Box has me press-ganged.
 
‘Please read. I can help you:
recall nausea and ****-buddy
depravity? Dee-press-shun.

‘Suffer the shirk? Cancerous
pressure talk taking its kind
time. Makes the clock scream

****** at twelve. Tick, tick,
tock—it’s time. Open, take and
swallow. Feel much better now?

‘Take another! Toss it down
the hatch. It’ll stun you alive
until dead. You’re chastised, kid.’

Smile like you mean it, I titter
with tongue in teeth. Bite the end
and hit it across the consonant. Cry,

abuse! Beater! It’s part of it –
to do you good. Tears trip pity.
No, I know those weren’t meant;

you’re here for my rapture.
Caught between tines a *******
brands you both illicit and curious,

clings to your skin as blood
and *** is alike to smoke and fire.
I’ll teach you to be felt contented.

Take my example. Look, note here;
the slant of a lip, eyes just taut,
the jutted chin—look! Copy in delight:

‘Smile like you mean it.’

In English gardens she blooms lilac,
comes with her petals spread
and swept across for me to pick
out a red droplet ready to bead.
She reaches my lips, then I bite.
And as the pips tumble and hit
teeth, tongue and cheek, I find
the sour taste she leaves behind

is ill-fitted for me. Innocence dies,
so now I swallow in hesitant takes
with spoonfuls of sugar to get by.
She drips from her brittle-soft skin,
and bleeds until she begins to break
whilst in an English garden I lie within.

A thin, red trail
slaps the pavement,
becomes so swollen,

strands trip around
the neck and cut
deep where there,

in the slick trickles
pulled to small floods,
sinking out, a tip

of the tongue cry
never quite confirmed,
stays strangled. Drips

and ebbs with bottle
in hand, a scarf
in the other. Like ribbon

it weaves into spaces,
drenches the ground
until everything is art.

“Ring-a-ring-a-rosie,” we screamed
holding hands in circles. We laughed,
fell, tumbled when the end came
and rolled about in the thick grass.

Mothers would scold us and click
their tongues. Big sighs came;
we knew the games were over
and retired the evening inside.

At night I played the game myself,
pulled on my teddy bear’s arms
and loudly whispered the rhyme
as I danced around my room.

Like a possessed child I danced,
fully drunk in the night’s vigour
until there came the trumpets,
slowly gathering pace outside.

They became louder. So did I.
I twirled as the house shook,
span around me and laughed
until it all blurred violently.

The sound was deafening
much like my heart in my ears.
Ba-doomph. Ba-doomph.
The explosions rattled me

as wailings came and cawed,
but I carried on in my fever:
“We all fall down” I said, dizzy.
I knew I wouldn’t dance again.

You would cry like there was no end,
tears dipping in the broken smile
until they clung on the very outline.
We were sat in the morning shade,
sketching me with your lead
in hand; you see me. I’m empty.

Across the field the thickets were empty,
the crisped, golden summer would end
as though the teeming life were mislead.
The sun would fade like your smile,
then only a glimpse would escape the shade

and stay with me as a furtive outline,
inescapable in nightmares. This outline
leaves my bed covers breathless and empty,
waiting for your hand to guide. You lead.
I question whether this will end:
When will you stop taunting me with a smile
unable to slide, sketch and shade?

I’d try to broach the shadow of the shade,
yet my eye cannot catch you. Just an outline
of that torn heart is left in the smile
leaving the space more than empty
until I decide to have it end
by picking up the scattered bits of lead.

Across the golden fields I would lead,
looking back onto the folds of the shade.
The tall grass would make my gaze end,
leaving our tree grazing over the outline.
The field’s thickets were undoubtedly empty.
I head on home. I can still see the smile.

In our child I can see your smile,
as it was before you were misguidedly lead
and left me here feeling alone, empty.
I see on the walls how you used to shade,
how darkness clung to the drawing’s outline.
There I see that you knew light would end.

You always seem to end with the same smile.
I am the outline that you embrace with shades
until the skin is lead. You left me empty.

Yestreen, the night cried like a flying circus,
with belts of hoots, laughter and howls.

Thumps caved walls like a drum,
seeking full attention in the early morn’s hours.

A shrill would chirm a space,
as a soul would burrow its place to hide.

The moon turned searching spotlight,
bawled mumbling  groans like a child gone snide.

Screams were thrown in disgust,
like a temperamental mother in a sunken heat.

A whip-crack tore at the sky,
as though it swore I could never be true or right.

The rain had sounded like flittering lashes
against reddened cheeks cold, beaten and bruised.

It was quiet as though the right words
were not for the night’s embrace to ever be used.

The windows did cheer so wittily
like clapter belting the colour out of a smile.

The sky cried and wanted me home,
although I would return and never leave her side.