this is where all the secrets are held
in the smell of yesterday's rain in the air
in the dark, and in that pool
in the little moonlight patch falling on my bed
with the window open and the air cool
and the night young and wild and a fool

We were in a painting, the two of us
She was holding my hand
In the soft glow of our own bodies
And the warmth of her palm
I felt it in my throat, and on my face

We were in a painting, you and me
And the way you lay in my arms
I felt, a stranger in my own home
Who are you, who are you?
In one strange city of love, I found you

There’s a bottle of my mother’s love
Sitting on the kitchen table
It’s gone sour
It’s Sunday morning,
In the piercing comfort of a place
I once would’ve called home,
And the world woke up and walked out on me

The aftermath of July grows right outside my bedroom window
While I sit on a desolate strip of imaginary sand,
With my head in a water cooler
As significant as an ill-fated horsefly

You see,
I seem to have caught
the deathly hug of hubris
I know everything
But what does it all mean?
The pleasures of life go right above my head
And time drips from my fingertips
Plip, plop, plip
I am a blip
And this hug,
Why does it make everything so sad?

She stands in the distance,
The smell of a memory on her hands
Old blankets and old incense,
Old meals and tangerine melancholy and wick-fire soot,
The smell of sharp turpentine and paint
Reaching for me, like tentacles floating in the air.

She stands in the distance,
Sunbeams dripping from her fingers
She stands, with a question on her face
And I watch her, and I can only imagine
Time standing still, frozen; my soul immortalized in a single stroke of tantalizing yellow
I am made of paint and light.

I stare at the mirror
not because I'm vain
and not because I'm pretty
I stare at the mirror
because the person looking back
is not me
It's a black, shadowy wisp
that runs away
when I try to touch it

My hands hurt, my hands tremble
My hands itch, my hands scratch
My hands drag, my hands drag
My hands push, my hands shove
My hands bend, my hands break
My hands scream, my hands implore
My hands are cut off under the gleam of the midnight oil
My hands are cold, my hands are still

I will never see them again.

The door in the attic is peculiar
Sometimes I am lucky enough to find it cold
And I will stumble inside and fall
Far away from here
It's like a dream, a new life
You must look around and above you
And then you will see it
Above, up there, high, far away
There it was, I saw the hole
Through my fluttering eyelids it was always grey
But when I say so
Mother starts to weep uncontrollably
From here I can only sit and watch and ponder
Where it starts and where it ends
And if there is a castle of wonder
I'd like to see it one day
Even if I am old and empty
And I have lived forever
Even if I am all bones and dust and dead
But I'm still alive and my pulse is fascinating
I stand up and run, maybe if I run fast enough
I will start to fly
Yet all that comes of it is a dizzy heart and burning eyes
Sometimes, the Big Grey will ask me,
"What are you searching for?"
I don't know yet, I just want to see past the shadow
What is it like, where dreams are told,
Where dreams are sold?
On the days that she sits me down
And tells me what's real and what's not real
I wish I could give Mother a dream too
Because the lines on her face make her look so tired
And that's when they start fluttering again
Open. Close. Open. Close. Open. Close.
Open.
When will I know what dreams are like?

My toes are frozen, my fingers are pale
And my lips are purple and blue, purple and blue
The cold shrouds me in an icy veil
And the sky has no colour, not a single hue
The wind howls with its darkest fury
And the trees are swaying with gaining fervour
The splattering hail makes the windows blurry
And the darkness prevails, no longer obscure
I stand at the heart of this bitter storm
Waiting for it to sweep me away
To wipe my thoughts just as they form
To the Land of Death, this is my gateway
So consume me, within, without
Burn me, with your frigid rage
I am a madman without a doubt
Who's been left too long inside a cage
With one last laugh, I look at the sky
Up and away, I watch my soul fly

I built a prison
And so often it changes colour
Through its window
You can see the world
So ugly and so vain
You could hold the bars
And stare outside
Yearning for a taste
Of the gloom and pain
But you're bound
With shackles made of silence
From which you cannot recover
It's a lonely place,
This dreary prison
And your mind will turn
Into a foe
Your bones will grow weary
And you'll always be cynical
Your nails will drag down the walls
And the pounding will never stop
Thump-thump, thump-thump
It will pulse through the ground
The torn walls
And flaying tendons
Will flood you with their ichor
You'll want to move,
To make it stop
Stop the life from spilling
But you can't,
You'll lay on the ground
Letting my heart
Take you prisoner

Good Evening,
I hope your journey was pleasurable
Would you like any refreshments?
A hot cup of blood perhaps,
Or some freshly brewed darkness?

