the dreams where we talk,
just talk, are much worse than in
the ones you **** me

the world is a scary place right now
all around looms apocalypse foretold
and I think back to simple times when the villagers mined and farmed unaware the pillagers forthcoming,

does it really benefit us to know whats coming?

is not fear of disaster only an extension of our fear of death?
does she not catch us all eventually?
no matter how hard we fight eventually we will be forced to surrender if we are not prisoner of war
machines breathing for you

your mother's heart beats like the most beautiful song
but you don't know for how much longer
and you don't know what you'd do without her
and you don't know how you'd ever be able to pay the bills or work a trade with your history of anti social behavior and inability to integrate and troubles with authority

yes, indeed we all love to fight it
every single power that be
man will strive to **** God until he surrender
yes he will
and every time he will lose

we all will lose eventually

-

it was Auden and stop the clocks
at age 12 in the top floor of the academy
I felt loss and I understood it
and I knew this is how i could communicate it
the inherent suffering we all feel,
that comes for us all, some more than others

I never really felt good (and that is best for artists after all)
and I always tried to die, likened myself to Plath and tried to martyr myself to the melancholy

dying is an art,
like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well

but what was any of it for? why live a life of surrender?
I believe so much in the beauty of life and people and all things bright and beautiful
the reason death and disaster are so horrific-
because its all just gone and it never comes back and its so simple and I'll never ever understand it
nearly two decades and only now has the passage of time grabbed my head and forced me to look,
forced me so.
I cannot look away no matter how much I want to
and I am filled with so much regret I spent all those years siding with the enemy
poisoning the water that I too drank from
I dont know why I did that
I really dont
I really thought that time would wait for me

I would do anything to stop her walking foreward,
but there is nothing one can do

that is the root of our fall;
no matter how hard we fight it
she really comes for us all

I feel the cold weather, gale forces sweeping through the coast and tides trickle upwards in embrace of the parked cars on the harbour

for an Englishman, I'm not a very English man
my upper lip is not stiff,
it trembles and it shakes,
as do I

there is no calm on these storming streets and I don't know how I can carry on

seeing the dead body of someone you do not know
feels like committing a great betrayal of intimacy
I did not mean to gaze upon thee, I just wanted to know what the commotion was
I apologise dearly for the intrusion

ask him to hold you
why? because you are lonely?
or are you just cold?

I would have done so much different had I known the consequence of my actions but I was a child and how was I to know?
I understand now things I once had, security even within transience and I squandered, oh did I squander.
Even now I am drawn to the childish impulse to lay blame. It was he, because he hurt me. It was she, because she lied.
Childish impulses to hurt, destroy, scream and cry-
to leap off of the top floor, a memo around my neck with chicken scrawl,
"I regret it all," and oh, I dearly do.

There are many weighs I do not know how to carry with me and so I didn't walk with them, I stayed and rested and hibernated for years before I tried to go outside again.

There are many things I still do not know that I feel an adult should.
I've never understood less in my life.

I feel as though I comprehend language more than the act of communication itself
I can recite definition and etymology
Spell it out loud for you
But understanding of language is no substitute for understanding of the other, to truly convey meaning

And oh, I crave to communicate but all I do is speak
in my fight or flight of thought, deconstructing and analysing
Oh do I crave to be understood

clanging against disequilibrium,
Oh do I throw myself at the door and ****** my fists beating at it
Oh do I scream and rip the handle clean off
Oh do I cry and wish good wombs had borne better sons
Oh I set the whole world on fire for its sins and seek forgiveness of mine

But I am unable to reach through the barrier
I cannot touch or be touched with words the way human beings do
I have miscomprehended everything all along
And as much as I crave a saviour I have made peace
That nobody will ever know me
and that my words are all I have

echolaliac epileptic, easily defined by clinical terminology
my body is cumbersome though my skin is thin
the isolation disorder is double consciousness, watching through my own eyes,
it is out of body and it is lonely
(as am I)

I don't even think about it anymore because it would crush me. it would eat me alive. starting in my gut, dissolving through the fat like acid tossed in someone's face. you'll see right through me like my skin is made of glass. empty greenhouse. bricked windows. only weeds and mold grow here.

