I stand here
looking fear
straight in the eyes

afraid-
to say hello
I wonder if they'd
hear me

when I stand here
I wonder
if they see me

They ******* off
like I
never existed

how am I
to understand

when I never get
a second glance
when I yell
and don't get a
response

Afraid-
to say hello
I wonder if they'd
hear me

but
it's time
to be heard

it's time
for me to raise my voice
because

I have something
on my mind
that I haven't had a chance
to say

and it shouldn't
be this way.

I get to swing,

swiftly,

under the swinging moon.

One leg up,

one leg down.

I get to be your mistress,

both legs up.


The second woman in the equation.


Called for the night,

set up a swinging cascade of

****-me ****-yous

one leg up, one leg down.

Mixed messages, forays booked,

you treat me like your nasty secret,

forbidden jewel,

plaything.


Swinging interplay of heated tosses, pushing and pulling,

thrilling rides and moves and rhythms;

twists and turns, arches and rolls;

lying flat and stepping over;

I hear you grunting, breathing hot wind in my ear

like the wild thing I unleashed and let escape at night,

in the shadows of the furniture and seeping shades of black

because I can only ***

with the lights turned of.

I can only be with you

when the lights are turned off.


Snap from when I saw you breathing me in

under the sunshine,

falling with me onto soft grass and

achingly tender dreams.

Speaking of swinging hearts,

minds against us like dripping stains,

negotiating and planning and hoping

and

wrapping sweet candy for a later date.

And wrapping me in soft cloth to take out

when you are close to tears,

to bliss,

too lonely to sit right,

too lost in waiting for another

that you are over missing, wanting in the nights

I’m not with you.


Being the girl that has to

say no to you,

is exhausting.

And when you tell me,

in your arms,

what I’m not.

It.

Hurts.


You gave me the ground,

when all I could do was tumble.

Swinging high,

swinging low,

I get to be your mistress,

both legs up.


Come the night-time charades,

the night-time little lies like flicking ***** crumbs,

feeling base and wasted in the dark,

waiting for the answer you keep struggling to say

with frozen lumps of words dug down deep

like kicking rocks into a dried up lake.

Hear hear!

the mind games are here.

Playing fool and playing god,

dealing cuts of upper hands and

bent up cards, abused in your fingers.

Guess what you played for me?

Played on me?


I’ve stopped feeling necessary,

when it’s feeding your ego like feeling feeding fire.

You need me under your skin and

it burns me up like gasoline.

Swinging round and round we go,

I don’t need this anymore,

however good I am and nice I am,

and wholesome I am

under the table,

for your stupid decisions and weakened by

my confident temptations.


Use you,

use you up and push

your taint out of my heated blood;

swinging the right side up,

I get to find my strength,

that elusive comfortable integrity,

self-honesty

feeling the blaze under my skin of strength

you didn’t expect I’d wield.


I get to swing,

swiftly,

under the swinging moon.

Alone, or not,

at least my legs will be stretched beneath me,

to catch me if I fall.

Who do I give my love to?
Can I return home? To something
lost, found, lost.
Myself, the barren cage,
Do you ever stop and breathe
in where I place your love
now?

Now. *** is so commercialised, objectified, underrated and understated;
fearful and lust-driven;
you want me to give it
to you so badly ,
I don’t even get to quote
‘we made love’
anymore.

Being close with you has taken on
the same meaning
as talking
on the phone
with you for an hour.

And sitting with you
I get to relive exactly where I’ve been before.
Only days ago.
Come full circle.
My flip-book details the same seconds of
unrequited confusion and unwanted heart to neglect.

Life is made up of cycles.
All it is
are cycles breeding more cycles;
circles one can choose to stop circling
to replace it with another.

It is the mixture that we cycle through;
the number of repeats,
the speed with which we tumble, and roll,
and dive head-first into an oblivion with all the colours
of artworks and fireworks, vibrancy and vitality.
The people who make up small cycles, large cycles,
the in-between lonely transition between new circles and loops
to contemplate, fight, submit under gentle lulls and thrilling loops,
that we educate ourselves to thrive upon, those that
we unlearn because of disappointment.

Each cycle doesn’t make it the
love affair it once was.
The friendship it could have been.
The tempting mirage of escape we were to each other.
The fuel and coursing fire that once was our motivation.
It doesn’t get simpler to manoeuvre the longer you cycle,
with you, without you, around you, for you, because of you,
too scared to lose you…
it’s still the same sticky sharp bend in the pipeline
the same foreplay of games;
‘now, who loves you most?’;
fingered silences’;
your heated chase and me always one step behind;
I have to branch off the loop
to prevent myself falling over you in the dark;
toxicity bubbling under surfaces red, raw,
swollen and teary;
I know my triggers.
My shotgun is you.
I know I feel something- to not feeling anything at all.

