there are months
i have no idea
what i'm doing 
or going to do
let alone want

everyone else reassuringly
moving somewhere
new flats, with cutlery
new job, navy suit
while i'm standing still
in yesterday’s clothes
drinking black coffee
burdened by an unrealised yawn

i badly needed a new
and most crucially affordable
character arc
so i’ve started drinking black coffee

so i lost my job
kissed the wrong person
moved back in with my mother
will probably stay too long
or leave too soon
a yardstick for failure

for now
it’s just wednesday
mid-week
mid-twenties aimless

and maybe that’s enough

the future is always
a little foggy

i might as well
sit still at least for a bit
black coffee cooling fast
and yawn at last

language is a skin said someone once
the sort of thing you believe because 
you wish it were true
i rub my words against your words
let syllables pass my lips
like sand in your palm
briefly held, tangible
not mine

impractical to think it could all be held

i could’ve been named rory
which would’ve been funny
because i couldn’t properly form the letter r
till maybe 17
and even then unconvincing
and concentration spoiling the sentence

my father, a mexican, tried to teach me his language
when i was very little
and then, like a man who realises 
his heart isn’t in it
and time was limited
stopped suddenly

so his language became 
something foreign
that matched my surname perfectly
but me very poorly

years later i read his books aloud
when nobody was home
juan rulfo as never heard before
not because i understood them
but because i liked the feeling 
of spanish words arranging themselves
inside my very british mouth

there’s something exciting 
about not knowing

at the table in madrid
everyone talked over everyone
hands moving frenziedly 
glasses at differing stages of empty
words becoming music
before becoming information

everyone’s spanish was fluent
mine still lagging

sitting there stunningly useless 
receiving the whole family through ears

his new family, a spanish speaking one
i think he’s most himself
in his mother tongue
he’s emotionally stunted at the best of times
but english didn’t help

the feeling is wordless
no words for you father
moving on
in another language you learned
to be closer to him

i think that’s why
falling in love feels
so much like becoming stupid 

you lose the nouns first 
then grammar slips off
lastly your punctuation
till there’s no full stop 
words and emotions tripping 
clumsily into each other

in madrid i ordered ice
and said hielo

such a small word

it made a small glass animal inside my mouth
something cold and hooked
that stayed there
after the coffee was gone 

later a girl whispered
¿qué vas a hacer más tarde?
against my ear
as if the question itself
were the answer 

i wanted her voice
more than i wanted to know
what she meant by it

i wanted to live inside her throat

that’s the embarrassing thing 
about other languages 

sometimes you don’t want to understand it

learning a language is 
like sleeping 
with someone you’ve just met

first you learn the breathing
then the rhythm
then where the body hesitates

and still i’m hesitant 
for still i know it won’t make me closer
to my father who’s several languages away

meaning comes later
if it comes at all

a characteristically and bloody-minded certainty
that a table with that napkin set
meant for pastries but used for spilt sangria
makes madrid the city it is
impractical, attractive

madrid where you can loiter endlessly
hunting the best spot for writing a letter home
and feel comparatively productive

the pace, the air growing ever thicker
glasses slipping with face sweat
till that spot is found

a shady table attached to a 17th century building
that once housed the poor and now sees 
a cafe solo go for five euros

the letter begins 'dear mum'
reminiscing about letter writing
and letters received from grandpa
always vividly descriptive

once pen is put to paper
reaffirming my belief that leaving the indent 
was probably for the best
to write a little extra when i remember

i have wildly fluctuating levels of self-satisfaction 
in the quality of the letter
especially when viewed through nostalgic double glazing
or three lines dedicated to that one olive
but what's madrid if not to be a little excessive?