Today I woke and couldn't stop thinking
Of fear
Inside the car, it was all quiet
I saw abandoned buildings
With their windows stripped
Bricks gaping like a flesh wound
The streets were empty, unforgivingly bare
All this stony silence
Felt like I was in a ghost town
And I couldn't stop thinking
Couldn't stop thinking
I felt the seconds widen
I filled my heart with poison
Where was I?
I saw all the signs of impending doom
Throbbing and pulsing
And then we just zoomed past it all
There was nothing. Just a nothing town.
Funny how a nothing can hold so much of something
For all my melancholy musings
All I did was go home
And write poems about dead people on the rooftop
Wouldn't you have liked to find me up there
When I went to sleep and dreamed about them once again

Welcome to my phantom realm
Where smiling is a deadly fallacy
Please don't take a careless step
Because they'll **** you callously

Welcome to my phantom realm
Where the autumn leaves are always dying
A twisted peace: the result of your mind's helm
You'll find within, mystifying

Welcome to my phantom realm
Where power lies in the secrets you keep
So dark, so deep, that you start drowning
Just never let them sense your pain

Don't be scared of my phantom realm
The darkness will embrace you for who you are
And don't listen to them say they want to end your pain
Remember a favour is not them killing you

Welcome to my phantom fantasy
Together we'll build a kingdom for me
And when you feel yourself losing hope
I'll give you Pandora's Jar; you don't have to mope

Oh, what a predicament
My illusion of the world
it coats my eyelids
I'm the buzz of a bee in a swarm of glee
Many nights, many nights
I've wasted; in someone else's dream
What is it that they envision?

Under, under, under the sea
Under the sea
Oops, I meant under the sky
But it's all the same
I'm happy and free
The sky will melt into the sea if it must
I'm under the sea, under the sea
Because when the rain falls down
My hair will be matted and wet
Water will cover the ground it met
Just like under the sea, under the sea
And when a warm current flows on my face
I'll feel the heat
Like the sun I'm beneath
The fish with their open mouths
They'll remind me of the people I see
Walking among the trees
Then throughout the day,
I'll close my eyes and forget to breathe
Like I'm under the sea, under the sea
And long after when time runs by me
When I haven't felt a single breeze
I'll wonder if I'm really under the sky
But for now since I'm filled with glee
I'll just pretend that I'm under the sea, under the sea

The ocean would blind you, if the sun was strong enough
The water would drown you if the waves ever had their way
In the dark, dark night, the monster with its snarl, coarse and rough
Could bite your head off, and on the sand, the blood would spray
The rocks in the water would bash your head in
Or the pearly white sand would try to bury you alive
If the trees start to whisper, you'll just have to scream my name over the din
In this island, I lie, where the monster has not one head but five
Are you coming, my dear, will you find me here
Or will the horrors take you hostage and make you disappear
Love will give you the sword to fight all that lies in your wake
But fear, the queer thing, will make you question what you have put at stake
My hands, I can feel them fading into the shadows
Don't come back, my love;the ****** have no memory of life
Soon, I'll become a sliver of what I was, a whispering ghost in Asphodel
But will you come find me, we can watch the ocean as the sun bids us farewell

Little Jessie painted a picture on the basement wall
While her world was at war
When she looked down, her hands seemed so small
So did the world
When she looked through the window from afar
Little Jessie smeared the paint with her bare hands
While the people went out to earn their calluses and scars
The colours dipped and dripped and whipped-
Up what plagued her mind through day and night
The floor was cold and the air was still
And little Jessie had plenty of her heart to spill
When she moved to shake away the lead
The bombs dropped up over their heads
The city became quiet and empty
She would sit still and count to twenty
Then her little fingers would be stained red again
There were pictures to be splashed on walls
There were fears to be forgotten
Little jessie painted until she saw night fall

