I held
my tongue
so long
that my
calloused hands
no longer
wish
to hold my
weight

the roof
has never
seemed
so high up.

I held my
tongue
so long
that it has
withered
like a
dying vine
within my
throat
and I can
only rasp
of things
I wished
to say.

cacophony of thought
avalanche of
miss you
sorry
didn't mean to
maybe
sorry

I never understood people who ran,
the burn in the lungs,
ache in the thighs,
pain and restless aftercare,

the people left behind,
the solemn faces that never cease,
the memories you can't escape.

I run into the night,
a wild blessed thing.

There is a kind world,
waiting,
beneath the surface of the one we made,

just dig a little.

skating on a thin shine of ice,
clean metal reflects only sharp eyes,
we know not how to skate,

but we know how to fly.

Being that drifts
with no ripple
in the movements
of time

there is no
substance
to this figure
that walks through
the lonely mists

it was born
to be
a traveller
of its own
soul

it was born
to walk
on
whispers of
memories
never quite there

its heart is
like boulders
heavy and
cracked
never bending
bruising
or breaking
the ends shaking
it is shaking

walk on.

I am treading water.

Limbs stretched out to catch hopes of sunshine.

Mouth turned to the sun, open wide, flooding air into my lungs.

Some days I could swim for hours.

The time does not bother me as it pounds against my skull.

At night I can simply lie back and float into dreams, dry and safe.

I made it... I would think, made it through that day, another badge to add to my collection.

Some days the water churns in a storm around me.

I paddle, arms swinging, legs pounding at the brutal sea.

I beg for land to hoist upon, I beg for rest for my weary mind.

And the sea keeps churning, because the sea knows no patience or mercy.

At night I am afraid to close my eyes.

I do not want to sink into the ocean and drown in my sleep.

Even if half of me wants to die, the larger half is begging for land.

Sometimes people throw their floats against me.

They hit me hard, I almost don't catch them, and some float away.

But the ones that I can hold onto make swimming so much easier.

Sleeping feels safer with a pillow under my head, and no pounding heart to keep me awake.

Sometimes it feels like there is someone there with me.

Swimming alone on the grand ocean, just outside my vision.

I have swum for so long with no company I never investigate the human sobs that sound from beyond the reef.

I do not want to see them drown.

I am scared they will pull me down with them.

So I just keep treading water in my own small pocket of darkness.

Waiting for the sun to set.

treading water.

Limbs stretched out
hopes of sunshine.

Mouth turned to the sun
open wide
flooding
air in lungs

swim for hours.

time does not bother me
as it
pounds
against my skull.

lie back and float into dreams
dry and safe.

I made it
another badge
to add
to my
collection.

the water churns
in a storm

paddle
arms swinging
legs pounding
at the brutal sea.

beg for land
beg for rest.

sea keeps churning
the sea knows no
patience or
mercy.

I am afraid
to close my eyes
to swim
to fall.

to sink into the ocean
and drown in my sleep.

half of me wants to die
the larger half is begging
for land.

people throw their floats

They hit hard
some don't catch
some float away.

the ones that I hold
ease my weight
lift me to the sea.

Sleeping feels safer
with floats
and pillows
no pounding heart to keep me.

it feels like there is someone there.

Swimming alone
on the grand ocean
outside my vision.

I have swum for so long
I never investigate the human sobs
guilt churns in my stomach.

I do not want to see them drown.

I am scared
they will
pull me
down.

Guilt bites
at
my wrist.

I keep treading water
my own small pocket of darkness.

Waiting for the sun to set.

Little slips of lies
Never hurt a soul
Cradle pills of omission
And swallow them whole

the weaver never asks himself,
why the webs are so frail.

the songstress will always sing,
except if the world doesn't listen.

I am the truth hiding behind your lies,
the joke that pounds like dynamite in your skull,
the whispered presence that calls for salvation,
the darkened eyes of the boy next door who looks

so haunted.

I am the truth,
hiding within your smile,
within the
flecks of gold
and sparkles
in your eyes,
the smile that
never ceases
and
never stops,
the smile that
makes me
wonder what is

real enough.

