this is your infected umbilical, the size of a small fist,
this is the chip in your enamel from falling into the bird bath,
the crooked bone and thinned nail of dropping iron weights,
these are the golden beads creeping in your damp peppered brow
this is you a new unknown quiet, in winter blue,
you tucked, folded, curled in hummings
these are scarlet angry islands rising
coating every underbelly of your surface
this is you hiding soaking from the white summer, your rasping rattling chest
brown water and your potting belly
this is the twinge of your paddle hip between plastic pincers
this is the maddening heat of you pressing into you, clad in grey, refusing to soften
this is you scalding pink, crossing, uncrossing, shifting in the corner
your gentle sloping, slipping, your fixed twisting neck tearing and giraffed
this is you lifting lace up around swollen drying humps
flaking weary limbs
the pause…
the first hole in that lobe as you began to smoke,
the tiny diamond where your teeth caught
the white line of cutting lavender in the summer,
the second hole, sharp inhalations, iced, pressed in hairy metal hooped well
the dip in the shadow of your bottom lip and all those nights on knees in toilets after,
this is you, all laid out, sweet pink tips pressed upon the cream, the tiny prick and buzz spreading unseen midday sun
this is the shiny patch from the pan of boiling water,
the damson heath weeping above your forced smile
the tighter corner from the swelling,
the half star from the glass mirror,
you swooning, stomach knotted, buttocks pressed in clotting sauce
this is you twisting golden hair,
yanking to make rope
you shoving, a shower of glass sparks
this is the crescent at the end your brow shaped by slate wall,
the glare of orange light splashed across your face
a distant rumbling on the tracks
the pause….
clove sweat, rose trickle
your hot clammy hand hooked around windpipe
red LED blinking
this is you dragging down ancient wood chip covered over and over with emulsion
the treacle tear carpet fissure
the crick from you squeezing until it all went black,
the pause......
before clambering on all fours back
the grey thinness of really seeing,
you smoking in the dead light
dim green glare on your aching wrist
the tobacco cloud about your head smothering panicked gaze
the pause…
this is you slowly crimpling
these are your scorched veins, heathers trickling
this is you mapping channels, running just below the fullness of his moon
this is the brightness of you mouthing
the going underneath
this is your hair spread like iron soldiers along the pillow
these are your lips pursed, dry, peeling
the gulp twist as you try to draw in air
and pause…
rings on runners
the ward darkened weight of this waiting space
this is you husking
gazing at a blinking city through weary corner
this is you pressed against the wall looking out the other way
seized by laughter caving into crying
your panic as the door opens
this is your pink TIP straining
throat raw reaching
this swollen creature lingers
waits, for the trains to come,
nudging not quite here
this is you turning in the dead night, pushing at the window with salt eyes
your hot shivers
the scratch of heavy white against your powdering leg
you clawing
a weighing down of your chest
your dumb struck brittle ribs
your silent howl, shudder, heaving, coming and going
this is you here not gone
this is you yellowing
teal creeping through
the gold hoop, stuck, in the cold creases of your fingers
the smell of you drying, the heat of you struggling,
the gurgle of you going
the pause...