"It's just a cry for help."

A stricken vessel sends out its SOS,
Fires its flares, cries out "Mayday!"
As control is lost, the black waves taste their prey,
Reaching around the ship, gripping tight,
Dragging down the chunk of metal no longer fit for use.

Those on-board abandon a lost cause,
Flee into life-rafts, barely staying above the surface,
Leaving the captain alone, with no hope,
No crew, and no reply from beyond the storm-battered windows.

Perhaps someone was listening,
Maybe one rescue crew was close enough,
Or one ship heard the call,
Would they act? Yes.
Because they could be the only ones who can save a life.

When left with no hope, we cry for help,
Even if we don't believe anyone will come,
In whatever way we can,
Because someone might notice,
Someone might care,
Someone might save us.

"Just"* a cry for help?

There's a word in my head,
But I can't quite get it out,
It won't make itself known,
As if,
Scared to be seen,
To even have a single eye,
Cast its fleeting gaze,
And even subliminally,
Comprehend.

The steady click of a pen
Punctuates the drone of
A teacher who thinks she gets us but
Loses our interest and focus until
We realise we don't understand because
We were too busy clicking our pens and
Writing poems.

The clouds rise
As smoke from the breath
Of frigid walls
That burn in the night.

The blue deepens
As water from the tears
Of fallen angels
That cry in the dark.

The world sleeps
As time in the hands
Of broken people
That wait
wait
wait
for change.

The skin burns up around my lips,
Nagging at my fingers,
Like the hairs on my chin are being
replaced
with needles ramming into my skin
through muscle to the bone
with no pause or thought
and setting fire to the collagen
that holds my jaw together.
Until my head is crumbling and I'm
trying to rip out the spikes
that aren't there and weren't
ever
but still scream into my skull
"Give up!"

Leaning against the wall,
I imagined as bark,
The silence became,
The hush of leaves,
In lazy summer breezes,
The lonely air in my hands,
Became your fingers,
And the weight on my shoulders,
Became your head resting against me,
And your smile lightened my soul,
I let out a breath,
Which became a subtle kiss,
A soft promise to each other,
To you, my girl, I belong,
As my hair,
Which I imagined were longer,
Blew in the wind,
We held each other close,
Until in the lazy summer breezes,
We drifted to sleep,
Together.

Rain soaked windows
drag a hand the world,
stretching, distorting,
long ripples curl
as if in a wake,
the houses obscured
and tree branches fluid
their currents disturbed
everything altered
and painted with grey
as oil paints run
from the sky down a pane.

Now we stare in awe
Marveling at specks of dust
That met in the black

Breathing slow
Eyes closed
A second
Of silence
And softness
Left to dream
In the night

And here I find myself again
In early hours of morning dew,
Drizzle, showers, spats of rain,
An unsteady beat to match my strides
And could the mist replace the hours lost?
Hours spent with no purpose
But for avoiding dreams

Yes here my heart finds comfort, peace
Amidst the overgrown and dying
Besides the flowing of a manmade stream
I see beauty in the leaves
Not perfect no but intricate
Refined
Each put in place for some purpose
To stimulate the mind

And like some pointless explorer I make my way between undergrowth
Twisting and stretching away from nettles
But caring little if I'm stung
Each tree I recognise as a friend
And logs as fallen graves
Each bird sings of a new day
And a new song
And the hope
Such hope
Remains.

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 voice will never,
Reach the heights I wish it would,
It will never allow me,
To convince without fail,
That my words,
Match my meaning,
For long enough to live.

Sometimes I wonder
If I have stolen life from the world,
If my existence has a purpose
Or if it simply grinds against
The ever-turning gears of time,
Resisting the absolute certainty -
The inescapable reality that all
Must end,
Everything will fall apart,
And all I'm doing,
Is watching half a gasp
Of life's refusal to die.

This path we take, we follow,
Our feet between the potholes,
Half-filled with water,
Half-filled with mud.

The loose stones bite my soles,
And shift my weight away,
Half-over my ankle,
Half caught in time.