I am the vaulted raindrop that hangs in your hair,
I cling to you, so tightly, my arms around your chest,
my cheekbone rests gentle on your
morning wrinkles
the eyes that do not wish
to open
the sleep that
makes you
frown
a worker's
grimace,
the drop that
adds to
your wrinkles
to your
sopping
hair that
never seems
to dry,
I stare from above your mountain,
taking vantage of your morning route,
listening to the
whispers
which you
brush to the side

they're not real.

She wore her bandaids like badges.

Were they badges of honour or badges of shame?

She fears them pulling up her sleeves, all the way to the shoulders, brushing the neck, for she only scratches there...

So they won't find them.

She wonders time and time again why she does what she does.

'Perhaps I am cursed' she screams out to the world, as if it were a question and not a statement which keeps ringing in her head.

She tries to tell someone, tries to articulate what she means, tries to summon up the courage.

But uncertainty and that throbbing in her shoulder lie in wait, in the form of butterflies in her stomach and a lion purring painfully in her heart.

'Do not roar' she whimpers over and over, 'Please do not say anything' she tells herself, even when she wants to speak.

She must be quiet.

So as not to awaken doubt, so as not to force others to think differently upon her, so as not to let herself be boxed in.

'But what if I want those boxes for protection?' she tries to reason with herself, but stubborness is a disease that reeks of pausing after stubbed toes to see if it is the same feeling.

Is it the same if she hurts herself by accident? Could she have
hurted herself by accident?

'I do not want self harm to write who I am' she cries unnecesarily to the sky, so blue and taunting it twinkles to her, so endless unlike her fraying and drying self.

'Do not harm yourself then' it says, as if it were that easy, as if pain and memories and shame and the need to not think haven't already corrupted her soul.

Why is she shivering?

Why can't she breathe?

'I am possessed' she reassures herself. It is not her fault that she has been taken by a demon she cannot control.

It is not her fault that she is so weak.

She says that she is possessed, not that she feels she is possessed, for she can think of no other reason for her insanity.

'I love you' god calls to her.

She is not sure which god she should pray to, not sure where she
can let her disbelief and absolution lie. How can she know what to believe in when she has surely lost belief in herself.

'Can I give up on science?' she longs to let the non-existence control her life. If only there were rules for her life.

Will they blame her?

In the end she knows they won't. Not the ones who should be listened to anyway.

Yet she continues to torture herself for reasons that are out of her grasp.

Insanity has never been her salvation, but neither has it been her reckoning.

'I am broken' she argues when someone tells her that she should
stop, that her skin is beautiful, that scratching it is only futile.

She realises it is her own conscience.

There is a dark part of her that wishes she would not heal, so she would not have to replace the marks which disappear.

'I am broken' she repeats, wondering if someone is listening to her when she speaks to empty air.

She knows they aren't.

Translate my
confusion for me
so I can
breathe right
and think
clearly.

Make me see
I beg you please
the way out
of this trap
I have
built for myself

I know
I will be okay
I feel it
deep down
in my bones
but right now
I am not
in my bones
I am
in the mists
and wisps
of my
strangling mind

I can't breathe right
I can't think
I need to know
the future
before I shatter
like cheap china
and leave my
feet ******
as I race
across the kitchen
floors

beg of you
let this feeling end
I am an
endangered species
wandering through
times that don't match
and junctions that
are dead ends
I want a road
that I can follow
with my eyes
closed
and my hands
tied
and my legs

curdled into mush

and my chest
hot like fire
and my heart
stopped
and my thoughts
in disrepair

build be a river
so I can cry
and no one can
see
and ask
me

I need to be alone
but that is the most
dangerous time
of all

I am a savage beast
contained in milky
translucent
skin
my gums ache where
the fangs beg
for freedom

my heart shutters
I want to live
but I can't seem
to breathe right

Dew drops
of
passion I have
left behind
stain my
lawn
like your
toxic
tears
never could.

Weigh me
down
until my feet
are tied to concrete
and the sun
doesn't burn my hair
like forest fires
any longer.

I am
free flying
a dangerous sport
for those
unaccustomed
to safety
it tastes
like bitter promises
of dark chocolate
and tinted
soap suds.

Merrily
****** me quickly
before I see the stars
too long
and can no
longer love
the dark
that has been a
gentle lover
for longer
than is normal.

