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.

One grave to be opened up.
Two urns to be placed inside.
Three remnants of loved ones to forever rest.

One headstone to be adorned with three inscriptions,
Engraved words on stone as cold as the chills of death;
Names that can't be whispered without feeling the heart ache
With the hollow pit of loss, a black hole of despair.

Two family members following Death in quick succession,
As if they had already decided not to separate from each other.
Yet the comfort those thoughts bring to the living
Fall short, blocked out by the deeply-felt loss.

Three loved ones now eternally together;
Two vulnerable daughters and their ever-loving mother.

He watches; quiet, reflective.
No doubt he detected
The weight of my
Body-shaped shame.
My name similar to his,
Who now rots under sunlight,
Unabashed in his righteousness
To which I was blind.
I find myself here,
In a garden once perfect,
Now tainted with ******.
I heard the scratching,
Faint at first,
So I turned and saw him.
The raven watches;
Quiet, perceptive,
His gaze so effective.
His foot scratches the ground,
Making a sound that feels
Almost peaceful.
He unearths the freedom
That I need him to show me.
Just below me,
The earth is opening up.
I grab my brother's limp arm,
Drag him away
From the evidence of his harm.
Further away
From the judgment of God.
The raven approves;
He quietly nods.

Desire. It's the storm cloud that creeps
Across the skull and blocks the light of common sense.
It's the janitor with a hidden agenda
That doesn't allow any light bulb to come on.
A Svengali swinging a pendulum left to right,
Until the mind is at its complete beck and call.

Desire. It reaps millions of butterflies;
Grown in the stomach. Wanting to be free.
It's the cause of the tension in your body.
The tsunami in your eyes. The quaking of the hands.
Most importantly, it's the internal burning sensation
That spreads to become a hole in the heart.

Desire. It's the delicate crumbling of anxiety
That melts with the comforting warmth of relief.
The fire of temptation; burning so sweet
As sweat collects upon victims unknown.
The aching in the muscles, the knocking in the chest
Of a heart whose cavity has been patched up.

Desire. It's the patch that frays over time
And the hole is re-opened. Tears re-flood.
The trembling vocal chords and the cracking voice
That fall like foundations under searing heat.
The eventual destruction and its finality
That hit you with a dull metallic taste in the mouth.

Finally knowing that no matter how bad you want it,
You will never own it unless under its own terms.
Advice? Read the fine print.

Cold, lonely shower.
Watching the skies turn dark grey.
Soft piano notes.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Perspiration coats skin
That stays invisible in the black of the night.
Rain hums an erratic but steady melody,
Leaving rhythm-keeping to the bodies;
Burnt with lust that consumed them
Quicker than rain can douse spirits,
Knowing they downed spirits in a whirl of confusion.
Throats burned, and tongues searched for answers
To questions she didn't recall asking.
Retracing memories' footsteps back...
Back to the bar where his charm set a flame that,
Ironically, made her wetter than the rain-soaked coat
That he took from her, whilst offering his own.
She remembers now.
Walking, talking, thinking away the rain,
Until his soft lips were upon hers and she resisted nothing.
Pushing, pulling, each other into a niche
That will hide their encounter from the wrong kinds of eyes.
A moment after the darkness swallows them whole
Does the predator devour its prey.
It is a prowler, always stalking the scent of pheromones,
Always leaving behind ruins.

There are times when I'm overcome by this feeling,
That I want to die before I turn 30.
I don't know why I've become so fixated by the number,
Maybe because it's just over five years away,
And five years flies by in an instant
Without me making any progress with getting better.
My life stopped existing at 16,
So I still have this childish, biased view of age,
Where anything anywhere close to the halfway point
Of the average life expectancy feels 'old'.
I'm just so afraid of blinking and realising
I've missed out on my only chance of youthful enjoyment.
And there are people in their 30s who climb Everest,
Who jump out of planes for fun and who travel the world,
So I know it's stupid.
But it feels like five years from now
I'll be wrinkled, with cracking bones and a stomach
Too weak to swallow adventure.

It's hard to describe just how conflicting it is;
To hate more than half of yourself.
How, as much as I hate my entirety with such ferocity,
There's also a palpable hatred towards an actual presence.
And it's hard not to think of myself as jigsaw pieces,
Not carefully pieced together, but instead forcefully jammed
Into wherever impatience let them fit,
Leaving me with gaps, disconnect and feeling mutilated.
It's getting less and less vague as the days go on,
And sometimes that's a good thing.
It feels good to know what parts of yourself you want to burn,
And what parts your disgust decides to leave alone.
But sometimes it hurts to hate things that are so specific.
To hate things that are firmly attached to me, that I can't just tear off.
How can I love myself when I can't throw pieces away,
But my brain is telling me that those pieces stuck to me so permanently,
Are actually...lethal?

Sometimes (most of the time),
The title takes more effort than the poem.
If you're inspired, your pen moves your wrist
Faster, almost, than the brain can think of sentences.
And even when you're not inspired, when you've got writer's block,
You manage to think of a topic and away your talented self goes.
Then there's the title.
Do you want it to be simple or eye-catching
To the point of forcing people's eyes to read more?
Will you use a line from the poem,
Perhaps a word that sums up the general mood?
Or are you like me?
Do you want to think up a word combination
That probably doesn't exist anywhere except your poem?
Are you urging your brain like whipping an already-galloping horse
To think up a word far beyond your vocabulary skills?
I can write a poem in ten minutes,
And spend a week waiting for the perfect title.
Sometimes it never comes, but when it does,
I often love the titles more than its content.

I've needed glasses since I was 11 years old,
And I never wore them until a few weeks ago.
I was afraid of being bullied,
So I spent my entire school years with blurred vision,
Sitting close to the whiteboards,
Or sneakily copying the words from my friends' notebooks.
And now I have glasses and the world is clear and pristine.
Or it would be if they weren't constantly smudged and *****.
No matter how clean I get them,
Three minutes later they've attracted more smudges, clumsy fingerprints.
My point is, helping yourself is the right thing to do,
But it doesn't always mean the quality of your life will be better.
Just...different.

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?

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.