I am a work in progress.
A soul adrift.

I have drifted over many seas,
Over beaches and mountains,
Islands and deserts.

I have climbed volcanoes,
and heard the hiss of the sun sinking into the waters.
I have climbed over boulders at midnight,
and skidded with rockslides over barren ground.

I have seen lakes of blue, green, gray, black, white and red.
I have seen a million shades of green.
I have tasted the extravagance of fresh air,
and have been choked by smog and smoke.

I have joined in your rituals,
and told you details of my own.
I have cast spells.
I have summoned courage.

I have spoken in tongues foreign to my own.
I have been understood,
and misundestood,
time and time again.

I have been known,
and i have been a nameless stranger.
I have felt the heat of love,
and the pangs of a broken heart.

I have known longing's name.
I have shaken fear's hand.
I have developed,
I have changed.

I will continue to do so.
I am a work in progress.

In a dream my sneeze was lightening,
my cough was thunder,
my tears a monsoon,
my heartbeat made the earth quake.

I woke up shaking.

The memory of your scent still adorns my fingers like rings,
I could never get enough of you.
I wanted you every moment,
Every season,
Every opportunity.

I'm tired of hearing other people's love stories.

She drives me crazy
I can’t think unless it’s about her,
Can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t distract myself at all
It’s all her.
Everything is her.

And so one little sadness,
Becomes a multitude of sadnesses.
How could I ever be without her?
How was I ever?
It’s all inconceivable to my her-addled brain.
Everything is her.

I would change my life,
Do anything she asked,
Whatever the cost
Sails a million seas,
Or cross a billion deserts,
**** a man if necessary,
Everything is her.

And she won’t look at me anymore,
She’s won’t talk to me,
She doesn’t want me
But everything is her.
How can I be without her?
I’ll have to learn to be nothing.

i think she'll break my heart one day

loving you feels like a revolution.
In your embrace
I hear my ancestors sing.
And they tell me:
Hold her, tighter, tighter

And our love feels ancient,
Like our lives have been forever intertwined.
Like the vines of our souls have grown together
For centuries past
and separating them now,
is inconceivable.

It gets harder to imagine
me without you
as every day passes,
harder to imagine
you without me
as we get closer to the time
that it will be
day by day

Je t’aime,
Mon amour, presque parfait,
Since dancing below a canopy of ever-changing branches,
With the free flying embers of a campfire,
And myself hallucinating with happiness,
Over frozen ground
In the night’s darkest hours
My hands on your body
And in your hair
Your eyes reaching out
Demanding attention,
Willingly or otherwise.

You hypnotize me,
I can’t bear to look away.
And it is so strange,
To feel so at one,
I could’ve known you forever
My fleeting love,
My disappearing friend,
My beautiful creature.

You are not of this time,
Not of this world.
You surprise me
And teach me
And excite me
Mon amour,
Mon amour,
I could’ve known you forever,
I will love you forever.

She wrote about how to write a poem.
Ironic instructions in tiny letters,
Scratched out and scrawled in,
Words flowing as she flew,
Further and further away from me.

And in her words I put myself,
Imagine she might be writing with me in mind,
When she mentioned the girl she'd only just met,
with limited memories,
Of huge significance,
but also possibly no significance at all.
Because who really knows.
It's not the event itself that's important,
it's the value we place upon it all in hindsight.

But I can say, that every moment with her
Has held some form of significance to me.
Each time we've held hands,
It's felt monumental in some way.
And each time i've seen her face,
- all three occasions -
the light in her eyes has seemed profound.

And i don't know if it really has to mean anything
but i'm glad to have met her,
to have discovered this connection,
As strangely brief as our interaction may be.
Better to have known her little,
than to have missed her all my life.