I may only be able to walk in circles,
but at least I can make them the right circles to trace.
I need that physical space; that walk-through
corridor in my head.

And now I get to sit with you,
realising I’ve been here all before,
not quite so long before.
Only days ago.
Come full circle.
And I think it’s time for me,
to be over your cycle.

On to the new circular track.
And the later loops and whirls I get to
embrace
on my rounds.
Well and truly,
over you.

If I let you hold me,

you’ll want to stay the

night.


And I can’t let you.

For My Sake.

I’m placed between your thumb and forefinger,
like a delicate specimen;
you would howl to see me
lost
to you.

All I can feel,
is that I’m one bad-**** narcotic
that
everyone
wants
to use as the
temporary
replacement.
Leaving earth to greet heavenly fantasy,
return to earth and greet reality.
Fantasy can never meet realty.
When you need a buzz, quick fix, roll-over-and-****-me,
craze, escape, high, exhilaration,
thrill, choice joint to smoke
choice dope to taste.

You get to feel high off my body,
hallucinate to my laughter,
get comfortable with my movements.
I get to be the substance locked in snap-lock bags,
passed around in secret amongst ***** hands,
thick hands;
fingered and rolled and breathed in, licked and tasted like precious escape.

I’ll become the gift, forgotten to be given over,
because it’s a dangerous cocktail of not being enough,
and being the exact thing you want to keep for yourself.
Kept in secret, kept as a prize,
kept as an ego boost, a rationed sweet,
the very thing always denied.

I get to wait for you,
to come back to me.
Crawl on your knees and hide the words you
clearly say;
and it’s a little disappointing.
For you, of all and everyone,
to admit you need my drug.
And I get to wait for you,
biting lips and drawing blood,
mental fog and drowned heartbeats in shakes and quakes,
time lost dedicated to shouting your name in my head,
time lost getting clothed to be unclothed,
in the dark,
on clandestine dates,
dark rooms, silent phones,
standstill and empty pants.

I can’t find safety hiding.
I can’t find safety in the open, being prowled upon,
dusted and polished and robbed
of my body
of my deserving commitment
of my feelings traded to be your
low key
replacement
until your other lover
comes back
walks in on me naked
with you.
It’s ok.
My work here is done.

I’m disappointed you would ask such a thing of me.
I’m disappointed so many of you have.

I learn to find a home in the most vacant of places.
Lost between the naked form of you,
legs sprawled for each other,
and the naked ghost you sleep with on the opposite side of the bed,
with me there.

To hide with people that hurt me the most;
to hide for the sake of people that hurt me the most;
to learn to be the escape you crave the most;
to learn to be the temporary fix, the temporary her you need the most.

I can only see it crashing down when she walks back in,
and you see me as the empty husk you like to stroke
and I see you as the man I hoped wasn’t so empty.
But you’re empty, scooped out like an empty ice cream tub.
You’re cold and melted too.  

Any addiction can be solved with discipline.
It’s time for me to train you out of me, off me.
I don’t have to be insecure, because you seem to be.

Bye Bye Grenade.

I have one question.

That’s been digging trenches in my mind.

Hollowing out all the empathy, the faith,

the blind addiction to sourcing a better humanity;

better lovers, stronger fighters,

stunning believers, more tender hearts.

With actual effort to beat on their own.


Your exclamations are false, always.

And I can tell you why

my shell is caked in your muddy, rotting stink of fake facts.

I’m cracked, embittered, roughened edges capable of paper-cut slicing skin

and all my lovely scars can tell you something you hardly believe.

I’m here to tell you why.

And why I hate how you make me feel this way;

a cynical coil of seething, jilted, passion, to fix what I can’t.


For all those who make hearts melt and weep,

shed heat and fire in rapturous thoughts and darkened, tainted dreams;

for all the single words you used as tools to build up walls,

break down my walls,

deceive me into caring about you

who chisels into only getting the gem he wants.

You can collapse a mine on me for all you care

in the end.


