izzy

a thousand white horses ran out from under your hair this morning
turning the pillows into a pulpy mess
narrowly missing my eye
bolting straight out the window, down the street and across the sand
to turn back into sea foam and graceful crests
you rolled over quietly and kissed the outside of my eye
and the sea roared up the street
and climbed back into bed with us

*

sarah

I can feel the sadness wobbling in you like a pyramid of jelly
It’s sitting there in the throwaway jokes that I heard once before
when the world toppled over and nobody stopped smoking for a week
I can feel it purring, cat-like in your chest
nuzzling up to your heart, whispering silvery nothings
about how unloved you are, you worthless piece of shit
And I have never quite discovered the right way to say
that I’d quite like to kiss you in a corner somewhere
before the sun comes up, stretching up on my toes
breathing in your big warm smell of smoke and of skin

*

izzy

I think about taking nude photographs for my own benefit
to see what my body looks like through a more abstracted gaze
through a slightly less personal lens than my own two eyes
if I close my eyes I think I can remember your body more truthfully than mine.

there is something disturbing about the fact that we will never see our true selves
that the mirror will always distort the reflection somehow
I have looked at my face in so many mirrors
and it will still always be a stranger

*

sarah

They finally carved out what you could never slice open deep enough
peeled back those spidery lines of white to find the simmering meat
took a grater to your leg (tore a few bits along the way – slivers for the dogs)
and sewed you back up like a Frankenstein doll
left you stroking the boiled, bubbled, burnt looking flesh
with promises of alchemy, horror into gold
Violence begets violence til the summertime comes
and the wounds just melt away

*

izzy

try this one weird trick
extra centimetres of pleasure
hope I can trust you on these transaction?
become her no. 1

I got two thousand eight hundred and ninety nine dick pics in my inbox this morning
I ate too much chili and my eyeballs are sweating
I am sitting across from you making my face into a blank stare that says ‘I want you’ without really meaning it

in our otherwise meaningless lives

the future of modern technology is
this is the first lesson for travel remember
how do you even sleep?

sometimes people grow and expand like the trees do
reaching upward and downward and outward all at the same time
but never with the same kind of purpose

safety not guaranteed
batteries not included

be the change you want to see in the world

*

sarah

I watch the stone rocket across the room and hit her in the temple
Her face crumples, tears swim, lips quiver
On the opposing team, eyes roll, sighs tumble out like a slinky down stairs
I breathe in and brew another rock in my belly
Launch it out between my teeth
Another hole in one

*

izzy

I’ve been thinking about getting into heavy metal.
something about the double-kick bass, the crunch and grind of it,
the voice calling up from subterranean caverns,
the imagery of brimstone and fire, blood and demons
seems appropriate.

I hate watching people make out in bars.

I want to say you slay me.
or apply it to something specific.
like your collarbones.
‘your collarbones slay me’.

the feeling of being cut loose and drifting

Yes, I’ve been thinking about dying.
doesn’t everyone?
I’ve been thinking about how we could die at any second,
and some people see that as a challenge that you can choose to meet head-on,
and some people don’t.

the two pages permanently up on my phone right now are ‘time in Melbourne’ and ‘time in San Jose’.

*

sarah

the cry cleaves the night in two
bawls into the warm musk bedclothes
ricochets like strip lighting tick-tick-tick-boom
carves the house with ugly sound
rips through the ceiling, spiders along the wall
cuts the dot painting of indeterminate origin
and possible market value into a dizzy-faced pair
the cups rattle in the saucers we never used
like we kept them just to show how hideous this noise could be
chattering incessantly in the white cold air
we dash to the smallest room
peer between the bars of the teak-stained cage
and gaze in despair at the abyss that has opened
in the wrinkled red face of our son

*

izzy

you are your own life raft
think big
no I said ‘BIG’
I meant bigger than that
hold your arms out as wide as you can and imagine that is as far as the world goes
put your mind to work and your body out to pasture
think about how you will keep yourself afloat
when everything around you is flooding

*

sarah

patchworking my way through cast-off t-shirts still smelling of you
i plunged the needle into my forefinger, bold as brass
fireworks of white bright pain popping behind my eyes
and that strange low puckering as agony flares
my fingers remembering bored art classes
sewing fine cotton thread into the uppermost coat of my skin
laughing at the horror of the girls to my side
immune to their dread, robed in secret knowledge
playing at the woman who sits here now, spurting blood like shame

*

izzy

December 2014:
~ 99m to go
I built you a house on stilts
I covered it in climbing vines
so it would burst into flower in the spring

it seemed like a good idea at the time.

