oar to swim.
But when I came back home,
Came back here-
I just had to go again.

When the clock struck to four in the morning-

When I tried to keep my mind and eyes bright-
I kept on driving the long stretch,
Until I saw the orange;
Until I saw the yellow and great red sky.
Itchy

I was just a child when I saw you in my mind.

I read between the lines from the Ancient Book of Life
No magic man could say that it wasn’t meant this way.
No holy man could pray this love we feel away.

When I found you I couldn't believe it.

You were just someone I built in my mind
And when you touched me I crumbled to pieces,
Ashes
No longer,
I need to hide.
Gold Confetti

I am standing
On a mountain
Looking over
Fading borders.
I am singing
Songs of regret
Over all this
Foreign water.

We build control
To be replaced.
So why not art too,
Obsolete?
And I have taken
Somebodies place,
To lay the ground
For someones feet.

Silence is real
Medicine,
But we down pill shaped
Joy with wine.
I’ve disappeared
In my procession,
Lost in faces
Just like mine.

Gold confetti
In grey gutters,
Down the drains
In to the sea,
Swallows by our
Bulging fishes-
Into our blood
We soak the greed.

I have nothing
True to offer,
So I’ll juggle
For a vigin statue.
I have nothing
Here to hold,
So my mind my body
I will give to you.

Fevered focus
At forever,
It’s just paper-bound
Legacy.
I’m secretly
A vagabond,
So no control
Can follow me.
Newspaper Bullets

I saw something change in my 31’st year.

I saw fury building from both sides of fear.
The truth has been drowned like a cat in a bag
And all that remains are possessions once had.

United by hate,
Together they stand,
Bolstered by riots,
Blood on their hands.

My elders though scarred were right in their warnings;

The plague that is coming will be here by morning.
So I wear my star with my Jew head held high.
My ammunition of facts, hitting hands from the sky.

Divided by hate.
Opposing they stand.
Bolstered by riots,
Blood on their hands.

My morning alarm
Paints pictures of pain.
Newspaper bullets
Are bullets all the same.

Something must end,

For more to begin.
We are not broken-
We’re just starting again.
I know him not-/He knows me not

I put on a show
When he looks at me from afar.
Pretend I am happy and light,
Though he knows me not.

His reflective hair,

Peppered by age.
But his cracked face is kind
And he has the soul of a court jester.

Large and embracing,

Are his arms and his chest.
Though he has eyes for all the world,
I can hold him the best.

My head like a stone in water-

Sinks in his lap.
He puts his rough tattooed hands,
Upon my warm soft back.

I feel the silence and calm between us

With no need now to impress.
I see the past and future here
Though I know him not.
Stranger

Here comes my love-

Down the road.
Nice to meet you.
I recognise your skin
Touching mine
As I greet you.
And god I swear,
I’ve known you-
Somewhere
in another life.

With synchronising hearts

And just a picture,
I know exactly who you are
Somewhere across the sea.
In our own beds
Beside our mismatched lovers,
We still dream
About each other
And what could be
In another life.
A Short Story

In chapter one he didn’t notice me,

Hanging from the banisters,
Dressing up in mystery
In the background of a party.

In chapter two he walked to my car

At the falling of the sun.
And he brushed my hair from my face-
Told me I was made in paint.

In chapter three, beneath his skin ,

I felt my blood run into his.
Silenced by his kisses,
And heart stolen by his whispers.

In chapter four I chased him round the world,

Trying not to be his dog.
Silencing the warnings
From all of the people that I loved.

In chapter five, like bull true to her name,

I was stubborn at the gates.
So instead of just changing,
I gave up and started raging.

In chapter six he broke my heart again ,

Telling me “she’s just a friend”.
A mistake that brought him to feel clearer-
I saw my mother in the mirror.

In chapter eight I lost my mind,

Whilst losing him and mourning time.
I found myself in Tel Aviv,
On a beach alone and looking where to live.

In chapter nine I sat inside a darkened room,

I wrote till I was inked in blue.
And at 3am I finally saw it-
What I was needed to do.

In chapter ten I fucked another man

Inside my cracking poison bed.
And as the new sun woke up dark,
I knew I’d broke that blackened thread.

Chapter eleven brought me to my knees,

As I watched his white van peel away.
I bowed to pain, my mistress then,
And felt the world that final day.

The epilogue, to this old love-

Simple, young and insecure,
Was spoken with a familiar voice,
My muse, my Puck- a man who’s sure.
Coffee

You woke before me.

