No one warns you.
No one gives you a way to piece it all together.
No one gives you a sign to help you navigate what is ahead.
They don't tell you that you might expect worse than you could ever imagine.
The squalor.
The smell of piss.
On the person, on the floor, on the chair.
The kitchen becomes used as a toilet because there is no way the alcoholic can get upstairs.
The piss sticks to the skin.
Dries on the clothes.
No knickers.
No bra.
No sense of pride.

From a high flying career.
Travels the world.
Makes money.
Has ambition.
The manicured nails.
Pedicured toes.
The superbly fitted outfit.
Hair fixed by a stylist.

No one prepares you for the day that is ripped away.

You believe that it couldn't possibly happen.
And then slowly, it creeps up on you.
You mop the floor, buy in food, wash the clothes, clean the kitchen...
You try and pour the booze away.
You approach the tumbler praying it is filled with juice, like the alcoholic said.
You take a smell, red wine.
And then you see the bottles hidden behind the sofa.
1 litre or 2 litre bottles of whiskey.

It is on the alcoholics breath.
It seeps out of the alcoholics skin.
You retch at how strong the smell is.

You sit in A&E whilst the alcoholic sleeps off the booze.
They wake. Blame you for being here.
When in fact they called 999 after they take a fall to the floor and are so intoxicated they cannot get up.
You are driving down the road, you see the police.
Check.
Ambulance.
Shit.
You pray it is any house but the alcoholics.
You think this is it this time.
Death has a smell.

You find the alcoholic, sat on the floor, covered in their own piss and faeces.
You cannot stomach the putrid smell.
The heart races, you go white, the police man catches your fall.
You explain who you are.
Daughter?
No.
Relative?
Yes.
Niece.

The police man is lovely and actually shows more understanding than anyone "professional" has over these circumstances.
He advices you go to the hospital.
He will take you.

He advices you this because most alcoholics, sober up and walk out.
He doesn't think she should come home.
I agree.

I sit and continue to be spoken to as dirt.
I tell the doctor I will wait in the waiting room.
A half hour passes.
The come the tears, the sobs.

The alcoholic is discharged.
No one seems to understand this is a disease.
A mental disorder.

The doctors speak to you like shit.
Like it is you who is drunk and stinking of piss in her A&E.
Even when you cry she says there is nothing she can do.

"If I could wave a magic wand."
Well, fuck you.
Fuck you and your magic wand.
Your a waste of fucking space.
Of course I keep all this locked in.

I cannot take the alcoholic home.
I can't bear it.

The alcoholic dresses in her clothes that were taken off her as they stank of piss.
They have dried and the stench is hideous.
So much so you almost vomit on the doctors feet.

Once the alcoholic is dressed.
No kickers.
No bra.

I escort the alcoholic out.
The alcoholic asks reception for a taxi.

The alcoholic leaves in a cab.

An hour later the alcoholic calls.
The house has been broken into.
Things are missing.

No the police broke it down when you couldn't answer it.
And no, you left it in such a state because you are always too pissed to know otherwise.

Alcoholism isn't just about the addict.
It is about the mess one leaves behind.
The broken heart of a loved one.
A young woman, weeping in the waiting room after being yelled at for bringing the alcoholic to hospital.

Alcoholism is bitter.
It is twisted.
It leads only to hell.
It leaves a mud slide in its wake.

Alcoholism kills.
It kills the head, the heart and the soul.

An alcoholic almost killed me.

Stick a lolipop
into the mouth of moments
your life is a child
and somewhere in there
you give a flying fuck
about the moon
and no it's not cheese.
That mouth knows what dirt tastes like
but that wont stop me from pouring caramel
and cigarettes over it.
I need a fix
of candied dirt
and addiction.
I'm not afraid of the eclipse
because I'm already addicted to the dark.
So lock the door
&
draw the curtains
&
be content.

The tide wont be knocking
no matter how much you
want it to fill the room
or how big is your sweet tooth
because
hunger
is BIGGER
and eventually
anything will do.
So thank the moon we were wearing seat belts.
Otherwise we might be vegetables
eating only exhaust
like Hiroshima
force fed the sun
because
you only make war on an empty stomach
or with an insatiable hunger.

Be content

for the civilians and thier children
who only know the taste of war.
Idiot flavored idiots with a hint of
dead mothers
that will bore a cavity so big
it'll put holes in the head
of kindergardens everywhere.
Who write their valentines on bombs.
Who's love murders buildings,
topples families,
plowing through bodies on city streets all to reach
nobody.