pen on it's last legs
more ink on my fingers than on the page
serves me right for looking for a deal
but ink just about lasts and deal still had
quite the parade of good fortune

waitress compliments my shirt
her eyes are much better than my shirt is
and she asks about my accent
it wasn't flirting
i just have good manners
and an ardent heart
and too many words

she's probably more interested in
my fiercely and enticingly esoteric
detour of the spanish civil war
and an anecdote about franco 
and maría de llanos his cleric

widely deemed to be ‘out of my league’
admittedly my own estimation
but not unfounded

when she walks off
to have non-spanish civil war interactions
i'm back in my head
to being perennially pensive

my recent decision to live in the moment
has been to my great long-term nostalgic cost
and temptation to be reflective

madrid is all flirty eyes and small beers and smaller bites
all momentary things
flirty eyes being most short-lived
that can be the extent of a love life
or lack thereof

will i look back on this and her?
maybe 
and therein lies the beauty of the past
living it and knowing it'll matter later

good to know i have the kiss of death approach to corner shops
as soon as i proclaim one as my go-to
it closes down within a year

i hope not the same for love or pubs
perhaps that's why i'm uncommonly quiet
with who i care for and where i drink my pint  
whilst savouring every morsel of stale crisps

i don't flatter myself that it's something to do with me
but there can't be nothing to that 
swashbuckling
doggedly characterised
self-effacing manner
that relentless uncertainty that strokes anxiety

distraction is a welcome foe
of all the jewels in england's crown
none gleams more brightly
than the yellow-tag discounted blueberries at waitrose

tastes better when late for a train and
i'm being deservedly inconvenienced
by customer in front struggling with self checkout
one hopes undeservedly 
their crippling self-loathing plain on face

they're in their eighties and nervous
society is a little blinkered
to people being rude to the elderly

daydream to fill in shopping void
admittedly history isn't for everyone
and byron's sexual escapades whilst travelling round greece
for even fewer than that
and yet they entertain endlessly in a queue

take blueberries home via closed corner shop
to reach the dizzying culinary heights
of blueberries, yoghurt, granola
and, most tastebud-tantalisingly, a bit of lemon

next ambitions of getting some writing done quickly
shelved in favour of walking my dog
and doing upwards of four pathetic throws 
of sticks with bits dangling
all droopy and pitiful and soft

prayers of seeing you after
prayers quickly revealed to be falling on deaf ears

so instead pantingly and sweatily
bursting into the house
still carrying said stick
desperate for a piss

really sweated my nerves out on the walk

gave a whole spiel about it
to my sibling who had misfortune of being there
to hear it with earphones still in

a hedonistic grotesquely over-indulgent feast
of ramble
my day a sweaty mess 
a baroque painting of shadows and fuss

unable to find god
in my go-to picnic spot
that i have to take you to

off the cuff
i promptly vanish
in a puff of logic

it'll take a while
but i'll always give you the sentence you need eventually
till then you'll be left wanting

shut the door, shut it slow
so the hinge doesn't creak for them that know
what's coming up the wooden stair
with hunger dressed as tenderness and prayer

i'm no saint and you're no bride
just two fools caught on the wrong side
of a door that won't stay closed for long
even if where we decide we belong

you stand there like a burning wick
half a girl and makes him agnostic
the devil played on eden's floor
i've seen you now, i want you more

close your eyes if you must hide
from what your body can't decide
the wanting and the shame entwined
like snakes sharing a single spine

oh jesus, watch this house tonight
more so this narrow room, this dying light
this lady who's forgotten inhibition
or man who's unable to take in her vision

i'd give my life, my rotten heart
to hold the shape before it starts
before the door swings wide again
and lets the whole world in

major premarital vulgarity
till minor breathless clarity

remain

not because the world is kind
but because it has forgotten
how to be anything refined

the trees are crowded with witnesses
one bird argues
that violence is merely instinct
wearing the costume of necessity
another answers
with a melody so exquisite
it almost redeems the first bird's prerequisite

between them
they invent their own religion
your pulse beneath my palm
your body refusing
every sermon about restraint
or diktat by their patron saint

outside us
empires rehearse their collapse
with rehearsed confidence
every century swears
it has discovered a new catastrophe
every century steals
the script of the last all omniscient

yet you arrive
with the impossible gift
of making disaster less disastrous
if struggle was implied

you run laughing
through a country
older than memory
countryside abides to each step of yours
scattering the careful treaties
between flower and insect
between hunger and innocence

i follow
pretending not to worship
borrowing the patience of animals more kind
learning that desire
dresses in camouflage 

then comes the clearing

that unbearable place
where there is nothing left
to hide behind

a red silence
settles over the earth
like weather
or prophecy unkind

the old logic fails
the maps home burn quietly 
history closes its fist
and opens it again
revealing the same wound
with a different shape somehow

