Something inside me is like a blade
sawing through a nerve,
jittering with the harshest of sounds:
a crash of instruments so horrendous
it pulls the teeth from your skull
and plucks the nails from your fingertips.
Why am I broken? Why is there nothing inside me?
I tried so hard to love, I loved you
the moment you danced for me
that September night, yet I'm fading away.
There's a plastic shell filled
with the thin liquid of my soul
and I'm seeping out through the cracks.
Soon there'll be little left of me,
only the slightest trickling of leftover fluid
which managed to elude the cruel, thieving hearts
who took me for their own. Where will I be
after your hands brush the surface of my cheeks
and try to fix the many fractures in my body?
I'm going to be left alone and afraid
in the dark at the end, regardless
of who looks at me with light in their eyes
tonight. All of them are the same
when the clouds fall around my mind
and I'm blinded by acid rain
burning the eyes out of my head.

It's dark beneath my skin
I'm shivering
          Shivering from the
                    cold
My skin is falling from my bones
          Torn
                    and old
Stone fingers turn to dust
Wooden teeth leave splinters
          Like jagged
                    strangers
          tracing my skin
                    in the night
Transparent eyes
          Glazed
                    with sugar
          Blue
                    and white
Black blood pouring
          From my mouth
                    like literature
It's here to stay
          All of it
                    is here to stay
Coat your hands in tar
          Or
                    feel tears
          Heavy
                    on your hands
          Heavy
                    on your heart
Keep your eyes closed
          If
                    you want
          to see me
                    breathing
I'm here
          Ready with
                    my lips
          and my chest
                    seething

If you listen, you might hear the patter
of children's feet as they run
to their fathers' arms.
You might hear the croon of infants
babbling through the darkness,
or the sound of love and laughter
coming from the gentle gaze of young lovers.
You might hear the ocean, ringing its bells
and floating on a wall of noise.
If you listen, you might hear honesty,
singing a song of home - small alleys
leading to the beach, lined with seashells
and memories. You could hear it.
But you won't.
This place is quiet in a way
that sets your teeth on edge,
so quiet that it is thick with undetectable
white noise. There is no soft sigh of sleeping
loved ones, no gentle waves or rolling pebbles.
Only quiet. Quiet. Quiet.
The feeling of never finding home,
or never finding feeling at all,
it's a sound. If you listen, you just might hear it.

She is winding her way in front of my eyes,
dancing and weaving ivory linens around my neck.
They look like fog and I can't remember,
can't remember the touch, or taste,
if it was your soft hands holding onto me
that October night. I can see my eyes,
so blue - were they always this murky
and dull? There was something between
them, is it commonplace to have a comma
in a full stop's place? Clumsy.
I hold onto my mother with weak, calloused
hands, calling her name. What was her name?
I don't know her face. I only know the fog,
the **** fog, and I can't remember-
why can't I remember? I want to know
the call of the damp, apologetic starling
who pecks holes in the sun so he can ride
with the circus. I want to know my hands,
rough like glass over the furrow of your brow,
but the far away tomorrow is coming for me
and I know that I won't remember
my name, or trace, or the reason
my lips rhyme with the seasons,
in time to save me becoming the fog
which stretches itself over my eyes
like soft, ivory linen.

Autumn frost seeps in through the cracks
In my bedroom window.
It follows the footprints left behind
By summer, still blooming
Vivid green and burning orange
On my fingertips.
I open my eyes again
But it's all just grey.
Grey.
Grey.
Grey rain and grey hands,
Grey fog dripping from my frozen throat.
Grey.
It's a depression that's cured
By the singing sun;
My skin hasn't seen the light
In decades. Blue broken skin
Burnt by ice and bruised
By the desperate hands of winter,
Trying to grasp me
With all of the gentle laughter
That comes with summer's warmth
And instead leaving thick, black
Marks upon my skin,
Marks which are fading to
Grey.
I held hands with the sun once,
Felt her power and grace,
Her hair swept across valleys
And wove itself with golden leaves
But now it's matted
And falling out at the roots.
Her skin is pale and thin
And she's plucking the eyes from her head
As my limbs are encapsulated in ice
And I'm greyer and greyer...
And I'm gone. All gone.

Is his mixed up dream a long, long journey:
noisy, jolting, terrifying? He remembered
a wind cold against his ears, for the first time
the chill was sweet. But night was coming.
The sun was behind clouds - was it clouds,
or was it shelter, smoke rising red? Words printed
on muslin curtains, just like a house.
Steps to the back door, a canvas screen fastened
to cheerful fire burning on the grass.
He turned and fled. Pattering feet behind him
fell in a heap, what? what? what?
No alarm, no cross-over. He filled the ***
from the warmth of the fire. Only vaguely
had he admired the damp, apologetic starling,
who was pecking a hole in the sun
to ride with the circus. Quite right,
lucky he found the far away tomorrow.

Unwanted words
keep spilling from my mouth
and I can't escape them.
They cling to my surface,
twisting and seething
every time I reach
my pathetic hands
towards you.
Why did I even bother?
I knew from the start
that I was destined
to fail,
that there was nothing
worth dwelling upon
in my cold blue eyes
and numb, emotionless
smile. You
were my youth,
my everything,
but you were gone before I had you.
You're a wingless bird
flying further,
further away from me,
the beginning of summer
in the middle of a blizzard.