Fighting man and substance
We tackle desire and praise
Always dragged back to sea,
always

Crumbling into a shell
Blind as I, how would you know?
How can we know what we bury?
How long can we go on?

Feeling a rush
Clouding clarity
Ignoring conscience
Drowning reality
Destroying innocence
Clouding clarity

Always dragged back to sea,
always.

On sunny days
I walk alone
Thinking of you
Pondering
The shape of rough hands
The curve of soft lips

The aching thunder of our chests
In harmony

I dreamed of an old friend last night
who tied ribbons round my life
years ago and told me I was beautiful
when no one else would

She was the problem and answer
to all my pain and sorrow
and I miss her smile
and her selfish ways

How strange it is that
we lose people we love,
for what reason?

What reason is good enough
when life is so short
and hands us so few people
who bring candles to the dark
in our lives

Winter's harsh weather has taken over,
but the coffee house stands strong.
Watching people and watching laughter
my worries have left me
tired and peaceful.

People blow through doors
and out of windows
sweeping mugs from wooden surfaces.
Liquids
swirl in the air.
Words and things worse become
empty.
I am here, I am there, I am everywhere.
The coffee house stands strong.

Between anticipations of me and you
talking over coffee
talking about books,
I slip past these daydreams
to an unreality where misfortune is forgotten - You
are the one I want
So why can't I have you?

Why the hell not?
I question as I keenly brush off
insecurities which dampen my infatuation.
I miss you. I am afraid. I hardly know you.

I am here, I am there, I am everywhere.

The coffee house stands strong.

A bird cooed
through dreamless wake
swirled in wisps of sound
like rippling waves gold, bound
upon our ears they found

a brittle call again again
flew in from the cold dark night,
a small perched figure
anonymous, free
wrapped in misty light
soft, drifting, frail,
sweet in midnight gloom

a song so gentle
dreams seemed real

melancholy blue,
the bird in the night
cooed

When I think of the blades of grass which make up your love for her
It blunts my growth.
Those blades cut me
               and I am enduring this field because I can't resist your air.
I am addicted.

My skin is utterly bare and your softness scratches, leaving scars.

Of all the fields I could have come across and traveled through,
why this one?

It's almost Spring and perhaps with the new things you might
disappear slowly from my path.

But no doubt your field will soak up her sun
       and the grass will grow evermore,
whilst I am gone.

I spend the morning thinking.
Shall I go to church tomorrow?
Or shall I be cast into a dark, cold park
pursing my shivering lips around cigarette
ends, tasting the taste of plant fumes which
slowly descend in clouds from my mouth,
dispersing and reversing
into the air of my mind. Fogging my thoughts
So that I laugh in the face of absurdity,
but am secretly struck in the heart and my wisdom
plucked away.
Someone ties a blindfold around my optimism.
This is the world, can you see better
now?
No. I'm scared.
What have my friends made of me,
made of themselves?
What are we doing with these tools of turning wheels
and glass pipes which illuminate in the hovering moonlight
cast from above,
casting shadows on our faces,
as we forget friendship and love drugs?
Only drugs.
No I can't come out tonight
because I want to sleep well.
I don't want the twitches and the paranoid itches.
I don't want the voices and suffocating choices
and that feeling of feeling too much and feeling too well.

I need your arms
Like a cocoon
So I can emerge each morning
With colourful wings
Delicate, free

My weakness is my strength
When I spread about my brittle
structure and my softness
surrounds you

Be gentle with my wings for they
Are quietly weak and the silent
strength of loving is not enough
If you grasp me too roughly
Or hold me for too long
I might crunch beneath your
human bones

I am only small

The clouds are plastic,
Plastered to the sky,
Synthetic blue,
Fragile behind.

The sun is always burns,
Our tiny worlds turn,
We peer through mirrors
To gaze at our creation.

Cover me up
Plaster my face with leaves
Cover my closed eyes
With two round roses
Smother me so I'm swimming in leaves and dirt.

It's in my bones
It's in my blood
My body leaks love.

I am a soft shell so
This is love
When you cover me up
With leaves
Protect me from the world
Put me to sleep
Rest my eyes under
Red roses
Smother me so I'm bathing  
In leaves and dirt
So my heart can be be still
and silent with the earth.

