i love you as i always have
and as i have not always loved myself
but wish that i had been able to.
many things would've been different
my whole life, for instance,
yours too.
I am sorry that it is not.
and that you never could quite understand
how it could be
that you loved me so much
yet i was still so sad.
and i kid myself,
i lie, hoping i won't realise,
pretending it's all fine;
that it doesn't hurt to breathe in your absence
that someone else will be able to fill the void
and that i will go on with my life.
I am static.
Since you left, I am still.
You said to never speak to you again,
my mind disobeys,
and in my head,
in deep recesses i am able to hold you still.

I was sad.
So I told them.
I am sad. I said.
Is that so? They said.
Swallow these. They said.
So i did.

I was still sad.
And I told them this.
It's no better. I said.
Is that right? They said.
Well try these. They said.
And I did.

I got anxious.
I told them.
I am scared. I said.
You oughtn't be. They said.
Take this. They said.
I obliged.

I felt nothing.
So I told them.
I feel empty. I said.
Oh good. They said.
We're glad to help. They said.
And I sighed.

I am tragedy,
and i carry it with me wherever I go.
I am lost and alone,
at home and in crowds.
Pin ****** on goose-pimpled skin,
barely visible to the well dressed eye,
and less so to the naked.
I am the hopelessness you thought you'd escaped.
I wither with each day,
growing younger,
full of potential to waste.
Full of the potential desire
to finish this cruel tale,
I know now where it is going,
I get bored easily,
and such a story as this
hardly seems worth my time anymore.

Burn the witch,
set fire to the skin of this foul *****,
allow smoke and flames to consume her,
take her in as a whole,
then spit her out in ashes.
Burn the witch,
and we'll dance around the bonfire,
see her hair catch alight,
as we sway to the rhythm of her screams.
Burn the witch,
broomstick for kindling,
cauldron on the boil.
Burn the witch,
selfish creature.
Burn the witch,
Burn the witch,
Burn the witch.
And when we're done,
we'll pray that she's gone this time
for good.

Allow me to hold your breath for just a moment,
I long to figure the reason why you breathe,
And why it is, your heart continues.
Persistent machinery of wicked wiring,
And unknown roots.
I distrust anything that can work without rest.
It is not natural.
Breathe in, breathe out.
In rhythm with the drumming in your chest.
Stay in time,
Remain suitably in line.
And do you know it now yourself?
How it is,
Or rather, why it is that you exist?
Because without any explanatory factors
What s the point of anything at all?
There must be some form of reasoning,
Or you'd be able to simply slip off without struggle
As you wished.

I wish you'd never give up on me,
just as much as i wish we could let each other go.
I'm so weak and unsure,
Only certain in the fact that i have always messed things up,
and the assumption that i will always continue to do so.
I only cry for myself or for you,
As if there were no greater tragedy in the world
than your absence and my own saddened heart.
You deserve so much more than me,
so much more,
but although i try,
It seems too hard to let you go and find it.
I hate being the bad guy
but it's gone too far for me to be the goodie again.

Dear R,
I hope you are doing well. I hope you are safe and happy and find all of the best things in life (i'd name them, but I haven't yet found them myself). I hope german life is treating you better than ever. I hope you make a million more friends there, though i don't really need to hope for, as you're sure to do it anyway. I hope you don't get too cold in winter. Make sure you have thick warm socks and sturdy boots. Sometimes it's best to walk on untrampled snow as it's less icy. I hope when you return here, or to Aus, you have a safe flight and get plenty of sleep. And that you don't get very jet lagged once you're home. I hope you read this. I hope you have a long happy and healthy life and you never want to die. I hope you wake up every morning smiling and go to sleep contented every night. I hope you feel full and content with everything you have in your life, and everything that is yet to come. I hope you stop feeling anxious. I hope you begin to understand how loved you are, by every person that has come in contact with your soul. I hope you realise how special you are, how unique, how kind and how loving. I hope you see how much you have to offer the world, and how happy you are able to make others. I hope every venture you undertake in life is successful. I hope i can visit your bakery one day. I hope you meet the most lovely girl, just like you, with an open heart and mind. I hope you fall deeply in love and reach a new level of happiness. I hope you spend many happy years together, perhaps marry, raise children and love them more than yourselves. I hope she is stable and has a good mind. I hope she is able to let herself be happy. I hope she doesn't doubt herself, hate anything or ever want to die. I hope you two never cry again. I hope she understands herself and her desires and her emotions. I hope she has feelings that never waver and are rational and make sense. I hope she is beautiful. I hope she never does anything to hurt or upset you, nothing silly or rash or unthoughtful. I hope she can plan a future with you that you both believe in, and that comes true. I hope she loves you unconditionally. I hope she holds your hand in public, and likes to play with your hair and that she's really good at video games. I hope you are happy. I hope she never lets you down.      All my love.

