My words do not fear,
They speak without hesitation,
Onto the page.

My words do not hide,
They never avoid truth,
But reveal so much.

My words do not fade,
In the shadow of greater power,
They remain firm.

My words are not in chains,
They will never be enslaved,
Even when my heart is locked away

An epic battle
Of numbers against paper
Of ideas versus plans
A determination to defy
The rules the world is governed by
And bring inconceivable to life

The smell is choking,
Right in my lungs,
I can't see a thing,
Just grey and flame,
I can hardly breathe,
And the world is turning black,
And all sound falls away,
And only "Run!" screams through my head,
So I do,
Like a coward,
Like a fool,
I could have stopped it,
But now the fire's caught,
And nothing's left to go back to

There was such life in his eyes,
Such energy,
That far surpassed his body's limits.

So keen to speak,
To tell of all his years,
And to learn of new ones to come.

No fear of change crept into his mind,
Always looking forward,
Never "It was better in the old days" but rather "It was different".

A man led by a love of God,
Who led him to touch hearts,
And raise spirits.

And the finest mark of such a man,
That in memory we laughed before we cried.

Wrapped around my wrist,
A trap, a catch,
The colour (black) defines me,
And with that pigment,
Justified hatred poured out,
Absolute disgust at my disagreement
with their designation of who I must be.

Each blow to my chest flattens the skin,
Beats me closer to submission,
Crushes my every chance at hope,
The cracked screen offers no escape,
Only the pain and punches offer
"Truth."

The vicious hunger in his eyes
Tells me I'm as good as dead,
And worse to him.
I am nothing but a sickness.

The clouds seem to dimple in a grid
As if poured over an egg box
And left to set in the sky
Further along the grid sharpens
Now rows of white cut into the sky
And between them blue stripes
(too bright for so late)
Sweep down to the distance
And stretch past the corners of my vision

Professional?
Never.
There is no order to this
Organisation built on random
Ideas and words
That came to our heads one Thursday.
But now it has become
A messy reality
With all the inconveniences
That the real world brings
And all the stupid,
Silly moments
We harness.

A breath, one last
pause before the onslaught
of pressure, nerves and fatigue
makes its home among
the stench of sweat
and futile deodorant.

A chance to release
and forget for a while
to keep appearances
from turning stale
and let each motion become
natural again.

Sit here with no duty
no great fight, no lines
no levels or positions -
only myself
and
the house.

Can you hear me as I sing to you?
Can you hear when I whisper in my room?
I'm afraid you'll be lonely without me
Are you afraid you'll see me too soon?

I regret every time I drew my own blood
Because it only made the veil close
I regret hurting myself in your name
And I hate that you will never know
That I got past the pain

I won't be held in the pictures we took
I won't stain sadness on the memories we loved
I'll keep on fighting
I'll keep on rising
I won't keep hiding
I'll let the tears fall
So time can take it all

You asked me if I would hold you in my arms,
As you began to fade and your strength began to fail,
But even as your eyes lost their final light,
There painted on your lips: one final smile.

If I tell the truth, all I really want
Is to walk with you again and feel the warmth of your hand.

I’m holding back the tears though you’re not here and still I can’t stop staring at the sky.
I thought it couldn’t end but I was wrong but still I'm searching for you in every star.
Yes, I know that only infinite things can burn so bright without fading to the past.
But I still want to save you,
So my heartbeat’s for you.

I wish I could go back and find when “I’m fine” was spoken as honest as your smile.
So pointlessly I keep holding your fingers though they’ll never close around mine.
The days that cannot come back might somehow keep your lips from turning blue.
So I deny it all to save you,
When eyes closed, you’re still you.

And your imprint will always remain in my soul.

No my dear,
Don't blame yourself
Or torture yourself with those
Thoughts of what could have been.

No my dear,
It was no failing of yours
No amount of love or care could
Have protected that child any better.

No my dear,
Don't give up so soon,
You were young and unready
And scared and trapped and shaking.

No my dear,
I can't know your pain,
But I can share it with you,
You shouldn't have to face it alone.