I thought of him
as a flickering of light
In the dark

But I think of you
as my day

My day before night,
through night
and through the rest
of my life

He made the dark bearable
You make it disappear
like an echoing sound
in the empty space of my soul

My mind is a rattling cage,
Spitting fire toward empty furnaces.
Nothing grows in this barren land,
No fruit, no soul, no thriving bloom of spectacular imagery
Can I not think? Have I lost my mind?
My dreams as hopeless and dry as a rusted desolate home,
craving to have use.
I see beauty, I feel it in my bones. I hear it in the voices of the wind
and the sky.
      It shrills through the dust, lifting stories to the wind.
But I cannot paint it. I cannot sing it. I cannot write it,
      for the appetite of my meaning
I am lost.

It is easy to trust what is known

But to trust concept,
to rely consistently on the unknown
requires courage and grace
beyond human power,
outstretching the capacity of our heavy,
selfish hearts

So the fact that we try
is a remarkable riddle in itself
Thus, I am burdened to ask:

Why do we try
if there is nothing at all?

I've seen the beauty
of the trees

the way the sun glistens
through tangled leaves

In the chaos
of this eyeless world

I can't even try
to believe
It's nothing at all

When do star-shaped smiles
and firework eyes
stop sparking flames
while everybody spies

Aching, madly
we chase victory
in a fool's battle
of attention,

attraction strikes fast
in the flustering heat

Shiver
when the cold ignites,

attacking discomfort
with chilling nights
so we long even more

Summer keeps us gazing
        inside our minds and out
  It hurts

      we are all blind,
            lying ******
on star littered ground
because the truth is
      pupils fire bullets

I wish I could bring you back with me, Home,
to where I live

Home, I miss you.

There was hope spread on the surface of that glistening lake
as our skin broke patterns across
soft fragile water.
Fragile. I miss your fragile nature. Tall trees surrounding us
as we rowed beneath the friend in the sky which hugged our shoulders and tummies and slightly sunburned toes

We'd forget important things like fully applying sun cream
because life felt too short and summer far too brief.

I left you to the hard work and sang Otis Redding, my feet dangling in the cool water,
whilst enjoying the sun because the dock of the bay lay in the distance and I never knew wasting time to be such a pleasure.
Summer. A break. Stress and worries lifted off our aching soldiers
like kites, drifting in the breeze up high
far from our thoughts.

You brought me alive and lifted my soul to heights I never knew existed like when you said 'I'm jumping off the dock' and I followed shouting 'wait for me!' even though Czech families from the hotel were staring and we jumped
off together to find an exploding sensation
Insane and ******* fabulous
to experience life, that rush of cold and the springing of the mind awake.
Never was an afternoon so beautiful.

Sun and shifting memories and contemplating clever EE Cummings on the bank because you understood things I didn't and I saw things you were blind to until
We shared.

I wish I could live at home.

Winter sends a chill

Frost gathers and distills
itself in corners of windows
and corners of minds
Shaped as spikes after dark
Lingering with the spark of the sun
Waiting cruelly 'til we wake after dawn.

So I sit and loiter
for warmth
But none follows.

The fire's glow turns cold
My eyes hardened to stone.
And the worst: there is no movement
In my hands with which to heal
my pain.
I am drowning in icy waters.
But none can see
because we are all the same.

You loom over me,
My cooling shadow.

My gentle storm,
You submerge me.

I disperse as tiny grains
In your ocean,
Washed up from the sand
Where I once lay as a stone.

You, protector of my tenderness,
Shelter me from the heat above.

You loom over me,
My cooling shadow.

Odd
Obscure
Pale in the moonlight you were
   from the start

A ghostly figure
    hovering in the corner
But the glow of your red fire
    made your company warm

Passionate
    you are
But numb
    Feeling so much you feel
nothing.
Wanting so much
       your hands remain
empty.
Don't think I don't know you
And why your heart turns cold

I'm sorry you met me in innocence
   Only to see me turn to this
This is not me
I whisper slowly
This is not me
I whisper again
I'm growing frantic
     You draw
Into the corner
     Ghostly again
Repulsed by my skin
     I am human

We only just became close.

