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 Jul 2014 Jeremy Duff
Aoife Teese
pink hearts and red flowers are easily handled
movie tickets and sun exposure
in the name of seeing one another
for a little bit longer

dinner dates and meeting my mother
holding each other for hour upon hour
under the impression that things
might be okay

and my ribcage is disappearing
underneath layers and layers of good intention
and i can feel the masks withering and cracking
and i am scared
 Jul 2014 Jeremy Duff
Marigold
let me just say,
i am sorry.
for all the nights
i got too drunk to move
so i would not have to feel.
for the days
i swallowed away pills
to numb myself
into acceptance.
for the summers i spent
planning how to
**** myself.
for the winters
when i'd hide away.
 Jul 2014 Jeremy Duff
EP Mason
Dear nobody in particular;

Summer is rolling in, slowly. Ever so slowly. And I think I've watched the sky long enough now to see each black cell in the night be burnt away by the furnacing light of the sun. It's funny how all around me there's such bright, Earthly promise and bloom, but inside of me, there's nothing remotely reflective of that. I don't choose to feel this way, I suppose it's something in my brain.

Depression is sometimes genetic. Sometimes, and more commonly, it's caused by some kind of trauma, bereavement or follow-up effects from a different illness. Sometimes it numbs you, sometimes it stabs every nerve in your whole body, and sometimes it strangles you to the point that you turn a loathsome fusion of purple and blue. I can't tell if I've felt any of these emotions or none at all. I'd quite like to feel something though, it would make a nice change from whatever in-between state I'm usually voyaging in.

I'm not quite sure how to describe it to you, except comparing it to when I'm peering into the myriad of darkness I feel a great deal of frustration that I can't see all of the stars all at once. One of the things keeping me here is the stars. It's curious how to me they are united in loneliness, at least it seems that way. I mostly see singularity in everything, and it keeps things pure and important. But as I said, the stars are keeping me here. I'd miss them fondly, like a friend of some kind. But I can't help but feel the infinite voyage of death would bring me closer to whatever cosmic genealogy I feel up there. Before Carl Sagan died, he told his daughter ''we are star stuff.'' We are, we really are. All elements are derived from stars, our bodies possess the astral ashes of those stars, crushed from their bones and placed into ours.

'So when I look up at the night sky, and I know that yes, we are part of this Universe, we are in this Universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts, is that the Universe is in us.'

And I suppose that is why I feel such a strong association with the sky, or indeed the world as a whole. I love it too much. I feel too much empathy for everyone inside it, for everything inside it. And I don't think I was ever supposed to be walking amongst it, rather existing within it. I'm probably failing to convey how I feel through this piece as most people don't understand the depersonalization involved with a need for death.

I don't really think this a need for an end, particularly. It's not a desperate want for a termination of emotion, as I never really felt any emotion to begin with. Nor is it a hopeless goodbye, a shrill-laced cry or the voice in my head telling me to 'just ******* die.'

It's peaceful.

Nothing ever really comes to an end. Even if someone is buried, something buds from the ground in which they lie. And the ashes of a person go on to exist elsewhere. Lives go on living with the Earth, I suppose I just want to go on living in that sense. And so the bright, Earthly promises and bloom that I see but don't really feel can go on without me too, everything can. The world keeps spinning around. The stars won't collapse all at once. Everything just keeps on existing. And *'La tristesse durera toujours.'
© Erin Mason 2014
 Jul 2014 Jeremy Duff
Chloe
He gave me bracelets
made from his palm prints
amid the disorienting darkness
of my faltering consciousness.
No!
With ease he intercepted the
weak, desperate blows my hands
my only weapons
failed to deliver at full force
during my precious seconds
in an unhinged awareness
of hazy drugs and alcohol.
And like a gentleman
he fastened his hands
around my wrists pretending
it were decorative jewelry despite
how they pinned back my hands
my last line of defense
like iron shackles before
another blackout became my cell.

His palm print bracelets
still encircle my wrists.
There’s a third space
That’s not quite here
Yet not quite there.
It’s a dark place
With no clear light
Other than the fireflies
That hover close listening,
To our quiet whispers
To our quick mumbling
And to the declarations.
There’s a slight drizzle,
But I don’t mind,
Because your voice is
      My umbrella
      My blanket
      My everything.
Close my eyes, listening
To the muffled backg­round,
It makes me think
I’m there with you.
But not quite there –
In a third         space,
With you beside me.
I don’t hangup first
Because I want to
Listen for your guard
As it falls         away
Some where in         that

                 Third space.
Why won't Hello Poetry add my tabs :-/??
I would do anything for you.
And you,
You would do anything to me.
And I couldn't tell the difference.
 Jul 2014 Jeremy Duff
EP Mason
The demonic and turbulent truths of the mind
Will crush me in the end
Not least the nighttide's narcissistic vow
Into darkness I descend
Where the black pearl gates of tar-pit Hell
Will know the grief I send
In here I'm birthed
In sunken Earth
To greet my only friend
© Erin Mason 2014
 Jul 2014 Jeremy Duff
EP Mason
Listen close
and don't be ******
I'll be here in the morning
'cause I'm just floating
Your cigarette still burns
your messed up world will thrill me
Alison
I'm lost

Alison I said we're sinking
there's nothing here but that's okay
outside your room your sister's spinning
but she laughs
and tells me she's just fine
I guess she's out there somewhere

And the sailors they strike poses
on TV coloured walls
and so slowly
With your talking and your pills
your messed up life still thrills me
Alison
I'm lost

Alison I'll drink your wine
I'll wear your clothes when we're both high
Alison I said we're sinking
but you laugh
and tells me it's just fine

I guess she's out there somewhere
favourite song ever written
All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king.
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