look to your left



                                                                                            look to your right





                                            looks like you’re
                                        on your own tonight

dance for me
dance like death is at your throat
she kisses it softly
fingers through your hair
your undergrowth scent

dance for me
dance like death knows all the moves
hold her hands and
sway to the music
the blaring of trumpets

dance for me
dance like death is your only friend
she kisses your forehead
fingers between your legs
the look of the devil

dance for me
dance like death waits everywhere
look for her always
crawling up your spine
licking your neckskin

dance for me
dance like death wants to *******
irresistible lips
latched on to your ****
******* your love dry

dance for me
dance like death is all you know
she will show fire
smoke in her black eyes
taking you home love

let me taste your skin,
i want to eat your sin,
give me your ivory bones,
your eyeballs like moonstones.
                                 let me taste your skin,
                                 i want to eat your sin,
                                 give me your ivory bones,
                                 your eyeballs like moonstones.
                                                         let me taste your skin,
                                                         i want to eat your sin,
                                                         give me your ivory bones,
                                                         your eyeballs like moonstones.

i am a kolossus
i am your superfluous
are you my star?
je ne sais pas

Dear mother, it’s hell here.
The trenches are full of mud and rats,
bullets whistle above our heads constantly,
and they keep dropping the bombs,
we can hardly get any sleep.
This is not war, it’s a game
rigged for both sides to lose
and no one seems to realise.

Jimmy died a couple of weeks ago,
out in no man’s land scouting the German trenches,
he got too close, they saw him,
machine-gunned him down.
Took his legs clean off above each knee.
A couple of other guys dragged him back
and when I saw him, he was still alive,
loose skin and tendons sliding through the mud.
He didn’t recognise me, too delirious.
They left in on the ground by the medical tent,
the rats taking the meat from his legs.

I miss you, mother, I miss father, too.
The farm in the valley, green fields,
the brook babbling away at the foot of the garden.
Millie singing songs about those faeries.
Nothing I miss more than the Sunday roast, though!
Fresh-cut beef, three Yorkshire puddings, thick gravy,
carrots on the side if they grew well.
They don’t have any of that here,
enough bread for a couple of sandwiches a day,
just enough cheese, butter, jam and pepper.
How can we fight when we’re all this hungry?

I have to finish up, it’s my turn in no man’s land.
Don’t know if I’ll make it back,
to the trench, never mind the farm.
I love you, mother.
I will see you soon.
I just want to come home.

I’m not a millennial so why have I started writing like one?
I asked myself that last night and now I realise;
every poem I seem to read is whining *******
about how the world seems to be out to get me,
please listen to me as I complain about being human!
Everywhere I look, existential angst riding high,
held above all else like some messianic dictatorship
demanding to be loved obediently without discrimination.
All you write is the same everyone else writes,
just fancier words, slight change in diction and emphasis,
but all the same pseudo-philosophical *******
peddled three centuries ago by a philosopher
whose name you could never quite remember.
When did originality make way for contrived nonsense?
No, no more. Ask yourself if writing helps
and answer with complete honesty as if no one can hear you.
It gave me the illusion that it helped, a friendly placebo
to place under my tongue to slowly dissolve.
If it helps, why do you keep writing, spewing trivialities
and wording them in a way to fool people into empathy?
Why don’t you write the story you always wanted to write
instead of writing for the notifications on your screen?
Why be a populist when you can be a fabulist?
Do not think for one second that you write for other people,
they don’t care about what you write,
they want to cling to a belief that what they feel is not human,
something far too profound to contemplate fully,
so they lap up every little word that conforms to their delusion.
Wake up, people. You are human, not sick.

on my ivory mantelpiece
it is perched like a broken hourglass.
day and night, unmoving,
whispering unspeakable things.
it sits watching,
no eyes.

are you my god?

it has no mouth
and yet it speaks.

                  no, i am not
                  i am more than you will ever know
            i am the aggregate of all your sorrow
                     i am your creator
                              your destructor
                                    i am all your fears
                             and all your loves
                     i am your soul
                                    and your darkness
                            your light in the dark
             and the dark that extinguishes your flame
                                     i am all that you are
                             and i am nothing at all
                                             i am a very terrible thing


darkness responds
taking my vision from me
and i bleed from my eyes
some catastrophe
afflicts my psyche
an aphrodite
my almighty
razes me like her own

the children dont get to play in the woods,
the elders forbid it.
there are monsters in those trees,
devils in the roots, former-men in the caves.
children die here like nowhere else,
crucified for punishment
and entertainment in the cold days.

the elder women make clothes
from the skin of dead children
and everyone has a full wardrobe.

they used to
hurt but now
they keep
us warm

today is the sacrifice.
the gods demand it.
all the village is here as witness,
praying and screaming.
they talk in tongues
and the elders speak
in an ancient language
brought to them by the gods.

they take the girl,
crying and afraid,
place her on the sacrificing stone
and cut her throat,
the blood collected in bowls,
passed around and drunk from.

the tanner skins the body
while everyone becomes delirious,
caught up in the customs
of imaginary beings.

her backbone will be
reinforced and given
to the boy with
the broken legs
so he may walk again.

they will feast on the flesh
once the perverts
are satiated.
nothing
ever
goes
to
waste

You are the best you there will ever be,
so ignore the *******
who try to put you down.
****** your knuckles,
get it under your nails
and fight the good fight.
Get off your ****
and kick some instead.
You won’t win them all
but life’s **** like that sometimes,
******* will *****,
******* will bite,
******* will drag you through the dirt,
but rise up and face them,
you phenomenal creature,
you warrior queen,
you man of the earth.
Pick up your spirit
and with head held high,
fight back with your words,
fight back with your heart,
fight back with your soul,
tear the ******* apart.

To be calm again in a world so chaotic,
to live slow amongst lives so hectic,
to kiss a girl under mistletoe,
but still I have some years to go.

Dance beneath captivating starlight,
with a soul not afraid of night,
a face that shines like a desert sun,
but still my life has not begun.

An hour to pass like a fleeting moment,
to live each day without atonement,
and feel the wind beneath these wings,
but still my voice has yet to sing.

Mountains crumble in our presence,
new meanings form from your eloquence,
the world transfixed by your hypnosis,
but still the pain from my neurosis.

To dream in colour and latent scents,
to predict the outcomes of love’s events,
to pluck a star from the sky for you,
but still that is much too hard to do.

To lie with you ‘neath azure sky,
to make you laugh until you cry,
and be the best man I can be,
but still I cannot overcome me.

A hand to hold in my time of dying,
a voice to forgive my chronic lying,
a heart to guide me when I falter,
but still I cannot wait to meet her.

I want to explore each and every contour of your body,
drive your thousands of roads and meet every face,
take kindness from every city and beautiful stranger,
dine in your hospitality and live like a king again.
I want to colour the map with my own stories,
the names and faces of those I shared them with,
hike a mountain trail and watch a Crescent City sunrise,
get lost in the Idaho forests and kayak the Colorado River,
walk down Broadway at midnight with Miss America by my side,
take her to Great Basin and watch the stars for a night,
go to Vegas and make a fortune at the tables.
People say the American Dream died long ago,
but my dream is as vivid as it has ever been.

