Putrid smells of dirtied innocence,
A veil of eager stupidity,
Misfortune converts to violence,
Roots caged by the ashes
Of what once was,
My hometown of resilience- staled,
Replaced with glory seekers
Spewing words void of value,
Pickets of dishonesty,
Weekends of gloom,
Shame.
I feel foolish as I reside here,
Bleeding within the garden of thorns,
Punctured by the claw of the bird.

As kids we were close,
Pushing each other on a swing during humid afternoons,
Scrapping over the biggest piece of cake,
Singing and strumming old rock songs on a video game,
Cheesing in the odd school picture together,
Hiding the family dog upstairs, cartoon shows on the tv,
Volume at its highest, all to drown the rows vibrating the walls
From downstairs,
It seemed back then we had each others back,
Sobbed for the same reasons at night,
Nervously bit at the skin around our nails over unknown noises,
Shook a knee with every thought of fleeing our hometown,
Yet now we don’t even know each other,
The distance runs thicker than blood,
He said she said infiltrating a possible recovery of a bond,
I often wonder how it can be, two people from
One home, both living on different planets,
Almost generations away from beliefs we once shared,
Pinching at each others emotions from another continent.


I found a journal from when I was my angsty teen self,
Words of fury coated most pages,
Some rhymes of regret,
Plenty of mischievous essays,
Page 94 had no explanation, just a date, some doodling
And one sentence,
“You were the first one to break my heart.”


As kids we were close,
But what do kids know.

I see you in the drunken man on the bus, singing hits
from the 60s,
I hear you when a man near your age belittles me, over a
job he knows nothing about,
I feel you when that initial rejection from someone hits, craving
validation you failed to gift me,
craving to be enough,
I smell you as friends open bottles of cheap ale, a scent
embedded into my bloodstream,
I miss you when I see a father and his child playfully race in the
park over the road,
I'm always wanting what I don't have.

Berry trees fall glum
At snowfalls greeting; Ruby
No longer loves me.

I awoke unhinged, just as the curtain in the back room,
The pale blue reminded me of what the sky could be,
When it didn’t look like gloom.
Single fabric rippled against a windowpane,
Mocking me in my solitude,
Ridicule for my foul mood.
Their twin horrified,
Scrutinising during a manic moment,
Keeping themselves securely tied.
I’m sure they look down on me as well as their sister,
The pair of us once neatly laced, now dishevelled-
Result of a nasty hormone blister.
But their sister and I
Bathe in different consequences,
My being suffers from the inevitable expenses.
I sink, I don’t float.
I seethe, I don’t sway.
I’m real, I’m forced to feel.
The curtain has no eye that aches,
No grease ridden hair, or skin that flakes.
The curtain can easily be pushed back in place,
Unfortunately, with me, that fails to be the case.