Hold off,
Hold up,
There's a cloud in my head,
Not today,
Come back tomorrow.

Keep off,
Keep up,
It's all under control,
Leave me,
To sort it myself.

Stay off,
Stay up,
Work - relentless to clear
The backlog
I planned from the start.

Hold off,
Hold up,
I'll get it done,
Just grant me the time,
I am servant to none,
But my Mistress:
Waiting.

Moving forward, smoother,
Slicker than expected,
No forces push against me,
All are leading me on,
And guiding me true with
Smiles upon their faces
And love streaming from their
Hearts that seem to beat
Far too often on my behalf
Onwards they take me,
How far will this go?
The path has no end,
Only a promise,
A promise already delivered
In part at least,
That I will be
Content

For we should not forget their sacrifice for country,
For patriotic desire for liberty,
For freedom, above all, but not for them,
For their children,
For future generations,
For those yet to come, they gave everything,
For the right to be individual,
For safety from oppression,
For an end to fear,
For all this, yet...
For all this we forgot,
For every lost life, another lives afraid,
For every drop of blood spilled, a hungry child cries,
For every word towards acceptance, another cast out,
For every bullet fired, hatred built higher,
For every time we said 'we shall remember', we ignored their cause,
For though we may not forget their names,
We forget why they fought.

Between the houses, a slim gap,
Allowing a ***** of low sunlight through.
Harsh beams gleaming in
Thick air dripping with ice
A small field breaks the monotony
Of white terraces and ageing fences
And a streak of yellow glances off
The semi-frozen blades.

Starting well,
All as planned,
No surprises, no shocks,
Still I have a bad feeling about this.

A slight hint,
That something's not right,
But it doesn't matter too much,
Still I have a bad feeling about this.

Foundations tremble,
The first rocks falling,
Then landslide, disaster, outrage,
I had a bad feeling about this.

Another barrier gone
And finally, my lies can end,
For five days a week
And two afternoons
I can be comfortable,
Happy,
Safe in my skin,
I can sing and write
Of wings and dresses
Of being weak and loving it
Of looking in a mirror
And seeing me looking back
Free to dance and giggle
And look sweet, look cute,
Look pretty
And be unafraid
To feel pretty too
To smile at the world
With the giddy joy of a child
For this is my start,
This is my beginning,
I am May,
And I am a confident,
free, pretty and happy
Girl.

All laid out,
A shirt, a cardigan, a pair of jeans.
It's all been sorted,
The name, an explanation, a key.
Everything is ready,
Except me.

I was ready,
I planned for months, far too often.
I've waited so long,
Hoping for this day, and now it's here.
Everything is ready,
Except me.

I know it's fine,
Nothing will go wrong, I'm sure of it.
But still the doubt,
The fear never leaves, what if they hate?
Everything is ready,
Except me.

My arms shake,
Not cold, not shocked, paranoid.
But I close my eyes,
Breathe deep, empty my mind, and hear:
"Everything is ready,
Are you?"

Yes. It's time.

The sky is alight
Beauty flashes, falls and fades
Leaving only dust

Ignored in the reflection
Kept in a blind spot or below
Conscious thought
But when the light falls wrong,
Or her eyes search too hard,
They are painted in grating contrast
Screaming out against the skin
Restoring their past pain to view
And to heart
And in that reflection
The only highlights are flaws
Flaws that remain
Flaws that remind her
But do not define her
Unless she lets them

Shade has a softer edge,
The sunlight can breathe smoothly
Along sepia streets
And gently persuade the dark away.

It will be the shadow's turn
In time, for now light's
Careful nudges
Push back for one more day.

With each climbing and Falling of the sun,
Its rays weaken and tire,
Leaving darkness to
Stay up in the mornings.

In my eye, the untainted beauty reflects upon -
- crack, crack, crack
A snapping through my skull,
Metal assaults metal
And clashes with any thoughts,
Cut off before they reach -
- crack, crack
It resonates in brutal disharmony,
Tension pulls on tensed
Muscles already on edge,
Eyes blink and unfocus,
Losing clarity with -
- crack...crack crack
I can't keep my -
- crack
Stop! All beauty gone from this -
- *crack, crack

Unrelenting joy radiates,
That smile never leaves,
He takes no notice of pain,
Just laughing again,
No fear of future,
In present, bright,
Any past mistakes
Disintegrate at will,
And in this cynical world,
He seems...naïve,
But our dismissal,
Makes no dent in his
Elated existence.