Depression is a horrible little creature
that sits in your brains and eats away
all the bits of you that make you feel good.
It ***** out all the colours of your memories
and even turns your most beautiful dreams greyscale.
When you are alone and all about you is dark,
that is where it comes knocking at your door,
inviting itself in and sharing horrible stories with you,
about how you aren’t worth anything in this world,
about everything you love will leave you in time,
about how you don’t know yourself anymore.

You can fight it though, but it will drain you,
you just need to find someone who will listen
and not judge you for being broken and afraid.
I don’t have anyone who does that for me
so I just write, and I keep writing **** down,
to the point where it will annoy people
but I don’t care because this is my outlet,
my therapy, my paltry little coping mechanism.
I’m drowning, but no one can see me struggle.

Depression is feeling like you’ve lost someone
then realizing that you lost yourself,
but there are people out there who can help find it.
Maybe you are one of them, drawn to these words,
suddenly realising you are not the only one,
because that’s why you read poetry, isn’t it?
To connect to the words of another human being,
being able to tell friends it isn’t just you,
there are millions just like you, but you don’t realise,
depression doesn’t allow you to connect.

I don’t write because I can, I write because I need to,
to let things out into the open and hope I help someone,
and when they reply and tell me they feel the same,
whether they realise it or not, they help me, too.
Acknowledgment that my writing is not in vain
is the greatest feeling in the world right now,
and even if you don’t realise, it is probably yours, too.
Why else would you open up so much
if not to have people tell you how good you are at something?
So, this one is for you, my readers, whoever you are,
wherever you call home, whatever you do to cope.
I am not here just as a writer,
I am here also as counsel, I want to help,
to dance amongst your verbs and adjectives,
to let you know, even if you don’t entirely believe it,
that you are not the only one with a cross to bear.

A broken-down car in the middle of a desert
is not something I considered.
I know I passed a gas station not long ago,
no more than a mile or so.
So, I must walk along a quiet highway
in an early afternoon Nevada desert
with just myself for company
and no water to drink.

Ten minutes in, I spot a vulture
perched atop a telegraph pole.
He stares at me, his head slowly moving
to follow me as I pass.
I stop and his head stops,
I move again, so does his head.
Standing still again, I stare him down
but he doesn’t flinch,
I don’t think he even blinks.

I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here,
but I cannot stop staring at the vulture.
It’s like he’s controlling me,
or is it the company that makes me stay?
I can feel the thirst creeping in
like a slow poison from a wasp sting,
but I can’t tell my legs to move,
staring at this vulture staring back at me.
Then the vulture shrieks, and I shriek,
and he just falls to the ground, dead.

I run the last half mile to the gas station,
buy some fuel in a can
and a large bottle of water,
and run back to the car,
not even glancing at the vulture as I go past.
I don’t know why it freaked me out,
maybe whatever killed it could **** me,
or just seeing how quickly life can end.
Maybe I felt the companionship break
and I realised how alone I was out here.
Who knows, maybe it was the death ray
from the spaceship that flew above our heads
that I didn’t notice because I was too busy
trying to stare down a ******* bird.

As I fill my car, I notice I have two shadows,
one stationary, the other shimmering
like a mirage of water on a hot road.
It’s a lot brighter out here now, too
Fear grips me and I dare not look up
as I feel my feet lift up off the ground.

Here I stand,
shouting at the sky,
waiting for an answer,
nothing, not even an echo
echo of my anger.
Oh whywhywhyWyoming
do I still sing
at the sky?

Lake Red Rock in the winter,
what look like waves frozen on the shore,
the bare trees look like the old hands of the earth
trying to scratch scars in the heavens.
It’s quiet here, even the water is silent,
not even the whisperings of the dead
can be picked up amongst these trees.
The path cuts through them in a straight line,
but the sun set half an hour ago
and I can’t make out where the path leads.
A good metaphor for life, I think to myself,
noticing I’ve begun tiptoeing for some reason,
maybe the shock of my footfalls will wake
whatever monsters my overactive mind
has created beneath the twisted trunks
of trees that have been dead for years.
There is nothing here for me to fear,
just silence and all its consequences.

I built a wall so high, no one could see in,
the loneliness protected others
from the man I am.
I fail to love because love fails me,
good **** doesn’t happen
to those I care for the most.
I am a machine who feels rejected,
cast away from the light.
I push people away
because I can’t stand who I am,
what I have done with my life,
the people I have hurt.
I refused to let anyone in,
but then you hold my hand
and in you came, too late.
At least I can say
this is what it feels like.

I can feel the riptide of my blaggard blackheart
drag me soulless to an ocean current
that whisks me away without explanation
and you wave from the shore
on sand that used to be yellow,
under a sky that used to be blue
and I wonder where all the ******* colour went,

as I spin in an eddy and everything’s blurry
and I can’t tell where you are anymore
and I try to hold my head above the water
but the surface tension breaks
and it’s so cold and dark in here,
filling my lungs with ice and fire

and still I spin around and around
all the way to the bottom,
walking on seashells as the current
tries to push me somewhere else
but I must overcome and try to push back
but it pushes back harder
and harder I try to push it back
but harder it pushes back at me
so I push harder and harder I push
and it pushes harder and harder it pushes

and I realise that this is my life
and it’s all a dream and I wake
in a sweat from the bottom of the sea
and my room looks the same
and there’s colour and life
except for my blackheart,
that blaggard is mine.

If you would create something,
you must be something.

The poet sits at his desk, his head empty of stories,
the inkwell running dry and the quill motionless.
He used to write about heroes on deadly quests,
rescuing stranded maidens from castles and forests,
always slaying a dragon or two along the way,
but heroes are surprisingly hard to come by these days.
He must adapt to the shifting paradigms in his culture,
all the heroic stories have been lapped up and forgotten,
now people demand some originality in their reading.

He scratches his head and muses on a dream he had,
an actor in a play suddenly consumed by stage fright,
freezes mid-performance as the crowd grows confused.
The audience mutter amongst themselves if this is part of the performance
but those who have been before assure them this is something new.
The actor is covered in flop sweat and his mouth quivers,
anticipating his next line but time is escaping him.
As audience members begin to stand up and shout at the actor,
the memory of the dream fades away and the story goes unfinished.

The poet slams his hand on his desk, knocking the quill to the floor.
He slams his hand down again and the blank piece of paper
sticks to his hand and he cannot shake the thing off.
A moth flies in through the window and attacks the candle flame,
burning its wings and shedding its dust upon his desk.
He thinks maybe he should write about this evening,
the lack of inspiration and a fight with a leaf of paper,
but no one wants to hear a story about that,
the readers demand action and intrigue and mystery,
all of which is lacking for this poet at his desk.

Men’s best successes
come after their disappointments.

