I want to label this wound
with a single word
but I cannot find one that fits

I wanted to call you Father,

but you would not have stood for that
you would have seen my intent,
tasted my defiance.
you understand the power of our names
you scent it in the air,
primal,
an instinctive predator.

Father, would have given me space,
the first step towards an open door

Dad, bound me close
with coarse, abrasive rope
that you called
love and loyalty and family

it would not hurt me, you said
as long as I kept still

so I hid my heartbeat from you
in the steady thrum of others'
because there is safety in a crowd
I offered you Father-in-law
I let you have Grandfather

but I cannot do
what is second nature to you,
I cannot look at family
and see prey

so I ran
I took what I could carry and I fled
I chose my own name for you

I called you no-one
I called you my past

but a letter came today
registered post
and you have signed it
Dad

humanity is a vast palette
many hued and multifaceted
all soft, rough, violent textures

we are slow burning sunset skies
we are roaring, diamond waterfalls,
and whispering heat haze

we are blood stained hands
and gentle, searching lips

we are chipped paint
and red petalled window boxes

we are straining, sweat slicked lust
we are the gossamer silk of an age worn cheek

we are brocade and velvet
we are beard coarse, dusk hued wool

we are furnace forged knives
and blades of dew strung grass

we are broken signs and rotting leaves
and endless, frozen white expanse

me; I am loose woven cotton
I am eighteen percent grey

I am enough.

I resent apologising for something so central
to who I am.
and that means something,
because apologising for who I am is what I do best

but this part of me does not feel wrong
or ugly
and I do not want to fix it

I watch the world from the outside.

it is not voyeurism,
I do not lurk or creep
or prey upon the world.

I watch, from the edge of others' experience

because the world is beautiful,
even when it’s not
and people are incredible,
even when they’re broken
and I revel in your joy
and I weep for your sorrow

and I will see you

when you take a breath and step towards your fear
when you blank your face and give selflessness in love

I will watch you dance and twirl
and almost feel the wonder in that moment that you do

and perhaps some things can only be seen fully from the outside.

A torch.

My torch.

The yellow and orange dance in my eyes and on the gleaming rocks, water droplets phasing in and out of existence as they slowly shape the cave, as they have over centuries.  I feel my smirk broaden into a full-on grin.

Just once.

My fingers stroke gingerly, in respect for the centuries and lives these walls have claimed.  My heart ****** at every imperfection.  Every crevasse could be a clue.  But every one isn't.

Just one.

I pull back the curtain of moss, ducking and picking out a treacherous path.  Another curtain blocks my view, a veil of spiderwebs.  I flick them away with the tip of my saber.

Or cutlass.

Or spear.

Or even a vaguely cool-looking stick, I don't really care about that part so much.  Forget the treasure and even the clues.  No secret codes or Nazis are necessary.  I don't even need a cool jacket.  All I really want to do is carry a torch though a cave.  Just once.

It doesn't necessarily have to be a cave, either.  I'm flexible.  Abandoned mine shafts, secret tunnels, castle dungeons.  It all works.

But the torch is a non-negotiable.  A real, live, wooden torch.  Not what the Brits call flashlights, a torch-torch.  With fire, please.

please.

Just once.

therapy is hard
Somehow I had not expected that,
I was aware that I am damaged,
broken, not fit for purpose.
But I did not go to therapy expecting to be healed
I went to confess.
to show the world that I understood
that I was not made right

to offer them my shame

pain, when you live in it,
can feel ordinary,
familiar
and when the whole world feels cold
and unsafe
it becomes easy to mistake
familiar for comfortable
and comfortable becomes home

and it is instinctual to head for home,
to search the world for a place
which feels familiar.
a place where you feel you belong
exactly

but I am not purely instinct
and my mind and eyes can see
the filth that I called home for what it is,

mostly

so I give time and money and blood
to learn the differences
but it will mean forever leaving home
and that is harder than I thought.

I think my doctors are killing me.
With good intentions and Austrian dogma
together we examine my pain.
Neither nature or nurture have served me well,
I am the disease and the patient.

I am not sure you can fix both

It sounds reasonable;
find the rot and chop it out.
But I think we are cutting into viable flesh now

I need to shift the focus
to look outside myself
this introspection is a feedback loop of hate
but they say I am contagious
and I am hamstrung by that
robbed of agency
because I can walk away from my pain
but I cannot walk away from theirs

so we go back
to the panoramic vista of my damage
label each part of it
cause and effect
but I do not understand how
steeping me in this fetid stench will cure me,
or them
and I long for fresh air.

I don’t want to measure this in words
I don’t want to explain or understand
I have been breathing in pure chaos
and there is no oxygen in it

I am dizzy with it

my insides, my outside
my life, my mind
we are tangled Christmas lights

a Gordian knot
but the knife never cuts deep enough

I self medicate with distraction
I drink too much
I think too much
but always end up here
with the bottle too empty
and my head too full
and I don’t have the energy that this desperation needs