We're laughing, talking of things,
That shouldn't make us smile,
Half-crude, too much detail,
Half-rude, but meant in jest.

Sometimes, we break away,
From the pointless, from the fun,
Half-serious serious topics,
Half-broken broken hearts.

Now the long days begin
Reality takes over, reminding me
My life is unobserved,
To most of little
Consequence
And to me lacking
Direction
I don't know where
I'm going but my path
Is clearly marked so I
follow, unseeing
with wasted steps
in search of
some answer
or other.

I wonder if they remember, amongst the streams of faces,
The ones that return again.
Do they do their job alone or accompany themselves
With the stories of those they serve
Perhaps they see the bad days and smile a little more
To take the edge off the pain
Do they see it turn around, the new starts and hopes of each
Or maybe they don't notice that another set of eyes, another order has with it, a life.

If looks could ****,
Mirrors would be deadly.

To most,
It meant little,
Enough to sound elegant.

But only four,
Understood,
Truly how hard it was,
To rest my fingers on those keys,
Calm my frantic heart,
And dive into song.

The taste of truth,
On my tongue,
And the silver silk of sorrow,
That was tied around my wrists,
Fell to the concert hall floor.

Killed,
Life destroyed twice,
By the same action,
At different times,
But crushed,
Once again,
With the fear,
Of revelation,
Until,
Cast,
Out,
By,
Love.

Nights are worth no more to me,
Than I am within them,
No shadow nor moonlight,
Can shake me to sleep.

For in the forgotten corner of some,
White-walled room,
No life, nor light,
Can reach me in my

shallow writhing, running from my,
Own demons, with
No mercy, nor rest,
To give me even a chance.

I wonder do they see
The sadness in my eyes?
Does the pain show when I smile?
Or have I learned to hide?

I wonder do they feel
The brokenness in each breath?
The exhaustion that cannot be healed by sleep
Does it reach them in my sigh?

I wonder do they miss
The one I used to be?
Who didn't know the loss of living
Lies on top of lies.

Hinted tears shining
Shimmering past all deceit
To cry out for help

Her eyes made me realise
How far I was away
When she called my name across the bay
And said, "You're going the wrong way"
I held my heart out,
I said, "You be the lighthouse,"
She said, "No, I don't want you to turn away."

She's not a lighthouse,
She's Ursa Minor A
Except she holds my hand
To remind me that
She's not 400 light-years away
When I'm lost at sea
She's leading me
Home.

I don't want to write another poem about your eyes
But every morning when you wake up
And let them drift open,
Is like a second sunrise
And every night,
As you fall into dreams,
I can just sit there for a while,
And hear as the very earth,
Breathes slow and rests with you.

So stay with me tonight,
In the dark, be my light,
And gently,
With but a whisper,
If at all,
May I repeat my worship
Of two glistening gasps of creation.

Surrounded,
Flashes stain my vision,
Flames lap at my feet,
Burning,
Screaming:
Faster!
Faster!
Run!
So I do,
With blisters,
Shooting pain,
As I choke,
With soot on my breath,
And run.

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.

A rush of wind down an ancient street,
Catches the folds of my dress,
Music captured from times now lost,
Floats between the carved beams.

I can feel the cobbles through my sandals,
And the heat on my covered shoulders,
Filtered between squashed-together roofs
Of pretty houses unchanged but for restoration.

There is no such thing as rush here,
The fastest pace is but a stroll,
Here getting anywhere is not the point,
Instead your eyes do the walking.

And now they wander across the flower baskets,
And the art and clothes shops,
That spill out onto the streets,
Bringing life to a tranquil town.

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

She loved to quickly and fell too far,
Little care taken for that little heart,
Beating so strong, so furious still,
Though now limp and leaking,
Ripped and ragged
From one loss after
Another.

She tries to keep smiling just as before
But her lips were spat out again, onto the floor,
She followed then, soaked with rain and tears,
Her trust tackled,
Quivering, quarter-hearted,
And pulse fading so
Fast.