And who are you?

This question turns your eyes
to moonlit diamonds in the dark
        piercing me with a stare
As if to say
Who are you
to ask?

I woke up two nights ago,
a heavy weight in my chest,
knowing that you would leave

then I knew my heart was gone,
my rib-cage empty,
I stumbled to the door

In my fear I stared
into the ghostly sky of the city
Where no stars were hung

but I saw a plane above
which may have carried you
You, carrying my heart

They often say 'you stole my heart'
as if it was no choice
and yes, it was beyond my power,
this is a wondrous force
but I would give and give
three thousand times again
the vessel of my being,
the source of my existing,
the reason for my breathing
to you
because
you are this too

I don't believe I will get it back
any time soon.

It's time to say it
That cruel, senseless word
which hovers an uncertainty
of whether we will meet again

Goodbye,
to a whole world of possibilities
to a whole world of me
As I return with reluctance
to reality
where truths are like splinters
to what is easy
Where realistic and good
are faithful enemies
and I must choose
one,

and I can't do it alone
I'm blind for where to start
I can't see where to turn

So Goodbye,
It's been wonderful
I know I must be strong
Goodbye, to all the ropes which
I know must now be torn

Still, a space will linger
in the center of my heart
for all the friends,
memories,
faces

But most of all
the future,
for this
      is not goodbye.

I am turning 18
On a cliff edge

I see nothing before me

If take one step forward I'm afraid I will fall
into a vast, empty desert

no path, no directions, no map to keep me safe

As a child I looked ahead, thought I'd known my way,
have it all figured out for the arrival of the day
Doctor, teacher, lawyer,
writer,
It seemed simple at the time

But I am turning 18
On a cliff edge,
and I'm terrified.

Your existence paralyses me.
I can feel your presence from miles away.

Your words break through my ribs
to find a place to pull.
As I would pull you closer,
if only you were here.

I fear sharing your breath.
I am dependent on your arms.
As I lean closer
I know you will feel my weight,
too heavy for this life,
if life should be a feather
whilst a knife dangles above my head.

And what if you could stop me from drowning?
Lift me of this place where the world is muffled and dense
What if you could raise my head above the sparkling surface?

I would feel the sun beating down on me,
with the air as pure as summer.
And with you, reality might suffice,
for once.

She is golden and gracious
with soft fingers.

Feathered whispers of her thoughts
drift gently from the center of her perfectly puckered mouth.
She is with edge and without excess,
leaving no flaws in her path.
She transforms everything as she passes,
raising mountains above the atmosphere,
strengthening
the wilted flower,
springing the dead back to life.

She gives roses without thorns.
The air around her is densely sweet
and even the saltiest of her tears
must be silky to the grasp.
No one can grasp her.
She is strong but finely delicate
like rays of sun making winter
seem less cold.
Is there any darkness in her light?
Could those fists ever clench in anger?

The petals of her love are too permanently
spread across his waters.
One could swim and swim
until arms ache and lungs throb
trying pluck every remaining petal from his oceans
but still the scent would linger
and he would remember anticipations
of her taste.
He is lost in the cloud of her forever,
as it sweetens the cool of his mind,
awakening the dust to the dawn,
bringing clarity to the chaos of his storms.

Winter reminds me of home
One which crumbles as I write
It is a home I forget and
remember with glimpses
of sunlight
Or children's laughter

Home I once knew as my own
It is a city of cold, a crunch
   of scattered leaves beneath
tiny careless feet sprinted, tip-toed
through the park leaving prints
   now long covered
A park of trees lined so tall,
   I craned my neck in awe
with bright blue eyes
  like glistening bulbs
But those trees are smaller now
  for I have grown

It is the chill I
  remember, wind
biting my skin
  as I whimpered
desperate for a fire

It is snow-drop memories and
pink plump faces
   which grew to shapely bones
and knowing smiles

It is a smaller time
  lodged in my heart,
hardened
  with the brisk
November air.

