Kassi-Kamira

Pulmonary movements within a fractured skeletal cage have a little-girl-soul bleeding from her nail-beds and climbing drystone walls, leaving little daggers embedded in the gaps. Tiny gasps of pain echo up the dark cylinder with murky water at its bottom, the gasps slowly fade, then accelerate. Wispy tendrils float upwards in a viscous charcoal fluid, sediment swirling around narrow limbs weighted by fabric and rubber soles. The sounds echoing are splashes now, accompanied by soft gurgles like a happy child waving his fat little hands in the air, as he grins up at you and blows a bubble.

Barely conscious, the sensation of fingers through my hair - weaving phantasms and daydreams through the strands - is soothing, making my eyelids flutter infinitesimally, dreams I can describe but never share wandering across the dark panels like a projection theatre. There are stars and velvet lingering just outwith my reach, a raze of fingerprints over rose-petals comes away heart-stained, and the world is narrow, the universe spinning into a blur around it, making the stars dizzy and love-drunk, shy and drowning in their deep green sea, the one that’s reflecting tornado skies. Bodies are still. My sleepy fingers brush across jagged

 Yours is the orbit I follow. - - - - - - - - - - The pressure on the brittle unsnapped bones of my skeleton as I sink in the watery depths of the pitch-black navy that lifts my hair threatens to crush the slow breaths I take to calm myself. There is salt and pitch pouring into my lungs, dragging me into a freezingly warm embrace that leaves jellyfish floating gently upwards in my wake and I leave my eyes open to watch the night sky swim by me in a shoal of flashing silver. There is acid burning paths across my skin and down my throat as I let words and silence commit themselves to engage in scherma and escrimé with one another as they piv

Take each breath. Live.

 Dear... The sunlight is falling in lines across my bedroom floor as I twist my pen across my fingers, trying to decide what words to write to you. Normally it would never have occurred to me to write you a letter, but thanks to the internet and a friend, the idea has been planted firmly in my brain, and it refuses to vacate the premises until I have successfully put pen to paper. As we both know, letter-writing seems to be a dying art - particularly those that are handwritten. I remember the day(s) that you waxed poetic on the sorrows of the loss of non-typed correspondence, and wished that more people would write and post letters to each

 There is nothing quite so beautiful as watching shards of rain cut through the haze of the pollution that litters this air, washing away every intricate speck of smog and letting me see the nuances between the everyday and its replacement. Seeing the pearlescent droplets settled on my lashes, and through them, watching your distorted image shift in the singing wind, following the beat of the rain's pitter patter as you twist and sway, your arms waving like a flag in the wind. I'm watching you but I don't see you because the rain is drowning my senses, leaving me spinning in circles trying to decide which way is up, and the music and silence

 Dear Stranger, You don't know me. And I don't know you. Maybe it's better that way. But then again, maybe we would be happier if we did know each other. Right now, I'm sitting at my desk, with the sunlight streaming in the window, writing this letter for you. Hopefully I'll finish it by tonight, so that tomorrow I can take it to the coffee shop on the corner and drop it on the floor, or in your lap, or maybe in the lap of the person next to you so they can give it to you...because they don't seem like the type to read it, so they'll obviously just pass it on. I like music - except terrible rap. And I love the written word more than most,

 Dear... I know you intimately yet not at all. I know that your love of the written word is unfathomable to everyone around you. I know that your favourite colour is purple, but that there are two shades that you can't decide between: a deep, rich hue reminiscent of a Parisienne boudoir...and a soft tone somewhere between lilac, lavender and violet. I know that your favourite flowers are orchid, jasmine, rose and frangipani, in that order, but that lavender is your favourite scent other than lemongrass; and that frangipani is only on that list because it was your first his' favourite. There have been more him's and he's now than I care to c

 I wanted to kiss the tears from your eyes, but you beat me to it by kissing me instead. It started raining and I couldn't tell the difference between your tears and sky tears anymore, but it didn't matter to either of us because our hair and clothes were clinging to our flesh, trying to evade the downpour [I still don't know which one] and tangling themselves together. We lay in the grass together, watching the stars dance and stumble. I asked you why they were so dizzying and you told me it was because they were drunk, but you wouldn't tell me what they'd been drinking no matter how much I pleaded with you. Your price was a kiss but I coul

 I'm watching the sun set on the footprints you left in the sand and snow, waiting for them to fade as the waves crash over the grains and the crystalline powder melts into the soil. The tide is coming in, slowly covering my toes, my knees, my waist, my ribs...drowning me, suffocating me, crushing my lungs as I gasp for air that will not escape me. I wish that when the tide rose, it would rise further than three feet, because it only barely manages to caress my jaw as I curl in on myself, burying my limbs in the sand and salt. Your footprints are lingering, the snow isn't melting and the waves aren't crashing. Instead they're sneaking up on