Blood rushing quickly, tickling the walls of my heart
A breath, a whisper, a shudder through my nerves,
A feeling, like a breeze through my chest.
Certainty, terrifying certainty
Here. Here is my home.
A place I've barely known for more than a snapshot of time.
Yet this place fell upon me like a roof above my head
And sheltered me like a blessing,
Here. Here I must stay

Gently closing, almost-sleeping,
Form outside: hurtling
Inside: breathing slow
A landscape scurries past
The distance lazy, foreground hazy,
Barely a whisper of light on the horizon -
Casting pink shadows on low clouds.
Those around are tired (like me)
But they have company to keep their eyes open
I myself am alone, though I sit by a stranger
I don't know their reasons
I know my own, I think,
I want a future, and for me, that future is far away
It is beyond the hills I can see
But not so far to be unreachable
So I sit and let myself be carried
Away.

Two half-slices of toast
Jagged edges cannot match
Crumbling at but a touch
Leaving tiny brown specks on a little plate
How pointlessly I examine the detail
Of two half-eaten slices
For no reason, no purpose
But that perhaps there was...
Something more important to be seen.

Friends, though I've never seen your faces
At least, not most of you,
And those I have, only through pixels
On one screen or another.

Friends, more so than any I'd known before,
A surrounding of arms,
Hugs and hands and words all ready
To hold me when I'm crying.

Friends, never looked at me like a freak,
Never judged for anything,
Never told I'm worthless or even
That I need to change.

Friends, what can I say?
My life was turned around by you,
You accidental saviours of my soul,
Between you, you performed a miracle,
Took me from the fringes of death,
To hope, happiness and comfort,
What can I say?
But thank you.

I've tried to write these words
Four times too many
But here: I tried my worst
Can't think of anything
To put in the postscript
And bury beneath its hollow notes.

I've racked through my brains
Until they were broken
I can't trust my own name
Or the things I've spoken
To send you the right way
Won't let another stray like me.

I can't keep my throat open,
It's closing up,
And I can't stop thinking,
It's not enough
To sing when I'm screaming
At nightmares I'm dreaming might go.

I can't offer you much
But angry souls,
And I know that won't mean much
When I'm gone
But you will keep living
The path you believe in
And that's okay.

So here's my take: empty words
Let you be my epilogue.

I am the words on a tomb
Escaping my end
I am a crack in the room
That I won’t leave again
I’m a mistake in the womb
Afraid to repent
I am delaying the inevitable

I am the salt in the wound
That messed with your head
I am the already doomed
Who won’t go to bed
I am the coal consumed
To dispose of the dead
I am delaying the inevitable

And I don’t know why I’m clinging on
So hard that my fingers are raw and bleeding
And I don’t know how I’m keeping on
Going when my life signs are no longer reading
But I’m desperate to ruin the rest of my life
That’s already rubble and dust
So I’m oiling my electrics and recharging my joints
So the short-circuits can run through the rust

I will keep going long after I’m dead
I will keep coming back after the memories are gone from my head
So visit grave and you’ll hear my laugh
‘Cause under the dirt I’m alive

I rip the blank paper - protecting the truth
Hidden words, soon to tell
Of more than formalities,
Of a line of light,
Bleeding out from a half-open door,
Unlocked and slowly beckoning,
For one foot forward, one finger on the handle,
And a gentle warmth on my face,
A hint on my lips: smile
Hope lies ahead, freedom,
A start.

Foundations fell centuries ago
We've been building sins
On brittle understones
We dug up the tombs of the best psychos
And they let us in to hell below

We carved our lives into hungry deaths
And then sold our souls
For sixteen breaths
Then we burnt our bones 'til there was nothing left
And we'd hide and we'd fight for a fateless step.

Stretch the world: wafer thin
Flatten reason, break us in
We are the children free of skin
Order falls; chaos wins

What's left of life is not much at all
But if my heart's still beating I will not fall
Our culture is worthless, our laws are too old
But my heart's still beating
My blood is not cold.

Contract, control, constrict the air is freezing
Deter, dement, deny my lungs from breathing
Fragile, freaking,
Phantom feeling, stealing
Souls from carcasses.

Shadows stalk a pilgrim
Through the dark I can't see
Their screams are invisible
My ears still bleed
Claws in my spine
Nails in my eyes
Dark is liberty

Distract, destroy, disturb the angels sleeping
Rough, reborn, restored the heaven's weeping
Hated, hurting,
Kingdom burning, turning
Back behind my back.

Unhinge, untie, undo the laws you're bound by
Rusted rules return until the dark dies,
Punished, paining,
Hell is reigning, straining
Hands around my neck.

How many fingerprints are ingrained between the cracks?
How many more were lost in the tides and storms decades back?
How long has such lonely metal hid as the world around it changed?
Was it lost, forgotten or just never seen again?

Did these words round its edge - now broken truth -
Hold meaning and memories or ignored in simple youth?
Are these patterns, barely seen, dead to the eye?
Or are they just waiting for someone to find the right light?

It rose beneath our feet,
A rock, a testament to days we lost,
It trembled with our hearts,
And shook us free from selfish dreams,
To fix our eyes above,
Below,
Around,
Outside ourselves,
To care about the colour of the sky,
Or the way grass smells in the morning,
Or the intricate patterns in an insect's wing,
And our horizon grew,
And fell out from our grasp,
And ran towards the sun,
Which began to rise in the mornings,
Set in the evenings,
And every so often,
Mingle with the structures of our own hands,
And we began to sing,
And dance,
And whisper sweet nothings,
And hush our hatred,
For want of innate love - that we'd forgotten how to find.

Turning of shadows,
By mechanical means,
Serrated edges,
Cogs, screws and strings,
Form fractals of unknown symmetry,
On eternally ancient masonry.

A screeching, a scratching,
Of claws on walls,
Of screams to escape,
Grinding of brutal doors,
Revealing boiling myth-born beasts,
Commencing destructive ritual,
Malevolent black-heart spiritual.

The voices scream,
Chaos reigns,
Angelic faith initiates,
Falling clockwork teeth,
Carving scars from perfect wings.