Oh but God ******* ****** we laugh at the same things and have the same songs stuck in our heads and being with you feels like being wrapped in blankets sitting in a window seat watching a thunderstorm but I remind you of last week’s newspaper and a sock that’s missing its mate I’m dust under feet and you’re ******* sunlight

i can’t teach you to
love yourself,
but i wish i could
teach you to see
yourself the way i
see you. if you could
see the way you glow,
feel the radiance of
your heart when you
enter a room. you
would never question
it, never question it.

Lost in the garden
Leaves loosened from the branches
Nothing sacred but the trees
And the light through your lashes

I didn’t lose the fight, I threw it
I had planned it from the start
Spent my time living ugly
So I could make dying an art

Troubles came two by two
And no help ever arrived
Friends were always slow to come
But the codeine never lied

I nursed my pain and boredom
Beneath the weeping willow tree
Those troubles came in twos at first
But the drugs just made it three

Now I’ve grown old in a matter of weeks
And the coffee is staining my teeth
Can barely move through the working day
Through all this medicine and slow disease

I didn’t lose my mind, I outgrew it
I had planned it from the start
Spent my days severing the strings
Of my crooked, hovel heart

We saw her leaving Jericho
Tearing down the walls
Throwing a childish tantrum
Whilst ******* in the halls

We saw her chasing pigeons
In the local council park
We caught her chewing daffodils
Whilst humming 'Baby Shark'

She drank a lot
Ate nothing much
But the ice
Inside the tube

Grit her teeth
Swallowing bubbles
The plastic straw
The noxious fumes

She was forever
Chasing a high
That cost too much
And left too soon

We saw her licking batteries
Relaying messages to Earth
We caught her hiding sanitary towels
Underneath the dirt

That lined the filthy walls
Of her low-rent, low-mood high-rise
Ghosts that wraithed inside her head
Left bruises on her thighs

We saw her join the homeless men
In the shadow of the mall
She combed the streets every day
And still found sweet **** all

She sang a lot
And never slept
Beneath the weight
Of a poisoned sky

We knew she was sad
All the time
But we never saw her
Cry

We saw her live
Her lonesome life
Even saw her when she
Died

From the other side of hell
We decorate our homes
Forget the fine line
The thin divide

Between our professional smile
And the crazy inside our bones

There was a time I walked with you
Beneath the railway bridge inside my mind.
Where rain fell hard and we stayed dry,
Collecting memories and passing time.

There was a time I would talk to you,
The vestige of care for my swollen heart.
How it overflowed with love for you,
How it still does, though we're apart.

And I still dream of you, you know,
I dream most every single night,
And when I wake, this broken man,
You are the only smile, the only light.

But you chose to stay and I understand
His love was safe and warm as a glove.
I blew hot and cold, a Bipolar storm,
You cannot rely on me, my love.

So you'll grow old and fat and kind,
Beneath the eaves of his easy years.
I'll grow wise and tough and cold,
Bent and crooked, effaced by fears.

But if you ever feel the breeze of doubt
Inside your confident stride,
Just know that I still walk with you,
Beneath the railway bridge inside my mind.

I eagerly await
To walk with you beneath
The shine of this summer's sun,
So maybe just then
You can feel a heat
Only rivaled
By the warmth
You bring to me.

You are to my touch
What a mountain view
Is to my eyes.

Never more have I wished
     For paper thin walls

Plaster white only rivaled
     By your porcelain pale skin

If not only to serve
     As some grand, seeing canvas,

Littered with words of our
     Half drunken slurs

And cozy expressions of love
     In a night yearning to stretch longer,

For if those walls could tell the tales
     Of our exploits through and through,

I'd trace them up, cut them out,
     And frame my adoration for you.