Mental illness does not define us,
we define it.

for Leo*

I have no words to say today,
I used them all last night.
The city streets
were dark and bleak,
but I kept you in my sight.

We traded cash for hot *******,
we were shooting for the moon.
This force-fed high
of no reply,
always falls apart too soon.

In flame of hair she poured my drinks
and smiled across the bar.
I don't need this drug,
this pollutant fog,
to find a shining star.

I need to walk that nature path
beyond my father's grave.
To find a self
in better health,
in a place I can be brave.

I have no words to say today,
in the sober morning light.
I'll fall to silence,
I'll walk away,
before I talk again,
come night.

Do you hear the crashing sound
of a society at war? Can you find the
answer, for what has come before?

There's no petrol in the tank
as they clear your ******'s name,
the man who came to teach you
that love is a guessing game.

I hear they're selling rainwater
as a reason to stay inside,
they say you'll drown in the struggle
of trying to turn the tide.

Can you understand me now you've
seen it for yourself? If sanity is mimicry,
then I'll remain in my ill-health.

I’m filing as a missing person,
For all these months I’ve spent inside.
Despite the pills that I’ve been given,
You can never turn the tide.

All I wanted was some freedom,
A chance to stretch out in the sun,
But I’m having conversations with the streetlights;
Talking to friends where there are none.

This bus is full of lonely people,
Who’ll cry only in the dark;
For all the dreams they’d left in high school,
And the teenage lovers in the park.

We only send out grateful letters
Once old friends have moved address,
And I can’t fight this sleep much longer,
Whilst I am straining to confess.

This life isn’t what I wanted,
Nor can it be what I wish for,
But I will settle for the sound
Of you knocking at my door.

Somewhere from this heavy present
Is a lighter mood, is a confident June;
Is a glass of wheat beer on the veranda,
Circling ice giants with my sweet Miranda.

Somewhere from this lacklustre town
Is a foggy new start, a life lived through art;
Is the full potential of human kindness,
As we finally see through this third-eye blindness.

Somewhere from these burying sheets
Lives an autumn love, where death and beauty meet;
Lives an ocean swell of sheer independence,
Where hunger is nourished, with all in attendance.

I am tired of trying to find
Words that rhyme,
Words to quantify
This meaning bereft in my chest.

Where are you now?
You promised to be here forever.
You said that nothing could steer you
From the love found within our bed.

Darling, I know that I’m a fool,
That you did well just to keep with my moods,
But now that I need you more than ever,
I have lost you to some art teacher.

He’s killed Rufus, and stripped me of art.
He has taken from me my constant,
An oxygen tank in this tear-gas foreign field;
Now my lungs are drowning in dread.

And all I can ask in this strange composure
Is where I went wrong in flesh surrender;
Did I not keep you warm through North-Eastern winds?
Did I fail to capture what you felt was the end?

If life was a dream,
...
..
.
I'd be asleep.