we built a house with our bare hands
and you moved out,
then back in and it’s haunted now,
I know you have a hard time sleeping
but I’ve memorized every floorboard
that creaks and it sings me to sleep
every time you try and leave,
I get confused whether it’s the lullaby
of coming or leaving that knocks me out,
this house began to burn and I sat for months
putting it out while you stood
there with cold feet,
and now you’re warm and I’m
stuck peeling the ash off of my skin,
the grass is still green and the
picket fence is freshly painted
but I used the wrong colour,
the door bell is a muttering of
apologies and the doormat is a mirror,
the bed we slept in
hasn’t been made since you left,
I’m stuck sleeping with ghosts
and brushing my teeth beside
no one to tell me that I haven’t
been brushing for long enough,
I’m showering in hot water in the middle
of summer because the steam
pulls the mirror off the wall,
and all I want is for you to come back,
our house is ***** and the callouses on
my hands are starting to become smooth,
my skin is almost clear again,
please come back.

anxiety is wet sand seeping
through a growing hole
in a sieve of positivity,
lasting like migrating birds
arriving to find snowfall,
a **** victim of hands bound
by unmet expectations
and spines realigning
to throats and throats
plugged with damp cement
and every time I speak
it dries a little bit more,
the english language is
written by children
and broken branches
carving into the back
of my throat with
no way out,
I’ve never viewed my
ribcage as prison bars
until now,
I’ve never been
locked out by my own walls
until now
and this sickness is breeding
vines all over any guard
I try to knock down, it’s not
contagious but it will wrap around
your heart like a drunk tattoo.

I’m starting to come to terms
with hate and insanity,
I drove to her house at 4am
because she wasn’t answering her texts,
and I called her 30 times cause I thought
she got into a car accident,
I hit a skunk just
after leaving my house at 4am
and I never smelt anything,
I’ve been sitting on her shoulders for
as long as we’ve known each other,
and all I’ve become is heavy dust,
I have good intentions,
but they’re transparent,
my heart is consistent
but translucent,
a transient feeling of
reciprocated compassion
sparks immeasurable
inconsistencies in
sane behaviour,
but I have good intentions,
and every day we sit in a vessel
with no holes and I try to patch
them because I feel like I’m drowning,
and eventually she’ll want to swim,
she turns turns amnesia into a theory,
she’s a mirror and I’m seeing
an evolutionary reverse,
before I see clearly
I'll have to wipe the fingerprints.

a broken vessel
and bailing water is drowning
out the ability to drift back to shore,
it’s always calm before the storm
but when a breeze disappears
the chance of moving anywhere
flies away like the seagulls
laughing in cocksure,
the water seems so thick
like drifting in ink that draws out
abstracts of stagnancies
and ever time I row,
the boat rhymes in harmony
with the singing current
and cisterns will begin to cry,
I can’t travel alone and
I don’t know how to swim
but at least the sand below
will be softer than rock bottom

                                       MJB

a soft voice that can
sanitize a mind, and
that mirrors skin like linen,
hair flowing faster than
blood to her heart,
looking in her eyes
proves that cerulean skies
can walk on earth,
anxiety blurs the lines
of a perfectionist,
leaving reservations
in the minds of anyone
lucky enough to
grace tangibility and
her footsteps cohere,
with lips rarely touched
a godless man can feel them
in his fingertips when praying
to a god he doesn’t believe in.
      
                                       MJB

I sat watching 3 girls,
couldn’t be any older than 12,
wearing shorts cut by
expectations and
            taking pictures
with coffee cups and
wearing make up
stronger          than
perfume clouds
following like
hitchhikers
and
a slow car.
**** magazines          and enraptured
by the           irrelevant famous,
exposing the youth’s lack
of interest in literature,
callow   and murderous,
glasses filled and cocksure,
the world in front of them
and yet they’re taking
steps backwards

MJB