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.

Always look back

over your shoulder twice,

you never know

if there’s a chance in hell

to see them again.

A time,

sometime before the last time,

or even a little more lost

in a dusty box

the time even before,

I wanted to tell you something, sweet.


When you press against my skin,

or hold me at length,

you are wearing, shredding,

tearing and smoothing my very

surface.

I wear myself upon my skin;

internals are external,

I don’t hide behind mirrors or imagery;

magic tricks, pops of champagne,

dazzling details or embellished,

encrusted, coated

and processed

goods.


Those who are privileged;

ungrateful and cursed with ignorance,

little awareness for the multiplied demons nesting

in blackened hearts,

sipping sour emotions and rancid feasts,

those are the people who hide what doesn’t need to be hidden.


Those who are privileged;

independent and cursed with anxiety,

pressure behind their eyelids at night

and a very heavy head to move and keep

the walls up, guarding against the terrors and the screams

and the glistening shadows, slick with grief and

self-pity, self-loathing and what people judge

as an infernal mental contagion,

but really is just an unfortunate, battle of imbalance and chemicals.

Awry and lost and deep trodden in a mind that never rests,

always misses a beat chasing other beats

and fearing the biggest monster in the fields called mistake.

Those are the people who wear it all like skin, coloured by bruises and patterned

with cuts, carvings,

soothing over the outside and deciding its already faulty,

can wear it on the outside because its already broken,

not really worth protecting

and don’t hide would could and would mostly be hidden.


Sweet,

this is me.

I’m rough, I know.

I rest

in your bed

when I’m scared of being alone with myself.

Depressed again and as I lose control,

realising I never really have an end

keep pounding and chipping at

every word I’ve ever though and every feeling

I’ve ever had to succumb to,

I’ve ever always had to feel,

sending for help and working on strength to rebuild,

shoots flares in a black blanket of sky;

lending your little demons the opportunity

to find you.


Jealousy is the most dangerous form of punishment for us.

Me.

These people that we are.

We crave respite, sweet.

Out of earth and mind and here and now,

out of beats and taps, clicks and repeats.

Out of straddled cycles and digging into ourselves with

our own fingernails.

But really, I can’t call you sweet.

You’re just the person I imagine

so I’m never caught alone with myself.

You’re just the person I want for myself,

and can’t reach towards, afraid and corrupt and broken to you.


Blacking out with my eyes open.

A blank space, a blank knot and a blank guess,

rolling over inside.

Short-term memory shot.

Feeling the weight

and the hatred of my omnipresent self,

mind disheveled, unraveled,

fighting a battle you can’t even see;

takes one to know one.

I deal with my pain,

no one else digging enough to find a spring,

land-locked and bone dry,

questioning the mirage I stumble through a desert for.


Questioning what real is,

something everyone can pick and grasp,

smoky cloud and bitter wind to me.

I try and see some reasons,

stumbling in the finding

of plain ground, nothing else.

Perpetually uninvited yet constant host,

parasite,

addicted to everyone else’s company.

Asymptomatic to symptomatic,

mind the bickering beast,

same person, same bodysuit,

but I,

I’m locked inside with you,

yet watching you wreak your havoc,

vicious, bitter monologue ringing wall to wall,

grating and wailing and driving me broken

and twisted and pinned like your own art.


This is what I wanted to tell you,

eventually.

When I noticed a break in the internal racket,

a clear view from my cell into yours

I realised nobody wants to hear about this abuse,

not even you;

avoid, ignore, pretend it isn’t real so you can sleep

alone in your cell just one more night, again.


I just want people to better understand what this is like.

Why I simply can’t explain it.

Why I can’t tell you.

Why you will run.


Now here’s your cue.

Stand up and

Walk out on me.

Starry eyes

soft hands

red lips

daring smile

brushed cheeks


Cool silences

heated touches

under clothes,

sparks sizzle

mouthing lust

cradling hunger

******* seduction

pressing desire


Stolen glances

furtive nods

open legs

graceful back;


sprawled apart

lights off

always are,

fingers invade

hands clasp

playful bites

exercised tongues

mouths explored

rough caresses

skinned alive,

beneath you.


Devoured clean

each gasp

shuddering ecstasy

tastes tangy

mouth over

mine whole.


