The door only slams
on windy days, and
in a similar fashion,
these days I just snap.
I am a manifestation
of all that I fear--
it is what made me
and thus it is all that
I am. How does
a heavy door transcend
the force of the wind?
How does it transcend
the forces that be,
who decided
it was a door?

Birth,
Kicking and screaming,
Within weeks meningitis overrides the quiet side,
To a nineteen-year-old mother, suddenly, that’s a fight for two lives,
Naivety of youth versus reality of life,
Her fathers disowned her,
Kid’s father’s a stoner,
The baby is screaming,
It’s hard to keep breathing,
It’s mid-winter,
If she gives up now it will mean giving up,
Full stop,
Book closed,
Claustrophobic cold,
You feel so alone,
Dad’s getting ******,
That’s just pathetic,
World getting hectic,
The hospital service,
A miracle happens,
The doctor saves him,
The baby is safe now,
That doctor stands sacred,
Tears are hysteric,
And she raises the child,
Gives it her all,
Gives it her soul,
Destroys her mind,
And he’s so ungrateful,
And they’re so distant,
As he grows older,
That miracle’s tarnished,
Becoming addicted,
Becoming obsessive,
Becoming dishonest,
Becoming reflective,
Writing this poem,
To try being honest,
To try understand this,
Not just alcoholic.
That’s how I’m coping,
At least I’m not coking,
Except when I’m coking,
But every morning I wake up reeling,
Can’t escape the feeling,
Of wasting away,
Just ****** up my uni,
Because I can’t commit for more than five ******* seconds to anything,
It was a television course,
Who even ******* likes television,
**** television,
I never wanted to do it anyway,
I just want a drink,
I just want a drink,
God, what a ******* miracle,
Thanks doc,
I need to find reason,
I need to find purpose,
This is a confession.

Something about the comfort of autumn—
in California our leaves go straight from green
to gone, if they choose to change at all.
The sun stays bright but the air starts to bite,
and the Santa Anas blow through to dry up
our last drops of livelihood. Most seem to like it—
the streets littered with death and ready to restart—
but the rough winds always hollow me out,
echo a haunting song off the tunnelled walls
of my bones. It’s about this time I empty out,
and fill instead with cotton mouth. My lips chap
and crack, but I smile silently, and I wait.

please tell my heart to simmer down
i can’t hear myself think
over all of this noice it’s making.
it bubbles and boils and makes my skin itch with the urge to **** it.
please take my heart away.
i can’t bear the burden of it again.
it feels so heavy, like someone buried it six feet under, but i can still feel it.
it’s like it’s calling out to me from underneath. it wants me to help it
but i can’t. i put it under there myself
and i lost the map

There's a reason why I'm doing this
Somewhere, somehow
I set off with a passion and a purpose
That seems so long ago.
I decided it was worth it, not to wither into a selfish nothing
To surge on, keep on grappling
but I've almost had enough
and I'm
just
so
tired
.
When will I find the spark again?
I have some faith that
an ember of the passion I lost
still exists
somewhere between my lungs and beneath my ribs
Can my faith be ever enough?
May I find out.

When im not around
Will you think of me

Will we remember these moments
Coupled in each other's arms
Lost in a loss of not really and truly knowing what we have done or what is left to do...

I won't remember
But i also won't forget

Blue briefs
One kiss
****** after ******

My best friend.
We go there again.

Like the seed I swallowed when I was small,
from my depths a tree now grows. As first
I didn't feel it all, and then it felt like
n o t h i n g at all, and now as its branches
tickle up my throat I wonder if I'll die
before they're reaching out like arms
from my (normally) empty mouth, poking
wooden fingers through my broken teeth, or
if instead it will finally give me something to say.

...and what could I say?

Falling apart isn't easy to do,
on the bathroom floor in a puddle
of tears and sweat. Remembering
a time when things seemed simple, a
time before someone smashed
through the car window of the minimum
wage worker, living in her car, at six a.m.
and took the tokens of her life
away, to be under loved.

The unraveling was gradual:
Graduating from school and watching
her own brain start to melt away,
dripping out here and there,
on the couch, the bed, the floor,
all over the apartment but rarely
outside. Splattered on the walls
rather than scratching a way out. It's fine,
the mind just makes a mess of things.

The wind is ripping
From the sound of oscillating
Overhead 'copters
Splitting my vision.

In the peripherals;

       A polyester carpet—sleeping bags—breaks the dry monotony of summer grass;
       The bicycle courier awakes from said floor, listless;
       Important man, suited, takes calls from other men, suited — octopus arms scattering papers, receipts, coffee cups and tie;
       Two hard hat builders chain cigarettes and fight visible hangovers, droopy eyes staring down some impending scaffold.

And I almost miss it all,
For the passing,
Of oscillating 'copters.

I was just in my shower after a long time away from it.
Thoughts scattered and fell over and
I felt like The Dead
fumbling at the start of Morning—
—Dew in the Lyceum
in London, not Athens, before
it all makes sense again