Frozen on knees, and praying
but paying no attention
to the difference
between love and reverence
and anything else you can believe in
because it doesn't matter
because you don't know
if ts inside or outside or inside out
and ghosts are only ghosts,
and ghosts are only ghosts to doubt.
Confused and scared is sacred,
so swallow.

Mirror fears mirror fear
and reflect on you to break your backbone
and polish the dust off old feelings
that you thought were long gone-
like fears in the mirror or being alone-
all cut newly clear.
Don't they only belong
in retrospect: why are they still here?
Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.

Dust breath, blind bones, and a voice that you forgot
is growing grey, a goodbye from a whisper.
Starving for words gone missing, dreams scattered
away on waves of paper-
scattered paper-
lost thought, and it's burning.

Tongues are weak, stories left untitled
but that paper is burning
with yesterdays
and suddenly

it happens-

lips are fighting, memories filled,
old hope in new skies.

What was fading is falling for tomorrow
because the light is golden
and the waves burn clear
words that were waiting to disappear
and become unknown deep in the smoke.
The inside window was not broken.

Suddenly, all pains and panes are breaking
by the beats of poet hearts not-yet-lost,
getting back voices, breaking their insides open
to free the words yet to be written.

Writers running alone on their stories
alive for the words someday to be spoken.
Breathing clear, no smoke and dust coming in
to cloud feelings, nothing hidden, nothing blind.

Feeling all reality, all the storm and the shine,
the beauty in burning, the shine in the storm.
A poet existence- writing words that find
from the poet's heart, each beat, its own form.

Dear Daisy,, age 8, family fruitcake:
Keep at it, but don't feel proud about it.
Just keep going, because it's working.

Dear Daisy, age 11, addressed to boarding school:
You will learn something from this torture.
You will learn about forgiveness.

Dear Daisy, age 13, subject- your disappearing acts:
You are not ugly or undeserving or fat
or anything that she told you. I know you feel alone
but you could tell someone what's going and speak out
because you're not stupid if you open your mouth
and you ought to be more like what you want, not a clones.

Dear Daisy, age 15, congrats on the weight lost and gained!
You went through hell, and yes, you proved it
you can starve yourself, harm yourself, and tell lies very well
but you put the ones who love you through hell too
and you're lucky they love you anyways and for any whys
so just don't do it again.

Dear Daisy, age 17, subject: stop:
It is not your body that did this and  you did say no.

Dear Daisy, age 19, to UCL halls:
He deserves better and he's not right for you
and you're not the girl for him, you're pretending to be her
and you know it too-
You love him so much, so let him go.
That would be the kindest thing to do.

Dear Daisy, age 21, to Amber Ward, High Mental Health Institution:
You've been losing your mind for more than a year now
but you have looked and seen it's actually been far longer.
This is real now, and you haven't a clue who you really are.
With these new eyes, you can see you've made yourself up
since you were younger,
and you believed your act until it became true.
Don't look back and don't pretend you have't realised
what you can't un-see now, even though it was easier
back then when you didn't have to care.
And who knows? Maybe you will always feel this-
anxious and confused and scared,
but at least you're not fictional. You can become fact
so don't look back. That's the cowardly thing to do.
Just keep at it, like you did when you were 8
because it will work, and it will this time too
but then you were doing it for everybody else
and now, who the hell are you?

Dear Daisy, received yesterday:
don't stress and lose sleep for worrying
because you've got a Masters waiting and you don't want to get ill
and don't worry because tomorrow may be unthinkable
but it's coming. It always does,
so calm down and sit still.

There was no antecedent, no trigger pulled,
but the wound I got when it shot
was also no accident
so there is no reason to rattle me
for the answers to be shaken loose
because nothing is going to come falling out-
there are no coins of unspoken truth.
It just happened and I can't say why
because I wasn't even there.
It wasn't nothingness, just an absence
in the place where my mind usually
takes up its space. The lights were out
and nobody was there- that's not mad,
and it seems sensible, although
what happened made no sense, I know,
but I can't be a witness because I wasn't in.
Questions of why are wearing thin.

Trying to make meaning out of everyday matters
and these moments seems to mean so much to me.

Firstly, I wonder if dust matters to the dark
or city lights to stars
when they compete for its space,
and take up enough to make stars invisible,
unseen from the windows and streets
of London's nights.

And those streets, do they matter to the shoes treading them?
Does is matter to the street, being beneath them?
And I wonder whether our shoes ever matter to our feet.

What does it matter? Any of this?
Does it matter if it does?
What do I matter?
Do I matter much to anything?
Maybe I do, even to to matters I address in writing.

What makes matter out of anything?
Is our matter even real at all?
The matter of reality and wondering about it
can make matters worse
because if we are ideas instead of matter
some might conclude that this idea-life has no meaning
while others might will shrug and say it doesn't matter.

When I make make matter out of moments
by making books to fill with memories
and to document time
is there anything the matter with time I spend doing that?
Really, does it matter, either way?
We talk of it so often
but how much does time matter anyway?

What is the matter of me- what am I made of,
and is there any meaning to that?

What is the matter with me?
Everything mattering so much to me I suppose-
perhaps it's that.

Suddenly I don't need mirrors to tell me
(my hands aren't my own anymore, anyway,
not since I looked down and saw stolen gloves)
I know without reflections just how
I'm worn out, chewed out, drowned out,
called out, strung out, caught out,
spun out without a shadow of a doubt (but for self).
I'd rather be invisible than a body that I don't know
or afraid of what nobody else can see,
so I become as close to a whisper as I can be,
turn up other volumes to abrasive, stay discreet,
but it's then I hear them- their voices, hear her speak
amid the clatter, scratching out of the radio.
So even if the world did fall out from under my feet,,
I'm still here, not tired out yet- I can just listen
to anything I believe I hear in this moment- that's all I know.