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.

I would love
to be the cigarette burn on your arm
the nicotine stain in your lungs, rip
fibres of hair from follicles screaming as
I drench petrol and fiery words on your
body as you trip and stumble and fall
in every which way back down to the ground.

your smiles make me sick.

I want to ***** acid on your supple skin,
singing hydrochloric corrosive promises
which consume us both because now
just right now
all it does is burn me and
you don't even notice.

I see a picture of you and it
punches me in the chest, eyes
of night black darkness bleeding
at the corners but your

smile now means nothing; it is directed
to me no longer. Arms so soft and brown
caress a skin other
than mine and you turn

to thinking of her, always. I sit and stare
embroiled in memories
as the print of your hand runs
around and around my head,

the words you once meant that I can
never bring myself to
throw away. The lament of lapsed lovers
sings low and persistent.

I looked to him but there he was no longer. It's hard; being
the one left behind. You suspend and watch them trek footprints

to new lands, whilst you sit, stare and surrender, lost in
the memories of all that you built together. It's not like your love

just departs with them either. It burns on, fierce in spite of the
rain on your face and your wishes that it would just stop.

I can hear the whispering of my heart over the screaming in my head.
Make it stop, please, make it stop.

I walk through the groves and the singing treetops
silence enrobing every sound, in these places where
people lay still living, under the ground,
for here the grass grows the greenest
and the trees all stand tall, yes
they are gone, but they did not long fall.

Insatiable bile rises at the precipice of ecstasy, undeniably
life lived is a rolling wave of emotion as I rise and I

fall with the sequences of the sun at my back and
these oceans under my feet. One day may I strike a

balance? To arise and not to plunge from these summits,
simply then to collide with the challenger deep. For now

torn moments do sustain me and drain me; I cannot
win against water whilst water cannot last against light.

The only language I know is
the touch of your skin on mine. Your
voice my gospel, these days my doctrine.

The bringer of life is no god, there is
no meaning
of existence.

except for those infinite
meaningless miracles
like these times of rapture
of sunlight unrefined

 when those blinding eyes of yours
 turn to greet mine.

You are beautiful.
There is no denying it,
that darkness of your eyes and I could cut myself
on the line of your jaw, black stubble defying
youthful skin. Everyone sees it,
the graceful strength secreted in those
muscles, taut and lean, life lived to
challenging extremes. It is odd, this
obsession with aesthetics, your face really
means nothing and I know this, yet I can
still fall into staring at your fearful
symmetry, grace and night entwined
as you walk on unaware.

The moment I let myself love you
happened incidentally, it was never
my intention and, yes, I was fiercely opposed,
but sometimes letting go of this fight to
keep yourself distant is
fundamental to being awake.

I say a moment, it was more like a collection,
a combination, a calamitous effect
of all the instants we spent, your eyes
widening and dark lashes closing shut only
to open again, drowning upon my face.

Yes,
this is going nowhere except
for the fact it has all already helped
me cross oceans and I will always have
the memory of your laughter and that
one moment
when your face said my smile alone
made the sun shine.

It was the greatest night and I didn't even
look up to the stars because they were
all around, lighting up our feet as
we smiled and stepped across solar systems,
universes and galaxies in our quest to
make those memories that will carry me carefree
towards the end of all things.

There's a sister who floats with hungry collarbones and a razor-edged smile. She smokes sadness when she isn't ready to exhale.

She is beauty in fine art and wrath the colour of thunderstorms; the rain comes when she smiles.

Holier than thou and quick to judge, with antiseptic perception known to bring out the things you were not aware existed.

Addictive, those imprints from her feet will stamp all over you; nimble fingers puppeteering those who fall out of her thoughts.

She is selfish and always leaves, leaves, leaves. She ran away at the first tremor; she did not stay to watch the concrete crumble.

But she picked me up when the concrete friction broke my knees, lashed tyrants with her tongue and prowled behind the boyfriends that came and always went.