I must be blessed,
Surrounded by benevolent spirits,
Guarded by angels,
Watched by my ancestors before me.
This life cannot have been the first time we’ve met.
Some never find,
What we have discovered in each other.
We are a four leaf clover,
A needle in a haystack,
A rare and precious taonga,
A treasured gift.
We are perfect,
Immaculate.
In you I find a comfort,
That sometimes wanders from myself,
You are my closest companion,
and I learn so much
From the way that you are.
We are sisters,
Blood is irrelevant.
We are weird sisters,
Queer witchy feminists,
Living by self-developed norms,
Rather than societal,
The value of which cannot be overestimated.
Together we cannot be held back.
We are perfect,
Immaculate.
I will float with you
In our next life also.

My fingers are frozen
stiff and cold
icicles to run down your back
over bumps of your spine
so perfectly straight
not like mine
twisted and broken
aching and hunching
and its not raining
and it might snow
but that doesn't change anything,
anyways.

The future has no mouth,
No tongue,
No teeth.
The Earth speaks, but it's easy not to hear.

Easier still,
when drowned by the rising noise
of trucks and drills,
destruction and greed.

And you want more,
And you want convenience.
you don't want hassle,
you don't want consequences,
of what you choose.
That's inconvenient.
You're busy,
you've got things to do,
you've got a job and a family,
and you don't care about much more than that.
Excepting, most notably, yourself.

So you turn the other way.
We sit on the ground before you,
we sing songs of generations before us
who tried to help the Earth too.
We sing the words of those who protected our lands,
before the coming of this new age
of willful ignorance.
And you walk past us,
and on top of us.
And you blame us for being in the way.
You yell at us to move,
you've got things to do!
Things to ignore!

It's easier not to know,
easier still not to change,
but the teethless, tongueless, mouthless future
continues to approach.

Melting, heating and shaking.
We must hear it,
before there is no-one left to hear.
I carry these bruises with pride.
I carry knowledge of my actions with pride.
I will do my best for the future,
I will not regret my caring.

I will never understand
the happenings of some things.
Like the horrific and horrible
that happens to the innocent,
like the willful and intentional ignorance,
Of death and pain and torture.

I will never understand
how evil is doled out among us.
By chance, by fate, by deliberate decision?

I will never understand
The recovery that happens,
After the unforgivable; forgiveness,
After death; new life.

I will never understand
Love that won't go away,
Even when told,
Even when begged,
Even when commanded.


I will never understand
how you go on.
I will never understand
how I go on.
I will never understand why.

Men smell like sweat and tears,
***** and steam.
And it never seems to bother them.
So used to a world
who lets them have their own way
Lets them take and grab
And claim as their own
Whatever’s on offer
Regardless of the offer.

Men smell like disregard,
Like empowerment above their station,
Like ignorance of the fact
That we die by your hand,
Like trees burnt down to roots,
Like dirt and soil and mud
Turned to sludge
In the aftermath of your being
And in the fact of the rain coming.

Men smell like dust and rats,
Like hard boots and tarseal,
Like misfortune
And coming mal-ease
Like hard drugs,
Like ******.
Like injecting any hope for change
Directly in the vein.
That’s what men smell like.

We were wove, together.
Separate strands,
Somehow entangled,
Tied together through weird fate,
And deepened understanding.
Things we spoke,
I still hear in the silences.
Whispers and sighs,
Heavy with regret.
How could you do this to me?
They said.
The moon replied;
“I am unsure”
In desperation I called
In what was I not heard?
Arrogance?
Fear?
Disbelief?
And I can’t go back
Nothing is ever really taken back.
Once done, always done.
I’d be a fool to believe otherwise.
This knowledge does not make it easier.
We were wove together,
It takes time to undo some knots.

Withered and worn
it was the winter that did it,
always was,
always will be.
The culprit of all loss
grief and expectation.
You never just loose one thing.
Each loss comes with a hundred other losses.
It gets hard to count them,
pretty quickly.
And now i am ear for the losses.
I will listen
and i will hmm, and i will ahhh,
and i will hope you feel better afterwards.
But that's not always how it goes.

You made me forget-able,
beautiful and tiny,
you made me erase-able.
And i am nothing of import,
this i know,
i hear you telling me,
repeating through ears
tired of listening;
yet listening is all they know.

