Mrs Brown comes every Tuesday,

To pick up her daisies.

Two pounds and a kiss to pay

me in pursed fees.

I wrap the stems in paper,

smile but wipe my lips after.

It doesn’t offend her

she redoes her cherry red in laughter.

She leaves the shop,

Bell ringing her goodbye.

I don’t know that her kisses will stop,

No pennys for time to buy.

A lady died on the corner of the street,

My mum told me when I...

I stand on the edge of my passing. I saw a murder you know, same time as I saw a woman give birth on the other side of the curb.

It was horrid looking baby, bright blue and lame, only good thing was it didn’t scream for the first few minutes, I’d been thankful of the silence. Miss Moore looked happy with her baby, and so I was glad. She was airy, wan young girl of a rich father, and she’d had it ...

Pockmarked walls dint pockmarked faces of our young. Nobody is talking. Nobody wants to.

They sit beside eachother for an hour, but don’t utter a word. Doesn’t the caged sing?

The girl with the full ponytail and jutted jaw wiped her hands over her laddered tights, quelling the sweat and swear words. The boy spreads his legs wider as he sinks further into the plastic chair and it creaks with th...

I think about the man I met on the street.

Toothless, he smiled still, through the popped collar of his trench and chapped lips stuck inside dry gums. He was nice to me at the bus stop, sat two abreast chilling on the dead plastic and inside the bell jar to wait for the number 10.

“I’m sorry,” He began his introduction with an gingerly apology, palms grouted in black grime as he later them befor...

I am happy.

I am, I am, I am.

I am happy because.

Don’t I look happy?

If you tell me I should be happy,

Then I am.

If you tell me not to be sad,

I will never touch it.

I have seen what it has done to you.

Does it hurt to touch?

Flesh dried to husk and heart worm-eaten.

Still, it is mine.

My heart is mine and so is my sad.

I am happy because it is mine.

Am I not?...

Inside a held breathe,

I wait till the next applaud.

The thunder will come again,

So, I will hold the air in lungs hung like dates till it comes.

I think He’s talking to me.

In sounds so loud,

It comes out of Him as a whisper.

I hold my breath so I can hear him.

I wait for his round of applause,

Clap of thunder and smile of lightning.

He wants me to like it.

And so I’ll clap my hands, too.

Aga...

I had only wanted to drink wine.

Red or white? Both displeased me. I suppose I liked the way how red would stain the glass as I swirled it around my chapped wrist. It would bloody my fingerprints and smear them down the neck and I would smile. I’d lost the tour guide before I could take a sip. Standing at the barrel of red white on tap, dripping like molasses into the dirt under my big-tongued bo...

I don’t suppose I’d know you were gone,

If you had never been there in the first place.

I’d place you as an emptiness in my heart,

A swinging hammock with no one pushing it,

Heartstrings not to be played by its minstrel.

I don’t suppose I’d have a reason to sing,

Nor know that my heart could ever beat faster than rest.

It would only beat that way for you.

But I suppose I’d never know that either,...