The rain pours and the thunder roars.
It's comforting, it's the sound of solitude
Despite the headlights rolling by
And the lampposts shining brightly orange.
Rain splashes gently, hitting the ground,
And there's no other sound I want to hear,
So I drown everything else out.
In silence and shadow I excel.
Retreating to the alleyway, narrow and foreboding,
Its harrowing nature is a sanctuary for my own self.
I become the darkness that surrounds me,
The nothingness, the non-existent threat.
I hear the sound of heels clicking on pavement,
Gentle splashes where shoe meets water,
Not too far off in the distance,
But it takes me only an instant to let the predator take over my mind.
Steadily paced, the footsteps grow louder;
The pheromones so strong that it's almost a taste.
I wait, breath bated, for the moment to arrive.
The gap between here and slaking the thirst feels too wide,
Like the pupils of my eyes, dilated,
And I'm overdosing on oxytocin when finally I strike.
Pulling the warm body into the claustrophobic alley,
The blackness engulfs us both.
We are nothing.
Nothing exists except for her heartbeat, thumping and drumming
Until it...fades.

Being the black sheep of the family
Is all well and good until winter comes.
The grass is frozen, food is scarce
And those stomachs don't stop rumbling,
Ever wailing to be appeased,
Unaware and uncaring to the icy conditions.
They're not monsters, no.
They huddle together for warmth;
Snow dusting their coarse wool
As they stand, determined to make it through the cold.
But their stomachs scream like dying beasts,
And the ache is so prevalent in their empty bellies.
No fat to chew on, time passes by so slowly,
And that black sheep is starting to look like the odd one out.
It doesn't look like food,
But it does seem just enough like an other
To smother any guilt that may linger
At the bottom of a recently-assuaged hunger.
They're not monsters, no,
Because the black sheep was never one of them.

You can't go back, but you can get back to where you were.
Flowers are in full bloom, then come winter they're hiding,
Until the gentle breeze of spring wakes them up again,
Colourful and basking in the sun like they were a year ago.
Life isn't a yo-yo, going back and forth forever;
It's a wheel, continuously turning until the starting point
Becomes the starting point when it reaches a full cycle.
So if you've lost who you were and you know you can't go back,
You don't need to. Eventually you'll come full circle.

There's a time, somewhere between 12am and 6am,
When all artistic, damaged or insomniatic souls
Feel like they're completely alone
Even though we're all awake and feeling the same thing.
12am is still too loud, still too car engines and shouting,
And 6am is too light, too exposing and awake, aware.
It's blackness but for the starlight puncturing holes in the sky,
That's when the magic arises and enchants us.
The way the moon looks at us and begs us to untrouble our weary hearts,
So we do it, and we do it willingly.
She is the most unfaithful lover, and it is beautiful.
How she cherishes each whispered secret so deeply
That it leaves a crater on her being.
How she takes on our pain unflinchingly,
And only needs 28 days to feel whole again.
There's a time, somewhere between 12am and 6am,
When the most trapped souls can feel such freedom.

She doesn't have to be your mother
For you to not call her a ***** for not doing what you want.
She doesn't have to be your sister
For you to not call her a ***** for having *** even once.
She doesn't have to be your daughter
For you to expect boys to respect her as a person.
"What if she was your mother/daughter/sister?"
Shouldn't be a valid question.
It shouldn't be a question that makes you stop and think,
"That's true, I need to treat women like I'd treat my female family members."
As though it's given you the epiphany
That even women you don't know are entitled to decency.
And if that question is what made you change your ways,
Get rid of the notion that women can only be treated to
The same amount of basic respect as men
If you can imagine your mother's/sister's/daughter's face staring back.

