the thing that holds me back
is
sensitivity

I'm too sensitive to light,
I can't stand outside in the sun
not for too long

like bright white hospital halls,
sickly, sterile strip lights

it's being hooked up
to the machine
that scans my brain
while a strobe light flares up
my epileptic heart

its car headlights
with their beams set to high
on tired pedestrian eyes

I keep my eyes shut tight
if I need to face the sun

the beams raining down on my
pale winter boy skin

it hurts to be out there
it hurts to look

What would you do?
What could you do?

Sit there, a scream echoing in your lungs
Never allowed to escape

Could you stand and laugh when on the inside
You're crying?

Could you walk alone, knowing that people can't  understand you?

Not because you don't tell them
Not because you can't explain it
Not because they don't try to understand

But because they don't comprehend an unhealthy mind

They don't see someone in a constant war of them self

They see excuses

They see an attention *****

They see someone who is so self-loathing they're not willing to make an effort

And then they say it
Over and over

Until the voices sink in to your head
Over and over

Then aren't just voices anymore
They're screams
your own voice

Over and over

Yelling

Telling you you're lying

Not a good friend

Not a good person

And at first, you don't believe it
You tell yourself
"no, it's not true; it can't be."
Then you give up

Because you just can't fight anymore
Let them sink in

Sentences that cut into you

Slurs and insults that leave bruises everywhere

Words hit you like knives

And now

inside and out

You're covered in scars

You don't know if they'll heal

You hope so

They hurt so much

It's sad that

The only time

You promise not to fight

Is when

Your mother

Is being hoisted into the groud

In a cardboard box

Isn't it?

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

he shows me his music,
I show him my arts

we show off our writings
and then we show hearts

for the love of god
please stop making me like her

please stop bringing us together and asking where the difference is

I hate her, I do

and yet

I can't stop spewing the same crap she does

The more I try to separate her from me
the more I become her

Please, leave this state of mind

You are better then this, you are better then her

I can't believe you won't just move past these childish things

say it to me again, mr mirror

"YOU ARE NOT HER"

says her reflection

My eyes are sore
My hands are cramped
I'm struggling to keep awake

But my dear

I need to keep awake
I want more of your words
I will gladly bare any discomforts for you

Such a small price, really

Because right now

There's a smile on my face
There's a beat in my heart
There's a laugh in my voice

It's all because of you

You make me giggle like a school girl
You make me blush like a teenager
You make me feel like I'm not finite

I could run on with stereotypes and clichés all night writing ****** poetry dedicated to you

It's the best I can do

Because I can't describe it enough

I can't find the right metaphor or simile to explain what I feel

I can't find the right word to finish this stanza

I can't write this well enough for you

You deserve the best

And I'm sorry to say

You're stuck with a ****** poet

Who writes ****** poetry

For the best person in his life

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

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

On this gentle seafront I stand
Waiting
I don't know why
I don't know what I feel
I'm staring at the ocean

Calming
I feel the wind
Calming
I can breath
Calming

I like this place
I'm starting to feel something
I feel so alive here
My chest starts aching
But then
I hear their voices
The ones that helped me through so much
The ones that kept me here through all these years
Chasing away my fears and making me see light in windowless rooms

First it's the blue one
I used to be her but now I'm someone else
She smiles at me and holds out her hand
I take it
Smiling more then I ever have before
Ever
I look behind us again and what I see makes my heart feel like exploding
In the best possible way
I see them all

The white one
the grey one
the red one
the black one
the brown one
the green one
the purple one
the ones of no colour
and the ones of many

All of them smiling at me and I can feel myself about to cry

in the best possible way

But right here

The blue one is next to me

And she's my favourite

I don't leave my room much anymore

It's almost as if I've forgotten where the door is

I've forgotten a lot of things, recently

I don't know what the stars look like anymore

I think they're white or grey?

I don't know

Grass is something I remember,
it's an odd hue of blue mixed with yellow

what was that called again?

I don't remember what other people look like

I mean, there's a mirror here so I can tell what I look like

but the faces I used to see somehow evade my thoughts

I don't really know if other people were ever really there

was there ever a world outside of this room?

a 7 day
is the only day
I can get into heaven

46 times a year
(not including the whole of july)
I'm allowed to try

7, 17, 27

lucky numbers

I didn't think I'd make it through 2017
a year of free passes
to let the angels walk me down the aisle
and marry me to the sky

on a 7 day
they- the angels-
will calm my trembling and convulsing body
clean up all of my *****
take out the part of my brain that makes me feel bad
grab hold of my bleeding wrists and bandage them with feathers and love

they hold my hands
lifting me up by the grace of god herself
and 700 eyes emerge
out of every wound and pore in my skin

and I become
my own angel
my own god

I will become
my own holy number 7

Try to escape my own mind
I can't take this anymore
That one thought
That one thought
I need it to be gone
I just can't take it,
Not anymore
What do I do?
Distract myself?
Music
The lyrics will sooth me and make me forget
I listen carefully to every lyric and beat
Registering it in my mind
This is working thank god
Oh god no
This thought is back
Suddenly every syllable makes my mind leap back to that one thing I dare not speak

I close my eyes and think for one more moment
The thought still taking up halve my mind

What do I do to make me forget?

