You’re drunkenly screaming,
hands against the skin where
my kidneys would be. Telling
same-old-stories, you’re angry with me.
Fingers flexed on a cigarette, smoking through
yellow teeth into my hair, sipping
a yellow drink in a clear plastic cup.
Your accent is familiar, doesn’t
belong here. Sounds like what
home used to be.

You’re telling me I may be profoundly
sad, but I’ve come to understand
that even if you love someone
they may not stick around.
I’m fine, in an unbreakable mind frame.
Happy. That’s not up for discussion.
You’re begging me
to not wind up dead.
Just shut up. Drink your double whiskey.
I’ll cry when it suits me.

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?

a moment.
A small and subtle
moment
in the early hours of daybreak,
where unwoken minds drift between
the real and unreal, eyes flutter
open/closed and semi-lunar valves
bang, open/closed and make a tiny,
tiny racket. A din so quiet;
to be sat a foot away would
lose it amid the noises of
the heaving of unconscious lungs. This is our moment.

There is a moment
in the early hours. For one half second
he remembers you are there
and pulls you closer.
All worthless notions of yourself forgotten,
you just exist on this small island
drifting on the bedroom waters --
in your head there are no people,
cars or towns. In your head there is just this.

I don’t know if happiness is this ability I have
to just not be sad, or, if I was truly happy,
would I just… know.
There is no set algorithm, no checklist
in a strange man’s spiral bound notebook,
and the only emotion I can feel is anger
at nothing in particular – and everyone.
If you refuse to let people past your walls
I suppose you can’t lose faith when they let you down –
repeatedly -
though I always do.
I was never anything but kind to you
even though you always leave me.

I don’t want to be loved
nor forgotten either.

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.

I had been hung up on you
but I kissed another boy.
I think it's all better now.

That niggling feeling is gone,
I really don't miss you at all.
I don't wonder where you are

or what you might be doing.
I suppose when I swore not
to fall in love with you

I didn't believe I could keep the promise,
but I kissed another boy.
Not that you'd care but

it mattered to me.

Smeared myself
in a foul smelling home bleach kit.
It's nerve wracking, but now
I'm blonde again. A bombshell.
Ready to hit the town, smoke
cigarettes balanced between
my index and middle fingers,
and blaze spliffs by the beach
as a storm howls around us.
I'm ready to have
the boys eating out of my palm,
texting me, intoxicated,
wanting to hold my hand and
smell me. Wanting me to be
their blonde baby. Kiss me, honey.
Drive me out to no where
I can be everything you dreamed for.
I can be your water in the desert,
your shelter on the mountain.
We can watch the sun go down, and you will wonder if I'll
stay the whole night.
Will I move on tomorrow?

Listen,
you know at fifteen, sixteen,
someone beautiful arrives
and wins you over
with childish butterflies.
You might become obsessed
or think you're in love
but you're young -
you don't even know what love is.

Sometimes,
a person can be a security,
a little safety blanket or a dummy.
A soother to wipe down
my feverish head
when the night terrors kick back in.

You're not that.

You're the older, more beautiful,
bubbling entity I could tell my life to.
Imagine little kids
and a house in someplace boring.

You're exciting, terrifying,
you make me nervous. You make me
laugh like a geek
and scream like a sinner.

"You're a bad girl aren't you."
Yes, boy, yes I am.
I could be good for you though,
I promise I could be.

Two hours sleep
in seventy-two hours,
dizzed up in an empty pub
alcopops and cigarettes.
It's back,
is it back? Or just ****.
It's the fog,
on my chest, panicky
and lonely sounding
a fog horn
lost amongst everything

no one cares, no one gives a ****
or is that just the drugs?

Every Sunday the same lurching
same turning
It's a problem I'm fixing
just a little more than recommended
just enough to forget things.

How do you explain
to someone who is always there
how lonely it is?

How do I feel sad
when I am sideways on a rock
hurtling through space
through black and night
past stars and everything?
How do I feel lonely
on seven billion people planet
and a house full of family
and a mind full of voices?

I rang Bill last night,
he was in a *******.
Hey, I thought, at least he's living.

I held you as you slept
and I knew.

