Busy bees buzzing around my head
Tiny feet, diaphanous wings
Stamping and flapping
On my marshmallow-boned brain
Your din is a maddening, humming haze
Nebulous swirling clouds to mock my logic
The bruises are in full bloom
Blossoms of vibrant puce and violet
Purple eggplant shiner
Ripe and rounded
Watercolour splotches
Bleeding into an abstract impression
Not yet the autumn fall –
Old, curling at the edges
Meagre jaundice spiderwebs
threatening to stay for the rot –
That is still to come.
Shall we remember
The curtained boudoir
A cocoon of nutmeg-y toastiness
Orange glow, blue twinkling fairies
Furnaced fragrance wafting, tickling our noses
A friendly ‘hello’
Mutual tea-hugging, herbal enticements gripped to sleepy hands
Me spread over the sheets like butter
Those times you brushed my hair:
After steamed lovemaking in hot December
After going out with plaits in North London, your fingers fumbling with the braids and knots
After yet another fight in Canonbury
Those times you brushed your hair:
In front of the looking glass
Gooey faces of giggles
Flashing sapphire, eyes alight
Toothy grins to complete the picture
Shall we remember
The heaviness of the room
The musty, stuffiness like mouldy velvet
Suffocating us both
The many watered tears contouring my face
Your temple-rubbing, my blistering words
Our ‘cunt’s and middle fingers and threats of violence
The saltiness of blame
The punches of anger
The kicks of guilt
Or rather remember
The reality of it all
Feeling alone together
Existential but together
Showing the worst together
Seeing the best together
Pushing and pulling together
Fighting and loving together
Shhh, buzzing bees
You’re giving me a migraine
Your morphing memories of night
Tossed pillows, flailing limbs
Like childhood nightmares sticking to my psyche
Are too much for now
Go to sleep
Calm for the moment
No one can control the future.
Under The Nail 