the sunlight starts without me

latecomer to the morning sleeping

through alarms chasing

yellow glow well after it has turned

                                                  orange

                                        turned blue turned

                                        black
tea steeping into its strongest self

i am trying to change the way i look

in the mirror

my face is squaring

off with my body a race to an end

i didn’t see where it started
i have not been taking photos

of my changing face

because the screen won’t do it justice
angels

show up at my doorstep

they tell me i need to leave
a pilgrimage to the seaside

to find the skyline

watch the light sink

          into water

watch the water

  start at my feet

the horizon is a false finish
i have not been taking photos

of my changing face

but my camera roll is a catalogue

of melting skies

that looked better in person 
skies melting white phosphorous

one bang and two angels

telling me to leave
my dad opens a new jar of jam

and mixes it with a butter knife

so that all trace of stillness

is disappeared

one bang and expansion forever

one bang to start the race
telling me i need to leave

a pilgrimage to the seaside
little windows in the tram

walls filled with sand

otherwise it won’t know

how to stop

once it picks up speed

one bang to start a race 
one bang to start

a race with no photos

because i’m too tired in the morning

i forget during the day and

i don’t like the light of the evening

on me

          the heaviest part of the body is the chest
i don’t see where it starts

but i know where it will end
draining from where

the weight is stored

little windows in the tram

walls that spill

a secret: this vessel

is not actually that heavy

you can take it anywhere
one race track ballasted by salt and sand
sluggish sun seeping thick into concrete

tannin on a shoreline

everything exploded expansion

forever getting bigger

long shadows like aftertaste
my dad makes jam on toast

and digs right to the bottom of the glass

scooping from its seabed
the sunlight starts without me

because my chest

spends eight hours settling and

i don’t have it in me to pick it back up
i’m glad there’s ballast on the train tracks

spare sets of arms for the sleepers

because the carriages are so heavy
i have not been taking photos

i can’t look back

at beginnings
i wipe my camera lens with my shirt

every time i go to take a picture

because if something can’t be still

at least it will be crisp

burning from melting sky

one bang two angels

i know where it will end

but i’m not allowed to see it

yet 
a pilgrimage to the seaside

one bang and expansion forever
i hear the train boom and run

towards the railing

i like when the road shuts

  rest my chin on the metal

  stand at a false finish
a tower of salt sore

in the landscape

greedy to see how it ends
my eyesight has not gotten better

or worse in six years but i can’t

stop buying new glasses 
i am trying to change the way i look

back at the melting sky

without becoming a tower of salt

  sugar pink 
clouds on my phone screen

jam spread sloppy
i wake up still in deep blue

and watch the corners of my bedroom

take shape a proxy sunrise

like walking the street

on a full moon

and saying it’s sunny out
the sunlight starts without me

and it only stops

for the new moon
my dad puts the jam back in the fridge
the heaviest part of the body is the chest
i can’t think back to where it started but i know

where i want it to end expansion

forever getting bigger becoming something else
twenty per-cent of the body is the chest
yesterday i ran the train tracks fence

  closing in ringing to mark the end

of something ringing to mark

a last chance sun setting

metal snapping neck straight

i did not look back 
one bang and the shatter

of glass turning into sand