The clock's calling
Time to let go
No more falling
Let the blood flow
...
Drip
...
Drip
...
Drip
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Drip
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Drip
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Drip
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Dr­ip
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Drip
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Drip
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Drip
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Drip
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Drip

Around my neck,
Three beads,
That mean too much to me.

Within my mind,
A girl,
That no one else can see.

But one word,
It snaps,
The whole thing falls apart.

The necklace becomes,
My noose,
That hangs and chokes my heart.

I can feel it still,
Where the blow should have hit,
Where the marks on my wrist from the rope should have been.

I can taste it still,
Where the fire should have been,
Where the blood in my veins should have choked and died.

I can hear it still,
Where the screams should have called,
Where the ring of metal should have ended it all.

But I can breathe it still,
When the air fills my lungs,
And heart can beat and race and fall just as it always did

Shadows reach, claws outstretched
Scratching and grasping a trembling wreck
Crawling, scrabbling, breathing rough
Footsteps can't carry you far enough
Moonlight casts flickers that turn into eyes
Grinning and watching a squirming demise
Feel the space close, the breath on your skin
Fingers in your hair, the twisting within
Screaming, screeching, scavengers ravage, draw blood
Keep your eyes open, my pretty, my love.

Staring at the ceiling
As I always did,
My sleep disturbed by childish excitement
And anticipation
Curiosity blurring all other thoughts,
I won't sleep yet, I know,
But I must
So that my eyes open
To the brightest day of winter.

I used to keep myself out of sight
Shadows became friends far warmer than light
The outside world saw no more than a shell
While inside I was growing and preparing myself

Slowly I let the sun touch my skin
Allowing more eyes to look in
And see my heart beat freely
So I could begin becoming me

I broke through the walls, but not alone
People around me at every milestone
They held my hands and pulled me out
With their help I ended the blackout

Now a new life takes its place
As a new smile dances across my face
I stretch out my new wings so they can dry
So that one day - I can learn to fly

I run away
so many        times and
reach out to           be who I am
to get a little         closer to the truth
closer to                         genuine smiles
that once shone                   from my lips
and for once be happy         but I always
end up having to       hide away and
so many times    I find myself
back         where I
started

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!"

If there could be a clearer, more perfect breath than this
I would know it only through your lips
And though your whispers may not be pure
They cleanse a bleeding soul of past regret.

Could fear or failure keep me safer than this?
An edge, a line, not to stumble across
For I run from both into your arms but still
Arrive back here again.

The smoothest screams carve faces in these cliffs,
And wrinkles as they age,
Become cracks and gaping holes,
That before long collapse in on themselves,
Until those eyes of rock and dirt,
Cry from hollow shells.

There is more truth around my neck
than there is in my whole body.

And scratched into the clasp
are the marks of honesty.

And clinging to the velvet
is a whisper of who I could be.

But the lump in my throat,
the way my shoulders stretch out
a little too far away from my flat chest
and my hips don't quite fit
the way I want to walk.

Your eyes see body first,
Truth second.

Through the mist. searching claws,
Eyes with ill intents.
Through the chill, a whispered breath,
Nails in my chest.

Through the rain, blades glint,
Daggers at my throat.
Through the wind, a screaming voice,
Death's cruel gloat.

Through my mind, storms approach,
Clouding sight and truth.
Through my heart, guilt grows.
Ended youth.

Yellow joy,
Wrapped in holly green excitement.

Lavender hugs,
Wrapped in berry red love.

Blue tears,
Wrapped in black fear,
And thrown away,
For a while.

Their language,
Which until now,
Had spoken clearly,
Fluently,
Through my mind,
Became jumbled, with the dis-
-connect and confusion,
Normally reserved,
For others.

I stared,
Pleaded for them to,
Unscramble,
Themselves to show,
Me the solution,
To their arrangement,
But still,
Nothing.

As interests and education collide
The complexities of my character
Fall away one by one
Each individuality smoothed over
Streamlined
Until all variations are wiped away
To uncover a focused machine
With one goal alone
I am tireless by name alone
As I process the backlog
Integrate new discoveries
With forgotten truths

The future scares me
It's full of old men and women
Signing deals and orders
That make no difference to them
But for those different to them
Change prospects, steal hope,
Silence their voices first with
Shushing, then with a finger
On their lips
Then a hand on their mouth
A gag round their face
And water in their lungs.

The future scares me
Because the people making decisions
Are a generation behind
And instead of being
Slowly replaced with fresh
Younger voices, they're
Making choices that reflect
Back their views
Onto the minds of those to follow
In some never-ending circle
Of whims that feel like fact
Based on nothing
But conditioned instinct
For self-preservation.