We lay on the roof of my car under the sun,
the heat was intense but we were
too much in love to feel anything else.
Two hours we lay there, didn’t say a word,
just watched that blue ocean above us
crystallise into a twilit canopy.
Clouds shapeshifted into deep memories
neither of us could quite recall,
the lingering sense of familiarity
clouded by all that had happened since.
We both spotted one like Oregon
and she squealed when she saw it,
remembering her home once more,
her first performance of Shanghaied in Astoria,
her parents so proud of her,
she so **** proud of herself.
Always the actress, playing a part
that someone else needed for a while,
then the next job would come along
and she would fill a new role.

I lie on the roof of my car under the sun,
the heat is intense and I climb back down.
I look for Oregon in the sky but craning my neck
makes it hurt, so I look down at the ground,
at the dust and the stones
and the stars that slowly lose their twinkle.
I jump in my car, the passenger seat empty,
and find a new world to discover.

The bell rings, signalling dinner
and you all rush to the table,
sitting where your name is written
in front of an origami swan.
Eight of you sitting face-to-face,
and at the head of the table,
Time herself, in all her glory,
dining on the bones of the dead.

You all share compelling stories
from your own experience;
no tall-tales allowed tonight.
All stories follow the same theme,
how you don’t love anymore,
last broken heart I’ll have,
and Time herself, held in rapture,
dining on the bones of the dead.

You are all told to unfold
your origami swan and read
to yourself what has been written for you.
Don’t let anyone else peek.
Time herself wrote them,
taking great care and effort
to make no mistakes whatsoever,
and Time herself, in a shroud of light,
dining on the bones of the dead.

You will be ****** and plucked
and served as main courses
for the next diners due.
You will submit to her will
and her whimsy desires,
she always gets what she wants,
and Time herself, full and tired,
dining on the bones of the dead.

I look up
at the stars,
and sometimes I
think of all
the parallel
universes and
hope to ****
I’m doing better in
one
of them.

I’ve been walking this road for hours now,
heat from the dark sun burning the back of my neck.
I don’t know how or why I survived, but I did,
the universe perhaps playing a little joke on me,
let them all **** themselves but keep this one alive,
let me see what he does all on his own.

People always seemed alien to me,
especially the ones in power, the ones who controlled the triggers
and all the buttons that could send missiles halfway around the world.
What must that feel like, all that power?
However it felt, it wasn’t good for the rest of us.
As far as I’m concerned, I am the last one alive,
trying to tune radios on to different channels proved fruitless,
the entire electrical grid was damaged beyond repair.
Whoever else may be alive, they had no way of communicating.

I reach a diner and gather up food and other supplies.
I have no idea how long it’s been since the wars ended,
there’s been little way in being able to count the days,
but I reckon it’s been a few years now,
my beard has grown from stubble to now reaching my chest.
That’s my calendar, a beard that rarely gets washed.
I had read lots of books and seen lots of films
about how the future might pan out if everyone went mental,
and Cormac McCarthy came closest, I think.

It’s incredibly lonely here, haven’t seen another live person
since the wars ended, everyone panicked and fled to higher ground
but the world didn’t get flooded by water,
it was nuclear pollution that did everyone in
and hiding on a mountaintop wouldn’t protect you from the toxic air.
Every day, I walk past dozens of bodies, mostly skeletons,
some still have vestiges of flesh clinging on,
what’s left of the crows picking away at the last morsels.

My backpack is filled mostly with bottled water,
food I only really eat when I visit diners or motels.
What I didn’t get in those post-apocalyptic stories
was why all the survivors seemed to sleep outside
when all the hotels and houses had perfectly good beds.
I stayed at the Ritz in New York a while ago,
spent a few days living like a king ruling over
some small country that only existed in a history book.
I had no subjects to rule dominion over,
just myself role-playing a fantasy in my head.

But I have freedom now like no one else has ever had,
I can truly do whatever I want to do, no repercussions
except for an occasional nagging voice in my head
reminding me that I should feel guilty for taking that skeleton’s shoes.
Yeah, I have freedom, but it seems like an illusion,
having to write my story down in a little girl’s diary
that I found in a bedroom a few weeks or so ago.
I tore out all the pages that she had written in
because it was so difficult seeing her writing,
trying in her own way to come to terms with what was happening.
She didn’t have a clue, just like billions of others.

Right now, I’m heading into Pittsburgh,
somewhere I haven’t been before and probably won’t return to.
The blue of the sky is a lot darker than before the wars,
all the clouds are orange and brown, and fog smells like death.
Thankfully, it’s nice just now, and the heat has died down.
I pick a large suburban house with a big yard
and gather some paper and card from around the house
and build a little bonfire in the garden to cook with.
Everything I eat now comes in a can,
except for the odd berry I spy when I travel,
but because of the radiation, I can’t eat too many.

My cough is bad tonight, but there’s still no blood.
I’m sitting at a desk by a window in the master bedroom,
watching the last of my fire die away,
flying embers like tiny angels, the briefest of lives.
Some nights like this, I wonder why I don’t just give up too,
I’m fighting a losing battle here; I know how it will end.

I’ve just seen smoke, coming from another neighborhood,
snaking up into the dark sky.
It’s no more than a mile away, but I can’t go tonight,
I’m too tired from the walk today.
I need to sleep.
I need to investigate.
I need to sleep.

Idaho, above her, mistletoe,
she had to stand up on her tiptoes
to kiss.
The mountains look so far away now
and the lights from the next town
look too dim.

Days and nights are getting longer
as I lay here getting no stronger
to fight.
Can I make one final request?
To feel your heart beat in your chest
one last time?

These old eyes are getting heavy,
this time I know I am ready
to die.
You can wrap me up in paper
and tell me you will see me later
as I die.

Idaho, give me one last something,
words to let this voice sing
one last time.
Idaho and I don’t care
when I saw your jealous glare
as I died.

The only friend who shared your bed
was the one who held your head
as you died.
The only friend you ever had
was the one who held your hand
as you died.

I stop at the castle and marvel at the centuries of history
consigned to a ruin, the ghost of architecture,
and I realise that I only have decades
and when I go, I will leave no ruin for people to see,
for people to know that so many things happened here,
that I lived and conquered and died the good fight.
There will be no stories written about me,
no poem written by a lost passer-by
who has stories of his own to write
but with no direction in which to travel.

The dungeon is dark and I imagine all the suffering
that took place here, but my suffering has no coordinates,
no determinable point to travel to,
no signpost showing the way.
At least the souls who ended up here had a location
for people in the future to know they were here,
even if their names and faces and lives have been forgotten.
It’s dark and quiet in here, such a difference from long ago.

The castle stands utterly alone as the deep sky
pushes down and chokes what’s left of the life out of it,
leaving behind a construction deconstructed.
It had stories I will never have,
it had bastions and bartizans and brattices
to defend itself from invaders.
I had a broken brain and a ******* pen,
no wonder I suffered,
no wonder no one remembers.

My only ruin is the body I inhabit,
but that will decay and vanish into the earth
long before the castle ever goes.
My monument is my future, what I do from now,
the lives I will connect with,
the hearts I will make whole
and the hearts I will break.
That will be my castle if I so choose,
but a castle is never meant to be lived in alone.