It's hard to be a coward and suicidal,
Afraid of pain and overly-sensitive to guilt simultaneously.
Never wanted to jump from a building,
Because regretting your decision halfway down must be a nightmare.
Must only take a few seconds.
Must feel like longer than you've ever lived.
Didn't want to jump in front of a bus,
Because that seems wildly ineffective.
Didn't want to lie on train tracks;
I know those videos of dismembered people end up
On the darkest places of the Internet,
And I'm nothing if I'm not embarrassed by attention.
Didn't want to hang myself, had enough hospital trips
From asthma attacks rendering me breathless to want to relive it.
Tried to hang myself.
Wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be.
Didn't want to overdose on pills
Because I have an aversion to swallowing them.
Realised the only reason you aren't supposed to chew them
Is so you don't overdose.
Tried to overdose.
Woke up confused and frightened with an apparently not-killer headache.
But that was back then, and this is now.
I don't look at things and see invitations of death anymore.
There's no temptation to analyse them
And see if they're up for the job.
I'm less on the aggressive side of the spectrum,
Swaying, instead, a lot more to being passive.
I don't want to dive in front of traffic,
But I don't always look before I cross the road either.
And I could still end up in the same coffin as if I'd jumped,
But for me, there's a lifetime of difference.

It's OK not to be inspired.
You can look at a sunset
Without seeing the colours as smudges of chalk
On the divine, stretched-out canvas of sky.
And you don't have to write everything down,
Because not everything has to be permanent.
Some things only last for as long as you remember them,
And it doesn't make them any less special
Just because they weren't written down or spoken life into.
Existing is art, and creating something
That no-one ever gets to hear is still art.
You're a poet even when you're not rushing to your notebook
Before the words fall through your fingers, slippery with desperation,
Motivation, inspiration for the next poem.
So slow down, because if you forget your masterpiece
Because you were enjoying a careless moment of misplaced inspiration,
Who cares? Even if no-one saw it, you know you created an awesome poem.

I'm the monster clawing at the walls.
You gave me the taste for your blood and then locked me in here.
Your scent stains every surface in the room;
Tantalising but with no flesh to sink my fangs into.
Rabid dog-type wildness becomes me,
Transforms me into a thing driven by madness and instinct.
You are the prey with footprints but no body.
I am the predator never knowing satiety.
Pacing replaces hunting, I'm starving,
And your constant, elusive presence has me frenzied.
Viscera begin to litter the room.
Yours or mine? I don't know. I'm starving.

Before identities and allegiances are even confirmed,
The cries of anger rise up like a thick, black smoke,
Heavy and suffocating, it flows through streets,
Over the English Channel, across oceans,
Seeping into social media and blanketing all else.
Cries for vengeance,
Vengeance,
Vengeance.
And those cries barely manifested into a wisp
When Beirut was attacked the day before Paris.
I didn't see any Facebook pictures of the flag of Lebanon.
Do any of us even know what the flag of Lebanon looks like???
To **** innocent people is a crime except when we do it,
Then it's "There are always casualties of war,"
But if this isn't a war except when we're killing people,
Can it really be called a war?
We care so much about the injustice of it,
How the innocent are mowed down without mercy,
That we want those bombs dropped and we want them dropped now.
When those bombs destroy homes and blast children's limbs apart,
Bloodless and pale, until the area looks like it used to be a porcelain doll factory...
Will we all have Syrian flags for our Facebook pictures?

The thing about spending almost a decade
In social isolation is you forget what's normal.
Imagine my shock when my friend casually pulls me close to her,
A half-hug, friendly embrace.
No context needed, because touches don't always hold
Some deep, meaningful intention.
Yet for the past almost a decade, that's been my reality.
How rare the hugs, how they only ever follow extreme sadness
Or loneliness, the desire for comfort and support.
How I can never reach out to touch someone
Unless I've done it a thousand times before,
And even then, it's an intentional act of love.
Every movement of every muscle is planned in advance,
To minimise the fearful, pounding beats of my heart.
For someone like me, where anxiety floods through all my veins,
I don't know the meaning of the word 'casual'.
And I don't know if I'll ever learn it.