Yes my dear,
You can
I promise you can
And next time will be better.

So the new year begins,
Why should it be any different?
Nothing really changed beyond the smoke in the air
from all the fireworks just like every year,
and that will soon drift away.
Does it really mean all that much?
The broken resolutions simply remind
us of our temptations.
But maybe it could be better, I think to myself.
Optimism seems useless but in the end
it is better than giving up hope,
and better is what I want to be.

"Nothing is real," she says,
Her tone a cloak for her meaning
But I know her words are a plea,
A last hope to convince herself
That the darkness is no more
Than a shadow puppet in some sick play.
She would welcome emptiness,
Silence and solitude,
For her these things would be a
Relief

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.

Tempted by my reflection
To scold and scathe myself
The suggestion planted in a dream
I am wrong, I am broken, I am weak.
A voice in my ear as I look at my hips
"Too narrow, you freak."
And if I listened, I'd think these clothes don't fit,
That my body is destined to disgust,
But instead I ignore, no, defy,
And shout "This is who I am!"
"I am a daughter of God,
of a mother and a father."
"I am a sister of my sisters."
"I am loved by too many to drown in hate."
"I am me, I am free to love and to dream."
"I am mine, I am alive and I am baptised."

Take me away from,
Dark streets yet not dark enough,
To match my self-hate.

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.

I'm not always warm,
I'm not always kind,
I snap and bite,
Forget to smile,
And refuse to help,
But I'm working on it.

I'm not always clever,
I make mistakes,
And stumble into,
Commitments I can't make,
I fail to sort it all out,
But I'm working on it.

I'm not who I want to be,
I'm not as trustworthy as I'd like,
I lie without thought,
Then tear myself apart,
With the guilt,
Because I'm not there yet.

But I am working on it.

Gently closing, almost-sleeping,
Form outside: hurtling
Inside: breathing slow
A landscape scurries past
The distance lazy, foreground hazy,
Barely a whisper of light on the horizon -
Casting pink shadows on low clouds.
Those around are tired (like me)
But they have company to keep their eyes open
I myself am alone, though I sit by a stranger
I don't know their reasons
I know my own, I think,
I want a future, and for me, that future is far away
It is beyond the hills I can see
But not so far to be unreachable
So I sit and let myself be carried
Away.

A rainbow of glows,
Scattered between needles,
Painted with soft scents,
Dripping down to the carpet
To join strips of silver
Shed before their time
Their brothers and sisters wrapped round
In pulsing waves around the monolith of cheer,
And between the proud branches,
Paintings lifted from canvas,
To decorate the eyes.

Can you see? Rising in the streets
A force, a song, running through their feet
They move, as one, strides marking the beat,
One voice, one heart, hands and promise meet.

The fog, dispersed, by angry boots on stone,
The dark, remains, but no longer alone,
The hope's alive, and spirits start to grow,
They'll stand, until, the flag of change is flown

Decision reversed,
In a split moment,
The balance shifted,
Past the line,
Until it tipped,
And flipped,
Sides.

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

I pause,
Stare,
With baited breath,
Its gentle flow frozen,
Caught between my teeth,
Holding back,
Cowering,
From nothing.

I stop,
Kneel,
Screamed cries,
Burn in my throat,
Flames lick my tongue,
But do not ignite,
Dwindling,
To nothing.

I fall,
Sleep,
In restless dreams,
Eyelids firmly shut off,
Blocking out the dark,
From filling me,
Completely,
With nothing.

Hidden but not,
Enough,
For me,
A creature of night,
The light exposes,
Pulls away the cloak,
That keeps me from,
Hurting,
And forces me,
To face my fear,
And cope with my past.

I'm lonely,
Beneath it all,
I'm different,
So different,
From everyone I know,
Few can see past it,
Fewer still can get past it,
To be by my side,
Even for a while,
So I'm lonely,
But for my friends,
My true friends,
And a language.

Looking on as they take their places
Familiar faces now behind a door
I'm cut-off from their new world
A story told in my absence
I know they'd still welcome me
But I welcome the arms of sleep
Instead.

