I remember every scar.
Every mark left on my fickle heart
the silver lines I hide under my bracelets.

I remember all the lessons
When I said I’d never love again, how much I meant it
I remember who kept their promises.

I am becoming numb
The build up of emotion, the hatred and abuse
when my friends stop talking to me

when I get called a cold *****,
a ****, a *****, attention seeking bleach blonde *****
the build up, build up…

the anticlimax.
The unanswered expectation.
I do not cry anymore.

I do not laugh or love or live.
Every morning starts with a longing for a blunt,
or a bottle of something strong, for a pill.

I can’t even look at the boy with the lovebites
that I left with my teeth
I remember every scar, every mark

When I found satisfaction
I remember the relief
of finding the light in the dark.

Three A1's.
My father says the world is my oyster.

I guess I could do anything,
continue to learn

anything I wanted
to know, I could know - anything.

Knowledge is power
and the world is my oyster.

I light my cigarettes backwards,
spit out my coffee with nervous
laughter. Hands shake,
you make my chest ache.
I don't pretend
to make good decisions.

My lungs still expand
for the time being. My heart
still beats if it's bleeding.
I still eat junk food,
drink Red Bull, kiss you—
I could kick these bad
habits if I had to.

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.

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.

There will be no right moment
to throw yourself headfirst into darkness.
To go feeling along the walls
of an unlit room—

hands sliding through cobwebs,
feet shuffling forward
praying the floor does not suddenly give way
to stomach churning nothingness.

You must just go.
Listen to the voice of your lover
honey tongue calling out in the emptiness,
let your steps grow faster.

Run toward the abyss.
You can't accept this void within your mind.
And you will feel his hands soon,
let them guide you.

Valentines day,
out for my birthday
a few close friends,
a bag of dizz.
A plastic pig,
and a quiet conversation in the bathroom
with Rachael.
"Clara thinks I should see someone"
"I think you should too."

"But why?"
I didn't feel bad,
I swear to god I was happy.

I know now I wasn't,
filling myself with drugs
as fast as my blood stream
could run.

"What's up with you Molly?"
Even Dominic was worried
I was just floating on MDMA.
What's up with you, Molly?

He told me he could love me during rag week
and my god I thought it might cure me.
They found me
crying on the steps of the third floor
of Rachael's block
and no one ever found out why.

Not everyone made it out alive.
Oisin lifted me over walls
and Dominic caught me on the other side
and I suppose you could say that in many ways
they were lifting me through.

But think,
when I was in bed with him, stroking his back in little rings
and kissing him. Falling all over again,
so in love with him, some boy
who I'd never met
before that night
left that hotel room
and wound up dead in the Oranmore lake.

But how could you ever talk about that?

I picture my rage like a church bell, bang,
come now or hell! My fists bunching,
the storming forward. "Are you starting?"
Fear mingling with stagnant *****
into chyme. Screams engulf my mind;
you have been ******* around for way,
way, way too ******* long. Smack.
Fist collides with paper soft skin, kick.
You groaning on the floor, fight night.
Come first light the high subsides,
I will wash my bleeding knuckles and dig
your fractured skin from between
the semi-precious stones in my rings.

You had been pure, little boy, but I dropped you in the mud.
You kneeled, dropped your head, and shone my shoes.

You can no longer be buried
in a pure white coffin, like a child. If you died

I would not buy you lilies. I would not clean your face
anymore. You're tainted, tarnished, poisonous infected.

I cannot lay by you, now I know what I took from you.
It should have been more innocent

More special. But you have been cheapened.
I took everything from you

And still I want more. I, the biblical *****
that stripped you, bit you, broke you.

My country is my cradle, gently rocking,
gently spinning dreams of further isles,
prosperous waters and rivers of gold.

Dystopian land of watercolour sunsets
the fiery sea illuminates foreign pathways
and we know in our cold cores we must go.

I don't know what it is I like about you.

I like your mannerisms, your politeness
and your willingness to chat to my mother
with a smile on your face that says you aren't scared
of the world, and welcoming arms that embrace
the unknown and death.

I like your warmth, how you complain
that I'm always cold but my house is too boiling hot
and that you strip down to your underpants
as soon as you walk in. But there is no half
dressed for you. It's nakedness or done up to the boots.

