Games in the abbey
you made yourself out of the plaster
that had thrown itself off the edge of that ceiling.
when the walls held their breath
you would collect the nails they spat out
and repurpose them into a smile.
maybe the rust lodged its way into your gums over the years
but you were too busy giving CPR to the skirting board
to feel your face rot back in response.
of course a ruin doesn’t recognise itself in the mirror.
but you smiled anyway.
you smiled until you smiled back
until your lips became a see-saw
stringing tyres to your eyelashes
and we were always told not to play in the abbey,
but suddenly we are having picnics with the ghosts in your spine
and making daisy chains with the hair on your knees
and doesn’t it make you sting
to feel around your own body from the inside
to swallow what’s left of the ones that lived here before.
For a heaven
you crystallised your pride and let me borrow it for the summer.
it’s in my pocket when I swim to your door
you tell me to leave the schematics of my shame on the street
because tonight you are the invention.
I plug myself into your sockets while you make love to the sky
and this is where I learn
that to heaven is more than to exist.
then I loved you until my voice bled
I let it stain the floor, so that when my words grazed my throat
I would taste home.
we digested the saffron songs of our lonely kitchens
in the stomach of those walls
because those nights, we are those walls
our ribcages frame the photos of everyone you unshackled from the tide
and nothing could drown us.
Flight of the dragonfly 