Look in the mirror.
Look at that vacant stare.
Love everlasting.
Currently fasting.
Dream of salvation.
Killed by discretion.
Sing at the moon.
Sunrise too soon.
Swim in the starlight.
Holding you so tight.
Dream of a forest.
Dream you’re the tallest.

Hold me again, love.
Mountains loom high above.
Dance with me now.
Show me again how.
Sleep on the sofa.
Creeping closer.
Night-time desires.
Starting forest fires.
Cry for an hour.
Let it blow over.

Sing with your heart.
Sing us apart.
Hold your notes long.
At the end of the song.
Start it again.
Until the end.
Breathe into me.
Insecurities.
The sparkle shines.
In your precious eyes.

Come lay beside me.
I’ll sing your lullaby.
Hearts everlasting.
Fed up with fasting.
Stare at the stars.
Never too far.
Name one for you.
Call me a fool.
Say it together.
Say it forever.

I am the person you know who is plagued by bad luck,
the one whose universe fights to make him miserable,
the down-on-his-luck altar to an unknown god.
I don’t know who you are or what you do
but I know you don’t care about what happens to me,
we are strangers clinging on to foreign ideals,
writing words that have lost all meaning.

You thought you invited me over out of your own volition
but I was just drawn by the light of a happier place.
Every time I go past your home, nothing but darkness,
barely a memory has lingered since you left,
too busy chasing comets through the cosmos
to worry about a silly little creature like me.
I might invite myself to your eternity,
drawn by the light of your supernova soul.

I want to feel love, if only for a little while,
experience all its consequences,
night-time paranoia and daytime dances.
I want to feel real love for a moment or two,
the breath of her words,
hot and heavy on my burning worlds.
I want to feel something different for a change,
a love that never goes too soon,
a broken laugh not blamed on a violent moon.
I want to live like a king for a day,
good morning my people,
no apologies for thinking of evil.
I want to feel love, that rarest of things,
so I can sleep well tonight,
and welcome in the coming daylight.
If only for a little while.
If only for a little while.

You sit by the window watching nature be nature,
silhouetted against the sunlight raining in.
You appear as nothing but a shadow
but my mind slowly with care, starts to colour you in,
hair the colour of hay and barley, scarlet streaks,
skin the colour of balsa wood,
a dress of burgundy hugging your figure,
your feet bare, making circles in the air.
I whisper your name without thinking
and you turn to face me, smiling,
wondering why I said your name.
I can’t come up with an answer and you laugh,
something so delicate, so fragile,
that I thought it would shatter before it reached me.

Now…
now you’re sitting somewhere else,
somewhere I can’t see but you’ll be back tomorrow,
You’ll be back with more stories
and I will listen to each and every word
as they roll off the tip of your tongue
and journey to my ever-receiving ears.
You’ll tell me of Arizona and a phoenix in the desert,
how the heat gave you intense sunburn
and now your shoulders are starting to peel.
You’d go back, constantly looking to explore.

You are someone who makes her own maps,
draws in new boundaries and new sights,
offers stories instead of facts and figures,
people’s faces instead of country’s names.
Pointing to a blank part of the map,
you’d tell me that this is where your next story will be,
and I fall in love with your passion,
but I don’t travel so I can’t write stories,
so instead I will write about you.

A different sky unfolds itself,
this one dark and full of stars,
the blue making way to red
making way to black,
and I am still awake,
finding new constellations
that tell new stories.
One I name for you,
whoever you may be,
hoping you name one for me,
whoever I may be,
and I am still awake
as the black makes way for red
that makes way for blue.

I ran down the stairs faster than the laws of nature allowed
and ended up tumbling down most of them,
but when you come face to face with a demon such as that
you cannot help but propel yourself full force in the opposite direction.
Limping from a sore knee, I ventured into the jungle once more,
branches scratching at my face and snagging my ankles
as I tried to run beneath the giant limbs of ancient trees
and the antiquity and vastness of a starless black sky.
There were sounds behind me but I did not if they were echoes
calling back for me to tread along the same path
or that creature fed up of his game, baying for my blood.

I wonder then if the natives knew of this creature,
if the beast had promised to leave them alone for a while
so he could ravage these peculiar animals from beyond the sea.
The natives could not speak my language and me theirs,
but some rudimentary picture drawn in the white sand
would have been enough to get back on that ship and find somewhere new.
Dimly lit, the faint shape of the path had all but vanished,
leaving me to run blind through a land I had never explored,
thoroughly alone with nothing but a nightmare for company.

It appeared in front of me, a mirage at first but suddenly solid,
taking me by surprise as I veered right, though the undergrowth,
foreign plants with giant leaves swatting at my bare legs.
I could feel welts rise up on the skin of my calves
but panic had taken over, steering me betwixt trees,
lianas trying to grab my throat and choke the life from me.
Instinct grabbed a hold my reins and forced me to stop,
not a second too soon, the ground giving way to a steep drop,
hundreds of feet down, to a new kind of landscape, utter darkness.
I could feel its breath tickle the hairs on my nape,
could feel its teeth cleave the clammy air in two,
could feel its tongue lick my scent from the moisture.

I ju   m        p              e                      d
and lay in mid-air in the foetal position, motionless,
with just the vague sensation of pain in my neck,
holes along each side making the air whistle as I flew.
Another sensation became apparent, one where
it felt
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I opened my eyes but there was nothing, no trees or earth
speeding past me to give me closure that I was indeed falling.
I spun round to where I presumed was down and an orange glow
began to materialise slowly from that great void.
Still falling, I thought, as the glow began to brighten more and more
and soon I was tumbling through deep orange clouds of smoke and ash
and as I broke through them, I saw a landscape of red rock
and molten rivers of volcanic origin flowing into steaming dark seas.
A city in the distance loomed large, covered in a thick smog,
the chimney of a factory poking out of the top,
pumping more dark smoke into the atmosphere.
Then I fell into a trance where I stood within that factory,
opening my arms wide like a Messiah praying eternal thanks.

He looked around the trail, trees stretching into darkness on all sides.
He was bored of it all, hiking endlessly, going nowhere,
people vacant like he was on another planet,
ruled by things that were alive but did nothing worth looking at.
At least the sacrifice was over,
she’s been left for dead, covered in goats’ blood,
pentagram carved with precision into her chest.
A thousand years ago, he would have needed a ******
but nowadays they’re as rare as blue moons,
so what did it matter if she was one further away from virginity?

Blame it on the devil’s lies
Blame it on the word of God
Tell me what the difference is, babe
I’ll crucify myself in your stead.

He heard rushing feet, snapping branches, panicked breath.
Out of the trees fifty yards in front of him
she came bounding out into the middle of the path,
covered in something else’s blood.
Their eyes met.
He stood still.
She stood still.
He began to slowly walk towards her
but she was frozen in place,
a monument to slavery.
He stopped when his toes touched hers,
their noses almost touching at the tips.

