I gave up on humanity,

looked for succour in the language of birds,

in their comings and goings to a nest in the trees.

I watched how they gathered

the smallest things. How their weaving made circles.

I began to see how one stem could fit with another,

each fibre a memory in its proper place

and this damaged self learned how to build, learned

the uses of a beak. I was a creature among creatures

beginning to know the stillness of forest ways.

No judgment, no shame, and water, like a sanctuary

was always running, always knew where it was going.

I gathered birchwood branches,

like time in no particular order, from the chaos

of bark, tied each one piece by piece. It took

patience. This easing of curved bark,

this tying and retying, over and over is how

I loved myself again, reordering the tricks

of time, conjuring survival.

Some days, I was tempted to make fire, burn

everything and disappear forever, surrendering

to a stolen future. But hope was

another kind of flame. In daylight, I considered

the uses of vengeance. At night, I fell exhausted

into nightmares but my own feathered nest

was waiting each morning, just as I had left it.

Something to take hold of. Another use for my knife.

A GIRL IN THE WOODS

I make myself clean in the forest,

I brush my arms over the ferns.

It’s better when it rains and

the forest is sighing with damp.

It holds water like a sacrifice.

I give it blood. It holds blood.

The trees give me their silence,

always there, under the moon.

I walk in the forest until my lungs ache.

I walk fast, up bouldered paths. I lose

The way. It’s better like that, losing

your way. No hope of being found.

There’s nothing to lie in the dark

waiting for, biting your lip. Nothing

to wait for and want, so it’s over and

done with. Nothing to be blamed for.

You don’t have to be clean, or worry

how you look. You can get clean there.

You can lean against the bark of a tree

and make yourself clean. No-one sees.

Muddy girl in the woods, painting it red.

And leaves make good bandages.

You fix them like a bracelet. Fix them.

Fix everything. No-one ever needs to know.