JiaLi

You think because I know how to be alone That I choose to stay that way forever You think I sleep to ignore the hunger That I am just pretending to be dead You think because I got used to pain That you can cut me from inside my mouth You think all this and I stay silent That is the secret, the sickness, the sin

There is a time to say "Enough" And not keep striving all in vain Tis wisdom, when the seas are rough, To sail home and start again There is a time to say "Goodbye" To part in friendship, and with love The wise do not despair and die They seek out olive trees, my dove

She has gone beyond the forest where the wild things are I linger here, besieged by trees, at night without a star No trail of breadcrumbs left to help me find the path she took Winter came without a word, and closed the storybook Empty as the belly of the wolf in granny's bed Cold asleep, I wake to weep, remembering she is dead I'd crawl inside him willingly if I could find her there Such big teeth, and yet this grief is more than I can bear

my heart is honeydew and flesh no more my lover found its pieces on the bloodstained floor she stitched it back together and I gave it her for free she put it in her pocket and flew across the sea my lover is a library of ancient books a saint who tortures poets with her tender looks we dream of sister cities though we sleep so far apart and safe beneath her pillow beats my honey-melon heart my tongue is not a bird that charms and sings my eyes are blind to what the fickle future brings but like magnetic moons shall turn the spring and summer tide surely I'll return, my love, forever to your side

Black as the liquid night, Pitiless and star-deprived, Dripping down that winter sky As if to swallow him, Silhouette and all. The only light left glistens in his hair, While night slips Oil-slick, treacle-thick Languorously and lovingly Round the neck of this statue of a man... Now his eyes are vanishing. His lips twitch. His finger on the trigger starts to itch.

O Fortune let me be the firebrand All blue and red, with blood upon my hair My legacy is the earth on which I stand A battle-cry will be my morning prayer O God don’t bend me to another’s hand The virgin saint, with snow upon her hair Is dying for a dream of some promised land As men paint pretty pictures of despair

I have a love More lovely than I've ever known And I will die Before he'll ever be mine own But he is kind And kindness seems more rare to me My loving heart   He handles it so carefully!

O lark above my willow tree Is suffering unknown to thee? You sing a song of foreign shores You beat upon these iron doors I cannot help but smile, you know The winter siege was cruel, but lo! With candle held aloft you came To warm the cheek of your old flame Peeling back the years, and one My tangled thoughts are all undone Turning o'er the page, and two The eggshell cracks: cuckoo! cuckoo! Counting down the days, and three I cannot help but smile, you see O lark above my willow tree How suffering has hounded me I'll open wide these iron doors And sing of far-flung foreign shores

My blood is a kaleidoscope It bruises yellow, blue and green I can be any colour of the spectrum All the spices of an Indian bazaar When light shines, I become a prism For you to peer through, paint new Rewrite my veins in henna Twist your story round these hands I can be the memory of who you were In the far-off, fractured Indian bazaar When light fades, we are dyed crimson Our blood, our air, our hennaed hands Passion flowers all in bloom In two weeks the kaleidoscope will turn And I'll have washed your bruise away

The Moon tonight So round, so bright! Why sleep when blessed with such delight? I'll hang it on my window pane And swear to never blink again!