This sister whom I project; the image of her I mirror. She is love and laughter and moods that taper and flare.

She is a cluster of persons, a bomb liable to a detonate on a short fuse. She is trouble ailing in the best possible way; her flames light up the shade.

There was a girl to be seen sometimes,
her breath at the pulse of my throat
and fingers wrapped, such elegant porcelain
skin pressed against my forehead.

She fell into my eyes and I swallowed her
not whole, only those little bits she left.

She does not nourish me,
only curls up in my liver where guilt
prickles every time I let the toxins in.

The only words she spoke reverberate in my lungs
so each of our breaths whisper what I am not -
'when I was younger I knew I could be anything
it was only when I got older that I forgot.'

Thousands of words make up this language
and an endless million more that I could misplace,
but no combination thereof could ever halfway gauge
that look right now, sitting plain upon your face.

We do not go up but only along do we tread
and sometimes unfettered hopes go on ahead
advancing to places we strive but cannot touch
no matter what I achieve, it is never enough.

When you laugh at yourself because
your words cause solitary hilarity to ensue and
then shake your head smiling because you are
so **** clever. It's true you think a lot of yourself
but I wonder if sometimes you need to, because no one
else thinks that much. It's strange that I can write these
words about someone who I've shared secrets and a bed
on countless nights, we've walked under the stars and
picked out our favourite constellations and once I used your
house as my own for months on end and used your
company too. I've said words I don't mean because you
said them first and there's no way back from not replying
and I've thought both wonderful things and terrible ones too.
I didn't want to lose you, but now I am not so sure.

ever since my childhood broke and the safety net disintegrated
I've been running and holding it high above, arms aching
in a futile attempt to stop things falling through
woven seams. Sometimes it works and I stare up,
neck burning, to the things I cannot touch.

I do not look down to the debris scattered around me,
to the failures of my braced shoulders, slipping through like water;
impacting like stones.

once I caught a fisherman; he threaded silver secrets
through twine using smiles and sympathy and I lowered my arms, to keep him alongside. There were some places he couldn't reach but
that was ok, because we ran for an eternity ensnared in each second.

it was a particularly beautiful day when I noticed him slowing,
staring out to sea, steps faltering and new smiles forming that
were not faced to me. He left me and dived headfirst, forgetting that
fisherman cannot swim. He drowned as I ran on, arms outstretched
above me as the net danced in the wind and everything fell through.

I have never stopped, never ceased these thundering steps;
my eyes are still turned to the sky, the holes in my net cast
beautiful shadows and through them I see the stars and wait impatient
for the night when they too fall.

yes, I am here, here is my hand
outstretched and empty and willing for you to
tip your fingers into, let me take the weight
of your soft palm against mine,
please, the night is cold and
I haven't been touched for too long.

I would save you the sunshine and tell you
of the shapes I saw in the clouds
and bring you a piece of every conversation,
the laughs, loves and lyrics of each day
all yours to consume; to cherish and buoy
you through the deepest depths of the dark.

Take it and reach for my hand when it hits,
my bird, I would die for that smile of yours
which caused the sun and the stars to each be lit
and the sea to return to the still sorrowed shores.

So it ends between us despite how reticent we've been
your words were always dust; it's only now to be seen

You wave the white flag and the mock surrender
as I learn to burn you and rip all asunder
your façade naught but a cheap, grey suit
all show and no substance; your face resolute

The urge now to burn you is humming in veins
I know you so well mere words would stoke flames

You are walking away and your shoulders fake low
deep darkness enshrines the things that I know
temptation to reveal and revel in raised words
brews on inside me, I could make you hurt

and how I wish to force you to admit your pretences
call out the horrors you yourself pre-empted
this is not all me, we two share the blame
but in truth, yes biased, I know whose name
should bare the burden and so not feel the victim
you feel sorry only for yourself; I was the *****
I conned and coxed your simple heart from your skin
but I was not the one who started this, you bare that sin

back away now, yes you had better retreat
because the things I would say you would not meet
there is no guilt in my eyes because you stole it all
giving me words I did not say and taking the fall
that you caused through self-obsessive countenance
go now, go quick, go swift before I renounce
this vow to stay silent, to veil hard thoughts unheard
but one more pity from you and you shall be burnt.