February 2019:
you’re weeping at the edge of the water
and even if there was something I could do
I don’t know what it is.

wavelets lap at your ankles
the bougainvillaea rustles your hair
the jasmine puts an arm around you
and the wisteria watches and weeps.

December 1999:
we learnt about photosynthesis today
I think it means plants are kind of alive
in a way

maybe that’s why mum talks to the roses.

February 1999:
we learnt about the Earth spinning
around the sun
I felt dizzy thinking about it

I couldn’t think of an argument to prove
that the Earth is round
without using modern technology

February 2014:
happy Valentine’s Day.

no, really.

December 2019:
~89m to go
the house has turned into
a thing entirely of its own

we really got our roots in.
the roots really got into us, too.

*

sarah

All the tears and the raging
The fear and the falling
All the aching and burning
And gnawing, searing sorrow
Have left me as whole as the day I was born
And search though I did for a crack or a burn
I found my skin taut and tight as a drum
And all that I felt as a flurry of thunderbolts
Turned out to be nothing but a bumblebee’s sting

*

izzy

when he woke, there were fronds on the pillow
he thought she had brought them in for him
a gift from the garden

but when he sat up to take them in his hands
to examine them, to marvel at the tiny leaves
in delicate strings like jewels
the fronds moved too

he put a hand to his face in confusion
and was met with a rustling mass of leaves
that seemed to be attached

he stood by the window in horror
looking to the mirror
and back out at the lush garden

he held his arms out and tried to pose
as he thought a tree would
little salty droplets running down
dropping from the ends of his fronds

when he heard her come in behind him
he was ready to turn and let his rustle
terrify her

but she came up behind him
and her fronds tickled the back of his neck

*

sarah

It was at the peak of the fever that she came to feel that English words were too harsh, too clunky to describe the jumble of belongings in the room. ‘Les petite noisettes’, she muttered quietly, unsure whether these were real words, but sure that French was the tongue to which she could turn in this time of need. ‘Les chansons per bon les mesdames’, she added, rolling the twittering syllables around in her head. She could taste the sweet thrill of good icing sugar, the brittle snap of toffee, the heady oil of hot butter. ‘Per favor dans le coterie’ dripped from her mouth and dribbled down her chin, and it was then that she gave up English altogether.

*

izzy

I’ve turned myself into a perpetual motion machine
one foot after the other, powered by the hip swing
the thigh muscles pulling knees and shins into line

spindle legs tapping along the pavements
the burn of rubber and screech of eagle eyes
as the diesel machines caterwaul past

*

sarah

Just watch me, I can do parkour like a motherfucker. See that fence? I can vault it like a gymnast. Those roofs are trampolines to my steel-sprung feet. That smoke is my staircase, those birds are my landings, the breath of spring air is my chariot ride. Fix your eyes on a star, and I’ll fetch it for you, tear it out of the sky and breathe ice out to cool it. Bring it back in my hands. Set it into your fist like you punched out a diamond. You can live in a lighthouse and wave at the sailors and your star-studded palm will steer them to shore.

*

izzy

I am a goddamn fucking unicorn and I don’t care what none of you say.
you see this?
you see this giant piece of bone sticking out of my forehead?
this is a horn.
it is magical and very dangerous.
I am magical and dangerous and I don’t appreciate you laughing in my face.
these plastic bags are filled with more than rags
these filthy clothes are their own kind of armour, and you know
you can find gold in unexpected places
if you just look hard enough.
I have made my house in this underpass, shaped this shrubbery into my shelter.
I’ve made this house a home.

*

sarah

Those were the glory days
Before we all realised that the point of kiss chasey
Was to never run too fast

*

izzy

the sounds of the street float in
slow and sexy
the sun sliding across the floor
flexing and stretching like a cat

a yell drifts up from below
poor man got a shoe to the head
sequins and silks flying out the window
don’t need any of this any more

*

sarah

Come little lamb, let me veil you with lilacs
Let me weave my fingers in the curl of your hair
Let me press my nose into the flesh of your stomach
Let me girdle you sweetly with these slaughterer’s arms

*