Made yourself Turkish coffee.
You pulled the hair back from my sweaty face.
Woke me for company,
Avoiding my longing lips.
Don’t you know how much I want to be kissed?
You drove me to the beach,
Let me go on the sand
Whilst you betrayed me for the ocean.
I let you go there too.
Defy The Stars

She was a queen,

With no sense of time,
But she was was overthrown
By her spinning mind.

Did she lose?

Did lose in the fight?
Did her black bruised eyes
Camouflage in the night?

Dirty face
In the dank London air.
All her whites turned grey
And her feet need repair.

She was a rat-

She was a dog on the streets,
Frothing at the mouth
As her madness breached.

Holding on for a moment of grace-

Waiting for her space-
She damns the people in the past,
As she defies the stars.

All caught up in romantic rebellion,

Starving for her love-
She calls behind her bars;
“I defy you stars”.

The softer her skin

The rougher her hands,
And she look for god
As an answer to man.

Oh she shakes,
How she shakes like a leaf,
And she loses sleep
In the wake of her grief.

She gets told told to stop-

To stop breaking her her heart-
Stop suffering
For the sake of the art.

She's told she’s old

And needs a husband to trail-
To buy her out,
Medicate how she failed.

Holding on for a moment of grace-

Waiting for her space-
She damns the people in the past,
As she defies the stars.

All caught up in romantic rebellion,

Starving for her love-
She calls behind her bars;
“I defy you stars”.
We Danced, We Kissed, We Touched.

I walked to the fire

Alight on the shore
With the masses vibrating around.
For the first time alone,
Knowing no one at all-
Only knowing the spirit of sound.
The uncountable stars,
Could not nearly feel
What it means just to simply be touched.
Then out of the shadows
A body appeared
And right there,
He woke up my lust.

We danced,
Til’ out bodies were sore.
And we danced,
Til’ our hot feet were raw.
Oh we danced,
Until we were one;
Flickering flames in the new burning sun,
Yes we danced till the morning had come.

I was a girl
Who was born to this life
Unsure of how to fly.
I was pushed off a perch
And was caught by a pack
Of ravaging dogs riding high.
That younger me-
She could barely see,
No man could show her the way.
But on this warm night
I met a new light,
And with one look he knew I would stay.

We kissed,
Slowly softly at first.
We kissed;
Heart shaped lips pressing firm.
Oh, we kissed,
In a smoke of our own.
Kissing deeper till we were alone-
In-amongst dancing bodies unknown.

Who is this man

Who has taken my hand
And with one touch has broken my world?
Undone all the fast time
Without him before,
Saving me; this broken winged bird.
And hot on the beach,
I knew him at once,
I knew all his earthly desires.
Mysterious and cracked,
I knew that he knew who I was
Through his steady light eyes.

We touched,
Like a mother with child.
Then we touched,
Like two animals wild.
Oh we touched
And he held me so tight.
Naked touching through dark in the night,
On the water’s edge holding till light.
Rome II

The Fall of Rome.

The biology of belief.
The silence of recognition.
We are plagued with consciousness,
Whilst witnessing the last polar bear.
What do we do when we're made to destroy?
I was waiting for the world to change around me-
Damn this democracy, too dirty for death.
Stuck.
Stuck in a dream when we’re owed it all for free.
Walking a line between fear and calm,
We are not here.
Caught in a lie under dark politics.
Just like a love we cannot shake,
We cannot stop, we’re built to take.
Flowing thick through our veins is golden greed,
Is fear and shame,
Is contagious violence,
Is fear.
Fear of difference.
Fear of change.
The unfit king it frothing at the mouth.
We will not be cool beneath his plastic crown,
His madness lights a fire,
And the ones who bloom
Are the ones who find the ground beneath the hate.
I’m holding a bag of popcorn,
Watching the storm approach across the sea.
Crush

Where do you sleep?

What is your bed like?
If you're not in the room,
Can I still smell you on the sheets?
I made up a story
About how you loved me-
This though, is all mine.
And mine, all alone.
Fame

I was a peasant working hard in another life.

I was a slave, a whore, an ungrateful wife.
I betrayed all I knew for a shot at fame.
Bare chested on my knees, simply for the game.

I was looking for a shot in another world.

I was caught in a great lie, only just a girl.
My lost daddy told me “Baby, you’ll be a star”-
So I immortalised his memory from afar.

I was ugly in the face of my own pursuit.

I was ashamed humiliated that I never grew
From a wide eyed confident hungry child;
In 20 years all changed was my bitter smile.
Change of mind

Lonely is the lover full of hate.

Alone inside the bed where her love lays.
Searching for another secrets shame,
So she can turn the blame.

You’re drawn to me when I am drawn away.

You want me mostly when I’m almost gone.
I’m beautiful to you when I’m arcane,
A goddess when alone.

