Wooden hands
Bruising random shapes
On my bare thighs.
Wooden hands
Leaving me covered
In rainbow lies.

And when wooden hands
Cross my mind,
They come in the form
Of sunshine.


F.Z.N

it's 3am,
and you're sitting over there,
with bruises covering
your body and you came to
me for help, and there's
nothing i can do for you
but hold you, and
you don't want me to
because my hands are
shaking and i can't seem
to reach them up to your
face,  i can only
feel the blood pounding in my ears,
and see the way your eyes
light up when you're
looking into them,
screaming and crying
for me to help you
but i don't know
how to and no one's
around and your hands are
letting go and your
breathing is getting
shallower as your tears
are getting deeper.

Runaway,
Feel the pain
Taste the rain
For me.

Catch each drop to wash away
All the moments that we kissed.
You were always sorry,
I was never amused.

Read it through
Drink this
Forget my name,
Please.

Drain your thoughts to your ears,
Let them spill this liquid that thrills
Wait, let me spill my guts to you
So that you can fall harder.

Punch the wall
Bruise your hand
Make marks
For her to see.

Caress her porcelain skin
With your black and blue hands
Abraded and rough, maybe it's enough
But now she thinks you're brave.

Bleeding blisters
Metallic taste
Waste of space
That pretty face.

Tear it to pieces that you can't read
Strokes of wet red for all to see
Just lay back down in the ground
And try to sleep.

Please set me free now;
Let me go escape
Into the abyss
Of my wild daydreams
Clotted up by fact;
These chains leave bruises,
I've held it in long
And palpable thoughts
Are much sweeter than
Hard, cold, solid truth.

Tumble backwards
Trip on air
Bump an elbow
Bruise a hip

Clumsiness paints my body black and blue
Sick yellows curl around burst vessels
like constellations
against my midnight

I’d cover them
but why
hide the universe

My body is black,
My heart now blue,
Beat up and battered,
From the time I loved you.

Bruises, they fade,
Into mere memories,
They lighten in shade,
And vanish, no pain.

But sometimes at my waist,
I swear I can see,
Your arm wrapped around me,
In black, blue and green.

A school bag against a wall,
paint peeling at the edges, grass growing
upwards, clinging to life
between the cracks of the pavement.

A hand on the school bag
clenched around the handle,
fingers pressed together,
curled, and the nails press into the heel of the palm.
They leave dark little crescents.

A boy;
he curls tighter against the wall,
a shadow throws itself over the bruise on his chin.

The boy pulls his school bag towards him,
rests his bruise on it. His fingers grasp
at the worn weave of it.
Eyes close, wrinkle shut.
Obscure all other senses,
so hearing is the sharpest.

Not yet, not yet. No footsteps yet.

Breath shudders, suppressed
from flaring nostrils.
Barely escapes from his lungs,
that are squished against all his other organs,
in that winding space of a box
compressing all of his organs.

No footsteps, no footsteps yet.

Breathe, breathe.

Footsteps.

Laughter, slinking around the corner,
ahead of the approaching group.
It plunges into the taught space of his ears.
Echoes there.
Thumps against his skull.
Footsteps.

A school bag, pressed tight against a boy,
who wraps his person around it,
begs it to be a shield.

A hand, curling into a fist.
Footsteps.

A boy,
and three others.
Three grin,
one does not.
He can't see their teeth, his eyes are stuck tight.

"Look at this pathetic ****."
A slap of sole on pavement.
A boy stepping forward,
body harsh.

A flinch.

A laugh.

"******* hell, I can't even be bothered."

Footsteps.

A high, quiet sob.

Fingers on a schoolbag, loosen.

my knuckles are bruised,
the colour of sunsets and
irony, because they say i'd
never hurt a fly yet i'd
throw my fist into a window
as a fatal act of defiance.

hasn't the world
taken enough from me?

cheap makeup covered
the purple marks of his "masculinity"
forced upon her in the hours of
coal, coldness and blame.

before it got too much,
I saw her stand on her tiptoes
and dissolve into the night sky,
into the night gutters,
into the night cries,
of pills, diets and mutters.

and right as the moon
swallowed her whole,
only to spit her out onto
guilt soaked mornings;
she survived.