Was it three years?
Or just two? The nine month break
must be counted too.

God I love you,
it's an illness. God,
I really ******* love you.

But I knew,
I kissed you hard
but it just didn't taste the same.

It just didn't burn the same.
For once I feel like
friends would make more sense.

It's emptiness,
it's the first time hopeless
since I was sixteen.

Nineteen now
and I still love you,
but it just doesn't taste the same.

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.

Beautiful, beautiful
the waves of my Atlantic lick the sand.
Big green pool I've invested true love in.

I have bled into that water.
Run naked along the beach, hugged a boy
I thought might love me

but really didn't and never would.
That silly boy hurt me and tore me apart
like the wings of a butterfly.

Bright and vaguely translucent.
Surprising loud
and perfectly quiet

I was a bumblebee's hum.
My mouth made a perfect round O!
A little girlish sound I vowed

to never make again.
The hurt, I vowed to never
ever

feel that hurt again.
So I found a beautiful, beautiful
boy

and took everything from him.

Constant kitchen bickering
the clock, tick tick, ticking
the ******* ******* "you don't
need looks, or a boy to love you,
you have brains"
but no money
no job for my daddy
no college
no college for me.

Pie eyed, pout mouth
butterfly wings all crushed
a little girl's hand squeezed shut—
Who are you now? Mascaraed
to the death, to the death.
A young white girl slung on a pole,
a princess hung by the neck,
mannequin?
Who is your puppeteer,
does he beat you black and blue?
Does he do that to you?
Does he tell you he loves you like I do?

I was a mess
when you left. You made
a mute of me with absent goodbyes,
bored morning niceties.
Glued my eyes
shut together with slobbering drunk
‘Seen 2:41AM’
regretful mixed messages.

I see you, when you’re ***-in-hand,
wincing on the words,
tip-toed, nose-to-the-floor,
trying to spit out the fact that
you’re miserable.
Amnesiac
on a whim with a foggy gut feeling
I could be worth telling.

I’m listening
to the things you’re not saying.
The silence much more silent.
I would have looked after you.
I still want to, but now I'm
forever perched on the edge of the bed,
touching boys and feeling nothing,
and seeing boys and feeling nothing,
and seeing boys and seeing nothing,
and seeing boys and seeing
boys and seeing boys and feeling nothing.

You don't sound special.
My name doesn't drip off your tongue
like a rolling wave. Like honey
or a dew drop off a leaf. You sound
like home and smell like rolling
tobacco. Your sallow skin turns
olive on the bog when you sleep in
instead of waking up at six am
to beat the sun. There's always oil
in your fingernails from the garage
since you dropped out of school -
but now you're going places.
Despite what everyone said and despite
the fact you have to ask me how to
spell some things and despite
your excessive drinking and even though
you left me I hope you're coming back.

A year later, but,
sometimes, in the night, he's there,
whoever he was,
his clammy hands, groping.
Sometimes it comes
when I am alone and scared,
sometimes it's
me, in a bed with my best friend
with my back turned
and I'm scared for no reason.

But you know,
it wasn't even the real thing.
It was my fault,
I was so drunk, I couldn't push him off me,
he didn't even really get me,
and I passed out straight away after
so was it really that bad?

But it was
it's still a night terror.

Michael pulled me out of the slump.
I didn't want him or love him,
but I trust him,
he showed me how to feel again,
but I couldn't cuddle him.
Couldn't touch his skin,
or face away from him.

The creepy crawlies run over me
and the bad dreams pick away
at my conscience.

I tried to tell them,
they wouldn't listen.

This past year has been so empty.
I’ve been trying to fill the space
you left

with glamorous friends, rich men
drugs and adventure.
It could have worked. It might have.

You turn up, nothing’s changed.
Same smile, same wicked laugh,
same freckled skin.

Rest your head on mine
and suddenly I’m whole again.
Frantic kissing like

trying to lick out the last drops
of medicine.
Who knows how long you’ll be gone for this time.

You're leaving —
Surfactant. Summer
months reduce attraction.
No one remembers fast food,
the things they eat for convenience.

No one would miss it in its absence.
I'll want you even when
Summer dissolves you. Dilutes
my memory into flat beer shandy.
I won't call you.