Be content

for the people
who aren't
you because when parents fucking in a box
you call a country means
you don't care
you put genocide on the menu
and there are some things that just wont do.
As I grow weary of rivaling chefs pointing fingers
in circles forever
becoming a porthole to the murder business
becoming the unsuspecting manhole for
the human animal's existence

in crossing.

The dead mothers would find safe shelter in the sewer
but it stinks of shit and dead bodies
like our prepackaged liberty
express delivery
to
every where.

Be content.

Because to start a revolution means living it
and what better way,
to cripple a reckless pace
that finishes first in hunger,
starting fist fights with other people's lives
and forgets even sooner,
than
to
be
content.

It's been a long while
but I've no trace of time.
I'm covered in brown mud,
piled over with rusted red leaves.

I lay at the foot of, what now,
is an old friend.
It's not easy to get much sunshine
the large Oak's roots are what both isolate and keep my company.

I'd been loved a long while
but that story is an old life lived
a memory that became a fantasy--
Time stretched until it's bonds broke.

They tried to recover me,
for a short while
for something that seemed like commitment
at such a young and impressionable age.

They hunted in and out of trunks of the large Oak's home
Never to find where I lay;
embedded in October's leaves.

Yet, distance didn't make the heart grow fonder
I'd been lost and long forgotten
at the brink of dusk,
at the ring of a more warming love.

They came back,
once or twice,
to test the shaded wood,
the darkened dirt.

They came back until leaves covered me eye-high.
If they were still yelling for the track of my presence
I could no longer hear them.
Even if they were still scouring these built-down woods,
I could no longer see them;
allow them to catch my eye.
Even if they still loved me
I could no longer feel them
covered by cracked dirt,
and crumpled leaves.

The roots had become my lover now
grown to hug my rounded hips--
my heaping dirt-covered smile.

The wind doesn't play with me much
only to allow for a sweeping kiss of leaves,
or to pick the coat from my back
to go to a better cause;
the warming of a seed--
that tiny Christmas Rose.

So I quit listening
long after I quit looking--
looking for the boys that had once loved me.

Only then did he come--
sticky handed, dressed in metal,
and armed to save a princess.

Part way through his enactment,
poking swords at my Oak
demanding the emptied branches release his Rapunzel,
I saw him catch my rounded edges
I almost didn't notice
until I looked back up into those adventurous eyes.

He knelt, still much more gigantic than I
even at his youngest age
and plucked me so easily from my big Oak roots,
wiped dirt from my body
slowly and softly;
like I was new found treasure--
Like I was the gold every child hunts for in their own back yard.

He ran his rough thumbs on my edges
never lifting his eyes from his fingers on that short walk home.
He rinsed me clean
wondered about my own stories.
Then dusk came,
I was tucked warm under his protection
under that imaginative mind,
and the boy made me his own.

I have often turned within my grave to ponder of the reason why
Upon the date of my birth, you took me to your secret hide

Underneath an aspen tree within the deadest of nights
You took to me like a moth to a ball of flickering light

With the devils own smile plastered upon your face and the slightest of hand
You produced a sanguineous jar of hearts and an ominous jar of black sand

You grasped my hands in your work enured and  fairly calloused paws
Looked me in the eyes, and told me to forever leave my pale hands raw

"Never soil your untouched hands, your hands and eyes you shall avert'
"Never bruise, nor ever hurt, nor shall they be ever touched by dirt,

"Never touch a rose, nor touch a bee, as danger is an all you see,
"Close your eyes my little darling, and all of life shall be but a dream."

With the trust of a mothers child, I kept my eyes tightly squeezed
Wished upon the star within the midnight sky, wavering in the breeze

Held my hands up to my chest, hoping the fluttering and staggered slips
Not to be seen by your face within the light of moon as from the sun it dines and sips

Of a heart that had only once been given to me and should have forever stayed mine
But the greed inside all mens' hearts want, and reaches out to grasp a young new 'hind'

With another slight of those calloused hands, you took my life for your own pleasure
And stole what was rightfully derived as mine; a beating heart, you took your leisure

A working mind, once a clock, now fully had come to a skidding stop
You took my bones and my teeth and used them as a fertilizing crop

The very worst thing that you did, you took my pride when you took my skin
Shaved off clean with a diamond edged razor and worn as if you were mockeries twin

Burried underneath that beautiful aspen tree, I've been given the time to remold
But my life had been stolen, the soul forced out before the bells had tolled

In the time it had taken for my pieces to remold, I had realised something then and there;
There were always things that were meant to go untold, but the truth is ringing upon the open air

You wanted more than what was offered and had bitten off all you could chew
But if I'd known back then what I know now, I'd know real good men only come in few

