I buried a bird at sunset
To teach its elder’s some respect
As bundles of familiar feathers swooped
singing scornful songs of incomplete youth
I knew where they’d been at time of death.


I denied the cat the flightless fallen body
Siblings guarding silently as I tore up flower beds
With a piece of broken tile and old weeds left in a pile
Solemn is the hand that carves the final nest.


I buried them with nothing more than three sprigs of lavender,
& fluffy baby feathers splattered with dirt
I wished only empty bellied, good-hearted scavengers
Would carry them to a better nurturing earth.


Tucked into blankets of leaves and mud
I wondered what god they feared, if any
Tying twisted twigs together with reeds & blood
a wonky cross to tell the worms they’re ready.


Loud is the crying fowl that pushed the flightless
Like pitted berries bulging through drooling chins
A clumsy stork is unburdened by lightness,
like the absence of young wings in the wind.


I hope when I am weak in breath & bone
With no children nor chirping to mourn my vessel empty
Someone might lay me down with three sprigs of lavender & a stone

And wonder what god I feared, if any.

Am I supposed to feel like sunrise,
Or smell of freshly cut grass?
Am I supposed smile with my teeth
like white doves in unlocked cages?
Is this supposed to give me hope
Like a baby’s first breath?
And emptying the vacuum?

All I feel is ugly and desperate  
Like a mushroom
sprouting from cow ****
Or the fitted sheet
I never put on my bed

I fear if I go back to the beginning

I won’t ever be  
Homemade Apple crumble
Lipstick stained skin
Or my favourite Jane Austen book
Not ever again

Fruitless, malnourished
I rot within myself
I give you every seed, every petal
I wish I had known
You’d grow bored of gardening
You drown
I dry up
Until we both cry over soiled roots
Desperate hands scraping,
Squeezing fallen leaves
Until they’re limp with indifference

I grow out my fingernails,
Into featureless feminine talons
In a vain prolonged pursuit of
Tearing, shredding, divorcing
Their mundane endeavour for life
Mocking me with their empty perseverance

I terminate their audacity with entrapment
Between tarnished tile teeth
Every ribbon departed
Easing my plump pulsing contempt

Oh, sweet relief,
I disfigure their arrogant survival
Ragged pieces of something neither flesh or bone
Catching upon smooth skin and loose threads
Just as I am.

I fear I am an oyster

stuck to the underside of a rock's bloated belly
festering or ripening, I'm scarce to know

Alien is the dirt between my fingernails
fathomless to me is the air upon my plastic skin
this water upon my lips feels like such synthetic whispers
what ecstasy I find in empty flavoured gin

I saw a predator in the bathroom mirror
or perhaps it was just confident prey

In morning I awaken, gasping for light

my birth, a first breath in fire

ripped from my sanctuary of void sight

identical synthetic houses made to admire

filled with stain of suffering and spite

stuffed to the brim with the wet words of liars

thick is my liquid consciousness which fades into the night

Dead glassy cow eyes
Mock me from within their bloated facade
They see right through me, and I, them.

Aim your guns of flesh oh mighty sailor!
whisk me away on those washing machine waves
Turner, hath you come to keep those ravenous omens at bay?
Embrace me now while I banish this inner monologue
through my skull, to melt infinitely into your indulgent rain.

Oh dull ache beneath thy ribcage of rot,
doth you thuder against such mortal flesh of mine?
My heart, my disobedient parasite
clench and thrash against my jaggard spine

these sharp crooked joints
bulge beneath powdered skin
rotting nailbeds point
lurch from a lumpy shin
stretch my elastic ligaments
release these captive organs
seethe against my innocence
seek release from biblical orphan

that Gigantes face
so engulfed in clouds of euphoria
teeth melt and mould
against my delirious musings
that sweat of shame
and remoulded nausea
dissipating sand of
rapacious time bruisings

each day I rise with good intention
by noon I'll have disappointed myself
I'll suffer more pain of my own invention
these evenings like death himself

peach pits and rotting herbs
you ravage my garden
but you water hers

I empathize for the bugs of damnation
spiders, ants & roaches as frantic as I
flinching away from the gangly limbs of civilization
a world of fleshy foul things perched high.
Spray,   squash,  slap,   scorn,
how we scamper from the polished hand of misery
hath you no mercy for the unwillingly born?
hath you a reason to cause such injury?

Eyes stare at me from within flowers
engulfing me in a fever-dream of light
storms rage then twist to limp showers
sprites sense the menace and take flight
In such beauty I find paradoxical peril
grabbed by the weeded floor of the ravine
suffocating on this gleaming world turned feral
I succumb to my death of melancholy green

Reach in and rob my greedy body
these retched pieces are no longer mine
giving up this flesh is an endless hobby
serve his ego by tearing out my spine

What say I the human doormat?
dare I bear the weight of your soul
I am both the mouse and the house cat
whilst you drink the milk from my bowl

I only write sad poetry
and never say much else
I'm used to articulating my feelings
my therapist says it helps
I'm not used to being ok
instead, I'm just uncomfortable
waiting for the other shoe to drop
my tear ducts are insufferable

he who lays down upon a cross
to draw an insatiable crowd
what a devilish smile you wear
when your women weep so loud

greedy fingers
pulling
prodding
taking
throbbing
stolen flesh
beneath fingernails
wounds still fresh
missing entrails
I know you took it
bloodied hands and all
I'll take your limbs
you better learn to crawl


give back my heart.

