I wrote student fees and it autocorrected to
fears

My friend was drunk and said CV
when they meant VC

Volunteering is sold to us like a product,
it's not that it's good in of itself,
it's good for your self,
it'll look good on your CV

it'll look good on your CV
it'll look good on your CV
it'll look good on your CV

if only you could see me
if only you could see me
if only you could see me

you'd see the way my face freezes or flinches
either one,
there is a pain that runs across my face like an electric shock

dehumanising someone is like they invented a wireless, handsfree, bluetooth way of stabbing someone,
you can do it without touching me,
but I can assure the pain in my chest will tell you otherwise,
you have cut me

please help me find the plug at the wall
help me restart
help me find the USB charger
help me connect

you've convinced me that if I claw at my arm long enough
wires will spark and spit at me
I am a machine because you treat me as one

like when they ask for my number at Student Health
or they ask for my number at Studylink
or they ask for number at the Bank
I remember I am nothing like everyone else.

Does logging off look bad on your CV?

Use canned spaghetti as thread to stitch together the frayed edge of your t-shirt. Use your t-shirt to show how you’re the coolest most-hippest, most up with the kids kid there is. Where’d you get that shirt? Online.

Bop your head to the music so they know you know this song. Harder or they won’t see you. That’s not hard enough. Neck snap! Yeah, right there. Hold still while I take a photo. Do you mind if I make this my cover photo?

Take a selfie of you crying in the bathroom and hashtag it. Snapchat it to your local MP so they know how you feel - be sure to use an emoji. #studentdebt Tears streaming down your face. (If it’s a hashtag it’s easier to emotionally process.) #policebrutality #throwbackthursday #massincaceration It’s a good thing there’s emojis for black people now. Look at how far we’ve come!

#nomakeup #vegan #crueltyfree #childslavelabour #iwokeuplikethis #campusrape #notallmen #yesallwomen #freethenipple #2k16 #mentalhealthcuts #stopkillingtranswomen #waterislife #standwithstandingrock

Have you followed Human Rights on Facebook? It’s the only way to get them. Have you seen the Ted Talk about it? In just 20 minutes you’ll know everything there is know about it.

Sorry. You don’t seem like you’re focused. You’re thirsty? Let me make you a smoothie.
I’ll put the chocolate bar in the blender whole, leave the wrapper on. Taste the tinfoil and the plastic. Eat the barcode, become the product. That’s modern life.

Don’t take out the hair or the fingernail or the Band-Aid. Don’t hide from the human components of the production line that made this Kit-Kat possible for you, kid. That’s modern life.

Go to the voting booth, refuse to choose between the diversity of 50 versions of the same smiling white man. Scrawl: **** these ******! (have no faith in none of them) That’s modern life.

With jittering teeth and goosebumps, put your toaster in the sink. Overflow it with water. You will only need a fork to get warm. Electrocution is the most economical form of heating. Be Energywise. That’s modern life.

Puff marijuana smoke through the bars into the brown faces of those who were incarcerated for doing what you freely do now. That’s modern life.

Burn your eyes on the screen. But before you do, memorise the 0800 number for the optometrist.

Post your suicide note on YikYak to save paper. No-one likes reading hard copies these days anyways. #papercuts #selfharm

Search for motivation on EBay. If you’re lucky it’ll have free shipping and arrive in 1-5 business days.

Snapchat your friend’s words of encouragement, God knows they’ve seen enough dickpics.

Take a chicken to KFC and tell them you’re sorry.

Get in the cars of the men who yell “Hey baby!”. They’ll be so surprised they wont know what to do next.

Swap your woman-chest with a man-chest and see if your ******* are still illegal.

Drive through town throwing dirt with one hand and seeds in the other. Maybe, if you do it long enough this claustrophobic concrete will be gone.

Bleed on every seat until the government pays for menstrual products.

Train seagulls to throw YOU chips.

**** a woman and a man simultaneously, so that you can be sure everyone knows you’re bisexual.

Blockade inaccessible buildings with piles of wheelchairs.

Grab time by the fabric and rip it, cuz we all know rips look really punk, and all you really are is just some young punk.