you do not find peace nor take comfort in transience

you never have and never will

the cycle of grief is the only consistency

oh let me be safe here
let me escape the tragedy
I'm in your arms
let me burrow so deep beneath your skin let me turn into cotton let me feel a body with mine

oh let me escape, let my fibula system click into place and send the right pulses to my brain in all the right places with nothing amiss amongst the gray matter

you're a real boy, and so am I!
skin, two, twin, one
mad scientist in love, a deluded state! I'm clearly not that insane if i know such big words!
I'm clearly not insane if i can feel, here, your flesh with mine, it does not burn it only warms my skin, gently

I'm clearly not insane if i proceed, go foreward, kiss your forehead and run my fingers through your hair, god how I've missed human beings like you

your hands trailing down my back,
your idle plaything
it feels like you're doing God's work

I AM MALAJUSTED I WALK WEIRD I TALK FUNNY I HAVE SPEECH SALAD I ROCK BACK AND FORTH I TWITCH I TICK I BLINK WEIRD I SEIZURE I FALL OVER I REPEAT THINGS I ECHO I LOVE THE NUMBER 7 I CAN'T HAVE SHOWERS I SCREAM I MELTDOWN I BREAK BONES I SIT I STARE AT SPACE FOR HOURS ON END I ASK WHOSE BODY IS THIS I HAVE SCREAMED IN MY MOTHERS FACE I HAVE CRIED ABOUT SCREAMING IN MY MOTHERS FACE I WOULD RATHER STARVE THAN EAT THAT FOOD I WOULD RATHER GET BEAT THAN EAT THAT FOOD I CANT HANDLE YOU YELLING AT ME I PUNCHED THE HEAD MISTRESS FOR TOUCHING ME I GOT EXPELLED FOR PUNCHING THE HEAD MISTRESS I HATED MYSELF FOR IT I WISHED GOOD WOMBS HAD BOURNE BETTER SONS I USED TO FANTASISE ABOUT KILLING MYSELF IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE SCHOOL SO THEY'D KNOW THEY DID THAT TO ME I USED TO FANTASISE IT WAS THE SCHOOLS FAULT AND NOT MINE FOR BEING MALAJUSTED I TRIED TO JUMP FROM THE TOP FLOOR BUT THEY RESTRAINED ME I TRIED TO GO HOME BUT THEY LOCKED ME IN THAT TINY ROOM I TRIED TO ESCAPE BUT THEY RESTRAINED ME I DON'T FEEL HUMAN I DON'T FEEL REAL

I WISH I WAS HUMAN

"****** purest," swims through her head, shes growing,
oh god, oh the sinking dread

unrecognisable, her eyes with the shame,
her blood poisoned, the toxins remain
pulsating through her skin, her brain

and when you eat her guts from the inside out
while shes crying for her mum

shes a good for nothing, good for nowt

and she tastes like blood and ***

people always told me to hold onto the spark but it only ever got me in trouble
neurosis crawling up my spine and stunting the growth just below my neck

I am stunted, those boys in baggy school blazers and leather shoes will grow into men and I've barely got an inch on them

a savant of sorts, sure, but I'm not a child anymore
my ways hold me back; my ways hold me down

the spark I was told to to hold on ever so tightly, it hurts peoples eyes and burns their fingertips

I will not grow
I will only die down and submit to
the natural elements

disintegrate along with the vapour of the candle when it burns out

there was definitely a spark
it could have been a match to a gas leak
the striplights could have all blown at once
everyone else in the world besides you and me could have gone up in flames

I didn't hear it, I didn't see it,
but I know something happened

because god,
my heart is on fire

you cannot idle by on your Saturday evenings, wasting away to the song you could have written if only you had thought of it in time!

your lungs will inflate and deflate and your heart will go dudum for a few decades yet!

you must live! you must take the dusk in your stride;

take a stroll on Sunday morning,
you'll find something to write about
and in doing so,
you'll find something to live for

can you touch me and pretend like the fat doesn't gather around my chest and hips? can you touch me like a boy would touch a boy?
can you hear me like it's a polite young man talking? can you hear the shrill, nasally drone and remember that it's supposed to be me?  
can you stop looking into my eyes? can you sew them shut? can you stop pretending to know all that I am?
can you come up behind me and smash my head in with a glass bottle?