Love
Is not only actions
It is intentions

Helping others
for a pretty reflection
is not love

Feeding on admiration as if
you're anything more
than human
is not love

Flowing golden with pride
until you believe your worth
five million dimes
is not love

You're full of impressions
not expressions

Humility, empathy, honesty,
will become the very soul
of your growth

that is, if you plant the seeds
and then you will learn love

The Daisy buds are in shell,
The empty landscape thrives
Where once before was dry, dry,
cracked and etched with loneliness

Now diamond tear-drops fall
From the bleeding night sky

The trees are your ribs
The leaves are your eyes

I am lost
In a shadowy cage
A dampened maze
Searching for your voice
Among the flowers

Your heart, your mind,
your restless eyes
seizing me, binding me tight.

In the quietest moments of the earth
when there was nothing
and I truly believed there was nothing
I found you

In the loudest moments of my heart
when there was no one to listen but me
and my screams echoed unheard
I found you

In my endless search for good,
bound within human flaws
my scars, my obscenities,
my deep dark hidden corners
I found you

When I saw myself
In a light among shadows
In a rose among thorns
In a smile among scowls,
I saw who I wanted to be
and I found you

The crunch of the cans
as you step on the pain,
quietly
Your innocent smile faded,
then crushed as you
become what you thought you’d never be
An image of youth destroyed
with a crash and your
fragile heart broken with it

There’s no going back now,
once you’re in you’re in
Don’t waste it, they say
have fun
but stay  safe, don’t  be  stupid
How? How do I do both?

Visions are shattered like glass
as our hopes
and dreams become drunken
nights of slurred words and
sorried beer regretted like
the sips from a ***** bottle
Mistakes of a night you
enjoyed but the next day
fail to recognise or remember
the person you were. Pretending,
we all are. Sticking together
in this fight of crying and
laughing and confusion of
who we are and why
Intoxicated tears on each
others shoulders
weeping about how it came
to this. This is our age, our life
Streams of liquid which will
make us okay. It’s okay,
right?

Clearness and purity which
we’ll never be, the transparent
glass reveals our souls
without discreet deception
of a stable mind
Some enjoy it, some don’t
But we can never know
Because it’s all a mask
‘I love you’ uttered in
a battered corridor behind
the secrets carried
on our backs. Heavy,
distorted, many memories
and problems  of the
mundane mind,
ruined by a screen that
shows nothing but jealousy
and grief but we bathe in it
like the water we drink
At the end of the night
we return to bed and
the room spins
The other liquid will make
us okay

In the day the sun is bright
and some prefer to be alone,
others can’t. The endless
reliance on friends as
families crumble
We follow a rhythm for
guidance, until the song
ends
And then home again.
The smell of smoke clings
bitterly to our clothes like
the habbits we maintain

We try but can’t escape
It. This is youth. Stuck
is what we are. Frozen
in the cold. The warmth
of the home that few of
us have is only comfort.
If we’re not loved it’s not
home so some escape
to anothers and are torn
seeing what’s not theirs
You fail to understand
fail to see
what really lies beneath
the exterior of annoyance
and trouble
Open your eyes
this is dark
We cause trouble because
we are troubled

If I could only step into the flowing waters of your eyes,
follow the rivers and make it past the rocks
which threaten to cut the skin of my thoughts
over and over then maybe
I might find an ocean in which you lie or float
on the surface.
I hope I can find you somewhere
in the endless abyss of your mind.
I hope you have not drowned.

I see you in the rich blue sky
I see you in the mornings
I see you in glowing dark
Even when I’m falling, blind

I see you in the airport hallways
embraces flung by passionate souls
We kiss, we cry, we hug, we smile
See behind the smiles to pain
I see you in their trying
Their growing fear of dying
Whilst searching hopeful
for feeling full,
somewhere safe like home
we imagine

In this world so great and vast above
An empty space hovers black,
we try to make sense of it
You are the only sense we can make
In the dark and in the light,
I see you.

Look at the moon, she said.
Look at the moon, look at the moon.
The way it pastes itself onto that blanket of black
And stares with the whites of its eyes.

One big eye, bulging above,
Scrutinizing our species,
Asking me questions about Love
And other things I claim to understand.

Leave me alone, won't you?
Oh big, bulging moon of persistent
gazing insolence.

