These dreams intrude even the most calloused mind,
Terrify the most resistant heart.
And can't you see they are searching for you!

Crumbling into your suspicious stare.
This sand filled anchor seems featherlight.

It only takes a moment,
You see,
And all is changed.

Mistakes made to not be repeated.

Once more you doll,
No more your puppet.

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.

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.

The petals of the rose you gave have all fallen off.
I didn't like to throw them away.
I spread them on the desk,
As if on purpose,
To dry them into something new.
The beauty of their life fades away.
The beauty of their death grows stronger.

My hand is cold without yours.

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.

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.

Each blade of grass is supported beneath it by a finger.

Under the ground millions of souls stand,
Arms raised,
And push up through the soil with their fingers,
Pushing a new blade of grass through the ground.

Each blade contains all the hopes and dreams,
All the longings and promises,
Of each forgotten life,
Each soul become invalid.

I should like the sea to freeze over.
Just for me,
And you,
I guess.

It'd be like glass,
Beautiful clear.

We'd walk over top,
There is no black treachery here.
Safe ice.
Loving ice.
And the softest of winds.

We'd fulfill all of life plans,
Made not to be kept.

And sitting on my blanket,
We'd picnic in the middle of the sea.

Alone in the middle of the sea.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What if nothing makes sense anymore?
I was your puppet,
Watch me move without strings.
The universe outside rejects me,
And in calling me out in my lies,
Invites me in-
Come sleep in the snow

The soft caress of night-time,
Too smooth to resist,
Creeps up slowly to confuse,
Succeeding in every way.

I will not go home.

The atmosphere pours out its soul in a letter,
Then embarrassed by its out-letting,
Rips it all to pieces,
Lets it trickle down as dust, letting it trickle down as snow.

Cover myself in the hopes of another.
Cloaked, I am safe from all I ever wished I might be.
I am hidden from my dreams.

And time continues on,
It did not ask permission.
Will you be my friend?

**** 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.

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.

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.

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.

I did not put my head on quite right this morning.
I am not straight today.

Neither horizontal,
Nor vertical.
I am curved.
I am not right.

I am crucified by the surrounding air upon my bed.
I lie and wait for you to heal me.
Touch me on the forehead and i fall into your arms.

Am i better?
Better be.
Best to be.

Pity's hard to come by in a world of people trapped within their own sad minds.

Tomorrow we'll do better.
Tomorrow we'll be fine.

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?

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.

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.

Stomp on through,
Leave acid tears and prints of blood.
It's been a sport to crush and burn and throw away.

Years of ignoring and hiding make it hard to see through the dust that's collected.

Dust, dust, clean it away.
Make me new,
That I may start again.

With poisoned needles,
Behind friendly eyes.
And a noose for a neck already hung.

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.

Every sip,
Closer to immortality.
Take my thoughts with you,
When you go.

I dream only of demise.
Yours often,
My own more frequently.
Maybe that makes me selfish.
Maybe I am.

In here I reside.
Within myself.
Block away the outside,
Slowly eroding,
Perfecting this darkness,
In which I am swallowed.

I must be crazed.
As far as my feet will wander,
My mind never drifts from you.

Not as real as once imagined,
She drifts through an eternal fog.
The visions now mean nothing.
The frog in the tree croaks low.

Lone feet meet in a windstorm of tragedy.
It was not her time to depart,
But she finds herself nowhere else but here.
And now.

Not a tear leaks.

The terrestrial globe.
The sub-aquatic orb.
I am lost.

She rambles through time,
Careless and soundless.
She folds her hands neatly,
Noiseless and motionless.

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.

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 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

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.

No, I never told you anything,
I knew you'd never hear.
Blocking it out from the lips of your lover, your trusted, you own voice as it echos in your head.

And I,
I never once said it.

Taking a needle from the haystack on your farm,
I sharpened the point to collect my thoughts at the tip.
And stitching delicately,
I sewed my lips together.
Now they'll never tell.
Never speak unwanted truths.

Yet I don't recall your vote of thanks.

This twisted environment is entirely unintended for life.
You prefer to live elsewhere -
Where you can twist it all to the extremes,
To the point where one more turn shatters all existence;
It's your favourite place to be.

The beauty being that any second,
Any movement,
May well induce that fateful collapse.

Show me the reality in that then,
Chosen Child, Barefooted Reveler, Ancient Rambler.
I cut you down.
I sew your lips.
I hold your hand.

Oh, my little one,
You have done so well.

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.

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.

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

These harmless cannibals leave no scrap.
Torn bone from seam.
They smile and warmly embrace you.

Old friend, you are opened,
And a myriad of dark constellations are revealed from within.

Perhaps you'll find some peace.

The head is splitting open,
Each side pulled apart,
A great crevice formed by the cracking.

Out they crawl and creep and slither.
All that were peacefully at rest.
Given their freedom to exit the cranium,
Enjoying their debut to this new, more solid existence.

I wouldn’t come too near if I were you,
You never know what they might do.

It's dangerous business,
What they call love.
A species of clear-line-loving animals,
blur everything into incomprehensible smudges,
when it comes to that.
That thing.
That danger.
That which will not be ignored.

I open my eyes in the darkness,
And i'm just not sure what i was wanting to see.
But i know that this black staring me in the face,
Was not all i hoped for.

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.

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.

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.