in my father’s car, father driving, my fingers curled as if readying themselves for the wheel.  father small talking, his dark chatter, my hands like jaws left open, horrified before the heads god plans to put them in.  heads not to scale.  heads trial size.  

I worry the heat in my eyes is permanent.  my lids worry as well and retreat.  burn pain is its own person telling me I am long term its most bearable memory.  

the hospital seems a distant campfire lowered by the sleepy laughter of the still beautiful.  my daughter.  who as a girl melted the faces of two action figures with the bulb of a reading lamp not to upset her brothers but so the figures could kiss.  

I begin to make sense all by myself and nod to the dog shaped thing drowsing in the car’s murk just beyond my feet.  politely father asks if he can help and I okay him asking me anything.  he chooses the health of my sons.  one in particular.  I stick to the dog.  to the puppies it ran from no faster

had they been aflame.

I'm going to have to be the one
No one else can save me,
not one human on the earth has the time to constantly be along someone's suffering side
So it'll be me, to do the duty on myself, to get through this never ending battle
& I'll be stronger at the end of it
But it's just so hard to do it alone while feeling so alone,
it even hurts to know that there are not many people who consistently reach out enough to grab  me,
to lift me up and get me going
I'll have to be the one
I'm me, no one else can do it for me,
independency
But when you've spiraled down into such a deep dark place and you try to get out,
every inch doesn't feel that much closer to the light
I fall back in the mud again
Just to fail once more
To be a failure again
To repeat the cycle again
To never get out
To be stuck
Stuck in the mud that I fell in
Thank god it's not quick sand
If it was, I'd never get out
That's how I know there's hope
There's gotta be
Nothing lasts forever
Besides life
Life is infinite
Infinity is what?
People keep on smiling and thats great,
no jealousy,  just envy for their days that keep on  going, their routines and lives that are naturally just flowing, while I space out & sit in silence and wait to disappear in a sphere that's not crystal clear
My bones ache and for gods sake,
I try my hardest to appreciate
That I'm alive today
Even though my days are grey
Getting out of bed never felt so hard
It's like I've lost all my strength &
the power of my body and mind
I'm lost, but no ones there to find me,
I'll be here to find me, there's a little hope inside of me
Reading is such a chore,
since i lose track of everything,
feeling like a bore
No energy to take care of me,
well this is how it'll have to be,
but hopefully.. this is just temporary.

Knees, keep supporting me
You know I believe in you
Stop with all the frailties
And get me where I'm rolling to
Unscrew
All the blues
You sing and keep running in time
Well fed, sleep when you're dead
Or at least aT the end of this rhyme

Pause time, wipe off the grime
Focus on the words I have to say
Ran five hundred score, just a few more
And we can be in a happy place
Don't stop
Don't drop
Reach mountaintop and valley low
Haters degrade the progress made
Saying that we run too fast, too slow

Oh yes, do your best
Until you glimpse that finish line
Past the dream to reality
And see it was you all this time
These knees
Strongly
Wanted to finish just as bad as you
God be blessed, revel in success
We all run, but how you finish is up to you

In the early morning light
I woke up sweating in a fright,
You weren't there, I guess my dream came true.
It hurts, it burns,
In my heart a curse,
It grows in strength like a young boy's tears,
And silently spreads, like how cancer appears.

If I ever fall apart,
You'll love and heal my quiet heart,
And thanks to you, I know no one will touch me.
You protect me from the cold,
you renewed my faith of old,
I'll take these prayers now,
Unfurled like greens in spring,
The gifts the days of light bring,
And pray to God my love returns.

I'll wait for you still, soldier dear,
I'm but a girl, but I'll not a shed a tear,
For nothing sears like a parent's worry.
Deep inside your father's eyes,
A hidden thing, blackened in the ash
Of a legacy inherited, passed,
In times of fire and peace
And you're the one to carry
What your grandpa also has.

There's naught to do,
The climb's not through,
And it's unfortunate that not just I depend
On the hopes that are born
From the loves you're fighting for,
And it's an end
Ceremony at which we'll laugh and cry.
I won't receive a pin,
Except to love the one I'm with
At last, and I've completed
A training of my own.

4:11 am - The nighthawks are starting to resemble pigeons.

Train station is deserted.
An employee checks the bins as the tunnel fills  with the ringing of a distant bell, heralding the arrival of the morning train.
42  minutes till my train.

I can smell the acrid fumes of the Ferny Grove train.
The behemoth pulls away-
empty.

At least I'm not existential anymore.

There is an installation of a coffin made from old bits of railroad,
"Not everyone makes it across the tracks"
This reminder of mortality is strangely fitting in a place of transit.
The true face of memento mori is  shown.
Remember that you too will die, and everything will come to pass.

It's times like this that make me wish 'The Sound of Silence" was never written.
For its perfection in this moment comes as a burst of pure divine bliss.
The kind you wish would never fade away. But inevitably does.
And all we are left with is a memory of that bliss,
everytime we hear the song (after the first time).
As if we are recalling the curves of an old lover from the shadow of yesterdays gone.
Dancing beneath our fingertips, always out of reach.

Memory is never as divine as the moment that burnt it in.

----

4:29 am - It was ephemeral.

The trainyard announcer has a cultured voice.

----

4:41 am - I fear the muse has left me, beauty fled.

DEAR GOD - PLEASE LET THERE BE A CAB AT THE STATION FOR ME.

Selection 11 gave me the water i desired.
11 minutes till the train.
D.O.B. 11/2
Aquarius,  11th  sign of the Zodiac.

Will I see the dawn rise from the train?
There is no light at the end of the tunnel from where I sit.

