Alright page…okay, fine, I admit it;
I've been avoiding you.

Your face, beautifully smooth and innocent, reminds
me I have yet to find the time to paint it…so:

I apologise,
to the eyes I should have coated in the eyeshadow of
romance (scorned, loved, lost, lived)
to the cheeks I should have blushed with eroticism
to the ears I should have punctured with anger and
passion and vanity
to the skin I should have smeared foundation over: covering
bad rhymes like concealer over spots (still there, just less obvious)
to the lips which I should have animated with laughter and
sarcasm.

I apologise,
to the body of the poem which never:
Felt the stanza of a corset
Felt the **** lace of an internal rhyme
Felt the bra of a title
Or the shimmering dress of a metaphor

Or the thrill of removing every last bit.

I've missed a million date nights, and I
want to try to fix it.

Please? Despite our marriage of minds, we have drifted, I'd like permission to take our hands on a date once more
Letting the wine of ideas pour between
Sighs of Sibilance
complete contentment

**Tasting the catharsis of your lips

Detached,
floating beyond the confines of existence.
I hear and
see and yet do not
feel.

No pain can touch me here,
no hand near enough to reach
beyond my cloudy veil.
Ecstacy,
Joy,
Sorrow,
Panic.
These states bubble across the
surface of river,
my fishbowl,
my cauldron.

I lie underneath,

The emotions slipping gently from my lips
to the surface,
a perfect finish to the puppet beyond
my reach.
High above, my head floats
whilst my *** sits cold on the bench
near the boats
Alone
yet everywhere
Who knows if I can yet
be guided home
Again.

Your self taught wave appears,
tripping on sand, it clears
away your footprints,
leaving me to stand alone on
a rocky shore, once more.

The seaweed drags her down,
a dreary green draped crown,
shines about her hair,
drift away without
a care.

You're alone.

Why not?

Rot, rot, rot away.
Sway with the wind,
wait and wait
and wait,
someday it will rescind.

And so I gave him my hand
And he turned it quizzically over within his
Skin weaving against skin
As he counted up each didget
One piggy
Three piggy
More.
Meat.
And he thumbed each lying line down to my palm
And trickled his fingers over the bone
Before tracing and placing his nails
Against the bloodied stump of home

He looked up
Why did you do it?
His voice a curious void

"They said I should lend you hand."
I said

Brow furrowed
Consideration
He cries
"I think you thought a tad too literal...but, thanks."

"Are you sure it's enough?"
My stumps substance soaked into my socks.

"Only they said to be prepared"

They didn't mean any harm

"That you might want the arm."

Do I disgust you because I want ***?
The hypothetical argument already slides as
graceful as tourettes, and I can
feel imaginary bile and panic creeping up my throat
and into my
mouth as I attempt to talk 'south'
Talk '*****' to you
Talk '*****' to me, 'baby'
I'm silently wishing you'd save me from the
awkwardness of this talk, wish you'd take me by the breast
and walk me through the rest of your likes
and dislikes
Because, I want to make you feel higher than a kite
or ******, or crack, or smack,
I want to stop endlessly repeating all the things
that I might lack
Because, you don't seem to want me anymore
No matter how much you adore who I am
Can you fill me in on the gaps please, I want
to know if you feel that you can have same aching need that I do
My sexuality is like an un-erasable tattoo
I don't take strives to hide it
I don't feel that I need to
But am I deranged in thinking
that you think I should be ashamed to?

Darling, I want to *******.
I wish I didn't think that this
might be an issue.

Correct me,

Don’t look at me
I am the outcast
The one who’s sexuality
Is nil.
I am the one in the jokes
The one you should tease
Go out with her?
He laughs.
So do not glance in my direction
Don’t try to break my shield
Instead please laugh
When I mock myself
My body, my soul, my prison.
For without it a glance might be scathing,
The whispers sharp as spears again
I don’t mind the laughter.
They merely laugh at the target
The target I’ve drawn on my shell.
Don’t break my mould.
I’m safe.