You'll even lie in bed with your boots on, smoking,
and I hate when you do because I know you're
texting. Waiting on a lift. And that's it for
a month or more. I like how you're so unpredictable,
how irritating you are. I like your stupidity

but I hate you and I don't know what I like about you.

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.

When it first started it was
sneaking around in

the dead of night,
stolen kisses and

excitement.
Now,

it's familiar. Same old story,
my mother makes you tea

in the mornings.

****, ****, ****.
Sometimes my brain kind of seizes
like it needs to be oiled.
Like it's rusty and old
and out of new tricks.

My body is cellulite
and broken bleached hair, flaking nails
and dry spotty skin.
You, on the other hand
are just ******* breathtaking.

******* breathtaking, boy.
When you round the corner
my face goes red
and burns like fire.
The butterflies kick off

like a starting pistol woke them.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm pregnant
the kicking is so powerful
and I am so **** fat.
Whereas you on the other hand,

are ******* breathtaking, boy.
I'll give you that.
When I fell asleep in your arms
I wonder if you stayed awake
and studied my worn out face

the same way I watch your walk
watch how your lips move
when you talk
how your hips move when you
fill me with joy and use me.

******* breathtaking boy.

When I was younger they told me I was always
full of heat even when I swam in the sea and danced in the puddles,
I could be feral and free because I was always 37 degrees.
They marvelled at me.

How things change, swathed in blankets. I am always freezing.
I produce just enough body heat not to denature enzymes,
I am only warm with someone beside me, so dependant
that I need you not just for my dreams, my skin craves your heat.

Haikus. I'm a fan.
Just because I don't really
have that much to say.

I told her :
"I hate him 24 hours a day on weekdays,
abhor him most of the time
until I'm in bed with him and we lie there
saying nothing except my declaration
that we're not having ***, and he says 'OK'
I hate him 20 hours a day on weekends
on average. I despise his existence while
both of us are vertical. I feel tired when he's not
there."
She nodded and kept on smoking, world weary,
having heard it all before,
she nodded twice.
I said : "We'll fight tonight"
she laughed and she was right.

For saying you want to be with me
and then not calling.
For the last two years,
you've been my last thought
before I sleep,
and the first when I wake up -
yet never mine,
always elusive,
always the dark matter, half-there
schrodinger's boyfriend, you *******,
*******.
**** that I love you,
******* for ******* me
and taking a piece of me
every time you do.
**** feelings, **** your hands
on my heart, your breath
on the back of my neck.
******* for making me cry
on the bus
in public, down the phone
to my exasperated friends.
******* and **** that I love you.

I'm leaving
the city that made me.
This city that smells

like a peach after rain.
It's full of junkies,
no one cares about the homeless

forever camped out, cursing
bankers earning six figure profits
still living with roommates.

Out of it again on the Ha'penney.
Watching the sun rise and wondering
how you could ever

live in a place that isn't
this filthy, this guilty,
this beautiful and pure.

This riddled with history.
With bullet wounded buildings
painting memories of not-quite-war.

Wide streets, tall terraced houses
pale era, ***** all over rural Ireland
yet still feels like home.

And you go and you go and you go.
Music bubbles up through cracks in the road.
I'm looking for a place where my womb

is my own.
I love you like a babby loves an alcoholic mammy.
Dublin, I love you to the bone.

I imagine your DNA replicating hundreds of times
per second. Imagine mitosis exponentially repeating
itself and a billion trillion of you dividing
and multiplying inside of your own body
logarithmically jumping by extremes and simultaneously
dying as fast as you're made. There is not one cell
in your body that was there seven years ago
there is not one cell in your body that is not
resisting DNA mutations caused by your smoking,
you could have had cancer by now, but I watched a documentary
the other day and they are curing cancer with ***.
There are doctors out there saving lives and I
spend my time trying to figure out if I am capable
of love. I don't know the truth and can't lie.

A great, big fish, slapped
out on the ice. Rainbow
skin, and the smell of seawater.
I sit
and chat with the fishmonger.
Four kilos of salmon or herring,
for chowder, or something.

I keep finding drugs in my bra.
I'm not even sure
how they get there. I told a boy
how I felt. He got scared, and he ran,
but then he came back
like they usually do.