and still
you are the dangerous thought
i cannot exile
the spark that asks
whether love is creation
or catastrophe or cataclysm

perhaps both
perhaps that is why
i keep choosing you
at the edge of every ending
that garden of uncertainty always tending

whatever judgment waits above
we spent our measly wealth on love

summer arrives on the inside of a tired room
spring showers persona non grata 
summer sweat persona very grata

too bright
too close
too wound up with oomph

and everything feels slightly undone
the air, the hours
the idea that anything was ever simple

heat sits on the skin like fault
sticky and uninvited
and the day keeps asking questions
no one can be bothered to answer

what's for dinner?
what's the point of anything?
why does time move like this again?

cold fruit
wet hair
clothes left out to dry with clear mind
afternoons that refused present tense

just hours spilling forward
like they didn’t know they would be missed
so, if anything, wanted to leave
so their absence would be conspicuous

but nothing stays like that
nothing stays like anything

eat fruit like it might disappear if you look away
let water run where it wants
don’t correct it

walk when the light goes soft and uncertain
no destination
nor explanation 
just to be briefly unaccounted for

rewatch that film you watched in france aged twelve
with brothers and no plan for the next day
the ones you loved before letterboxd

summer shouldn't be perfect
only unguarded
better if slightly ruined
as by comparison to it all it's inconsequential
no consequence at all
all very grata

i thought i'd disappear
beautifully

not dramatically
just enough
to become the sort of person
who leaves their phone at home
and somehow ends up
remembering the names of plants

turns out
i still don't know the manes of plants i new knew
the little phone
fit inside my palm
super snug

it rang rarely
i mistook silence
for healing
until i realised
they're different things

there's something embarrassing
about standing outside a supermarket
searching every pocket
for a boots loyalty card
that only exists
inside the life
you're pretending not to have

everything lives somewhere else now
the map
the ticket
the music
the conversation
the version of yourself
that knows where everyone is
and what time they'll arrive

tossing and turning over two lives
between two futures
one glowing
one an attractively-designed swedish grey
which is most conducive to love and life?

neither one particularly honest

the thing is
i wasn't addicted
to my phone

i was addicted
to the possibility
that something
might happen

a message
a photo
a reason
to look down
instead of at that plant again

the nokia
never promised any of that

it just waited
patiently
like old furniture
or a dog
that doesn't understand
why you've stopped coming home consistently

eventually
i performed another tiny operation
sim card
out
sim card
back

resurrection
in under thirty seconds

it felt less like defeat
and more like
admitting
that the world
had quietly rearranged itself
without ever asking

maybe freedom
isn't disappearing
maybe it's answering late

leaving that thing unread
walking somewhere
without letting anyone know
unless they have your location on find my
a minor caveat

learning
that a pocket
can hold a phone
without asking it
to hold your entire life too

the brick
is still in my room

dust gathering
enlightenment far from gathered

sometimes
i pick it up anyway
just to remember
how light
a thing can feel
before you try
to live inside it

you're passionate where love is concerned
and it seems concerned almost all the time

to be known in unsupervised state
a spirit of wild exhaustive vitality
so out of sorts with society yet a part of it

arriving sideways into rooms
unconcerned by seating arrangements 
never leaving rooms either as presence lingers
finding fault with customs
but tenderness in people

you snub the script
having learned every line by heart

you’re inexhaustible
inexhaustible in kindness
inexhaustible in passion
also inexhaustible in requirements
requirements only natural you’d ask

what is affection
without expectation
what is devotion
without a shape it hopes to take
and what is love
if it asks nothing of the beloved

concerned with friends and strangers
with forgotten animals
with the weathered corners of people's lives
concerned with whether they've eaten
whether they got home safely
whether they're saying what they mean
whether they know they're cherished

the world appears to you
less as an obligation
than as a series of living claims
each one asking for attention
each one receiving

you spend yourself freely
concerningly never seeming diminished
though perhaps miracle might replace concern

and still, out of sorts with society
you remain a part of it
arguing with its assumptions
mocking its vanities
refusing its cruelties
you cut around mould 
to save what's left to be saved
yet returning each morning
to the unfinished work
of loving what is there