You made me forget-able,
drove me down into the sidewalk,
smaller and smaller
until i fit perfectly beneath your shoe
and there i could hide
from the world,
yet at your mercy
waiting for the foot to fall

You made me forget-able
and i am oh-so-forget-able
you'll not know my name
nor face
nor sound of my voice
nor smell of my being.

you made me forget-able,
until you forgot
i was there.

Was willst du, was brauchst du?
- what do you want? What do you need?

Would the smell of my hair,
Or touch of my hand surfice?
Or prehaps solve everything?
Or do you need more?

Possibly the sound of my breath,
Could ease your beating heart;
Heavy and upset.

Or the taste of my lips against your own,
your neck,
your skin
- prehaps that could help to still your sense of unease,
Your certainty that nothing is quite how it should be.

And if not, my dear,
If all my attempts remain futile,
And lead to no bettering
The last I have to offer are my eyes.
Look deep, lover,
Pull me apart, piece by piece,
bit by bit
- and do not be frightened by what you see.
Until no doubt remains that you know every colour,
line and speck and space.

Then tell me, sweet one,
Is it all gone?

I want to be the place your hands wander to,
When you forget to pay them attention,
When they're left to their own devices
And free to roam where they please.

I want to be their choice.
Above all else.

I want your fingers running along my collar bones,
And over my ribs,
           And through my hair,
                         And over my eyelids,
                                        And in my mouth.
  
I want to be the place your subconscious thinks of,
Thinks to go,
When you thought you were not thinking at all.

Do i drag you down,
to the depths of myself
when i tell you
of what i have seen,
what i have felt,
what i have done
and had done to me?

Do i belittle you
to the size of myself,
with the stories of my past,
all that i've done.
all that i've hurt
and all i've avoided
the other lives
I used to lead?

Do i make you
to shake in your bones,
when i speak of my actions
and inactions
my screams and my cries
and most deafeningly,
my silences?

Do you pity me
or do you fear,
my child,
all i have failed to do?

Where did my words go?
You nasty devil,
Did you eat them up?
Steal them away,
When I wasn't looking?
Sneak them into a paperbag
And throw them into a lake?
You left me speechless,
And alone to my thought,
Indescribable and dark.
And where did my movement go?
Venomous demon?
I used to move like the wind
Like the water
And the stars.
In my limbs i held
All i ever wanted to know,
And was yet to learn.
But you've taken it from me;
Immobile and mute.
And where did you put my kindness?
Sneaky serpent?
I was one with the world,
I gave and I received.
We shared and were one.
Now i lay alone in darkness,
Wishing i could change

I've had enough,
Of fleeting feelings,
I wish with all i have,
That something good would stay.
I've had enough of the bad.
Enough to write a thousand novels,
And still fill up every last journal
You ever bought me,
With the same **** thing,
Depression and anxiety;
I sometimes wonder
If i have or ever will,
Know anything else.
And it's so ******* repetitive.
I've lived this night before,
I hated it the first time.
Please let's skip this part,
Please let's fast forward,
Please,
This can't be all there is.

Leave me high.
Leave me gasping for breath,
In your absence.
Leave me pacing the room
And falling to the floor.
Leave me in solitude
That I know so deeply
As to call it my friend
Leave me standing
Or sitting
In the dark,
Or filtering sun through my lashes.
Leave me to feel
My own heart
Beating through
A thin shift shirt.
Leave me in my mind

Moonlight bent down gentle,
Kiss kiss on our foreheads,
As we wandered in the dark.
Trees on either side of us
The sea close enough
to hear its whispering
Of our nighttime escapades.

Grass up to the knees
Knelt before our feet.
A shack made up like a tee-***,
One covered in mismatched old dolls,
A poorly maintained vegetable patch
Then yours,
Temporarily,
An immobile House truck.

The door creaked open
Dust lay thick upon the air
Along with aging excitement
Of all who had ever stayed there
Before you.