In this moment i feel nothing,
No love nor hate,
No fear nor triumph.
I lack motivation to do anything at all.
I lie awake in bed all day,
What reason was there to get up?
I am not happy,
But i am not sad.
I wonder if i am anything at all.

I have an all too eager heart,
And a mind that will fall time and time again,
For what it hears the heart murmur.
In the depths of a borrowed soul
Whispers of promise and improvement
Echo around the nothingness
Carved and hollowed out there,
Forming a great crevice.
I will fall in to it.
Watch where you place your feet,
Or you may follow me down.

I'm afraid of what these hands could do,
For you or to you,
And what they might accomplish
While your back was turned,
Or your eyes closed,
Or your mind off wandering.
It's a ******* misery
That we can't be.
But what if we were?
Would my stomach still eat itself with fear,
Would my nails still pick at my skin,
Would my mind still refuse to rest?
Or would perfection reign?
Rain over both of us
Till we were soaked through
And when we shook our bodies
Water flew from even our bones.

Kira is gone again,
Loose from his cage.
I don't understand how he manages it
But he squeezes himself between
Thin little bars
And enters the freedom of my bedroom
Time and time again.
I only catch him
With sweets and good luck.
He's a tiny little mouse,
Black and white speckled like a cow,
Such a sweet wee thing,
But much too adventurous for his own good.
I'm lucky he has a sweet tooth.

You ate too much candy,
Do you see, sir,
Where your teeth rot,
Where they fall from your gums
And land on the floor?
She's absent as your two front teeth.
She disappeared when you looked away.
She's off with someone else,
Don't you see?
Someone full of promise,
Someone more stable.
And he has all his teeth.

I dare you to love more than yourself
to embrace that around you
which you cannot understand
and to take it upon yourself
to struggle to understand it as best you can.

Colour me in and erase all doubts
That we're not living the life we ought to be.

Thoughts from a mind full of longing
Have suddenly been subdued,

I forgive you for not loving me.

My mind has been settled.
I am finding peace.
Peace within myself,
That i had hidden for years.
But now. rises to the surface,

Emerging once more in your shadow.

She whispers something to him, my name uttered under guarded breath,
He disappears then returns with pills in his hand that  i ought to swallow,
I oblige.
We spend an evening together with floating minds,
And busy hands.
I brought round two types of cheese for us,
She had a third
So we made scones,
Triple cheese scones,
And discussed the state of our lives.
In the lounge lyric-less music spills out from a speaker,
And they sit around adsorbed by the melodies.
He stands and goes to the *****,
One they found for fifty bucks in a second hand store.
He presses a key and listens to it joining the notes already airborne.
Another stands and joins him.
They play along with the music,
Making it up as they go,
The third bangs his hands on the table, a make do drum set.
We remember our baking in time,
And it is not burnt when we take it from the oven.
The boys leave their music and join us in eating.

She doesn't sleep when he's not by her side
But he doesn't sleep with her either.
And when they lie side by side,
She can no longer phantom the thoughts inside his head,
Like she used to be able to do.

"What are you thinking?"
"Nothing."
She moves to kiss him
He turns over to sleep.
And her heart contracts within her chest.

In the morning she wakes early and makes them breakfast,
"I'm not hungry." is all he says.
And her intestines dissolve to a paste.

He leaves for work,
And she's so sad to see him go,
She watches from the window as the car pulls out the drive.

