4am
Knows everything
4am has seen me naked
Crying alone
Maybe once  on someone’s shoulder
4am
Has seen me dancing, happy mind wrapped in intoxication

In the cold light of morning
We are the most honest beasts
Before the day is calling
Faces are grey, soul is clear.

4am
You sleep through it
Bed toasty warm
Whose body is it with you
Dreaming with you through storm?

4am
Got me an A in history
4am
Showed me the most beautiful sunrises
Pushed me into Morpheus arms
At 4am
There are no disguises.

4 am is not for the happy
It is not for the fulfilled
It is not for couples sleeping soundly in each others arms
4am is for the lonely, awake in emptiness and the feeling of never being good enough
It is for the desire to be perfect
And to love and be loved in return
4am is for the poets spilling out their blood and thoughts on paper
Giving life to the words they did not have the courage to speak
4am is for the brokenhearted who spill tears that come to no end, a waste
And are wasted on missing someone who doesn't miss them
4am is for those with a smile on their faces but sadness in their eyes and hearts when they are cut their demons bleed out
4am is not for the happy or fulfilled or the couples sleeping soundly in each others arms
4am is for people like me.

When I showed up,
Out of breath,
Scared
At 1am
I did not think that taking off my coat could
Ever
Feel so intimate
At 1am,
It was as if I was naked, my arms were the parts of me that no one had seen
At 1am,
My coat was gone and suddenly so were my inhibitions
At 1am,
You pulled me into the bed,
Bliss
At 2am,
The fact that your mom didn't know made every feeling that much stronger
At 2am,
We did things I should be ashamed of
At 2am,
I felt so ******* amazing
At 2am,
We thought your mom was coming in (******* your cat)
At 3am,
My lips were numb
At 3am,
I still wanted more
At 3am,
It seemed you were done
You came,
And then left
At 3am,
I lay in your bed alone, hoping that we weren't
At 3am,
You came back and cuddled with me
At 3am,
You showed me way more than you have ever told me
At 4am,
We decided to stop
At 4am,
I remembered I was supposed to be at home
At 4am,
We talked, and laughed
At 4am,
You told me I was too loud
At 4am,
You kissed me goodnight,
Or,
Was it good morning?
At 4am,
I pulled my coat back on my shoulders,
And walked home alone
At 4am,
I was covered so no one could see me

At 10am,
I woke up thinking:
"wow"

a 4am fox
inspects the night's carcass
under the sodium delete of street light
and to the sound of my wife's gentle snoring

Morning,
I love you so
For all the life
That is breathe into me, when I wake up
For all the cool breeze at 4am
That seems to send a refreshing chill to my spine
For all the calmness you bring
That seems so peaceful before all the madness wakes up
For all the time spent
Till my alarm clock fails to wake me up

See you soon,
You beautiful.

Black was there with you

  when you took too many shots

  and passed out at 4am

Black was what you imagined

  before you fell asleep at night

Black stayed with you

  until the sun came up

Black was empty

and full

of ideas

memories

black was

full

of life

but no light

black was

me

Some of my friends and family do not understand anxiety
“It can’t be that bad”
“You don’t have anything to be afraid of”
“Just calm down”

“It can be that bad” I tell them
Anxiety strings barbed wire across doorways and coats people in broken glass
You can’t go anywhere
Anxiety is like a room in an adventure movie where water is steadily pumping onto the floor until it’s up to your chest
Except there’s no magic lever or button for anxiety
It just keeps going until you’ve drowned
Anxiety is a boulder strapped to your back
It keeps pressing and pressing
Even when you’re tired and you just want to sleep, it keeps pressing
Even when you fall, it keeps pressing
Even when you stop struggling to move, to survive, it keeps pressing

