Dive down deep inside your mind
if you feel like drowning
for a while.
I lived by these words, I stayed at the shallow end.
I'm realising that I'm stronger now.
For the most part I can take it in now, I can explore and stay afloat.
I recognise the parts of me that were, and the parts of me that still are.
I let the feelings wash over me.
I stay. I swim for a while.
The water's just fine.

Rack my brains
Rake through and find the right memory
Tip it out, squeeze and shape it
Mold it to a more sensical form
Then, observe your consumers
Subtle changes
Until it becomes almost an original story
Forgo accuracy for entertainment
More colourful, less accurate

There once was a girl
Who gave herself a name
Different to her own
And dyed her brown hair
Blonde
And said it was her natural colour.

She lived in a flat
Far away from home
And though she paid the rent
On the first day
Of every month
She never felt it was her own.

There was a forest
Near the home that wasn't hers
Sprawled across a valley
Though she never said it
And rarely thought it
She longed to get lost in it someday.

But she didn't
She got lost in nine to five
She was a waitress
Earned the most from tips
From men who liked her attitude
And her long blonde hair.

Lovers were sparse
But never unpleasant
And she thought about revealing
Something more
Than the superficial
But always changed her mind in the morning.

And she never had regrets
Even when a yellow cab
With a sleeping driver
Sent her up into the air
And she took one last look
At the unfamiliar sky above her.

And though a few people
From the town she never lived in
Said it was a tragedy
It was maybe for the best
Because her dark roots
Had just begun to show.

My hopes and dreams came to rest
On a city made of smoke and concrete,
Where the air tastes like grease,
And the people look only ahead.

That's what I decided I wanted;
I wanted the underground,
The names from the Monopoly board,
Black taxis at street corners.

I wanted glamour without expense,
The streets without the litter,
The grit without the pain,
And the reality without suffering.

I wanted the city to reach out,
And grab me by both hands,
And confess its undying love to me,
Desperate to prove its worth.

But the city did not care for me,
Its arms were busy juggling
All the people walking or laying
Down on its endless streets.

I got questions instead of answers
Perspiration instead of inspiration
From fast-walking to keep up with a pace
That would never match my own.

I got none of the things I wanted,
And I know that I'm to blame for this
For resting my hopes on miracles,
And the views on picture postcards.

I got sick of my illusions,
Sick of the reality, sick,
Sick and tired of this ******* city,
Sick, yes, but mostly tired.

Maybe if I were famous or wealthy,
Maybe if the city really had
Taken me by the hand and led me,
Maybe then things would be different.

And so my hopes and dreams flew away
On the back of an old wrapper from
Somebody else's fish and chips
I saw floating in a cloudy sky.

But in the end this is my fault,
Because how naive could I be
To think that the capital city
Would ever choose a nobody like me?

My mind is a corridor,
It stretches for miles,
Everything is pure white
From ceiling to floor tiles.

You could be there for months,
If you were to visit,
And you would only see
A glimpse of what's in it.

Behind each of these doors,
Lies a well-mapped face,
Or an unfinished novel,
Or a memory, or a place.

At the end of the corridor
There's a room unlike the others,
This is where I keep things
I hope noone discovers.

I keep all the things
That are terrible in there,
I keep in this room
The things I cannot bear.

It holds images, words,
And emotions that frighten me,
I've shut them all in there
And I've hidden away the key.

It holds all of my nightmares,
Contains all my dreading,
And though it's always present,
It almost feels like forgetting.

But the most terrifying thing of all
Is a thought I can't lock up...
*What would happen to the corridor,
If that door didn't stay shut?