One foot in front of
The other trailing behind
Pace myself, keep on

The most beautiful season?
I think so,
Though others yearn
For crisp sheets of white
Remembering our footsteps
Or for the relief
Of clear skies and dry heat
Or for a shallow promise
Of new life that never quite
Lived up to its reputation.
Yes, who can fault the brilliance
Of fire-tinted trees?
Or the taste in the air
With that comforting bite?
And the way the sun sets
Taking its time to blaze the clouds
Into mellow haze.
Autumn, with her chill and dying,
Still glistens in my eyes.

In one day perhaps
All is changed
A renewal of hope
Meets with mixed mind
A confusion within
Becomes confusion without
Limits to hold back
But maybe there
Is nothing to hold
From view
But the shadow
They already see

A gentle haze
Trembling through branches
Trickling down with auburn leaves
And speckling the earth
With a lazy yellow
Piercing streams on the ground
Of tiring fire
Warming my blurring eyes

A scratching in the back of my throat
Closing off all attempts at apt tone
Burning behind my voice
Flames itching my tongue
And screaming at it to stop
So I close my mouth
To quench the blades

Antisocial dynamics filling my head
Formulated responses do little against
The brutality of missteps
The unfading of past errors
Mars the thought-strings I spun
And in the end tangle
And tie me to the wrong intention

The Actress steps out
To an audience of eyes
Making slow assessment
Staring at her, through her
Each subtlety of her motion
A tell-sign of her mind

So The Actress fills her mind
With foreign thoughts
Buries herself in research
And imagined feelings
That seep into her own
Until she is her part

And The Actress is no more
And actress but a puppet
Ambling through a cut-out of a life
Letting their eyes burrow deeper
But not deep enough to see
Her lying to them

But The Actress pays her price
For to lie that deeply
Requires honest belief in her own
Fictitious existence
And who she is ceases to be
In favour of a character

And as The Actress steps off stage
She is blind to her reality
And emptied of truth
For she carries the eyes with her
In her mind, in her reflection
Until she is no longer sure
She is an actress at all

Run free, my friend,
Your fear need not hold you
The lights are to highlight
Your best features
And warm your trembling hands
You're safe here
So stretch your legs
And explore as far as you wish
Until you have to rest
Then sleep in the open sky

Cut it out
Crying won't help at all
That feeling in your stomach won't go
Calm down
Don't let it take control
Breathe, you fool
Why are you so weak when the sun sets?
The shadows don't have to
Rule your heart
With tears

The broken days I left behind
Are paving my steps
And gently crunch beneath my new boots
Becoming as brief as the wind on my face
And as colder days come near
They will be hidden by mud and snow
And washed away with floods
But it won't stop them sticking in my mind
Or slowing my walk to a halt.

Stand and watch
As the leaves fall and crumble
As chill takes control

Stand and watch
As all around grow up
As everyone else moves on

Stand and watch
As the future streams past
As the dreams I had scream closer

Stand and watch
As I fall behind
Stand and watch

A shard on the wall
Of messy darkness
Soft-edged yet piercing
The perfect prison of my mind
It draws my eye despite
My futile attempts to distract
Away to other things
And wills me to
Open another hole
In my heart
Bleed another prayer
To let another ear hear
Though I know not
To whom I write
To let myself think
Of a fuzzy shadow on the wall
As something more important

A blank page
To fill with emptiness
To sing silence and streams
Of consciousness unending.

To take reality aside
And replace with infinity
In all its hellish
Endlessness

The words don't flow
They shouldn't
How can they with no goal?
Not even a shadow to aim for

But they drip onto
The blank page
And the white paper
Fades away.

The sands own you
You skin is at their call
The call rings in your ears
And stings your tongue
Listen; the pain is growing
Your thoughts are fading
Buried, are you?
Soon the sands will be yours.