Blame it on the devil’s lies
Blame it on the word of God
Tell me what the difference is, babe
I’ll crucify myself in your stead

Oregon had always been quiet this time of year,
midwinter with the chilly mountain air
breathing down towards the sea,
the frost dragon waking from her summer hibernation.
He had always heard voices commanding him to do evil,
stretching back thousands of years,
every wicked sin granting him another decade of life.
He has accumulated quite a few decades,
he’s a slave to his job but he’s very good at it.
In a diner a week later, the local news came on;
three hikers find the mutilated body of a woman,
ankles bound by rope, hanging upside down from a tree limb,
wrists bound my rope to two tree trunks either side of the trail,
inverted crucifixion.
The man who hears voices laughs at a joke no one else heard.

Blame it on the devil’s lies
Blame it on the word of God
Tell me what the difference is, babe
I’ll crucify myself in your stead

I lost my heart while walking down a Louisiana street,
a hurricane pounded hard against my heavy chest.
You found my hand when I thought we would never meet.

It came so fast, so soon but somehow so discreet,
my eyes widened, hands clenched, cardiac arrest.
I lost my heart while walking down a Louisiana street.

My legs began to shake at the intensity of the heat,
thought lost in a city whose name I never knew, lest
you found my hand when I thought we would never meet.

If I had thought you someone else, I would have made a retreat,
but I grew calm and my world slowed down at your request.
I lost my heart while walking down a Louisiana street.

My memories of a former love grew more incomplete,
the feelings I had for her were always unexpressed.
You found my hand when I thought we would never meet.

Yet my time there in the deep South was so bittersweet,
as you faded away in the crowd, your image had regressed.
I lost my heart while walking down a Louisiana street;
you found my hand when I thought we would never meet.

The water was so *****, I couldn’t see the stones sink to the bottom,
but I knew they did, stones always sank, like hearts but more often.
By this river I know so well, I watch as the water flows to the sea
like so many lives that have come and gone without leaving a mark.
Lives don’t leave valleys like rivers do, they stay until something bigger
comes rushing in, landscapes almost always unchanging and true,
just every now and again a life comes flooding into your own
and you can’t help but marvel at how much that life changed your valley,
now there’s so much more room for you to grow and cultivate,
even long after that life that carved your home has left and died.

By that great river with the castle overlooking my domain,
I wonder who made my valley bigger, which nameless face
that has graced my life allowed me such room to grow.
The valley exists, so that means she has already passed by,
maybe I have missed her, not realising who she was
and how much of an impact she would have on my landscape,
now gone, leaving behind a shadow of a scent,
a vague sense of awareness of having been watched but now no longer.
Come back to me so I can at least give you thanks,
come back to me so at least I can see the face of you.

After days in the jungle, I came upon a tower,
black as darkness, ivy creeping up its walls.
It smelled of thousands of years-worth of death
and turned my stomach in knots from the energy it gave off.
Someone stood by the door, wearing a brown gown,
hooded so I couldn’t see his face for the shadow.
He held a staff carved from ebony wood,
the handle crafted from gold bought in the Orient,
the foot covered in rubber from the Malay lands.

I approached with caution knowing this man meant no good,
an ill omen for sure, the only kind that dwells in these places.
The wind gusted at my back, forcing my march to quicken,
growling at me for delaying what seemed inevitable.
This is a land of horror; I knew before I left home,
but the promise of riches and freedom consumed me,
my all-too-human greed getting the better of me.
There was nothing here for me, but I was too far gone.

That horrific creature never took chase when I fled the ship,
instead, he stayed aboard, dining on my friends.
I looked back now and again, making sure he stayed,
and I wished I had not, seeing the flesh fly, bouncing off the sails,
the arm of my neighbour entwined by one of the ropes.
The man in the gown grabbed my shoulders hard,
pulling me out of my memories and back to the tower,
rising like a monolith to some old forgotten gods.

I followed him inside, the base of the tower as dark as death,
the flame on the wall doing little to combat the slimy black,
but doing just enough to illuminate the first few steps
of a spiralling staircase ascending into god-knows-where.
The man in the gown draped a wet cloth on the top of his staff
and lit it on the fire on the wall and gave it to me.
As I took it, he told me to climb in a voice I had heard before,
the voice of the creature that attacked and killed my friends.

Up I climbed, the man in the robe close behind me,
whispering incantations to a god that hid in darkness,
a god that lay in wait at the denouement of these stairs,
a god that chose me for something I could not fathom.
The shadows the fire cast kept me on edge,
sometimes I would gasp for breath when one moved too quick,
too unnatural to be caused just by my dancing fire.

The stairs ended in a rotten oak door with iron brackets,
a handle of brass and a peephole like an old man’s eye,
a cloud of cataracts caused by years of neglect,
like that eye had seen too much and was better off unseeing.
The door opened slowly without any interaction from me,
a blast of wind blowing out the flame on the staff.
The man in the robe grabbed it from my hands
and with a swift kick to my backside, I stumbled through the doorway.
I could hear his footsteps rush back down as the door closed,
creaking a presage until my only exit had shut.
The smell of its breath invading my nostrils and clung to my eyes,
as its own eyes blinked out from the dark like fiery orbs,
its teeth blinding white with speckled blood by the gum line.
It laughed at me, and I knew I was just a game to it,
for it spoke only four words and those words followed me,
from the ship, along the beach and through this jungle deep.
It looked me straight in the eyes and once again those words,
Run, it said.
I am hungry, it said.

This is where we first met, on a blank page slowly filled with ink.
I wrote my words with you on my mind
and you read them with a peculiar style and grace,
as if reading were some soporific artform,
elbow on table, hand on temple, hunched forward,
leaning towards the paper as if the words
somehow became smaller the more you concentrated.
The first time I watched you read, you looked like a painting,
my hand slowly drawing brushstrokes in the air,
swiping your hair, blotting your cheeks, unfolding your eyes.

This is where we last met, an inked sheet washed clean with holy water.
Like shaking a Polaroid, you slowly appeared
but your image faded until just the outline remained.
I was only ever interested in what lay within that line,
the shape of your heart, the light in your eyes,
the soft glint of dew on your eyelashes when you were in pain.
A prophet came to me and told me he could resurrect you
but I saw there was no ink left in his pen,
his pencil blunt and his image of you was blurry,
seeing you through the cataracts of someone else’s memories.

This is not the time in history to be raising the dead,
they belong where they belong because that’s where they need to be.
My words would mean nothing if you were here,
reading in that manner I wrote about so much.
This is the table where I write your name out of nothing.
This is where we first met, a blank page slowly filled with ink.

I’m lost in my thoughts, utterly alone,
staring at those huge peaks clawing at the heavens.
This little homestead dwarfed by those mountains.
I feel small here, this country is vast
and there’s no one here, another planet
victorious in making a more beautiful Earth
without vile creatures poisoning it.
The air is fresh and smells of primroses
and ozone from a distant thunderstorm
behind me across the plains.
This must be a dream, I think to myself,
but I’m too afraid to pinch my arm,
just in case I’m right.

At the Jenny Lake overlook, the mountains looming
as I sit by the water so still,
reflecting the mountains so well
that I can’t tell up from down.
The smell of the pines overwhelms me
and I wade into that cool water
as an eagle whistles into a valley,
the mountains whistling back
and I whistle too, caught in the moment.
The others on the shore whistle too,
and I swear the dozen of us were infinite.

