True, we did not choose
The sun or even the moon
But both have their use.

I thought I found it:
The answer to being human.
It came in a little heart-shaped box.
It told me to work hard and achieve my goals.
It told me to find people that love me,
and love them too.
It told me to get my head down early
and eat a colourful plate.
With all these boxes ticked,
I found glory in a greater life.
But still I found myself hurting.
I found brittle bones breaking.
I saw people bleed and break.
This, I found, is called being human.
To that, there is no cure.
But to treat life with a healthy smile,
and live out your days bringing smiles to others.
Now that, is being the most human of all.

Can I just sit here and dissolve
as a servant of life’s sour taste?
Absord the aches, the pains, the cold
and shiver as I wither away?

For years I sat
watching four
disdain filled walls
close in on me
and grasp my lungs;
splintering the life
out of my body
with every perilous
second that passed.
-
It took my organs
to fail, and silence
the screaming engine
inside my chest
to begin to ponder
what it could possibly
be like to live,
rather than just
exist.
-
Walls came crashing down;
brick by miserable
******* brick.
My skin shone a
luminescent shade
as light christened
my being.
My bones ached
with a sudden yearning
to feel.
-
It was only
with one small
step did that sinister
song play it’s final note
and the whispering winds
of change
called out my name
in blissful rejoice.
-
My feet crashed
against the broken concrete
as I left the
past behind
and with that moment,
I could finally
breathe.

Like fallen leaves we stay
dark and dancing upon the ground.
Stepped over; ignored.
A memory of natural creation.
A ghost of days gone by.

Once a burst of human creativity,
a glimpse of perpetual love and emotion now just an adverse memory
playing on a loop
with no hope of recreation
again and again and again.

Like fallen leaves we stay
decaying into the mists of time
picked up and dropped
Once beautiful.
Once alive.

I’d love to sit and talk
to you about the world,
the moon and the stars
but you’re as far
away from me as
I am from them.

What is your masquerade of moving pictures now
that you’ve landed screen down on the floor?
Will you keep your mask as tied to your heart as you keep your cards close to your chest?
I’m beginning to think you don’t even know what lies beneath it anymore.
Would you recognise your own broken skin?
Lines naturally painted to your face?
Curves on your hips?
You were begging for so long to become a work of fiction - how does it feel to not exist?
To have become an echo of toxic vanity?
You filled in all the the cracks for all your followers to see
But now they see them all
As your world shatters
screen down on the floor.

Show me worlds with a single glare
or take my hand and take me there.
Feed me life in a three course meal
with food that sings of something real.
Breath me in and savour the taste
I’d long to live in your embrace
Your world that’s full of love, my dear
let’s run away and leave life here.

When I was younger; I didn’t have to capacity to appreciate all you did when you were the same age as me. Your mother saw red and drank away your life. So there you were, blowing out candles by yourself.

She found a man and pumped out two more. You didn’t want your sisters to endure the same fate as you, so you became a mother of two at thirteen. So there you were, giving up your younger years for them.

As you grew up, you married young and had a child of your own. Except, your ‘man’ beat you black and blue so you had to pluck up the courage to leave. And there you were, alone, doing what you could for your first son.

You went on to find love, but that marriage slipped away from you both. However, you now had me. So there you were, two sons, without a life again.

Your mother grew old and weak. Cancer flooded her body like the plague yet you still had the strength – despite everything – to give her all that she didn’t give you. So there you were, bold like a god, forgiving the devil.

I learned as I grew up that they don’t write stories about women like you. They don’t tell the tales of the courage you presented. They don’t write songs about you because you’re not wearing a cape. So here you are, older, wiser, better than ever.

Now that is a fighter, if I’ve ever heard of one. This is certainly something you’ll never see. But if you do, here I am saying you’re incredible. Thank you for everything.

I would love
for just one day
to wake up
and turn on the news
to see smiles
celebrating the wonders
of the human being.
The brilliance
of all that we accomplish;
of smiles;
of love;
of happiness;
of all the wonderful things
that people do every day.
But if I had never left my house
and had only seen life
for what they show us
then I’d never want to leave
the house
at all.

The world stopped spinning
when I saw your face.
I could taste the hurt you left on my lips
when you left your lips on his.
I could feel the wound split and tear
as if your knife’s still in.
I could sense the burn from within my heart
to ask a thousand questions.
But all I did was sit and stare
and hurt
and ache
and wonder.