The summer is short,
the road is short.
But too much sun can
make a man insane. Time
is a solvent. An effective surfactant.
Say you'll miss me
and think of me in muggy summer rain.

If I were to push you away now
what would you make of it?
Would you notice my absence?
Sleep easy? Speak freely?
Do I matter?

They think my ego is inflated,
when, actually, it's long gone.
I don't even know who I am.
I pretend, like an actor - forever
in character.

Crack an egg on the floor.
Is it a mess or
a waste of an egg
or just a thing that happens sometimes,
collateral damage for life.
You can't make omelettes
without making a mess but
how many messes do I have to make first?
I'm not necessarily
trying my options but observing
others and picking my days based
on paper offers. I'm too nervous
to crack an egg,
but I'll tell anyone they're a euro for six
you can afford one more egg,
I don't think I can just yet.

The saying does go
‘better the devil you know’
he said.

And sure to god
a fire was lit within me.
Sometimes you'd miss familiar monsters.

Sometimes you'd be suspicious
of the finer things,
of the promises often promised,

made now. But for why?
What changed, when I paid
nothing for it.

I'd almost miss
the curled up ball,
the loneliness in the dark night.

That's all I knew back then.
This feeling of content --
it feels fake, nerves I never used

I lie beside him and I'm tiny,
weak and helpless, but he
holds me sleeping, strokes
my hair. I
forget with one quick
movement he could **** me.

Two hundred pounds, he lifts me.
Eats twice as much as I do,
plays guitar I
play ukulele. Giant,
how do I know that you
won't break me? I am wary.

Shatter me if you will, take my body
it's no use to me anymore
it's too unholy. Just leave my heart
alone it's
been overused and battered,
bruised and I can't
cry on my own again.

I'm so sure
there is a world out there
for me, in which
you are not the sole light source,
or the green leafy gaps
in the trees. Where

the composted earth-
warm and crumbled
under my feet- is not
you. A place
where you do not live
in the foam
on the ocean waves
or in the hollow of the conch
shells.

It's a 4AM start
on the sofa, still drunk
and heading to bed.
And you're there,
in the hallway.
So I rub my eyes and know
you'll be gone when
I take down
my hands.

I press my fingers into the sockets
and say
"I miss you"
I can smell you as if you're there
keep my eyes closed for two more
minutes, breathing.
Then I let go
and go to bed.

Build up the tumbled down wall
again
stick the last red brick back in,
fix it with chewing gum, glue
and leave. It's fine. It is.

Close up the dam
stop up the river.
Fields drain, crops wither
and die, my eyes dry,
how foolish was I
to dream it could be different.

The cold creeps in.
Familiar friend, that same despair.
My heart folds in

on itself — an origami thing, flipped
and smoothed out by the fidgety
hands of a girl needing distracting.

For the first time in my life
that I remember, I am quite sure
I do not want to die.

God knows why. Maybe it was
seeing her in the casket,
hearing the noiseless howling.

Or maybe you are the meaning of life.
When you chastise me for staring
because I can't tear my eyes away

for fear I might blink and be dreaming,
or that you might not want to stay.
If I let go you might leave me.

I'm petrified of the cliff edge
of tumbling into the water
and hitting the rocks on the bottom.

I love you.
Oh my God, I love you.
What have I got myself into?

The bricks and mortar are not pretty.
Semi-modern, terraced, magnolia painted –
each street lined with nosy neighbours
among copy-and-paste suburbia.

SUVs and sensible
hatchbacks sleep in the driveways.
There's a bus stop nearby,
but the buses only run Monday

to Friday. The sea is so close
but hidden
by train tracks, and an ice cream van
calls every Thursday.

The wardrobes are empty, skirting
boards cleaned.
I sob into the sink,
clutching the porcelain rim to my ribs,

pressing my hands to my cheeks.
I have no home to go home to,
just a flat with no gas,
making promises of new beginnings.

Offering bags of pretty things
to fill up my life with.
On the last night, we climbed
up the obelisk

to watch the starry city lights
sparkle across the bay.
The smokestacks stretch
as if it were morning. I want to kiss

this year goodbye,
but keep holding on
‘til each finger loosens
and slip into a new way to live my days.