Does it speak?
Does it say: Look at the human,
Look at the tiny, tiny human.
Why does it stare at me
with those speculating specks of eyes?

I am dust, you are dust.
We are all dust, floating together.
Look at the moon or look at the human,
It is all the same.

There's a craving in our skin,
a rhythm in our hearts
Our eyes flash, excitement sparks

when they meet
we are forced to smile

and I've felt this way for while.
First caught sight of you,
noticed how your eyes were blue,
your skin like milk, cool on the breeze,
your voice soft in the wind

I can't look away

Isn't this perfect, paradise?
Or merely a desire,
passing, blind, fading, physical,
Quick to melt with the sun
When the winter of our love
comes around?

Faded memories of smells and sights,
Hot, dry land and precious laughter
filling humid air like smoke
I breathe and I remember
     the beauty of that other world
Markets of meat and strange food
Neighbours who knew me but I’ve not a clue
Who they are or how they know
      the beauty of this other world

Where next?
Across the world again we go
      another place I cease to know
Unknown air I used to breathe
Heavy feet in the snow
Bakeries and small cafes
Icy air and chilling days
A speck of dust in a city so large
I was lost in the beauty
       the beauty of this other world

'Tis a lonely world

Where sparkling stars
of night sky wonders
which once were friends
have disappeared

Where is the warmth of the night?
The glow of vague light
which once was comfort?

When did this feeling arrive?
The habit of need?

'Tis weakness
What can we say
of human satisfaction
but what we've learned?

'Tis a lonely feeling
to be one in the dimension
of a million
When the sun rises
and to be alone.

There is a soulless sun,
pale, yellow, dull.
There is a bright shining moon
which binds us all to steal.

Darkness enters briskly in
We follow the trails of night-lit rings
Staring up the moonlight sings
Like candles in the black

These sleepless nights
Bring soaring flights
For solitary stars to wander

I’ll only step into the grave
If my heart settles glowing
With thunder

Those listening
Will rise

Standing fonder
One day we’ll love with no thunder

But with calm pink sky
Set softer and
Spinning kites resting cool
Under the yellow, trembling moon

Now I can wonder again,
inward to where the heavy ash lies,
dampening my mind, tampering with my heart.

I can gently blow those specks of black nothingness away
So that life may rise again and spring back
where new things grow and the heart
is reborn, pulsing fresher than ever before.

Now I can look, remember to see and not to forget
the outside. Remember to breathe the air the trees provide
and know the joy and love of others.

Now I am not so cold, drawn in on myself,
frozen in the crackling shell of winter's slow time.
I can lift my head above the cloud of my cage
and listen to the birds sing of Winter passing,
so that Spring can break through.

It seems in this life
there are those who sit still

and those who simply cannot
for the size of the world is too great,
the desire for more too strong,
the aching for change too wild to contain

Those left behind
can only try to forget the dawning of the end,
suppress the fear of wasting it,
shut out the noise of the tick tick ticking clock
on the dusty old windowsill

Find comfort over danger,
somewhere to rest their bones
safety over risk,
home

which seems easier because

Once we begin to search
We never return

I am resurrected, hanging, pinned
On the ground you are kneeling, tugging at my shins
I bleed onto your fingertips, seeping, brimmed
You cannot take more of me,
I've given and I've sinned

I will not relent,
each day that I burn

You reach through me, clasp, pull my body in
I am resurrected, hanging, kneeling at your shins
I am yours, clasped, ****** and pinned

I want all your madness
scooped up in my palm

I want all your pain
pressed against my lips

I want all your wounds
under my fingertips

I want all your hardships
softened in my arms

In our minds fell
The silent sounds
Of seabirds singing of summer
Of sweet sun-soaked smiles
Calm blue skies,
Kind hearts
We struggle to recall
The light

And each of us searched
Through cities for something
To make us feel
But after all it was the
Ballerina
The words carried on the curve of her back
As the rise and fall of the piano drifted sweetly
Across the stage
Lifting toes and feet ready for snow

The spirit of the room was dancing
All our hearts were dancing
With the melodies which rung
Over crisp new fields

After all,
Warmth healed the rough skin
Of winter's miserable song.