You don’t just fall in love,
you get lost in it;
revel in it;
explore it.
You fight with it;
hate it;
then learn
to love it
all over again.
Yet,
much like falling,
the only certain thing
with this madness
we call love
is that you must
someday
hit the
floor.
Nevertheless,
one of these days
you’ll find someone
to catch you;
to be your net
and
       let you
             float
     in complete
harmony
             again.

What happened to
your younger years
being your best?
Because all I
see is sadness
here in my head.

It was him
it was always him
that you were meant
to be with.

Not her,
never her.
She just filled
in the blanks.

But from the start,
from the very start,
it was you
that filled in his heart.

And always will
until the end
when your lives
are worlds apart.

it just...
sits there.
it never moves
never blinks.
never flashes
never rings.
not a text
not a ding.
oh
what life
was like
when you
would
sing
            down the
            phone at
            ten to
            three
to me

When did I become
a spectator of this?
The absolute agony
of aching for bliss.
It shudders my skin
like a whispering wind.
But I’m not sure
if I’m still here.

I long for life’s most
beautiful things.
Love, at last
without the strings.
Smiles and sparks;
a soul that sings.
But I’m not sure
if I can breathe.

You see, I try to fly
but I just can’t win.
A bird that strains
with clip on wings;
chained to the Earth
with deranged beliefs
and a heart that’s lost
without relief.
grief.

It’s not just time that flies
when I’m with you;
my feet have been off the ground
since we met.

Unseen bombs in the strengthened city streets.
A war on thoughts will slay the common man
when wars become concrete and gasoline;
people are dead and yet it was the plan.

A child doesn’t carry candy these days;
they’ll take a knife to school and stand up strong.
A playground dream becomes a heavy haze;
with blood on a hopscotch hilltop: “so long.”

Procrastinate away your true value
obtain a hate for words; ignore your worth.
Practise a life of crime; become so blue.
But you’re so high you won’t come down to earth.

With a change of heart and a change of pace
we could try and prevent the world’s decay.

I had to run so far away
so I simply jumped the fence.
But all they told me was a lie
and now my love’s past tense.

It’s the past that crafts
your origami heart.

Fold the page into a shape,
that makes you who you are.

Once folded it never quite goes back,
lines on the white, darkened to black.

You come out again from the dark
and I open the door.

Tear it up you shout
so you see it no more

Break my bones;
cut my throat.
Pull me open,
learn the ropes.

Breath me in;
taste the fear.
Shank my skin;
stand and cheer.

Kick my head;
let me bleed.
Unbolt my veins;
enjoy the read.

Gouge my eyes;
punch my face.
Wrap me up
in your embrace.

The smoke prowls
around your cherry lips.
I fuel the flame
as I grip your hips.
Knock me down
with a passionate kiss.
This tar ridden
dystopian bliss.

A black dress dormant;
dead on the floor.
Scalded my skin;
begging for more.
Your eye shadow gaze;
the front of the war.
Your hair pulled back;
this you adore.

Dig your nails through my skin;
I’ve longed to feel you burn within.
I’ve died to know how you’ve been;
but now I feel that I’ve been missed.
Whisper words
with a gentle grin.
As moonlight shines;
the fire begins.

Good friends, long drives and country nights
fast cars, dark roads and high-beam lights.
Complete content all in despite
the lives we lived we left behind.

An air so cramped with smoke we lined
we drink to death our whole design.
The world in which we all collide
is now the world we must refine.

Yet soon we must return confined
back into our joyless lives.
It’s this we must try to remind,
The very nature of mankind.

But why the rush? We need not hide.
We’re free of all that we declined!
At last, a path we can all ride
to drive and drive into the night.

Smoke clouds smoulder the putrid sky,
capricious crowds rush hastily by.
Bricks and mortar for maculate miles,
the hustle and bustle; backwards smiles.
Eyes tamed vacant, tapered down;
a tracksuit warrior, wearing the town.
The city exhales, erupting with life;
it’s very beauty: boisterously wild.

A flower grows in the garden, blue.
When summer comes it comes to you.
When winter comes it turns from new
to the ghastly grey of once was good.

that was all it took for my life to end.
years of trials and tribulations
all culminating into this one
terrible moment where
you would say
goodbye.