My boss makes me tired.
This town makes me tired.
I'm getting ***** looks from a pregnant girl
because I slept with the father
of her unborn child.
And I can't even blame her.

This town is a cesspit.
A melting black hole of *******,
ecstasy, Guinness and cheap cocktails.
It smells of cigarette smoke
and no one uses condoms.

I'll be going back to school soon.
A different world where books are cool,
where drugs aren't glamorous
and tobacco is stupid.

Xanax is my new best friend,
it numbs me to dish-washing,
fish shopping, coke sniffing,
*******
and hopeless despair.
Get me out of here.

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.

The doctors told her: “Leukaemia”.
More cancer? So I munched up Molly
and chain-smoked Benson
in the night club outdoor area.

The lights were stunning,.
We marched a half mile in heels
over frosted ground with knocking knees,
looking for people to please.

New Year’s Eve.
A house filled up to the brim
with big, fat eyes and dancing lovers
in a horrid estate in Sligo town.

2016 rang in, triumphantly.
I was surrounded by beautiful people
drowning in loud music
slept at 8am and dreamt of her.

My heart is a brick and an ice cube,
you were a stick in the ground
my dog buried once and dug up
every beat is a crunch crunch sound
music has no place here
and I feel I am sinking again
into the bog's cold tea juices
into the depths of the ocean
I am a plane caught fire
drown it out.

And I was the girl passed out on the stairs
and everyone knew me
in a roundabout way and whispers
went through me like knives, two, three, four
and bright as I was they all saw the blonde head
duck out of windows on sunny Sunday mornings
and cars with no shoes on, and sighed for me
prayed and laughed at me
"do you think that he loves you?
Because he doesn't and won't ever."
And now that I've left
I'm just a face
alone and exhilarated
dreaming of home and yet won't ever go.

Black leather
boots; worn through the sole,
my socks are flooded with rain.
The coat
is not mine, hair combed back
and pinned I
may look the business but it's
all a facade.

What if they
hear the buried country accent, see that
I'm an imposter? Realise I'm not even
twenty one? I've got
to push on, keep smiling,
keep climbing, swimming upstream
in my battered black boots.

I've got lines, I know them off,
I sniff them off my student card.
I twist them in my mind,
add a smile, I'm an artist.
I'm a smart girl. An actress.
I cry in rooms with the doors shut,
reapply my mascara and rejoin the party.

No would notice I'd been or gone.
No one would notice if I wasn't around.
I liven up a room,
and they like me to be there,
yet I'm never missed.

Tell me did you mean any of it?
The dreams of getting old,
did they mean anything at all?
Did you look into my eyes
and tell me you could see a future with me,
knowing all the time,
you were going to have a baby?

Imagine, a kiddie,
all little and childlike and calling you daddy.

Why did you cut me off?
Couldn't you just
explain it to me?

Who was I for a while there? Happy?
That couldn't have been me.

I'm just a fridge door,
magnetic, a face full of memories.
I'll reflect your life back to you,
I'm all smooth and shiny.

I'm great at a party. I'm blonde,
and I'm fun,
I'm numb
and all empty.
Just pass me a drink, love,
just let me forget me.
I'm in the ******* crew—
let me never see twenty.

I don't have a friend
or a care, not even a
leg. I can't stand up.

My body aches, shakes with cold
I await the return of my parents.
Head pounds like a kick drum
stomach acid burns, burns, burns.
I love you Mam,
I love you Dad.
But I'm bad. Evil and mad.

Depression comes in two forms;
Extremes. I loved but could not have
and now. Nothingness.
An Arctic sea envelops me.
I love you Mam,
I love you Dad.
But I am bad. Evil and mad.

Alcohol could never save me.
They all love me, then they leave me
take my body and abuse me.
Use me, use me, use me.
Help me Mam.
Help me Dad.
I'm sick. I'm mad, mad, mad.

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.

I swim in jealousy.
Up to the brim of my teeth,
floats litres of envy and greed.
I don't need you but, oh, I want you,
so I can discard you at your opening sentence
as an idiot or a hypocrite.
I want to want to love you,
for you to "love you too"

I want to reach out in the morning
and touch your soft speckled back
browned by the sun
to roll into your armpit
and smell your tobacco smoke.
Murmur my love for you,
kiss my hair
tell me you'll want me forever.

