twice a day now
that unavailable number
calls
and calls
again.
last four digits
1116
they're looking for you,
mommy.
they want your
money,
money that you don't
have.
but my guess is
they'd settle for
blood.

I will never now know
If you're as good in bed
As you are in my head.

It's unfortunate
As I will always assume you are
And suspect, therefore

That I can never let you go.

Are all these ******* and tears
A release
A purge
The final stage of grief?
Or are they madness,
Wallowing,
Refusal to let go?

******* THEN tears
And maybe that's the key,
I never cried before at any of those moments
I never felt the need.
I think, that on reflection
This is good,
This is goodbye.

I have wasted half a year.
Half a year on you.
I will never get back
Those moments with my children
When, distracted, and dreaming, I gave them half my self
Or even less.

I will never get back
Complete certainty
That I am in the right life
That I have made the right choice.

I will never get back
The sleep I have lost
The love I would have made
The dreams I would have had
The books I would have read
The things I could have said.

Half a year
Spent obsessively logging on
Following you.
Drowning in music
Shutting everybody out
Shutting out myself
Shutting out my life.

What have I been doing?  
What have I been thinking?  
Nothing but you.
It is time to turn you out
Before I become nothing
Before I lose everything.

Disobey them.
Keep your secret place, behind the stairs,
Make sure you hide there, at lunchtime
They will never find you.
Take a book
You will remember these moments, far into the future
The teachers and your parents are all wrong
You do not need the others
They will only cause you pain.

In a little while
Your purse will be stolen
And the £5 you needed to buy a mother's day present, will be gone.
A kindly caretaker will lend you the money,
You'll agree to pay it back, £1 per week.
Don't go back on your promise.
Don't hide from him, so you can keep your pennies.
He will die, unexpectedly of a heart attack
You will sing 'Pie Jesu' for him, in front of the whole school
Knowing you still owed so much
Never able to pay it back.

Never get the 370 bus.
One day, a group will surround you there while waiting,
And cover you with spit.
They'll twist your arms behind your back
Burn you with cigarettes,
And send you fleeing back to school
Crying, with phlegm-flecked spittle in your hair.
You will never get over it
So always walk a half mile further
And take the other bus.

And finally,
This will all be over sooner than you think
The supposed best days of your life, your living hell.
One day you will be beautiful,
Really beautiful
You will have beautiful, dramatic dilemmas
You'll dance and laugh and have so many friends
(When it's your TIME to have friends
Not when told to find some)
You are beautiful now,
But no-one else can see.
Soon, soon sweet girl, they'll see
Stay strong, get through it
I promise it gets better.

It was simple at first
I did it on a dare

There's a certain easiness
to difficult dares
when senses are dulled
by alcohol and fame

show me how
that color tastes

It was like
biting into the sun
it burned my tongue
and nothing else
would ever taste the same
or be the same
it calmed the storm
of daddy leaving
it was as if my
new found Catholicism
was a purgatory from where
I could see the bright white
pearly gates of heaven
and feel the chill
of their snow clad bars

colder than
the coldest winter chill

one night in a dream
my father told me
to meet him at the gates
and from that point
I went every night
but he never came
instead he died
and when he died
my dreams died
with him.

bury me softly
in this tomb

I continued to go there
night after night
I desperately wanted
to believe the gates
would lead to heaven
because in hell there's heat
and this place was cold
so cold with no sound
and no light only darkness

I would sit in the cold
for hours, losing all sense
of time, obligations
responsibilities, shivering
and sweating at the foot of
the gates, obsessed with the
furry luster of frozen pearls
the sound of silence and
the subtle shifting of
the weather

holding rare
flowers in bloom

a week, a month
a year would pass
the snow began to slip
in clumps and tumble
to the ground again
and again and again
and then
all hell broke loose
the heat was hot
the gates were gone
and I began to run
but

every path
led me to nowhere

the blue cold went red hot
and then turned black
I tried to leave that place
13 times I left and
13 times returned
there was nowhere else to go
no place to call home
I burned within my sick head

I wanted to peel
the skin from my face

so hot
I was bleeding for you
soaked in sweat
my calloused heart
would not ask for help

serenity
was far away

my hands were bruised
from breaking rocks all day
far from the chill
I couldn't remember
anymore anyway
so desperate
for a glimpse of snow
it all came down
to this

I could not live apart
from that place
and I could not live
within it

so tonight

I will marry the two
the here and the now with
the there and the then

mix the snow with the fire
mix the snow add the fire
mix   snow  with    fire
mix   snow  add    fire

snowfire
      
snowfire
      
snowfire

momma
I am burning
momma I am cold
mother please save me
don't leave me alone
I see you but
you've come too late
can you hold me anyway?
whisper in my ear
I'm so sorry mother
I haven't bathed in 2 weeks
momma come hold me please

I'm down in a hole mother
feeling so low mother

I'm so cold mother
come save me
take me home
mother
I am dying

mommy
I am dead
sit with me
in silence
sit with me
I am dead

mommy I'm scared

black is all I feel
so this must be how it feels
to be free

mother
I am dead