Surrounded by liars, we conspire to exhale,
Suspended from heaven by wires so frail,
I was as you knew me; half there, half alive,
Too old to know better, too young still to drive,
An hourglass bandage, alone in my room,
A bruise to explain, an excuse to consume,
Burned down to silence, ethanol in my nose,
Confidence hibernation, voice never unfroze,
Turned to paper and pen, writing unhappy ends,
Tuned out all the fighting, lost faith in my friends,
A funerary maze, and I stayed there for days,
Kept safe from the addicts, degenerate haze,
Until finally I slept, free from sirens and screams,
It felt so good to see you, if only in dreams,
And I stared as you sat, delicate as a ghost,
I know I wasn’t there when you needed me most,
Always so far from home, and still so far from free,
Maybe I became less than you meant me to be,
With fire in my shoes and a map in my head,
Spent 3 years on the run, 4 wheels and no bed,
No food in my stomach, hollow cheeks caving in,
I came too far to fail, but was too lost to win,
Still the city lights held me with frenzied embrace,
Childhood imperfections forever etched on my face,
But head down I’ll hold on, however hopeless it seems,
And someday we’ll meet again, if only in dreams.

Come morning I awoke with you.
On my mind.
Alone.

Faded fingerprints upon my heart.
Your touch remains.
Unknown.

A reminder of everything I ever was.
Or could have.
Been.

I did just enough to make you fall in love.
With someone else.
Again.

Cars collide and I wake up,
Dressed in someone else’s skin,
I don’t know which way I was going,
I couldn’t tell you where I’d been.

We talked that night in broken pieces,
Or was it all inside my head?
You asked me if I was sorry,
And I asked if I was dead.

I walked along the empty hallways,
Lost in poison, fog and mist,
Desperate to find some meaning,
In memories that don’t exist.

You said I’d been trying so hard lately,
But sometimes this is how things go,
My mom told me to keep my guard up,
My dad called to say he told me so.

Now all alone in some apartment,
And still surrounded all the same,
Trying to find my sense of balance,
Or lose everything that I became.

This blood fat summer has swallowed me whole,
Gulped down my body in one swift inhale,
Living with this pair of fists battering my surface,
One resting on my jaw, another on my gut,
Sleeping under shingles and tin roves,
Waiting for night to settle itself in,
While the others dreamt in their beds,
I wandered twilight streets with a bottle and a question,
Saw my reflection in a puddle under streetlights,
Wondered who’s face stared back at me
An alien memory clawed its way out from beneath my skin
Left a scar for me to remember
The boy I once knew

Graced with the chance to be here,

Even if only fleetingly,

Embrace whatever comes your way

And, in so doing,

However enchanting

Any treasures you uncover

Might be,

Their loss should never be your concern.



In this matter

Make your heart your queen

And follow her as faithfully

And bravely as you are able,

Just as swelling fruit

Hurries towards its own sweetness,

Shine whilst you can,

Without fear,

For nothing is as inevitable

As it seems here.

No, not even the fissures

Of loss and decay

We are oft led to expect

In this temporal world.



For whilst we fuss and fudge

The lines we are given,

Above, below and all around us,

Lingers the energy of countless others

Who already know for sure

That, just as it was long, long ago,

When they first found themselves

Enraptured,

So it is for them, again and again…

And now with only a dark empty hollow,

A feeble space of earth left in between.



Such is true joy’s absolute certainty,

Its slow lit fuse that burns holes

In the shabby shroud of death forever.

Scribble me a note across the sky
one of those arty clouds
( the ones you are so good at )

and release my soul with a smile
(the ones you like so much)

Our faces met in the ocean of the womb
we were invisible
knit together with sounds
and we joined in kicking out at the drum
the drum drum of Earths Children
children in the silence of the womb
making music and kicking against all walls.