Why can't I just want a boy
who wants me back.
Or better yet, want a boy I actually want
instead of these fictional imaginings,
these stories I play out in my head
these lackadaisical dreams.
As if I would ever allow myself
to be happy!

It's the same old betrayal I've been expecting,
with hair like fire she graced you, two
hawks circling high above your prey,
my mousey whiskers trembling in anticipation
to be snapped up by bony yellow beaks
and see my friends stand with the same old pathos
saying it's not my fault and never was.
I wonder why I ever came out from under my rock
and why I stepped long legged into the path
of predators. Why did I expect different
when experiments have provided me with quite
conclusive data. Why would I,
seeing no merit in faith, be as blind as this?
Air headed blonde ***** with a high IQ and no smarts?

Quiet and darkness brings
you
lit from the back, not a memory—
restarted afresh. Ear-shattering,
bones-to-dust, heart breaking,
nails-in-the-back-of-your-neck


screams!

from the depths of my throat.
Two sinners in a car. Outrageous.
Kids with strong notions, hilariously
slumped ****** victim, yet breathing
heavily. "Where did you learn that?"
And you are so beautiful? And I am so not.
And you are so staying. And I am so not.
And you have won me in a week.
And so ******* perfect, and I am so lost.

I think I'd like to recline into my mind
for a while and just speak French.
Ooh la la my pretend friends
inside my head are real again
their little voices sont parfait
here I drink tea and discuss politics
au francais and he didn't leave me,
Rachel isn't dying and it's okay.

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?

I finally get to see you again,
I wonder if
you'll act like you know me.

Seeing as we're adults now
people will wonder
if you ignore me,

and what I'm wondering now,
is if I'll feel love when I see you
if I'll be desperate

just to be with you.
It's really ******* ridiculous
you live Atlantic

I live Irish Sea.
You swim in the bones of me.
I dream of home and you are home to me.

You crop up in my dreams so much
that lately
I think I might still be in love with you.

It's been nearly two years
since I've kissed you.
It never worked, it was doomed from the gun.

You drove me *******
crazy. Your hands
were forever blackened with oil.

I'm making things of myself,
discarded home like old receipts.
I haven't been back in a while now.

You must have known that I'd leave.
I love words and you loathe them.
You'll be married soon, I think.

I'm sick for the days in the sun on the beach.
The familiarity of your skin,
your boring bravado, your gentle talk.

I miss kissing you in the dark.
I'm so far removed from the bog—
trekking the streets of Dublin with big dreams.

'Twas far from ambition we were reared.
Big city girl in the smallest pond,
where the fish all slept with eachother.

Slicker. Full of ideas.
All I want is a carvery dinner.
To sit in a souped up car at night

at Ross, off, but the heating on,
old blankets tucked up and
watch the waves lap

over and back
over and back.

When the light crept in over me,
my breath stopped up in a half gasp,
choked on my fear, was it just a weird dream?
The fact we had no clothes on
says otherwise.

Oh my.
What a messed up, war inducing **** up.
Sleeping with you was not an option,
until fifteen drinks in your hand was on my leg.

Shivering, bent over the bed and screaming,
doing bad things we shouldn't have been doing,
if anyone found out we'd be in big,
big trouble. I can't even tell if it was worth risking.

You kind of repulse me,
getting off on how ****** it would be,
and it's scary how the guilt wouldn't stop me
from letting you touch me again.

Nobody else matters.
How long has it been like this?
Streetlamps are moments
orange illuminated sparks
each kiss
burned into my memory, the flame,
the little light of a cigarette
your arms around me
and I don't think this is infatuation.

How much can you love one person
or two
how much can I still love you
when you're so past and yet present?
How long has it been like this
a thousand nights trying to forget,
you're just the ocean waves
in my head.
A conch

subconsciously forever there,
your smell is my rooms smell
your cigarettes my own smell.
Is that love, who can tell?
Is it just *******, is it hell.

First, don’t go to any of your lectures.
Drink
yourself half-to-death,
hope
to fall into a coma. Have fun
while you do this.