as I lay there, hugging my knees, tucked up into my jacket
the 4am gales swept away any comfort I may have found, and I thought of a wisdom I once heard,
"this, too, shall pass"

and I clung to the thought as my eyes drifted shut,
as the dawn stumbled its way forth
and the street lights weren't needed anymore
"this, too, shall pass"

and as my head drifted from concrete
back to cotton sheets
and I felt safe and content and greatful for all I have
I breathed a sigh
softly, in relief
"this too shall pass,"

I fiddle around with the truth in my hands
trying to mold it into a shape I can stand
(that isn't age 7 when I didn't understand)

I look up and say with a pensive sigh,
"I've never made love to anyone,"
because that is no lie

but I promise myself, there is hope for a body profane as mine
a ****** I will be! and I'll make love for the first time-

to a lover, to a tender hand,
to another boy and not a man

in the queen-sized bed, on the soft white sheets
intertwined and in love, our bodies will meet

as I sat there watching the birds dart about in my own little fenced off Eden
I thought to myself
good grief! That tar they pave the roads with is ugly!
unfortunately,
not even weeds grow in an asphalt garden

to live with a female body;
it would have been fine!
if only that body
happened to be mine

my spine curves inward and outward like the horizon of a burial mound
if I stand up straight you might clock the little girl that's buried there

lash out, miniscule inferno
making his way through the forest as fire burns beneath his tiny feet

only a few leaves and twigs will catch
only a frog or two will perish

still, what a bother to clean up

I try to act natural, try to blink like a human might do
but I can't help but check, check, check
the TV is off, the computer is off, the plug socket is on

where is that sound coming from?

his exhausted hunch, his purpling heart, his bullet shocked head
he picks the shells off the floor and kisses them
he throws them in the air and dances with them
he lies with them like a great beast would

he lost his life first day of the somme;
his medals worth no more than their weight

he cracks the bullets open like a rat underfoot
and he creates, he paints and he sings
and he could have really been something if God had saved him

"There will surly be a place for you," a wise old woman said
"Not on god's green earth, only in heaven above, will there be a place for you."

The dog barks at the mailman, some school kids catch the bus, the sun goes up before going down

A spider climbs across the mirror and she doesn't know the shape of a human being

The dog settles down in his bed, the kids walk home together sweet treats in hand, the lesser stars start to love themselves

The spider got whacked by a hardback book and she doesn't know what a human is

a word doesn't have to be real for it to have meaning
nothing has to be real for it to grip your stomach and throat and force butterflies into every part of your anatomy
the emotion crawls under your skin and all you can do is feel it

a woman rises in the dawn with her fiery red hair, eating men like air
you become that smiling woman, only 17 and not even a lady
dying becomes your art, and you are indeed very good at it

a man frowned like thunder and went away, the stars not needed today
you begin to pack up your very own sky, melancholy filling your entire world until it all comes to a standstill
wind does not blow and not even streetlights shine
your very own lover is still in tact, a phone call away even
but he frowned like thunder and went away

a raven, a remorse, a rapping at the chamber door
a madness, a mania, a man whose mind is gripped by loss
a horror that now belongs to you, the pigeons on the street start to quoth "nevermore,"
every crow is an omen, every bird is wandering through purgatory just to torment you,
and you have no loss to speak of

I dreamt I wrote that feeling, I dreamt I put it into words
I dreamt I transcended humanity, I dreamt I became the art
I dreamt about the feeling, I dreamt you felt it too

I'm going to have a hard time cleaning up this mess
sorting out the bedsheets and pulling the mattress topper back into place,
throwing out the takeaway we were too drunk to eat

the febreeze won't hide the sweat and rotten food, not very well

my little den of hedonism feels empty without my love to share it with
without his arms around me, without his cologne,

I feel unclean in the morning-after mess

I needed to write something

Maybe about how after you went I was only left with smoke dancing in the streetlights

Or about how the stars were so pretty when my eyes couldn't make out your silloette anymore and all I could do was look up

I thought about writing about a dying lover, a ghost that I could still feel clinging to my body

