Living the fantasy and
Breathing colours
As they fade out of rainbows
And into your blood;
Dreaming of being
One with the air
You cannot hold
As you do a friend’s arm
Whilst traversing through
The reality we’ve formed.
Waking up on clouds
Filled with possible storms
Climbing above the havoc
And seeing the sun,
But the moon still cries out
Lonely and high-strung.
Stretching arms into outer space
Skimming over the edge
Of planets deserted
Yet full of their own life,
Spinning with a different crowd
Of rocks for a year or two
Until someone wakes you up again.
Yawning out the tension
Of muscles returning
From sleep and into a state of relief
Withstanding the uniform
Creeping of shaking fear
With images of beauty uncharted.

Dare I disturb the image of your beauty?
Though I fear such torment, I strike at memory
Shattering beliefs and scattering them haphazardly
Across a pool of my own lucidity.
You are now only a product of past tragedy
Never in the foreground to hurt me
Always sinking deeper into the water we’ve wasted
Nourishing black roses hardly blooming.

Nay, still you smile in amusement
Knowing you have evaded deployment
Shielding yourself with a layer of plasticity
That returns to haunt the subtle elasticity
Of minds superficially moulded into belief
Now brandishing nothing against an enemy
Elated in the minute lapse of reality
They’ve made ripple in your vanity.

Dare I shelter a deadly renegade?
With arms shaking, I open doors to your shadows
Watching them slither back into their corners
Forming warm cloaks of comfort
In the crevices of a vessel unrecovered
Safe in its weak kindness and susceptibility.

I close my eyes to the feeling
Of your presence within my soul
Roping in the acceptance I had always evaded
Locking it into the vacant basement
Of self-acceptance, as you sigh out resentment
Removing it from the dying voices in my lungs
Tasting copper dissipating on my tongue.

Dare I accept my demons?
You are already a part of me.

Life is a sapling
Planted in the serenity
Of a moment unrecognised
Left to grow in the tender light
That feeds our sinking hearts
Evaporating liquid lies
That ascend like nostalgia
On the leaf-like wings of angels.

And in the dark
Life rests her passion
Under gleaming skies
In the belief and trust
That the animals of the night
Will not trample on its own budding star
Burning bright in the confines
Of slowing reactions that never die
She whispers to her neighbours
‘I am here, and I am alive’
They arch away in search of silence.

Life grows in the shade
Of mimicking greenery
That overshadow the youth
With pride that holds stems high
For a few moons before
They fall, exhausted on the floor
As enemies rejoice at their failure
But life is always quiet
She has learnt to remain silent
So as not to disturb her forced companions
She crafts stories into her waterways
As she photosynthesises
Shy glances from the sky.

Life becomes beautiful
She turns into a sight unseen
A vision of heaven in a world
Ravaged by hungry weeds
That ***** her fragility with fear
As vulnerable petals open and close
Adding colour to the bleakness
That seeps from the green envy
That spreads and then leaches.

Life is too beautiful
She is ripped away from her roots
Cherished only for moments
That fall through open fingers
Before death enters the womb
And life is something
That could have been
Almost anything.

Dreams of mathematical theorems
In the moon of your mind
As the circumference of the sun
Trickles into the periphery
Of the sunrise that colours your drifting thoughts
Caught in the virtual pieces of my presence
Before your revived spirit
Returns to its animate enclosure
Sitting up to open oval eyes
Finding the light on your bedside
Before you open the blinds
Blinded by the words that cross
Across the radius of your blurry vision
Stuck in the haze of sleep
And a seemingly unending dream
That has found its way back
Into your sunset thoughts
After years of lost travel in a foreign land
On which you have yet to stand
Where childhood has grown
Into burning orange reflected across shared oceans
Of distance and suffering
That resonates in both languages
Complete in their broken grammar
As they seal wounds left to fester
At last, ending the earthquakes
That used to pain your chest
When the separated plates of your heart
Moved against each other in remembrance
Now crafted into reality
You see as you awake
And think about until you send yourself
Back into your temporary death
Hoping the face on the other end
Doesn't decide to disappear again.

Feline in the way her irises
Deftly align with the vertical signs
That hang from our rigid bodies-
She spies on our silence
Creeping by our sentience
With a stride that knows nothing of sound
As if her paws always tread on clouds
Made of our oblivious designs
Of creatures that refuse to follow
A human’s living lies.
Eyes wide and blinding in the night
Reminding you that the moon
Is not the only thing that can shine
With the help of a little light
Before she turns to carry on
A life of peaceful pleasure
In her corner of the house
Where she hides all the dead things
She wanted to show you
Before thinking twice.

Those days were priceless
When we sat in the back seats
Of a packed bus
Talked until our mouths ran dry
In days of warmth and ice
I remember your smile
How it stretched over your face
When I needed it to
When my anxiety was deadly
But back then no one knew;
You saw it and you hushed it
And how do you repay a child
For love beyond their age
When all they knew
Was that gifts meant good things
And poems were nothing to be
Embarrassed about?
I recall the flaming courage that possessed you
That day you gave me your heart
Right in front of my friends
And they laughed
And yes I laughed with them
Because they didn’t understand
I bent forward with tears in my eyes
Because I did-
Your skin was so clear I could’ve sworn
I saw right through your chest
The moment you stepped back
And my eyes watched your bleeding arteries before you turned to run
That last day of school
Before we went away
Left you behind with no goodbye
And ten years later you say
Those days were priceless
As I find a way to accept
Happiness in the glory
Of the joy and ailment that come
With the glowing realisation
That every single day until now
Has been so ******* priceless
And living through all the pain
Was so ******* worth it.

I heard his calling from the den;
White noise in a black world
Heavy on the light wind of night-time shivers,
A piercing noise that ruptured drums
And moved through mountains of cymbals
To reach this dead-end
In which I reside and hide my pride
Away from the looming sights
Of mothers, father, brothers, sisters.

I heard his calling from the den;
I rose to greet the disturbance
With an air of impertinence
Whispering to the vibrating atoms,
‘Who dares disturb my sentient silence?’
He replied with a deep sigh
Hung aloft the moon’s shine
I caught it as it floated by,
Tucked it into my own mouth
And breathed in all he had amounted to
Feeling the perpetual presence
Of sensations unaccountable
As it fell through a tunnel to my lungs
Where it stung
It hung on to branches of breath
Loitering in a sweet unrest
Speaking to me for once
In a language I could comprehend.

I heard his calling from the den;
But now he speaks from within
Swinging across arteries and veins
Reminding me of feelings gone to waste
Where melodies had been discarded in a haste
Before their songs burned notes into my chest,
He digs through the garbage of memories
To find his true place
And there he paces within my breast
His heaviness begging to be held
Each footprint an echoing vibration
Of a heart aching for reconciliation
An orchestra blazing in a cold auditorium
The audience captivated
Not by the music but by his crying.