The woman holds a letter
crumpled and crumbling at the tip like insanity taking its first few licks at calm
and liking it
brushing black-inked words beneath her fingers
like she's contemplating some black haired deed
like anger
or hate
or ******
and maybe she is.

The woman lifts her hands unto the skies
crying for help from a darkness that won't help her at all
but she wants it
banishing her innocence and taking up home
in the old, abandoned shack of spite and malice
wanting blood
wanting love
wanting power
but not just for her.

The woman meets her husband
taunting and teasing and twisting his words into a sadistic mockery of what they were
and he believes her
with a slap across morality he agrees with her
takes her outstretched hand to show that
jealousy is married
determination binds
it was his idea first
and weakness is sin.

The woman turns and faints
blanching so white it's like the evil wasn't ever there
it's hiding
waiting, longing to consume her whole
she'd thought she'd washed away the deed
with just
a little
spot of
water.

The woman enters the banquet hall
hanging off her husband's arm like the weight of the crime that holds her down
she's shaking
trying to hurl off all the lonely isolation
as her husband lo and talks to ghosts
and kills
not just
men but
her as well.

The woman walks and talks asleep
scratches skin and tries to scrub away the sticking-plaster guilt
but still it stays
forces of darkness she invited
staying long past their welcome and
not just
eating all
the food
but her as well.

The woman recognises blood
splattering the deceased's names across her arms in swirling crimson lines like marker pen
that won't wash off
maybe she'd be better off dead than praying
wishing she could drown her err
in just
a little
spot of
water.

She was revered
she was tethered
to a chain that wouldn't snap.

She was lying
she was dying
on the inside of her heart.

Then she revolted
so devoted
to the freeing thought of change.

She was fated
she had waited
for so long to grasp the end.

Then they ****** her
and they crammed her
in a space she wouldn't fit.

They despised her
and advised her
to keep crying till the end.

Head or heart?
The question of the day.
Stop or start?
They pull a different way.
Head avoids pain,
Takes the safe route.
Heart feels the strain,
It ignores all the doubt.
But in the indecision,
the moment disappears.
Leaving you in division,
Broken heart spilling tears.

Once upon a time, in a world that looks like yours      
there was a girl with
golden hair
that hung like a banner across her back in a
a sea of sandy metal
that whispered across the air
all the untold secrets of the water and the flowers
and their petals


and when she blinked, her eyes were blue
and if you leaned too close you'd
drown in them
like the hags who tumbled down the wells
and shrieked for help
that no one cared about
because they didn't hear their voice
or see their
ebony locks trailing like abandoned sea **** after them
because they didn't fit into the space the puzzle maker had carved
and couldn't conquer the tedium of difference


and the girl was tugged by hand to go to Church
and her prayers were secret treasures
that trickled from her lips
and tasted like righteousness
each word more crystal than the last
soaked in honey at the tip
and smothered in wonder and glory
and the days as they passed


and they never mentioned the girls she teased
who wore headscarves
or bindis
that she'd printed with the colours of endless torment
in hues of cheerless and agony
and the girls never told her that
if they took them off
like she begged them to
laughter sprinkled in and stirred
they'd have to show her how much more pain
her jeering caused them


and the girl made mockeries of the unconventional
but that was okay because
everyone did
their eyes creasing up into slits of derision
in universal agreement
skidding past the true
whims of their heart and growing to
resent them


and the eccentric pressed themselves carefully
into the mould of society's
baking tray
their souls thrashing out in pain and hatred
as they compressed their emotions
and intelligence
and the beauty they found in the strangest of things
into the shell that had been vacated for them
when its previous owner had shrivelled up
and given in
and died


and all the way through life, the girl was beautiful
but she still  blew char
over her eyelashes
and stained her lips the post-box red that's found in
first kisses and
poetry and
scrawled crayoned hearts and
fading wishes


and she made fun of the red that pulsed
in the form of acne on
her classmates' faces
growing their hair out long to cover their pain
until no one could see their shame
and pouring their money into
the collection tins of mass chain stores
of cream and gloop and products
until their faces were marred by make-up
until their mothers didn't recognise them anymore
and they cried


and the girl was thinner and happier than anyone
but because it amused her
her wrists were slit
so her peers doled out their sympathy
and held battles over
who could make her smile first
and she fasted to become thinner
and she collected
four leaf clovers


and her classmates ignored the tender puckered skin
of the children that hacked at
their flesh and
tried to hide it alongside their hurt
and she cackled at the ribs
that seemed to try and burst from their flesh
like hungry mouths were trying to eat
them from the inside out
and they collected things because they feared
what would happen if they didn't
because that was OCD


and when the girl grew up, she married a boy
and he was tall and
his hair was night
and he was handsome in the conventional way that was accepted
perfect match
the paradisiacal sight of
dainty damsel clutching the arm of the
kind of man she'd read about in books
she'd been infatuated with him before they'd met


and the boys who fell in love with each other were outcast and spat on
their hearts torn into tatters and shredded in machines
by the people who thought they could decide for them
that if they didn't love girls then they'd love no one at all
because in the fairy tales they'd read as young children
they learnt that
prince = princess
and the prince never runs away with the woodcutter
because where would the princess be then?