I'll draw

Yes, that's it!

Distract me from this please

I begin scribbling on a page
Making sure my attention is on the paper alone
I watch closely as the white page turns blue like a rabbit loosing its winter coat

Oh god

What am I doing?
What am I drawing?
I see the pen create a familiar shape
No no no
I can't
I throw the pen to the side of the room
This wasn't right
I didn't mean to draw that

What else can I do?

How else does one distract?

I'll write
yes, that's what I'll do

I suppose that's good enough

I retrieve my pen and open up an unscathed page in my book

As I begin to search my mind for inspiration I begin to unwillingly write.

I looked down at the page, unsure what I just wrote

As I looked at it I felt my heartbeat speed like a drunken driver

The word that makes me so terrified

A word that I dare not speak
No
Dare not think

Maybe the only way to forget is to face my fear

Quietly I read it out

Terrified of what consequence it will bring

From my trembling lips the hollow sound slips out

"Him"

I can barely stand

I feel like I'm going to be sick

My eyes are blurring with stars

My clothes are stained with *****

I smell like the Monday morning after a weekend of poor choices

God, I need a cigarette

You didn't know I smoked?
You didn't know I drank?

Huh.

I do now, I guess

I think I've earned the right

I am a god, after all

in finding happiness
I feel that hollow feeling again

please do not tell me that it's coming back,
how can it be?

I AM HAPPY.

how can such a thing make me feel so empty?

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

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

WHAT A MESSY TIME
ITS LOUD
IT'S BEAUTIFUL
IN A MUNDANE SORT OF WAY

YOU CAN BE HAPPY IN THESE TIMES
YOU CAN SURVIVE
YOU'VE GONE THROUGH WORSE
AND YOU'VE COME OUT WITHOUT A SCRATCH

THESE TIMES AREN'T THE PROBLEM
YOU AREN'T THE PROBLEM, EITHER

THINGS JUST DON'T GO AS THEY SHOULD SOMETIMES

BUT HEY

YOU'LL BE ALRIGHT, KID

IF YOU THINK YOU CAN FIND BETTER
BY ALL MEANS YOU CAN LEAVE

WHY DO YOU STAY WHEN YOU SEEM TO FIND OTHERS THAT CAN FUFILL YOU BETTER THAN I CAN?

I think a long time before i choose my words and once they're said, they're said.
I don't believe in editing. I don't believe in altering words to make them sound pretty.
if they sound disgustingly horrid or bland then that's fine- thats how they are
the ugly is still art
and in just being art, albeit a plain and boring or terrible piece, is something special
and it's something beutiful

and maybe this phrasing is bland or not that spectacular,
maybe these verses are too long or maybe I'm not using enough poetic devices and I could do with some more adjectives

but i believe in ugly art

because words that don't care how they sound and paintings that don't care how they look and books with boring covers are art after all

and art is ugly, bland, disgusting

but art, in its own terrible way

is beautiful

IT MAKES ME UNEASY TO REALISE I AM JUST LIKE YOU
AND THE WAY I CAN'T SEPERATE YOUR FACE FROM MY OWN MAKES ME AFRAID THAT ONE DAY
I'LL TURN ON THE NEWS AND SEE MYSELF IN THE PLACE OF YOU
AND I'LL SEE MY FACE CAPTIONED WITH THE SAME WORDS

"KILLER ON THE LOOSE"

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.

are you trying to tell me something?

I mean, if I'm right

you know I'll see these signs

are you trying to warn me?

or am I just reading too deep

while you're trying to prove something to yourself?

I AM FULL OF LOVE,

HOW COULD SUCH A THING MAKE ME FEEL SO EMPTY?

I hadn't lost anything but a few coins
yet the grief overwhelmed me

a snake slid into my mouth slowly and ebbed down my throat

I could feel it drag itself through me
my body nothing but a means to its end

I pushed my fingers in after it to try and catch it, missing it

failed again by dull reaction time

I felt it writhe around in my gut
here was nothing I could do
to stop it from eating away
at whatever it found deep inside

so I poisoned it,
streetlights outside my window were glowing tenderly,
I watched my shadow's mouth fill up

pills first, then *****, then blood

I wanted that little imp slithering around in my insides to die

even if it killed me too

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

when I say I love you

your mouth twitches slightly,
barely opening and curling up at the sides
like your hair curls around my forefinger when its just you and me in bed

you'll lay your head on my chest sweetly and timidly,
looking up at me with those bambi eyes
while I completely forget that I hate eye-contact

I just love your eyes, your hair, your trembling slightly-open mouth

when I say I love you

are you trying to say it back?

You are not apologising because you are sorry

You are not apologising to make amends

You are apologising to me

Because I am big

And powerful

And scary

You are not apologising

You are protecting yourself

I don't care for what you did

I don't care

I just wish

You were honest

There is no point in phony apologies

They don't mean anything

I forgive you-

As is my custom

But it's not because of your dishonest words

It's because I am big

And powerful

And scary

And forgiving

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)