Everything I touch you’ve touched before-

I’ve fast become an insomniac.
Pleasure standing next to where I mourn-
Sometimes I want you back.

Shadows dancing on the hotel walls-

Unfamiliar skin besides me sleeping.
Where are you, I’m sure you’re not alone-
Don't ask me to come home.
Warnings

If we touch it's only going to break this-

Yearning let's us live another life.
Set me blazing light me up with longing-
I don't fear flames because I become the fire.

Warnings: the kind that do not leave you,

Are nothing when illusion plays a preview.

I saw you looking at me through the crowd-

Lingering to long and so my love I disavowed.
Now you have me,
What will you do?

I'm not your saviour nor your answer.

Let's keep this just between us, just today.
Do you really want me as a conquest?
I'm just as ruined as you, so I can’t stay.

Warnings: beaming like a lighthouse,

Short out as I race to the shore.

I saw you looking at me with those eyes.

I saw you as a child chasing something beyond life.
Now you have me
What will you do?

Maybe in another life I'll find you.

I loved you more before I knew you well.
Undiscovered skin is feed for dreaming,
Un-kissed lips are stories yet to tell.

Warnings: raging right before you,

Silence when your body tries to lead you.

I saw you looking at me all night

I felt your eyes pierce through me and set me alight.
I felt you wanting me from the start;
I couldn't come to close, for I just don't trust heart.

Now you found me,

What will you do?
Grief

Grief demands answers.

Peaks

I'm always a wave

Mimicking the land.
Feeling force from beneath,
But just water in the end.
Warm on the surface,
But freezing undertow.
I am the greatest ocean,
Making love to the rain and snow.
Liar

I trusted everybody there,

But words they thought i didn’t hear
Turned to a crown that I would wear-
‘The queen of lies and fire and fear’.

Invisible here I’ll remain,

I’ll be their darling, play their game.
But don’t they know my verity
Is deeper than their minds can see?

Are you sure that you know me?

Are you sure you’re impressed?
Are you sure that you need me, want me, trust me-
I’m the greatest actress.

You held me till my heart turned black-

Thank you for this heart attack.
I shed my shield, my fierce disguise-
Now i throw daggers from my eyes.

Watch me dance, I’ll watch you burn.

I have changed and I have turned.
You’ll wake in fright for what you’ve done;
No one wins- no one has won.
Son of the saviour

I walk through London's turbulent gardens

Making efforts to rise above the anxious city.
Looking for vibrations with people beyond this shore,
Waiting for something to tickle me in the right places.
Holding out for a love slowly slipping,
Knowing it's to others I am gripping.
Then.
I see this man;
This son of my saviour-
Squandering his privilege
And fucking every woman he sees.
Sweaty and nervous,
Regretful and wounded.
He couldn't light the fire,
But he has heated me.
Through all his gluttony and short attention
It's I who he's woken.
Him and I-
Both children in mud. Floundering fish.
But he fucked up.
He made love to my image too soon.
He may have seen me naked,
But will never get to touch.
For touch and smell is where I live.
A place of truth and embrace.

I wrote him a letter:

We both have the same disease-

Caught inside a hopeless dream.
Though you may not be made for me,
Somehow you’re all I see.
We are not the chosen ones-
I the daughter, you the son
Of a father’s booming voice-
we live beneath that noise.
I don’t know you but I know us;
Always looking to the past.
Forsaken by the crown we wear,
Doomed to be the fallen heir.
Muffled sound beneath the song,
Echoes lost somewhere beyond.
Meet me somewhere quiet sometime?
Quench me with the cheapest wine.
I’ve given you a piece of me
Somehow across the sea.
You told me to bare a child
I heard you write beneath a smile.
You said “be someones family,
but leave some left for me”.
But after you I won’t be done
And I am not your only one,
So just today let’s close our eyes-
Touch my skin
My inner thighs.
And we will meet, when time is right,
I’ll hold my breath until that night.

He wrote back:

“I expected a pixel-painted portrait

Of your milky breast.”
And shortly then thereafter,
My heart woke up and left.
You got me

The girl in control

Has now lost her mind.
Falling from bridges,
Led by her visions,
A slave to the riddles,
Smiling at Utopia.
You got me.
It turns out i love you.
Guess i’m a loser.
See me fall on my face in this dance.
Great Flood

Before the great flood,

Before the long night,
Before that heat rose,
We all got off on our own feelings.

We’re disappointed,
There is no great hand,
To lift us out
And bring us up from our despair-
Oh lord save me from my despair.
Oh lord are you my lord?
Oh can you hear me lord?