I walk with ambitious expectations
My head filled with slow frustration
Air around me is radiation
clouding in my lungs

My heart beats like
a steady train
Slow but heavy,
polluting my brain
Everyone around me is evil, or am
I just mad?

Stop looking, stop thinking.
Stop all the foolish
queries.
Doubt and hope and
endless confusion
weighing me down
as I quiver with fear.

I can't, I have to,
I will.

Outside I can breathe,
on my own,
when the bats and
the flies no longer surround
me.
Fresh air so
smooth and clean,
Inside there it's
clouded and thick.
Now I am a bird,
though my wings
will not lift.

The rain starts
to pour but I
cannot shift.
I try and I try but
my bones are too
weak, hollow,
compressed
and my eyesight's
turned bleak.

I realize suddenly,
in all my fear,
that behind me
was my future,
all I hold dear.
Water is rising,
my lungs start
to fill.
I'm no longer
a bird,
but a flower.
No power.
No will.

When I lie with you
I breathe with you.

Then we are bound together
In the silence.

Then I am the vines around you.

Then we shudder together
Under shivering sunlight

Then we are alive together
In the warmth of our shrine.

My skin is not mine
I am repulsed by my flesh
In the dark
You cover me
I disappear
We blend into each other
I am repulsed by my flesh
In the dark

How can you stand my scent?
If I hold you at arms length
Will you see how I rot?
Will you see how I burn
for gratification,
for validation,
for a sense of worth?

I ache to be awakened
from this state of ghostly death,
for fingertips to spring alive
the paleness of skin, numbness of breath

I cannot touch myself
I cannot stare in the glass
Or I will become a murderer
I am repulsed by my flesh
In the dark

There is nothing so precious
as naivety
in the keen, exploring eye
of a child

To kiss the swollen moons
of your eyes,
The feathered locks
of your hair
Your staggering
heartbeat on my palm, trembling
as the planets still move.

To hold your worn hands
The rough skin
of old fingers that have traveled so far,
countries from this ground your heavy feet now grapple.

To follow with my fingertip
the creases months have carved
and wash your edging eyes.
To draw a tear from those
dried, paper-painted
pupils, black as the night sky.

It's hard to speak
when the quiet prevails

When the truth dawns
with all home entails

A storm strives to ****,
destroys my fragile soul

I call it 'home'
but it's not home at all

Shrills and shrieks of joyful children,
early in the morning
Sun shines through rippling curtains,
golden and gracious in soft light
Sandal tanlines, eating icecreams
on the heated pavement
And we know: Summer is here

Homemade apple pie from trees
in the blessed blooming garden,
where colours thrive and dance
like kites in the sky

Craving shade through humid walks,
shadows of winter left behind
in the cold
Icy water refreshes, revives us
And we know: Summer is here

Late night sounds of the church bells
rich as the air drifts swiftly in,
sweet and new as the day
which quickly dawns

But our smiling eyes are heavy,
with tired laughs and scents
of smoke
as the barbeque cooks
the last meal
of the long, long day
And we know: Summer is here

Sweet like a rose you are

             I imagine

Eyes like the sky or sea

             I suppose

Laugh like the breeze

             I swear I’ll listen

Even when I wish to speak most

     I’m sorry

if my mind

     creates you so faded,

face unclear

      like the clouds in the sky

I float with you in my dreams so daily

      Often wonder

how you’d look by the eye

     or sound by the ear

                      When reality returns

without flowery pretension

              Where will we be then?

Why is love so hard?
Its bites you with its piercing sting
It tames you with its frightening claws
Far beyond your power, once caged within

It hurts, when they hurt
you cry, when they cry
bleed when they bleed
and crumble when you try
to help them

because it makes you weak to empathise

Yet
with the force of a gale,
it stands
      firm against the wind

You have no choice,
no choice
     but to give in

It hurts the place in your heart,
             where theirs
    is cradled, safe

So you try to be soft
when they rage
Try to be sweet
when they're bitter

because you know they'd do the same for you
and to maintain balance,
for yourself

But
  this is the sacrifice we make,
                      the risk we take

and that's why love is beautiful.