There's nothing like holding someone in your palm and looking down at them

when they used to be so raised up and universes out of reach

that only when you finally turned your back and pointed your eyes at the ground

did they descent to walk amongst mere mortals and fall into your path

steps tripping feet as they open arms once gold-gilded, now bitter, scuffed and burnished

and no longer quite  blinding enough for you not to see, unfeeling,

that they are not who you wanted them to be.

Azure sapphires glint and dance
Below the fields still flower in France
As debris blow and snow does fall
White silence in the space of souls
It is meaningless; it is not fair
Here lie solid absences and despair
We were many; now we are but few
They fell, fell right on through.

Erase the skin on which you wept
Some secrets were not meant to be kept
Flee quick now, before the burn
Let us break it here, before it comes undone.

Yes, it was glory and the life of the light
Yet all things end, like the coming of night
And sometime soon memories will fade
Let us bring dark to the light, **** the shade.

A quarter of a crown
Lies in secret; without a sound
As drums keep up their beat
And steps go on, in spite of feet.

Deep beneath us it lies
Temptation, blessing sighs
As you turn and look at I
And I smile, as only inside
Our secrets they still play,
Breakable to the light of day,
Please turn and leave; just go
Did it happen if no one knows?

I sit next to Sally and watch the sun set,
here in this life, where I'll always regret,
leaving my home; moving away,
for here is where my heart will stay.

Your kindness has killed me.

It wasn't too sweet, not saccharine,
you came with a hint of lemon-sharp smiles
and mischievous eyes, cheek slipping off your tongue
to fall on my skin like a bluntly barbed-caress,
each laugh a knife that cuts me to remember.
I barely knew you but even so, I think it was enough
to slip into loving him who I perceived you to be.

Connections bring out the worst in me.
Sitting next to you, dark brown eyes
that light up too readily, lips turning at the corners
and a laugh that brings out mine, instinctively.

Secrets shared and confidences brokered
as we lean in and whisper, co-conspirators
facing the world, as a unit we rise together,
my thoughts mirrored on his face.

Tongue in cheek exchanges and insults
parodied and paraded between cross-roads,
intersects as we dance verbally, smiles
all too often exchanged as I know, now,
that I am heading for the fall.

That one that I always anticipate, the one that
has only happened once before, excitement
coursing in my veins as I try to tell myself stop,
think, take a breath and see the wall where this ends.

I can't help it though, his presence is like lightning,
as I glow from within enjoying this brief moment.
Desolation brews, but it is future-bound and I give
myself to the moment, pleasure paid for with future pain.

He is not mine, nor will he ever be,
we will never dance again and our eyes will not meet.

I am trying to find pleasure in past moments
but now gravity claims me, my loss is only my own,
as he falls back into the non-existence from whence he came
and all that now remains is the absence of him.

I remember the solid feel of your arms
and soft, papyrus skin pressed
against mine; encompassing all that
has and will happen.

Here in our circle, I turn
and slip and slide and slither
out, away and onto something new,
whilst your arms always remain open.

Forging young paths with new steps
splashing not lightly, causing tsunamis
with every decision made and regretted,
life lived and loved apart from you.

But there's a link inscripted in our DNA,
genes linking genes and laughter
across seas and silences and solitude
always, you stick with me.

Your eyes braced, lips ready to smile,
upright you keep your chin.
I think of you and pray one day
to be half the person you've been.

I blew it; today is finished and tomorrow is the promise I can't keep.
The only one to blame is me, I am tormented
by myself and no other hand can be found to claim sleep
nor forgiveness only silence and internal reprimands
are my constant; they will stay with me forever.