to be known in unsupervised state
a spirit of wild exhaustive vitality
restless, demanding, affectionate
impossible to place
inexhaustible in kindness
inexhaustible in passion
also inexhaustible in requirements
because your love hasn't been hit by caution
to want little
your style is to love passionately
passionately and selflessly and completely
for the ever and ever that fiction allows

forever passionate where love is concerned
and, in truth, it's concerned all the time

i bring you the lighthouse of alexandria
its flame still burning under centuries of sea
the silence of pompeii at the hour it stopped
ash holding shapes of where people used to be

i bring you cleopatra's last spoken word
a pharaoh's barge rowed backward through the nile
the chess set carved for a mongol ruler
a falling empire's final, gilded smile

i bring you the library that caesar burned
every page reborn as smoke and light
a samurai's blade folded a thousand times
sharpened for a war it never had to fight

i bring you the letters of héloïse
fingers blotted with ink, a lover's hand
the will of tristan riding toward isolde
the marks of love on ancient land

i bring you byzantium's fading fire
the myrtle wreaths of poets long deceased
the secret hope beneath each old desire
the final prayer before a restless peace

i want nothing grand in trade for all of this 
no empire, no crown, no hall of fame
just turn to me and say the smallest true thing
quieter than all of it and worth more than it all

vienna waltzes through the train window
it's always a waltz with this city
you laugh at something i say
or maybe you're laughing at me
and honestly there's not much difference to me

i've got a flight in the morning
a nearly empty wallet
and the sort of confidence
that only arrives when a person
has little to lose and little else to do

so come with me

not forever
forever is a strange word for strangers to use
for two people balancing paper cups
and remembering passing station's names 
only for minutes at best

just for the length of the city lights
for the dim of our footsteps
past buildings older than our mistakes
hanging on the possibility that chance
actually knows what it's doing
taking a chance on it in a way

i keep thinking about the future
not in a grand way
just the ordinary tragedy
of becoming someone else

one day you'll be sitting in a kitchen
with the radio playing
wondering about all the unopened windows
all the names that passed like those stations

i could be one of them

just another almost
disillusionment through restrained hypothetical
crossing your sky for a moment
before disappearing behind weather

so consider this an experiment
an act of rebellion against regret
a note slipped backward through time

maybe you'll find i'm disappointing
maybe i'm exactly as confused and confusing
as every man you've ever met

but at least inhibition will leave bruised

i spend silly amounts of money
in london for someone with nowhere to be

flat whites in clerkenwell
that guinness in deptford
that pair of glasses in hampstead
those two things at tesco
where the ordinarily grumpy cashier looked happy
that i was easy because
i only wanted gum and a pack of marlboro touch

walking makes you feel like you're doing something
thinking that's where anne boleyn was beheaded
and that's king Charles also lost his head

you can waste hours in a day
convincingly disguised as someone with something
anything to do
everyone’s “just heading out”
why not you?
take the tube as a treat
lime bike if an only slightly wobbly seat
or promenade through another wanky street

i pretty much always walk

across the heath in rain
where my dog still requires thorough drenching in a pond
through marylebone at dusk
along the thames when it turns the colour
of old jewellery

i dated a woman who owns a kitchenaid
and a woman with an impossible flat in de beauvoir town
full of books they haven’t read
many speak as though their real life
is about to begin
right after august
right after this project
right after they leave their partner 
a nice person who i remember works in policy

few ever leave or begin

at a garden party in pimlico
where nobody really lives 
but somehow there are bedsheets
people stand in the kitchen holding warm wine
and confess things distractedly
they’re tired
they’re cheating
they think they recognised an actor on the victoria line

then somebody puts on charli xcx

eventually it’s early morning and charli now moved to earphones
fogged windows
streetlights blurring gold over wet pavement
and you realise you’ve spent another week
circling the same desires
like desire-circling pays for that tesco shop

still, i think i want to leave
or was it begin?

