I thought we were more than just girls in clubs
A pastel pink cigarette I stole from your lips
Payment of my candied kiss, blown into smoke curls and pools
A picture of want
Want, need
The feeling a penny with no shoulders or head, but feathers filigree
We were models that night,
Feet sticky on the seats of culture
Lights and neurones syncopated
Beats and thunder, hypnotised.
You understood the etiquette and took the catwalk clean,
Shook hands with liquor, his woman and hers
As if bolted skyward, Polaris in view
Skunk, spit and gasoline
With only my eyes to breathe
The classical, velvetine girl that you are shouldn’t fasten your hands to my waist like that,
my mind shouted over the waves
My mouth wide and silent to let saltwater in.
If the lights had been brighter, would you have been kinder?
As I’m screaming NO would you falter?
Toxic, intoxicated
TOXIC
You are inching, inching, bristled Medusa,
And I am ITCHING, itching
You wanted all I owned
Perhaps I needed you, but I didn’t want a thing.
I thought you were home
but you were daggers and
needles and
disease down my spine
and the bruises on my lips.
p.s- I am living now, darling,
And I see what you mean.
I am mine to adore, and was never yours to keep.
Even the most breathtaking building is scuffed at the edges.
Holly Parkinson