My right lung is an orange.

There's something there,
but it's not quite tangible.
A chill in the air, I'm sweating profusely.
There's a man on my chest
and I'm fine for a minute
when someone is talking but not for too long.

It's an abyss. It's a locked cupboard,
I'm trapped in a room
that's so full of air that I'm drowning.

A padded cell. Dark and completely,
totally
safe. No visible symptoms
of the crushing worries in my head.
Just an itching, tossing,
turning in the bed. Maybe I shouldn't
smoke so much
or drink so much
my thoughts are jam and garbage
it's a mess. Shouldn't I be
all better by now?

There’s plastic
eyelashes
on the carpet.
Makeup-covered and ridiculous
telling stories
of drunken mishaps. Of tears
and desperation,
tearing these things clean off black eyes
and crying into a bathroom sink.
They say; “put me to bed”
“take out your contacts”
“work in the morning.”

They’re everywhere.
Little harmless spiders,
insects we fear more than insects.
Unmoving, staring, reminding.
They say; “where did you go last night?”
and you remember
trying
to stick them to your eyelids
for twenty minutes, and kissing some boy
and then
ripping them off and sleeping.

They say; “why do you care so much?”
“why are you lying?”
and you’re wondering why
in a house full of girls
there’s a handful of eyes
on every wall, floor and ceiling.
You say “why do I care so much?”
“Why do I cry these off?”
These silly things make you
a devious enchantress
but it’s never enough.

The air isn’t crisp for November
but it’s still soup and brown bread,
shivering **** on the terrace.

It’s dark at half four, but it’s still
not fast to throw my coat on.
Stopping and smacking the closed library’s door.

The rain’s hissing off the new tarmac
making clouds that my breath won’t.
But it’s still no sun, and old makeup washed off.

There’s no slush,
but there’s brown leaf sludge.
There’s ten thousand prospective students on campus.

There’s a panic. An anticipation of exams
and Christmas shopping.
But it’s still quiet nights and used teabags.

Four hundred of us pour out
from the lights turned on,
girls in bare feet in the rain and the wind
to see Christmas lights on Grafton street.

Trinity’s beautiful, but not where the heart is,
the grass is muddy on college green
a cold breeze is whipping off the Liffey,
and everyone’s singing, low lie the fields.

The guards are milling, we’re trudging,
some holding hands or kissing –
bring me back to Stillorgan for ten euro?
*******! No come on sir, I’m freezing.

It’s grey, it’s wet and it’s cloudy.
I want Burdock’s or some dodgy chippy,
I want to hear the song of a boy from Ballymun
and live forever young in Dublin’s fair city.

She's screaming at me
from the tile floor of the bathroom
and there's sick in her hair
so I just ring her mother.

I'm disgusted at her,
it's pathetic. I'm sick of listening
to this, and holding hair back,
and stuffing my hand down throats
to feel the ***** crawl back up to catch me.

I'm standing in a house in a bad estate
and it's 8AM
and how did I get here?
I left my friend behind in a bathroom
because I can't bare to see her and remember
crying in a nightclub bathroom in Carrick
and not knowing why.

The room is spinning, but at least I'm smiling.
I think this boy is quite pretty, really.
Where is she? Sprawled out, puking
in the sheets of her bed. I'm not sympathetic.
Take your medication you headcase,
we need it to function - just take it, I swear.

I'm pulling my hair, but it's easy.
Head against the bathroom stall wall,
staring at my feet and the tiles
and I'm smiling. It's easy.

There's no one to love, but that's fine.
Just plenty of friends, good articles,
wine and a big warm house
not far from the sea. It's so ******* easy.

Do you love me? Of course you do.
Look at me. There's so much to see.
I'm smiling, I'm so ******* happy.
Maybe I'm empty, but it's so easy.

I'm adjusting to life as a level-headed,
less narcissistic ***** who was a force
to be reckoned with. And this is it -
a kinder, better me. It's so easy.

"I don't give a **** if you get shot,
if you die. Your pain -
I feel the same pain.
Together or not."

"You don't want me to get hurt?
But this hurts - and you've been hurt.
You know what this feels like.
I need more than this, I believe in us."

Under the sheets, so many nights
pretending what we had was love.
I never sent it, but I saved it,
my broken up love letter to you,
a selfish drunk.