The future scares me
Because half the world
Missed out on social progression
And discovered social media
And turned it into social war
Against those who grew up learning
How not to be like them
How not to repeat their mistakes
And not to mistake hate
For justice granted by
A God that they crushed down
Into a 3-line weapon
Against anyone they deemed unworthy.

The future scares me
Because I cannot understand the
Rational of the irrationality
Sweeping the world.
Because I was taught
To love others as myself
And base facts on evidence
But it seems like those things
Burned so deep in my core
Matter no more
And if I cannot understand
The reasons behind this
How can I know what to do
To fix it?
So I'm scared
And I'm praying that my generation
Will not be lost to the same fears
As the one before.

Time belongs to night,
The future to the dark,
Between the moon and stars,
Our lives are in shade,
Disordered and cluttered,
We don't know where to start,
Caught in frozen waters,
No direction, eyes too weak,
Lights drop into the puddles,
And fizzle out with no more,
Than an unseen ripple.

Blasting bass in my right ear,
A broken headphone to my left,
Vaguely the sounds of an old hamster wheel,
And a clanking, broken filter,
Disconnect the music,
Pull it apart,
And tie it round my heart.

Lonely in a sea of faces,
Lost when my path is clear,
Afraid of empty shadows,
Alive when no-one's here.

Broken by that which made me,
Brave when I've no belief,
Open when all doors are closed,
Obsessed with my relief.

Defeat knows only victory,
Life is all for death,
Battles are made to be lost,
But still I fight for every breath

A tiny drop lands on her back,
Her dark feathers locked together,
Forming a tight armour,
She shakes gently,
The water rolls away,
Trickling down,
Joining the million that make up the lake,
That shimmer with the evening sun.

Time to take on the role
It's a quick change -
But I know what I'm doing.
A top off, a shirt on,
Swap the coat,
Untie my hair - then makeup,
It all comes off easily,
My fine-tuned eyeliner no more
Than a smudge on a face wipe.
There isn't time to change my shoes
But they never get noticed
Anyway.
A glance in the mirror,
Not too long,
But enough to see an old character,
Back once again.
I head to the stage, ready,
then:

"Hi, Stephen."

The show begins.

Missed chances are worse for the time in between
When they play countless times a thousand different ways
And you can convince yourself your way
Was the worst
Because there are so many things you could have said
That would have been better, not so bad or OK
But still in the moment your words struck wrong
And said not what was on your mind
And you let it go, let it slip
And let it torture you through the night

The cracked stones I step on,
By time forced apart,
The roads that I walk down,
Reflect my broken heart,
The places I once loved just make me,
Want to go back to the start,
When the stones and roads you walked on,
Were as precious as art.

The time that passed,
May have made me change,
And after years and months,
I know I'm not the same,
But a piece of my soul,
Will always remain,
Untouched, unbroken,
Where she will stay.

Her eyes will not leave the back of my mind,
Not for long,
But that's okay,
She opened mine.

We settled back in to a rhythm
That had never quite felt right
And seemed to impose itself
Above the beating of our hearts
And took over our breathing
In favour of 'more important' things.

We fell out of time
And into the emptiness of
Lives without purpose
But that we filled with our own
Unrecognised goals.

We broke ourselves away,
As the gears had eroded,
And started to slip between
The cracks in the machine.

We lay for a while,
Unmoving and uncaring,
But content with that.

We became a new being,
Aiming only for the future.

We set ourselves free.

Hopeful,
Right there,
So close,
Then vibrations,
No control,
Broken,
Helpless,
Dead straight,
Towards the wall,
Screaming engines,
White smoke obscures,
Crunching gravel,
Then impact,
Black.

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.

Is it a crime to dream
When such fantasies are unreachable?
When perfection eludes reality
Should I reach for it even so?
Only to punish myself,
When the inevitable flaws
Of existence bleed through.
So instead, should I
Concede to fears
And hide my hopes from view?
But when have I
Allowed crimes or logic
To disrupt my course?
Perhaps. just once more,
I can dream pure.

A single word.
Switch.
Take the dark within me,
Wear it as a robe,
A regal portrayal,
Of my love of betrayal,
Of my inner desires,
To burn and make fire.

I overheard.
Fist.
Don't talk **** about me,
Without expecting this,
A physical act,
Against my past,
Destroy opposition,
Defend my position.

Reputation gone
Nothing left
**** me
Or remove my cruel thoughts

I cry,
I will cry,
Because I need to,
Because I'm hurting,
And there's nothing I can do,
To stop the pain,
There's no one to who will listen,
No way to be noticed,
No hope for change,
Each year a trek through,
Cruel brambles cutting my skin,
Thick mud slowing my steps,
A thousand stings and insect bites,
All to get back,
To right where I started,
And start over,
And start crying again,
So I'm sorry if I sound desperate,
If I sound needy or pathetic or weak,
But I am,
I am so desperate,
For just one,
Hint of progress.

