The day the break broke

It gingerly staggers up,
like a lamb to his mother
Transformation begins
A little wobbly at first
A touch untrusting of
it’s sincerity
But it is there

Then the breath becomes easier
More natural
Deeper with less thought needed
Like the coming and going
of the tide
the breath of the ocean

Appetite calls from the distance
It’s been too pregnant with the heart sickness
to wave to you until now
Your senses begin to stretch
and yawn
as your stomach
takes a peep outside
and begins to yearn for nourishment

Fever of the heart has broken
It’s time to heal
to lick your wounds
To build up and nurture
that self love
that went running into the hills
and hid between the woods

It’s time to fight back
To forgive
Seek out your truth
And your magic
And believe in love again

Re-ject-ion
I can’t even type it whole
I’ve never said it out loud
I’ve whispered it
Like some people whisper the
word ***
But I’ll never be bold enough
to just say it
It’s the most heart wrenching
word ever created
It consumes my every thought
Yet I refuse to acknowledge it
exists
I prefer the words desired, accepted, loved.

I do not want this word Re-ject-ion

Kerosene and the Devil

I would drink up all the kerosene
Until my veins ran sick
and burn to ash from within my lungs
Of which your fire had lit

.....For one more hour with you

I would lacerate my mind
have the devil gobble it whole
Pointless having a mind
when I want to forget
the heart you stole

......After my last hour with you

Photo of Leonard

I stare and watch your face
as it contemplates
your smile
You are but a photograph
Yet my heart still feels you

After the lense had shut
and the negative lay still
unborn
I wonder if you were
there
how I see you
here
now

We dream dark,
we dream deep,
we dream awake
whilst you sleep.

Reality is our loneliness
Our fantasy is real,
We'll take whatever we can,
just as long as we don't feel.

We live off adrenaline,
we don't know how to not,
We'll do anything it takes,
to make the emptiness stop.

There are many of us living,
but you'll never know who,
We walk, talk and smile,
just like the rest of you.

But our hearts are on fire,
And we need to feel alive,
we're the Clyde to your Bonnie
or the Bonnie to your Clyde.

We only come out at night,
Just as the darkness falls,
there is no point in fighting,
When the darkness inside us calls.

We will jump when we have to,
The stars are ours to take,
We are the writers and the artists,
We hide before you wake.

You'll find us in the shadows,
Hidden behind our dreams,
Our minds dreaming of far-away lands,
Our hearts ripped at the seams.

We are misfits, we are outlaws,
the ones that you don't trust,
But if you're lucky to be one of us,
Our friendship is a must


We can not be tamed,
And we never fall in love,
Unless we find the one,
And only then
We never give up.

Be the contagious smile
Be the breath of fresh air
Be the one to lift their spirits
Even though life’s been unfair

Be the bold, bright light
Be the glow within the dark
Be the unwavering love
Even with your broken heart

Be this and be more
Show the world a different view
Be unconditional love
And one day it’ll return to you

The sun still rises
And the flowers still bloom
As paper angels fly
above me
in my room

Life goes on
And good times end
too soon
As paper angels fly
above me
in my room

The sea still rises
And sleeps with the moon
As paper angels fly
above me
in my room

I still sit here
And hope the tears dry up soon
As paper angels fly
above me
in my room

What do you think the clown would say
When you took his frown, and wore it your way

What do you think he’d do if he knew
That his sadness was the mirror
Image of you

What would he say when you stole his suit
Knowing you could be a perfect  substitute

What would happen if you both became one
Shadows like twins
The darkness had won

What if you both
could change your lives
And live in reality
No need for the disguise

I think you’d be happy
Reflection a smile
Make up vanished
It’s been a long while

She was beginning her annual  journey; full of hope and excitement, back to what had become her saviour, her second home.
Years she'd spent within Italy's familiar arms, flooding her senses with summers past.

Could it really have been over a year since she last bathed in its beauty?
An entire year since her heart had been snatched away, and hidden behind her walls?

How that time had been good to her, and how strong she had grown.

Someone once told her that self knowledge was only ever accompanied by heartache and pain.
How wrong they had been.
Self knowledge had saved her life.
Self love had brought her back from loneliness.
How can that have been wrong?

Now she'd returned to the welcoming warm breeze, and the streets laced with a beauty that could release the most shackled of hearts.

