I remember not being sad,
I wonder what it was like.

Seeing you was horrifying,
and I missed you so much.

Stopped dead in my tracks
"Hi?"

Do you even know who I am?
You couldn't like me

I can't even stand myself.
I can barely stand at all,

it's secret vodkas in the dish pit.
It's drinking until I'm sick

trying to ***** out the black tar
that lines my insides.

The dim glow illuminates my face
as I search for the perfect playsuit, perfect dress

or something. Something beautiful.
And everything is. Colours and elastane,

polyester, nylon, lycra.
Peplum, bodycon, strapless.

But the models are all size six,
and you must be pretty to wear a pretty dress.

I'm going to spend a week's wages
on this ******* wedding outfit,

and if you're not impressed
I'm going to ram a slice of cake down your throat

and smile, and catch the **** bouquet.
Will you look at me? Look at me!

I'm a sad, pathetic wreck.
I want to mark my territory. Your neck

will speak for itself.
Will say that I've been there before.

This perfect dress I'm searching for
to be left crumpled on your bedroom floor.

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.

I need the nights
with you, and mornings with unclean teeth
making my sister bring my shoes to the beach
because I only have heels.
7am, and you,
shouting down the phone to your ex
"do you think less of me?"
but how could I ever.
48 hour days, I got dressed for the club
but just met you after work.
Driving through the night
as you traced out your life on my knee
and refused to stop kissing me.
You showed me how you diffed rings
after dark,
to blow smoke rings
we made love in three
of your cars
and never in bed, just drove roads
you worked nights
an end of summer miracle that couldn't last.

"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.

Listen.
The drunk girls are so loud
when they cheer for us.
You know?
They're more excited
than we could ever be.
We are terrified to the bone.

Well, I know I am.
Though you fascinate me.
You don't need love, you found and lost your home.
Neither do I,
My old scars still sting.
I've ****** up.
We ****** up everything.

It's not all the girls,
just the ones that can't handle their cocktails.
Not the cool kids, who smoke,
drink pitchers of beer and
full bottles of *****
but can still count backwards from thirty.
Just the ones that love me,

know what would make me happy.
I'm not incapable of love,
we just don't like it.
My ego wouldn't let me anyway,
my important sense of self
forever blocks the way.
Do you understand how perfect I would have this be?

It horrifies me.

I barely even let my eyes
drift over you
the first time we met but now
I think you're as beautiful
as the aurora or orion's nebula
or candyfloss or a sunny day
all rolled into one and
stamped in gold leaf.

When you rest your hand on my thigh
when you call me sweetheart
I feel my ice heart cracking
I feel my childish innocence
and long lost naivety
come shuddering back in painful waves
dragging insecurity
old scars are splitting open
I think you might heal them away.

I actually said
"I'm all yours always"
Me, the girl who rolls her eyes for a living
turns green at the sight of kissing
I'm so afraid of losing you
I've known you for a week
I've known you longer than I've known myself
I know you like the flowers in my garden bloom every time spring rolls around
reliable and beautiful and brilliant.

Once you called me beautiful, for a laugh
and on my worst days I call back to that
just as I rely on ***** and dope
I rely on memories of our good days
when we could sit in bed and simmer
in eachothers warmth, I asked my friend
if I was ugly , she said no, you're not fat
anymore
but I wanted her to say "yes you are,
don't go fishing for compliments you *****"
because you used to say that.
It made your kind words mean so much more.

I devoured Plath like fresh fruit
once in my life, when I felt the weight of unchanged air
on my shoulders, when everything was slightly
removed from me by the glass of the bell jar.
I saw no light in any day, nor any reason to be happy.

Things have changed so drastically.
I have so many things to be grateful for,
like kisses and cocktails and beer and
the strum of a freshly tuned instrument,
each note one fifth apart. The roar of a stadium
at the finish of the national anthem, my friend
Harry's hugs and maths homework when
I finally get it right. The fact that you can't actually
touch anything, just come so close to it
that electrons repel each other... Isn't that
amazing? Isn't love amazing? Isn't each
breath, each minute, each time we feel
conscious amazing? Aren't we all just bags
of blood, stranded on a rock in the middle
of space and isn't that a reason to go get good
grades and take drugs and smell roses? Amazing.
You have nothing
to lose and nothing to gain, just a definite end

and then...

