How are you?
I'm alright I guess...

Where do we begin?
Maybe at the start of this mess.

Are you uncomfortable?
I can't say that I'm not.

Is it your past?
Well it's all I've got.

Do you still get nightmares?
Well I used to...

Will you let them show?
Depends on you...

What do you hope to accomplish?
I don't know... Peace of mind?

Would you have done things differently?
Everyone wants the chance to push "rewind".

Care to elaborate?
Let's just say I would've liked to be braver.

What do you mean?
I should've stood up to my father...

Did he abuse your trust?
He did more than just that...

Rob you of your freedom?
Let's see... His belt, cigarettes and also boiling water out of a vat.

Do you wish him ill?
I wished him dead.

"Wished"?
Yeah...in his bed.

Why "wished"?
Because I wanted that then...

For how long?
Since I was ten.

What about now?
(Maniacal smile) I am now... At peace.

"At peace"?
I have found release.

You have?
Yes... I couldn't resist the urge.

Urge to do what?
To comply with the voice... "Freedom...lies in the purge..."

You left your father?
Yes but not before...

Go on...*
Not before I slit his throat with a smile on my face as I shut the door...

smoking a cigarette
orange
yellow light beckons me
from a treetop in winter
and the pines fill my nostrils
with an African presence
the sunburn
molten and bubbling.
finding something
smoldering
in this gray
landscape,
was like when the blue heart of
haley's comet ripped down
and stole your
presence
from the sky

"eat the sunrise" he said in early mornings
when the sky looks like eggshells until i close my eyes
kiss my blue lips, play music for me, read me fairy tales
don't ever tell me, how you feel; in cold october nights
after making love, i'll just walk away with thirsty eyes and
pastel palms. after walking 2 kilometers, i wont even be able
to remember the proportions of you face or even your name
i'm born without a heart, but at least i can see the world further
than the horizon - at least i can drink seven strawberry daiquiris
without feeling anything

And when people ask "why him", all I can say is "why not?".
It's actually pretty simple. He's an outsider.
You look at all them rich boys with their perfect whitened teeth, and their v neck sweaters and polo shirts and you manage to guess they will never put a finger up to accomplish anything, there's always someone behind their every move.
And you look at him, he's a catastrophe he's a mixture of drugs, alcohol cigarettes and midnight hookers, with nothing to prove, with no one to take responsibility for his mistakes, with no pre planned future.

And so in a heartbeat, his worn off knuckles and dark eyes, his scars,
simply become, *home.

I find myself in coffee shops
drinking down espresso shots,
in a haste,
in an attempt,
to rid the bitter sweet taste,
you left in my mouth,
and on the corners of my lips.

I watch the house come down
like a vengeful wave crashing
against my barefoot shore.

I don't know if
I wore my grey shirt
or the blue one with checks.

I can't tell from the dust caking
my chest; beating loudly I
put my hand to it

as if searching for my heart
in the shirt pocket;
I fumble

and feel nothing there.
I'd kept a picture of you there
in the breastpocket of my grey shirt

close to my heart.
And not any more, but a familiar ache;
left are these buttons of your last touch

and your breath in these threads.
You don't know that once you breathed into the sky
it just wasn't yours to take away.

The mother screaming in pain,
the fathers sarcastic laugh,
the smell of petrol and burning skin.

The inferno is rising
"Run little one, run, live for
me”, and away she went.
Watched the inferno consume,
her mother and that man.

Buried under the ashes,
memories still fresh as ever.
A small house stands, where
her life ended.

A couple fighting and screaming,
a little child crying.
Will history repeat itself?
And leave another child orphaned?

Dear Talia,

I don't want to be a tortured artist.
I don't want to be depressed and I don't want to be anxious.
Competitive sadness and disorders treated like accessories disgust me.

The world glamorizes mental illness, and I don't understand why. There is nothing romantic about being mentally ill just like how there's nothing glamorous about a broken wrist or a torn medial collateral ligament. There's nothing romantic about constantly being afraid that the world will fold in itself and **** you with it. There's nothing romantic about feeling like you could break down and cry at any moment.

This is the first piece I've written while being medicated.

I want it to be Christmas already.

The world dreams itself a halo, but can only attain horns. The halo is an illusion and the horns are an idea.

I'm due to take another Lorazepam. Would I look cool to the kids who idolize dysfunction and misinterpret pain as style, if I were to take one of these, with water and a distant glance, in front of them? Geez, to have their approval would to have everything and nothing at all.

I'm not sure why I've written as much about this as I have.

You.

It is 2:48 am and all I can think about, in this moment, is you.

I can't wait to spend Christmas with you. I can't wait to wear bad Christmas sweaters, and be the couple everyone hates, as we sing Christmas carols and spread holiday cheer.

I wrote this poem a few minutes ago. Sometime around 2:30 am. I'm not sure. I'm exhausted:

I sat on the edge of my bed, and on the edge of my life,
medicated to the point of pointlessness. Soft.
It was the nineteenth, not the twentieth,
and I wished I saw the fireworks with her fifteen days earlier.

My gasps tore the shingles off of the house.
And they hung suspended above the hole in the roof.
And God stared down into my room, as the shingles swirled skyward.
"I see you," I said, "but I don't believe in you."

I left home and ran until I was a dream that had passed itself.


I hope that was okay.

I love you.


Yours,

Joshua Haines