Spending a month in a hospital teaches you a lot about people.
The doctor that told me to shave my head or she wouldn't treat me,
The nurses that spent forever chatting to me
And giving me supportive advice about how my illness doesn't define me.
The woman who was given a terminal cancer sentence
And chose not to pay attention to it and defied it anyway.
How she sat next to me on my bed,
Told me that all suffering is valid,
And just because I'm not dying, doesn't mean I don't get to complain.
How she complains more about her skin problems
Than she ever complained about her cancer,
And that's OK, because pain rarely follows rules.
I never even learned her name,
But she gave me the words I hold most closely to me
On those days when I want to fall asleep and never wake up.
I'm allowed to scream and shout and rage against the pain
And the unfairness of it happening to me.
I just have to make sure I know where the line is
Between giving my darkness a voice and pitying myself.

The
Darkness
Descended;
Populations
Eradicated
Instantaneously.

The further away things are in space when we look at them,
The more we're looking at the past.
So I think you must be at least as old as the universe
To have left such an impact upon it.
Your words as colourful as those pictures of nebulas;
Words of wisdom that hover in the mind long after spoken.
The cold, vacant space you inhale becomes blessed by your existence,
Exhaled into the creation of heat, your breath births countless stars.
Your suffering, a black hole.
Dreadful, heavy beyond measure, eternal.
Would swallow us all into death, split us into pieces,
But you see how far we've come and want us to thrive.
So the black hole swallows up the misery of others,
Growing wider, the hole in your heart, endless.
And then you end, so the universe ends.
There are no more stars to be formed,
Nor galaxies to add to the multitude you gave us.
It's all gone.
It just hasn't reached our eyes yet.

I'm picking these scabs again.
They were once so harmless,
Such trivial little marks caused by the bumps and scrapes
Of life and the interactions within.
How did it get to this point?
Gaping holes, bleeding all over my sheets,
Clawing at the incessant itching from deep within,
But only managing to scratch the surface.
This compulsion to pick away
At the repugnant remnants of these feelings.
Knowing that it does nothing but mark me further,
Ignoring the strands of collagen
Forming to each other to pull the jagged edges back together.
Hating the feel of the thickened, lightened skin
Where it once was perfect, untouched, now corrupted.
As soon as I feel it harden, I pick it away,
Keep the scar gone for one more day,
As it drowns in the blood.

His sobriquet was lost as documents detailed his official names,
With relatives and friends no longer parting lips to give breath to his letters.
Shy away from his life--
His pain was adopted by them--
Never again see the man with his soul intact.
Bones fractured with a
Crack
As his body, weighed down with burdens,
Collided with concrete, created a pile on the street.
The screams of on-lookers fell on dead ears,
Since his spirit was already soaring high.
Higher than the drugs ever took him, and his skin lay there,
Left behind in a mound of worthlessness.
The pathetic loner of a man, weak,
Swiss cheese arms from syringes, decaying in a mirror.
Life was never going to be his saviour,
But society was always going to be his executioner
Unless the drugs got to him first with their axe.
Picking his brains only led to self-loathing and confusion,
And now they can't be picked up,
Only wiped away, washed...away.
Like the memory that he ever existed,
Because folks turned their back on him a long time ago,
When it first became clear
That he was a problem, and an oblivious one at that.
Now he's just a name, a record and a headstone,
Family never again speak his name.
Wonder if they even know he spilled his body onto the ground?
All in an attempt at saving his soul, putting right his past.
The man's self-crucifixion.

What ghost do I see before me?
You drop to me in
Shackles and chains,
But were you not free?
Can the chains not be broken?
They're deeply rooted
From you to me.
Do these shackles not open?
Why, ghost, do you drag me with you?
I watch you dig up
And unrest earth;
A coffin I'm to climb into?
What fate awaits in here?
You once told me that
Death was free,
So why do you blanket fear?

What ghost do I see before these?
You came to me in
Sorrow and pain,
But were you not in peace?
Can the pain not be spoken?
The roots are deep
Embedded, yes,
But can't the earth be broken?
Why, ghost, can't you take me with you?
I watch you fade
Into memory,
But I want to fade too.
What fate awaits me there?
You once showed me that
Death is free,
So why am I slave to the air?

So I drift into uneasy sleep to greet a woman
Of unquestionable beauty.
Dark eyes beckon me but I'm transfixed;
Her ethereal quality could stop ships.