Nothingness.

Soothing, mothering hand of a soft day
smooths away a wrinkle in my head
pressed there by the grimace of constant self-reflection.

The warm rain offers me solace, the grey
sky seeks to calm and I notice now for the first time
the leaves unfurled and the dandelions ticking.

A coffee and a glass of water, a cigarette
and some poor-man’s lunch shape my day
until another slips away into the furnace.

I’m seeking affirmation. I keep asking:
“do you think I’m coming off the rails -
Or was I always running off the sleepers?”

It’s met with a **** of the head, usually,
or a ‘hmm… you’re great fun though’.
I know but that’s not what I’m asking.

I tell them "paint", and they do—
little hands make big, bold lines
in blues and pinks,
and "look I mixed it,
what colour is it?"
So proud of the dishwater brown.

I want to say: "if you mix many
beautiful things, you lose track of them.
They become all muddled, muddy,
like paint water, all of them."
But they just add glitter to the mess
like sparkles of stars and car headlights
in the darkest night,
in the depths of a hopeless sound.

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.

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.

There is an ocean in my ears
my face is hot and in my eyes
swim black and salty tears.
I dream of summer, of icy waves
drowning me, dissolving me
in my Atlantic sea, right to the bones of me-
of drifting, peacefully, piece by piece,
femur by phalange, and tinkling
toward the sand with xylophone sounds.
Salt crusting on the calcium
and drying in the hazy heat
packed down by layers of wet
sludge and seaweed for years
until I am a fossil.

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.

I have expensive taste, I love
leather and satin and innocence,
and its willingness to give me things;
diamonds clawed from the ground
by peasants, miles below oil,
and boys that call me beautiful
when I so clearly am not.

I love jewellery, the gold
that binds it's way round my wrist.
Asp quietly slithering alongside it -
by my arteries, twisting repeatedly,
kissing my blood stream, pulse
throbbing beneath the long pearly
fangs, ready to puncture skin.

My addiction is killing me
the shiny things, the pyrite,
the glittering quartz is all worthless.
And terrified of the outcry I flaunt
what I have - all fool's gold, all of it.
Only for fools that we kiss,
you do not love me and so I am foolish.

Water, Diet Coke,
eggs,
lean chicken breast. Sit
in front of the mirror and eat
naked. Eat so much you get sick,
eat tomatoes, avocados,
eat eggs, eggs, eggs, eggs,
watch them spin down the bowl
when you flush.

"You're not fat" no, not fat,
but too fat still, not
huge
but too large, just slightly,
just time to stop
hiding and eating while crying
stop dressing
like a stuffed
sausage. Time to start
smoking again, sniff ******* I
hear it helps with that kind of thing.

It offends half my village
when I say I'm an atheist
but I worship no one.

No one boy,
no one God. Not my parents,
not love

not anything.
And if you don't sin
then didn't Jesus die for nothing?

Or is that blasphemy?
To be perfectly
honest, if it's P.C.

or not
P.C.
It never mattered

to me.

"I've noticed you cry a lot."
Yeah, that's me. On the wardrobe
door floating on the Atlantic. Except
nobody's noticed the ship's sunk.
I think they're reclining on lidos,
like the water is warm for them.

A tsunami rushing up side streets—
life flows on, collecting things.
Stops for no one and if you fall
you're dragged along until
you find your feet.
I'm drowning here, nobody else
has noticed the swell.

I've pressed paused on a stopwatch,
trying to grasp at a flimsy reality.
They're still all doing the motions,
I'm stuck still refusing to speak.
My friends are strangers in the street,
they're all calm in the madness.
Maybe the chaos is all in my head,
time carries on for everyone but me.

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.