I buried you deep
on the ocean floor.
Pushed you off on a raft
all ablaze like a firework.
All flaming glory, afloat
on the blue and green water.
A reflected sparkle in my own eye.

I buried you deep
and then left.
I ran
like a rabbit toward bigger things -
left you behind with part of myself
but lied and told them I had it all with me.

I buried you deep in the bed.
Dredged up books from the pit of my belly.
I was told that it's easy to forget a young fool
but the light hits the leaves and they grow and make food,
and the green chlorophyll is all you.

This house is so empty and clean
and the college is lonely and new.
I sit on the pavement
night after night, thinking of bluebells,
beaches and the people I knew.
You could have come with me
but I buried you deep in my old, messy room.

Your eyes are soft, wrinkled at the sides,
gentle sighs, peach skin
every time I look into them I'm terrified.

Your petal breath raises my hair
to a stand. I wonder
how did I lose you before and
what if I lose you again?

Last time,
I cried on the couch for a week
and in the canteen
my roommate  just watched in confusion.

Yes, I kissed another boy.
But how can I explain to you
that I only kissed him because
I was so ******* scared of falling in love with you.

You're so out of my league
and I'm just a blonde silly girl
hacking my way through a science degree
and crying because I can't
find the time to sing or read.

I want to love you,
but I'm not prepared for the stomach drop feeling.
I'm not prepared
for you to kiss me any less.

This is why I look at other boys —
you're too good for me,
but not in the
"You're too good for me,
so I'm leaving you" way.
In the genuine, you're such a diamond
in the rough
that I can't possibly believe you'd ever stay with me.

You are dreamtime.
You saturate my best friend -
you both wear the same cologne.

You are,
you are my manic grin at random moments
before I remember.

You echo in my giggles
when I'm lost in thought,
in the sighs when I think of you.

You fill all the empty space.
A rustling curtain, even though
I know. I know

you aren't here.
You aren't in love with me,
nor I with you.

You are nothingness,
a midnight memory.
You are a gaping hole in me.

Gaping. Gaping.

You're a Tory conservative,
but you don't give two ***** about politics.
You don't know what you want.
Just not that. No, not that.

You're a petrol bomb,
you're a bottle full of explosives.
I run on you, usually,
I usually breathe you.

But *******. *******!
I read poetry and it's an anvil.
It's chest compressing, all consuming,
black, shapeless mass.

You're a racist. A homophobe.
I love you and I hate you,
you discriminate against love
you discriminate against me.

A straight white female,
and you hate me.
I think you might secretly love me,
Maybe you need me.
But I'll never know.

My best years are over,
how bittersweet, this home run.
Dark chocolate I
would never have ate 'til now.
I'm no child, but still
belly-achingly young. Still pregnant
with hopes and dreams, still
curled up
in a wine-soaked ball. Just happy now,
not teary-eyed, lamenting.

The best days of my life
were mostly awful. Some were sunny,
some were sweet. I was
torn
between reckless abandon
and believing I couldn't feel worse.
My arms and legs
slowly self-dissected. My mind
slowly unravelled. Boys "broke"
my heart to smithereens. I took
my first
drink.

I loved my third or fourth drink,
puked up my fifth or sixth,
I drank
away irrelevant sorrows. Now
I watch my sister do the same.
She's sixteen in
one
month. I want to tell her
this is the last day
of the best years of my life.

I have crossed the rope bridge,
climbed the mountain.
I'm one step, one roll over
in the bed
from the top, the end,
the fourth base. Adulthood
welcomes me quietly. I am
triumphant. I am
the youngest
I have ever been.

You left
your things behind.
You didn't say
goodbye. Why
am I surprised?
They always leave.

Suddenly, it's not at all
awkward, between us anymore
and although I enjoy your company
as much and as often as possible
I wish it was like before
when my face would burn red to see you
around anyone else
because you knew things about me they didn't.

But I knew this would happen,
I think you're sweet. I'm sure she'll find
that spot behind your ear
I used to rub in a circular motion
when we'd lie in a comfortable silence.
I'm sure she'll be better for you
and skinnier, prettier, kinder,
much less petty and jealous.