Am I afraid?
Or just looking for an excuse,
To be someone else,
Someone stronger,
Braver,
Able to face up to,
Face up against,
The hand of hardship,
Ignore hate within,
And escape from,
Fear of herself.

I have neglected my passion
For too long now,
Leaving in its place
Promises and deadlines
Which I never met,
Along with all the stress,
Chaos and energy that
Needed an outlet
In the form of some black pixels
On a screen curving themselves
Into stories, patterns, thoughts,
Dreams, hopes, rants and love tokens.
So now I return,
As a potter to the wheel
Or a pilot to the stick.
And from my rest I have
Gathered up swirls of madness
Anger and fear and
Mixed them with hope
Until they have some kind of
Honest message.

Run to home
My four walls of white
The comfort and freedom
Of emptiness.

Settle down
In my old wooden bed
Let the memories flow
Ideas fill me.

Write them down
Then close my eyes
And drift from my four walls
To boundless dreams

Something is...
I can't quite put a finger on it,
I'm grabbing where there should be a rope,
And I just fall.

I think I'm...
But I don't know where I'm aiming for,
I just walk in circles and turn back again,
And I'm bored.

The fire is...
I'm just seeing the same old scene,
And reversing my own footsteps,
What's it for?

My heart is...
Until I latch onto a brand new name,
That rests soft upon my tongue and,
Just for a moment,
I feel a pulse.

Freedom tastes like a cold night,
A freshness,
A new way to live without light,
And above me stars,
Like angels whispered into being,
Guardians to keep me safe
And keep my heart beating
In time with my soul that I've searched for
And lost
That's been churned up and spat out and now I know the true cost
But that debt was paid
Long before I fought with the blade
Because the truth is
This pain was almost all self made
And by opening up to change
I'm not excusing the blame
Of the people who hurt me
Because the best way to get back at them
Is going back to being happy
So now I'm ready,
I'm not a little boy anymore,
I'm a girl trying to find my way to the surface
And I know that this
Won't be too easy
It takes more than long hair and silicone ******* to love my body
But it's a start and the first step along a storm-filled journey,
That will take me from boy to girl to a woman who's nearly thirty,
And I can't know right now
How many problems it'll solve
But one solution at a time
I can stay the execution in my head
Every time I saw my reflection until now it said:
"You're messed up, you faker, now go back to bed"
But now in that same mirror
I see the glimmer,
Of a figure I don't want to let go.
The light's returning
My heart is burning with a new flame
And a new name
And May Sara's gonna take this stage
And when she stands and sings her piece
It's about more than a show it's about a peaceful release,
A peaceful end,
A peaceful restart
A peaceful exit,
And a peaceful new part,
An act two, after an eventful beginning,
And you know what, this time,
Truth and love are winning.

Dusk distracts my eyes,
As freely flows the blood,
As softly my head stirs the dark,
Draws in the night-stained,
Ink blots of sleep.

It's too hard sometimes
To keep my heavy eyes
As open as my mind

The first settling snow,
Came late this year,
And the usual dancing was muted,
To little more,
Than a sway.

Once exhilarated,
Our feet this year,
Are heavy, placed and firm,
For no reason more,
Than fear.

The blur,
The whir,
The lights flashing past,
The trees, posts and shadows,
Speeding to my destined place,
Terminal - take all
Your belongings
Lest you lose them for good,
Next station,
Last station,
Take me there.

Am I worth keeping
Alive more than some other
Broken-hearted soul?

Go on, go up,
Our lives in your hands,
Carry our memories,
Our long-faded dreams,
Take them further,
Than we could climb alone.

Ascend then,
Without fear,
Be bold, be strong,
Despite the dark,
And the burden of our past,
We rest our hopes on you,
To preserve our lives,
Our history, our truth,
For generations hence.

Our warrior,
Our soldier,
Our mascot,
Our survivor.

I ran, I fled,
Fled from the light,
Lost? Yes lost,
To smoke and to night,
My lungs filled quick
With soot and black tide,
No sense, no senses,
No fear, just pride.