and the girl still lives on today, in a world that looks like yours
her words a deadly poison
reaping and bleeding
crushing her prey between *******
and showing songs to the ears of the impressionable,  young or old
sowing seeds in their brains
that blossom in their hearts
and she is beautiful
and she is terrible
and she is nameless but for the title of
Society’s own child
and she is blameless
for it is the parent
at fault.

I'm sorry soldiers,
For caring too much about ceremony and the 'Last Post'.
I'm sorry soldiers,
For forgetting the true meaning of all these parades and bugle calls.
I'm sorry soldiers,
For lying with everyone else saying 'We will remember'.
I'm sorry soldiers,
For wearing my poppy this year out of pressure, not respect.
I'm sorry soldiers,
For looking at your memorial and seeing only a piece of architecture.
I'm sorry soldiers,
For reading your names and not caring who you really are.
I'm sorry soldiers,
For thinking of you as foolish men, for obeying orders to the end.
I'm sorry soldiers,
For blaming you for your own demise.
I'm sorry soldiers,
That you had to go through such pain and difficulty only to be killed the next day.
I'm sorry soldiers,
That the rest of the world isn't.
I'm sorry soldiers,
That what you died to end never really stopped.
I'm sorry soldiers,
That I am alive through no act of bravery or skill but through luck.
I'm sorry soldiers,
That you were born at just the wrong time.

I'm sorry soldiers,
That this apology comes one hundred years too late,
But I think it's time someone said it,
So I'm sorry,
Can you ever forgive us?

If laughter be the currency of the soul
I do not have enough to buy
a lamp to chase the
shadow from my
heart.

Stick me together with plasticine
Fill in the cracks of my broken dreams
Stitch my skin tighter and sow my heart shut
Let my hair loose and my nails uncut
Glue my eyes open and stretch out my frown
Dress up my fear in an ebony gown
Sketch in my strings and take hold of the thread
Wrap me in cling film, then leave me for dead.

Life isn’t fair, they tell me,
it’s not always cut and dry.

You can’t always get what you want,
but that just leaves me asking why?

Ignorance is bliss, supposedly,
some days I wish I’d never met you.

Anything is possible, they say,
doesn’t that apply to us too?

Money can’t buy happiness,
but it can buy a plane ticket.

Everything happens for a reason,
well that reason can go stick it.

A closed door is a window opened
but what if the door was never there?

They tell you to *follow your heart,
My heart’s with you; it’s not going anywhere.

The knife in my side,
The blood on my hands,
The hole in my mind,
The loss I can't stand.

I follow the fear,
Towards a new start,
As more cracks appear,
In my blackened heart.

A pathway of pain,
It leads me onwards,
I don't care if I'm broken inside,

But what if I can't,
Pick up all the pieces,
Of those I've hurt and those who've died?

I try to escape,
The depths of my heart,
Riddled with holes from Anger's cold spear.

What if I caused,
More hate than I feel?
What if there's no way back from here?

There's no way back,
And to those I've hurt,
I'm sorry,
Don't forgive me.

Leave me be,
I never felt anything for you,
Nothing close to what I feel for her now.
You believe you own me?
Well back off,
I belong to one, and one alone.
She actually cares
She actually listens
So don't think for a second you can compete with her.
You can call me 'traitor'
You can accuse me of heartbreak,
Betrayal and cruelty are words that do not cross my mind.
Leave me be
Let me love

I did not know
Back then
What you wanted
I watched as you
Had your mind twisted
By the things you saw
On a computer screen
Things you wanted
Me to see too
Me to do to you
But I couldn't
But I let you
Keep watching that screen
And I know
I should have stopped you
But I couldn't
I watched as you
Fell further
Deeper in the darkest
Parts of your mind
I wasn't strong enough
I could've stopped it
But I couldn't
For fear of losing
Another friend
For fear of making
Everything worse
I will always
Blame myself
For the state
You're in now
And the state
You put me in
Because I could've stopped it
But I couldn't
Risk the one constant
That kept me
From going mad
From hating myself
From hurting myself
From killing myself
But I was wrong
You were the constant
That made me
Go mad
Hate myself
Hurt myself
And try to **** myself
And yet
You are still my friend
Because I blame myself
And I have to protect you
Because I'd never
Forgive myself
If you killed yourself
And I didn't try to stop you

You
Killed
My
Childhood
But
I
Forgive
You
And
Blame
Me