Much less, much less than me.

For a moment I thought I had forgotten
how to write poetry,
it used to flow out of me
pouring forward and pulling backward,
a tidal blood jet.

I drown by my home in my perfect Atlantic
an anchor sinking, i find myself
crying again. The only outlet
while I haven't felt love or
anything in a long time now

I have lost my muse.

She is so sure of it, one minute,
then the next is a flurry of tears,
curse words and disappointments.
I can never say the right words,
distrustful stance;
she raised me. She can ground me,
she thinks I would lie in a heartbeat.
She waits for
some lady in pinstripes
with money on her mind. "Can I
drain the mind of the poet for cash?"
She will ask, and sleep on her dollar pile
in diamonds and furs,
my mother a pea in the eighth mattress
down,
never noticed by thieves, the true princess.

Their passion for science
pours out like patriotism.
Hungry and rabid, irrational Eros.
Eyes on fire, spills from the gut—
insecure geniuses
that know so much, accepting
they know nothing— and always will,
yet their idiocy enthrals them.
It catches them by the genitals
like an old and nasty lover.
I can feel it too,
the insatiable emptiness,
the inescapable desire
to open up atoms
and **** the world dry from them.

Half a year of you in my bed,
meaningless *** and a lot of nothingness.

I know I meant as much to you
as spare change on your rich days.
Mostly forgotten but nice to have around
when you didn't get paid.

******* and your truth.
You say you can't do it anymore,
when did that occur to you?
Did you find something else to do,

someone else to use?
I was a good kid once. I'm sure you were, too.

We were just friends that had ***.
That's what
your roommate said. I'm in two
minds. He was never in the bed
as we lay, heads pressed
against each other, singing stupid duets.

We were just friends that had ***.
Then why can't you be a good friend?
Remember
the jokes, the little kisses?
The sitting and listening and clothes
that smell of you
lying on the floor of my room?

Is that why you left?
With no second thoughts or regrets,
with no loss felt for the way you could
wrap your hands around my chest
and almost touch fingers? You said
I was pretty. But considered your feelings
and we were just friends who had ***.

My bipolar friend
pukes up her lungs at the bus stop,
my best friends are in love
and we are all sick.

Dogs in the city, sat on pavements
in buckets and floods.
Strangers chuck change at us.
We are all sick.

We are all sick,
sick like old flowers
wilted and crispy. Full of the joys
of a life, half lived in a vase.

Everyday we are dying
for other people.
Holding back hair and flagging down policemen.
We are all sick and tired,
all wasted and dying.
Sick
Sick
Sick
Sick

Music knots my stomach,
makes my heart ache. Every
lie the boy told reimagined
in the dull pain spilling through me.

I'm drinking away the pain,
but the pain is - there is no pain.
Everything's relatively reasonable,
and calm. I need someone
just to tell me they hate me.

Love is a disease and it sticks to me.
I want to scream in the street -
to feel so angry I could get sick.
Hit someone because I love them
so much it hurts in my bones
and my teeth.

But it's empty. The days are empty.

Dreaming of Chateauneuf-du-Pape.
The wine is cheap, but sweet,
and fast. My eyes see stars
in the tiny kitchen, floating
over the microwave oven, I'm eating
Brie on crackers, alone— wearing
a Christmas jumper. Drunk.
I'm not looking for anyone to love
all I'm searching for is self love.
I'm hunting enjoyment of my own company.
I'm not a monster, for once, the self
loathing dissipates into laughter.
It's Christmas. I'm learning to be happy
I'm learning to drink six euro
2015
Cuvée Réserve; singing Sinatra
and smoking rolled cigarettes.

They all have opinions
on how I "let" boys treat me.
Why I shouldn't be crying,
or trying so hard. Why I shouldn't
stand for it when they stand me up
after saying they'd meet me.
And then they get angry
when I don't tell them anything.

I'm so ******* sorry
that the boys don't treat me
like I'm a queen,
but look at them telling me I'm stupid
to run back to them.

Look at them telling me
to cop myself on when I'm already crying,
to get my act together
when I already hate myself.

