from heaving waves i emerge
and wander, hapless, forward,
to shallows, to piled sand and
grasses like thickened tongue.
sallow and saltbreak, this heart
has set to mend.

across field and timberline,
teeth gnash; but now they
belong to i. now, the proud
stretches of tussock weave
song through my chest. now,
lonely is an auxiliary quantity:
heart in hand, my very own,
soft clay to mould.

let us get drunk on
the stars and burdock tea.
let me find your fingers
across a chasm i clamber
up out of, only to breathe and
kiss you. i ask not for long-
desired salvation. i have
poured my own. i've enough
left to bathe you in light,
or at least to pry open your
leaf-litter eyelashes. i can
separate want and caprice.
i can want you.
                             let my desire
face west and cast to bush,
to flint, to corrals of snowfall.

i've dined in all great halls, but
i'd rather sit in your room,
for now.

Consistency is thinning with the sun
Our minds crawl-
Yet  race on overdrive inside our homes and out in the damp streets.
Simple static,
A mental block of conscious
spread by word of mouth from one disaster to the ****** birth of another.
Another bag of bones,
Clanking over our shoulders-
With heavey arms to bare with
Another gust of wind full of ashes and crowds all dressed in black with their throats in knots.
The words inside our mouths burn as they leave
There is a kid with a guitar on the outskirts of it all.
Watching in as the faces drain from the bodies in the streets.

So he began to sing.
He sang about shades of grey
He sang about the spaces in between
And he sang about the heart that’s been thrown among one person’s beliefs to another’s lack of.
He strummed until the sky turned a shade of blue which resembled his mothers eyes on the night he learned what strength and will was.
As the wind hushed,
The crowd began a melancholy motion,
with their backs turned to all that was
Some with new sight and others in disbelieving disgust.
But one thing held constant-
though time had been tampered and irreversibly changed
They all hurt the same
Each mind had been scrambled like eggs

(C) Tiffanie Doro

A sensuous sound eagerly heard
by my raw soul,
a sound like an angel whispering
and kindly teasing
The scent of the salty breeze
caressing and stirring my senses
My heart ceases
at the sight of the swelling ocean,
like a forgotten friend
Twinkling illuminations twirling
on the swaying
saturated skin
Impatient to be at one
with the rhythmic sways
to mother natures
heavenly work of art
Each time the images are transformed
I believe that this is my first time
and I have been unseeing
to this utopia

His Down's Syndrome makes
His age a tough guess, I'll
Say eight to ten.

Wide eyes on machines,
Ice cream dripping on the
Pavement outside the

Construction site.
I wanna work like this when
I grow up, he says in

Young enthusiasm to a mother
Whose eyes well up with
Gratitude when I approach

And kneel down in front of
Him. So you want a job,
Buddy? I ask him with a

Wink. He suddenly remembers
His ice cream and bites into
It shyly. Nods, glancing at the

Tools in my belt, the scratches
On my arms, the brick wall
I've been attacking with a

Wacker jackhammer. Nods
Again. Well, I'll see you in a
Few years, I say with another

Wink, this time to his mother,
Who'd look her young age if
Her eyes weren't as tired,

But you can start with this
And get some practice. I hand
Him my Stanley Fat Max

Hammer. His ice cream
Hits the ground as he
Recieves it with both hands,

Looking to his mother for
Confirmation that it's ok.
Oh, it is. She mouths a

Thank you SO much...
They walk away, his chatter
High pitched and fading

Around the corner. And I
Head over to the foreman to
Report that I lost my hammer.

Don't ever employ me.
I can work a good game, but
I'm too soft around little heroes.

I have never thrown
A stone at two
Birds

I'm not without
Sin, this house
Is all glass

And besides, who
Needs to **** anything
To multitask

Rain water soaks us
Runny mascara, but you still think I'm beautiful
Lips so soft
Lips so sweet
We're pressed up against each other
Bare chest to bare chest
You on top
Me on bottom
Hips locked in place with the other
Warm soft sweet lips slowly caressing my body, my lips and my neck you **** on
Soft gentle hands caress my ******* thoughtfully
Finally, her lips reach my thighs, I, trembling with lust and fear
I was scared and she knew it
Her hands and lips touched me
*So softly, so gently

Everyone talks about depression as if they know it.  

But what they don’t know is that depression is a hooded figure standing just outside of a wooden doorway,

it’s feeling the blood dripping down your skin and having the sick thought of  “Oh, look how beautiful the red is” (they always say red is my color).

Depression is lying on your bed for hours on end, salt tracks lining your face like the scars on your ankles, staring at your ceiling tracing patterns in the paint and accepting death in life with this hole in your chest because death is a reward, an escape from this pain you deserve to feel.

Depression is writing sick poetry on skin and publishing it with scars, cutting on ankles, not wrists because you’re scared you’ll get in trouble but you so desperately need to be seen, and never are.

Depression is writing the word “alone” and seeing the word “home”, accepting the pain like a gift because you deserve it.

Depression is admitting suicidal thoughts to paper and not to people, and loving the broken things, hoping to tie them together, thinking maybe things will get better, but knowing that’s just wishful thinking.

Depression is hearing your mother call you monster and disgusting through the too-thin walls of your door when she thinks you can’t hear, and then telling you to your face that you have no right to cry, as if sadness is a privilege and you’re so pathetic that you don’t deserve it.

Depression is shutting yourself up in your room and hearing your family laughing downstairs because you feel like you can’t be a part of them and learning at a young age to love family always but that family isn’t always love

Depression is wanting to take love and your heart and break them into tiny little pieces and throw them into waves, to throw them away

Depression is a foot when the shoe hasn’t been broken in yet, is you when you haven’t broken life in, is seeing happy people and thinking they all look the same, like the front covers of magazines with smiles reaching their eyes when yours can’t.

Depression is wishing you could package your smiles into tiny little piles and hand them to people more deserving of them because you know you’re wasting them with half-assed lines of “I’m fine”

Depression is having to view your past as if it wasn’t yours, because to accept it as reality is to accept finality of your life through suicide.

Depression is a hooded figure standing just outside of a wooden doorway and when you close the door out of fear it keeps pounding, possessive, ******, and when you open the door out of anger you shout, “I’M SCARED” to thin air but your voice comes out as a whisper.

Just sitting in my garden
The humidity of the day washed away by a gentle breeze
Over to my right the stand of oaks
Silhouetted against the darkening evening sky
Very little noise, just the muted sounds of televisions and music
Just occasionally I run my fingers through
Lemon balm, mint and thyme
Freeing their beautiful fragrance into the night air
A few feet away my chiminea glows
The dancing flames and wood smoke almost hypnotic
I could be sat glued to the tv but then I would miss all this
Miss what?
The peace, the quiet, the tranquillity
My garden, my oasis of calm...

I do not wish to dream,
For dreams are illusionary life,
Peopled with phantoms of the living
Reflecting our awakened mind's
Fears, lusts, hopes.
Vanity flavours the subconscious.

There is no rest here.

When I close my eyes I pray for darkness.
I wish to escape into the black,
Silk tendrils of the lost tickle my fancy,
Easing my ever chattering mind
Into micro deaths of sweet silence.
I do not exist,
Neither do you,
Nothing.
It is here that I find comfort.

Solace in the forgetting.

Passion leads
This fool follows.

i have lost the will to move from this empty bed.

all i want to do is sleep, but my mind quietly begs you to come lay next to me.

i know you won't, so i torture myself with thoughts of you with her instead.