And now she goes about her day,
Squished up heart and mushed up gut.
She cleans the house for him
Makes his bed
Folds his laundry
Gets meat out of the fridge for dinner,

Then collapses in a heap to cry,
When she finds his wedding ring
hidden in the bed side cabinet drawer.

How is it that the body can be so sure of what to do
When the mind is clueless?
The blood in my veins returns to my heart,
I kiss you automatically,
Yet I am still so unsure.

I've never been one for clear cut precision,
In the making of decisions,
And now, more than ever, I doubt myself.

They tell me I'm not making sense,
That my thoughts are muddled,
That I am not making sensible decisions.
But, was it not those same sensible decisions
That have led me to where I now am?

I tell you assuredly, it was.

Though my mind is muddled,
My heart keeps pumping,
It is truly a wonder of engineering,
Effective machinery
With no use of an operator.

I will sit here for hours
Willing it to stop,
And it will pay me no heed.

I've been having some trouble lately,
With dos and don'ts
What to avoid
And what to take into my life with open arms.
Who to trust with my life breath
And who I should turn from
And run as far away as I can.
When nothing is set in stone
It's hard to know what will stay.
It's all liquid at the moment
It may always be so
Or it may solidify itself far too soon,
Leaving me stuck in ice
Stuck in rock
Stuck in my own old ways.
I'll ask you once more not to leave me
But to help me figure it all out
And if you cannot stay
I still will go.

We've both been through a lot lately,
Enough that we make the most
of distractions that present themselves.
I don't like to sit down and study
How a signal from your brain,
Reaches receptors in your toes;
Or how a muscle twitches.
And you don't like to be alone.

It's been our tradition,
The three of us,
Since we were about fifteen,
To modify our bodies;
(read: mutilate).
We pierce and ink ourselves.

You got your jumping Koi
When you were fifteen
Still in high school.

We got our ******* pierced in the last year of school,
Bored with the idea of maths or science
We wanted something interesting,
And that's what we came up with.

You came back to school
And couldn't stop showing people,
Even when they didn't want to see.

We all got our animals together,
My cicada, your frog, your bird,
The leaver's dinner for school was that night.
We were still rebels.

Then uni last year,
Two quotes in braille around our ribs,
And your quote in Latin
(which turned out to be Italian)
"No lies, just love."

Now today,
A new cat on my arm
And a rose on the back of your neck.

We are perfect,
Immaculate.

Procrastination at it's finest.

I got a new tattoo today,
Of a cat peering round a corner
That Sylvia Plath herself once drew.

It was printed out and traced around
And then put on my arm
Up tight against my skin,
Where the blue ink could leave it's picture.

I sat on a stool with my arm outstretched
And he followed the trace around
With a needle dipped in black.
There was sharp pain
And tingles
And my arm started to go dead as he leaned on it.

He wore a sailor hat over his dark hair,
Tattoos up and down his arms,
Is that a tattoo of an oven?
Yes.
And we talked about old comics,
How they all started as horrors,
Penny gruesomes they used to be.

The ink was injected beneath my skin,
So that i could how onto Sylvia's drawing,
for the rest of life.
SP, it's signed with.

Guess I'm a literary type.

It was night time when we met them,
The Punks awaiting Pizza,
Outside of Domino's on the main street of town.
Myself, and two friends were walking home
On the lamp lit streets.

One called out
"Want a game of skate?"
And Josh, who carried a skate board, agreed.
Indie and I sat down beside their leader as we watched their game.

"How are you guys tonight?" He asked us,
"Good thanks" we replied,
And heard a little moan
The lead punk moved,
And from inside his denim jacket a puppy poked out his head.

We crooned;
"Oh he's gorgeous, what's his name?"
"Chaos."
The punk replied.
Of course.
We petted chaos on the head.

A girl punk came out from round the corner,
"It's still not out." She told him.
"What are you waiting for?" We asked.
"We ordered pizza," He said
"We're just waiting for them to stop waiting for someone to pay.
When they throw it out, we get free pizza."
We laughed, we'd never heard such a plan before.

The girl held three avocados in her hands
I asked if she'd got them from New World,
I'd been excited that they were on special this week
"No," She replied,
"I got them for free. Out of a dumpster."
"Oh."

