I am surviving only
Through midnight dishwashing
Submerging my amygdala in soapy water
Trying to scrub it clean
Listening to los campesinos! so I don’t have to hear the water rush
Or taste the bubbles on my tongue-
My life only makes sense with a soundtrack.
But in all my favourite albums
There’s a skip on the record
I must have dropped a stitch somewhere in the fabric of my self-determination
In the dam that would have stopped this flood of bitter glitter tears
Maybe there’s something missing in the lining of my soul
Because I’m happy.
I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.
And yet there’s still the catch in my throat
The lingering sense of not seeming like myself
I’m shadowboxing my demons that are smaller than the mountains I’ve conquered
And yet
How do you **** a thing unseen?
A thing that creeps on the edges of my vision
In every blind spot
I don’t know what I’m fighting so I don’t know how to fix it.

I am surviving only
Through midnight dishwashing
And one way phone-call wishes to a god of self delusion
And doubt
Self-sabotaging from the inside out
Relying on chip shop philosophy to get from one minute to the next
And yet I don’t remember what you told me.

It occurs to me
That maybe my demons are dead
And perhaps I am fighting
Myself.
The parts that don’t live up to the lies I tell to sell my soul to every passing stranger.

You see, I know
That there’s nothing to cry about;
Or that there’s everything to cry about
But it’s not the stuff I’d write poems about
War and famine and plague oh disease
This festering something that’s inside of me.

Cut out a pound of rotting flesh to pay my debt to art
Cut out every dead piece of me, cut out my failing heart.

They say the gods are omnipresent,
An intuition comes to mind…
The thought of humans ever-present,
And their pantheon of crime…

The walls you signed your life away to
were never thick enough to seize your
Tone of condescension aimed at
the woman that I needed to draw strength from.

Your Roar echoes, vibrating
through my Vocal Chords to the point that
I can’t reel back the sharp hooks I continuously
sink into my lover’s back.

Maybe it’s you I should blame

For letting my first “love” wrap his sorry
hands around my Throat, lips
black blue Red

For convincing my adolescent self
that the Chatter of a girl was nothing but
White Noise, that my comfort
lied in the Dialect of
teenage boys

For believing that I could never find
comfort in the Words of a woman –
your copious Lectures filled with disdain and
the only Words I can ever recall were the ones
she never Said

As if a woman’s Voice were most valuable
when Silent.

We are all connected,
But more mechanically than spiritually.
We are all friends on Facebook,
Yet - who are we, virtually?

We have shared pictures,
But do we share significance?
We have private chats,
And everything else;
But is that not malfeasance?
A malfeasance of all
That is sacred and real
About being really human.

We have parties and watering holes,
A grand, good old time.
But do we see ourselves?
In truth we should also be peering inward,
Unless we are ready
To look at it one day
And see empty corridors.

Then I realized my mistake.
I searched the world not realizing that the world I longed existed inside of you.
Wherefore I felt I needed some sort of permission.
Some sort of console.
Instead of accepting the card I knew hid face down in a deck of the same face cards.
I manipulated the cards to what I knew best.
The only thing I felt was real.
The inevitable.
I was the veil whom dangled in wait.
The classic a-ha moment when all would be revealed.
Not realizing that I myself was a part of the illusion.
The one I kept at arms reach.
A realm filled with room upon room of smoke and mirrors.
Face down on top of a hat.
Waiting for some sort of hand to reach down and pull me toward what I already knew.
I was stuck in an illusion

Hate is such a strong word.
Yet you show me plenty of it.
You first flash your gun.
In compensation to cut wages.
Yet you remember me.
How you should have listened.
A siren of power rung.
the hands that flashed adamantly "no, please don't."
You ignore my cry.
Covering me in the congress of actions seen.
I guess bad decisions in part.
Act first speak later.
My spirit shattered in false hope.
I put firm trust in the light that flashed from your badge.
Thinking to myself its all a mistake.
To think I was half right.
It's much easier to edit flim or tape.
The disguise worn scene to scene.
You were never held accountable for your word or action.
In a couple of months everything will be thrown out.
A face sagged in misery.
Treating me your very worse,
Refusing to see that your very belief is the problem.
I couldn't say a thing.
The claps of your sole echoing against concrete.
A new victim found.
No matter how fast you run,
Your disguise can never hide what you've done.
You fled the scene before my body dropped.

It was Sunday, the day of madness, and I alone knew that.

Awakened in the midnight hours by another magnificent work

By the artist himself;




I’d spent the evening studying another of his masterpieces,

And I suppose that the indelible ochre ink he preferred

Stained my dreams;




I carried his ink and quill with me as I lay me down to sleep,

And, with great care, placed them on the night table

Nearest the door;




I laid down on his canvas, and covered myself in his melodies,

As the clock rang to announce the coming of midnight

And the silence grew louder still;




It had been Saturday, a day of merriment, a day of rejoicing,

But Saturday was no more, and the artist was indeed inspired

By its absence;




And in the darkness, he handed me a light - a painting,

A self portrait carved into a shard of the mirror I’d broken earlier,

Entitled - The Art of Loneliness.

We are but lines drawn
in symbolic
           echoes..
Our life is but a few lines
         that fill a book of memories
that are still empty.

But echoes call from the pages,
       and we read unto ourselves...