A childhood of blackberry stained fingers and butterfly kisses
That turned into cigarette scented Sundays
Mondays alarm is hardly the birth of a phoenix
Everything is so loud
So you make playlists to block the days out
Talk to therapists so your voice drowns the sounds
Of hearts beating to the symmetry of structure
Evenings spent drifting through conspiracies
That put your mind in and out of ease

I have a shortcut, I can show you

Into a world of leaves
Your hair will tangle with the trees
The rain will batter you
Wet silk and scars
Mark promises on your legs
But smoky seasoned scrambled eggs
And a woodpecker at a pine
Is now your divine alarm clock
It will curve your mood
Become your instinct
You’ll be able to tell
When thorns become soft
You dress to un-impress
Ragged ankles of an empress
Enter your utopia

On carpets of brambles
To be danced above
A crumpled tent hosts
Seven sweet sisters
Fresh from the flames
Soul mates are on auction
Interviewed by ghosts
Who decide your wedding gown
You are never unqualified
Don’t let the cold get you down
Don’t let the past nourish you
The way you forget to let the sun do
Hidden in the woods
Branches block the dreams out
Climb to where the schemes rhyme
Disregard your sodden socks
The needles of a helpless hairbrush
Accept the untameable
As you stumble, wild
Your soles bare
You know your worth
Your place upon the earth
You curl up in the dirt
But there’s a nice view
And it’s a green that patterns the cosmos
Subsides the madman’s blood lust
It’s the eyes of your mother
And the scent of an absent lover
Let it cushion you

At least until Monday

I scowl at you
Nibbling tomorrow’s mistakes
You catch me watching, eyes accused
But I know you’re ready to paint the whole night blue
Slurring apologies and blurring memories
You stumble out promises and throw up on them
You cry into the night and in the morning it’s not yours
It’s my problem

I call in defence for myself
I can’t help
I wipe away your essence
Even the shards I hold pleasant
I tear and delete
Angry at how  
I need more than myself now
To feel complete

Falling into pages of how I felt
But I don’t know how I feel
I don’t know what was real
It’s scariest to focus on further
When all you did was forget

Pitied partings and ***, held in regret
My open heart left no respect

Words that somehow fall phonetic
In my head, from my mouth
Late night or early morning
A shameful state of paralytic

Words I carve from anger
Noise that makes me feel pathetic
A hollow for sensitivity to sleep
Words I held that made you weep

Words that trickle out
Sentences that dribble doubt
Riddles that package lies
Words you use as your disguise

Words I later regret
Words I wish I could just forget
The state of your mind a statistic
Words of a drug turned you egotistic

Sins engraved in every thought you think
Your actions are the words that made you sink

Stumbling through streets
A playground of drunks and delusions
That cages your freedom
And cuts your digression
Squeezed into the swarming system
Possession to repetition rhythm (screaming loud)
Too immersed to disperse the crowd
Boxed in I smoke
Where the great sounds are drowned
I spy him and choke
Retreating with a suitor
In a serpents nest
I lie on his chest
Depressed
Beneath mislaid sheets

The creature the day makes of me awakes
Cheerfully cherished by the hammock of a hangover
Scouting for my lonely mattress
And the jinxed luxury
From the sizzle of a frying pan
Avoiding my critics pulsing stress
My ego clawing at me for retail therapy
My cynic judging my supposed needs
My mirror painting me false
I cradle my anxiety till it relies on me
I lock up my secrets till the liquor hits my lips again

A silver lining inky with doubt
A missing wallet indulged by immoral hands
Kept immortal with desperation
The last few rascals rasping
from adventures that soaked up the night
In search of a lost soul
I lick the sadness from her eyes
Till i'm drunk on someone else’s pain
I'm bored of explaining mine
I'm bored of this place and time
Im tied here with debts to myself
Tired of everybody else
And I'm too weak to break down walls
Or seek true freedom
Fall fake to placebos of liberation
To have found the end of the week
But I'm on my feet
Repeating the words I shouldn’t speak
I grasp at my past out of reach
Destructive
I weep
And tumble back into the streets

a wood pigeon coos the start of morning
then an accompaniment of tweets begin
I stretch between bodies loneliness dawning
fast but I struggle a smile when the birds sing

feelings that lodge in your chest for decades
trying to cry the heaviness out but I gasp
whilst we warmly cascade into our graves
my vacant heart is stuck in the past

I contemplate what it is to feel afraid
I climb around the kindness of my home
admire all the things that make me brave
then chalice my fears to build a throne

a tired little soul with a greying dress
her hair, her house and her mind a mess

indecisive, precised
on nothing that matters
to block out the natter chatter
that keeps ideas shattered

one step forward
and five steps back
ignoring is rewarding with a slap

growing weary and dreary
feeling short of time
I struggle to remember
that my mind is mine

longing to be involved
not feel mistaken
alone in contemplation
vicious circle situations

unsettled on repeat
my eyes can't see
I have the ability
to run from this free

doubts and outs
what has come from my mouth?
again and again
competing with friends
fantasies of enemies
far-fetched theories
smoked and smeary

my spontaneity stretched
my confidence confiscated
always on edge  
opportunities wasted

fretful precision
anxious decisions
imitates and animates
knife sharp and fast
convincing and sneering
you are an outcast

The evening attacks as the figures howl
Unhinged with ferocious divination
On the prowl for faded possessions
That drip with empathy
Dismantled by their frantic obsessions
Jaded faces painted with longing
Of ownership and belonging
Just to be a child again
Pulling marigolds out of the ground
Drowned in sunshine and sleepy with hiccups
Handsome dreams lined with soft petals
Dewy with downtrodden tiredness
Tricked into maturity
But still tickled by memories that take up time
Fickle fragments of the day
That shatter into your realm
Conspiring against the truth
You sniff rails of excitement
Gazing, you suckle on the sky
She chuckles with her eyes
And hurls you back into the forest
A green and twisted hunter’s path
Shadows giggle and glue together
Flames of hope
Your homage to the dark