She sat by me, in her skirt, hand grenade green,
And an off-white blouse obscured by a jacket with dust in its seams,
Like leather, like elderly skin, like a crossword puzzle with half the letters filled in,
She sat by me and spilt her sentences and her tea:

She claimed her husband had been killed by a cabal of spiritualists,
Killed by a bull elephant in the streets of Nepal,
Killed by the seven plagues,
And never killed at all,

That he was once a number
Somehow both perfect and prime,
That he was Prime minister of the sea,
And independent of time,

That his bones were cracked marbles
Bought from a widow in Tennessee,
That his name continued to escape her,
But that he looked something like me,

Leaving I saw her wings drag her heavenward,
I saw her terrible wings,
As I stumbled and veered from concrete to tarmac
I heard the pavements start to sing:

“I was once a flowerbed,
My father was a field,
My mother was a source of light,
Before which all the people kneeled.”

Then lost in the eye of daytime and night,
Drawn to the moustache of a Spanish racketeer,
He was once abandoned by his books and his babies
In the boot of a broke-down cavalier,

His pasts and ideas caught up to him,
And gripped him by his belt and his teeth,
His pasts gripped him in quiet of his nightmares,
And slashed his arms in the street,

Visions shook me by the bleeding palm,
Her terrible wings now pinpricks for the moon,
Visions shook me as deities died,
With eyes like a card-trick and fingers like doom,

Then stuck in the endless space between words;
She sat by me, in her skirt, hand grenade green;
Stuck in the endless space between words;
And an off white blouse obscured by a jacket with dust in its seams...

Pinpricks on my arm
Tiny pinches making me want to turn
I know they're there
And I know what I'll find
But I don't want to find anything
I want everything to stay how it is.
It can't

The pinpricks on my arm
Are getting stronger.
They're piercing now.
Urgent.
Still
I stare at you
Smiling,
Taking in your beautiful face
Knowing it's not so beautiful on the inside
I pretend I don't know
And so do you

The pinpricks aren't pinpricks anymore
They're knives stabbing me
How much pain will I go through to live my wishful reality?
Finally, I can't bare the pain anymore
I turn to see the problem
Face the facts
Find the truth

You were a lie
The way I knew you were
The pinpricks were warnings
Subtle harmonies
Hiding within the melodies
This harmony was an ugly one
Dissonant.
And then the melody wore off
And the harmony was the only thing left.

So I left
The world is full of melodies;
We are all our own.
But everyone is someone's harmony
Either creating
Ugly
Flat
Out of key
Songs
Or creating music
Mocking Beethoven
And doing a good job of it.

You weren't my harmony
Nor I yours
I take my heart and leave.

The heat,
The way it ripples from the steel handlebars
And burns my hands,
The way the clunking of the chain feels
As each pedal propels me forward
Beneath the sun.
The sky is blue,
The air is crisp and leaves pinpricks
On my skin,
Soothed by the tenderness
Of sun rays that fall like curtains
Upon the concrete.

It smells of rubber,
A lingering scent of nostalgia
That fills my lungs like tar
And fills my heart with youthful
Thoughts.
As the wrinkles emerge,
And the delicate cracks begin to show,
I realize that my bike
Is the last memento that
Resonates through my aging ways.

Let's take a final spin down the boulevard,
Before the sun goes down
And my bones ache once more.

when a boy shows you his hands
bare except for the dust
he’s begging you to look past
take them in yours.
squeeze them once.
twice.
say without speaking
that you understand that the valleys
in his palms were meant to cradle
shooting star wishes
that he’s allowed to still hope for.
when a boy shows you his eyes
of milk and crimson and melanin
a bloodshot vein for every night he can’t sleep
let him shut his eyelids.
say without speaking
that you understand that the black hole pinpricks
of his irises hold more than the universe
should allow.
when a boy shows you his soul
shivering but still working toward friction
iced over but still working toward melting
let him come to rest next to yours.
say without speaking
that you understand that he is lonely
and that his silence speaks volumes
and that you kept his treasure close
because you love him.
when a boy shows you his hands
show him your hands.
when a boy shows you his eyes
show him your eyes.
when a boy shows you his soul
show him that
this is a comfortable place to rest it.
when a boy shows you the hardness that shaped him
show him the softness
that you have in store.

I got a tattoo last night
Did it myself, all needles and ink
Sterile like the bathroom floor
And wet rags dyed black and pink

It was a little picture of a house
Sitting on top of my left hip
Pinpricks of ink pushed into my skin
And not once did I let the needle slip

There is a cool breeze in my bone
The inky night closes in
The wolves curse in the blackness
With their wordsless whispers
That settle in my bones like winter"s warmth
The wovles groan and whimper to the dead moon
With her pale sunken face
She calms the world with white
And all is silent
Except for the tiny pinpricks
Who speeak volumes
But can only be heard by few
The escape of the light is effortless
As the breeze blows them away
And a single pinprick remains
Then that too is silenced

I sat by the window and gazed out
at the rain falling down
in torrents and sheets.
The night was black as ink, save the stars;
barely visible behind thick storm clouds,
pinpricks of silver in the ebony scape,
as the rain continued to fall.

I thought of you, of the deliberation in your face
etched into every feature a painful, wavering resolve.
The decision before you:
two fates, the ending, or the prolonging of the time before the terminal predetermined.

