Have you ever felt stuck in a memory?
The feeling of longing and the inability to let go. Microscopic details that probably aren’t right but your mind fills them in when you close your eyes and think really hard about what was, what could have been. And then a shock hits you like ice cold water in the summer heat when you find out what is. The memory in all its beauty was never meant to be.

I can’t do this
Thoughts like mist

a fist.
Fog.
My minds missing a cog

a clock.
My eyes are burning

Hurting
My thoughts are turning

stop.
My stomach

in knots

A rot
Inside out
all I can think about.

stop
Falling over me like a wash
Of molten lava
Melting me from the inside

Out.
Hot.

The Devil my master.

Monster

food for thought.
The heat you feel when the cold
Won’t stop
your soul’s been bought.

Hot.

Heat makes for

Heavy
Breathing.

Heaving.

Heave


Heaven.

Stop.

Raven black hair
And a quality about you that tastes
As dark.
Bitter sweet.
Something’s hidden from this story’s ark
And I wonder if I should quit
But your green eyes hold me down like
Chains under deep sea water and I let
Them drown
Me.
I’m afraid of you.
I don’t know you.
But I know how I feel when I’m near you
And like a raven caught against the moon
Nothing can stop the shadow you cast on
Me.

2018 - I see you smiling at me while we’re watching a play. I get this feeling I’ll never know your name.
1918 - Returning home from war to find you with another man. A story in a story, a sadness in the sad...
1818 - Now I’m a Frankenstein tormented by a monster.
1718 - I arrive in a New Orleans where soon I forgot her.
1618 - The execution of one of the greatest explorers makes my heart afraid to find a new lover.
1518 - I’m in Italy now admiring a Michelangelo, passions are burning and you’re my new antidote.
1418 - In Florence there’s talks of a new cathedral, competition in design yet to you there’s no equal.
1318 - From the English the Scottish fight for independence but I would sell my soul just to be in her presence.
1218 - From Acre I leave for Egypt, a crusade of the soul, but I gave that to you not too long ago.
1118 - A new pope on the throne holding a king like he’s owned but you’re a free spirit and your name... I won’t know...

Can’t sleep.
Lying here.
On my bed.
A bright screen.
White
Dead?
No life.
My head
Filled with knives.
I bled.
For a time.
Words unsaid
Steady decline.
Depression fed.
Fault’s mine.
Should’ve fled.
Was a sign
Should’ve read.
Got there fine.
Where it led?
Should’ve said
A bright screen.
White.
Now red.
Dead?

Not yet.
What’s next
Lying here
On my bed?

In the time between things
I sit and wait,
Procrastinate.
Fate taunts me with my dreams,
Thoughts of kings, queens, and what life could be
But I’m only waiting for something small.
The ring or call.
Looking at my phone it tells me
‘We’re ready for you now’
As if somehow I’m not in control of my own future,
Just another bit of code in a computer.
At first sight just another user
In the system of life.
A video game with no guide
and I’m it’s destined loser.

The feeling when the sun is piercing a clear blue sky and you can see it through a window bringing peace in sluggish time. It’s entrancing and you appreciate it’s glare. This day is perfect you think as you stare, eyes closed. But you look out from a window that is on a shaded side. The beams won’t touch you and this day won’t heal your mind. So for the next dawn you wait, on the shaded side.

I didn’t ask you to still care. I asked for the chance to let you go. I asked for the hope that one day I wouldn’t have you stuck there in my head but you know you are
                              And you know
                        And you know
And it makes it so hard. You knew how I was feeling. You could have left it there. Slowly I began healing but you keep coming back again.
              And again.

       And Again.

Stealing my peace with these wishes that one day, somehow, I will be with you,
content.

You remind me of my mother. I said that to you once, maybe twice. I think I told someone else that before too.. But I can’t remember which one of the many. I said you were like no one else. Like she was like no one else. ‘Perfect’. Now you’re gone from my life. Just like she is. What have I done? You remind me of my mum.

I’m gonna get a Chinese.
Take away that takes me away
Small pleasures that sooth my heart

              Special Chow mein
           Special fried rice
        Not so special prawn crackers
But still special to me.

                                 Reminding me of when
I was a boy and I’d scoop up joy in a little edible bowl and glow as the taste hit me as hard as you did when you said you couldn’t give what I gave you back.

                                                          ­  Well I’m
gonna get a chinese tonight, so how about
that.

Happiness is a pin
Put in what you took out of love.
But love lasts only
as long as the loading
Of hope;
A bullet in a gun that never goes off.
The gun goes numb in your hand
‘Till you remember the aim,
Picking up the pin it points you back and
Sails you insane.
As an ocean ripples, Love loops,
all from a pin in something you took.

Because of her you neglected yourself. Subjected yourself to neglected all else, and now all you have are apologies. She’s gone and you were left with the sorries that need to be told. Worries of being left alone while their tone on the phone is stone cold. Your depression is an excuse they say, unsold. So like a piece of origami you fold in and around yourself till the paper is thin and time turns you old.