Moronic feelings
Led me to this stage
Hyperlectric spotlights burning
Faces into brains
Unrejected homicide
Our side is up in flames
Unelected anarchists
Fell to their own games
Barbaric wreck-hugs
Weakened our domain
Undivided enemies unhated
Blame for bloodstains
Repulsive redefectives
Are all that will remain
But standing in the ashes
A martyred carved grave

Directed erasal
Water on hearts
Leader/Unleader
Science of Art
Oxygen wasted
Life torn apart
This. End. Is. Us. Now.

If I die then I die
Where’s the harm or fun in that?
If I fall I will fly
I inspire truth’s attack

I think you are beautiful
Your smile is radiant
And your eyes are beyond
My own descriptive ability

Your mind is exquisite
Like a finely crafted language
I lack the experience to
Understand but admire anyway

I rushed in and shot myself
Down into the depths of regret
Where now I hunt for some form
Of rewind, restart or retry

I'm far too jealous to express
In any meaningful way how I feel
And what was meant to be a joke
Has cut off all chance of honesty

And in the end I expect your eyes
Will pass over these words but
They will not reach your heart
And I will be left wondering
How to balance friendship,
Care and selfish longing without lying
To my heart.

I am guilty, I know, of a thousand sins
And many more besides
And I've punished myself every day
In vain hope I'd make it right
But wrongs are not erased by
Self-hatred, tears or tears in skin
But by accepting they were wrong
And letting forgiveness in
In place of bitter resentment of self
A new urge to give love instead
Because while regret makes sense
It doesn't repay the debt

The words came to me
Far too fast
Like I'd seen them before
In some book I'd grown up with
As if I wasn't writing
I was copying it down
And I wasn't composing
I was practicing a song
I already knew so well
I could rewrite it from
The echoes in my head

The winds tonight are screeching
As they scream past the pane
And I close my eyes to grip my wrist
And hide my face away

The dark tonight is closing
As its shadows fill my mind
And I whisper hateful nothings
To freeze my seized up spine

The breaths tonight are shallow
And grate against my ear
While the metal claws grip me
And satisfy my fear

Mesmerise, Memorise,
Broken eyes staring at me.
Tenderise, Slenderise,
My own eyes always hate me
Looking back, Reflecting back
The venom that runs on my skin.

These tears belong to me
You can’t take them from me yet
If I’m scratching at my skin
Then pain is what I get
Don’t cheat me out of hurting
Don’t save me from consequence
I made my own mistakes
So I’ll pay for my own scrapes

Would you help me?
Would you hold me?
Would you lift me up and be a saviour to me?

Would you listen?
Would you look away?
Would you help a stranger get up off the floor?

Would you hear me?
Would you love me?
Would you pray for me and restore my faith in hope?

I'm hungry and afraid
I'm thirsty and ashamed
Would you give me a reason to
Keep
On
Living?

Sat here between seasons
Summer flowers withering
But autumn yet to hit
The sun's dim light slowly fades
As thicker clouds invade the sky
And my hands shake
While I start a new journal
Page one of a different life
Filled with nervous excitement
Because somewhere down the line
I will finally stop
Stop hurting
Stop hiding
Stop running
Stop lying
And start smiling
It takes time, it takes strength
It takes courage that I don't know I have
But I have to try to shake my dead leaves.

In the darkness, colours create themselves,
Shadows become vibrant of their own accord,
Reflections shine like stars and
Stars swirl into streams of light.
The slow rustle of branches in dull wind
Becomes strokes of a brush, painting in front of me
An imagined beauty
Entwined with reality but
Not real in itself so much as waiting to be real
Longing to burst forth and dazzle my foolish eyes
But here I see a preview
A hint of some artist's dream
A whisper of captured thought in light and pigment
Though I know the street is black and the sky is black
And the houses are grey
And the grass is brown
Why couldn't they be gold? Or yellow? Or blue?
Why shouldn't they glow like fire licking at the
Edges of my shoes?
Dark remains dark only
For the minds which refuse to paint themselves.

Allow yourself to lay aside
Critical eyes and embrace
An imperfect truth
Another ending that might not have been
But was anyway.

Allow yourself a moment
To forget to question
And instead go with it
Run with it, ignore your legs screaming
And chase fantasy.