directionlessness here has smell
more time to consider its signature scent
it's undertones are a late off-licence
and the something endlessly comforting
that no matter where you go to eat after
the place almost always has the same napkins

that raindrop on the tabletop 
recently hot with midday sun
summer showers come
till sitting in sweat on the overground
change of driver
even in this heat a welcome delay

no matter
nothing matters very much
and few things matter at all
arthur balfour was onto something 
when he said that 
makes big things digestible

that smile sideways undone
was it eye contact for eye contact
or eyes darting with boredom and heat

will that stay with me tomorrow?
i guess i don’t know about all that
eye contact on  the overground during a heatwave 
all one could reasonably crave

will anything stay with me?
for the ever and ever that fiction allows
whilst some things not at all

dark room crimson lips bloodied
candles burning in wine bottles
a body entangled always studied
pleasures touch found not brothels 

familiarity needs reacquainting
a taste knowing miss
forever fear risked tainting  
part lips both gently kiss

do not lose or bore
everything all lost immaterial
what i am you are your
gaining sweeter our ethereal 

on pensive edge carelessly
hold tight whilst deep we might
must be failing parlously
more gentle kiss then bite 

words feel i need whisper
no, no care for whom sees of hears
others more and apart missed her
to have lived life with fewer fears 

i’m 26
in a total funk
london's late spring light spilling through tablecloth blinds
while work is still holding its breath

my dad says he’s left
like it’s a casual verb
like it perhaps wasn't worth mentioning
and i’m outside a pub too young
watching my life buffer in real time

i call everyone
like i’m the emergency contact
like being oldest means
i inherited the role of calm voice
on the other end of the line

“are you okay?”
“is mum okay?”

no one asks
who i am
when i’m not
holding it all together

we used to throw messy parties
at university in finals week
clean shirts turning abstract
all pints and opinions and blunt comment
instant noodles turned into weapons

one song long
that’s all it took
to ruin everything

and after
noticing all the mess made by others and us
we craved the library, that regularly cleaned calm place
picking up books blind-drunk
like proof
we were fine
we remembered that tutor's suggestion
we're still on track

i keep thinking
divorce is supposed to be like that

a mess
then picking up a book to footnote
to cleanup

but no one tells you
what happens
when the song doesn’t end

the first time
i tried to hold their hands together
like magnets
like i could force physics
to work in my favour

and it worked
for a year
maybe

long enough
to believe in repair

the second time
i stopped trying
and started keeping score

who left
who stayed
who i became
in the middle of it

now it’s happening again
but quieter

no slammed doors
just distance
measured in time zones
and phone calls

my mom
goes to bed before the sun forgets her
my dad
exists somewhere a plane makes more sense as transport
just out of reach

and i’m here
pretending this is growth
because it doesn’t hurt
the way it used to

or maybe
i just learned
how to hold it differently

i don’t romanticize love anymore
not marriages
not forever

i’ve seen the blueprint
it’s full of exits

but still
i think about my wedding

will they stand
on opposite sides of the room
like strangers
who know too much

will my kids
learn love
through absence
or adaptation

will i wake up one day
in a house that feels familiar
for all the wrong reasons

still, a girlfriend
children
and a house are needed first

everyone says
it’s not my job
to clean this up

still i keep reaching
for something to fix

some shoe laces
to tie it all together

like i’m still
that child on the sofa
hands stretched too far
trying to hold
what won’t stay

and maybe this is the truth

not every mess
gets cleaned

some of them
just dry

stain
become part of the fabric

and you wear them anyway
softened over time
almost beautiful

if you don’t look too closely
and don't force love too forcefully

Journeying through life, I have found difficulty relating my experience to others. I’ve recently found a person I feel a true shared experience with. That person is a door-stop in the rehab I reside in. Not all the doorstops in my rehab, I’m not mental. Just this one, a permanent resident of the first floor, we share commonality.

I must have seen the door-stop a dozen times before he was of any interest to me.

When I first noticed him he was screaming, an ability I hadn’t known a door-stop to have. I stood staring at him, puzzled how he’d found his voice. A cherished peer caught me in this confused state, a kind young mother with the smile comparable to a person who’d refound life after a lengthy coma.

“It does that” she kindly explained, “when the morning bell goes the door-stop thinks it’s a fire alarm and joins in, it also doesn’t keep the door open”.

My confusion gave way to clarity and familiarity like reuniting with an old friend after an absence brought about by life. Here he was, my equal. A person unable to do its sole job yet adamant that it had to achieve a higher calling of saving others, the hero amongst the crowd of doorstops diligently holding their doors open.

People would pass him in the hallway, prod and poke him in the hope of calming his tiny cry but after a time and with the frustration of his refusal to do his actual job they would move on. Even I eventually had to walk away, there was nothing I could do to persuade him of change.