In this short life,

We all have long days,
We all chase our lust
To our longing grave.

I felt a great rush ,

Enter inside me
I was possessed by
Protection of my only family.
Oh lord please save my family.
Oh lord are you my lord?
Oh can you hear me lord?

The wave is coming.

The heat is growing.
And you can’t stop this-
We cant say that we had no knowing.

But there’s this one spark.

I see this one chance.
This tiny moment
If we dance the same dance.
Oh lord won’t you dance with me?
Oh dance with me my lord.
I’ll dance with you my lord.
Burn It Down

We all have a name,

We all have been born
And chosen for a throne
In some family home.
When I lit a candle;
When I burned it for us;
For our lonely souls;
I felt the fire of love.

Theres song in the sorrow.

There’s music in the waking.
I heard it call, loud and clear:
“Theres freedom in failing”.

I wear this like a stain

And grasp for whispers of God's name.
I live or the moment
Before waking,
Before knowing
It’s not real.

What is God
Who is She?
How will i know She’s here for me?
When all the world is burning
We can’t stop the oceans churning;
BURN IT DOWN.

I wanted to plan a revolution to come,

But my earthly desires
Helped the damage along.
We all feel comfort
When in danger,
Embracing fire
Like the arms of a stranger.

I don’t think they see it;

The fear behind their eyes;
The power ravaging their senses;
The frothing at their smile.

And so,
I wear this like a stain
And grasp for whispers of God's name.
I live or the moment
Before waking,
Before knowing
It’s not real.

What is God
Who is He?
How will i know He’s here for me?
When all the world is burning
We can’t stop the oceans churning;
BURN IT DOWN.
Mother

Mother Earth is crying.

She's ringing out her light.
She finally sung out loud.
Like a siren in the night.
Death of my mentor

Dear Mentor,

You were knowing and clever and left before watching the world burn.
This week I've felt death so close.
It's been earth shaking, meeting you spiritually my creative father.
For me it's 3 in the morning, the start of November.
It's somewhere in between the calendar space of the birth and death of my blood father.

Something grabs my shoulder- some ghost moves me- shakes me awake, to reveal the news of your
leaving through the white digital glow.

I'm sorry I never got to hold your regret-less hands.

I knew I wouldn't, deep down.
I fell for your son across the water, through the clicking words- simply for his bloodline, only to
reveal his modern lust- which the snake in me loves.

The first time I met your words, I was struck by their contradiction.
Their mirroring of themselves.
They penetrated my young mind and gave me strength to know that in the other side of darkness is
light, and in reverse.

You connected me to something more.

To my own blood.
My own God.
Rabbi. You were my only Rabbi.
With knowledge and grace, I feel you go.
Ride the waves of the other side energy my always invisible mentor.

Sincerely,
Anita
6am

“Don’t fall in love” you said.

“The falling will never end.”

But old man,

Although this isn’t forever
Let us drink this time.
I said to you:

I am your church tonight-

Confess to me your sins-
I’ll love you even more
If you just let me in.
And I will kiss you hard
On your skin; imperfect.
Place your dirty hands,
Deep in me; it’s worth it.

And I was already gone.

I fell so hard for you.
At 6am
I saw the morning peeking;
We are not sleeping
For fear this is the dream
It turned out to be.
Comfort me

Before you say goodbye

Tell me I will be alright
…
I don’t want to see you go.

And if you change your mind;

Leave the war of us behind
…
I don’t want to know.

My surface-grazing anxiety still taunts me like a gun to the head.

Enough with these cold-blooded compliments, I’d rather this dead.
Home

With Israel dust

In my tired lungs.
Jerusalem scarred.
Black feet tarred.
Who am I if I'm not tied
To my ancient family tree cries?
Siren

I’m afraid of the ocean,

But live for songs of the sea.
With my graveyard hips-
And my cemetery lips,
I called on you-
I call you to me.

My tongue is sweet and oh so sharp;

A knife, a hammer and a harp.
My song is ancient and unbroken,
I called for you across the ocean.

I face the water-

Earth’s true daughter
Mermaid, my form
Pulling this ship along.
Salted and split,
Carved from a tree,
Paint wearing thin,
Totem of the sea.
Indian ink

My fingers dipped in indian ink

Make my mark before I sink.

I'm a tiger, a victim, a killer, a soldier.

I'm a bird, a vacuum, a gun- I'm a loser.
I’m sex when I’m hurting; a tyrant, a snake.
A cold prostitute wrecking all in my wake.

The cake I ate was poison.

I was a greedy lying mess.
Stars in my eyes have turned to comets-
There’s now a riot in my chest.