A country where lovers are found wrapped tightly around one another.
Bound together with love.
Draped over statues from ancient Gods; their limbs intertwined revealing no beginning and no end. Just one heart made whole from two separate souls.

A country where street buses and cars, choreograph their way through the melody that the sunshine orchestrates.

A humidity that brings with it a yearning she hasn't felt in a million kisses. Her Senses re-awakened, a longing to be touched.
Finally freed from her self made cage.

She finds interest and delight in every withered portrait, and in the faces of every chess game, within the laziness its players boastfully adopt.

She soaks up the sticky sweet aroma like a honey bee to the morning dew.
And she is at home.

As night falls, the crickets gently rock her to sleep as she drifts away, into tomorrow's dreams of the awaiting breath taking sights and cuisines.

She falls deep into her bed.
Italy has her in its trusting arms.

She is at peace once again.

Addicted

If I’m not addicted to Facebook
I’m addicted to a poetry site

If I’m not addicted to alcohol
I’m addicted to any azipam

If I’m not addicted to tattoos
I’m addicted to ***

If I’m not addicted to the sky
I’m addicted to reading

If I’m not addicted to shopping
I’m addicted to tinder

If I’m not addicted to exercise
I’m addicted to food

If I’m not addicted to staying thin
I’m addicted to cutting my hair

If I’m not addicted to AC/DC
I’m addicted to Leonard Cohen

If I’m not addicted to writing
I’m addicted to procrastinating

If I’m not addicted to the beach
I’m addicted to my bed

If I’m not addicted to you
I’m addicted to someone else

If I’m not addicted to something
Then I’m not happy being un-addicted....

In the words of a song I love dearly...
addicted
“I’ve never met a ****** that I didn’t like”

Many of us are addicts.... it’s how we survive ❤️

A puppet for your release

The first conscious breath of morning
A tiny sweet yawn to welcome the day
A long stretch under the sheets to feel my bones that already ache for you

Many hours to be filled before you arrive yourself to me
I lie still and the beauty of your not-so-handsome face appears in my heart
I adore you and your rough behaviour
Your heart cares nothing for mine
Yet mine wants to wrap yours up and show it that I am worth more

That look you send to my core when all you see me as
is a vessel
The desperate want you have to fill me up
I wonder if you close your eyes and think of her
Then I wonder not
You wouldn’t have been so rough
So dismissive of her
You loved her

Yet still
The excitement begins to creep from my heart and crawls down between my thighs
My yearning for you comes from a part of me of which I do not understand
You are all that is wrong
You leave me feeling incomplete
When all I yearn for is completion

My day will fill with any distraction
Deep breaths to prevent my pounding heart
Deep meditation to try and
Understand why I let myself
Be used
One text and you’ve cancelled
Just a puppet for your release

I was sky watching
I was smaller than the corn
Leave the curtains open
I’m not too tired
I’m not ready for bed
I’m sky watching
Until I’m taller than the corn

Twenty eight hours ago
I walked right into the sea
It was so cold
But I couldn’t feel it
I couldn’t feel anything

Up to my neck under water
A woman called me from the shore
She broke the spell
I turned around
I crawled back out

Cut my feet walking on the stones
I was fully clothed apart from my shoes
The sun was shining
It seemed like the perfect day to leave my life

But I didn’t
An angel was sent
And I turned around
I’d hit rock bottom
I needed to
I had to admit I needed help
I never ask for help
I just survive

I’m asking my doctor for help

Twenty eight hours ago
I almost died
Twenty eight hours later
I will do more than just survive

Don’t adore me

She let them walk beside her, but she couldn't let them in.
Not since that first one, who'd crawled under her skin.

She did give in from time to time, even let them lay by her side.
Her body wrapped around their skin but her love she had to hide.

Their attempts to adore her, made her heart grow further cold.
As she'd known from that very day, that alone she would grow old.

My broken heart that saved my life....

I've learnt to love my broken heart with every atom of my being.
It has become my best friend.
It has been with me since my childhood and become my only constant, my only go to, my only place tucked away for only me to feel.

It enabled my quiet side, my deep, unwavering pensive and wounded side.
A side, that without it, would never have lead me along my life path. Collecting tools along the way that now prove so valuable, that I know the best is still to come.