"So, are you guys like real punks then?"
"Yeah guess you could say that." The leader said.
"We don't respect society, and they don't respect us."
"We've been crashing in abandoned houses.
Some landlord found us the other day,
But he didn't really care,
Cause we hadn't broken any windows."

Josh won the game of skate.
And we got up to leave,
"Nice to meet you guys." We said,
"Good to meet you too." They replied
"Keep safe."

I'd been trying to do something with my life,
Any ******* thing
But i've always been too easily distracted,
especially with the promise of tangible experiences,
Like the seeing of sounds and the tasting of love.
He said just come round, what's it matter anyway?
And as I could give no answer to the meaning of life,
Here i stand again.

Nineteen it is now,
Nineteen small white pills,
And they won't do much if i swallow them,
I've tried that one before.
But if i didn't know better i may well try again.
Prehaps at the end of the year,
when it will be twenty glistening childs teeth,
I could try again,
Double the dose,
Triple the dose.
Slot them into a double scoop ice cream,
Eat up all my desert,
Then allow my soul to desert my body,
Once more, on a one way flight.

I'll postpone the inevitable for now,
Its what we're all busy doing anyhow.
But i've seen more in my short life
than hollow headed women baring their *******
for just one more drink that might help forget their boredom,
And sporting young men, desperate for attention in any form it may come,
Some form of reassurance,
We're glad you're alive son, we sure are.

He sat there in an oversized jersey,
and i wished he'd let me crawl up inside it,
To sit there in his lap and cry myself to sleep,
No, No! I've had quite enough of such foolish business.
It's in the past.
But isn't it all?
The past is never really gone,
I don't trust it for a minute.
I don't trust much.

I am alone again in the dark.
I can smell the scent of my own fear.
My heart in cinders melts out from my chest,
If you were to touch me right now,
We would blend into one.
But you do not,
As you have not,
for such a long time now.
I never expected it to be fair,
But how perfect if it had been.
If our own disfigured selves were fit together,
Puzzle pieces that had gone missing suddenly found again,
Filling up the obnoxious gaps present in our lives,
Our picture completed,
leaving us in complete happiness.

She rummaged around in my soul,
as though looking for a pen in a handbag,
and i was left wondering
how words had such a power over my being.

Left drained and fulfilled
Life's intentions bloomed inside me
and at once i felt at home in a darkened room.

Do not panic,
please breathe deep,
I beg you to hold your tongue,
I too have words to speak,
   no one to listen,
       and little faith in Prophecy.

I realised why she walked so slow,
She never wanted to get anywhere.
And now I realise why you rush on past,
You never want to end up back where you were.

You fear that upon slowing down
The past would catch up to you,
Panting and hanging his head low,
Saying "It's taken me forever to find you!"
And you'd reply "Forever went too quickly."

If you keep walking in a straight line,
Holding up your head,
Eyes facing forward,
Arms swinging to keep up your pace,
And mind preoccupied by passing cars,
You won't end up back there.

Unless it's all a circle,
An unending loop,
And the faster you stride ahead,
The sooner you'll reach your end.

I still repeat words you said to me over in my head.
And now I only speak in tongues,
For few understand the ramblings of a loveless madman.

I was running,
You were chasing,
You ran out of breath,
I never realised you'd given up.

We are hopeless lovers
Distraught in worlds of unimaginable alone-ness
And I only want you.
I only want you.
And you are not here.

''I'm not convinced that I am doing it right." the little girl said,
And she tilted the glass so the insides slipped out.
The moon gazed down and shook his head,
"No, no, not at all, my dear, my sweet."
She hung her arms low, so her fingers grazed the soil.
"I'm trying, I'm trying!" the little girl moaned.
And from the dirt appeared a worm,
"Not enough, not enough." was all that she heard.

And down she fell to the ground in a heap.

The problem with bright futures
Is that they grow as dull as everything else.
They too collect dust,
Hold every speck of dirt they can find -
Until you wake one morning and realise you are trapped.

See the walls have crept closer
And the ceilings leant down to hug the floor.
But they're only there to support you,
Because they love you so,
And they do not see their embrace can crush.

