Depression

You could cover my bones 
in your skin
and make me real
but I would caution you against it.

there was a voice in the distance 
somewhere last night.
somebody happy.

why does it feel like being told
you need to go to sleep?
the rain has again crushed the flowers,
the wisteria now colourless.

no one will remember this.

and if you touch my skin 
you will burn.

Drive

The first time, I couldn’t remember 
why I had gotten into the car.

the trees had always been waiting. 

I would drive like this every night 
across the paddocks,
accelerating as I neared them.

I would always brake or turn away,
crying,
knowing I was not ready

and that one night I would drive 
until I forgot you.

The Drunk

The glass always refilling 
and fracturing his life.

everyone gone, 
the light and the hope of light 
growing increasingly distant.

sitting alone and retreating further 
from the world.
drinking endlessly 

as if one day 
it would make him well.

Overexposure 

I am finally ready 
to show you 
my body.

how I destroyed 
something beautiful 
to create it.

your hands 
folding me slowly
as if my skin was an hourglass,

and each falling grain 
the stroke of a knife 
slicing only deep enough 

to be remembered.
as if the glass bulb below 
was your windpipe,

the streams falling 
from your tongue 
and into your throat,

swallowing, when you say 
the blood is supposed 
to be on the inside.

Get Spur here.