I like myself better with secrets;

On the edge with it all to lose.
I like myself better with secrets-
That’s how my lovers like me too.

Ethnic skin, blackened eyes;

Every day, I did disguise.
Now sitting here I know the game,
I don’t look different, but i’m not the same.

My fingers dipped in indian ink

Make my mark before I sink.
Pink Secrets

Why won't you kiss me?

My face is so close,
Our eyes are locked.
I can see the longing.

Why won't you kiss me?

Can't you see it?
The heat from our skin.
The pending release.

Why won't you kiss me?

I'll kiss you right back.
I'll make you feel loved,
Even just for a moment.

Am I damned to be your beautiful adversary?

Singing at your wedding.
Hatted in the back.
Inhaling the rivers attached to my dark eyes.
Am I damned to be your cloak and dagger?
Touching your limp hand beneath the table.
Moving it to the heat between my thighs.
Damned to different to the one that you want.
Damned to the rocky torrid planes of fantasy.
Damned to the shoreline as I watch your boat pass by.
Damned to be your donkey.
Your pretty pink secret.

I am eternally yours,
Cold vibrating lust-
You have my heart-
You’ll break it I trust.
This is how I love

This is how I love-

With a heart full of gravel
Dragging on the ground
For all the men to see.

This is how I love-

Between my open legs
Unfolding too fast,
But unfolding anyway.

This is how I love

With armour built around me,
With curse above my head,
Intrenched in a delicate hell.

This is how I love-

Awake and watching him.
His stillness like a flower-
Just him and I in dark.

This is how I love-

With a demon by my side,
A voice stuck in my head,
A jealous fire bright.

…………

This is how much I want you-

Laying on your bed,
My hand held tight,
Strapped above my head.

This is how much I need you-

Running close behind,
Feet not touching ground
Until we interwind.

This is how much I know you-

Wiping all your tears,
You glint about the kids,
Who burnt away your years.

This is how much I love you

Lying on your grave,
Crying tears into the dirt,
Falling down like waves.

This is how much I miss you-

Breathing all your scent,
The perfume that you left behind,
On pillows of cement.
Back to Melbourne

London:
I'm mourning for a love that's not yet lost-
Holding For it's quiet final breath.
Crying for the man who's by my side,
Ringing out the heart we have left.

Air-bound:
In the back of a 12 hour rocket-ship ride
I feel the Melbourne spark.
The moon is like a fingernail in the sky,
Scratching at the dark.

Touchdown:
I see my funeral pyre
Amongst the baggage claim.
Gifts of love in suitcases amongst my grief,
Circling the asshole of the aeroplane.

Funeral:
In my temple a visitor comes and rearranges my effigies,
He approaches my face with the power of a prince,
But kisses me not,
Leaving me to sleep with this sweet dream,
Leaving me no note that our love’s found itself lost.

Now:
Don't touch me- I love you too much.
You changed your mind- I knew you would.
This is love’s mourning march.
Shiva for the shattered and all that was good.

Tomorrow:
Christmas came and Christmas left,
Tinsel adorning the hot and sandy, bacon-smoked streets.
I surf the waves on the haunted Australian shore-
And see a salty you,
Waiting for me, ready to start anew.
Young Bones

Eternal third eye,

You still couldn't see,
The poisonous flowers
That he picked for me,
The riot will stop,
We will be alone-
And I'll be washed up,
A bag of young bones.
River of blood-
So we meet again,
I just want a baby,
To print pain on them.
Porn Pussy

I dressed like an angel-

I thought you would notice me,
But all the young girls, naked,
Blinded you and covered me.
Hot between my legs,
A blooming flower wains,
But a porn pussy, I have not,
Nor hairless, prickly games.
A letter to my latest love

Dear yellow-haired man,

All you are is fodder for my words.
I’m tired of learning,
Ready to start loving.

I heard you first in the back of my family car.

Saw your name gifted to me by a Hollywood man.
I met you as words on a neon screen.
Then your young familiar voice came calling to me.
I met your face first, etched with every day you’ve met.
Felt fear at the fact I was a myth and nothing more-
Alight on a pedestal you’ve built in the sky,
Made for someone untouchable- unreachable-
And for my small body, a platform too high.

You shipped me to you,

But left me to beg.
My prophesy proceeded me,
There was a curse on that hotel bed.

I felt the angels were laughing at me.

I kept losing blood from the heart on my sleeve.
So I cast my fear to the churning seas-
An echo of who I used to be-
I must close my eyes to finally see.

So I leave you to ruminate, to rest and reset.

But I will not wait anymore-
Dear fodder,
Thank you-
I’m yet to see how much you gave to me.