An Ode to my Cubicle (An Office Haiku)

The grey walls are bleak
They are most suffocating
I cannot see past.

Numerous dog shots
Adorn their hollow outsides
They are so ugly.

I comfort myself
at least there are no pictures
of kids with big grins.

Pieces.

I am always fascinated
by those girls
you know the ones
they wrap their heads in bows
their ribboned crowns
like fruit hampers on
Christmas morning
only to disappoint the men
who open them.

I am always repulsed
by those men
you know the type
who crumble puzzle pieces
a breaded trail, behind them
they are waiting
for someone to pick them up
rather than follow
them back home.

I am always bewildered
by anyone
you know the kind
who are waiting for to strip
back their obvious layers
salty pearls welling up
in the rim of their eyes.

If I wanted to unravel something
I would buy a ball of yarn.

Bedtime Stories.

There is blood on the moon.

My mother told me once

murder would reign 

on the same night

souls would be snatched

by a murder of crows

like ripe grain in the fields

plucked like heavy fruit 

on a mulberry bush

they would leave only a hollowed husk,

a rosy puddle

of the person who stood there.

My father used to swing me 

upside down to bed

It made his eyes crinkle

a paper bag, under foot.

He feels the warmth from the

people before him 

though they have been

cold and buried for years

He always looks concerned

even when he's laughing.

My grandmother is afraid of crows

She tells me they signify 

the sudden and

unexpected death 

of a close family member

should they roost

in the trees of your home.

She likes to wave her hands at them

from her balcony

and curses in another tongue.

She prays a lot.

I wonder

if it would be better

for a long and expected death

to take place instead of the one

the crows bring.

But I realise the long and 
expected death is life

Both will end the same.

Ghost.

Dark thumb prints alternate

down your rib cage as 
engraved shivers,

It's where I held you.

Skin erupting in a web of fingers.
It's where I held you,
outside of myself.

They, they, they
will feel my fingers intertwined

amongst yours.

They, they, they

will brush against my invisible hand

clutching the inside of your arm.

I hold, steadfast

A gypsy curse cast from the runes

of my womb.

This year without your day

It makes me feel sick

I am drowning in the kitchen sink.

Consume and demand.

Let's compare scars

I can pin yours on my lapel for all 
the world to see.

A diamond mine, an empty cart, a finger 
to the spindle.

Sharpened hat-pins and dusty rib-bones,

pockets laden with rocky lead,

Narcissus in the river.

Perhaps we'll peel the skin back

and expose what lies beneath

Ruddy train wrecks

Bloody track marks

A triumph! A glory!

An empty joyless trophy

A toothless hollow smile

An ugly second face.

Paint me on your drapery,

cupped in the cool of a porcelain hand.

A ventriloquist's puppet,

A collapsed flame.

Wooden legs in rubber ribbons.

soft hearts bound with electrical tape,

tapping softly against the drain.

I keep waiting to dissolve.