Charming and charmless whispers echo in my ears
as eyes ignore the evidence before them and hands reach
once more for the gluttonous demon whose promise of what
who or why I cannot fathom; do not care to know.

Suspended behind the panes lit up by golden glows
I lay and watch the world turning and darkness descend
with you, wrapped against my stomach, heart humming
eyes closing; flicker open with each page turned.

Peace is eternal; I could stay here held in times palm
for the rest of days, solitude is serenity when I think to
the others, who irritate, castigate, berate as a necessity.
I am happy alone with my fragile bird.

But my bird cannot walk, it's wings are tied to the ground
and I give you no choice but to stay with me; my prisoner
hidden under the pretence of saviour and eyes turned to the light
that I watch darken each day. Recover my dove, then fly away.

Illustrious shrapnel leaves gold-gilded grazes
And we dance danger with distinctive detonation,
Blood screaming in our ears; all sound now internal
till the final dank decimation.

She stopped blunt, as though words are gunshots
dripping from my tongue; I want her
to know, but not for good reason.
We humans are bitter animals.

She never started again and was found floored
as though gravity had claimed her for itself,
her eyes staring and lips pale eggshell blue;
forever parted, but lost unto speech.

You sleep in the room next time mine
As I write this; eyes closed and body slumped
Heaven in the small things
Like the soft sigh of breath, eyelids flutter
Lost unto a world I cannot inhabit
Nearer now than you have been in weeks
But oceans still separate us
Turmoil of both hidden in such delicate shells
Harder on the inside, withstanding the constant artillery
Of our pain; united in the instance which will forever keep us apart.

I tried to burn you out
smoke congealing in my eyes as you
stepped in unscathed; lily-white sight seeking
something unsustainable; you landed on me.

Cut-glass dressed vinegar smiles falling on grazed skin
leeching blood and plasma and solid-silver silence
as you tuck my hair behind my right ear and I
dissolve, take the shard and slide along
humming anticipation beneath this taut canvas.

7 billion conspecifics walk
on 7 billion pairs of feet
treading soft earth and waters,
concrete and sands,
causing vibrations through
individual kinetic plans.

All busy heading
ultimately to where all ends meet,
our steps are finite;
our souls are in our feet.

To envy a circle, what, pray, is this?
But a broken circuit! A line to the abyss!

To envy a circle, peace you have no heart,
For unlike a circle, a line must have a start.

Odysseus once hid under a sheep,
escaping the sightless hands of a Cyclops
to sail away unscathed.  

You look into my eyes and
together we laugh at your joke,
joined on the face of things.

But there's doubt creeping through my veins
secrets hitching my voice
and I yearn to fly too close to the sun.

But it seems you are just blind to the fact
that underneath my slight smile,
I'm wondering how to elude us.

Maybe you don't look for those things,
the trouble around the bend. See?
Everything's dark; all I discern is darkness.

You walk away, pin-***** white against the night,
it seems I did not have to hide
for you to free me.

You're lucky, you know, young sir.

Your face will not fall into lines and you will never wither and fail and have to watch yourself degrade, be given a seat on the bus, a taxi called for you as you leave a shop with empty bags filled with value promises, your body parts replaced until you're more than half-recycled titanium, knowing that you're doomeddoomeddoomed but going out with as little dignity as the modern world can manufacture.

You will never be scared of the streets and the cut-throat carcasses that impersonate the young, never slip and break all because you've become as fragile as a Fabergé egg, whose fault lines too could conceal golden greatness within.

You will never be disillusioned, disavowed nor diagnosed as a faulty by-product of society, to crumble in corners as they count up the continued cost your existence creates and shake their heads.

No, Arthur, this was for the best, you did say that you would never make it past 28?

So many young mouths have echoed this, eyes wide and unlined and naive, brazen to time and unwilling to succumb to its effects regardless of the life lived in between.

