I throw myself away so no one,not even you, can have me.Taste that on your lips, eatthe bitter fruit of my parting:I am already too far away.

When I wake from my nightmaresI’m more afraid of the breath in my lungs than whatever might be chasing me.

You have constellationsgrowing under your skin.starlight in the blood spilledwhen they stole your feathers

There are, in places, fallen angelswho in their iniquity and desolationlinger like a stranger on a foggy night,sustained by the misdeeds of city-dwellersand spurred on by bitter hatredfor their bright kin moving past them.

In my mind he is a demon and a godand I blame him, I blame him, I blame himfor the world I created on my ownas much as the one he built around me.

In May I keep count.Two and a half more days of school;five between exams.Twenty thousand words of a noveland four poems and six borrowed books.More numbers to add to counting my pillsand trying to work out how to stay awake.

I want her sinful arms wrapped around me,bloodied and angry and triumphant in shame.

Words do not come back to me easily,so I pull out my heart and wrap itin a thin sheet of paper, let the bloodseep across in stanzas of honestyand hand it to anyone who will take itso that the still-beating heart can tell themall my secrets, all my weaknesses,because if they are not hiddenthey cannot be taken and used against me.

I felt happier yesterday. I do not feel happy today – I feelabandoned and godless and brokenin a church built for the damnedwith artificial light through stained glassand warped wooden doors.