It's a vicious cycle, the boy breaks me—
they tell me I'm backward,
dig me a hole and make me feel bad.
Then I'm lonely, want someone
to hold me,
whether it's alcohol, coke or
to press my lips to a cigarette
or the same boy either
that split my heart in two.

Here's the thing girls,
I don't deserve better. All I
want is to be let suffer in private.
I don't deserve someone
who thinks I'm his world,
and if a boy did that I couldn't act right.

It's hard to explain but I'm happy.

Happy I'm alive and happy
to be educated. Happy to have food,
a home and a home house.
I love my family and I
am saturated with light and life and
I am impossibly happy.
But I'm empty. Just a case of bones
and sequins—
without your arms around me to hold in my insides
I am a half me, but still ******* happy.

Stood between a giant and a child
bruised by fists with a blue line striped
across his nose like a toothy kiss. Trying my best
to protect a city boy
from the ones I love with conflict rushing
through my mind like a plastic
drainpipe
after a storm. I imagined if it were you
being pulled by your arms
toward the road across the ground.
I'm sorry I ripped
your jacket when I dragged you off him
but I was and still am sure
that it would have been harder
to love you if you'd killed a man.

It's weird but, you said it,
how you had to close all the doors
like I tapped every railing
and blinked three times.

You only ever wrote in black ink.
I'm two hours early for every
single
train.
I have dreams that I miss them
every
single
night.

You're sorry that you're angry
because you can't settle down.
I chose not to plan anything
that I can’t control.

I remember feeling
my bones hurt, because the pencil
lay sideways
on the desk. And my heart break
just because I couldn't get through on the phone.

Do you see yourself in me?
Could you bear to kiss me,
or would you dry heave
and rinse your mouth out
six times a day
repeatedly?

I’m compulsively
dotting i’s in the main library.
Red bullet points, but my wounds
bleed blue ink. “Wouldn’t it be nice?”
you say
“to be sane for a day?”

I look at you, not really feeling anything.
I find it
frustrating
that you don’t want me
and I’m left counting,
obsessively
nitpicking.

Loneliness is a silence,
a kind of tinnitus, a ringing.
I’m not sure if I’m deaf or
it’s really that no one’s speaking.
“You aren’t worth anything”
We both look up, but
neither of our lips are moving.

It’s an anxious tapping. Midnight
cigarettes so you can
taste
your breath. How else
would you know you were living?
Although
there is nothing to fear but fear,
so I couldn’t fear death.

The back of my skull
explodes with white light
bone crushing —
the tunnels end. I have no control
of my voice.
Pushing, loud, and sweating,
your arms are warm
and homely,
I just want to absorb you.
Like a mirror hits the ground
earth shattering and sudden
and beautiful and all at once
smashed
into sparkling glints in sunlight —
the shaking, shuddering
bed posts stop creaking
for the sound of heavy breathing
"I think I love you"
I'm not sure if I even said it.

It consumes me, the guilt for just living,
existing isn't easy, I try not
to do bad things, but I'm human.
They catch me. I'm a sinner, and I don't
deserve to be happy. Self
destruction is essential,
a gruesome necessity.
I used to stick pins through my skin.

Now it's pills, smoke and gin,
it's beautiful boys that I won't see again.
Living for the thrill of the chase,
the dragon, I need to keep running
away from my daemons,
keep up the pace, catch the
old feeling of knowing my place
in the world.
It's three PM and I'm still in bed.
Maybe soon I'll get dressed.
Maybe soon I'll go eat,
"you look sick" they said,
it's all in my head.
It's all in my head.

Two months is a long time. I'm
desperately clutching at lives
so recently made I can barely
believe they are memories.

The past can't change,
but the present is flippant.
I'm holding my breath in.
Do not disturb.

My bedroom is a prison cell,
I'm pressing my hands to the windows.
I don't want to leave.
There are bad things out there.

There's a pain in my teeth.
I do wish you would just come here,
into my room and lay down beside me.
Allow me some dignity, tell me you're sorry.

I'm angry at everything, drowning
in conflicted reasoning. All I do
is count down the days to something,
and pray it's better than waiting.