She's waiting
with that lipstickless pout
her cat Léon
a "charmant" 2 bedroom apartment
and a once envied reputation
now deservedly sullied
and only getting worse.
Friends tell you she's got
rougher
sullener
dirtier.
She's waiting
at a sidewalk café
table wobbling on the cobblestones  
carafe, glasses of wine
balanced precariously  
while she argues about everything
and laughs
with old friends
new friends
and the stubborn ghosts
of those dead or gone.
You can still taste her mouth
that warmth
a hint remains in your wet
almost spongy inner cheek flesh
probe it with your tongue -
cigarettes
rosé
late afternoon sun.
Her face ever immaculate
yet always foundation-free
a lesbian's wettest dream
no make-up grazes staining
anybody's Yves Delorne pillowcases.
When you fucked
you could often hear
next door doing the same
will she still whimper
when you make love
and get up to pour herself a glass
immediately after finishing?
When you step out together
later that afternoon
will you feel as though you
have somehow
deliberately opened a door
into a dogeared postcard
or Truffaut film?
You know she's deceitful
runs to her own schedule
and clearly always had an expiry date
in mind for you two,
one she always kept
to herself -
"Those questions aren't
for asking, on verra..."
The cat has a tendency to yowl
at inappropriate moments
you wish she had a dog instead
or maybe just a goldfish
(there's enough dogshit
on the streets already).
Her apartment will still
smell of stale cigarette smoke
her perfume
and the geraniums in the window box
and she has asked that you stay
for the full two weeks
(sentimental, unable to resist
taking old lovers back in).
Will she beg you not to leave
burn your passport
in the stained enamel kitchen sink
while you take a shower?
Or will she quietly close the door
behind you as you go -
suitcase in hand
your eyes turned
pricking
away?



- - - -

It rains and rains.
Day after day.
Night after night.
Water falling from the sky.
Soaking the floor below.
Washing up the dirt.
Confining people to their shelters,
Giving them time to think.
Are there thoughts meaningful or not?
They are in fact theirs to own,
But do they bore themselves?
And the rain suggests this meditation.
As the sky leaks,
Covering the plants,
Giving them life,
While the birds bathe,
And the mushrooms flourish.
Yet, people still think only of themselves.
They dont wonder abnout the birds,
Or the mushrooms.
They worry about vanity.
They worry about relationships,
Retirement, family, health, sports.
They do nothing but worry.
But few can appreciate the rain
Few can let their mind at ease
Listen to the droplets,
And not worry.

Take the back roads to the warehouse yard,
Where all the shits stored.
After a couple of rights, your there.
Some people may call it the epidemy of scum.
I call it paradise.
I walk in smelling rotten wood,
And some fat kids lunch.
Passed the ripped couches,
The 12 year old television,
The pool table that was missing 3-4 balls,
And up to the register.
There was a big man with a tank top,
He took our money,
And gave us our wrist bands.
I took my board and climbed up the first ramp i saw.
Drop in.
I passed the half pipe, the sticker wall,
The fun box, the stairs, the roll in...
I pump up the next ramp.
This side of the park smells like pot.
There are fewer fans,
Its hot...
Everything is moist from the precipitation
My board slides with ease
All the ramps are covered in dust.
Dirt gets on your wheels,
Your hands turn black.
I dropped in again.
The speed cools me down.
I skate till the sun leaves and the owls come out.
The staff starts to bring out lights.
Bands unpack their gear.
The music starts, followed by mosh pits.
And i just keep skating.
I land a trick I've been attempting all day.
I decide to take a break and listen to the show.
They're all scum and today, so am I...

i found a strand of your hair
tangled in my bed sheets
drowning in the ocean we once sailed on
lost

the cardigan you wore
hangs on thin wire in my closet
moths feast on pale pink fabric
and pretend they are butterflies

we planted seeds in pots of dirt
making promises of daisies with calloused hands
only for flowers to wilt
when their parched roots were forgotten

a locket laid on your chest
chain links of cold steel locked to your neck
weighing down where sanity meets
it's tainted vessel

frames hold glimpses of smiles
tucked into neat postures
we held for days
ignoring the tired burn of weakened muscles

stale coffee in chipped cups
staining brown rings at white bottoms
when left unwashed
for clear tall glasses of haziness

butts of cigarettes in pools of grey ash
where fumes were inhaled and exhaled
for clean lungs to breathe
and moist tongues to taste

through touches of soft bed sheets
wilted flowers and coffee mugs
i hear footsteps on front porches
bringing breathy whispers of redemption
fingers like branches reaching for gentle warmth

new frames to be bought
chains to repair
beds to be made

found