The flat is cold and the couch
is lonely. I scrape leftover
rice from the pan on the stove,
tell all my friends I love them.
Wonder if they know.
The sky is grey and a hurricane
is blowing in my home town,
I watch each gust of wind
and wonder if there's a molecule
of your breath in there.
The chemo was too painful, he said.
So now we wait on edge,
tread on eggshells and fight
nicotine cravings. Like..?
Isn't it funny the smoke is what's killing him
and that makes you want a cigarette?
Who am I? Where am I?
What am I doing? If I bury my head
in the spine of a jellyfish book
would their radial symmetry numb me?
If I buried my head in your spine,
would you hold me?
Here I am - wedged in a crevice.
Stuck to the precipice of the same old abyss. Aren't we all dying?
I wonder if the clothes are dry yet.

Crouched in a bath
in a house in my hometown.
5AM and the moon's out.
Kevin hands me a rolled up bank note,
and tells me I'm innocent
all in one breath.

There's blood on my hands,
rolling down my wrist.
Big, fat, poppy teardrops
blooming like the cherry trees
in my university.
Home is a funny thing.

I'm not a cool kid.
Just a drugged up, loved up,
half pretty girl with a good brain.
Mad
after the wrong people
in love with every
broken soul.

I'm just chasing dreams
and welded differentials,
the car turns and screams.
One hand on the steering wheel
and one on my thigh -
can't you just need me for a weekend?
Can't you just
sigh your little promises
and chew my ear?

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

You seem so lovely and gentle,
it's nice
that you don't find it strange
when I leave you ten voicemails
drunkenly rapping
about how fantastic life is.

Why,
do I find it so easy, with you,
to embarrass myself?
But I'm never ashamed,
I just laugh when you laugh.

That weird feeling,
that comfortable feeling,
that I haven't been feeling
in a long time now. It's cute.
It's warm and all yellow.

Love is blind. But this isn't love.
This is sugary, syrupy,
I could almost call you sweetheart.
Buy me an ice-cream, maybe,
I might let you see me eat.

You're a bit of a *** head. But that's okay.
I don't mind it really.
You're a little bit lazy -
you remind me of sweet hazy grass
on grass in the summer sun.

It comes in fits and bursts
I hide from it sometimes

others, I zip up the backless
dress, stick on my heels

and strut
take the knife and sing

cut loose
swing my hips and forget

I am heavier than I should be,
remember all the boys that used me

used to want me,
glare in the mirror and say

today
I can be better than I have ever been

today
I am queen

today
I am blonde and young and beautiful

and fabulous,
drink ***** raw as burning flesh

my mind is a million men on fire
screaming and dancing

only alive as it is dying.
I am a *****, I am a metaphor

I am the only one,
only me, only.

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.

You called. We hadn't
spoken in weeks.
You needed drugs,
I had the contacts.

If I can't get love
from you, I may as well
get ******* and ****
someone new.

Now I'm trying to explain
to a Brazillian kid
what an 8 ball is
at 9pm on a Tuesday.

Drinking packet soup.
It's grey outside,
and I'm working the opening shift
in the morning, boring.

Precious child, your face
is all the boy I loved,
all I wanted, all I
left behind, mixed

up in a girl.
She thinks I'm ******,
I'll never hold you.
You'll be raised to hate me.

I am not your enemy.
Just know
promises are rarely kept,
please
see the human that I am,
my soul, my mind, I'm
not a hateful girl—
a mixed up kid,
not yet the person that I
want to be.

You're beautiful,
I'm sorry I am not
your mother I
would spoil your teeth rotten
with chocolate candy.

Your hand in mine, twiddling
the silver around my right
ring finger. The point
of the heart faced out,
in hope you'd turn it
toward my wrist. Your mouth
brushes mine. You take it off,
examine the stamp - "925."
Slide it back on, the crown faced up,
the hands mirror ours,
clasped
around my heart. I wonder
if my father knew
what it would mean to me
when he passed it on.
I wonder if he knew
I'd fall for a boy
and this ring would twist my mind in folds,
you're a menace, a silversmith
you solder my mouth shut.

How am I expected to not imagine you,
sleeves to the elbows, tensed hand
on a gear stick—
after a hair cut, batting your lashes,
bashful, slanted smile creeping
over your face? How could you?
When my chest contains this balloon
that is constantly inflating
at every gentle wind chime
mention of your name,
elated, I can't keep a calendar.
If I did! I would just be ticking off the days
until you were here again.
I can't begin to wonder what would happen if you'd found another girl,
if someone else realised what a catch you are,
if another heart was swelling every time you walked into a room,
or was silenced just by the sight of you.
Come back to me and hold me like you never meant to go,
I want to feel tiny and yet still invincible.

