steer or stop

in my dream I'm riding a bike without handlebars or any way to steer or stop. rolling down the hill the only thing to do is sit and pedal. I speed through once familiar streets washing over me like water. the sky is blue if not for translucent clouds on the horizon. my natural conclusion races to meet me. wind on my face through my ears drawing tears to icicles. hurtling towards my final boulder I think of you and laugh.

we sing to each other

and we sing to each other. our songs write a testament: a subtle score, fleeting and secret and sacred only for a moment / to us. an amalgamation of misremembered tunes from childhoods never shared apart. together weaving something palpable from and into songs that seem to say what we should and won't.

we sing in the car / as we walk / drift with trolleys down the aisle for fresh and processed produce. we sing by the kitchen sink / across the table / through the walls to one another. we sing in secret / each other's ears / arms / on the floor by the fire in the dark.

each night is a song / has a pulse we share and keep until we can't. you're as constant as you like. I'm there whenever you want. how many more songs can we write this way? friendship can only be so much.

dead end

another winter night in red: the masses colonise the city / split the bones of a former department store for fun. mum used to buy her cotton here. you lose your scarf on the floor at the rave, where once they cut our curtains. lights and smoke and music to forget to. caring less every breath I’m still wearing your shirt. a dead end is a vision of the only way we’ll ever go. we dance between strangers I’d like to get lost in. you pull me back closer. for what?

anthems for a sapphic friendship

fidelity

thinking about you

touching yourself

the louvre

everything is romantic

human being

dreams

summer in the city

current affairs

futile devices

fly to you

hard feelings / loveless

we'll never have sex

ever again

illicit affairs

Samson or Eugene or Alan

all too well

heart's a mess

a case of you

parachute

you're losing me

I know things now

I know the end

chewing cotton wool

safeandsound

galore

gods you make yourself

what makes this what it is? your words and the wants they claim do little to write away the way we are. and yet they try, lacking sense beyond the laws you draw from tablets scribed by gods you make yourself.

on paper you extinguish ambiguity with the candles. I resign to the bed you've made me. but I turn off the lights and you're there: warm and soft and reaching for me in the dark. in my arms you heat my blood like secrets or the songs we sing each other. ambiguity prevails. you hold me through my dreams. I melt into your compromise once more.

the fly in the wax

we clear the table in the dark, washing dishes and our hands of whatever games we've played / shreds of clarity we've forged from second guesses. candles are extinguished and the water runs to cover over everything. from the door I watch you hunch over your camera and the table. some kind of fly caught in the wax of a dying tea light. who could blame your pause to take a photo? we live for spectacle to keep us from the mirror / doubt / ourselves. but I think about the scene in the candle through your lens / the way we are.

I am the fly and you are the wax. you make of me a funeral pyre. I'm trapped and slowly burning at your whim. your flame is warm and beautiful.

like holy wine

on the back of a Kiefer postcard

of a painting you said you liked

I drew a map of home

Tasmania

with your face sketched on it twice

penning your name

thank you > sorry

as constant as whatever you like

my name

I hide it in the book you read all week

you’ll find it on the plane

we’re being grown up when it matters

saying goodbye in the rain.