It's four in the morning
How did I come this far
Things splattered on the ceiling
My limbs all fall apart
It's four in the morning
Where did the sun go now
I gathered all my feelings
I wanted you to know somehow
I told you mother
I've never felt so dark
My hands were shaking
Pale and white and stark
And I dropped the spirits
They came crashing to the ground
I raised my head and felt so dizzy
Oh, all the places the blood had turned and found
It's four in the morning
Now I'm scared of my ceiling
My heart beats in agony
Time only crawls away from me
And on my walls, I find it perplexing
That I see the pictures of another
All the books on the shelves
They seem to be melting into the ether
I keep dreaming of a home
With a traffic light of it's own
All the roads meet their end
At my feet, and it feels set in stone
I've prayed to all my gods from the sky
I've cried my pleas clear and high
Tell me what I have done wrong
My sweet, sweet mother
Oh song of silence, won't you take some rest
For days and days, I've beat my breast
For and end, for and end
I look for the end
Say you'll walk with me mother
I need to find the end

When the sun came up, I fell asleep
When I closed my eyes, I danced in my dreams
I climbed up to the clouds and watched them weep
And I thought my heart would burst at the seams
When the sun came, I heard Mama leave
I called her name but I was lost at sea
If she could hear, I'd tell her not to grieve
Maybe the clouds would ask her to forgive me
When the sun came up, I'd fallen too deep
The wings I'd built fell down so listlessly
I felt my feet take such a leap
But down came the cage, Mama set me free
When the sun came up, there it was
The cold, cold bed where I lay meting
And around it voices fell down in a heap
Melting ***, what sweet wonders you reap
When the sun came up, I wouldn't give in
I twirled and leaped down the mountain stream
Up above, there wasn't much I couldn't be
And all my eyes saw, was much too sweet
When the sun came up, there were many things
My mind was split, there was sorrow, there was glee
The world had another day to see
But it didn't matter, I had fallen asleep

First you hide the feelings, then you hide the money
You're standing there eyes unblinking, as your silver tongue lashes out
You can tell me anything, your mother says; you don't have to lie honey
You shake your head and smile, this was much easier than last night's bout
You say you're studying in your friend's house but you're black out drunk in his backyard
You say you're in your room but you're on a train, a thousand miles from home
You never look someone in the eye, you have too many secrets to guard
And then you tell them one more lie, at this point, you must be made of stone
Soon every carefully laid out facade becomes the truth, it takes over your mind
You'll watch the sparks fly, scratching your prison wall, as though waiting for a fire
"I'm not a thief, I'm not a liar, I'm innocent, there's nothing you can find"
But this one corner of your heart tells you that once a liar, always a liar

If I plunge a knife in my heart
And wake up again
Will I see a new life?
Will I see a new me?
Oh no, but I'm very empty inside
The knife would just
Find its way out free

Medicine man
No breath on his lips
Sloshing liquid in his throat
Rise and fall in each step
Malady withers and blooms
As he walks up the cliff
A smudge on a ledge
Loss,
A smidgeon of hope
No claws on the man
Toss away, toss away, go home
Tomorrow he’ll open his eyes
The medicine man
With no breath on his lips
Lush,
a rise from the lone
In a yard full of bones
Dew on his fingertips
Oh medicine man
Take away, take away what he knows
Low, fly the crows
So long, hope grows

it's quiet
the fridge is humming
the tap is dripping
the clock is ticking
my heart is beating
all this noise and yet it's quiet

I have a broken voice and midnight wounds
And I am my own prisoner
The wounds don't show with your eyes on me
My skin will scream, so look away
They're inside me, lurking behind my face
Toying with strings of sanity
And when the sun comes up, they are lost
Fading to an eerie blank
But the dark steals them back like a criminal
And rips apart the healing holes
Still, the dark is good, the dark is quiet
I'm alone with phantom gashes
The sun is stolen and so is my voice
I only stare at bare stone walls
And I will wreathe my hands around my head
And pull myself to the floor
I will sit down and I will accept
That when the darkness falls, I fall with it

I put my hand on a fire and it burned me
Well what did you expect, said the voice in my head
It was raining hard so I stood under a tree
A branch fell on me; I should have just stayed in bed
I did something different and the people mocked it
Said I was a freak and liked by no one
Why would you do that you stupid ***
I tell myself, and then start to run
I say hello to someone, with a smile on my face
But whoops, I missed their sewn-in button eyes
Its not just pointless fantasies and dreams I chase
Its also the building filled with running mice
My friends say that I'm not right in the head
But my mom says she doesn't see any friends in sight
I wouldn't know with all the lies I've been fed
If I'm a lunatic or the world is a piece of *****