For all those who can make devilishly delightful

fantasies for all the vulnerable loners,

like me,

like us all when we shut our eyes,

to hover and circle over, beg for on our backs,

naked and open and bleeding raw beneath you

like ritual sacrifices for some higher purpose, some higher hopes and

goals and unwavering loyalties

to you,

my dearest demon behind every salvation;

You are the emotional abusers that gravitate in my orbit,

and I can’t seem to dislodge your planets from my line.

I admit, you got me high off some stunning ****.

Of yours.


For all those gentle, perpetually unavailable, curious beings

vacationing deep away inside

if only you would let me try and reach you, for you

to bring out all the best in me back;

before you close up like sealing a scar

We are left in a continual loop of back and forth and sideways,

hovering through open, closing doors

elevator rides to the same living routine, breaths, steps,

burdened heavy heart and raw eyelids

bruised red and blue in swollen tears

when you can never emerge from yourself to realise I’m right here

for you.


For those that run around, commanding disciples, throwing the weight of luck,

fortunate coincidences, helping fools sabotage and **** for existence,

perfection,

idealism,

licking off frosting,

dwelling in your own superiority,

I see your ruse.

Painting pristine pictures

with the lift of a finger

selling illicit jealousies and spite

like wildfire

from the back of your 24/7 Facebook page.

You make us understand the reality of one-sided loyalties,

the critical unfair rulings of want and have,

divided and mixed between people,

achievements hard fought for like precious land

and ownerships of better peoples

determined by the infernal number of people you know.


So yes.

I do have one question for you.

Why are you like this?

An why must we all break apart alone in

the boiling pressure of it all?

Forget the next night.

Wait for the return.

I want to let you in.

On a little universal secret.

We are an exhausted pool of all the little blind, maddening

instances we confuse ourselves with;

over people and instances and places left unexplored,

for us who feel the weight of lead limbs dangling limp from

the craving of sleep;

patient waits cut short in frustrating moments of self-pity and loss,

bereft and lonely over insatiable appetites.

Over friends we keep only to abuse,

lovers never giving enough but taking everything wrongly advertised;

the needle driven deep under skin after seeing jealousies dance,

float like unreachable things,

taunt and play and roast your heart in an oven,

cooking in the promise of eventual redemption.


I want to let you in.

On a little universal secret.

Being caught alive wrapped in shrouds of your own

faint darkness is miserable.

As a flower feels the warmth of sunlight,

so quickly it droops to meet the rough earth.

We are a maddening crowd ticked off at always

being second best, runner up, participation award;

jilted contestants,

competitors making allies and lovers, sequential,

in an ongoing battle of self and image and

all the ****** up soliloquies we recite with rough tongues

to an imaginary audience of our selves and their incessant advice.


I see your facade.

And i’ll challenge it every time.

Don’t think you have never heard the whispers circling;

don’t think you go home to shut all these truths inside a box of your own,

don’t think everyone else does too.

It seems like a sordid, unfair jibe, between the ribs and spikes in your head,

to wish you were that one perpetually fortunate, lucky, charismatic creature we

worship in our private dark;

we all worship each other.

And that’s where all our collective monsters feed on us poor, poor

struggling souls.


I want to let you in.

On a little universal secret,

that you can only deny so long.

There are many of us, made to feel few,

hidden in millions and billions of tight springs

that only gather so many more of these confusing thorns.

I’m talking about us,

the ones that have to leave a ‘do not disturb’ sign

inked on our foreheads when we disappear to somewhere else

because we have to. As far as we can.

We are the people who fight for conversation first,

and always back away first not because we want to

but because our minds are thick, and sore, and so

exquisitely filled with self-deprecating jargon and patched, sewed

stitched in places clumsily,

a surgeon not paying close attention,

that fails to keep the muck from seeping out.

The pressure in our heads that makes teeth grind, eyes tear,

mouths shut dry and parched, a surge of nausea

a general lingering present future lasting feeling of unsettling nerves;

sparking blossoming dull throbs of hurt that make us bow our heads

half in physiological need and half in the self-fatigue we feel

fighting ourselves every time we rise to a challenge.


I take my meds, I think things over.

I take my meds, I think things over.

Repeat until you’re tongue-tied.


All my friends are getting wasted,

and i’m feeling lonely getting self-wasted with them.

We know abandonment like no others,

because even our minds leave us for a time,

even our very selves walk away from us like broken lovers,

hurt friends, empty strangers, sworn enemies

it lays ambush to our patterns of self, lightness,

trodden leaves melting slowly into the ground like

the cycle back to dirt and lowness again.


This is half my little secret.

But I’ll tell you in time if you’re ready.

So now I’ve let you in.

On our little universal secret.