It broke me into a thousand pieces, sliced me up and left scars so deep that I had no choice but to embrace it, snuggle it up and with my soul for guidance, quieten a pain so powerful, that it had manifested in a long term physical disease. But this dis-ease, I have recently learnt to live with and slowly reduce, day by day.

A dis-ease that I feared would define me, wrap itself around me so tightly, that I would splutter and choke and surely die.

This disease has, unbeknown to me, regularly pushed me to my limits.
It has tested my strength and my power until I'm exhausted and heavy with darkness.
A disease that boasts anxiety, addiction, extreme constant pain and popping joints and limbs. Fatigue, dyslexia, dyspraxia, brain fog, and depression, plus an entire resume, full of equally delightful ailments.

But I am a fighter. I am strong. And I can beat it.

Me and my broken heart have teamed up once again.
But this time we are knowledgeable, we have gifts and we are brave beyond my wildest dreams.
We are compassionate, we are loving. We have matured. And we are on our way to helping heal the world. Starting from within.

I have a fire in my heart that will never permit me to give up. It is what keeps me from deep waters, deeper pockets and heavy stones.

There is a white light that fills every inch of my mind and body at any time I need it. I could drown happy in its warmth.
Each morning and evening I soak up this light, and I am still.

I am the luckiest person I know. Because I won’t let life beat me.

Love is the answer!

Heart sinks and smiles

How can it be, that tears can arrive so quickly, that they burst out from you like an explosion from behind coloured glass?

From reading some beautiful words, coming from a heart so deep, that it almost feels they wrote from the very heart that lies heavy, within your very own soul.

How can another being from this same and too often unbearable life, create a page that mirrors yourself all too well?

How can the heart sink and smile simultaneously? As the knowing that you're not alone, warms you in a way that it probably shouldn't.

How can two people live separately, but with the same dark pull, that will almost indefinitely keep them alone?

Trying to understand the 'How' would be insanity itself.
Keep feeling, keep writing, stop pushing it back, and learn to live with it.

Another night in
Another night alone
Watching MAS*H 4077
Writing poems on my phone

I wonder which episode is next
off by heart I know every one
Sobriety trying it's best to convince
That I'm sitting here having fun

So if you're going out to a pub or a bar
Please raise a glass for me
I'll stay home and mime the words
Admire my tan from my glowing TV

Discovering Dauphne

Reading Du Maurier as my mother once before me

I feel cheated that in my midlife
This now my first discovery
I weep at the complex beauty within the first page
I read and re-read and re-read and again
I want these letters that form these words to penetrate and reside within my soul

I feel saddened for my lack of knowledge
For my laziness and lack of wanting to escape through words in my previous years

I feel anger for the years of substance use to take me out of myself
Why has Daphne been kept hidden I ask?
She understands me!
If there is she, then more alike there must be.

I leave regret, usually, for those who don't understand it's teachings
With Du Maurier I experience a new and crippling regret
I feel betrayed by anyone who has lived within her words, her worlds and yet kept her hidden from my unquenchable thirst

At least time seems to be slowing down in my 'almost there' sobriety
More hours appear each day
to be filled between the sheets of each turning page.

Hello new world

I'd like to take my brain out
For a few quiet days of peace
Diazepam and wine bring only temporary release

I'd like my brain to have a rest
Somewhere it can be free
Away from all the troubles and woes
Away from babysitting me

I think I'd send it on a
fishing boat
far far out to sea
To give it a chance to see the stars
and giggle to itself with glee

Trees

I saw two hearts
Within two trees

Then I saw my fate
Within their leaves

I felt my love dwindle
Within its roots

Because I saw my past
In its rotten fruits

Saved by words

You'll find me reading ****** novels,
you see me read romance.
I might be reading Kermit the frog or best views in the south of France.

I'll read to forget, I'll read to sail away
To learn of heroes like Jonny Cash
and how life was in his day.

I'll read so that my mind expands and so my heart can grow
I'll read and I'll immerse myself, from head right down to toe.

I'll read to stop me drinking,
I'll read to stop my tears.
I'll read so much and for so long that I'll forget my fears.

Reading is what saved my life
and writing helps my soul
I'll never stop to read and write
It's all that keeps me whole.

