used to say
make me whole
now i say
who goes back ?
so finish this job
take me direct to what will
shatter me completely
so the night sky stops looking like that:
chipped
and explodes
into nothing
into all star

i don’t remember too much about getting raped
i guess he drugged me pretty good
i don’t remember too much: try nothing
and woke up strange to
piece together clothes I couldn’t remember and
didn’t understand why are they scattered like this
and isn’t it funny ?
i didn’t even notice a part of me had died
it took me ten whole years to allow the possibility
sometimes i think about kicking him in the balls hard enough that his eyes burst
and other times i see him quiet in front of his flatscreen
he’s watching britney spears
and i ask him: sweet my love did you get the thing you needed ?
but most of the time i don’t think about him at all :
see, the part in me that died, she got reborn
she’s a lot of fun (i think you’d like her)
her name’s Kali
thing is she just doesn’t have the time for everyone

there’s a place
at the crossroads
where everyone’s welcome
the jihadis come
pulling at their trousers
and restless of foot
ilhamdulillah
fistbump and never give up
and the school children’s
ties hang thirsty
as the Baobab
clustered round chocolate
and it’s here that love lands
cooling its ardor and
bickering like doves
over kitchen appliances
in the new Argos catalogue
and it’s where I come
making my jihad, drinking my chocolate
and cooling my ardor:
fistbump and never give up

these hills are dark
and this river
dropping down
through the ages of rock and iron
carving out her quiet bowl
has earned her place
you can smell her secrets
fierce, still
and much gets done over time
and everything earns her place

why, in the name of everything that is sweet
that is ripe
that is living
would you dream a thigh gap
when you have the other
twin peaches meeting
wherever you go
kissing over and over
whispering one against the other
remembering always and
everywhere you will ever walk
what is love

it isn’t in black and it isn’t
in any tree even on that day the first bud cracks
i’m not it
and nor is he
and the space between us isn’t
even when it’s festooned in words like bunting
it’s not in butter
or inside any tear even if it’s on the rapist’s own cheek
it’s not in thought
or in space between thought
(like that happens anyway)
it’s not in not and it isn’t in nowhere
so where is it ?
if you look you’ll see it
right there on the goat that nearly died
it’s in the line of her sister’s neck
the way it curves reaching to tuck and claim
to pull it down into her own
it’s in the ‘s’ of those necks linking
which says
you are and
i am
and we are
and this is how
we fit
and don’t you dare
ever
to let that happen
again