It’s not much
You told me
It’s wonderful
I told you.
The body of the truck was shelves and seats,
Filled with the trinkets of foregoers,
Books and drawings,
Fairy lights,
A small bell
You moved through them all
To the front of the truck,
And climbing on a well positioned table
Pulled yourself up
To where you slept,
Above the driver’s caddy,
Below a wide skylight.

We got high
And drew designs
To tattoo on each other
In the morning.
You offered me your beer.
I accepted,
and fell asleep in your arms.

I lifted you as high as I could.
The next day my left arm ached,
And I half-smiled recalling why,
Proof I had done my job.

It came as no real surprise,
To be accused of doing nothing.
The only woman pallbearer,
Of course my body should be brought into play.

The aching of my arm
Was proof
That I didn’t let you down.
Until, of course,
That was the task at hand.

Leave me high
Leave me gasping for breath
In your absence
Leave me pacing the room
And falling to the floor.
Leave me in solitude
That I know so deeply
As to call it my friend
Leave me standing
Or sitting
In the dark
Or filtering sun through my lashes.
Leave me to feel
My own heart
Beating through
A thin shift shirt.
Leave me in my mind

Tear me and chew me,
Spit me out,
Or swallow me whole.
We've a whole life yet to continue to destroy.
Today is our new variation
On yesterday,
And if we have our way,
It will be exactly the same.

We wait for excitement
which never seems to find us.
We lay beneath the sun
and hope for change.

But we're not hoping so hard anymore,

No longer pulling daisies,
throwing petals to the ground,
With a yes or a no;
Just waiting around,
to be pushing them instead.

**** is not a bad word.
****** is no longer a burden.
Refuse to be ashamed of your anatomy.
We are beautiful and powerful womym.
The source of our power,
Is our *****.
That which we've been told to hide,
To protect,
Never to speak of.
That which we grow from,
And develop.
Where we bear children,
And shed our wombs by the moon.
That which we are made to fear;
To worry about;
To shave or not?
Does it smell?
Is it weird?
Does it look right?
From our beginning,
Our ***** are mysterious.
It is we who must reclaim them.
Gain control over them,
Learn to love,
Rather than shy away from.
****
****
Our ***** will be our saviours.

No man is an island,
He said.
I am womyn.
I am so alone.
I am isolated.
And even if you reach out,
Stoke my cheek,
Brush my hair,
Please know;
you have never really touched me.

Am I supposed to know what i want?
It's never been that way.
Not for one moment that I can recall.
And that's a lie.
Every moment with you
(at first)
Felt right.
Full and perfected.
Complete.
But it's the staying that way that is hard.
Everything with me is impermanent.
Even my desire.
Even my soul.
Even everything I once wanted.

I wonder if you'd believe me,
If i told you that i missed you
(again).

I wish i could talk in techni-colour.
I feel sorry for you,
If you can't see this.
If can't see, you'll never know it.
That's what death is going to be like;
And oh what fun it will be.
This is reality.
All the wavering and movement
Of everything around us.
And the fact that nothing is separate.
We are not islands,
we are a connected continent,
joined beneath the water,
Of our day to day lives.

On growing up
And past and through it all,
I have been learning.
Learning to push my roots down,
and spindly arms
Up high towards the light.

You see,
The most important thing
In the world
Is to remember.

You've been here before.
To this same dark night,
Or at least many like it.
To these same grey days,
Where clouds cover
All positivity from your soul.
You've been here before.

And what happened before,
Is what will happen now.
The most important thing,
is to remember.
The dark never lasts forever.
The sun always returns.

I have grown tired,
After only a short twenty years,
Of being something for your eyes.
Tired of slurred compliments,
Uttered from behind glazed eyes,
And catching eyes flick up
from where they had been stuck-
Wow! This person has *******!

Sick of hearing calls and jeers,
shouted from across the street,
from inside of a car,
from the base of an over-sexualised,
and over-sexualising brain.

