A small kindness can’t sustain
A screaming, starving child.
One step at a time
Won’t bridge the distance
Between salvation and despair.

I click that button.
I like that you are running to beat cancer,
But you won’t.

The world boils and burns.
I won’t share anymore,
Because I don’t care anymore.

You waited until I was at my most vulnerable
And then just shut the door
And closed me out.

You waited, you *******
Until I had exposed myself in every possible way, to you,
Despite terror, despite doubts,
Despite insecurity, anxiety and guilt,
Despite resisting and denying and holding you at bay.
You waited until THAT MOMENT
And withdrew.

You could have chosen
A thousand and one better moments
I would have been fine.
I would have agreed, and even felt relief
But no,
You had to pick the pivotal painful point
Of you and me
And you had to choose SILENCE
You had to just STOP
Inviting paranoia
Self doubt, and all these tears.
These **** tears
I am sick of these tears.

It was the wrong moment.
Perhaps that's the whole point,
The wrong moment was the right moment,
Because this way, it really is the end.

My mind is a                ghost house,
Haunted by souls still trying t
   still here
o be found.
Some live
  still
Others,
       mere vapours
still here
Exhale, then die, and resurrect in technicolour,
Only to expire

again

Like candles in an unexpected breeze.
The windows were left open

In the dark, the spectres
still.

You are a tornado
Sweeping me into the sky,
A monsoon
Pulling me into the torrents.
I cannot hold my breath
Burning, bursting lungs
Straining, striving, seeking air.
What you deny me will **** me
What you withhold will destroy
You are an earthquake
Opening the ground,
Swallowing me whole,
Leaving me choking and broken,
Waiting for rescue, that will never come.

Someone is caressing me
In the darkness.
Soft hands,
Warm breath,
I cannot move away.

The night is like a satin shroud,
A long forgotten tomb,
And I am seduced
by someone; they know my weakness,
And make me feral,
Take me, helpless,
Held there, by the dark.

Someone is caressing,
but now I am that someone,
Grasping slender bones
Raising gooseflesh on silken skin.
I bend the darkness to my will,
Seduced, it would seem,
I, Seductress,
Dream.

How I long to grasp at Heaney's squat pen
Instead of flying lightning fingertips
Across a headache-bright square.
A flare of brilliance
Is better captured the old way,
But there would have to be a transfer,
Which would lead to hesitation
Then deletion,
(Plus there's too much guilt about trees,
And I can never find a pen).
Heaney hesitated, too
And dwelt on digging,
Before acceptance, and resolve.
My fingers flutter over letters, seeking my own answer,
Determined to dig myself
Out of this hole.

Cold rain cleanses
A polluted soul.
Fragility crumbles
In the face of such relentless
Pounding downpours.
This is character building,
Strengthening weather.
It's everything I need.
I bathe,
I bask,
I bring my weakness out to play,
And watch the rainfall
Wash it all away.

Hush, lover,
The moon is a still and silent icicle,
Blurred by clouds that glow and gasp,
The wind; it wants them gone.

Lover, hush,
Midnight will always, ever be blue
And you, dream lover, sweet and sure,
Will always chase the dawn.

Love, hush, hush,
The moon is a still and silent icicle
But we are not cold
Wrapped as we are, in each other, in our love.

Hush, love, hush,
I want you not as I want the coming summer,
With a longing for heat,
'Tis Winter Midnight-Wanting warms our blood.

I have seen, somewhere, a beautiful green beetle.
It would not be so bad to be breathtaking
People would open the window, smiling
And let me flutter through.
But though I sometimes think I shine,
Fact is, I’m just a worm,
A segmented soldier of the dank, damp earth
Fated to be trampled, waterlogged
Poked with a stick, eaten by a bird
Or simply, unable to find the path
Lost, panicking, grazed by gravel
Trying to find my way home.

I can eat chocolate until I want to *****,
Down ***** until the room spins,
Pump weights until my muscles disown me
Or walk for miles until my legs tremble
And my heart calls for help in panicky spasms.
I can do all these things, again and again,
I can hate myself, berate myself, and half **** myself,
But I can't escape myself,
So I am as well forgive myself,
Love myself, accept myself,
And try to find redemption from within.

I am enjoying
This knot in my stomach
It's an improvement on the nausea.

My hands are shaking
And my voice is tremulous
For all the right reasons.

When I walk into that room
They won't see a broken, soul-sick shell,
But a warrior woman,
Everything they're looking for,
It can't go wrong.

I am an accomplished actress.
I will woo.
They will fall in love with a creation of my making,
And if I will her into existence,
Believe in her,
Maybe she'll accompany me home
And I can keep her for a little longer
To help me woo the world?