Allow yourself to see
Through naïve eyes
And glimpse the radiance
That only undoubting innocence can
Bless us with.

Allow yourself a brighter world,
A lighter narrative, an uplifting song,
And let it live in your heart.

A half-lit room, spotlights on the stage,
Two chairs, plastic looking flowers and some water,
The crowd is gathering, hats and coats come off,
As they all settle down.

Now I am surrounded, I am anonymous,
But for my family and one friend,
And when she opens her mouth,
The lights move at her command,
To focus on me.

And suddenly all things change,
A chance to prove myself to all,
And more importantly to myself,
See a new path, alongside this,
And walk along.

Then lights back on them,
They who've taken chances before,
In some world where change was easy,
And life was simpler, perhaps, than now,
And I ask myself then:
Is this the chance?

Yearning heart held down,
Trapped soul -
Pulled relentlessly to ground.
But now body follows spirit
And my freedom flight is found.

Between fractured clouds,
Frozen stars
Are shattered as I stare,
Painting dances on the moonlight,
Twisting circles in the air.

Rush of endless sky,
Empty sky
Above the chains of life -
Swirling winds now bind me
To the solitude of height.

And far from here the Earth
Has stopped.
And silenced every mind,
For in these precious moments,
God has visited mankind.

I talk again of broken souls,
Of broken people, broken promises that
Keep breaking our hearts over and
Again like a broken record.
And in that loop the words change,
Transform themselves into ugly
Monsters that tell us we're freaks
And remind us of when we broke down
And break down our fears into
Lists, mantras, chants in our heads
Until our monsters live inside of us.
And though they started as fragile
Echoes in our ears they start to take
Control of our broken bodies
And remind us how horrifically
Imperfect we are when really
Our brokenness makes us break
New ground to fix the problems
We didn't know we had and
Break down the barriers to honesty
And fairness and let us feel
We are not broken
But merely incomplete
And that the monsters are not
The piece we're missing.

A reassurance that I was wrong,
A confirmation of my idiocy
I knew all along but refused to believe,
And again my mind brushes through
The out of reach strands of hair that frame
The silken skin of her face.
And once more my blood is running
On imagined heartbeats that rush
Upon the lips I know
Will blur and fade from mind
With the knowledge I have been believing
In faith I held not in myself,
But in another's ability to surprise.
But I am wrong, I am foolish,
I know her too well to expect her to change,
So I will not,
And I will wipe the watercolour from my mind
With black ink.

The dreariness of the morning,
On days like this stretches its legs,
And wanders out past the noon,
Leaning on my shoulders with its aching muscles,
Mumbling in my ears,
Temptations, suggestions,
Take a rest, perhaps,
Let the fantasised release of sleep
Overtake your fuzzy head,
In the bleakness of the afternoon.

My breath hangs in the air,
A gathering of mist ahead of me,
Rolling off my face as I walk through it
The last few drops seem to trickle down my cheek
Leaving a trail of wind-bitten skin.

I rub my hands together and bury them in my coat
Blood runs back through my fingers, thawing them,
The sky is blue as my lips, trembling in the chill.

Autumn has taken her time,
Dragging her heels as she clung to the sleeve of Summer,
Begging him for one more hour together,
But now she is alone, her pale breath consumes the air,
Replacing it with wind as crisp as the leaves it blows down.

A tremble, a murmur,
A shaking in the ground,
A waiting, a crying,
A pleading to be found,
The broken, cold-hearted,
Knew before the fall,
But stood by and watched
As we lost it all.

A shudder, a grinding,
A twisting of metal,
A crunching, a falling,
Clouds of dust settle,
Devastate, destroyed,
Hope all but gone,
No pieces left to pick up,
No base to build on

What is there for us?
The dreams of the hopeless
Are tearing at the sky
What's left of independent thought
Can't find a reason why…

Shouldn't we try to rebuild?
Shouldn't we have prepared?
Why didn't we see this coming?
Why didn't we all start running?
Hasn't this all happened before?
Haven't we said we'd learned from the last war?
We felt the cracks running through our backs
But still we let it all fall down.