I grieved as I remembered the pain in your eyes.
I know you too well. I have seen too much of you
for you to hide this from me. I broke
-a silent cry of realization, collapsing my furrowed brow into a contorted countenance
as I realized that you were gone
not just for now, but for good.

And so there I sat that night,
after I removed the gold chain you rested around my neck
after I scrubbed away the makeup
after I traded my lipsticked smile for a mourning countenance
-I sat, alone in the dark, and gazed out the window into the rain.
I wondered where things had gone wrong.

And so, May showers
drove away April's flowers.
It was all I could do to cry quietly,
face soaked with the saline of sadness
that dripped now on my chest.

Now, I sit again at the window
and the same song plays that had consoled me before
'you'll feel better when you wake up'
And I did.
The sadness stayed safely at the bay
while I tried to channel it again
But this time it wasn't the same.
Though I duplicated the mood down to the clothes I wore,
the heartache was no longer fresh
and my face remained dry.

Sure, I felt sad. But it was not from you.
It was not from a heartbreak or a brokenness.
It was inorganic sadness, brought on by my own need for closure,
the thirst for a goodbye that burned my throat in agony and sorrow
that my parched lips would never find.

You see scars where I see healing
wounds worn out long ago
this skin knows what it is doing
its been doing it from way back
and all the cuts of emotion ravishing
a mind made for peace are but pinpricks
when compared to an eternity of love

I was at a party the other day
I don't usually go to parties
I don't like crowds
I don't like gatherings
I don't like, new people.
But I'm here as a favour to a friend,
And so I stand in this hovel
That looks like the dodgy part of *****
Or the ganglands of Gomorrah,
Pathetically clutching my long empty beer bottle
And breathing in air that's more smoke than oxygen.
Desperately hoping
That if I pretend to be drunk enough
I wont have to meet anybody new.

But as luck would often have it
As luck and I do not get on
My friend beckons me from a darkened corner
Surrounded by people I don't know.
She's confident, enigmatic and wants me to come over.
And because I owe her a favour I cant say no
And so I trudge towards her with all the enthusiasm
Of an arthritic Labrador, dragging my hind legs
Across the sweat stained carpet
Bracing myself for someone new.

And as I place one foot in front of the other
I can practically see the outline of the gallows.
And I notice that the walls really are an especially ugly colour
And that boy surely isn't old enough to be drinking without permission from his mother.
And someone please tell those guys not to put the owners dog in the oven.
And I wonder if I should break up those limb tangled lovers
Because I hear that that one, who's dating that one, gave that one chlamydia
and suddenly the air is too thick
And too hot
But my feet will not stop.
Because I owe my friend a favour.
But this hideous carpet might as well be an ocean
Because believe me, I'm drowning, adrift.
This feels like I've left my stomach
Somewhere four feet behind me
And I've always been so used to listening to my gut.

This is not fear, this is anxiety
The two are so easily confused, but
Unfortunately by now I know the difference
More intimately than many people do.
Fear is a cold steel
Sharp knife, with smooth un-serrated edges
That drives into your chest or your head or your belly
And it takes what it wants from you, and then is wrenched back out
And its painful, but its usually there for a reason.
Fear can be conquered
Don't laugh I've seen it
Fear grapples with the human spirit in the eyes of every
Soldier still fighting
No matter what the battlefield.
Be it desert or office or kitchen or playground.

But anxiety is fears younger cousin
and it is a wire sponge against your chest
Like the ones they use on cleaning dishes.
And it grates at you until you're raw
And scrubs at every inch of skin
There's hardly a moment when you're not itchingly pink
Until it feels as though your ribs are utterly exposed
And every eye is fixed on what you hide within.
But that's not the worst thing about it.
That's not what drives you every second, mad.
I can handle the razor winged moths that make a home in my stomach
The worst, is the irrational nature of this relative of fear.

I should not be afraid to open my mouth
To be seen, and immediately judged
Even though I know in reality
The most important people won't reckon me
On the first impression, first look, first word.
But I still am
I am scared, and that is terrifying.
And I know that this might just pass
It could be teenage angst
My lack of self confidence holding me back.
But whatever it is.
Right now, it is Everest.
So don't you dare tell me just to get over it.

But as I sidle up beside my best friend, I know she doesn't understand
And I hope she never does.
One, Two, Three.
Three people who are new,
Three epinephrine shots of irrational anxiety pumping through my blood.
And she smiles so encouragingly,
All yellow and marmoset eager.
And I take one, two, three deep breaths of smoky air,
And let my mind play marionette to the corners of my mouth,
Tugging them into a smile that's somewhat believable.
And the first word that tumbles out of my mouth is a hideously unimaginative,
“Hey.”
But they don't seem to mind.

This small talk we're making, that for me is colossal
Gradually settles the pinpricks of venom beneath my skin
Into something entirely more manageable.
And by the end of the night
Two of those three people are no longer somebody new.
And I feel as though I've made the progress of a few meters
In climbing my Everest.
But there's still miles and miles to go.  
But the thing to remember...
What I must remember,
No matter what mountain anxiety builds for you,
Be it Atlas or Snowdon,
Be it at a school, or an office or at home,
Every step that we make, on our own or pushed forward by friends
Is another meter or mile, on this arduous road
That will eventually lead to a summit, ten times more beautiful
Than the valley we just left below.