Beauty trapped in a diamond casket
So cold to touch yet so filled with heat
Your heart's trapped in diamond palace
I want to run
Yet I'm stuck like meat

Run, run, from the golden boy
Run, you can only be a toy
A mind of manhood
Yet, he's smooth as stone,
His heart cased in sorrow
he'll cut down to your bone

Just to see if you're as broken inside
Just to see if he can delight his eyes
You should run, run
But how can you run from

The man of wild imaginings
The man who fuels pretending
Spending of youth
Steal away truth
Feel you're free
Feel you're free
You've never been so alone

Run, run
Unreal and unnatural
Run, run
He's a ***** of the veil
Run, run
Haven't you ever wondered
How his flesh is on fire
Yet he stays the same

Run, run, from the golden boy
Run, you can only be a toy
Run, run, to him life is a ploy
A trap which he has set fire to

So run, or watch yourself burn
in ecstasy,

knowing that you want him to watch.

Do you want me

"I want you if-"

no

not a bargain
not a condition
not a sub clause or by-clause easily broken

do you want me

Like a dying man wants to live
Like a mother would give herself for her child
Like a tiger threatened, turning from mild, smelling meat
Would you want me even if I were weak
And feeble
broken

Do you want me
Like a drowning sailor begs for air, lungs swimming, head boiling, the body knowing what it needs, but the brain bleeds confusion; a drowning sailors final ******, offered to the depths like a tribute, a lover's kiss: sorely missed, but it's taste forgotten.

Do You Want Me
Need Me

Tell me.

Or let me taste you next in the second circle of hell.

I have a fear of drowning.
sounds random, I know, but
bear with me.
I'm not scared of the water,
it's a force too great to prompt
anything bar acceptance.
It's the suffocation part invokes
fear. Those seconds in which
you are in a trance
a state
of pure lack of control.
When emotion comes
in waves of confusion,
lapping you up and,
leaving you
desolate as the beach without
the shield of the sea,
baring it's naked underbelly to
the world.
I have a fear of drowning.
I am constantly afraid,
suffocating under the weight of
my own sea.

To erase, a half prayer that I
could peel off my face.
Hoping my mind would die inside
So I could rebuild, start to replace, the
memory within my fingertips
Of your missing pulse
The way your eyes screamed
contention, and the
sight of your bodies post-
mortem convulse,

I want that to stop
Still

Smash in every clock, for
when Time doesn't link us, why should
I hark to a ticking that
slices at a life
already half empty, rather
than half full

Keep topping myself up with ethanol
Central Nervous System policing
the cheat, puncturing my
sockets to free the
holograms of happy memories,
in a silver stream

No substance left now that it's
tainted
No substance strong enough to take
this pit away

Shovel thrown away, but never
clean, bones and teeth,
muscles oiled and lean,
cling to the metal of
my mouth.
All eyes drawn south, because
dust always draws flies

Like the worm trodden mess
of your thighs

And the way I can still feel
you on my breast

Like a coffin's weight
I bare you

Never at rest
Always a race

Perhaps I'd find peace if I tore off my face.

I want to sleep and
not feel guilty.
I want to laugh and
not feel wasteful.
I want to cry and
not feel self-indulgent.

I want to feel happy outside the
metal bars of work, without
constantly obsessing about the
tasks that I shirk.

I want a lot of things,
but they're going to have to wait,
until my last
exam deadline date.

Do you ever get frustrated?
Tired of the fight.
You're sick of wobbling at the edge,
with nothing going right.
The moon is tugging you once more
and you feel you must take flight.
Even if it means your fall to
doom.

Oh God, let me find freedom soon.

The freedom to scream, as loud and as
pained as blood,
dripping freely from the chest,
the successive scratch marks of my mind
free to air their wounds at last.

There you go everyone, there
is my real past.

It's disgusting and it's vile,
and still has the ability
to rip the smile from my face.
I feel like I'm in
a constant race.

Who can reach her brain first?

Can she really keep reign the bad,
when we provoke the beasts
of her destruction?
Can we quicken her heartbeat
and limit her air?
How about, if we tie her hair to
spiders?
Watch them scuttle closer in,
wriggling and spinning,
trying to reach inside her.

Let's watch her play "find the sin"

The sins we hid within,
which are not hers
but others.
We know she won't want to
cause a bother,
she won't dob us in.