All the sky collapsed upon
The dashing to the shops
And ushering kids into cars
"Quick, come on, in from the cold"
And with faces pressed tight
Against streaky glass
They watch the clouds crumble
Into a thousand tiny cannonballs
Hit after hit after hit
And then white noise
Made of ice.

Growling of gears
and years fill my mind;
channel the effort, the pain,
the suffering I never knew
and experience it all in ten
minutes of labour
and with each lift, each struggle,
let them feel it too.

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"

**** it!
No!
Come back!
Those words!
I spent so long!
And now it's gone!
How can I get them back?
They were all there!
Exactly how I wanted them
They've vanished!
I can't remember them now!
How can I not!
How did it start?
Oh was it?
No.
**** it!

The gentle whir of a dehumidifier,
In a darkened room,
The muffled beats of a playlist,
In a darkened room,
The light glares from a laptop,
In a darkened room,
One curtain drawn, the other caught on the corner of a chest of drawers,
In a darkened room,
A triangle of light on the door,
In a darkened room,
A limp hand dangles from the bed,
In a darkened room,
And a broken soul sleeps as one,
In a darkened room.

Undisputed,
Never challenged,
Constant victor,
Over my divided mind,
Always leading back,
To the same sorry state,
Of denying myself,
Happiness and trust,
Like they would hurt more,
Than my self-torturing brain,
That closes me off,
Locks me in a perfect prison,
With walls of fear and indecision,
That crush me slowly,
From within,
Until I bleed,
My soul onto a page,
And create a new me on a blank screen.

The dawn chorus says: "Go to bed"

Those nights,
they replay on the cassette tape
that runs through my plastic heart.

And as I listen I am pulling
until the memories
are ripped and torn apart.

And what is left gets put together
in the wrong order
and gets tangled around my veins.

Until not a single second means anything,
but sadness, tears
and confusion still remain.

And now just a single sound
is looped again
and again in darker shades.

So I'll listen to my old screams
and wait for the new ones (on a compact disc) to form.

Another deadline ends
in me dead along the line,
hanging from the line,
that kept me alive.

There's no community spirit
when community needs spirits
to keep people in good spirit,
rather than smiles.

Why am I future planning
when my whole future is planning
for the next day to start planning
my life?

The symbols that I see,
They have no flow, no soul, no meaning,
Those lines don't lead to beauty,
Nor swirl to colour dance.

Where is the flavour?
The scent of their description is empty,
Shallow,
Senses sense no more.

No charm, no hints,
Not even flirting with art,
Just simple, dead symbols with no heart.

I could be a machine
Built by thousands of men
Staring at clipboards,
Statistics and spreadsheets
And another thousand
Staring at my chest.

I could be a lab-rat
Bred to play a game
I can only lose
While they laugh,
Joke and decide what
I can't do.

I could be a slave
Kept captive by stolen choices
Shocked into submission
By charged metal round my neck
Yet when I break down they're
Shocked by my weakness.

I could be a number
Manipulated to fit the
Wishes of our rich,
Powerful 'leaders'
Leading me against my
Wishes.

But I am a woman,
Not held or kept or built or lead,
Not confined to the blueprint
Of a designer in an office,
I am a woman
And I will be free

We don't want to choose,
Well you have no choice.
We don't want to lose,
Then which path will you take?
We just want to do what we want,
But that's not what we want.
If you think you can force us, you won't,
We have our ways.
Let us do the things we love,
But your opinion doesn't matter.
Then we'll take it to those above,
Be my guest, they'll say the same.
We are ready now,
We have always been ready,
We have worked out how,
To do what?
To choose,
Finally,
To ignore your views,
Listen to us,
This time, it's on our terms,
But our terms are better,
This time, it's our turn,
Yes, to choose your future with us,
No, to decide our own.

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."

Once something starts moving,
It's hard to bring it to rest again -
One word can become a future,
Deflecting the course of truth.

Further and further we fly,
Off into the unknown,
Beyond knowledge and fear
Into some new light.

Or hint of a light,
That we wish we could see
clearly enough to know
We were going the right way.

So I am saved,
By just a tune in my head,
Surpassing all fear.

You'll be fine when...
Eternal lie...
Waiting never...
Made anyone feel...
Better...
Once you've...you'll feel different
Cruel promise...
Aiming the wrong way...
Won't get any closer...
To truth...
Just a phase*
Dismissal...
Will not help...
Denial is...
Pointless