Head out to the west,
I've seen it,
My second guess,
I knew one day you'd be mine,
Dependable as sunshine

There's a lit up crucifix,
Above a house made up of sticks,
We're all lost to skies and time,
Dependable as sunshine

Everyone's a barking dog,
When they finish what they say they're gone,
These lenses help me see the rhymes,
Dependable as sunshine

Scrawling marker on a pizza box,
As a record scratches on above,
Listening only to see the design,
Dependable as sunshine

A woman holds down a red balloon,
A thousand eyes distracted from the moon,
We've sold off our love and wine,
Dependable as sunshine

Pictures move above the crowd,
They listen as she sings out loud,
It's a shame we never read the signs,
Dependable a sunshine

It’s hard to tell whether it’s a blessing or a curse
To be around (just in case) someone else needs to talk:
Like a guardian angel, but let me say
After such a long time of putting others before myself
Sometimes I feel like an emergency flashlight
Collecting dust on a closet shelf.
Off to the side until it’s convenient-
But still on the line on the off-chance I’m needed.
And in the lonely hours I sit waiting and glancing at the clock
Waiting for someone to answer my text of “is anyone there?”
I begin to wonder what could be commendable
About being so solitarily dependable.

I feed them laughter
Until they leave
With stomachs full
Of my own self deprecation

I am my own worst enemy
I let Ivy vines climb
The walls of my lungs
In attempts to replace
The vacant space
With something beautiful

I’ve been told I draw
A crowd
That people tend to love me
To love my endless smile
And warm embrace
Once I was told my heart
Could be seen for miles
They mistake this
As a choice
My empathetic heart
Has never known
Any other way to live
But little did they know
I’ve been at my journey’s end
For years now
I have been running on empty
No time to stop and think
When you are preoccupied
With everyone else’s thoughts

People are always around me
I have been told they tend to love me
Sort of in the way
The drunk loves the bottle
Or the addict loves the needle
In a way that we all love something
That can take the pain away
I am nothing more than
A dependable habit
A catalyst towards peaceful sleep
And a calmer mind

People are always around me
And it feels a bit like
Being stranded out at sea
Billions of living creatures
Surround you but you
Are the only of your kind

I have been told people
Tend to love me
Sort of the way
A child loves the comfort of
A soft blanket
Or the feeling of
Safety it brings them
And while the addict
May love the needle
And the drunk, the bottle
The child, their blanket
They are not IN love with them
They will never be IN love with them
They are simply dependable habits
A catalyst towards peaceful sleep
And a calmer mind

You were one of the first to teach me about value.
You helped me gain independence, little by little.
I shared my desires with you and you helped me to fulfill them.
Sometimes I needed just that little bit more and there you were,
Ready to pitch in and help out.

I remember a smile breaking onto my face with the very glimpse of you,
Your shining face gleaming at me from afar.
Sometimes those you thought were your friends would just toss you away,
But not me, not ever.
I cherish you for everything you are worth and then some.

You have always been unique, different than all the rest I would come across.
You have your own look.
Yes, you may look similar to others in one way,
But with a quick flip you are shining again like only you can.
Time may tarnish your gleam, but no matter how rugged you get you will always be of worth.

Special childhood moments come back to me now.
Holding you in my sweaty little palm, I would fill with excitement
Knowing you were about to deliver to me the sweetness of my dreams.
All I needed was you and maybe a few more of your friends.
And off we’d go to spend a Saturday afternoon in delightful company.

Seniors would push you away, unwanted, undervalued.
They would take one quick glance to see if they recognized you.
Then they would pass you on to a youngster,
As if they had far too much of you to care for more.
But not me, I would swoop you up and run off, delighted.

Now you are to be no more. No replacements.
You will be allowed to discolour and erode with age as so many of your ancestors have done.
But to me, you will always be the highly valued shining copper penny
Who taught me to count, to value goals and how to use money to attain some of them.
And most importantly, how to take the first steps towards my independence.