Eastbound sundown on the I-84, the sun in my mirrors.
I imagine standing on the beach in Klamath
watching it say good morning to the other side of the world
with the girl of my dreams cradled in my arms asleep.
But the land here is different, the grass is dead
and that girl doesn’t escape my thoughts.
She stays in there, waiting for me to fall asleep
so I can hold her again in the darkness for a few minutes.

Pocatello to the left, Ogden to the right,
where is it I should go tonight?
I heard of an Aberdeen near here, a home away from home.
Maybe it looks the same as the Aberdeen I know.
I move into the left lane, the fast one if you’d believe,
because here in America everything’s the wrong way around.
Last chance now to change my mind, final call for Ogden.
The slip-road passes by me and joins another highway
that seems to ascend into the horizon and disappear completely.

The landscape here is unbearably flat,
I feel myself longing for just the slightest rise or fall,
let myself feel the curvature of the world ever so slightly.
There is a hill on my right that looks just like my Bennachie,
rising sharply to a peak then slowly flattening out
until it joins the inescapable flatness of this country.
Raft River, American Falls, Pocatello,
fourteen, thirty-seven, fifty-eight.
Many miles to go before I can sleep,
many more miles to go until I am home.
Sixteen miles just to the next rest area.

I wanted to drive around Raft River
but I couldn’t see it from the road
and I didn’t know how far it was to Aberdeen.
What looked like a diner was by the road on the right.
The dust swirled up around the solitary pickup parked outside,
the owner looking like the guy in Nighthawks with his back to me.
There was no fancy couple there,
just him on his lonesome in Idaho alone.

Exit 36 points me in the direction of American Falls and Rockland.
This was where I was told to turn off at.
The slip road rose up towards the next road, and it felt wonderful,
finally feeling like I was actually going somewhere,
The signpost at the top of the rise
shows me the way to go to Aberdeen.
Left I go, to American Falls.

Through the city I drove, trailers and bungalows together.
There were big trees in the front and back yards
but they were not too dense that they looked unseemly,
in fact, they added character and life in this place.
A cat darted across the road, waking me up,
warning me not to keep my eyes off the road too much.

The end of the road, stop sign, no others giving me direction.
To the left, the road went around another corner
to go back in the direction I came from.
I took to the right and followed the road,
trees and houses on my right, wasteland to my left.
I went over a crossroads and stopped at the next,
exasperated at the lack of signposts.
I parked next to a long bungalow
with a red-painted ramp going up to the door.
An old woman wearing an apron covered in flour answered,
and she found my accent pleasing
when I asked her the directions to Aberdeen.
She offered me a cookie, and I accepted,
I hadn’t had food since I left Oregon
even though she said I was not far from Aberdeen.

We said our goodbyes and I turned left,
continuing on a road that curved to the right
and through a well-manicured little park.
It was unusual seeing grass this green,
having been offered greys and yellows
for most of my journey in Idaho.
I turned left at the police station then left again.
A large body of water, Snake River I think it was called.
It’s hard to call it a river, more like a lake,
the water the same shade as the lochs back home.

After a few miles, I make it to Aberdeen,
the signpost informing me the population is just over a thousand.
I have a feeling this Aberdeen will be different to mine.
The houses here are so small, but they have good gardens.
There is a warehouse with potatoes inside it.
I am a long way from home tonight.
I can’t find a motel, so I stop at a bungalow covered in windows.
A ***** gold pickup sits outside.
I knock on the front door, which is on the side,
because this is America and everything’s the wrong way around,
and a middle-aged man wearing a mullet
and a Phish tank top answers.
He invites me in and says I can stay as long as I need,
offering me food and beer and company.
They people here are nice, much friendlier than the old Aberdeen.
I like this new Aberdeen, it feels like a home already.

I dreamed well that night, the girl in my arms,
sitting by Snake River, watching it flow,
carrying away all my troubles.

On the other side of an ocean blue,
people celebrating, that’s true,
of independence from my lands,
ancestors killed by my ancestor’s hands.
They sing songs of ****** glory,
stories told, allegories.
Flags unfurled, fluttering high.
Sunset, a red, white and blue sky.

Look up, that’s where you’ll find yourself,
holding hands with the stars and breathing with eternity,
the moon haloing your head and comets in your hair.
You are the dust of this earth, the fire of suns,
a gift of a universe unique, starlight your reflection.
Here is where you were born, a song on your breath
and words to your voice, fire in your heart
and whimsy in your head, dreams of a good life
and the reality of one, the best prophesy fulfilled.
Look up, that’s where you’ll find yourself,
holding hands with the stars and dancing in the darkness.

In her final moments, prostrate on the bed,
she imagined herself flying through the stars,
an intergalactic explorer, discovering new planets
and naming new creatures never before seen.
She stops at a small blue marvel,
flooded with water full of strange fish.
She can’t be sure if this is the home she knew
or the home she will come to know
but she finds it beautiful and tranquil.

In the distance, she sees a giant red star.
During her flight there, she feels a sadness,
as if her body is finally cutting away her tethers
and she is now less attached to it,
the freedom of exploring the universe at her leisure
tainted by the fact she is all alone out here.
She always believed a journey was not worth making alone,
it just wasn’t the same without someone to share the wonder with.
Out here, in the cold darkness of space,
the loneliness speared her heart.

The red star bulged at its equator ready to burst any moment.
Dark spots swirled and danced together on its surface,
growing and cooling and shrinking and disappearing,
new ones soon to take their places.
She flew around to the other side and saw herself,
stretched across the entire surface of the star,
lying on her bed, barely holding on,
wires with clear fluid and blood flowing through them.
In the image, her eyes flickered open slightly.
The star shrunk to a tiny point of light
then exploding in brilliant whiteness…

…gasping for breath as her eyes opened wide,
the bright light above her burning her eyes.
She was all alone in her room,
just a machine beeping frantically.
She was back in her own universe,
all alone with no one to share her journey with.
She cried herself to sleep that night,
her right hand holding her left
and she dreamed of a star exploding,
giving birth to a new her.

Just where did your black heart go?
I look for it in cupboards, it is not there.
I listen for it in the wind
and hope it beats inside my walls.
It is not here,
it is not there,
it is not anywhere.

The ship docked on the small jetty by a beach of white sand
lining the front of a jungle full of horrid noises and every shade of green.
There were a few huts that had been constructed by the natives
in anticipation of our arrival in this hot new land.
We were informed by the ship’s captain that they had been paid
with small gold coins that they would likely trade with other natives
for exotic fruits and sharper weapons and a few weeks’ peace.

The first night was a struggle, the air was as stifling during the day
and I don’t think any one of us managed much sleep.
The morning came as cold comfort as the sun blazed unobstructed,
beating relentlessly on our heads, feeling much closer than it did back home.
Gloria Noone, a middle-aged woman who had boarded in Cork,
had a look of perpetual fear on her face, the look of someone
who had experienced nothing but ultimate terror during the night,
and I had assumed it was just because of a lack of sleep,
but she soon informed us of something far more sinister than dreamlessness.

