What am I? I am a microcosm of every person and thing I’ve ever loved and respected.

I was nine when I met my best friend. She had moved from the tropical heat of her Queensland home into a unique suburban Sydney house that was enclosed by bush and river. We spent time by hanging off the clothesline, spinning until we both decided to be brave enough to drop into the dirt mound below. We s...

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He is my apricot dream

a mass of chestnut curls.

His jokes are his secrets masked.

I think about him more often than I don’t.

He is the kindest thing that’s ever happened to me

and the nicest thing I’ve ever done for myself.

He makes me so happy I feel guilty.

He makes me so content I feel nervous.

I wish he would make my bones into wings.

He found the buried doubt and d...

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I saw the trees veins

I tasted the sap.

I held it all together with my teeth.

I suppose I sound like your uncle right now,

the one that lives in the tent in the red

you found naked and proud

all loose skin tucked into underwear

a cigarette bourbon haze of defeat.

Suppose I am him.

I found the best part of me

kept it for you

made sure it came back clean.

I saw he...

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I took three tabs of acid and my friends watched in horror as I vomited on the carpet.

The trip lasted for fifteen hours and for twelve of those I thought I was going to die.

You told me strength comes from suffering, but I think you meant enduring, or

surrendering. When I stare at railway lines, I am hypnotised, they dance and their

fingertips grip, I am so good at making the city bre...

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When I met her I called her new girl.

New girl rises with the sun

sleeps with the sun

sun kissed but never seen sun burnt

the sun turns to face her.

New girl glides naked along the surface of the river,

her skin like a glistening emerald

her wide eyes shine in the night like

Japanese anemone.

New girl dances in grocery stores.

New girl, with freckles like constellatio...

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The sabbath starts, the week ends,

I didn’t reach heaven but I feel holy.

In my own grace, I wonder

how long it will take to get there again

and will I ever.

I ruined today by starting it,

yet the sky opens, splits the yolk,

I let it baptise me in strengths

I did not know I needed

or existed.

Lilac bleeds through the trees,

I push apart the roses with

my eyes cl...

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1) Keep your inhibition for inside your home. Go outside dressed in intimidation.

2) Assume everyone is dangerous. This shouldn’t be hard; it was taught before

you understood why it had to be done.

3) The threat is known to wear your brother’s cologne.

4) The threat makes you feel like your first love did, brittle and indestructible.

5) The threat is a paradox.

6) Status, positio...

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When I used to think of a future,

I would think of rotting teeth,

of my mother’s mannerisms,

how my father is unreachable even a chair apart.

When I used to think of a future,

I would think about the Winter you moved into the spare room,

I would hear you unlock the door

long after the Autumn you left.

When I think of the future,

I see all the shadows I outgrew,

all th...

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You made the lines clear when you asked

if I was sleeping with other people

after we had just slept together.

For some reason I didn’t answer.

That night you came from your brothers boxing match

to get drunk with me and the British backpackers

and we ended up in the gutter,

you in my lap,

your face in my palm,

you had worked eight hours that day

and still found time t...

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The Summers spent at the river as teenagers,

hauling drinks and inflatable beds

down the hill, in the thick air that smelt

like a warning sign.

During the weeks the bush fires came close to home,

I still found a way to convince you to let me off the hook

for smoking a cigarette amongst the dry,

cicada ruckus

pierced through talk of the nights plans.

Two Summers ago,

w...

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At fourteen my older sister and I barricade the bathroom door with our bodies.

Our mother is on the other side.

I am a fervid pulsating mass, my sister, my Aegis, my voice of reason,

tells me to hold my breath and count to thirty.

At nineteen, I fall into obsessive desire

for a boy who told me that he was scared that I wouldn’t want to be with him

when I figured out how to be hap...

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She said 37 words in fifteen seconds on the start of the drive home. 37 words in fifteen seconds. I don’t know what she said. I was too busy counting. She says I live inside my head. I don’t think she understands the irony. 37 words, she wasn’t even breathless. I don’t know if it was an attempt to fill the silence or if it was her way of closing the distance between us by opening it, or she was si...

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Father told me, when i was young, that his mother told him ‘if you can fit pinky to thumb around your wrist you are too thin’. When I managed to grasp my arm half way up, pinky to my thumb, I saw success. It’s hard to see sadness when you are sick. Mother taught me forgiveness was not earnt, but expected. So, when you lied to me I knew what I was to do next.

         The cathedral was o...

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When I close my eyes I see the sun rising over the ocean. I see a succession of cars. I hear you laugh. I see knives in the flesh. I see fireflies surrounding your body. I see endless trees and a forest I have never known. I see barbells and birds. Lots of birds. I see the moment you decided to give up, I see you vomiting in the toilet after taking the pills.  I see you telling me you thought the ...

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When I was two years old my mother each morning before starting  work, while juggling ironing a shirt, a toddler and another toddler  would set up a table with paints, and, crayons and various styles of brushes, and a single A4 piece of. One day, she recalls, I stopped writing and cried out ‘I can’t get out what’s in my head on the paper’.  This moment, to my mother, illustrated something profound...

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Today my friend buries her mother in a coffin she has painted by hand. Today my friend's father tells her that she has taken on too much responsibility in the matter. She tells me he made her feel like she did not have a choice. Today I will get my hair cut. Today by mid day my friend will have buried her mother. My friend is only twenty four. Her daughter is two. I ask my friend how she has been ...

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My father asks me if i am lonely 

I cannot bring myself to tell him 

that I always have been. 

I find the wickeness to let him know

that I feel the most lonely when he speaks to me.

I do not think lonely describes what it is like to be 

without you in my life.

Father, I am lost. 

Father, I have become too familiar with this ache.

Father, I know that what I had with ...

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Where do the prettiest parts of me now reside

when they have been left inside of you.

The days linger longingly

the nights sprawl like a setting sun.

Sleeping alone is like sleeping next to you.

Remember when I cried, and you saw it 

and you decided that you didn't.

I am not above admitting

that I cannot deny 

when I was with you 

I was miserable

yet I was so happy...

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I am my mother's tethered umbilical cord

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Now and again

I have to remind myself

that shopping in the kids section as an adult

wasn’t an achievement.

But, when he hugs me

happy

he can wrap an arm around me

and I fit inside.

I am proud. 

I have to remind myself

that going to sleep with a belly that begs

does not mean I have won. 

I have to remind myself,

that hearing my heart

does not mean that I am...

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The past reverberates through me in the present

stains my clothes pungent.

At fifteen, a boy stole the solace of the dark from me

in his bed

with his hands.

Now when he touches me,

he must keep the lights on.

In sleep the past has me,

travels upwards, claws at my throat

and I cry out

for the dark to let me in.

At twenty, the boy who stole the solace of my...

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