The epitome of perfection, I need to meet the woman
That gives meaning to exhalation.
A calming voice tells me to come to her side,
So I awake and follow; her echo my guide.

But as I draw near, I struggle to see the woman
Now becoming so hazy.
Her aesthetic body is not as hypnotic;
She's fading and I cant stop it.

She continues to vanish and still I seek the woman
Who gives me the power I need.
The soft grass below me starts to die,
And the echo is now a primordial cry.

Now she is no more, and yet I need the woman
As I struggle to remain in sleep.
Suddenly I'm awake; my hands outstretched for her.
Funny how waking makes things blur.

I still remember her house vividly;
It was always messy, clothes and toys littering the floor
While the cats wandered by whenever they pleased.
There was a beautiful doll's house that she cherished so much
That she let me play with as she spoke to my parents in the kitchen.
Guitar-playing was a passion of hers,
And I'd sit, transfixed, as she sang along to the songs she played,
With a wide grin on her face, that was her home.
Now it's not.
It's never going to be her home again,
Because now she lives in a home for old people with health problems.
She had a breakdown after the death of her sister
And no-one could give her the help she needed, so she went away
Where her loved ones thought she'd be well looked after.
There the staff kept her locked in her room,
Mind atrophied from the solitude they forced upon her
Except for the times they shoved antipsychotics that she didn't need down her throat.
No-one visited her. How could they?
Her son insisted she stay in her home city
Even though everyone in the family lived in another.
My mother couldn't see her own sister, busy being a carer for me and her mother,
Not for years, and by then it was too late.
She'd fallen over, broken her hip and banged her head,
And she suffered through the agony for three days,
Until my mother found out and demanded they take her to hospital.
Then the home was shut down and she lives somewhere else,
Only five minutes away where she's visited often.
But it's all too late.
Once lively, outgoing, big booming laughter that filled the hallways,
She's now timid and frail, she's aged twenty years in only six.
There are no passions, only forced smiles
Dotted here and there, on rare occasions, with genuine glimpses of happiness.
And I'd love to tell you that I'm writing this for her,
Because I love and miss her and want to document the downfall of a woman so wonderful.
But I'd be a liar, because this write is as much about me as it is about her.
Every time I look at her, I can't help but wonder how long I have left
Until I'm in the same place as her.

Depression isn't a black cloud.
That cliche implies that eventually there'll be a torrential downpour,
And then the cloud will fade away and allow
The sun to shine through, ending that terrible storm.
Depression is a starless night.
An expanse of black where even the stars have abandoned you,
Long since dead, and you try to make sense of the loneliness
In a world where people have turned into zombies.
Thoughtless, repetitive phrases become their instincts.
"Think positively," is the mantra of the dead to the dying.
As though statements turn into directions when the sun goes down,
Like signposts leading us to a brightly-lit land.
But the sky doesn't respond to artificial lights,
And nothing but time can force the sun to return.
Their second statement, under the facade of help,
Is to remind us that day will always follow night,
And no matter how starless and eternal the darkness feels,
The sun will eventually break through the horizon, waving pinks and oranges.
Sadly, not all lifespans are created equal,
And for the many colourful transitions people have seen in the sky,
There are plenty who never see more than black.
Some souls are born at dusk and are dead by pre-dawn,
Never having lived through anything but darkness.
And to the zombies, accepting that fact is the hardest.

Bed sheets become red sheets,
Pillows becomes tear catchers,
No dream catchers here because only nightmares live,
Feasting on wakeful exhaustion.
Deflated bouncy castles for intestines,
White blood cells searching frantically in enclosed darkness.
Enemy invaders seeping into blood, bone and muscle
As the warriors remain trapped in sticky villi.
Drug dependency is a permanent solution
And overdosing is a consistent caregiver for sleep.
Nausea is a rebellious, suicidal last stand
To go down with the invaders as they're taken out.
A seven year war fought inside your body
With no visible battle lines drawn is lonely.
My skin is pockmarked, riddled with the craters of bombs
Fired from all sides with no mercy for the land.
Sometimes I can't help but wonder what'll **** me first:
The invaders or my body's own troops.