A boy came by today
His eyes never left the ground
His coat looked new and too big for him
He carried a satchel, a cheap one
One of his fingers was shaking.

The boy came past today
He glanced at me once
His eyes were empty, hollow
His fist was clenched, tight
His jaw was shaking

The boy came back again
He locked his eyes on mine
He was pleading with me
His shoulders were wider than before
His arm was shaking

The boy ran past today
He turned his gaze away
He was crying, I could hear
His coat fit him now, with all its marks
His hands were shaking

The boy strode by today
His head was held high
His hair was longer than before
He wore a backpack, a new one
Still he was shaking

The boy came by today
His friends by his side
They were all wearing makeup
He wore the same old coat
His finger shaking

The boy stopped to listen today
His eyes bright and lips smiling
He had a new coat to go with his skirt
He gave me a coin, his hand shaking
I said "Thank you, Miss"

The girl strut past today
Her steps confident in those boots
She carried a small bag on her shoulder
Her hair pinned up, it matched her dress
She wasn't shaking

I’m sorry that I look so down
I’m sorry that I wear this frown
I’m sorry but the pain’s too strong
I’m sorry I can’t wait that long
I’m sorry about the scars I’ve made
I’m sorry I can’t make them fade
I’m sorry I did this to you
I’m sorry I can’t make it through

Release; valve
Let purest rage fill the air
Breathe; fall
In death and pain all’s fair

Screaming skin,
Shaking hands,
Is this the last time the tears land?
Burning up,
Muscles weak,
Is this the last time till next week?
It hasn’t helped me once before,
At least this time I know what I’m in for.

Don’t look at me
Can’t you see my eyes are hollow
Cracked glass
Boarded up window to a broken soul
Open hole where my heart should be
An angel stole all that’s left of me

Black blood
Flows smoother than red
Ink on my wrists
And it goes to my head tonight
I can’t fight my own fingers
Who needs light it only lingers

I don’t want help
Is what I said to myself
Heart cast
In iron only beating for one
Life gone in the night
Swan song; devil’s bite

Could I?
Could I do it?
It's only everyone that I know,
And they don't look that hard at me,
Do they?
Would they even notice?
Almost certainly.
And it definitely wouldn't be forgotten.
But isn't that what I want?
Yes, but not like this.
But this way would be quicker,
This would get it out of the way,
And I'm tough, right?
And I have friends who'd keep me safe,
But still...
So many eyes, always.
Besides, I won't have time to prepare,
Nor the energy,
So for another day,
I won't.

Close my eyes and reality falls
Away to an abstract half-memory
The air has a shape now
It flows around my head
A soft purple twisting stream
Deflected so simply
Tumbling so easily and I
Am swimming with perfect breath
My head drifts, following lazy currents
The lavender strands frenzy as they pass
My flesh grows lines and traces
Graphs along its surface
That tickle my arms and face
In faded blue felt-tip.

I need a hand to touch me
To shatter all my bones
And show me I’m still living
Fragile, frigid, locked in stone
All I was or what I was meant to be
Was petrified into irrelevancy.

I need a chisel to strike
And change my fate
And open up my soul
To let out the mistakes
I need someone stronger to open my eyes
Only then can I start to rewind

I need the cracks to form
Around my body’s edges
Then I’ll be free
To tackle my own ledges
Make choice for myself and me alone
I wanna be more than a standing stone.

And I’m ready now to break myself in
And I’m steady now to stretch my new skin
Still I’m blacking out, the air’s growing thin
But I’m just ready to be broken.

Beneath the Earth we’re outnumbered by dead
Who’ve run out of voices to go to their heads
And the blood in their veins flow in our hearts instead
To keep our children fed.

A generation has fallen to pain
A broken species can’t keep itself away
But we keep on running though we can’t find our way
To build on yesterday.

But it’s no good blaming undertones
For a foreground that’s broken in half
It’s no use blaming understones
For our failure to make a new start
The dead aren’t just dead
They’re holding us to account
Their skeletal fingers are there in our hands
And they demand to know
Why we sacrificed their understones

Their bones are rotting
But we keep breathing
And ghosts keep pulling us down
Their eyes are gone
But still they see
Us cursing their graves - it was our fault anyway