You see, I write but no one listens
And it’s hard
In a world where so many do.
So many express.
Depress.
Not because they feel the world needs to understand them
Not because they throw a blanket of empathy around them
Not because the real world doesn’t appreciate their detail
But because it’s all a get rich quick scheme.
A sale.
But I don’t care for nepotism.
I don’t care if you’re waiting for me to like your ‘quirks’.
I don’t care that if I don’t you won’t like mine.
Because that’s how it works.
A trade.
A shame.
Someone always ‘sacrificing’ by being the first in the game of it
But that’s not a sacrifice
The sacrifice is not caring.
Liking something because you like it
Living life because that’s what you want to do with it
Freely sharing
Being a good person for no benefit.
Not out of fear that others won’t give you what you need.
Not out of fear it won’t let you be what you want to be.
Happiness is not found in the wants or greeds of others
But in listening to your own heart
And knowing
Deep down
What you do for you is all that matters.
Then when you’re loved by people for your truth
There is nothing better.

So be a good person
Listen to this work
Like it
Please
Because if you don’t
I doubt I’ll like yours

I changed my mind.


.


I’m gonna get an Indian.

Tick
Tick
Tick
Tap
Tap
Miss

                      Tick
                      Tick
                      Tick

                                         Miss

      Scratch
      Scratch
      Tap tap
      Scream

Stroke
Stroke
‘Hello?’

                  ‘no’

Stuck in your own head,

                    you’re alone.

Tick tick
  Tap tap
    Scratch scratch
      You’re trapped.
        Tra tra
          Pa pa
          Ha ha
         Haha
        Hahaha
       Hahahaha.

No way out.
Shout ?
‘what’s wrong? What’s this all about?’

Nothing.
She…



               Nothing.

-
I don’t want to be

Just another tick,

A heartbeat,
Off your list.



I left the taps running.

The shot? I missed.

You scratched on the door like a cat waiting to be let in.
Screamed when you saw what you’d seen.

Stroked my face.

Awake?
‘Hello?’ I heard you say.


‘no’ go away.

It’s not fair,

You should have left me there.

I didn’t want to be saved.

Happiness is simple.
It’s not
A bath too cold.
  Or one too hot.
   A late bill payment
    Or loosing your job.
     Prison for tax evasion.
      A day too sunny.
       A friend ‘not fussed’
        Or even that funny.
         A day too dreary.
          Catching the bus
           Well... Almost
                    ...Nearly.
             Having no one to trust.
              Sitting at home
               Under your covers
                Stressing so much
                 You twitch and you stutter.
                   Anxiety and pain
                    When you think of a lover
                     A feeling with no name
                      As you cry and you mutter
                       Worried words of weakness
                        Wander through each thought
                         Becoming almost breathless
                          A depression that will rot.
                           Happiness is simple?

It is not.

Everyone was right.
But stopping is like being on train tracks,
  A locomotive going at full speed towards
   A cliff.
    The passengers you brought along
      Scream at you to stop it

       But you cut the breaks long before you
       even left the station.

I’m letting it hit me
Like a wave
Washing over me
Wet soil on a grave

I’m letting it burn
Like hot coals
Beneath my feet
Thought myself so bold

I’m letting it suffocate
Like a dark plastic bag
Pulled over my mouth
A marble statue made to gag

I’m letting it take control
Like a fortune teller
Whispers of possibility
What if I hadn’t met her?

I’m letting it sicken me
A twist with no hunger
Flicking me, eyes closed
Like sleeping through thunder

I’m letting myself fall
Far down the rabbit hole
In hopes I’ll land and look up
To my name being called

I’m crying inwards
Tears falling upwards
Through my veins
Blood pumping driving my brain
Insane
This pain is inhumane
So please
Let it out
Down
Coursing it’s journey past a frown
It reaches my heart
But there’s nothing left
No beat, no sound
She took it all apart
Like a found secret
drawer
Flipped it and shook its contents
out on the floor
So it crawls around it’s walls
Reminding me I was a fool
Through echoes
Echoes
Echoes
It shows
It shows
It
It goes
It goes
On and on
Wherefore?
It’s odd
I’m not crying anymore
Well, I am, inward.

In the heat I hold my breath. I’m drowning in waves of sunbeams and guess as to whether the weather will wither me away in tiny droplets through the holes in my chair, collecting in puddles beneath, on the shadow hiding from a universal stare. I’m fair, unfairly treated, and in time this cycle is repeated and no one cares, like you did, now you’re not there, needed. I’m melted.

I’m always too late.
As I open a new door and hope beyond hope that you will be there with an outstretched hand to grasp, to lead me to love and a lifetime of calm and content, I find it there, still held out yet recently gripped. Slipped out of my reach and into the path of another, luckier, funnier, happier, leaving me the lonelier, once more, contemplating how I missed my chance and if I’d have arrived sooner, unrealistically, and stolen you away in a merry chase, fate would have been kinder. But none but me could have been blinder, still lingering on what could have been and leaning hopefully to a truth that will never be. Us. Thus time is finicky, a whirlpool of whispering questions teaching valuable lessons that no one hears until you arrive at the moment you’re in now and already it’s gone and you forget how you got there and what went wrong. But while I’m gone, wondering the reasonings and all it brings, not everything stayed the same. I weighed my wait. I’m always too late.

Three letters
That together
Make
A beginning
A middle
An end

You

We always talk about what would happen if we hadn’t met, and yet, I always wondered what would have happened if we did. ‘Before’, and I knew you, all of you.