It was for the best then, that speeding car and your drunken feet, inebriated on the futility of existence and the unforgiving slip of time. Never mind the driver, the hopeful fool going anywhere until she met you, never mind the infinite loss of possibility to your future self, nor the silence in the halls since you left, yes the trees still sing on as your mother cries.

I had a dream last night that my mother died
And I woke
to a salty pillow and feelings of grief.

Then I remembered that it was you, not her
who had left me.

Andohgod the relief that I felt
has cemented every artery, vein and capillary.
This guilt will crush me to the earth.

I tried to drown myself in a bath once
It was a half-hearted attempt; bubbles bursting
as treacherous lungs forced my mouth to open.
Diving for the surface, cascading water breaking
over my face, upturned.

I sat out under the stars that night
wet hair sticking to my neck in the wind,
hoping hypothermia would get me.
But I was rejected and left, defeated, as the sun rose.

You were there the whole time
Whispering, telling me not to be so stupid
'Get inside, get dry, breathebreathebreathe
Look at you, wasting what I no longer have
I thought you were supposed to be the smart one?'

But you have no body now, no hands to move me,
And the only times I can hear you are times like these
So I will keep on these pathetic attempts,
destroying myself bit by bit,
Because this is all of you that I have left.

They tell me
how I was very lucky to have had someone
that ripped me open when they left.

True love, they say,
is the one that leaves the scars.

I haven't slept since I heard
so many words
Each as meaningless as those of
rain and darkness and dangerdangerdanger.
You didn't listen, my darling, spilt on the concrete.

We put you in the ground today
and their words went down with you
As I stood and wished
that we had never met.

We oscillate
Each turning in our glass circles,
With fluid walls
letting in and keeping out at will.

Circles then projected, transparent barriers
Impeding revolutions of others
Previously content just to spin.

We pause in our rotation
Watching from afar.

Societies shattered silence
Screams, we will all cut ourselves on the shards.

From root to blossom we each grow
Reaching up to see the stars aligned
And although our branches go different ways
Our roots remain forever entwined.

I remember the day
with the cold water-kissed summer grass sticking to my thighs
and you, eyes solemn, downcast, peeking up through thick lashes.

I was afraid
because the words which tumbled from hesitant, confessing lips
left earth to quake and silence in wake.

Except for my hiccups
undignified explosions; face raw red from crying
salt tracing sorrow
white rivers flowed on soft skin.

I remember that day,
where I stood and walked away
not with much clarity.

As though sight and sound surrendered
said, this is it, the end.

The other day, as my tears weren't drying,
I wrote   'stop hating yourself'
in hope, on my left arm.

I carried it round with me the next day,
hidden under clothing and smiles
praying the words would sink in.

That black ink would slide under
Subcutaneous layers; deep within marrow
Sparkling kindle within.

A week later there was no trace to be found
of those words or that false hope.

Those permanent marker promises
which I can't say I broke,
because I never made them in the first place.

It’s just that I had something extraordinary once
and I lost it.
And I can’t even blame anyone else
but myself
because I did not fight for it.
But how can you fight
for something you no longer believe in?


I lost it.
One could even say, I threw it away
it slipped from my fingers
but I did not run to pick it up
I did not scream nor rant nor rave
nor bleed and burn and break
I just
sat.
And watched my world crumble,
passively hastening desolation.

I feel like burning myself, stepping in front of the never ceasing stream of cars which fly past my house and off into the dark. Except they all have places and people to be and how could I ruin life for another?

I just don’t understand any of this. I thought that I didn’t love him, but now he’s left I am bereft and can see no other reason than this loss. I put too much into one person and now there’s no one to turn to. In five days I see friends, that’s such a very long time right now.

All I can hope is that tomorrow brings the numbness which I used to loathe. All I can hope is that every feeling freezing through my veins will solidify and harden to such an extent that I cannot feel them any more. Perhaps then they will fill in the cracks which have emerged from my core.