There must be madness swirling inside me
My stomach aches
A sickly urge in the back of my throat
I imagine it whirls around in my blood
Surging through my body like morphine
It spreads to my hands at first
A tremble of my fingers slipping glass from my hold
It glitters before my eyes
i feel it travel to my forearms creeping up into my biceps
Scars reopen and red spills
My fingers now coated in crimson
Then it's clogged my chest all to fast
It's getting harder to breathe but still my lungs fill with air
Heart squeezing, ribs popping out of place
Yet my body stays the same
From there it splits in two ways
One drips down into my stomach
then pooling in my feet and weighing me down
The other creeps up my neck
Taking the oxygen from my head
It starts to spill out my eyes
In tears of panic
And i remember the ways to stay sane
None of them work now
Nothing is working now

in a Serbian hospital ward
the dingy overheads blink in and out of existence
i wished i were dead
bedside, my mother weeps
saddened by what remains of her boy
what doctors had been able to save
my eyes weigh heavy
the morphine they have me on is strong
stronger still is the pain
radiating, like heat off the hearth
and the woe from my brothers
interred in the earth
you can live
to still die
you can live, dead
but no horrors can you see greater
than the ones in men's heads

I wanted to jump
A twelve foot fall wouldn't do much harm
Would probably break a bone or two
But would save me from a bigger fall

They would put me on the strongest legal narcos
I could spend a week or two
On the recliner bed in a TV room
With the nurses just a click away
Visitors would be a major pain
But the visits would cease in a couple of days
Then they would forget
or wash their guilt with a phone call

I was tempted to jump
They would call an ambulance
With blaring sirens and nervous men
And a poor soul stuck in the traffic
Would squeeze his vehicle in desperation
To make way for the ambulance
And his friend would go
"लगता है आज फिर किसी ने jump मार दी?"

She came to me
In a morphine haze,
All mousy hair
And summer dress,
The fresh smell of air,
Her smile radiating out,
Magnetic eyes
Drawing me in.
No sinister love
Around here to be found.
I float three feet off the ground,
Hospital mattress
My monkey cloud
On which I drift.

And I drift
Into gentle vision,
Into peaceful sound.
She touches heart,
Warm hands
On ice cold block,
And she thaws me
Through this state
Of unknown fortune,
Tempts me back
Into the land of the living
Whilst leaving me,
With no uncertainty,
That when I awake
She will be gone.
She denies me the choice
Of staying here with her,
Semi-comatose
But happy, at last

Now, I have no
Recollection of her face
Though I know
She was beautiful,
I have no sense
Of her touch
Though I know
It kept me alive.
I am left with
A deep sense of love,
And that, at times,
Is enough

Copyright Marc Hawkins 2017

25 | 31 Poems for August 2017

Take me back to the day when the girl I was crushing on crushed my feelings.
I lost my smile and my confidence, everything changed and I never looked at things the same.
Sometimes I ask myself if I’m really chasing dreams or just chasing heartbreak.
Prescriptions changed but no amount of morphine could ever ease the pain.
Even though it may seem insane, I will always take pride in the scars I gain.
Take me back to the day when the girl I was crushing on crushed my feelings.
The worst thing about it all is that the guy I was compared to wasn’t even half my standard.
There were certain things that we both didn’t mean to say, but words were uttered anyway.
My hyperhidrosis is evident but in all honesty, I try not to sweat the small stuff.
Take me back to the day when the girl I was crushing on crushed my feelings.
Sometimes I ask myself if I’m really chasing dreams or just chasing heartbreak.
There is so much pain and disappointment that my fragile heart can take.
This whole thing hurts but I try my best not to let all my emotions show.

I watch how much ink
it is taking
to immortalize every inch of you,
I see my pens are wasting,
but I purge the contents of
my heart out for you.

Love is morphine for
the hole in our hearts,
do you notice how
light love feels when you
ignore the dark?
Love is morphine for
all our broken parts;

Capsize me, and
somehow,  I'll be
*less dizzy.