Following some random impulse,
We bought and shared a piece of bread,
I had no reason to be there, or even close,
I'd already left once and come back,
What kept me from home, I can't say,
But my reward for illogical action,
A brighter night, a simpler night.

A fly drops to my hand as I write
I notice but don't register enough to
obstruct the flow of my words.
It sits until I move it, waiting, lazy,
It just barely flies, tired from cold,
And I return to the page.

If I sit here staring into space
Perhaps I'm thinking
Or playing with thoughts
Posing some character and taking
a picture on an instant camera.

Or perhaps I'm singing
Some song in my head
that means enough to steal my sight
from my eyes
for my mind.

My heart calls, restless
I hesitate to answer
So unease remains

To douse the fire,
The keys beckon,
The phone calls and
messages ask for attention.
I wait, stare, until a reply
of some other half-crazed
completely insane friend
breaks the wall and rips
my inward eyes to the screen
And of course we are both
up too late for our own good
But not for our own good anyway
So I let her distract with those
jokes and four hearts
Until I can breathe.

The skin burns up around my lips,
Nagging at my fingers,
Like the hairs on my chin are being
replaced
with needles ramming into my skin
through muscle to the bone
with no pause or thought
and setting fire to the collagen
that holds my jaw together.
Until my head is crumbling and I'm
trying to rip out the spikes
that aren't there and weren't
ever
but still scream into my skull
"Give up!"

The coke fizzes just over the rim of the glass,
a sliver trickles, reluctantly down the side,
To a cacophony of a rising hiss,
It pools on the surface,
shining,
The rise cuts itself off,
Done.

Between the branches of a tree,
A single scrap of sky,
The pale blue is waning,
Lost to the night's tide.
And buried far beneath,
An eternity of existence
Stretching out the colours,
And fading into distance.
So far now,
Yet held close,
By mind, not matter.

All my friends need medication
I need injections to stay me
And everyone around me's in love with insanity
The deluded speak the truth
They see the world as it is
Cause really life is bleak and tough to quit

Where have the words gone?
My throat closes up and chokes,
Another chance lost.

Where do I go when my world crumbles?
Sometimes I feel as though I just
Let the earth fall away
Beneath my feet
And wait
To hit the bottom of some pit
That already collapsed once.

Sometimes I try to run from
The inevitable destruction
And hide in corners
That might
Just about
Survive the end
But they never do.

Sometimes I search for a hand
To lead me to a safer place
And hold me tight
As everything
Comes tumbling
Down around us
But I can't find reach their fingers

And they're
Just
Falling
Too

She knows how to ask and get,
But I love giving.
She knows when I need to forget
The hell I'm living.
She knows where to go
To escape it all
She knows how to know
When I'm about to fall.
She knows how to share her pain,
So I can share mine.
She knows how to love the rain,
But stay inside.
She knows when all I need,
Is a meal and a break.
And she knows how I feel,
But that's okay.

If I was to write an underscore,
For my life, it would be full of changes,
A sea of dissonance with tiny outcrops of safety,
A deep, dark, angry piano,
Broken through briefly with strings,
And a flute to accompany my tears,
As they gently crawled down my cheek,
And there would be sudden key shifts
Leading into bursts of understanding,
And gentle nights of freedom,
Growing slowly into a bright promise of a future,
Filled with solos becoming a wall of brass,
Gaining confidence until I would stand,
And sing alone.