And so in an attempt to remove myself from such *******,
I have been de-sexualising myself.
I wear long, ill-fitting trousers,
Baggy tops, and thick Doc Martens.
I pull up hair up,
Put my glasses on,
I do not bother with make-up.
I glare and I scowl.
Yet still unwanted attention
Has been able to find me.

Still you grab and grasp at me,
As if I were but a toy at your disposal.
I turned to one,
and looking in his eyes,
I clearly said "No.".
A dog, a child, a human,
Would have understood me;
Yet he did not.

I turned again when his hands didn't stop.
"*******, I said No."
"Slap me, baby, I'm sorry!"
He leered, not sorry in the least.
"I'm not going to hit you.
I'm saying no,
and you're going to respect that."

He left for a moment,
Only to return as handsy as before.

I tell you honestly,
I have no idea
What more I'd need to do
To get some people to see me
Not as a real-life *** toy,
But as a *******
human
being.

Aspire to inspire
And inspired you will be
By the beauty and accident of your pure existence.
Simple elegance contained with ease.
Beautiful nature child;
The Mountains adore you
(As you adore them).
Geodes grow up to your touch
Ferns unroll their fronds
Trees lean branches down to earth
All to be closer
As you walk by.

People are drawn to you
Pulled towards your smile,
Your sense of amazement and wonder
Brightens dull and concrete lives.
You are the brightest star
On a cold and foggy night.
Even without the moon’s glow
I think I should be able to find my way
As long as I could follow
Your happy glimmer.

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.

I never blink.
I am small and curious
and move only of my own volition,

When you shut your eyes
you think you see me.

I will hide from you
in crevices of the mind
you still have no conception of.

I am all you ever lost
down the back of the sofa,
on the street drunkenly at night,
between your lover's tangled sheets.

I will cut you down.

I am small and cold,
i shimmer in the moon's dim glow
You can only make out,
that which i prescribe.

I am ethereal.

Mama should I trust the Government?
Men in charge,
With suits and ties.
Mama, do they know whats best?
or are they selling
pre-packed lies.
Mama should i get a job?
sell my soul
to the money train.
Mama is it true in fact?
man can't live
of soil and rain?
Mama why do i feel sad?
kept cramped within
the city walls.
Mama how do i go on?
When all arounds me
crumbles, falls.

She's journeying they say;
Journeying.
They're too scared of the word
To simply say 'dying'
But it is all too clear.
I'm sure she knows,
Just us well as they,
Even though her mind is such a muddle.
She doesn't eat
Or leave her bed
And a machine outside her door
pumps air into her lungs for her.
When you try to talk to her
You get lifeless eyes,
As if she's already died
But her body kept on breathing.
Everyone can see it.
They stop what they are doing
To look into her room,
But they never stay for long
Even with all the curiosity in the world
It's not something you really want to witness.
The terribly slow
fading of a life.

and only now the sun arises,
he'd been hiding all day,
raising his head towards you
''are you happy now?'' he asks.
and you question yourself
and your two steps forward,
three steps back
lifestyle.
Are you happy now?
or were you then?
repeating mistakes,
time and again,
feet placed on the unsteady stone,
feel it rock beneath your weight,
and wonder to yourself
how cold the water
will be.
Colder than it looks.
for sure.
There had been an awful lot of waiting
around, and about.
And isn't it sad
that out stretched hands
cannot be trusted
to be there when you fall
off your unsteady rock,
your high horse,
your higher hopes.
"Hello sun." you say,
"nice to see you." you say,
"I'm not sure I know the answer just yet."
the sun closes his eyes and nods.
"I have seen your kind before."
he says.

I once lot myself to sadness.
I've been to that ledge
And I'm lucky to say I've not jumped off.
But I do understand
And I pull power from that comprehension.
It's almost impossible to believe it when you're there,
That this could ever be something you might survive.
Everything seems so concrete.
But I stand as proof that this is not so.
I once lost myself to sadness.
I do expect to again encounter it,
But I know now,
at least,
There is an end.

I hate it when they call me cute,
or pretty.
I am so much more.
So much ******* more.
I could destroy you.

