The remnants of my intelligence and dignity,
John can take to his grave,
I just wanted to fight, for what was right
But was swallowed in a wave of reality.
I once tried to hold out idealism,
To have it smashed in a thousand pieces,
I thought that people should care for each other,
To be told it wasn’t economically viable.

To another best friend that never really cared,
I loved you more than you will ever know,
You were one of the hardest people I ever let go,
But you used me and abused me just like everyone else,
Pretended to care and dictated fair,
I was blinded by delirium,
And could not see, that the beautiful trees,
Were plastic, lifeless and cold.
/
The music is beginning to sound like silence,
I keep getting the melody stuck in my head,
I forgot how it began and can’t see past
The first verse, but I know the album artwork:
A man in a hearse- the picture looks familiar,
I feel like I was there, somewhere, floating through air,
The beat is inconsistent and I can’t find anything I like,
It just passes right through me.
/
The field where we buried Pete’s ashes,
Will be forever green to me,
It glows with his smile and snowy white hair,
But no one remembers he’s there!
And those that do pass over the spot without a care,
But the light of the world seems darker
Without his wonderful wintery hair.
When you laughed, I laughed and when you smiled- I felt safe.

Of course, to you- my love, the ever lingering
Hopeful lady of my earth. My feelings were always true,
I longed for you with depth of colour unknown,
To any time or place I would have flown,
But just like you said,
You were incapable of love- nothing but spite,
You pulled out my brittle heart out and ****** it.
You hurt me more than I hurt myself.

And how- I hurt myself- delved into a rabbit hole,
That I was too young to be ****** down,
I cut my mind on razor sharp thoughts:
Potential- and felt like a failure.
I could not sleep for the longest time, I was kept awake
By a tear-soaked pillow that reeked with the fumes of alcohol,
I would lay awake all night long
And scold me for being too stupid.
/
The smallest of spotted and winged bugs,
Can’t set foot on the cusp of my shoelace,
The keenest eyed falcon, misses the outline of fragility,
Cold and stagnant sensation, carried on the wind,
Does not reach my eyes,
Or make the duct empty,
Roaring shrieks run through my ears,
Cowering or apathetic eyes can’t set fire to these fears.

I am so sorry to the smallest of you winged creatures,
You won’t understand- probably ever,
But know that I never meant to cause you pain,
You look at the world through such a small scope,
Please don’t ask me how I struggle to cope,
You are one of the reasons I fought the dark for so long,
To start out- you looked at me and I thought you would understand,
But you turned out uniform- blind and deaf and dumb.
/
I can’t tell you the depth of these memories,
In the garden, where a voice spoke to me so smooth,
And sweet and petals and aroma seemed to float
On breezes heralded with happy sparks, buoyant
Through seas of troubles, until those troubles dock
In a harbour that I wrecked, degrading in grief,
Sweet flowers have been rotting in time and now
The words that were music are now virus, reckoning every moment.
/
My brother refuses to wear his glasses now,
He says he can’t see anything clearly anymore,
For the tears won’t tear themselves away
From the rocky, half dead, sunken terrain, sees
The light of day less often than flesh eating worms,
Sharp teeth grin and the rose-coloured memory
Of playing football in the park after dark,
Or cricket on the old wicket- I hope you miss me the most- I would you.

I flew to my mother’s house,
But she wasn’t home; I let myself in,
Looked over the empty wine bottles,
Stacked in pairs, so they each have a friend.
The pictures on the walls are all forty years old,
And the characters are all face down,
I can’t pick them up,
The image of agony is plastered to the floor with no one to adore.

My father’s tools are all strewn in the garden,
Plugged in without power- hiding round corners, they cower,
The shaky lawn mower cried internally,
Because all it could do was cut the ****** grass,
But could not cut the ties of familiarity,
With tiresome fire, turning the content to ashes.
The door to the shed is always a jar,
The boards are flayed and splintered with paint, dripping to the floor.

Sitting silently in this empty old house,
The creaking of the floorboards seem to know me,
Old memories bounce from hall to wall,
Like an echo of the stagnant fury, that reverberated
From still wall and whispering grief,
Words of narcissism curl in on themselves,
Fatter and nastier than a thousand-pointed needles
Or razorblades, smiling delicately on cupid’s bathroom floor.

Dragging stains and paints across a happy little corridor,
Smiling at a pattern of pure undeniable psychopathy,
A vibrant and living testament to a society,
Cruel and frowning, scolding the colour,
It doesn’t matter what colour!
The deepest shade of purples melts into
Dried crimson mess congealed and defeated on the floor,
No deviance from black, white and grey anymore.
/
My footfall does not make a sound.
Nor does my form disturb the gentle snowflakes.
From falling straight down through the empty air,
No blades of grass twist or move from their
Position of placid translucence.
I feel cold as people walk straight through,
The ethereal outline of my faded countenance.
Shivering shade of something real.
/
The conversation of the officer at the station:
“I can’t say the details of the death were
At any detriment to the case,
He stopped living and fell off the face of the earth,
A simple, open and closed case”
I stare hopelessly through the veil,
As the man put down his phone,
And entered suspended animation.