My mirror is covered in cracks and flaws, and some parts that make you look fatter, like a funhouse mirror, and it clings to dust and dirt and fingerprint smudges of oil.
But I don't replace it.
Because sometimes it's easier to spot the flaws in the mirror than to fixate on my flaw riddled body,
Flaws that aren't just skin deep,
The night is beautiful but deadly.
When you can't see, you have to find new flaws to detest,
It's addictive to beat yourself,
I'm in an abusive relationship where I don't mean to hurt me and I can't leave myself-
And there's some macabre satisfaction in the dependable breaking,
Like I know every night I will go to sleep hating the fact that I am still breathing,
There are memories haunting me from as young as ten,
Things that shouldn't still be repeating,
I can't work out how it just keeps accumulating,
Words spoken
And thoughts
And I don't know if anyone else feels sentences as deeply as I do,
And I'm running out of personality to stick pins into,
Trying to fix myself with voodoo
They say negative reinforcement is the quickest way to correct behaviour but I make the same mistakes
it's not okay that I constantly feel like I'm failing,
But life is more than a high-stakes game
And everyone's saying that all teenagers feel this way
But it's not reassuring to know that my generation is one of lost souls and hate.
And we're all really angry,
Whether it's because we'll be working till we're 90 or conflict left undated
Racism still exists and the Chancellor of Germany is getting called a ****
While anyone Asian is labelled Indian or ****
And eating disorders run rampant through the territory where anorexic girls get priority while the boy who binge eats is just called fatty.
And this is where I insert a statistic to convince you that we're unhappy but I refuse to be quantified just so I can mean something.
And it doesn't let up,
Compliments are uncomfortable and seeing good in yourself is arrogance, criticisms self pity
And you never know if they want to help you or just ensure that you understand the importance of conformity
It doesn't take much to convince someone you're okay.
There's not much you need to say
And if you can laugh then you're fine and we know no one checks the closets for skeletons because they're filled with people too afraid to come out of them
People accept 'fine' because they just need to know that they asked the question,
And besides, deeper questions get stuck beneath my skin.
And even when someone else compliments me I don't believe them,
Pushing away others cause I need distance,
Sometimes I feel sick from the level of enforced interaction but people only see the side they want to see.
When I told my friends about the time I struggled with suicidal thoughts they expressed their sympathies and it hasn't come up since.
Romanticising illnesses leaves me unsure if I am suffering or if I just want to be,
And part of me has to agree that diagnosis and its certainty would be better than the admission that life is just like this
You can't get better if it's something you can't fix
I don't think I'm broken but maybe I was made to the wrong specifications cause it feels like I am missing something but at the same time there is too much of me and not just physically
I am choking on the sheer volume of my past, present and impeding future
Trying to get it together
Told that it's okay if I don't know where I want to go
But in year 9 we picked our gcses which determined our a levels which determined our university courses which determine our career, if we even get there.
I keep finding new problems
I am still haunted by the old ones.
But I'll be okay,
Cause today
Someone told me to love myself.

Dear Mom,
You are awake when everyone are sleeping.
You are working when everyone are having a break.
And yet you are standing there with the brightest smile
Without the slightest hint of tiredness
I look up to you,
I adore you,
I love you.
Dear Mom,
Can i be like you?
So strong in body and will,
So caring for others,
So dependable to your family
Dear Mom,
Once again i tell you,
I love you.

Papers are flimsy, fragile
   so susceptible to time
      and harsher climates.

Scissors cut and divide
   thriving on irreparable separation
      to leave us in pieces and scattered.

Rocks are rough and tough
   facing--and looking--the worst
       while enduring every day and night to come.

My choice resides amongst the stones
   constant, long-lasting, dependable
      in the challenges that may have others call
      for support when they can't stand alone
   for maybe the times they lived were too much, too long
after facing the blades which cut them into small, segregated fragments.

"A working man
that's what you are
a young, dependable
not entirely punctual
working man
and you can do anything
with your working hands
fix a tap, wire a circuit,
build a garden wall
or fell a tree
you can do
whatever you put your hands to
you can be whatever you want to be"

Something breaks

"with working hands
I'll try to fix it but
it takes time to learn
it takes time
to be good at something
for me
everything takes time
I'm not bad they say
just learning
in my frustration I wonder
what if I'm at full capacity
when there's more to come?
what if I'm just incapable?
destined to be an idle man
with rough, callused
soon to be soft
and useless
working hands"*

                    . . .

Well I want tomorrow today
so what good are these
working hands anyway?
I work and work and work away
pay my bills
I'm always late with rent
yes, work is overrated and
my pay doesn't make a dent
can't replace all the time I've spent
working with my hands

Isn't it funny
trading something so precious
for something as trivial as money
my brain works over time
day and night
when I get to work
it's like turning out a light
I think less and do more
it's kind of nice
so I think I'll sit tight
and stay on the tools
reject the office jobs

I can have it all
white finger
back problems
an RSI
bad knees
asbestosis
and arc eye
I can get all of them
so long as I try
work really hard and graft away
working man and all that!
who wants tomorrow today
when you can wear a hard hat?

I exist in a world of careful structure
Taken out of Chaos and made habitable
By strict planning and strict ruling—
Structure is imperative
Order keeps us going
Deviations are not allowed

If you wish to live in my world
You must learn to follow rules

Reliability is key
Being dependable as the rising sun
Predictable as a new moon
Always infallible

Disappointments are not tolerated
Insufficient will be cast away
Deviations are not allowed
So if you can’t be trusted
Then you don’t belong here

There will be order in my house
For in games of two, there can be no others

There
Are
Rules
And they exist to keep us out of Chaos
They exist because structure
Ensures that we don’t collapse
So when your eyes are wandering
You are marking yourself as inconstant
Dangerous
Unacceptable
And I will stop at nothing
Until you’ve suffered for every sweetness you’ve laid at another’s feet
I will stop at nothing
Until you’ve learned that you must always choose me

I will burn you for every betrayal
And some will call me jealous