I am an intelligent being,
capable of many things,
i carve my path in life;
I do not search for your approval.
I do not need your validation
of my outward appearance
to feel accepted.
I am aware of my own self,
and all that I possess,
so much more than 'cute'.

Save me from hearing
your stupid compliments
None of what you say to me,
has not been said
to every girl before.

surrounded by busy people
i sip at wine from a plastic cup
as my slow life creeps on.
satisfaction hasn't shown his head
in quite a long time,
much too long,
far too long.
i don't remember when i last saw him.
i last saw his face 36 hours ago
stubble grazed my cheek
and his sweat stuck him to my skin.
I wish i could feel
and love
and be settled.
only empty sentences fill me up,
but surely i'm close to reaching the brim.

Sliced from forehead to toe-tip
i am the naked
revealed.
what is seen cannot be reversed,
for all your scarves and blindfolds.
And I fear, sir,
That you have seen my soul.
In crowed rooms you hunted me,
singled out my tattered being for your prey.
I prayed like the mantis
to a mythical power for salvation,
but your eyes, relentless as your hands,
made me beneath you and before you,
to come undone.
If smite i could,
trust this; I would.
you are no kind soul
looking to help the weary traveler.
you are, as ever,
the vulture in disguise.
I am coming to believe
there exists nothing else.
I am only of worth
as long as i am of use.
And lately i only feel useless.

I don't know if I could ever get enough of you
I want you there all the time
draped around my shoulders
to keep out the cold of solitude.

I want you beside me and within me
Speaking and yelling
Singing and whispering
Gentle, sad, lonely
lover-boy.

I could never sate my hunger for you,
For your flesh
and your words,
Your held back emotions,
and your very being.
I would never be satisfied.

For you alone,
I am insatiable.

Even the fallen leaves
Are not dead, as beneath them
New life shelters

Inspire me,
I beg you.
It's been almost over a year now,
That I have lain in bed,
Cocooning myself
Away from the outside world.

And in my little inside life,
With my inside brain
and body
and voice;
I have lost all I used to be able to say,
and do
and feel.

I wish to be inspired.
I've been dulled down.

I used to be sad,
So I accepted their pills
And I am not so sad anymore,
But I'm so dull,
I do not feel
I do not desire
I am not inspired.

God I miss it all.

So please,
Inspire me,
And tempt me out
Of my inside cocoon.

Eight days before christmas
and his knees were aching worse than ever,
bitter winds had never done them any good,
nor had the weather's indecisiveness.

Eight days before christmas
and he ate in silence at dinner.
Two bowls of pumpkin soup.
The ladies at his table ignored him.
He fell momentarily asleep in his chair,
and when woken up to take his pills,
realised he'd been left sitting alone again.

Eight days before christmas
and he wasn't sure anymore
of what he was supposed to do.
He'd tried to ask people walking past,
but they either hurried off
or sent him in the direction of his room
where he had nothing to do
but sit and think
and be so aware of his solitude.

Eight days before christmas
and the nurse asked what she could do for him.
He smiled and with a worn and wrinkled finger
Pretended to slice open his throat.
She thought he was joking.

Eight days before christmas
and he ascended the stairs to the second floor.
He found an empty room,
and entered, closing the door behind him.

Eight days before christmas
he approached the window
and with shaking hands undid the clasp.

Eight days before christmas
he pushed the window as far open as he could,
he stepped out on to the ledge
and sat there for a while
wishing he could find the guts to jump.

Eight days before christmas
he hoped like hell he would not see
his 87th christmas eve.

I have vowed to no more eat that which harms,
And to the best of my abilities,
I do so.
I see no difference between the cat you pet
And the lamb you slaughter.
I see no difference between the dog you play with
And the calf you tear from its mother.
I see no difference between the pet birds in cages
And the male chicks thrown in the grinder at birth;
They will produce no eggs, we have no use for their lives.
I believe it is not the role of man
To deem whom should retain their lives
And whom should die for a  moments self-gratification.