After a couple of hours of nocturnal turnings and curses,
she left her hut during the night and walked along the beach,
away from the jetty and out of our makeshift village.
Not long out of the village, she had the unnerving sense of being watched
and expecting to see a native by the jungle’s edge
she looked towards the mass of trees and saw horror.
An unearthly creature stared back at her, she told us.
All black fur glinting in the moonlight, teeth as large as great knives.
She swears it spoke to her, in English, repeating her name
with a deep, gruff voice that seemed to come from the whole jungle.
She ran back to her hut, silently, terror paralysing her voice.

Gloria stayed in another hut owned by a couple who had an extra bed
due to their only child dying of disease just before we set sail.
I could not sleep, as I assumed correctly that others could not either
because when I left my hut in the night, others were on the beach.
A man called Ivor, a giant from Cardiff, called me over
and said that he and a couple of others would walk down the beach
to where Gloria had spotted the creature and they would wait for it.
He invited me and I agreed, four of us leaving the village behind.
Ivor, Daniel the ship’s captain, Robert, a forester from York and myself,
a former teacher from a small village not far from Edinburgh,
sat down on the sand in silence waiting for horror to arrive.

We did not have to wait long in that tropical heat for terror to invade our hearts.
We heard the growling of a jagged throat and snapping branches,
all turning our heads in unison as two blazing orange eyes scanned us,
a tongue licking its nose and an almost human smile spread across its face.
Hello, it said.
Lovely night, it said.
I am hungry, it said.
Ivor, it said.

We jumped to our feet and ran as fast as we could,
screaming for everyone to get on the ship, and hurry.
I could hear the muffled steps of the beast behind me
and although I could not see it clearly when I glanced back,
I could make out just how massive the creature was.
Its shoulders were at least as high as a thoroughbred’s
but it was built like a massive cat, like a panther I had seen in a zoo.
It laughed and kept repeating Ivor’s name, putting in little effort
in keeping up with us, toying with us as cats toy with mice.
I could make out the others in the village running for the ship,
and as they reached the gangway that entered below deck,
Ivor screamed an awful scream as the creature brought him down.

The three of us stopped and turned, unsure what to do.
Ivor had already gone limp as the creature crushed his skull
and bit through his spinal cord, launching the top half and his head
into the air as the creature turned his attention to Ivor’s legs.
He chewed the meat ravenously, occasionally looking up at us,
standing completely still, mesmerised and horrified at the spectacle.
Run, it said.
Run, they said behind us.
We ran.

As we reached the ship, the captain unwound the ropes from the bollards
as the rest of us ran into the ship, grabbing the gangway,
ready to slide it back in as soon as the captain was on board.
He came running in, shouting at us slide the gangway in
as he continued up to the deck towards the whipstaff.
The hatch closed, we all went to where the captain was
but I left the group to keep an eye on the creature.
It was standing on the jetty, next to the hatch,
the top of its head so close to the railing I was leaning against.
It looked up at me and the smile returned to its face,
the blood of the Welshman smeared over his huge teeth.
No wind, it said.
I am hungry, it said.

I turned to face the captain and the rest of the group,
tears rolling down my cheeks as they creature jumped over my head
and ravaged the rest of my friends and villagers.
Legs and fingers and heads and arms and bones and meat.
All over the deck.
All over the deck.
All over the deck.
The creature stared at me, smiled.
Run, it said.
I am hungry, it said.

On the way to Hell, I met a man
who sold counterfeit tickets to Heaven.
He was ***-bellied, bald and hunchbacked,
mothballs in his mouth and flames in his eyes.
He mumbled through consonants,
slipped over vowels and destroyed syntax,
pointing at the tickets frustratingly
at the comprehension of my confused expression.
I shook my head and moved on
as he coated the air with broken expletives.

By a bridge over a magma river,
a bird-headed demigod held a set of scales,
but he waved me through,
seeing by the weight in my eyes
that my soul’s mass had already been determined.
He whistled a tune vaguely familiar,
a desert swansong of a dying missionary.

The road rose slightly, and at the apex
I saw the city in a foul-smelling valley.
Blanketed by smog, I couldn’t discern much,
a factory chimney billowing smoke and ash,
screams forcing their way through the cloud.
A giant man with skin like fresh, glistening blood
greeted me as I began my descent.
He informed me he was a demon
and he would be giving me a tour.
Asking him how long it would take
he said it was entirely up to me,
all the time in the world was waiting for us.

I asked him why he had no horns
and he laughed with a noise of horse death,
one he had baptised himself with an aeon ago.
He dutifully informed me that this particular misconception
came about due to a similarity between invading warriors
and their certain bloodthirstiness and vitriol
held in much akin to the view of demons at the time.
He assured me that demons weren’t that bad,
friendly enough but with a temper fitting
a location as unearthly foreboding as this place.

As we walked through the ***** streets,
I couldn’t help but notice they were busy with people
rushing about and selling things and generally
much like people did on the mortal plain.
The demon said Hell was much like Earth,
just with greater punishments if you didn’t pull your weight.
An abominably long and disjointed finger
pointed in the direction of the chimney I saw earlier.
That was where the worst of the worst end up,
the rapists and abusers of child and woman,
all the filth humanity had to offer,
always churning, he said, always smoking away.

We stood by the door for some time,
an awkward silence descending between us,
rattling the synapses in my brain
as I tried to comprehend my past life
and the fate that awaited me.

After an insurmountable time, the demon knocked on the door.
I heard scraping on the door, a set of keys fall to the floor,
a curse put upon those keys then the clinking of a lock.
The door opened and a massive fire raged within,
conveyor belts from several directions leading towards it,
naked people, statues to the Heavens, falling off the end
and making the fire grow and glow like no fire I had ever seen.
The demon in charge of this awful place looked me up and down,
asking me what I had done to ever deserve to end up like this.
I attempted an excuse but couldn’t muster the right words,
so I just told him the truth without hint of any repentance.
He shook his head and genuinely looked shocked at what he had learned
and grabbed my shoulders and hauled me towards my piteous soul-death.
I was stripped naked as I became more aware of the intense heat,
flames of scarlets and oranges reached out to my broken body,
all skin and bones and nerves vibrating to an otherworldly chill.
I floated up to a conveyor belt which felt unduly cold beneath my feet,
and as I looked back on the life I lived and the one I dreamed when I was young,
I realised that this was a fitting ending to a life lived fully sans regret.
I opened my arms wide like a Messiah and began to pray eternal thanks.

The bombers buzz overhead,
angry bees ready to destroy the rival hive.
We run for cover, through the mud and filth,
into our shelters and wait for the silence,
wait for the bombers to leave,
wait for the bombs to stop,
wait for the distant screaming to die,
wait for the thoughts of the mountains of home.

The land here is flat
but I reckon in the future the craters will live on,
the landscape pockmarked with disease.
There used to be a forest here,
but all the trees are long gone,
the timber lining our trenches
keeping them from collapsing.
Through the noise, a daydream appears,
the forests at the feet of the mountains of home.

