Moments leave and
the memories that embrace us
are digested; engorged on good times
and the bad. Colouring places you’ve been
with their light and absence and we smile
or we cry, for these stills collected
leave indelible stains on each
moment lived thereafter. The
shadows of past colours sometimes
blaze brighter than each instance
here and now or lend their dimensions
to present moments, clouded and
sharp, that bring the light of each
colour to each moment of dark.

He dispossessed me one summer as we sat beneath skies
blazed blue with such wonder that it burnt my eyes
and I sat and I faltered as those days wore on, this beauty
that mocked me because my glory had gone.

I saw blankness instead of the stars of the night
for he left me, bereft me, took the colours from the light
I was angry, inconsolable, annihilated aspirations of
affinity, consciously avoiding living in contempt of infinity.

Those days were sandpaper shards beneath my clothes
and I worked hard to make sure that nobody knows
those depths that I sank to, the sleepless smoked nights,
where I sat and I wondered how to turn off that light.

Life is brittle glass, dazed and ***** stained clothing;
there's no meaning or secret or way to be knowing
where steps we have not taken will force us to move
and sometimes this darkness is our only truth.

But colours crept back despite eyes not meeting mine
and unwillingly I resolved to tear down this shrine
and I won't lie to you and tell you that each day is joy,
simply subtle expansions of life cherished without that boy.

Torrential rains still lash and terrible things still happen
and his name I still hear which causes infernal distraction
but steadily I am limping my feet away from his lack
finding fire in small things to kindle lapsed hope back.

For the wind and the rain bring green grass and seeds
and salted solitude brought serenity; refusals to concede
and there are new secrets to hold which force me to warm,
for hope, heart and happiness return after each storm.

Look up to the treetops and look around to your friends,
you stand tall, worthy amongst many great men
truth is but perception and so the truth I perceive
is there is hope for you, because there was hope for me.

The message I received escalated sorrow from joy
it's worrying, this power, that I give to this boy.

This recrimination brings no reprieve
but nor does it change the violence conceived
and ill-prepared were we for this siege
as families swell with undeserved grief

the questions he asked were slow and
mistaken, like the actions he took before
like was forsaken, as now we stand but
one stretch away, the condemners  
facing those who we make to pay

the crimes they committed were
wrong, that's fact, but all else
is blurred and they cannot retract,
but repent is not favoured to the
guns which will sing; flesh will be
punished as we pull the strings

we did not know where it was he
was directed, but the ****** chains
were ones we had elected, adding
safety to the very last limps of life,
yes we all fired the bullets, 
but at what sacrifice?

The starched warm slinking smell that burns as
you breathe in clean acid and words like biggestrisk
and wellpotentially… Ireallywouldn'tadviseit and
I'dsayI'msorrybutit'sunproffessional and I stand
and nod and say 'I understand?' and then the door
behind is closed and the corridors are crowded and
I can't escape these facts they have poured in my ears
and they're sinking into my brain and I just want to
cry in my mothers arms but she's so weak to emotions
and I couldn't possibly worry her and have her sink
again, so I move, each step a
knife in my foot and a numbing in my head as
around me the flurries of life and death go on despite
the fact that I
seem to have stopped.

There are stones between us, grasping black
jagged deceitful arches of rock which have
stolen my blood and my feelings and my
smiles once too many times. I can look and
see the waves crashing, engulfing what
little humanity you managed to bury and
lose in favour of salty self-pity, stories told
in the drunken tear tracks that mask your
face and your lies and your guilt, because
please do explain to me how you cannot feel
guilty, I get it yeah, alcohol dims your memory
of all the awful things you've said and
done and left open upon your face, slamming glasses
against walls, music screaming at 4am as you stomp
and kick and shout at the TV, at the world,
at my sister and I. And then she grew to
shouting back and never being home and
I? I yearned to bring that bottle down on
your ******* head and glory in the blood
and bone and brains that would cover me and hide
me from every single little ******* thing that you
have ever deigned to commit. Sister, I could reach out
to him now and try to bring him back from the seething
waters, but I would much rather watch him slip and fall
and drown in the glory of his own creation.

I can go a month without thought of you, invading my
mind as I pretend that you do not exist, knowing that I am
better off without the trials and tribulations being your daughter
brings. You broke something special and now day by day

you grieve for it and simmer anger in your expression
as we rally around my mother, the only reason any of
us made it to today. I try so hard to love, to forgive the
drunken anger and sibilant self-pity that you brought

to us, making presents out of ****** philosophy and tears
out of sunshine, as each day you awoke hungover and
angry and we each reacted like hissing cats when you utter a
word, because nothing you have ever said has been worth the

effort it takes to listen. I loathe you. Today is your birthday.
This agony of fake smiles plays a parody across my face
and the hugs I gift are all for her; she who burns the very
brightest and you make suffer for it so. I should love you,

but daddy, hatred is something you cannot outgrow.