Keep moving

Pack my life into boxes
        Laying down roots
Breeds friendships
        This I must avoid

Keep moving

They won't understand me
        For I am not normal
They will leave me
        And I'll return to aloneness

Keep moving

Then will come the tears
         Better to stay hidden
Allow hurt no chance
         To penetrate my bones
        
Keep moving

I'll hug you till you smile out loud

My arms will hold you tight

I'll hold you till your tears dry up

And stay with you through the night

Then when you awake

And it's a brand new day

Your heart is fixed

Nearby I will stay

Just until you really believe

That your heart is pure

And ready to receive

At first I weep

Finally awoken
the light flickers brightly
Seeing for the first time
through the eyes of her elder
I'd waited for what seemed an eternity
for my inner child to reach out to me

At first I weep
for the longing is over and finally
after all these years
I can set her free

She is now sleeping
the deepest since before I left her
Abandoned her
Before I pushed her behind my pain and trapped her
******* and gagged her
My ears muffled with a loudness
That I set to the highest level
I didn't want to hear her cries

I thought I was protecting her
From the pain I had predicted
Ahead for me
I had seen my future
There was no love that awaited me
I was thirteen years old
What could I have known

Now we have spoken
And embraced
Forgiven my crime to her
I can see
That if I'd let her inside me
Listened to her heart
Along time ago
I could have been free

Thank you for breaking me

When I found all the pieces of myself

I rearranged them before putting them back together

And I became a new whole

Missing love.

Why do they never fall in love,
Why do they let me go?
Am I really not that loveable, does my craziness make it so?

I have so much more than they can see.
If they'd taken the time to know the real me.
They wouldn't have thrown me away so fast.
They'd have given me more time, a chance to make it last.

My heart is as grand as the ocean is deep.
I love without boundaries, their love I would keep.

I guess I'm not ready, they weren't meant to be.
I'll teach myself patience.
Try to be happy,  just me.

My friend who broke my heart

I told you my darkest secret
Because I trusted you
Because I loved you
You were the only friend
Who got me
understood me

Yet you threw me away
Like so many before you
There is a reason that I'm a loner
And that reason is for fear
Fear of not being good enough
Normal enough
sane enough
For people to keep around them

I never felt this fear with you
With you I felt safe
I felt good enough
I felt calm around you
I made you my best friend
Maybe that is what frightened you
And made you run away

Cut off my arms and legs
**** out my brain
seems all I'm ever wanted for
Lies in my middle frame

There is one at each end
Both open to be filled
That's all they ever wanted
The rest of me they killed

Yes I'm a waitress-

Which doesn't mean I'm dumb
People skills are declining in need
But still you all come

I'm here 40 hours a week
Clean the restaurant before I start
Some days I feel ok
Most days I've a broken heart

Even though I'm cracked inside
And my fake smile wants to frown
I'll give a night you'll never forget
Face painted like a clown

You have no idea
in your one hour break
Or your 30th birthday
Which I will make great

That just last night
I received bad news
But I have to work still
I don't get to choose

I'm dying inside
but you'd never guess
Smiling my head off
Though my hearts in a mess

So next time you come
and I'm not the best you've had
Just remember I'm human
And I'm losing my dad

Hello my dear
My faithful friend
You've been away for so long
Come in,
Come in
I'm sorry the door was closed

Would you like some tea?
Can I slice you some cake?
Take a look in the biscuit tin
I always keep your favourites in

I'd hate for you to show up
To an increasingly barren home
With nothing to feed upon
So I've been busy baking

I baked a little self love
and sprinkled it with plenty of hope
I know how hope is the one you love to sink your rotten teeth into first.

I creatively mixed up the ingredients for self belief
Had to go to three markets to find them
They weren't easy to combine but the result was almost happiness

I can't wait to watch you chew them up, spit them out and re-bake them into self doubt
You're so clever!

Since you're here now, back in my kitchen,
You can use my hands to knead the dough
My oven to bake your heavy leaden, self loathing loaf
The one you know I'm drawn to

And I promise from today
The door will be left on the latch....

Take your needle, and paint my skin
Tattoo over, under and across my territory, so they won't see inside me
Pervade my body with rainbows of pain

With Striking colours, hide the black and grey mass of my being

Take my skin to another land
Where flowers bloom, fairytales live and rainbows glow
Where my heart is hidden

I hide myself well, my skin draped with powerful ink
It's how I protect
How I live behind
How I survive

Take out my bones and replace with lead

Strap me down on an iron bed

Wire me up
To the highest volt

Smell my flesh burn
I was born to revolt

Give me the needle and thread I need,
to stitch my heart and stop the bleed.