Warm sunset welcomes
Flirtatious night, she dallies
On the edge, darkly.

1.  I've said all I have to say. Please never contact either of us again.

2. Don't bother. I don't want you to. All you do is hurt me. I've been hurting for too long and I need to be strong.

3.  I miss you but I've had enough.

4. You forgot you were my friend. You forgot you were my friend. You forgot and I told you NEVER TO FORGET.

5. No you won't, I'm closing every possible avenue of contact.

6. Grow a pair, ******.

7. Go **** yourself.

I tell you all my stories
And you inhale them,
Eager and entertained and hungry for more.
You build a little picture of me in your mind,
Your brilliant, beautiful mind,
And you love them because you love me.
But the best thing of all
Is that you are in the picture now,
And you are one of my stories;
A dream that came true.

I need to be locked up, chained up,
STOPPED.
I'd do it to myself,
If I didn't think I'd find a devious way
to escape
Like chew off my own hand,
Or scream until someone called a locksmith.

Don't do it, for Gods' sake,
Find a way for it not to happen.
Find some ancient mouldy food in the fridge
And chow it down,
Call all your friends,
Find someone in crisis, that needs you by their side.
Turn on all the taps and flood the house,
Get blind drunk.
Feign pregnancy.
Just sit here
And read random poems
Until it's too late
Until it's too late.

It is becoming harder to find people who refuse to be cowed by fear, and made to hate.

Our borders are a circus sideshow; we sit in increasingly uncomfortable pews and watch the sad, desperate clowns beg for some of our popcorn, and the chance to sit down and rest, for just a little while. We don’t want the popcorn; we want hotdogs and french fries but it all costs too much these days, and that’s their fault too.

Build more fences, send more dogs.

Children scream as their ears bleed but they aren’t ours, they aren’t anywhere near ours. They aren’t anything to do with us and it isn’t our fault or our problem. A young boy washes in the sea closer to home. The salt stings and his body starves and he’s the ultimate unwanted. He wants to return to a home that will hurt him even more, and to a family returned to the earth. Blame the French. Blame the Greeks. Blame the Muslims and the Syrians, the swarming, stinking hordes.

So come to the circus, and bring your kids, 3000 crying clowns, all walking the tightrope without a net. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my. The horses have bolted and the dancing girls have all been sliced in two. The ringmaster never drops his whip. He sits in the centre and laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

I am covered with
Excreted expletives
Light bleeds between my fingers
And merges with tears.
Words are weapons
Spat jaggedly, slicing cruelly
Into gentle dreams,
Silence is the final, finishing cut.
Leave me smothered
In dislike and disdain,
Leave me shaking,
Naked and in pain.

All sound is muted
Vibrant colours overlaid with gauzy grey.
My skin, my hair, are damp,
As if those things were weeping,  but have ceased,
As if I am made of tears
Or, have bathed in them,
Yet, I feel nothing, nothing but numb
No pain, ah – well, a faint, dull ache
As if my etheric body were trying to escape.
I am lost within and without myself
All insular, enclosed
Boxed, redundant, closed away
Grey is the way to the end of today.

The night is like a sharpened knife,
It slides inside the softened butter of my sleep,
Slices, and spreads.
My dreams are a feast for beasts that haunt
The shuttered soul of my very human heart.
That first taste; sweet, like the first brave stars
That wave goodbye to dusk.
Heady then, those midnight licks
From something sated, gorging here for greed alone.
Soon, their appetite curdles,
My dreams within those gaping maws,
Turned foul and rank, now turn on those that feed.
As dawns shy song bids night ghasts flee
My dreams return, at last, to me.

I catch myself thinking about your lips, again.
And one particular smile; I find it mesmerising.
Wryness and sadness and resolute strength,
That gentle smile, that almost smile, that 'shall I...?' smile.
There's a no-surrender steel to your stare, a hardness
In the set of your shoulders, the tension in your neck,
But your lips are all softness and so, so sweet
I imagine them to be; a piquant sweetness,
Mixed spice, vanilla and burnt sugar.
I catch myself thinking about your lips, again,
And wishing I could taste them.
My fingers to my own, I gently ****,
And lose myself in a cinnamon dream.

Beloved, you are coming to me.

Your heart beats hard,
And you run, you push, you climb
every obstacle, denying the impossible,
Dismissing sense and reason, you are coming,
Home, to me.

Come home, beloved.

The life you lead now, hurts,
The salt tears soak, and burn.
Hush now, hush, hush,
All will be well.

Come, come, beloved.

My heart beats faster,
Pulls you closer, ever closer,
Oh, beloved,
We will be together, come
Beloved, come.