She'll hide them like she
does her soul.
Honestly, she sometimes wonders if it's
worth it after all.

She feels enclosed, compressed,
constricted,
a claustrophobic who finds
solace in small spaces
fears suppression of emotion,
the heavy tread of life,
can sometimes be quite weary.

But it'll be alright, she'll always
find the energy to do that
which is right.

She'll once more start to fight
She'll find solace where she can,
and cradle ***** of light,
she'll find a way to free herself
by flying like a kite;
string holding her down,
but wind taking her high.

She'll dance
and laugh
and twist
and turn
and dive
high up in the sky

Free as a bird, but secret silent as a sigh,
not the least offended, if people
pass her by.

If they can't accept her,
she'll happily flip them off
with a cry of contentment,
that she can finally be free of living
with resentment.

Her Girl, Lady, Woman
firmly by her side,
together they will glide
and ride the
tides of life.

"We're flying!"

They will cry, laugh and love
forever eternally.

Their quirks in constant harmony

And when they lie to rest together,
the girl will whisper:
"We will never die
I'll live so safe in your heart
and you will be in mine"

"I promise, and I know,
our love can only grow"

So I'll never give up.

Ever

*Because, I love you so.

It is not who you are,
but rather what you represent, to me,
which defines you.

You encapsulate a love for me,
which I will never know again,
all-defining, pain and fear filled love-
the one he took away.

In a manner, when I look upon you
I look upon him too.
The face of one who
tore my heart and threw it back
cemented in me all that I did lack
which he would then attack.
In a one sided battle,
the blows raining on me like tears,
adding years to my tender age.
You see he had tore the page of childhood,
leaving this book beyond recognition.

Looking back, perhaps I should have had a premonition,
Phil,
of what you were going to be to me.
But I did not want to see
that which would break
the tinted image which I owned of you
which I knew would remain
true
only to a point,
from which it would then be tarnished forever.

I so wanted you to love me back
and so agreed that I lacked
in all that you'd say,
come what may, I know that
I allowed you to control me.
It was not always so one sided.

You bided your time well, you know,
you timed it 'just so', so you
could be sure this final blow would hit.
A finishing spit in the exposed page of my future,

You turned,
you changed,
and the burning pain I felt within,
is possibly your only sin in
this endeavour.
As whatever you are I cannot
blame you for that
which is past.
No matter how long this pain will last-
possibly forever.

And I will prove myself again.
I will prove that I can still love and
be loved in return.
No matter how my heart may yearn,
I have no choice but to spurn those
who are like you.

A half life it may be,
but half full to me.

What you once seemed,
that which I never dreamed you would turn from.
That which, though I may long to,
I shall never see again
when I attempt to see anew.
Not even blindness could hide
all that is true.

Now all I can do is to
bow to the memory
in defeat.
I will never greet who you were again.

You will never eat your words,
you meant them then.
You still do.

The final blow is that;
I will never live up
to the girl you thought
you thought that you once knew.

You reap only the fake crops which
I attempted to sow
in desperation to be,
all that you thought once thought of me.

That girl is dead.
She lives only in my mind
and your heart.
Our paths were meant to be apart.

I basked in the womb of a female's
*choice

emptiness, so much despair
hollowed out without a care
in the world
left staring out of sockets
in your own personal hole in the ground
the only sound, the last breath of air
goodbye to this whole sorry affair

So you think it's time to give up do you?
You've had enough,
you can't take any more...
you've fought and now it's time to die,
a single sigh of acceptance billows out,
you've got no energy left to shout.
Wasted and forgotten,
it's time to leave this shell to rot on
without you.

So that is what you have decided.

After all of that,
all the crap and defiance,
you've chosen to become the burden
you despise.
That need you've tried to hide from those
who would suppress the
depressed you.
The inflatable puppet with a puncture
wound has fallen,
into a crumpled heap.

it's time to sleep*

Well if that's your goal then
I won't keep you waiting long.
Obviously my will to live and
fight is wrong.