I choke, I cough,
On Judas' prize,
Gone? Yes gone,
The life in these eyes,
But here, I find,
Mortality denied,
No need for air,
Rebirth, not demise.

My chains, my rope,
Severed, frayed ends,
From family, from hearts,
No more I depend,
Alone, all mine,
For me to defend,
Black ribbons raise me,
Mercy descends.

If I saw this light from another angle
It would take upon a different shade
Where I have arrived now, I could only
Have got here from just one way.

It's okay to think "Why did that happen?"
"Why couldn't it have been easier for me?"
But we are the product of our trials and commitments
Are tested and strengthened through difficulty.

Contract, control, constrict the air is freezing
Deter, dement, deny my lungs from breathing
Fragile, freaking,
Phantom feeling, stealing
Souls from carcasses.

Shadows stalk a pilgrim
Through the dark I can't see
Their screams are invisible
My ears still bleed
Claws in my spine
Nails in my eyes
Dark is liberty

Heavy breathing,
Shouts,
Confusion,
Dirt beneath my feet,
Slip,
Catch myself,
Panic,
Turn,
Random direction,
Lost,
Fear,
Then,
Turn,
Find,
The way home.

Hear the same song, and feel it all again,
All the lumps in your throat,
And the tightening string around your heart,
Straining to keep it together,
The coarse twine scratching at your veins,
Binding the arteries that tried to burst.

Remember that line? When your fingers left mine,
So suddenly alone,
The bitter air taking taking your place,
Wrapping around my thumb,
Then dripping through my lungs,
Freezing the final words.

And if only you'd have stayed, what I tried to tell you,
Then you'd know,
All I needed was that promise we made,
To be kept to the end,
But friends before lovers never works out,
For better? No, always worse.

The fire is growing, there's smoke in the air,
The blood is flowing, filling your stare,
Come on, let's go, before it's too late,
Don't leave me here, we both can escape,
That look, I see, your foolish demise,
You'd burn to the ground, the ultimate prize?
You've waited too long! This will not end well!
Come on then, Dorian! I'll meet you in hell!

Perhaps if I were richer,
We'd be in each others' arms,
If I could afford,
I would be there with you now,
And I would offer you everything,
My heart,
My mind,
My words,
My songs,
All of me I would give,
For the sole purpose,
Of letting your eyes light up,
And seeing you smile,
And laugh.

Perhaps if I were bolder,
I'd have dropped all my plans,
Halted my dreams,
So I could run to you,
And show you how I love you with all,
My heart,
My mind,
My words,
My songs,
Dedicated to you,
To just make you feel,
As precious as you are to me,
For those perfect moments,
Together.

I'm not rich,
Nor bold,
But my life is yours,
For as long as you want it,
I will be there for you,
For you, my Texan girl,
Have won this English 人's,
Everything,
And though far apart,
You'll never lose me.

I am an author, except
My plotlines are mostly inept,
I have lots of sparks,
But no story arcs,
So poetry's where they are kept.

There's just one,
Whose beauty fills my mind,
And plays upon my soul,
The perfect melody I find,
In my perfect girl who stole,
My heart and fixed it back together,
And I just want her mine forever,
My girl, my love.

There's just one,
Who keeps me up at night,
Then allows me to sleep,
She makes me feel so right,
She's the one I have to keep,
No matter how far apart we are,
I will always hold her in my heart,
My girl, my love.

There's just one,
Who can wipe away all the,
Shadows and tears,
And pain and fear,
And I cannot keep to structures when I try to express the joy I feel,
Every time her words reach me,
I know my words are not enough to say,
I love her,
So much,
My perfect girl, my love.

Catching currents in the dark,
My vision focused only on that eye,
Within, I see she knows.

Her wings barely move,
Yet constantly I turn,
Which way?
The direction seems so meaningless,
Yet I see she knows.

So why?
Where does she take me?
How far and for what purpose?
So many questions:
As constant as the air rushing past my face,
But still no answers,
None but the pull of that eye,
Through which, she knows.