How can I explain a love that's lost
when it's so present,
yet gone,
when you're here, breathing,
speaking, it's you,
just buying food, visiting your cousins
and sticking up for me.
So happy to see you,
yet the dull pain swims
in my heart and hands,
the dark soup that spills through my veins
tinting everything
and yet
the moment you leave it's the darkest day.

Black wave rushes, gushes inky black
water. Icy cold, icy.
Dead man pallor on my hands,
I reach forward, but a cut throat pirate
hurt me too much to eat. Must have caught
it from that boy I often kiss,
he must have caught it
somewhere else. Black wave envelops me.
Off-colour, no red in my cheeks,
lost to the churning sea.
How is it you manipulate me
like this, so easily? How is it
you have drowned me
in myself,
in the ocean of my hometown?

Piano, piano, soft as moonlight
silken fingers on ivory skin. Glissando --
run your hand up my thigh
plucking every string. Arco, arco.
Softly, softly, the clarinets breath in, breath out
arms envelop me in the tune up,
four notes each fifths apart. Your voice
chimes lovely, the conductor flicks start.

A symphony, a symphony, a whole opera
house inside this bed. Observe me through
small binoculars, roll back your eyes into your head.
Violins slow crescendo, your sigh
an answering phrase from the cello,
listen to the tuba and the piccolo
and the mounting tension. Crescendo, crescendo,
forte, forte. Presto boy, presto. Ritornello.
Fin. Dream with me. Belissimo.

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 ***.

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.

I haven't smoked once today
for the first time in weeks.
Dear God - please,
give me a cigarette. Please
give me a line or a drag
of a joint, or a glass of wine
or a hug or some sunlight.

Work in seven
hours and I've been crying all evening.
But why? For no
**** reason. Paid tomorrow,
and I might
spend it all on drugs or a tattoo,
or tobacco or I wonder
could I pay someone
to love me.

I'm trapped
in an I'm-not-OK-hole—
in a *******.
In a thousand-of-miles-from-the-city hole.

I'm a session moth.
Wake up like a ******, rollie
on the bedside locker.
Not knowing where I am
or how I got there. Jump
into the nearest car and just say
"drive"
and eat nothing but still look fat.

This morning I was suicidal,
I nearly walked out in front of a truck.
But it was alright,
I remembered
I hadn't taken my pill in a day or two,
stopped crying and
went back to work.

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?

Some sigh, like a mild evening wind,
my hand
sleeps on my folded knee, the hairs
from the nape of my neck
stand like fair soldiers, soft
static runs through with a shiver—
an engine purring,
like a cat or thunderstorm
on the slated bedroom roof.
More moments like these,
non-jumpers glued to a ledge.
I'm leaving, I'm going,
but staying, yet hoping.

You talk about how you would write poetry
and learn an instrument
if only you had the time.
The time,
as though you don't have the same hours
as anyone else.

I'm telling you now, if you truly wished
for the time, you'd have it.
Creation is not a choice, it's a burden,
it's a crick in your neck that must be cracked
an addiction, a drug.
You don't find the time,

you make the time.
You sit awake in the morning just
writing
writing
and pray it's okay.
If it's useless you just...

Continue.

I confused loved
with love
and now-

Ten thousand
miles
away

I don't care
I just don't care.
Psychopathy is cute anyway.

One day, we sat on a cliff's edge
scooping jelly shots out of cups--
fingers to greedy mouths.
We drank beer, Captain Morgan and Lucozade
and gradually got wasted
where no one could reach us.

I had been lost, and alone
and I found you buying chewing gum.
You said you were going to go climb,
like a child I begged to come with you.
We reached new heights,
approached the sky.

You told me things I'd never known,
I realised although although you looked strong
to me - you're a boy
with a heart full of love.
It shouldn't have suprised me
but I'd always thought you were unshakeable

and I love you Cy, I really do.
You make me feel OK, and
I'll never forget the day you became my brother
on the hill, with the whole world below us
gradually getting wasted
where no one could reach us.

