I love this filthy city with all of my ****** heart.

The sweltering summer streets (the buildings themselves sweat),
Where the 'cool' breeze is still thirty-four degrees,
And you can't walk a metre without needing an icy drink,
The sewage smell permeates through the pavement.

The bitterly cold winters that numb your lips (slur your words for you--drunken in love with her),
Frozen lakes and frosted branches in Regent's park,
I love her icy kiss more than I love myself--more than I have ever loved anything.

But I must leave, you need to know.

I can't stay, I'm sorry,
It will **** me.

She has her hands around my neck,
She strangles me with her embrace,
As she tells me--softly--how softly she loves me.

London, I'm sorry.

I was not built for the built environment,
My heart belongs in muddy fields under skies full of fresh air and clean sunsets,
I yearn for the sensation of dirt and leaves under bare feet.

How cruel,
To fall in love with a place where you don't belong.

I always tell myself
I am comfortable in the Birdcage
Where it is safe

Until the howling wind hits my cheek
And I yearn to fly again

Gee, this is gonna be a long one.

An open letter to my Father,
Patron of my anxiety,
Champion of my desperation.
I know you mean love, I know that's all you ever meant,
But you were cruel, Dad, I'm sorry.

You brought me into a world you believed to be uncaring and cruel.
Why?
Why would you do that, Dad?

I'm not angry, I say,
I just want to psychoanalyse you.
I think you're depressed, I say,
You've just assumed that your experiences are the default.

You see, that's always been your problem.
When I say I think about death,
You tell me that's normal,
When I explain that I never wanted to exist,
You tell me everyone feels this way.

But you're wrong,
And childish idealisation has held me to your words for too long.
I made you promise not to die back when I was an atheist.
It was the only way I could live.
Now I make you promise to haunt me, instead.

Ironically, I am more realistic now than ever.
Don't you find that funny?

Fathers do it;
Mock their wives and mock their daughters.
Tell me I'm insane, I'm crazy, I'm deluded.
When I say you're close-minded you tell me you can't be,
Not after sitting among the pews.

You do realise Christ isn't the only saviour, don't you?
Fluoxetine, citalopram, sertraline.
I take propranolol for panic attacks you induce.
I tell you to go to anger management classes all the same
And mum tells me to ask the doctor about family counselling.

Oh, and she tells me not to tell you, either.

The worst part is that I love you all the same,
Soul-*******, depressed, arrogant
Father of mine.
I make you promise to never stop looking out for me.
I make you promise to wait for me on the other side,
So I won't have to go alone.

Dad, I know I seem sad,
I know I seem angry
And childish and obsessive,
But I am wise enough to know that I am not wise yet
Which is more than you can say.

How does it feel to have no sense of wonder?
To sit in a Church and feel nothing?
To tell someone their God is a fraud to their face?
I tell you I worship the Universe as It is,
That my God is Everything.
You laugh.

When I listen to you, I am missing half of the visible light spectrum.
Your colour-blindness is catching,
contaminating.
Maybe the Universe was an accident, but we cannot deny it exists.
But you would.
If anyone would, it would be you.

Dad, hear me out:
Maybe the colours will be brighter after therapy,
Maybe you'll understand me better if you listen,
And try,
Really try
To understand.

"And why do you listen to him?"
Asks my therapist.
Dad, I had no answer for her.
It certainly wasn't because I believe in what you say.
"Why, when he doesn't listen to you?"

Dad, you told me it was acceptance that saved you.
But I don't think that's what it was.
You call it acceptance, I call it 'resignation'
To the only fate that doesn't scare you.

Dad, I will see you again.
Without eyes, without senses,
But I will know you,
And you will know me, and I will let you know,
"I told you so."

I want to run away
Abandon everything that I've built up

I want to tear down my own creations
The products of my pain

I want to let go of everything
Throw myself into loss williningly

I want to start again from scratch
Or not start again at all

I want to blow through the sky as a cloud

I want to wander with my feet damp from the dew of the grass

I want to feel the cool night air
The glow of the moon bright on my skin
Illuminate those stars in my eyes again

I want to burn down my house
So I can leave no traces

I want to vanish back to where I came

I want to become life itself
One with all once more

I want the sun on my back
the rain on my skin
the breeze in my hair
the chill in my fingertips

I want to be no more than a spirit
A wandering soul
Seeking nothing and losing all

I want to leave this place
break loose from all my bonds
and start again as if I never had a 'before'

Hear me! Hear me!
Says the silent song of sadness that whispers and whirls around the back of your brain
Because they don't like you like they used to

So listen to the whispers in your head instead, because they know who to trust and they know what's best

Pity me! Pity me!
You want to scream at them- 'you've abandoned me here! you've left me alone with my fears!'
But then someone else screams first, and you're sorry for wanting any more than nothing

Scream in silence into the void of an unpublished post instead- retreat back inside of your head

Love me! Love me!
They could be your mother, you know- well, not quite, not so
But you wish they would take you into their arms; clutch you to their *****
But they aren't there when you need them, like the parent you always deemed them

Latch onto the first sign of affection again- it doesn't matter if you get hurt, dear friend

Hurt me! Hurt me!
From the quietest plea to the loudest scream
A broken mutter in the darkness of a night where you closed the curtains to a dream
I love you, so hurt me bad and make it go away; so that I can feel lonely again

Being away from you is pain, it's pain, so hear me scream your name

I listen to the way you lie to me,
the voices in the windchill,
the lapping of long waves against a distant shore,
the wails of ghosts far from home,
and I think about it
about us;
about you;
about me.

What does it say
that I have missed every single opportunity I have ever been given
and directed so much anger--
so much bitterness
at myself
that I can only ever be tired?

I listen to to the wind in leaves,
the wailing of trees,
the moaning of old beams,
the sound of water dripping into a bowl,
and the answer.

I listen to the answer.
I listen to the answer.

You, and you, and I
We make up every possibility
For normal, weird, and wierder

But things are never that neat, I suppose
Because normal's got a stranger side
And weird could be faking

I've always said we make the whole set
But each day I believe it less, and less
Because I no longer believe in the power of three

Two has always been luckier for me

every minute i'm given spare i think of you, it's true
your hair, your eyes
but all of it is wonder, as i am left to wonder about you and i

you and i, something which had occasionally crossed my mind
what you said then, what you retracted again and again
dumb crushes and teary eyes because it's all too stressful for any kind of compromise

admittedly, i have always been left with a longing for affection
the parents, the friends that never supply
but i have high hope for you, you see, tragically torn apart across two different seas

i'd love to ask you if it was true, if it was really true
but the time has passed and i'm left to mourn and muse about all your
missed opportunities