Make it so bad that the friend
who was once
your drug dealer
expresses concern
for your health. Step two:

Don’t study either,
procrastinate, find sick notes,
push back the date
for the inevitable
until there’s one day left
and the workload might **** you.

Finally, step three;
stand on the steps
outside the exam hall, smoking,
have your dad call you
explaining
the death of a good friend’s father.

Use your last ten minutes
to ring old friends who need to know.
Pass on the message,
blank,
leave the exam after twenty minutes,
cry in the bathroom
and go.

It terrifies me
that I question
if you finally let me mind you
would I give up on moving

you're an anvil
I would chain myself to
if you gave me half a chance
I'd sand your edges

there's a big world out there
there's things to see
men to sleep with
I call it networking

I think I'd consider giving it up
if you asked me
Chicken
I'd probably give my all to you

even though you treat
me like a disposable
discretionary past time
when you put it in me

I feel a little bit more
whole a little bit more
deranged you mention
the words panic attack

and I'm half insane again
I don't think you
understand
how I feel about you

I don't think you understand
I'd give up dreams for you
I barely even
like you

Upon your leave my body crumbled.
The doctors said thyroid things but I found it
poignant that you took ten percent
of my body weight and half my hair
when you went. My teeth broke,
but now you're back, and as I stood blind drunk
in your kitchen you said kind words to me
that I don't really remember but I know
in my heart they didn't fix me.

I am far too old for you, and more mature
by a million miles. I roll my eyes at you

more than I do at my drunken mother
and that's really something to take note of.

Every word you say prints itself on my brain,
though it's all *******, it's vital to me.

Half needing you, half hating you, half
myself I have left half of me behind somewhere

like a handbag on the train, with half my soul
and not my last fifty cents and my make up bag

and not dried up mascara, but all of my sense -
left it behind, let it fly far away.

I float in my ignorance.

My words always come to that stuttering stop.
Hurts hidden past their dates
don't pop, don't explode, scream
or make a scene. The *** bubbles over
and the hot rivulets swim southbound.
There are never more than two.
Colourless, without sound; inside, the reaction
of heat energy, raising temperature
and changing state. My thoughts evaporate.
Escape.
I regain myself and carry on
the endless day and stagger home to bed
routines don't change, and in my head
I hear your voice and ask you
what are we doing, what is this madness,
why are you doing this to me when I...
I...

I'd never ask anything of you
or expect you to love me at all.
Cheat as many times as you like,
I'd suffer in silence.

Want me until you become incontinent,
Incompetent in bed and as fat as your father.
Want me like some kid on MDMA
wants water and a bassline to cry to.

Never let me sleep alone
maybe love me a little but never tell me,
and if your feelings get too strong and potent
go **** your ex girlfriend.

Just don't ever stop wanting me.

"When did your hair get long?"
Has it really been that long
since my hair got stuck in your mouth?
Isn't that weird that I could have loved you
that much
and we didn't speak for a year.
When did my hair get long?
I was so busy drowned in my misery
that life was going on around me
and I never noticed.
"I should get it cut."
But that's not your business anymore.
I mean I'm ******* your brother.
It's all so ******.

You say
you don't want to hurt me
but don't you realise this hurts
these lonely days
these hours in bed
you're never off my mind
for any moment -
that hurts,
a deep pain
the wondering if it'll ever change pain
the empty
I'm so worthless pain.
You don't love me
that's what hurts me.

Education is a difficult subject, it is all I have,
and I can never have enough. It is easier
to calculate facts and filter through numbers
than to tell you how I feel. It is easier to pretend
that in the stars I see swirling infernos of flammable
gases, and not your eyes, dreams and the nights
we slept together. Education is a master of disguise.

How do you oppress the people? Keep them clueless.
So I eat books like stale bread, dry texts
inhaled by the lungful. You sit in the bed
beside me, *******, and smoke. I tell you the same old
rigmarole. You'll die of cancer, a painful death
with no hair or dignity. You smile. Your lungs will bleed
and I will die of old age, alone, but thoroughly educated.

You told me it was over,
I said: "Let's not be awkward."
Let's be friends.
I was hoping to salvage
some of what we had before.

I was walking to class,
you grabbed me by the shoulder
in an attempt at friendliness.
Knocked me off balance, again,
I gasped - "Don't fall!" you said.

The warning came too late.

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.