I like talking about *******
And I like laughing about awkward situations that aren’t my own
I love hearing about how other peoples parent relationships are just as ****** up if not more than mine.
I feel understood when someone new inevitably tells me they have anxiety,
Or that they hated school.
Cigarettes and beer on men’s breathes still make me dissociate.
And I still try and squash my stomach out of existence or into my pocket to put someone else’s comfort first.
And I still ignore pain during *** and separate my mind and body into compartments to situate myself in the part where it feels good.
I’m still angry.
I still get pangs when I see particular people’s names, or photos, or mention of their friends or favourite music. The pang is dulled now like a blunted needle…
But still the stab reminds me of the twang it used to bring.
That would pull at my limbs till I was foetal and wretching.
I think I got bored of my own pain,
Or I wore myself out.
I think there’s only so long you can hold both sides of a non-existent conversation.
I’m still reaching for affection, compliments and pet names…
And I don’t know if it’s ****** or parental but god I just want to be hugged.

I caught myself by surprise once when I snuggled up to my dad and as I lay beside him watching a movie, I revealed to myself how much I was hurting.

I am sick of crying bathroom selfies. I am sick of shower crying and breakfast skipping. But I do like the rush your body gives you after you’ve let loose on tears.
It makes me wonder if depression is just a little bit addictive.

I still like that feeling…and sometimes I want to feel sad because it feels deep..
But it’s only enticing until you’re there and then it’s a deceptive tar pit of hell,
And you’re tricked and sticky and heavy.

I haven’t been depressed in ages,
But my memory’s bad so I might have felt awful last week
I’m not sure.

do they ever ask you your gender on a form and
just let you
answer no

sometimes when they leave a blank line for you to write on
I just write
lol

it's all too funny to engage with
where to be begin
tell me why we're still doing this

For a year I had a folder in my computer called "hey dad".  I used to take photos of myself when I had been crying really badly. I wanted to see if the sadness would show up in my face. I wanted someone to see it.  I didn't know why I did it. But I think it's because you were never there to see me cry. I think it's because if it reached a breaking point where I wanted to bombard you with how much I'd suffered and struggled and you'd hit back with telling me it wasn't true I'd send you those photos. Their dates extending across a whole year. Me wearing different clothes, different hair, but each one a picture of anguish, I wanted you to be confronted with it inescapably. But then I felt like you wouldn't want that, so I deleted it.

The only note I took from yesterdays class was “the western governments failed to do anything about it” and that really drove home for me how transferable and different yet identical ongoing war is. WW1, WW2, Iraq, the syrian war.

I don’t know where poetry sits in all this. I think poetry without action is like theory without praxis so I to an extent I don’t really care what poetry is or should be in regards to war. There is a limit to what the written word can do in terms of changes the course of things and influencing people, it’s not nothing but it’s also not enough. The recognition of the limitation or inadequacy of the written or spoken word is demonstrated in how many poets are activists, they know speaking or writing alone is not enough.

I think poetry can be fuel, nourishing, provoking but then it’s like what are you gunna do about it? Western politics, particularly liberalism seems to have gotten it’s wires crossed somewhere along the line and some people seem to believe that talking about and reading about things is enough, that think pieces can actually change things and help people in of themselves.

I think the most poetry can be is a starting point, a seed, but what are you gonna do to grow it further?

I think poetry can be a call to action, and a call to action shouldn’t be read as a metaphor, take it literally and answer the call.

****** violence isn’t a mistake, but it’s dealt with by an accident claims organisation.
ACC, you might think you’re right, but I disagree.
He did not trip and fall, that’s not an explanation.

****** abuse, for a while there, stole my ****** exploration.
I would go to a counsellor’s office and nervously drink herbal tea,
waiting to be seen, by ACC, an accident claims organisation.

They ask me my story, it’s quite the fixation.
It hurts for me to talk, you’re meant to help me.
A new stab in old wounds, is a poor medication.

They tell me they have to - ask about the *******,
they need to poke and **** me with questions of PTSD.
I need a mental injury, cos y’know, ACC is an accident claims organisation.

I tell them it hurts, it’s invasive. My frustration.
They tell me they’re sorry but it’s “necessary”.
I’m in pain and for what? A poor explanation.

ACC, we don’t deserve your mental mutilation,
You’re our only option, other counselling costs, we don’t have the money.
You’re meant to be a helpful organisation.
And hurting us to help us is a ****** explanation