Sat here between seasons
Summer flowers withering
But autumn yet to hit
The sun's dim light slowly fades
As thicker clouds invade the sky
And my hands shake
While I start a new journal
Page one of a different life
Filled with nervous excitement
Because somewhere down the line
I will finally stop
Stop hurting
Stop hiding
Stop running
Stop lying
And start smiling
It takes time, it takes strength
It takes courage that I don't know I have
But I have to try to shake my dead leaves.

In the darkness, colours create themselves,
Shadows become vibrant of their own accord,
Reflections shine like stars and
Stars swirl into streams of light.
The slow rustle of branches in dull wind
Becomes strokes of a brush, painting in front of me
An imagined beauty
Entwined with reality but
Not real in itself so much as waiting to be real
Longing to burst forth and dazzle my foolish eyes
But here I see a preview
A hint of some artist's dream
A whisper of captured thought in light and pigment
Though I know the street is black and the sky is black
And the houses are grey
And the grass is brown
Why couldn't they be gold? Or yellow? Or blue?
Why shouldn't they glow like fire licking at the
Edges of my shoes?
Dark remains dark only
For the minds which refuse to paint themselves.

Allow yourself to lay aside
Critical eyes and embrace
An imperfect truth
Another ending that might not have been
But was anyway.

Allow yourself a moment
To forget to question
And instead go with it
Run with it, ignore your legs screaming
And chase fantasy.

Allow yourself to see
Through naïve eyes
And glimpse the radiance
That only undoubting innocence can
Bless us with.

Allow yourself a brighter world,
A lighter narrative, an uplifting song,
And let it live in your heart.

A half-lit room, spotlights on the stage,
Two chairs, plastic looking flowers and some water,
The crowd is gathering, hats and coats come off,
As they all settle down.

Now I am surrounded, I am anonymous,
But for my family and one friend,
And when she opens her mouth,
The lights move at her command,
To focus on me.

And suddenly all things change,
A chance to prove myself to all,
And more importantly to myself,
See a new path, alongside this,
And walk along.

Then lights back on them,
They who've taken chances before,
In some world where change was easy,
And life was simpler, perhaps, than now,
And I ask myself then:
Is this the chance?

Yearning heart held down,
Trapped soul -
Pulled relentlessly to ground.
But now body follows spirit
And my freedom flight is found.

Between fractured clouds,
Frozen stars
Are shattered as I stare,
Painting dances on the moonlight,
Twisting circles in the air.

Rush of endless sky,
Empty sky
Above the chains of life -
Swirling winds now bind me
To the solitude of height.

And far from here the Earth
Has stopped.
And silenced every mind,
For in these precious moments,
God has visited mankind.

I talk again of broken souls,
Of broken people, broken promises that
Keep breaking our hearts over and
Again like a broken record.
And in that loop the words change,
Transform themselves into ugly
Monsters that tell us we're freaks
And remind us of when we broke down
And break down our fears into
Lists, mantras, chants in our heads
Until our monsters live inside of us.
And though they started as fragile
Echoes in our ears they start to take
Control of our broken bodies
And remind us how horrifically
Imperfect we are when really
Our brokenness makes us break
New ground to fix the problems
We didn't know we had and
Break down the barriers to honesty
And fairness and let us feel
We are not broken
But merely incomplete
And that the monsters are not
The piece we're missing.

A reassurance that I was wrong,
A confirmation of my idiocy
I knew all along but refused to believe,
And again my mind brushes through
The out of reach strands of hair that frame
The silken skin of her face.
And once more my blood is running
On imagined heartbeats that rush
Upon the lips I know
Will blur and fade from mind
With the knowledge I have been believing
In faith I held not in myself,
But in another's ability to surprise.
But I am wrong, I am foolish,
I know her too well to expect her to change,
So I will not,
And I will wipe the watercolour from my mind
With black ink.

The dreariness of the morning,
On days like this stretches its legs,
And wanders out past the noon,
Leaning on my shoulders with its aching muscles,
Mumbling in my ears,
Temptations, suggestions,
Take a rest, perhaps,
Let the fantasised release of sleep
Overtake your fuzzy head,
In the bleakness of the afternoon.

My breath hangs in the air,
A gathering of mist ahead of me,
Rolling off my face as I walk through it
The last few drops seem to trickle down my cheek
Leaving a trail of wind-bitten skin.

I rub my hands together and bury them in my coat
Blood runs back through my fingers, thawing them,
The sky is blue as my lips, trembling in the chill.

Autumn has taken her time,
Dragging her heels as she clung to the sleeve of Summer,
Begging him for one more hour together,
But now she is alone, her pale breath consumes the air,
Replacing it with wind as crisp as the leaves it blows down.

A tremble, a murmur,
A shaking in the ground,
A waiting, a crying,
A pleading to be found,
The broken, cold-hearted,
Knew before the fall,
But stood by and watched
As we lost it all.

A shudder, a grinding,
A twisting of metal,
A crunching, a falling,
Clouds of dust settle,
Devastate, destroyed,
Hope all but gone,
No pieces left to pick up,
No base to build on

What is there for us?
The dreams of the hopeless
Are tearing at the sky
What's left of independent thought
Can't find a reason why…

Shouldn't we try to rebuild?
Shouldn't we have prepared?
Why didn't we see this coming?
Why didn't we all start running?
Hasn't this all happened before?
Haven't we said we'd learned from the last war?
We felt the cracks running through our backs
But still we let it all fall down.

A boy came by today
His eyes never left the ground
His coat looked new and too big for him
He carried a satchel, a cheap one
One of his fingers was shaking.

The boy came past today
He glanced at me once
His eyes were empty, hollow
His fist was clenched, tight
His jaw was shaking

The boy came back again
He locked his eyes on mine
He was pleading with me
His shoulders were wider than before
His arm was shaking

The boy ran past today
He turned his gaze away
He was crying, I could hear
His coat fit him now, with all its marks
His hands were shaking

The boy strode by today
His head was held high
His hair was longer than before
He wore a backpack, a new one
Still he was shaking

The boy came by today
His friends by his side
They were all wearing makeup
He wore the same old coat
His finger shaking

The boy stopped to listen today
His eyes bright and lips smiling
He had a new coat to go with his skirt
He gave me a coin, his hand shaking
I said "Thank you, Miss"

The girl strut past today
Her steps confident in those boots
She carried a small bag on her shoulder
Her hair pinned up, it matched her dress
She wasn't shaking

I’m sorry that I look so down
I’m sorry that I wear this frown
I’m sorry but the pain’s too strong
I’m sorry I can’t wait that long
I’m sorry about the scars I’ve made
I’m sorry I can’t make them fade
I’m sorry I did this to you
I’m sorry I can’t make it through

Release; valve
Let purest rage fill the air
Breathe; fall
In death and pain all’s fair

Screaming skin,
Shaking hands,
Is this the last time the tears land?
Burning up,
Muscles weak,
Is this the last time till next week?
It hasn’t helped me once before,
At least this time I know what I’m in for.

Don’t look at me
Can’t you see my eyes are hollow
Cracked glass
Boarded up window to a broken soul
Open hole where my heart should be
An angel stole all that’s left of me

Black blood
Flows smoother than red
Ink on my wrists
And it goes to my head tonight
I can’t fight my own fingers
Who needs light it only lingers

I don’t want help
Is what I said to myself
Heart cast
In iron only beating for one
Life gone in the night
Swan song; devil’s bite