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.

Prozac could be
a better choice than ******* —
but at least coke
has character. I went
for a walk and it made me feel better,
except for the hayfever.
That just made me blind.

I'm so
******* paranoid. I can hear
them laughing
behind me. What's worse
is that I know they're not,
because they don't give
two ***** about me.

It's just a smaller dose of serotonin,
I can get that in ecstasy.
Just a smaller cut of dopamine.
I can get that from boys for a kiss
and some flirting.

I wish you were here to smell my hair again,
I miss you like sleep and like calcium.

Half asleep, driving for hours
with Budweiser bottles,
warm from the heating.
The windows were all down,
we were smoking rollies,
all sharing one lighter because the driver
dropped his in a can of fanta.

Next thing,
the roar of an army of twincams.
VTECs, something insanely beautiful,
and incredibly ridiculous,
a convention of petrol heads—
Gardaí everywhere, searching for tax
and insurance. My God, I was in it.
Hundreds of thousands of them,
all excited like children,
the screaming of a million voices,
no exhaustion in the exhaust fumes.

The hills rose around us, the traffic
packed backwards,
expensive cars all sardined in a roundabout.
How loud can you get it?
Can she sing like a canary?
Can she find herself at the Letterkenny rally?

Imogen, here's some advice
never give yourself to a boy
that doesn't love you like I do
never let any man convince you
to sacrifice what you have
because you want him to love you.
I did that, I forgot who I was
thought I was worthless
and now I know I am.
Baby sister, know that I'm sorry
for everything I did wrong
I made enemies, so many enemies
and work so hard now
to be the best I can, but it's not working
nobody wants me,
only Clara cares and I'm grateful
for her but so empty all the time.
So Immy don't do what I did
stay true to yourself
stay young, stay a kid,
stay sweet,
remember I love you more
than any boy ever will.

I was high when the call came.
Beer and pills
and too much green.
I was wasted when the call came.

The cheer struck up like a match caught flame
went up like a firework
from all these boys I barely knew
and they lit a J to celebrate.

Ninety-seventh percentile.
I could have just
drunk
my way into medical college.

Sand burns red, sunlight hits the little
waves, dappled Connemara coat.
Berries form. Sweet orbs,
sweet life, Spring ticks over.
Time's a running clock, silent
and unnoticed. May dances in
on a breeze. No ribbons, no pole.
The dandelions roar in the field,
in the garden, daisies blush
and whisper to the trees
the hawthorn blushes too,
what giggling conversation
takes place on the seashore?

Remember trying to blow smoke rings
in my bed, and how
you always looked after me
when things got rough,
but you couldn't look after yourself,
white found it's way up your nose.

Now it's gripping your brain
the money and the glamour of it all.
I can't see myself in you,
barely yourself in you.

To be in love is a disease,
relying on drugs incessantly
and I can't breathe when I see him,
he's not even talking to me.
I know in myself he's not worth ****
but it lives in the depths of me
the feeling of utter worthlessness
hopelessness and jealousy.

There's no bedcovers on my duvet
I'm just wallowing in my own
sadness and illness
and I can smell you in every inch of this room.

I'm going away, maybe I'll stay away,
but homesickness is so hard to remedy
when home isn't home anymore.

In fifty years, all my land
Might be swallowed whole by the glorious ocean
By means of erosion.
See? I do learn things in that concrete prison,
Where they raise concrete children, in a plaster mould
To fit their vision. Aren't I rebellious.

Tell me I'm brilliant, I am the future!
I am all you people's pensions, I choose your nursing home
Give me your money.
I am your investment. If I spend it on *******
That's your risk factor right there. No insurance policies dear.
I am reckless. Aren't I fabulous.

In fifty years, my nasal septum
Could be eroded by means of class A narcotics.
But there's always rhinoplasty.
And I'll be married to a big fat banker,
With comprehensive cover on all of my dreams
I'll divorce him for millions. Ingenious.

I'll be a plastic hollow Barbie,
Dripping with diamonds. I will be everything
That I ever stood against. Sitting
perched between ******* delicately
The fat rich men will take drags on me
Until I am ashes. Old nicotine.

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.