So you,
now,
break off from me
and go to hell

You're right, you're done.
But don't you dare think that you have won
the right rule over me, to make
the whole of me,
as one.
You have no where near out done
or out run, you see, if
anything you have merely
stunned
me,
enraged
and motivated
me
to become more.
Even more than the one
you had thought to defeat before.

I don't need you.

I don't need that lingering voice of doubt,
if anything you suppress my shout of
defiance
which rings true and bold.
The full story which is yet untold.
My life rolls out before me.

You thought you saw me crumble and fall.
Turns out, as yet, you ain't seen nothing at all.

I stood at the sea edge
looking into the precipice
mud on my shoes
and a hole in my heart.

This time I asked for nothing
there were no more questions
as there were no more answers
of hope, I was, devoid.

I was already falling
air ripped from my lungs
numb of all emotion
good or bad.

I searched my heart for
something;
a rope,
a ladder,
a foothold.
Anything to once more
hold me to this life.

At first glance I found nothing.

And then Something
snagged,
a face full of pain,
of disappointment,
of grief.
An immovable object in
my current of life.

I couldn't leave her.

Of all others I thought nought.
But I could not, and would not,
abandon this one for the world.

You saved my life that night.

He bore down and
Arching over her
A single holding hand cupped against
Her waiting skin
let me in
God's first kiss
She waited
Lips parted tentative
As he waited on the brink
God will let me think
Waiting
A weighted silence
Baiting
dip
Press against her lips
let me in
God's only sin

Sink

And when he pulled out
Slipped away
Her lips weren't normal dry
And inside a part of him was left
Behind
Dyed forever

Red and Eternal

And so, all that is left is a whisper,
a shadow,
an imprint of you.
Fleeting, yet vivid
as scars left over
from battle.

You may no longer shape
my mind,
my thoughts,
my heart...
but you are still here.

though escape may be found
in the summer air,
pressing down on my blushing
cheeks,
there is no escape at night.
You come in sudden
waves of passion, the ghost
of a memory pressing
down on my skin, feverish
and trembling, urgent in
it's hunger.

It's hunger for you.

And I wonder,
is it the same for you?
Do I still hold a place,
a part,
a piece of your flesh,
of my own?
I wonder,
and I hope that I do.

I hope that sometimes
the ghost of me
haunts you.
Not in vengeance,
there was never a need for that,
but in heat.
That at times your memory touches you,
in your vulnerability,
and so,
I do too.

Freedom is a myth.
There is no time,
no place,
and no society
where it can be real.

And I can offer proof...
with actions comes
responsibility,
an ethical lifeline
which ties you to
humanity.
Judgement's forever
threatening scissors,
resting on it's pulse.

I see the reason,
I see the logic,
the neatened box in
which our world is
folded sweetly,
but...
I crave release.
I crave a freedom
to break the bonds of
judgement,
judging faces,
judging stares,
judging whispers...
to just

escape

and be me.

Be mad without the fear
of imprisonment,
to experiment
and probe
and explore
and run
and jump
and be happy
and be free
and to not be scared.
To still feel safe
because I don't,
and I really rarely
have done.

I am yearning...
for an impossible dream.
To have a day,
an hour,
a minute,
a second-
which I don't calculate,
and analyse,
and wait in fear of
repercussions.

And that is what it'll stay...
a dream.
And hauntingly wonderful one
at that.

You filled a space I didn't know I had
A long body curling up against my own
A single bed
Now holds two

A tentative hope
Now holds two

A fearful clarity
Two peas

My hands gaps were only lines once
And now I'm in a jigsaw
And you take up half the ***

And everything is empty
Because only you can fill the space you've made within me

The girl sits
In the straight backed chair
A baby in her arms
An unneeded anchor
In a too calm sea

She sits not for herself
Not for the baby
She sits for her craving
Her craving to serve
Her face a blank mask
She is desperate with longing
Her longing to serve

But Yet she is happy
She is content
She would wait for a century
For one petty morsel
One morsel to serve

She watchs her husband
Her brother, her cousin
Their mouths moving proudly
Yet their meanings blurred

She watches them laughing
See's baby crying
Yet why should she care
The baby's not her's

She see's so much love
So much laughter in movement
She see's so much flourishing
And it's all hers

The punishment blurring
The passion so strong
Yet she is so happy
For she has her longing
And her longing is hers

Pain
contained in a cell of skin and blood
throbs hard,
striking out at the walls with a thud
forlornly I stare
down at the bud
of the poem which I had wished to begin,
and wonder exactly which sin
this mind war is repentance for...
ah well, suppose it's sods law.

