everyone is dying
has died
will die
the greatest predictor of the death sentence is ethnicity
we're been increasing the income gap so our children leave home without shoes or umbrellas or lunches or coats
i hate this world so much i
choke on my worthless privilege
reading research pieces playing
playstation to escape my own existence
i am breaking apart like waves of
radio static on unconscious shores
waiting for the end to sweep the earth into
sand glass broken teeth
the sun's plasma core
*******
**** your cult of everything will be alright
my gender studies tutor was ***** because you stood by
and said the world isn't a fair place
and to get over it
*******
*******
*******
i ******* hate you all

lost ash blurred skin lips emptiness there was something before but it has fled departed in out something important meaningful run into the ground through streams of bitter ache i was a memory caught in its own remembrance straining to be heard now i am nothing returned to the vessel womb death it is six and the heater does nothing air like frost father telling me that the future is positivism there was a staircase surreal void morrow the edge of the world lost between something i could not perceive trapped in the moment flashing with red tumbling seeking losing words sinking through my own flesh to the earth dirt too far from my head to tell grains apart split like atomic what did i want to remember i have spent days losing too much on purpose bed soaked a matted waste of sweat and the hours **** splitting futures like a prism where i find myself a stranger i cannot stand she us a wretched heart on a couch sitting all sudden a boring cliche lips running along salt severed skin fingers head the bone breaks the back arcs itself in an unending whimper a voice escapes and i’m left trying to catch it in the morning teeth the sliver of a smile haunting the air like a phantom fingers trace smoke sunbeams and feel nothing i fell into her like ash the breaking end of a cigarette all cold and irreversible a collapsed worthless wake and now i am alone

There is a deepness here
I no longer recognise as my own.
How do you laugh so effortlessly?
Mouth so small
all teeth.
I used to have nightmares of you
reaching into my lungs.
You’d draw my breath
on a cold August morning
and I’d suffocate.
People are a lot like homes.
There is laughter at times
but for the most part
there is silence.

Cracks in the sky
They tell me not to look
My best friend bled from her knees when she left home
We went back to my apartment
And filled it with static
The neighbours broke like china
Scattering on their doormat
I think the world is an egg and I was born to outgrow it
I ripped my flesh on the tarmac
Skating down the subway
Mother hadn’t cried in years
But now its pouring
I part my hands and let my breath out
Again and again and again
It’s going to crack soon
The world will wake from a bad dream
And forget we ever existed
Step in front of a train
Take off your shirt
Maybe we’re all just sick
Filling our aches with distractions
Turned on like televisions
Netflicks, endless repetition
We go on like that
Running our sleeves along lighters
The sun opened its mouth today
Nobody cared
Too stressed over the price of cigarettes
I can’t talk
I buried my head long ago
In the Mariana Trench of Tokyo
Where we buried grandpa because we ran out of funds
And had to live off stale bread from the school cafeteria
We should have stopped
Just given up and collapsed
Filled the streets with ambrosia
Cracked our own heads awake

a blossom
smoke to the ceiling
pieces of skull
everyone should just collapse
run their emptiness into the soil
choke on asphalt

they found a girl whilst trawling the seabed
plastic wrapped round her neck so tightly it tore off her head when they tried to remove it

sometimes oil flows out of our taps and we bathe in death

nobody questions it
nobody questions anything.

This city has become so familiar.
An endless refrain.
Sometimes the sky pulls away.
Sometimes I feel I could slip through the earth and disappear.
Nobody would even notice.

The other day a crowd gathered.
Bunched together as their paths narrowed.
Then fanned back out into space.
It was an endless flow.
Faces moving so fast they blurred into one.
I sat by the river afterwards.
Unable to stand.

There are seven billion people on this earth.
Drifting through themselves.
And everyone around them.

Train.
Cars pass one another.
Smoke.
They cross the road when the lights change.
Living is effortless.
Invisible.

Two of my friends' relatives died this year.
One from suicide.

There are small moments of grace.
That do nothing to stave off death.
Or the unfairness of existence.

I’ve been moving my hands a lot lately.
I’ve been learning to sew.

Sometimes we fall into dreams.
And lose sight of the present.
Because it’s too painful to consider.

The crow recognises itself in the mirror.
Along with everyone else.
And breaks it.

“What happened here?” the girl said. “Why are they dead?”

Silhouettes like stone. Cluttered and flat, eyes staring inwards.

The girl tugged on his sleeve. “Hey.”

He did not reply. Time passed. The girl stared long at him. Black streaks ran like rivers across the city, sweeping emptiness into the earth’s sullen heart.

“The children got away.” He said. He ran his eyes along the horizon. A turgid grey. The beginning of a storm. “Let’s go.”

The girl followed, gripped his sleeve. There, in the alcove above city square, a figure watched them leave.

---

Mist rose in galloping swirls, creeping and bloating and fading. Ferris in the distance. Rust and the dead breath of an age past.

A sinking feeling gripped the girl. An old friend. She began to cry. Small pitiful sobs that echoed across the field.

He bit his tongue and continued.

---

It ran through the crevices of the city, gathering oil and dirt. It ran black down the windows of hollowed houses. Arms reached in. Hallowed memories took them and danced. Fleeting joy erupting into longing. All across the city windows flashed amber, before descending back into austere blue.

The girl cried louder.

Blood dripped from his mouth.

---

Sometimes she would murmur in her sleep. Half-formed words. A soft stream, twined in the ether of dreams.

Sometimes he would remember. A still house, and an immense lack.

---

“This is where we lost,” he said. The girl gazed out. There were hundreds of domed roofs. White, cracked shells, hollowed rooms.

“We?” the girl asked. She picked up a piece of roofing. “We?”

He fingered his coat button.

The rain stung his skin.

---

The district was untouched. Warm amber trickled out of the shops like laughter. There was a joy here that was not ready to leave.

It had grown darker. The sky was suffocated in black pollution. Tears fell from their ankles, trailed lines across the shop floor.

Wooden figures lined the walls, flat eyes staring into nothingness. A thick dust lay upon their heads and shoulders.

The girl stopped in front of a small, child-like figure, palms facing one another, as if cradling a missing object. “This one’s me,” she said quietly.

“And this one’s me,” he replied, sinking to the ground. On the opposite wall lay a nutcracker, rifle pointed to the sky.

---

The streets were howling. Glass shook. Latches twisted and broke.

“It’s begun,” he said without emotion, flesh turned pale. The girl stared at her feet. Slowly, slowly, her legs were filling with stones.

“You did this?” she asked. “You?”

He began to shake. The edges of his body frayed, spun. Dust in a beam, twisted to an invisible tilt. He was falling between himself.

“Why?” she cried. “We were starving. We—”

Thunder bellowed above. Streaks of darkness ran from the sky to the ground. The dead city had nothing left to rot. An emptiness descended and drew the colour from its walls, the smell from its air, the song from their throats.

Unable to speak, she stared at him, horror burning a hole through her chest.

Bodies drifted past the shop window. Limbs, fingers, pointed to the earth, heads turned away. Street lights flickered. Each flash flattened the soldiers, lit their flesh paper white. The city folded inwards. Card-thin walls collapsed in sequence. She felt herself losing definition. Compressing into caricature, insubstance.

He gave a weak smile and held up the missing object.

Palms facing one another, she pulled it to her chest.

The city collapsed.