Begging, urging,
Closer, closer still,
Mornings, days, nights,
Just more time to ****,
Longing, pleading,
Another second filled,
Laughing, crying, both
Emotions knocked and spilled,
Falling, falling,
Waiting, waiting 'till,
Boredom over tiring,
Becomes my bedtime pill.

Proven truths become
Cracks in the ice
Keeping us from plunging
Into a suffocating void
Living only by the
Facts we're fed
That keep us breathing
But only just
And slowly poisoning
Our brains.

A dark streak runs along
The sleeping earth
Whispers in its path
Disperse into silence
Creatures lie dormant
And flowers take a breath
Before crumbling to dust
Which sticks to the feet
And clings to the skin
Yet falls through the hand
Like rain.

Speckled light hides me,
For a while,
I am alone,
With my friends,
Only those who want me,
Only those who care,
Only those who accept who I am,
Though the ground cools as the sun sets,
Still I'll lie here,
And dream of a better time,
When I don't have to be alone,
To be happy,
And I don't,
I have my friends,
But I still have to escape,
From my family.

Contradictions,
I don't understand who,
To trust,
I am,
He is,
Can help me?
I'm scared,
My love,
Will you comfort me?
Or leave me alone?
Alone where I,
Am scared,
Cry,
Collapse,
Give in to my mind.
Please,
My love.

Plaster peels off each cell wall
As the memories crumble of horrors they held
Each grated window a door to a belief
A superiority that bled out the "weak"

Rows of empty foundations
Regimented into corners as sharp as the tongues that commanded them
Little remains, but for the bell toll
And with it a million screams

Each detail refined for perfect horror
The floor cast to drain the heaped corpses
The smoke of their bodies still sits in the chimney
The blood of their slaughter still stains the wall

The pain is gone now, dissolved into flashbacks and imagined torture.
But the bullets and echoes of evil still sound
As we say "Never Again"

I have written of being lonely more times than I can count,
When I am still surrounded by my friends,
But there is a shadow behind me,
Longing to be replaced,
By a soft embrace,
And the colour of some dream's eyes.

I've drawn and I've imagined more days than I could know,
Of letting my heart fuse with another,
Of handing over my desires,
My time, my hope, my life,
To one, who'd share their own with me:
The colour of their dream's eyes.

So though I'm not alone,
And have loved and been loved before,
I still know what I'm missing,
And I can't stop wishing for it back,
So excuse me if I hold your gaze too long,
Looking for the right shade,
The colour of my dream's eyes.

Straining to reach the notes,
Stretching to soar above all,
And deliver some message beyond words,
Outside reason and apart from logic,
And behind the sound, I must make it sound
As if I am simply singing,
Into the brass tunnels and letting them
Turn my song to music.

A voice I know so well
Words I wrote
Words that made me
Feel far too much
Like I'm falling backwards
Into the darkness I once
Swam through with eyes open
Staring as I drifted
As if in the distant depths
There might be some light
Some hope
Some dream worth chasing
Some reason to gasp at life
Like that last breath
Somehow
I could still sing along
And slip back into that water
But instead
I turn my head forward
And see filtering through
Hints of change
And a promise
An aim
A future to shoot for
To pull my arms into motion
And start swimming
Up.

Flowers that bloomed on the other side
Are hardly as pure as breath in your lungs -
Breaths which now have ceased and faded as you sleep.
Still your smiling face, blossoms into life.

“Thank you,” I told you, as if everything was fine
Just another day... Just another day.
I’d never really known the meaning of “Goodbye”
But now my heart stands still, and crumbles in my hands.

If I tell the truth, it was all because I want
To hold you hand again and feel the warmth of your smile.

How can I hold back tears when you’re not here while still I can’t stop searching for your eyes?
I thought it couldn’t end but I was wrong - now my forever’s broken on the ground.
Why can’t I see that fire in your eyes? It burned so bright and smouldered out so fast.
And I still don’t know how to save you -
Now one heart beats for two.