That wound, the
one you choose to hide,
will always be there.
come weeks,
come years,
come even decades.
It's scar will always remain.
Jagged on the palm of
your sleeve,
it may fade with
time
but it will always
be.
Forever ready to be
rubbed raw,
scarlet blood weeping
once again.

We all carry a scar
such as this.
It is a first and so,
it is the deepest.
The beginning of an
individual pattern.
It will sit there
ready,
waiting to bring again
your heart onto
your sleeve.

First love,
Pure love,
No more.

It will always be present.

Useless
Toothless
Helpless

Can't give it
Can't take it
Might as well
Help less

Can't prevent him slipping
Into darkness
Can't stop her sinking
Into oblivion

Can't even help myself

Useless

I punched myself in the leg today
I had to stop the way
The voices were clamouring
In and outside
My head
I had to stop the dread
That's my problem
When it comes to the punch (haha)
All the voices come at once
Then
Overload

Then comes hate
Hate myself
Useless

The punch didn't even help
Wasn't worth it
It bought back something else

Never

Do

This

To

Yourself

Her hits would punctuate her words
Her cheeks reddening on each strike
She might as well have
Hit me
It hurt as much to watch.

her eyes locked in on mine

Darkly humorous really
That I was always so split

Between fear that he'd hit me
Fear that she'd hit herself
And always, always,
The fear that they'd leave
Because I'd made them
Want to once too much.

Faultless
Helpless
Useless
I was never truly innocent
Because the guilt was
Always mine

And I never told Mum
Gaping blonde, **** and teeth
***
He'd won
I'd never tell, not now, not then,
not anyone.

He asked if I wanted to see his "wake-up call"
I was to young to understand the pull of
the nakedness of women
Didn't know what I was viewing
Didn't know what he did
For so long I was unaware
Repression's glare
I didn't want to remember

And he was so ashamed
Told me the next day he'd deleted it
Removed the stain on his hard drive, the first ***** photo
etched in my head. What is said
and seen, will always
be recalled

I should be appalled

But I'm haunted instead by the question
What the hell was going on in his head

Instead of anger
Awareness
and dread, because I hate
the way he messed with my
head.

I think you may have the
rare
ability to understand me.

I don't know whether or not
to laugh,
to crouch back in fear,
to cry,
with sorrow or
relief,
or mask myself again entirely.

After all this waiting,
I still don't know if I'm ready to reveal myself yet.

I'm at the start of something terrifying
but even though, you are the cause.
I'm still glad
to have you
here
next to me.

I'm crying at your words of solace,
they're so close to where I'm hiding.
Hiding the true me.

I'm starting to think
you can already see.

This is taking a whole new type of brave.

So deep in your arms that I drown,
unable and unwilling to break for air,
completely bare
to you.

Hold me,
so tight I do not feel or see
the silent, dry eyed sobs which rack my body
Love me.
I don't even care if you don't.

Hold me,
if my illusion of control is gone
allow me to construct another,
let you be the stitching of a temporary plaster,
that I might carry on.

Hold me,
break free my icy barrier
let loose my tears, that I
might let go the years I have grown to.

Too fast,
Too soon,
Hold me so I might forget.
Don't remind me of what's real just yet.

Please.

and he is mine

Tentative praying
please let it all work out fine

*everything crossed

I can't
I can't go back.
Shadows of bells chime as
I wipe the grime of guilt from
my face, replacing it
with Air
Stripping off the care of
another world.

I can't
I really can't go back,
a mountain of monotony lies
unattended.
My title mediocrity is
undefended
for once
Just for once, please,
Freedom,
just once.

I can't
I simply can't go back,
I calm, change tack and
stack the lacking storm
away and
stray, dangerously, into
safety.
I need to,
I must
Leave.

Because I can't
I can't go back.

Not now I've tasted freedom.