Check.

Relief.

Check.

Relief.

Check.

Relief.

Pause.

Don’t check.

Un-pause.

Sudden and devastating irony that one’s skin can crawl, yet none of their limbs work.

The only animated parts being my heart as it hammers against the rigid, perspiring cage that it so desperately tries to keep alive.

And my lungs, as they desperately gulp for air like they may never taste it again.

For who knows if oxygen exists in the darkness that lurks at the epicentre of the collision between fact and fiction.


Check.

Check again.

Writing gets hard,
but the sky and the stars tell me
that I am the star even in times
when the rhymes don’t flow that smoothly
and life isn’t a movie.

When I’m at the cliff’s
precipice and my fingers are stiff,
tremors wracking my body
as I struggle to embody
something confident and godly,
it seems so much easier
to burn away than to stay drained.

But prose is my way
of praying,
and even if the deities of my brain
decide I must embrace pain another day,
I take literary measures in an attempt
to stay sane.

Smoke to a fire is her words to me,
her words are the embers that sting my skin-
causing pain to be only what I feel,
she is my heaven and my hell.

Her hands guide mine with destruction;
gentle- yet so lethal with intention ,
I love her, she despises me with the same passion-
will I ever get over her?

every headache is cancer
every heartburn is a heart attack
every bug bite is poisonous

every thought is a boulder
every thought is a gong
every thought is a hundred

every breath is my last
every sleep isn't enough
every ache is never ending

every touch feels like more
all my pain is never ending
I can't take it anymore

I wrestle you out of the cupboard under the stairs
Every weekend
Scaring the ******* out of the cat
Who by now knows what is happening,
Perceived as a fight to the death
Filled with electric noise, until finally
I tame the monster and put it to bed
He elects to hide
In the kitchen, under the table.

We dance the waltz of cleanliness
Over carpet, lino, round litter trays
Up stairs and across bookcases
Just you and I, an odd couple
Locked in a battle against dirt and dust
The build up of bacteria (yuk!)
Cleaning away the footprint of a week
On the possessions of our life.

My wife doesn't know about us
You and me and our OCD
We share for an hour, or so, while she's out
Shopping, drinking coffee, with her mum
Ours is a secret affair
******* cat fur out of the crevices,
When I am done we part company
Hiding our passion behind closed doors
Until we meet again, next saturday

My love.

Slowly, sneakily
It starts creeping back in
Right around midnight
As the medication fades
As I prep my next dose
I feel my past
Hovering over my shoulders
Threatening to return
And just the thought
Fills me with so much fear
I rush to my little orange bottle
And wait for its serenity
To bring me peace again

Its fingers closing around my throat
Afraid to swallow, to breathe
In case I won’t be able to...
Can’t get it out of my mind...
GET OUT OF MY HEAD
The monsters are crawling back in
They’re trying to take control
I STILL HAVE CONTROL

What is control.... control.... lol
Control has only ever brought me
MADNESS

I can’t let them see
THEY CAN’T KNOW

I can’t tell the doctor...
I DON’T WANT MORE MEDS

I’m slipping

It’s coming back.

****.