Where will it end
when my hands bleed
my knuckles cry
my teeth grit from their
sandstone edge
when the world halts
when the moon
does not rise
when I stare
into the burning mercy
of the sun until
I cannot see the
horror of myself
when the books have
no more letters
and pages to fill
when I am content

in my dreams perhaps

when I am content
and do not think
about the
burgeoning
suffocating
all taking
all giving
all consuming
blood on my hands
blood in my eyes
blood as hair
red as rubies
burning that
burns me from
the inside
like I was

born the burn.

When will it end
this quest
this adventure
of the soul
sword out to
protect my most
precious mistakes
little gems
of dangerous
and sacrificial
memories
when she has
hurt me
beyond repair
bones lying limb
and curved
like loose
spaghetti strings
blood is
back in business
is art
and is movie
and blood
my ******
conscience
always seems

to forgive her.

When will it end

when I have left

when she has left

when
my
b
o
d
y
has
left
me.

Blessed nightmares
ghouls and phantoms of
crystalised snow storms
that swirl around me
and catch my breath

it frosts
silent in the
winter's air
all stiffened in the
brittle wind
daring not to
move
holding the
spine straight
and
back still
cursed by the
fright
of waking the
monsters deep
within

laughter echoes
along the empty moors
grasses swaying stiffly
reluctant to dance
in the forceful wind
the high and roiling sound
rolls over the
curling hills
and down into
the
curdled bellies
of those
listening in

they sway
like porcelin dolls
crooked and cracked
solid and balanced
faces reflecting the
unforgiving light
that shines like
torch beams against the
soft nectar of their
pupils

they dance
the winter chalice
lips parted
as haunted
mellowed
tunes
fall from their tongues
and
soak into the
sodden soil
with
the desire
of
warmth

their fingers flush with cold
shivering
quivering
ever so slightly
as the
turrets of storm
pick up
and the
roaring of the
turbines
crackle their
clinking bones
against themselves
they clang
like rust
in the
bleak winter sun
hallowed hearts
beating
by force of nature
and
not
by choice.

We wish we were younger -
when every flaking drift of sleet was magic
and the crinkles around father's brow
was a historic moment
laughter was common place
exploration seeped into the skin
and our own wonder lay exotic yet forgotten

We wish we were older-
so that the wisdom we yearn has already arrived
so that we open our eyes and see
echoes of the kaleidoscope of life we always wish to see

so that meaning is more than stripes on a dashboard
and we look back and smile winsome and fresh
with yellow tinted teas and teeth
eyes twinkling with ancient promise

if we're older we made it,
and there is temptation in such security,
to wish away one's precious moments

We wish the clocks would tick back-
so that time was more forgiving
quiet and prehistoric
with large looming dinosaur trees caressing our flesh and sights
we could breathe once in a while
our eyes may flicker away from the day and into the sky
and at night we would lay beneath a blanket of boundless wonder

back then,
no one knew what lay in the stars,
so angels existed in more than dreams and
wishes

We wish for the world to end-
the fires raging in our hearts
catching alight at every stray ember
from the black choked plumes of smoke,

we want the burn
the pain
we want to feel it
to live
and breathe it
until
our lungs collapse

we would huddle like slick pelted penguins
a barricade of togetherness
the furies of nature fighting back would unite us
and some long for the seductress of community
to hold us and embrace us like our tech-enslaved mothers never did

We wish for the years to pause, then fold in on themselves-
and we would awaken
from stasis
with wild brains and gaping mouths
lips forever parted in childhood wonder
at the indescribable nature of the future

there is always hope in the future,
for the future is everything
we seek
but never eventuate

we wish,
we surrender,
we pledge our souls to the almighty cause,
never once pausing,
in Our time
to think that
if we let it

this could be paradise.

The words
that she
left too
long out
of the
chains
tasted like
stale
bread
so she
stopped
tasting
them
and they
came out
gluttonous
beggars
always
biding
for her
tongue.

apprehend your own second soul,
it is the back seat driver who makes all wrong turns,
born being upholds the simple truth of being as,
utterly incomprehensible as possible,

verbose and unstated,
skirted around concepts
like drowning dresses that skim the shins,

yet do not apprehend the beauty,
or slim the startling wiles,
for knowledge is a rarity,
and nonsense is a disguise.