My depression is a glass of flat lemonade –
hard to swallow
but I can’t stop coming back to its sweetness.
I have learnt to stop
wallowing in it, though -
deep down there is a part of me
unwilling, yet it knows
to give up trying to get rid
and I’ve learnt to accept,
because despite what I’m told,
that I should not let my depression be so bold
in telling me what to do,
existing like this is almost bearable
because it exists like outer space –
there is so much of it
yet it communicates its complexity in silence.
I am yet to receive a response from the void,
but feeling this crushing nothingness at 2pm
in an aisle of a supermarket
makes me realise it’s not gone yet.
I don’t know if it’ll ever leave.

I bought groceries today,
and held my bags in my hands
while i waited for my car to arrive.
leaning by the carts
bundled in a winter coat
cursing the wind
watching the family's walk in and out.

A cashier walks out and stands beside me
Bags under her eyes, a little smile
She comments on the cold weather
and lights up a smoke.
coughing with each breath.
A few more puffs
and she throws it on the pavement
and goes back to work.
the smoke still rises
I am still waiting
for my car.

A garbage man walks up to me
he smiles brightly, his eyes big and warm.
and says that mother nature only got it half right today,
the suns out but its too **** cold.
I chuckle and nod as he removes the filled trash from the can
"she never loses that ******* does she? I think she likes us cold"

"haha, I guess so!"
We exchange a smile, and he goes off to the next can.

I wait for my car.

The cigarette that the cashier left is still burning
the wind pushed it back to the door
And I watch closely as every leg danced around it
and every wheel rolled beside it.
The smoke kept coming.

A family of three exits the store
a handsome man in his mid thirties
and a burgundy coat pushed the cart with his wife
while his young son walked ahead of them.
The son pulled out a flyer and began to read
His father approached him
and ripped it from his hand,
crumpled it
and threw it in the garbage beside me.
He looked his son in his eyes
"you're being ridiculous"

They kept walking
The smoke kept rising
The can isn't empty anymore
and I'm still waiting for my car.

There is nothing like the moment of transition,
From the flickering interior
Of the place I work –
Where reality itself
Seems as though it could be toggled
In a single motion,
Deactivated at the flip of a light-switch labeled:
‘Warning: don’t turn off!’ –
And out, unexpectedly,
Into the prehistoric empire
Of the thunderstorm,
Where despite the growing import
Of an industry of explanations,
The emperor still retains
His wild anthropic breath:
The air that sparks
These eerie, contra-zoom effects,
Whereby the colours of the world draw close,
But meaning sinks
To strange electric depths.

Society’s supermarkets selling you lies,
Sweet and savory because the truth is tasteless.
Words prepacked in plastic boxes,
Their best-before-dates washed out because they've already expired yesterday.
Keep smiles frozen so they’ll never run out of stock.
And rotten teeth and brittle bones have never been so popular before.
Coat-hanger-shaped torsos on the meat counter,
And skinny spider legs on sale.
High-heeled and suntanned and bleached and naked
Spineless with bony spines and hollow eyes
I can see them every day running through the hall
Only to grab that one last piece of beauty.

“Love is short, forgetting is so long.” –Pablo Neruda*

close your eyes, keep them closed.
take an ice pick
and blind yourself to any reminders
of his flyaway hair or wrinkled jeans.
pour antifreeze on the memory
of the way he used to stroke your arm
before the kiss, and the cauliflower soup
he brought over when your dog was hit by a car,
and your eyes were swollen shut from crying, and
you wouldn’t get out of bed.
Keep a bottle of ***** nearby
to numb the area as you carve yourself
into a shape he hasn’t seen, skin
he hasn’t touched.
don’t breathe
until you’ve lost enough brain cells
to feel something again.
when you no longer see him in the face
of the cashier at the supermarket, when
you no longer recognize your reflection
in the tinted windows of an all-too-familiar white
sedan, you’ll know that you’ve finally done something
right.

ugly men on the way back from work

watch the summer dress and the small body within

walk with the breeze down the steps,

down from the station while

the trains pull away,

their carriages carrying the sea and the low-tide estuaries'

breath within them

and they watch the dress and the body and the breeze

cross the road into

the sun swallowed supermarkets

and the ugly men walk home

beneath retired balconies

and the slow

beginnings of evenings.

What thoughts I have of you tonight, hidden friend, for I skipped through the grey with a head full of brightness that managed to seep on through.
In one of my short wanders, I passed by dreaming of a future with you filling up the void.
What rules to break, what numerous revelations to be sought after,
the safety net has a tear the size of a watermelon.

I saw you, my little trapeze *******, doing a balancing act fit for the judges. Who are you trying to impress, who else would you dance for?
Are you the wolf at my door?
I wandered between those strings, pressed back from fear of spiders.
We couldn’t there’s too much guilt, a dead swan on the lake,
Never is there room for another prodigal’s son.

Where are we going with all this, is there a light you're following that I don’t see? You’re being called elsewhere, I understand,
but if i never see you again let me feel the lack.
Meanwhile we will tame the tigers with whips and chairs, we will shout into microphones from across the room. Crowds before us, all hungry for a show, to see the performance of our lives. Ah Pandora, you may leave your box closed for now as I fear this ballerina has caught a bad case of stage fright, along with the tigers.

It was in total a fast track ticket to the moon
and I can't return to transaction dock 8 too soon
the star checkout lane at my local supermarket
tops balloons with rocket science aeronautics
that pilot's service areas binary counter perfect
exceeding expectations bent into global orbit

My items sped along to muzak her slim milky way belt
a smile beaming discount countdowns heaven sent
taking off in bit lips when her priceless item buttons
almost burst free to air with a strain of special promotions
helpfully assisting my every excess flight of fancy
made impulse buys a baggage allowance necessity

She stroked parts of her radical laser station
to fully engage hygienic wiped spills of imagination
and I felt the warp of hyperdrive tangelo engines
urging me into a dive to scan juice ripe tangerines
a last minute save fuelled by stalling flashback cavities
gyrating in tight nets as we escaped earth's gravity

With a twist of her wrist I was into fits-the-bill ecstasy
as the whirr of electronics cut loose such quality
with a lick of an index finger our mission was bagged
handled too efficiently for any danger of jet lag
no flyby chance to not exchange standby coupons
my trolley emptied of offers too galactic to pass on