Inexplicably: I recall the cool river air that bathed us as we lay naked in your apartment,
the smell of cigarettes on our skin, the evening peppered with
scurrying, fighting possums
that danced upon your balcony.
I recall being inside you.

(Then I imagined you being eaten out
by a woman
her lips inside yours,
her curled tongue
inside your hot, bald
golden cunt.)

And I came.
Warm and glorious
my children of pleasure
caught in a latex coffin.
Your heaves of pleasure pushing against my chest
with the rhythm of waves.

----

4:46 am - On the train.

Fluorescent lighting is the devil.
Everything is garish yellow.

We  pull up to the station near where you lived.

Your blue  rose lives in a Chinese vase
and no longer smells
of Marlene Dietrich.

Treasury  Casino - 2:30 am

From my seat in the smokers section
I can see the Brisbane eye,
the river,
and the  performing arts center.
Streetlights  are mans answer  to the cosmos

"Everything you can do,
I can make better."

Once it was said that we were made in God's image.
Now we can safely say that God was  made in our image.

I am in a quiet place of the universe, the night stretches on
visible through the stately
wonderous
walls
carved of old wood  and sandstone.

I am in a suede armchair, winged for pleasure.
The ceiling in this room is twice as high as an ordinary room.
Circular steel balls hang down like a path of bubbles
left  by a leviathan.

My water was poured  with panache.

Let me set  the scene for you:
I'm in the  Treasury Casino, this building was once the QLD state treasury, it never changed really.
Sitting next to  window that overlooks the river, a glass of water sits to my left. The room is the size of a double garage, maybe bigger. The floor and ceilings are made of old wood, the walls are decorated with a transparent gray fabric that remindsme of smoke. An old marble fireplace sits in a wall studded with tiny lights that resemble stars or candles. Above me is a series of hanging circular light fixtures that resemble a trail of bubbles left by a leviathan.

This room was designed for,  and houses opulence.  
The TV plays Eminem.

Peter Garrett dances like a Parkinson's sufferer.
And looks like Disco-Nosferatu.

We have  killed the night
and neon power
and infomercials
rape the romance
once held
by late night solitude.

I went to church today
I don't know what I was trying to find
Hopes? Dreams? A figure to follow and some worthy morals?
I wanted advice, I wanted to feel alive

I left there with these words resonating in my head
"Homosexuality and suicide are abominable"
a short phrase that sums the fancy and elaborated speech of the preacher
Only the sinful suffer, and I guess that's why I am troubled.

I've thought of suicide jokingly and seductively
more times that I could possibly count
I have kissed girls and I am openly attracted to them
I am not afraid of saying it and with respect, showing it.

According to the bible;
Lesbians and gays was a punishment for not obeying God
Suicide is a way of controlling your faith
And the only one that has power over you is the Lord.

God gives you what he thinks you deserve
He knows you since before you where born
and because of that he is more responsible of yourself
than yourself itself.

Your brains are too small
how dare you to contradict the all powerful one with such disturbing thoughts?
He created all and everything, all and nothing
He knows what he is doing, and in no way you can try to question him

I felt more small and insignificant than ever,
How did a invisible figure matter more than my logical arguments?
Can't I decide what I want? Isn't it my body and my emotions the one in play?
There's other 8 billion people and you try to guilt trip me because I want to end it all?

Sinners will suffer only the prayer can save you, you can't save yourself, God will save you.
Isn't it better to try to put myself together? Wouldn't I be learning more with that experience?
Instead of repeating words of prayers, shouldn't It try to save myself or solve the problems?
How dare you to contradict the all powerful one with such disturbing thoughts!

If God chooses to give you what he believes is right
Then why am I the one in so much pain?
Why good things doesn't happen to good people and to the bad ones bad things?
Is it because the bad ones will always pray?

I went to church today
I tried to find support,
I wanted to confess
"Hey, I want to kill myself"

I thought that well...
If so many people could feel happy by worshiping
I didn't loose anything by trying
I instead ended up gaining: guilt, trouble, and a feeling that I will burn in hell

you made me so sick
you made me so sick i made myself sick
with the intention of ending up in the hospital
or better yet, dead
all in hopes that i could give you a taste
of your own medicine:
layers and layers and layers of pain.

but that was one long drawn out evil endeavour
and i'm glad i didn't succeed
because life shouldn't be spent with the intention
of trying to die
just to prove something to someone else
because no matter how much death
is glamorized in this goddamned society
there is nothing glamorous
about it
and in the end you will prove
nothing

there is nothing glamorous about
sticking your head in an oven
or drinking yourself into a stupor every single night
only to forget what you did or said or felt the next morning
there is nothing glamorous about
sticking your fingers down your throat
or carving poetic words into your inner thigh
just so you can feel or un-feel something

trying to die
does not make you
a tortured artist
it makes you
a miserable soul

yes, pain is useful
to create
without it i probably would not be writing this
but it does not define you
fuck them all
fuck society
stop trying to die to prove yourself to someone
dying proves nothing

take a hammer to the mirror
it's only a piece of glass
run into an open field and scream your lungs out
cry all of your fears out of your system like you did when you were five years old
stop being ashamed for feeling things
write down what kind of person you were this time last year
then next to it,
write down what kind of person you are right now
look at how far you've come
look at how far you've yet to go
be proud of yourself
think of the people who have left you
think of how good it will feel when you forgive them
think of someone who has left their footprint on your heart
now go tell them you love them
now leave your footprint on someone else's heart
make sure you tell them you love them

you matter
you matter
you matter
you matter
i swear to God i'm not joking
i don't fucking care if you don't believe me
and it isn't going to be easy
be terrified.
be brave.

you matter
you matter
you matter

you matter.