Can thoughts eat you up?
Can they devour you?
Do you have to be dead to stop thinking?
Or paralysed
Or maybe I should just sleep
Then I don't have to think
Yes, I will sleep
I will sleep for an eternity and not wake up
Anything to stop them from consuming me

If you dig six feet deep into the ground
You'll find a little, devil's child
When you pick it up, out of the hole
Even the soil around it will heave a sigh

The infant's deadly silence
Will start to unnerve you
So will its rugged skin
That's midnight black and blue
You will wonder how it came to be
And you will look at all the sand surrounding

Wait, sand? Wasn't it soil on the ground?
No you're in a desert with no one around
What about that thing in your hands?
You look down and there's sludge
Dripping down your fingertips

Now you've lost all your hands and legs
Now you've just faded into a ghost
Now you never existed in the first place
What is happening, where did I go, you ask?
Well you are a figment of my mind, you see

I will mold you, crush you, shape you to my heart's content
In my mind there is no reality or gravity
It's twisted, gnarled and not right
YOU: you are purely a thought of mine
And that child: part of my imagination
And now that you have read this here

It is part of yours too, I fear

Things have happened while I was away
I've grown and grown
In the space between reality
and the roof I sit on.
After years,
I still want to describe the clouds as I see them
And I still don't find the words
My breath is still as short as my hair
Everything, everywhere is as blurry as ever,
in more ways than one
But I've grown and grown
The rooms are too small for me,
The air is too thin for me,
I take leaps of faith, lightly
Light as lead ever was
I don't like the darkness,
I want to reach the sun
And dear World,
When I have grown and grown,
Promise me,
you'll grow bigger still
Take my wings from me,
before I melt into the sea
I have all these dreams
In the space between reality
and the roof I sit on
What if I run out of room?

Listen
It wasn't always this bad
Mushroom-smelling air
Heartbreak flowing through my hair
My mother spying on me
From another city,
Address? Computer, Evil 1, Witch's Lair
I saw spots in my mug,
in my wretched blue rug,
From my friend's choking bear hug
What else, freaking bugs?
I hate the way I'm living
Like a box of chocolates
Left in the sun for a month
Like a spider on the wall, waving
Simply thriving, loving all the screaming
I ate all the chocolates; I'm dry-heaving
Listen
It wasn't always this bad
I swear

Take me to the mountain top
I can't see the stars from down here
Around me, fall the raindrops
So scarlet and salty and near
You promised to let me fly away
So far, so high, that I'd burn with the sun
Burning, I am, indeed; it is my price to pay
For the lives of more than one
I told you that i wouldn't go astray
That I wouldn't hurt a single soul
But sorry can't save me now anyway
Not when my sins have filled me whole
The whispers of the ****** don't bother me anymore
And I've stopped yearning for a Church bell
When I scream for you on this bloodied shore
I hope you can hear me from the pits of Hell

Morning: Casualty Day

I'm on a cliff,
The wind is blowing;
and it says,
I have not gained the affection of the sun yet
No one in the world exists yet
I'm the first one to start dreaming
For the day
In circles and circles, I spin
I am.

Afternoon: Casualty Day

When the ants start crawling out of all the hollow spaces,
I am crying
My heart is on my sleeve, too precarious for a jumpstart
The ants grow and get bigger
They smile with teeth; so annoying

My poor heart

And so I go on with my day,
Tiptoeing through armies and colonies

If only I had wings

Loneliness creeps up on me like night blindness
while the day takes its course
How shall I explain away the rust in my throat?
Who shall I explain it to?
And as the night takes its course
Something or someone abandons me (I'm not sure which),
when I hold a drop too much whiskey in my stomach
My poor, poor heart

And liver

I know what cliff I will be on in the morning, anyway
In the meantime, I whisper to the ants:
You are no one
I am the only one

I am no one.

Tonight there's a star in the sky
That refuses to die
I've got some stories to tell
I hope somebody waits for me
To come along and be their pal

i stumble and fall
i stumble and spill, my guts
the road has the gall
to cackle and howl, at my guts