Terrorist Sympathiser

You have my sympathies if you load bullets into a Kalashnikov

Instead of your children into photo albums

You have my sympathies if you down bottles every night

Because they are needed for a more volatile kind of cocktail

You have my sympathies if you can no longer passively resist bullets

When they snatched your crying baby and held it down under the water

Until both your screams were silenced

And you were asked

What kind of mother would stand by and do nothing

And you replied

The soldiers were coming, and I had other children

You have my sympathies

When the boat capsized and you cursed the merciful and compassionate

For blessing you with three children but only two hands

You have my sympathies

When the bomb exploded under the truck in front of you

And you stumbled bleeding back into the barracks

Only to find the faces of your dead friends staring back at you

In the bathroom mirror

And with a fine toothed comb you scrape them out of your hair

And package them in matchboxes for their mothers

And when what’s left of you sits cold outside the high tower and you hear the clink of ivory cups as they swill blood and repeat the old lie,

It is good and noble to send someone else to die for your money

You have my sympathies

The most Dangerous Man

I am the most dangerous man in this room

I tick all of the boxes

I am young

Straight

White

And happily assigned by my doctors

If I get old I will be even worse

Because old white men are destroying the earth

I am the soldier pinned down in the plaza

And I build the tanks they throw stones at in Gaza

I am the racist that fears immigration

And I cut the legs out from his education

Make no mistake I am a vehicle of imperial hate

And it’s not beautiful or natural if I use a toy to masturbate

My sex is base

I’m an animal salivating

Dominating you is an expression of power

If I marry you

I become more likely to kill you than any stranger

I might walk you home

But I am the danger

If this disgusts you

And makes you cry out

#wellnotme

If enough of us say that then one day it won’t be

But right now

I am more likely to be killed by a man like me

Be it murder or suicide

When men don’t care

And boys don’t cry

It’s not just our victims who die

Space

When I do press-ups I feel as if I am clinging on for dear life as the planet spins through the void

Fingernails dragging canyons through granite

And when I stand at the shoreline and breathe deeply it’s not the moon that moves the tides

 When I do squats I feel as if I am Atlas holding a bowl of water full to the brim

As I shift my weight ripples spread out and islands shake

But it was a lot worse when I dropped it

I couldn’t do anything for Pangea, it was fucked

I collected the broken shards and cut my hands open forging them into new lands

When I read at night, my fingers trace the pages and these whispers spill out into the wind

I’m known to get carried away by a good book

You were a difficult baby

You kicked and screamed and cried at night

But when I hung a starlight mobile above your cradle and told you stories of the things that lived there

You slept

I never dreamed you’d use it to light your way across the seas

You’re pulling away from me now

As all teenagers do

It’s natural

You’re less interested in my old stories

And it’s amazing watching you make your own

I’m giving you

Space

But you can always find me if you like

At the edge of the world and the depths of the wild

Mountaintops and waterfalls are always a safe bet

We don’t have to talk

It’s enough to know you’re there

Magnets

We are not Romeo and Juliet; we know how that story ends

We are not Orpheus and Eurydice, but if you back you will see me

We are not Harry and Hermione; she’s so much cooler than Ginny

We are not Prince Charming and Snow White

Or Prince Charming and Sleeping Beauty

Or Prince Charming and Sleeping anybody

Or Prince Charming and Cinderella

Not Edward and Bella or

Jacob and Bella’s unborn Baby

Not Carly Rae Jepson

And the man who never called her maybe

We are not Kanye and Kanye

I sing no River Songs for you

Fiction can’t contain our love so Science will have to do

We are magnets and gravity

The fuel of burning stars

We are quantumly entangled

And you’re always in my heart