I speak curtains
around myself
strangers hear the agony
and go deaf
they ignore the
screams of a banshee
applause rings out
at my last breath

hollowed out is
the carcass I wear
empty bones
surrounding my decay
stuff myself with
liquid despair
golden whiskey
bleaches my body grey

let me purge
away my sins
gluttony is an
endured stench
if I peel away
this being of mine
would you feel
my heart clench?

loneliness
creeps up on you
like a cold
in the midst of spring
like a rock
inside your shoe
bearable
til it starts to sting

days droop like my tired eyes
hope starts tasting like weak tea
just a hint of salty wind before capsize
heart aching like my bruised knees

I'm haunted by intertwined hands
in brave roots of daring trees
the crack in the sidewalk silently understands
being hollow yet infested with weeds

arms dislocated from reaching so far
grabbing for a man to sew up my heart
even if they leave a gruesome scar
I'd love him till he tears me apart

I know her innocent gaze
her ghost gracing the hallways
news hits harder every day
posters on poles state the phrase

"MISSING GIRL, 15"
I fear her dainty bones
lay nestled in a field of green
among nameless headstones

I know her heart-shaped face
but not her current location
I know the details of her case
but no other information


?

I obsess over what it must feel like
to have the earth's veins beneath your feet
roots flowing like a lightning strike
your soil is mother nature's meat

do blades of grass encase your feet
when taking your slice of heaven for granted
pretending the honey doesn't taste as sweet
as the sprouts from the seeds love planted

you wouldn't like the place I dwell
melting skin and bloodied hands
my head is every circle of hell
purgatory hath no sympathy for lambs

listen to my blood stained breath
feel the thing that lives in my throat
can't you smell my restless death
my sanity took my last lifeboat

I warn of the wasteland inside me
rotting from my outsides in
how is your stare so carefree
you don't know where I've been

Oh my divine master of torment
I do not accept his purity
I refuse to lead him to your decent
I am the tornado to his Dorothy

he dares to stare into the eyes of death
smiling at my sadistic odyssey

Oh god won't you tell me you love me
as vacant as the lord himself
I know you buried the church key
why'd you rip out the doorbell

don't summon me for worship
to put my praying on display
this cold can only worsen
as I wait in your doorway

you feed on my addiction
give me enough love to last a day
I loathe this crucifixion  
but you love the way I stay

numbers numbers
I think it shows
that calorie counting
is all I know

number numbers
make me shrink
I wither away
before you blink

number numbers
I'm falling apart
these brittle bones
my failing heart

numbers numbers
thats all I see
on back of packages
beneath my feet

numbers numbers
please let me be
I can't control
what you're feeding me

.
insecurity sits
upon my windpipe
choking out
my loyal declaration
I've never been
the indulgent type
mistaking my desire
for desperation
.

I'll melt down my fingerprints
smear my identity across your face
embedding lines of original blueprints
I'm there in the wrinkles of your disgrace

she'll                              
see
              ­         what
            you've
                                             ­ ----t-a-k-e-n---
from              
me
when                                      
                     she
wåtchės
                                                         you
wãštę                                              
a       w       a         y

I collect ill-fitting prescriptions
suffering from a hollowed out heart
morse code thoughts drowned in encryption
doctors pull my nervous system apart

they can't find a cure so they try true loves kiss
they package him in an orange pill bottle
bite-sized pieces of pure chemical bliss
I take a handful of shortlived lust and gobble

these synthetic feelings stuff me momentarily
I can't digest them so they absorb me instead
blood boiling until I'm filled with transparency
first I'm empty, then I'm bursting, then I'm dead.

the cold swell of emptiness crashes hard over my naked soul
floating in the middle of a masochistic murky sea
I pray the tide shall sweep my aching body away
I grieve yet the waves laugh as they drown me

don't you remember the way we used to talk
or was it only endless suggestive texting
was it my shy smile when we drank and walked
that made you pretend we were connecting
or did I mistake our time together for a bond
even though we hooked up most everytime we hung
I couldn't question your collection of leggy blondes
because you'd silence my words with your tongue

fixing my problems with dried out glue
don't want to feel this so I'll try something new
a pill, a drink, a meaningless ****
I want to cover myself in glue and forever be stuck

my body, an unfinished puzzle
men pocketing my cherished pieces
chunks of my heart they like to smuggle
maybe they're feeding their demons,
maybe they get off on my struggle

I live with a tumour of paranoia
haunting my social life
flaring up with small annoyance
in a world of violence and strife
my cautiousness turns to avoidance
and my irrational fear is rationalised

broken glass on my salted tongue
spit or swallow you pressured
one scars my heart the other my lungs
self-massacre to keep you pleasured

every word
that spills from my broken brain
depresses and subdues

like my endless pain

"darling"
his voice
a velvet black hole
"take off your exterior,
I'll eat dessert whole"
I slip out of my skin
present my inners and insecurities
chewing my rotted heart
his hunger trumps purity

I awaken with no eyes
empty sockets in a swollen head
I reach out in search of an angel
hands choking me instead

she points ***** covered fingers in accusation
as her bones melt down the sink
her flesh stuck to my porcelain bowl
I still smell that chunky pink

my mind
is just a concept
never heard nor seen
its existence is questionable
fragile like my sanity

you slapped me once
whilst I removed my clothes
and then you degraded me
a cheek's a cheek I suppose

I wish I could soak up the sting
and feel your harsh hands once more
I'd rather feel your wrath
than be another forgotten *****

my skin is littered with burns and boils
not one for the razor's edge
I like the sting that hangs around
the pain wakes me from the dead

I let strangers pick
at my rotting brain
unfamiliar fingertips
grasping my darkest thoughts
I tried to bleed my emotions
but knicked a vein
presenting to you
my papercuts
and gunshots

when you grasp her hand in yours
I feel you tear open my hollow chest
knuckles tightly bound to your knife
searching for a battered heart to digest