“There’s plenty to be afraid of” I say
Anxiety is a monster with giant bulging eyes and thousands of teeth and claws
And the worst part is that no one else can see it following you down the hallways at school
Stalking you in the bathrooms at concerts
Hiding under your own bed
Anxiety is like an uninvited party guest
You never know when Anxiety is going to join the party
It just shows up
And you never have enough snacks or blankets for Anxiety
It always wants more
And it doesn’t leave until 4am when you’re shaking from exhaustion
Anxiety doesn’t even say Thank you
For taking up everything you had in you
It just leaves
And you know Anxiety will be back
Eventually
What’s scary about Anxiety is that it keeps you from doing something you really wanna do
Like spending the night at your friends
You really wanna go but you just don’t
Because you don’t want to have to explain why your body has begun to unravel itself, time traveling back to when anxiety kept humans alive and why apparently your body thinks your friend’s sweet little French bulldog is the equivalent of a modern day saber tooth tiger  
Another scary thing about anxiety is the fact it’s something your brain makes up and your body BELIEVES it of all things
“I’m dying” your brain says
And so your body believes it
Because why would a piece of your body lie to itself?
Why would you lie to yourself?

“I can’t just calm down” I say to them
The whole thing with Anxiety is not just the fact that the guy next to you could be a suicide bomber or that the girl across the isle could have a knife in her pocket or  the fact you’ve got a test to pass or that your shoelaces aren’t symmetrical
It’s that anxiety gives you anxiety
What a beautiful self-destructive cycle
And if I could calm down don’t you think I would?
Do you think I would scratch myself raw trying to force the anxiety out of my skin?
Do you think I would spend my friend’s birthday party having a panic attack in the bathroom?
God why is it always bathrooms?
Do you think I would spend my every waking hour anxiously figuring out how I can avoid all the things that give me anxiety?
The thing about anxiety is that nothing can “get rid of it”
There is no cure
A million billion poems and hugs and dark closets and angry songs and therapists could not get rid of anxiety
Anxiety has embedded itself into me and I don’t have enough strength to dig the scalpel into my own skin and carve it out
I don’t think anyone has that kind of strength

“Anxiety is a part of me” I tell them
And the thing I ask now even gives me anxiety
Isn’t that ironic?
But I still ask it
I always ask it
“Will you still accept me?

pageants of pageants
fractals and hype
of faceless terrors and faceless
inside
when rain on corrugated iron
when rain and the kettle boiling

i know i have taken too much time
i have taken time from time to decide
to realise i was only wiser before trying.


Patterns of paradox haunt
the terms of all desire

tussock grass on paths
that cuts the thin skin
and sticks

and a view to nowhere

some leaf in autumn

the hope of finding

You say you understand me
And it feels nice
Because it's 4am and we're connecting
Because everything is exaggerated at 4am
When the masks come off and the room is dark and there are 5 other people asleep on the floor
When our whispers are raspy because we've been yelling for hours
And the glow of the xbox lights our faces, because we forgot to turn it off
And I tell you things that I've never told anyone
Not even the people I tell everything
The things I swore to myself I would keep secret forever
But it's 4am
And we prank called my crush and yours and everyone's exes
And we talked about dating and *** and we laughed until the parents had to yell at us
We ate pizza and chips and I felt like part of the group for the first time
Because maybe I was
Because you cared enough about me to poor your heart out and catch the contents of mine
But who knows if you meant it
Because it was 4am

When I'd wake alone in bed at 4am
Again
To find you passed out
on the couch
Too wasted to notice
the heart breaking in front of you
I tried every day
But you preferred synthetic hugs
and to hide in a place
where the expectations were low  
Escapes and excuses
more alluring than I could ever be
Through tears I would plead
'Why don't you want to sleep with me!?'
I shouldn't have taken it so personally

But nobody saw me cry
Especially not you
Blind to my own tears
Large doses of denial dished out
A feast for the masses
Perhaps the most powerful drug of them all
My soul mate disappeared
each day
a little more

Maybe today will be different
Hope
The beautiful motivator
Maybe today
It will be me that you choose
Naively believing
that you had control
But then I woke
alone in bed at 4am
Again
Manipulated and used

I’ll endeavour to look brightly now.
Knees bouncing and brittle,
No ginger treading in the endless streets.
These footsteps clink like charms
Through all of the peaceful, curtained slumbers.

And I sing, you see,
To myself, and only me.
I sing my sorrow like an exorcism
And it leaves.
I am free, I am here now.

My shadow is so joyfully invisible,
But I am here.
Aren’t I?
I promise I am here.