Vegetarianism is wonderful,
Every little bit helps; less humans eating meat,
means reduced CO2 emmissions
and less world wide poverty,
The grain that could feed a hundred hungry mouths
Is not used to produce  single burger patty,
For a single peckish man.

But drinking the milk of a cow,
Eating cheese and eggs
All contributes directly to the meat industry.
Dairy industry is veal industry;
Dairy industry; milk, eggs, cheese all supports and prolongs the practice
Of killing and eating children.

You ask that we respect your choices;
but you do not understand that your "choices",
Your learned eating habits,
Your probing questions of "what do you eat then?!"
And your arguments of "But meat just tastes so good"
Are directly offensive to all we stand for,
And all we fight against.

To me, arguing that the taste of meat,
Makes the living conditions of these animals ok,
Is a kin to the argument that slavery is fine,
Because the work gets done quicker if you can use a whip.
It is a kin to the idea that **** isn't that bad,
Because it at least feels good for the ******.
It is a kin to the comment that women are inferior,
Because men could beat them in a fist fight.

You will instantly think I am radical in my views,
You will try to brush them off as the rantings of a crazed vegan
Or you will stop reading
Because you really do not want to see what I have to say.
But I give you only the truth as i plainly see it.

If you must eat meat,
Hunt for it and **** it yourself,
Let it live a real life first,
And respect that for you to eat,
It has died.

Acidic music flowing through us,
From the stage and down into the floor
Vibrations' thin tendrils
Swarming up through thick soled shoes
And into our spines,
Forcing heads to nod
And bodies to sway.
Eyes close in the ecstasy of forgetting
For in that moment
Nothing else can take your mind.
There is sound;
And sound alone.

And you forget that you are all alone
And you forget that you felt anxious
You forget people might be watching
You forget how many drinks you had.

Staged puppet masters,
Make a crowd of grown-up kids
Sway before them.
Children with ******* and beards.
Youths in go-nowhere jobs,
Sleeping on mattresses on the ground
Reading poetry aloud at night
Planning travels in their minds.

***** the young professionals.
We are the left overs of a power hungry generation;
We are just here to hear
And feel
And move.

Salty water from the ocean's lips
kissing upon fresh raw skin
wetter than the shine of your eyes
when i knew you were holding back.
And i will sit upon the dunes
where we once sat
and write to you letters of love
soon to be lost in the wind.
Up on the cliff face
where five of us gathered,
slightly out of mind,
and soaked up the scenery.
We sat and stared
Juicing all before us,
Squeezing out all we could
Attempting to hold the moment forever.
But every moment ends,
as all else,
And eventually,
as the sun lowered his gaze,
we had to turn to leave.

You left what seems like a forever ago,
leaving only vague memories,
juiced and bottled
and stacked neatly in the pantry.

On another night when I can't sleep,
I am, for once, grateful for my solitude.
I've been using again,
wish i could say it were drugs
but it tends to be more valuable tender.
Witchy cravings
for love and fulfillment
sought out in the arms
of whomever might be around
just now.
and just for now.
No making attachments now.
I never asked for that.

and it's 3.40am now
on a moonless night
and i'm lying wrapped in a blanket
wondering why it is
I'm not yet one with the stars
or the trees
or the wind.

And i've got commitments to fulfill in the morning,
the real morning,
but my brain just won't let go of this moment
because you never do know
if it will ever come back.
and i never do you know
if you'll ever come back.

My rat had babies,
five days ago.
They are eight in number,
little pink and black wrinkly fingers.
Closed eyes,
Ears not fully formed,
Wriggling on my palm
in the depths of their sleeping.
I came home late last night,
and i was drawn to see them,
so i went and felt for them, hiding in their nest.
A hair twisted around one's neck and one's foot.
Tweezers and pins and delicate maneuvering,
allowed us to get them free.
They are ok now,
but one wee boy will limp his first steps
even though i stayed up all night,
raising his leg and massaging it,
hoping to drain fluid from his swollen limb,
giving him kisses
and casting healing spells.
Good vibes don't fix everything.