Even though I slept with both your brothers
and your mother hates me
you look after me like a sister.

When you try to buy me food
and cart me around for the day
you can't imagine how great it feels.

So happy it hurts,
the black pain throbs in my hands
and chest.

Just to feel cared about,
looked after.
Thank you Daniel.

I got ******* caught in my nose piercing
and the *** was overwhelmingly
disappointing.
He tried to spoon me
but I just don't have time for that,
you know? I just don't want that.

He was a **** kiss,
probably had no notion of a female ******,
he's a country boy stoner
doing **** all ever.

They used my student card
to chop up the coke
while I puked behind the car.
That's home though. That's life here.

And you, you ******,
when I woke up I missed you.
I really ******* miss you.

Paradoxical paradise
I love
drugs - and I hate them.
I hate
staring at myself in the mirror
of a dark bathroom
drowning in my own big eyes
stretched pupils
I hate the smell of *****
the chemical taste of MDMA
and the non-taste numbness
of speed
or *******.
I hate the emptiness,
I hate the crowd that swills around me-
hundreds of them
and I'm still ******* lonely.

But I love
getting so high that I'm just
numb
empty and lifeless and childlike,
kissing strangers,
forgetting the meaning of love.

So I love being drunk
I love casual *** and doing what I want
I love the facade
I love to forget everything else.

My teeth are sore, lips cut,
my eyes are dry and my ankle
hurts when I twist it back
because the bouncer
****** me into a puddle.

I could take 100 pills, little colours,
little fun shapes,
but you know
it still wouldn't fix me.
It wouldn't fill the hole in me.

I have nothing left now.

There's no boy my heart calls for in the night
except you, boy,
my only boy, but you're gone from me now.

It's real this time, my grinding teeth agree.
A baby's cry eats at my soul.
I cry for my baby and it eats at my soul.

I'm so tired
and I've been off my face
for a week now.

I dived into the lake to escape the killer bees
but on resurfacing
they've started to sting me.
I can't live underwater for much longer
but I can't live without it, you,
or whatever.

She's crying to me down the phone
and all I can think is
how ****** it all is. How sick,
twisted and manipulated it all is.
Love is a ******* gift,
but it's a trick.
A menacing, broken, soft-spoken,
seductive *****,
that strikes up against your ribs,
just a match that caught flame.

How dare you ask to see me again
when you knew how much I loved you.

How dare you try and spin me into your web again.
Don't you know that I've become
so much better than you?

Then why does it feel like I'm
glueing together
old bits of rope and string,
tying together bits of old things
that everyone else has left for dead?

Isn't it worth fighting for?
Isn't love worth fighting for?
Why do I have to explain this to everyone I meet?

Every half-finished painting, song or poem—
they don't make masterpieces
if you take them all home, stitch them together and leave them to grow.
Just leave them alone.

I'm cold to the bone. In the twilight
I'm empty,
my heart turns to stone.

I watch all these sunsets turn red to navy
and I numb it with ***** because I can't handle the happiness.
You were my baby but baby you left me.

You were my baby but baby you left me.

I know boys that have smoked for seven years
and quit for a year
and they're not even twenty.

I know boys that eat
sandwiches
with black hands
black from motor oil and tar
and shower four times a day.

I know boys, I love boys
that can fix cars, milk cows,
get up at six and drive two hours
to work
with three hours sleep
still drunk from the night before
and never puke.

I breathe boys that smell of slurry,
silage, and turf fires
that shout
things about tractors that I can't understand.
Smoke joints at 8AM before work
and reckon they work harder for it.

I love FÁS boys.
Untrained boys,
rough and ready, picked at the seam boys,
home boys, lover boys, my boys,
curse like a sailor and hand on my thigh boys.

"You should stop picking men
based on their ability
to open beer bottles with their teeth"
said Mam. But I love those boys,
those earthy boys,
those make me feel alive boys.

It's daylight, bright,
it's warm, the sun is yellow and gentle.
There is a breeze, but it's soft,
easy.
It's a Caribbean breeze,
the sea is cool and refreshing,
and I am treading water.

It's in my ears.
It laps softly into my mouth,
I spit it out,
draw breath and inhale the spray.
My arms and legs flap
beneath the surface, creating
little concentric rings,
little bobbing circles that span outward.
I am the swan, seemingly graceful,
kicking furiously to stay afloat.
Every so often I lose my grip
on the nothingness, and sink.
Momentarily an anchor. Motionless.

Here, I am lost, no one can see me,
planes fly overhead
and I am just a speck on the sea.

Why do I keep treading. I could just
let myself drown in it,
but once I saw an island
swathed in sand and palm trees,
coconuts and banana plants
and I believe it's still out there
so I just keep swimming.