Give me the cement to build the wall,
and feathers so soft to break my fall

Give me the fire to light the flame,
To burn what was, and start again.

Cut off my head
and sew it down between my thighs
Wire my mouth open
It's more use to me down there
At least it can be filled with the filth of an elder non-gentleman
I have become a **** in my quest to open my fathers eyes

Begin again

She held on too tightly, white knuckles shining through the blackest of nights, that returned with such venom, that she stung to her very core.

The shades came crashing down and the pull of the night dragged her curious mind back into her past. A past that was so familiar, it had become a second skin.
Stretching over her lightness, an eclipse, of which escape seemed too far out of reach.

Surrounded by her friends she was still alone. The wall she'd built,  towered above and was too high; There were days when it's bricks were cemented together with fear and jealousy. A black, sticky mass that no love could pass through.

She had to find her way back to the lightness. No longer could she endure. For she had felt the lightness that tugged at her soul and she dared to believe. Dared to hope

She fought until her knuckles and elbows bled with an angry, frustrated but knowing love.

She fought until just breathing and stillness were all she could summon from inside herself

And in this breathing and stillness she found her quiet mind. A mind so strong that it grasped her from dark to light in a single heart beat. Just as it had stolen the light away only hours before.

She would return to darkness time after time. She had accepted this.

But now she was loved, and she loved.
And this love would always pull her back....

My father
Sick of motor neurones
And holes in the aorta
Has made a decision
Full of heartache and pain
I support
I understand
But the darkness has returned

He has started the journey
The process has begun
I will be by his side
I will hold his hand
I will fight back my tears
My aching heart will stay hidden
But the darkness will come too

I must be brave
For him I must stay strong
He will be frightened
He won't know what will happen
After he has left his body
Does he still believe in God
I'm not sure
I should ask him
I wonder if darkness has got him too.

A wish.

Walk me under the moonlight Dance with me beneath the stars.
Kiss me under of the night sky, beneath Jupiter and Mars.

Swim by me in the ocean,
Sail with me through the waves.
Run with my hand in your hand.
Through waterfalls and caves.

Guide me along the winding roads.
Lead me into the light
Carry me across mountains
With snowfall crisp and white.

Lie with me under the sunshine,
Roll with me in the hay.
Search with me for happiness
In each and every day.

Time apart is therapy, to have different stories to share.
But the best stories I'll have to tell,
Are the ones when you were there.

If I bare my soul to you, will you still love me?
If you see the scars upon my skin, will you turn away?
If I run from your love, will you give up on me?
If I hide away, will you stop searching for me?
If my heart dissolves, will you turn your back on me?

I bear my soul to help you.
I have scars to provide you the evidence.
I run from you, to save you enduring my sadness.
I hide so that you never seek out my truth.
My heart dissolves, so that yours can stay whole.

It means nothing, it means everything
I want nothing, I want everything
I feel nothing, I feel everything
I ask for nothing, I want for everything
I dream of nothing, I dream of everything
I love nothing, I love everything......

Ladies and gentlemen,

That person that didn't want you, love you, pick you for their love, for their life. For what ever reason.
That person doesn't deserve you.

Those texts you send when you shouldn't, but you're drunk and your boundaries have slipped.
They are not the real you.
The strong you.
Don't send them.

Looking at photos of their new love. The one that they picked instead of you.
That's not going to help you.

Those poems you wrote them. Stop!
Save your beautiful words. Don't waste them on someone who reads them but doesn't feel them.

Don't feed someone's ego, and destroy your self respect in the process.

That ocean of tears you cried, over someone that wouldn't even catch one tear for you.
No more.
Save your tears for those who deserve your love.

This self destructiveness, isn't you!
This never has been you.
Miss guided passion.
The drinking, the texts the phone calls.
The modern day problems of blocking and unblocking of numbers and Facebook profiles.

This isn't life. This isn't living.

This is wasting precious time.

I know it's hard. I know your heart is heavy with the cracks it now must endure.
But time can stitch over the cracks and pull the pieces of your heart back together.
Trust me. I've done it.

Surround yourself with your own love.

Hibernate, metamorphose, lick your wounds.
Heal yourself.
Take as long as you need.

It's not easy for us sensitive souls. But it can be done. Overcome.

Learn, be brave.
Then Love again.