I’m scared for the future
Like honey dripping from the comb
I only see in front of me and I’m scooping, scooping
I’m ready, I turn away and back
And now it’s all collapsed

Every so often I suddenly posses the eyes of a being outside my comprehension
And I slam back to wakefulness, yet never less dreaming than before
Madness, madness

I’ve seen my grain of sand sliding
Closer to the free fall of the hourglass
And now I can’t remember anything
But the misty dread of eyes
Staring and waiting

I hate the way my face
sloughs off in chunks when I stare at the mirror
I pull a frown, and a piece falls from the cheek

Each time I scrabble sluggishly at the sink
slapping back the flesh with a sound like mud cakes from when we were kids
When mirrors were for checking fallen teeth
and soft toy drama plays

Not a play by play surgical cross section with
every dermatologically perfect stencil I’ve scrolled past
Projected across my forehead

Not a soundtrack for
the way my bones would crack and grind
If I could squeeze and mould it just right


I hate the way that if I stand still enough
I can smell the curdling of my inadequacy
Mixed and folded into the screams in my head
until I can’t tell which ends and which begins

I laugh and joke and fear so desperately
that they don’t burn through my wax covered skin
To find all the holes I thought I beat out of me
when I learned I stayed cleaner in pretty packaging

Give me your eyes
so I can see out of them
Gaze upon this stretched out body and observe
Which wine pairs well with me,
being forgotten or being known?
Either way, I’m intoxicated on your judgement
and drunk on the guillotine of the youth

These shrunken hands
Sinking beyond my body
Common places, common days
My arms dissipate, regardless

My ribs compress like cliche metaphors
A long, drawn out CPR
My lips sting
And my body laughs
Like the dying rattle of a miser man

And my eyes
Dry like the wind

I sit
Lukewarm tea at my tongue
As I stare and try and try
Make this mess at my chest and my skin
Mine

Make my box of random trinkets
All different sizes but each in
Their own, small compartment
A mess but my mess and my mess I understand
But these clothes spill from my drawers and from
The bottom of my bed
And soon it’s just itching polyester
And nails-on-chalkboard fibre

My face is drawn tight
On the brink of spilling static
Cause under these nerves
And vessels and sinew

I’m just soda and mentos
And time

Butterflies are scavengers
Fluttering colours over a corpse
So read between the lines

Monarchs
Something, something
And death

And to love
Oh to love
The Unseen Ones hate us
They hate for we choose hate
When we can love where they cannot

Dance! The world dances!
The rocks the soil the river the trees
The worms the fish the birds the city
Waiting for your next miracle

Wake from this dream
Like putting in ear buds
Forgetting you turned the volume
Up up up

It’s the folly of man
To think us a march
Of drumbeats and boot-steps
Of razor edge lines

Bloom! The flowers last a day!
So cherish them!
Hail them!
We may never live another life

In the madness, I found clarity
The singular eye in the storm
rolling and twitching
Promising pain and whispering understanding
And with that clarity
I stood laughing
Blood soaking my hands
The storm is peaceful
I look up,
and see nothing but carnage sky

There is a desolation to grief
Hidden, buried
Rotting and writhing in the depth of the soul
And no one can see the blackened heart
Aching and curing in tears of salt

There is a wrenching to pain
Gripping, seeping
The infection and corruption of touch
Like everything could crumple
And everyone can break

There is a madness to comfort
Clinging, blinding
Feeling closer to light, to wind
Crawling up a staircase
Of bodies you’ve dragged in pursuit

There’s a silence to acceptance
Waking up from a puddle of blood and spit
Finding the faces that mouthed your name
Moths, circling the lightbulb
In your own rusted cage