Do it. Why not?
Let her down, let her fall into endless voids,
Where the sadness is deeper than all the oceans we ever knew.
You, who she picked up so bruised and broken,
Full of sad thoughts and kind smiles,
She needn't be your burden anymore
Leave her to find her own way out
Regardless of who dragged who into whose mess.
And she has been trying;
trying to remember what it was to be happy,
trying to release the heaviness,
offering exits through pierced skin,
swallowing the provided medication.
Sometimes she forgets,
forgets which pill when,
forgets to eat,
forgets to get out of her bed-fortress.
But I can tell you most solemnly,
She never forgets what it was to have you.

Now,
It's been so long,
Arms branching out to you
Fossilise waiting to be filled.

The hair on the head has grown to the knee,
Changing its colours on the way down,
Bleached by the sun,
Stolen by the clock,
Left to grey.

Could the joints still move,
- if ever they wanted to?
So long frozen in commitment.

"I'll wait." - he said.

Aiming his arrow carefully,
So the two words would pierce though all barriers,
Exploding perfectly in the heart.

Shrapnel flies everywhere.
Duck and dodge the pieces of unworthy flesh!
She left. He waited.
Waiting for the time when she'd return from looking for something better.

Your face doesn't seem to belong there,
On your head.
A child supplied with glue,
You stuck it there.
I don't believe you when you say it was always there.

And all the dimensions of the universe have changed,
reversed,
In some kind of dream land
Where nothing can be trusted
Not your face nor your voice nor your scent.

Watch out! I say
They're coming closer,
What if they can tell.
And i study your face to see if you've heard me,
Did my voice sound out, or was it just in my head?

For now my mind has no limits
It is thrown about by a misplaced equilibrium,
Which has forgotten it's own limits
It's own basis of equality.

So I take your hand in mine,
And your hand becomes me, as I become You
and we try our best to run,
Although everything conspires against us,
And we laugh in our secret escaping.

I’m not sure if it’s a suicide attempt.
It seems all too plausible that my organs are trying to commit
They jump up, far too high, and cut off my breathing
Then fall down
Gathering their weight to slam themselves into the pit of my being
And up again to crush once more down
Up, down, up, down
My heart increases its beating to catch up
My fists clench
My fingernails dig into my skin
My hair stands on end
Surely you were sent to destroy.

My soul is ancient.
And it is not mine.
In darkest reaches of my heart I am told I do not own it.
I am impermanent.
I feel interminable.
My soul reaches to those around it,
But finds little kinship.
This soul and I are locked together
Out of time and place,
We are anachronisms.
You have seen us before.

This is no longer for you,
I would like you to know that
I am no longer for you.
I paint myself over,
I paint myself white
and I am clean and new
and I am free from you.

What will the cat drag in next time?
Presenting you as a priceless treasure;
You were only painted gold.
This paint chips,
Flakes fall from your skin,
And when you walk,
A trail of false promises are left in your wake.

I was, as ever,
So eager to believe,
That perhaps you were not painted,
But true through the very whole of you.
And i am, as ever,
Proven incorrect.
Naive and stupid to believe in a false prophet,
To have hope something better lies ahead.

The cat spat you and your false colour onto the carpet.
I looked for a while before I removed you from my life.

I took paper and pen,
put them together,
and made myself a sign.
I pin it around town and wait for the call,
for a voice in the phone to tell me they'd found my missing mind.
Lost and Found!
I hope it's not been run over.

I am a shadow of what i would wish to be
and i am indecisive
I am lost to you with careful abandon
and i am alone.
I am a shadow of everything hoped for
and i disappoint.
I am not yet where i belong
and i am still searching.

Take naps during the daytime - preferably in the sun, but otherwise in bed and at best while being cuddled.
Water plants - in pots or otherwise
Stop and look at the clouds
Use their brains
Brush their teeth
Not shave for a while - just to see what it's like
Walk with a dog - preferably one you are associated with, not stolen from a stranger's backyard. Walks should be completed without the aid of a music playing device and completed in a forest for maximum effect
*Hug - anyone who seems like they need it