eye gazing

mystic in the kitchen home from women's circle 10:50pm. I have just moisturised my face. kettle boiling she talks about eye gazing how it shook and changed her spirit. tonight she fell into the eyes of strangers one after the other five minutes at a time. each pair held a universe she might have never known. the eyes are windows / rivers / passages to what and who and how we are. in those of another we have nowhere to hide. to share gaze is to surrender / be seen / let another hold your heart.

last time I opened was for you. in the last rays of September on my bed you asked how I was feeling, having just made your decision. without the words to answer we were held by silence, willing you to stay a little longer. your eyes sky blue clouded with apology, mine unguarded like a wound or candle. I remember opening for you too soon, glowing in your room to see that you had done the same. lighting through our skulls straight to the heart. whatever this was you felt it too. at the end we used words to be clean. "I understand" and "this is what I need". we used words to make some sense. we did our best but we know better. our eyes can't help divulging how much more this really means.

Vesuvius

returning ink to paper

blood in black on lilac shard of tree

your name

a date

the words I had and hid

to fill a page and however many days 

a clean cut

and the silence since your knee jerk

with your ghost

by our castle in the park

fear of feeling or captivity

blue sky eyes recoil

one strike: "too real"

just enough to wake a monster I forgot

Vesuvius in tears

into pillow

into dream

a spring I never knew I harboured in a heart you willed awake

glowing in my claws

in the rapids

in the dark

want and need and what you asked of me

"never close"

before you chose to change my colours stayed the same

you remember

doing what you need to

willing closed a tomb you opened

can you sing a ghost to sleep?

I will listen

say my name

to end the page I've spilled myself for

eulogising present tense

ink and tears

folded on the other side

still there

singing on my bedroom floor

cradling the lyre

on your knees

in my pyjamas

I can hear your voice

rain into a stream

to lay me down and flood my lungs

come back and curse another hymn

you can sing me anything.

ants on my arms

lying on the grass reading in the park I let the ants march up and down my arms. birds whistle from the branches of one tree to another, an invisible and foreign language. my thoughts feel the gaps between the sounds and sense. sun follows sports games on the field children climbing up the playground a mother and the baby in her arms. I look at the blue from the trunk of the gum. a glimpse of two birds dancing between branches. leaves in constant motion just like water just like you.

I read the one about the boy that was a monster that was red. he loved and ached and loved and ached and learnt to use his wings. the poem brings me solace that I wish I didn’t need. I don’t know if you’d like it. the birds keep dancing in the wind.

without crying

I missed you today without crying. your face under my eyelids and your laughter in my ears. if you were here I'd wrap you in my arms til you'd remember how we felt. but you're not.

today I didn't cry. I carried you in thought and dream and kept my tears at bay. you weren't here. I played one of our songs on the guitar. the book of love is long and boring. last time you sat and listened on my pillow. we kissed and glowed and held each other through the night. today I tried again and you weren't there. I didn't cry and I still see you even though the words don't change. 

dry

I dream of you in my aunty's house. it was her birthday yesterday and you are living in the tv room. we used to pile in there on sleepy afternoons, a dozen cousins and my older brother. I was the youngest of the lot, sitting on the end of someone's knees. we'd watch long movies I didn't understand and I'd frustrate them with my questions. in your domain the couch has been relinquished for your bed. it's nighttime and you are stretching on the floor. I'm looking for my drawings on the walls. we have somewhere to be but don't end up leaving the room. when you join me on the bed you tell me that my lips are dry. I think it's because you don't kiss them anymore.

room for more

in a hotel in my dream waiting for friends from another life. together we once haunted the crumbling remains of another in a sleepy bonfire town. worlds away and years ago. I remember grieving the home we made of strangers and the clouds, momentary orphans playing family for a few months. in the year that followed I would cry every other day. I missed my friends and couldn't fathom moving forward having built our little life and home together. now we live as different people passing time in different places.

without forgetting I have learned to miss and still make room for more to come. in taking every joy time still has the grace to give me space to change and move like water. shapes shift beyond my power with the seasons as they roll. new flowers follow. I never saw you coming, just as I would never close the door. I miss you like my openness for now. I'll make room for more with time.

one side to the other

the junkie on the tram home pokes his head out of the open doors at every stop. 'any of these places could be home!' I wonder if he's lost or just enjoys a stage in motion and an audience. his monologuing scares us all into our phones.

there's a letter I could write you hanging dormant in a note between more poetry and dreams. there's a pit in my heart that we dug without thinking. you left without warning. without knowing why I'm left without a way to fill the gaps. I listen to our songs and wonder if you hear me like I hear you in the words. an empty bottle rolls from one side to the other as we hurtle past the cemetery.