The next time I saw the door-stop he was silent, a new feeling of tranquil calm filled the doorway as the handyman employed by the rehab hunched over him. I watched as he skillfully worked with the internals, deploying his heaving bag of tools to calm my friend. The man replaced the batteries, reenergising my new friend before disappearing down the hall.

I didn’t recognise my friend anymore but I felt joy to see the change he had achieved. He had shown me the way, through the external help of this rehab I too could achieve my purpose. Through this process of doing the 12 steps they will ask me to choose a higher power, a being to respect as more important as myself and to strive in servitude to in hope of returning to sanity. They will ask me to consider God or those who have worked through the 12 steps successfully as my higher power.

I may choose one of these but I will hide my truth so not to show my madness. My higher power is the door-stop on the first floor.

• My friend wrote this in a rehab, he has since come to believe in God.

my mouth hasn’t shut up about you
not since the first almost
that electric pause before skin becomes language

we used to write like that, didn’t we?
ink spilling what the body couldn’t hold
fingers blotted with ink
sentences trembling with the risk of being read
now desire arrives as a notification
glowing, ambiguous
something to be opened or ignored

we swipe
as if longing were frictionless
as if heat could be generated by glass

but i have felt it elsewhere
in the quiet ceremony of my hand
finding the small of your back
in the unnoticed kindness
of a glass refilled before thirst speaks
in the way someone says your name
like it has weight

seduction is not a strategy
it's a threshold

a lip grazed by a thumb
a sentence that risks too much
i’m always thinking about kissing you

it lives in the space before certainty
where bodies hesitate
just long enough to become aware
of their own shadow

we have made everything legible
timestamps, read receipts
the autopsy of punctuation
we call this clarity
but it is only distance in disguise

because real wanting
is clumsy
inefficient
impossible to retract

it smells like skin
sounds like laughter spilling too loud
feels like time slowing its pulse
to watch two people decide
whether to fall
face and heart sore from smiling

i want the unbearable closeness of it
the moment where breath forgets itself
where the world narrows
to the inch between mouths

not the message that says “maybe”
not the silence that says “guess”
but the simple, devastating arrival:
i’m here

april, tight as a shut book
bleaches the sky of intention
desire goes feral or goes quiet
i cup it like a just-bought clementine
peel by fragrant peel

offer her a segment
this tastes good, taste it too

taste is not born
it’s learned, lifted from lovers’ mouths
whiskey, silence, a sentence that cuts
i keep what gleams
discard the hands that offered it

i want to drink what you drink
read what you read
stand quietly in rooms
i didn’t understand

you took sweetness from my hands
soppy romcoms
too-milky tea
history and talking through endings

we left with pockets rearranged

of all the jewels in england's crown
none gleams brighter 
like a flirt asking for your lighter

alone, silk and lemon soap
i cook for one
your granny's recipe
unobserved, wanting grows paths
through the mind’s wet grass

love is simple
this tastes good
take it

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asked what shape my life might wear
i slumped within the wooden chair
and sipped my bitter, golden leaf
my heart a vessel full of grief
not grief of sorrow, but of years
and fleeting joy, and mortal fears
my goal, i said, is always a game
to have faces loving me by name 
each soul a spark, each glance a fire
a mingling of all people desire

shortly came the nights wildly
where laughter swelled like summer sea
no grand event, no tale of fate 
just friends, all of it translates 
and in my shirt of rosy hue
i felt the world entirely new
vodka fresca kissed my tongue
the simple joy of youth yet sung
it’s spring we knew, and eyes alight
that night that anything might

morning brought its sober call
floor still damp, the memories small
no captured scene but vanity 
a mirror’s vain felicity 
i regretted the absence of a frame
where life had burned without a name
my father's diary, sun-bleached, kind 
held laughter, glances, all entwined
and i, whose nights dissolve to air
felt time relax a little bit there

fleeting hours, how many more might be
i’ll seize them and act the interviewee
i’ll photograph the fervent glance
the story told with every stance
not proof, not frivolous claim
just memory’s unchecked name
to live, to laugh, to feel, to say
even to let everyone there stay
a crowded room, conversation drowned
where love of all forms again found