The wait is over,
I climb the ladder and peer over the edge.
A bullet whistles past my ear,
ricochets off my helmet and I lose my balance.
I land in the mud and filth,
a thin rat scurrying into a hole.
Someone shouts an order
and I have the strange sensation I’m floating.
As I’m carried back into the shelter,
I dream I’m flying over the mountains of home.

Unfortunately, I live,
ready to die for my country all over again,
fighting for something called freedom.
I wonder if the enemy fight for the same thing,
if they know its meaning more than I do.
I do not stand alongside those who sent me here,
I am here with my brothers,
singing songs long into the night,
elegies and soliloquies to the mountains of home.

Did I ever tell you about the time I nearly died? I was young, at that age where all my memories blend into one entity, never knowing where one memory ends and another begins. I was in the living room watching cartoons, eating Maltesers. I inhaled one by accident and it stuck in my throat. A perfect time-pausing fear overcame me and I sat frozen in place. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. I just sat there, terrified to move. I don’t know how long I sat there for before running into the hallway, thirty seconds maybe, up to a minute, but it felt like a lifetime.

My mum was in the kitchen with her back to me. I couldn’t scream so I just stood there, waving my arms. She never turned around. So I stamped my feet, jumped up and down, then she turned, assuming I was messing about and trying to annoy her. I think she was about to shout at me but she saw the blue of my lips and ran over, turned me around and started trying to dislodge the sweet.

Then the fear left me, replaced instead by this creeping darkness coming in from the corners of my vision. To this day I still can’t quite describe it adequately, but I will try. The darkness had a form, not like a shadow, but 3-dimensionality. It came from behind my then started to cover the carpet beneath my feet then creep up the walls and down the hallway. I was not afraid of it. It was so warm, so inviting, like silk wrapped around your shoulders, the velvety hug of a soulmate after you’ve suffered a devastating loss. The darkness drew me in when I had no fight left in me. I was ready.

The Malteser flew out of my mouth and bounced down the hallway. The darkness fled immediately, the fear rushing back in and I ran to the toilet and threw up, crying like I’d lost everything. I’ve heard people say that depression feels like you’ve lost someone, then realising it is yourself. That feels about right, I think. I still think of that darkness now and again, when the nights are cold and I’m by myself. I think of all the people terrified of dying, but they don’t know. You are embraced by the universe, as if time itself will mourn your passing. It feels good.

Want to know what I really think?
Are you sure?

You are the hat on the bed.
You are the bird in the living room.
You are Wednesday’s child.
You are the goodbye on a bridge.
You are the broom leaning on the bed.
You are the black cat walking away.
You are the broken clock chiming.
You are the six crows.
You are the itchy left ear.
You are the twitching left eye.
You are the flag touching the ground.
You are the milk boiling over.
You are the broken mirror.
You are the white moth in my home.
You are the owl in the sunlight.
You are the middle of a photograph of three.
You are the raven killer.
You are the three gulls flying overhead.
You are the seventh son of a seventh son.
You are the shoes on the table.
You are the sneeze on a Sunday.
You are the dropped umbrella.
You are the red sky at morning.
You are the spilled wine.

And you are so much more to me, darling.

You might act like you own the world,
stick that nose up in the air
and force a wry smile speaking
to the lower classes,
but you will die one day,
hopefully really very soon indeed
and I will dig your grave,
lower your coffin into the ground
and jump on it a few times.
Open it up and jump on you a couple times,
just to make sure.

You were born into the working classes
and just look at you now.
You have forgotten where you came from
and where you will end up.
There is no god waiting for you, darling.
You’ll be with the brimstone
and the fire and the sulphur and the devils.
You traipse through your ******* existence like a princess
but you will rot like everyone else.

She spreads her legs for any **** with a fat wallet
then ***** with their heads when she’s done.
She sits on her pedestal and feigns character
when she is just a vapid sack of empty atoms.
She’s a maneater through-and-through
and deserves nothing out of life.

She phones you to let you know how she’s doing
and laughs at all your problems and lack of luck.
She flashes her **** and wears skintight trousers
but the ***** in her won’t come out for you.
She’s a maneater through-and-through
and deserves nothing out of life.

She spits venom with the devils in their dresses
then acts all nice when you’re around.
She feigns being a princess who just wants love
but throws your affection back in your face.
She’s a maneater through-and-through
and deserves nothing out of life.

She will wrap you around her littlest finger
then flick you off without hesitation.
She will use your skills to her advantage
then abandon you when they’re not needed.
She’s a ******* ***** through-and-through
and deserves **** all out of life.

I heard stories of you, Romania,
lying far in the east,
communism and beaches side by side.
I heard of the bullets
and families hiding under tables.
The women were beautiful, so I heard.
Turns out they’re nice to look at
but peel away the layers
and you’re left with a rotten core.

Romania, I would wipe you off the face of the earth
and plant cancer in your soil,
AIDS in your rivers
and watch every one of your people
die in exquisite agony.
They don’t really deserve the sun on the necks,
the wind in their hair,
friends to call family.
Romania, I would watch you bleed to death
in some dark alleyway as a thousand men
have their god-awful way with you,
I would watch you drown
and hold you under just to make sure.

I have a very large box of hatred
in my head set aside
specifically for you.
Dare me to
open it?

Once upon a time there lived a ****
who had nothing better to do
than masquerade as a human being,
all the while resenting everything around him.
His days were long and dark
and nothing ever seemed quite real.
People would avoid him in the street,
cross it if they felt so inclined,
a clear pavement in front of him at all times.

The sun made him sweat,
the moon made him freeze,
no happy in-between for the ****.
People screamed and ran away
at just the sight of him,
how those people would run.
His genes were not necessary
for the continuation of the species
so thank **** he never had children.

A lowly street-***** took pity on him,
invited him to her room
and ****** his brains out all night long,
using a ****** of course,
even street-****** have some standards.
After he was done, the **** muttered an apology
and left as the sun began to rise.

They struck up a friendship nevertheless,
the ***** getting the **** to do her bidding
while she lay back and thanked
everyone else on his behalf.
The ***** was only interested in money,
it didn’t matter what the guy looked like
so long as she acquired gold
in some vain attempt to keep herself beautiful.
Women only go for men
they think will keep them beautiful.

The ***** soon became fed up with the ****.
Too busy lying on her back
with her legs spread-eagled
like an overgrown cavern entrance
to listen to his questions.
So off he went, once again,
into a world that hated him.

The **** never saw the ***** again,
but heard her name from time to time.
He hoped beyond all hope
that her life had turned just as **** as his.
It did. He heard rumours that she killed herself
because she never cared enough for others,
then when she needed help, no one was there,
so she had enough and hanged herself.
The **** smiled ever-so-slightly
despite the tears building in his eyes.
You do well outliving a *****.
The world grew a little more colourful.

This is it, the end of the line
and I didn’t realise it when we got here.
Ups and downs, good times and bad,
but you are not a friend to me
and I am not a friend for you,
perfect strangers living separate lives.
Saying hello every couple of days was enough
to push you away on the current.
Offering to help you when you needed it was enough.
We said hurtful things to each other
and the scars they left have gone
but the memories are still fresh.
This is goodbye, the hardest word to say,
so I won’t say it out loud.
We’ll meet again.