But that's just not right

You're still here, my halcyon boy

You didn't smile like thunder and go away,
No funeral blues today

tether holding me to earth, I can still reach out and hold on tight

My boy, we won't see each other much

And it'll take some time

But somewhere down the line

We won't be alone

There's a man on the radio trying to show the audience how to grow onions

Who has the heart to tell him he's mistaken?

he shows me his music,
I show him my arts

we show off our writings
and then we show hearts

the jittering of joints at high speed and under the pressure of gravity made the perfect backdrop to the half melody tangling us up

the music of my love, his voice quietly mimics songs he could have written for me if he had got there first

but I prefer the music he did write for me
I prefer it more than any Frank Ocean or James Brown

cute thing, hot thing,  
sweet words, sure

but I prefer the words
of my everything

a little bird told me
to stop smoking so much

a little bird told me
to get better

a little bird told me
that I am loved

I told the little bird
to mind her own **** business

kids like drugs and feeling good but drugs are easier to get I guess

if you see a bright light it's only human nature to chase after it

only a few touches, only a few trickles of blood
it didn't last too long, it didn't hurt too much
only a few minutes- barely anything at all!

so grow up, little victim complex
your martyrdom is forced
(and you were not!)

why do you claim trauma on something
that didn't mark you anymore than you do yourself?

I fought against this life as hard as a scared child could and it still didn't work
I tried my hardest to be truly alive but I was too weak
I have no choice in being this way

you threw your life away because you couldn't be bothered to live it

Victor Frankenstien went shopping through morgues and cemeteries and picked out only the very best features,
stitching them together with string and tape

the flowing black hair and the delicate pale skin,
it should have been perfect

but once the lightning struck and the creature opened his glassy eye the truth was revealed

you can't make a person that way
not a good one anyway

the hair was matted and the skin that looked so fresh on a corpse was jaundice

the monster was a monster by design, even if it was not intentional

I understand what it means to take what seems so beautiful on other bodies and stitch it together haphazardly trying to make something perfect

I have Victors hands, the hands that play god

but more than that,
I have the sickly skin and the glazed-over eyes

I have the very best things I saw in everyone else

a gentle angel with one million eyes to watch over her children,
I took her kindness
a wretched holy beast that could never be hurt, I took his aggression

I stole ideas and attitudes that resonated with me,
I stole the rebellion that I saw the righteous wear in books and on TV
I stole the heart that some sweet girl wore on her sleeve with faith in the world around her
I plagiarized, I became everything I thought was beautiful

with my Frankenstein hands I had created a self to live in, an idea to thrive in my useless body

I thought I could live as the perfect boy, the perfect person

but the ideas split off, still inside me
growing and expanding and bulging out of my skin
my bones crack under the weight of so many people within

the sweet, the angry, they were always at odds

a monster, a monster that lies in poppy fields and dreams about love

a sweetheart, a sweetheart that slices rats in half just to see what their insides look like

I am not the perfect thing I wanted to be
I am fractured like the bones I had to rip apart to make them fit

I am too little too late and too much too soon all in one,
not enough, never enough, far too much to bear

I am the god I swore was dead,
I am taxidermy animals that don't look quite right

I am fractures of what I wanted to be

I am Frankenstein
but
I am also Frankenstein's monster

the wretched shackles that bound my wrists clanged together dreadfully as I shook
they themselves being the bindings between my innocence and the gallows patiently awaiting me

the voyeurs shout-
"murderess, o foul murderess!
burn eternally, you foul murderess!"

I am numb to these accusations,
as I am numb to the fear of death

the benevolent masses, the enemies that seek my execution,
these are not evil spirits
and so,
the guilty verdict that once grated against my skin now feels as soft and gentle as the clouds that, too, await me

I have retired the melancholy
I resolve myself to die with the dignity and gentleness that I had conducted myself with from the moment I was given life

I resolve to hold onto the sweetness and maternity that I showed that sweet boy,
that I had used to hold him for the first time

my hands, nothing but affectionate to that boy, my boy
the same hands that loved and cared for him from his very conception,
these are the hands they convict

these hands were supposedly the weapon that choked the life out of that sweet fawn, that I had loved so dearly

and so, these are the hands that are held accountable
bound behind my back, wrapped together tightly

these are the hands of love that have been convicted