I wish I could turn back the time to when “I’m fine” could still mean more than just a lie.
I never want to let go of your fingers, but now they're cold compared to mine.
The voice that cannot speak somehow smiles if I keep watching your pale skin go white.
Still I deny it all to save you,
I close my eyes and you’re still you.

Waiting, dry,
Stale silence sticks to my throat,
Flows through my head,
And sits in my skull:
Softly hissing,
Whines shake along my jaw,
Trembling across my neck.

In my solitude,
I punctuate the hollow room with
Tapping of fingers,
Fidgeting for the folly
Of pointless chatter
But finding only the grease and grime,
Of long gone dates and dateless days.

The counter holds more stories, but we forgot them all.

Mental block,
Mental snap,
Confusion,
What's real?
Who am I?
"Freak"
The whispers,
I take to be truth,
And cry.

My pain is remembered
In the cracks between
Each piece of my heart
In the time between
Each tear in my eye
In the breath between
Each self-hating cry
In the stutter between
Each hopeless restart

Foundations fell centuries ago
We've been building sins
On brittle understones
We dug up the tombs of the best psychos
And they let us in to hell below

We carved our lives into hungry deaths
And then sold our souls
For sixteen breaths
Then we burnt our bones 'til there was nothing left
And we'd hide and we'd fight for a fateless step.

Stretch the world: wafer thin
Flatten reason, break us in
We are the children free of skin
Order falls; chaos wins

What's left of life is not much at all
But if my heart's still beating I will not fall
Our culture is worthless, our laws are too old
But my heart's still beating
My blood is not cold.

As we climbed
The hills behind unrolled themselves
And laid themselves out in the sun
To bask and beautify
The cascading brightness
As it tumbled down mountainsides
Into the lake
Skipping like a flat stone
And shimmering with each bounce
We watched as horizons became endless
As haze dissipated
To reveal another distance
Beyond the limits of our eyes
Marked only by the shadows of peaks
We couldn't quite see

Settling spirits lose their fire
Drifting down from smoky skies
To tangle up in earthly hair
In closed eyes, in hums, in sighs, in air.

Far flung the thoughts of old;
Duty deserts them, passion sold -
Youth yearned for long ago
Now squandered, now lost, now caught, now go.

Pretty purpose fades to dust
Desire's deception burns with lust
Nurtured knowledge cast away
To try, to fail, to be replaced
With goals more worthy
Than empty success
To find, to wonder, to love, to bless.

So make me braver than I'd ever be
You'll bring it out of me
I can dance all night in the dark
If you're in front of me
Who needs sunlight
When I have your eyes?
Your voice is music to my heart
Your hand is my guide
Let's get in hold
We'll take turns leading
It won't be cold
For long with my heart beating
Faster and faster
With every spin
Your light's so inviting
So let me in

All I want is to cry out my mind,
When all my tears have dried up,
When I have no pain left to give,
That's when my veins scream for more,
More broken skin,
To match my heart and soul's torment,
Takes more than just water in my eyes -
I want to cry out my mind.

Wood.
Carved by machine.
Curved for purpose.
Yet.
Snatched from logic.
Labelled a trophy.
An antivictory earned too hard.
Wood.
Stirring memories.

A trunk of limestone strong and high, splits to stretching branches,  
   Those stones were set, so long ago but still will hold such weight.    
      Could they have known when those ancient hands,
Set this pillar firm and new?
That after centuries,
Still they'd stand,
Still strong and
Straight and true.
And even now,
Though old and
Worn, those gazes
Question: How?
Such wonder fills
Every eye which
Looks upon the
Polished bark,
Smoothed by
Mortal hands not
Nature's breath
That will never
Know such pain
As death or the
Feet or nest of
A crow or lark.
And who can
Say how many
Years, decades,
Centuries from
Now the last
Stone will decay?
When will that            
          Final rock
crumble              
               back to dust?
When it does,
will anyone              
know what           beauty
it once was?
And will those
                         hands that
placed the          
                                    first stone
finally                                
sleep and rest?