Rolled over

pinned down

held up

crawled over

arched high

we come

clean.


Long received

wishes unveiled

want realised

fancies overturned

lust cold

power charged

but

empty socket.


Leave me

opened up

spooned out

messy bruised

cut bare.

Hollowed out

carried away

with sneaking,

light feet.


Wondering lonely

your whereabouts;

touching who

under covers

right now.


Lost darling

snatched love

tapered heart

stranded crush;

sing alone

sad songs

without me.

Empty rain,

weak winds,

nothing everything;

you’re lost,

without me.

Come with me, all my loves,

all my heart pieces;

scattered away on winds and rain,

and let me show you something.

Insatiable, hungry, ravenous for cravings

until satisfied and full.


I’m afraid to say,

you are my distraction.

A ceaseless focal point, somewhere to extend my energies, someone to

take care of because I can’t do it for myself.

I can’t take care of myself, I just live on a perpetual ride;

up down round twist loop repeat.


You’re my own heart, of sorts.

I try to nurture, comfort, maintain, strengthen, clean and bathe,

heal you.

Everything I’m denied for myself I place in you;

and the cruelest heart you are when you neglect me, run frightened of me,

abandon and relinquish me.

You never once were grateful for the fresh blood I gave you.


You remind me to forget about hating myself, for a time.

You make the bad shadow go away.

It feeds on me in the lonely hours, when I’m not doing something,

with someone, being wholly somewhere else.


When I’m trying to leave the cycle of rises and drops…

it finds me.

It puts a hood over me.

I can’t see or sense a thing.

My head is so heavy it’s my own body weight.

You ask me what is wrong, and I can only shape a blank, cold slate.

Blank.

Disorientated and battered, I’m so frightened of the blank space in my head.

What was there before?

What was going to be there?


I need you to show me how to feel this,

how to love myself, you, believe, speak, explore, rise and climb,

so I know I can feel it for myself.

People tell me I can only love someone, when I can love myself firstly.

But I don’t know how that’s possible,

I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT IS.

That is why I cling so ardently, and why I need so many of you.


I can deal with hell all day everyday, and I do.

That’s what this is like.

I can develop a mechanism

to survive the hellish torment,

but the unpredictability is what

gets me every time.

I am astounded.

My cage has been rattled.

I am shocked, disturbed, dazed, fearful, isolated, saddened, used, violated,

agonised, tormented, defeated, sensitive, anxious…..

I am numb to the point of icy pain, hands wrapped around an ice cube too long

or drowsy and burning in the sun.


Slowed movements, hypersensitivity.

Tossed around like an angry wind, howling against locked doors and battered, stuck

shutters.

Adrift, skinned like game, on a still ocean sailing for nowhere.

Hunted and forsaken in a desolate crowd of onlookers, puzzled and ignorant of their

games.


This is for all the people we have failed.


Abused and tormented in sickening places and deserted dreams.

Alone and neglected, hugging the dirt in cold overpasses.

Starving and frightened of the guns that come creeping around the corner.

Intimidated and overpowered in darkened corners and pitiful shelters.

Traumatised and pillaged for their self-worth; their integrity stripped and naked.

Discouraged and silenced from voicing desires and fears and nerves;

humiliated and mortified in feeling a certain way, describing processes and beliefs and

doubts and insecurities battered away like persistent flies,

to masses of individuals too small and petty to understand.

The deprived and vulnerable, resigned to poaching and begging at your feet for some sort

of salvation, some help that you deny.

Those re-abused, broken and prone to retaliation.

The abusers and addicts, with no other faith to follow.

The destitute we turn from;

fear tactics of government and the impossibilities they promote for people.

We can’t help you.

The falsehoods we idolise.


The loss of empathy is so whole and catastrophic, lives are rendered pathetic,

belittled, scrutinised and judged unnecessarily for shell-shocked, domesticated,

embittered humans to mock and disgrace.


Ignorance and dishonesty prowling homes, and lives and friendships and lovers;

claw marks separating precious flesh from bone.

Those alone, locked in bedrooms, looking down at who they wish they weren’t.

Pawed and petted, fragile girls taken over by ruthless men before they cry.

Even in reverse, the vulnerable boys stripped and used.

Men in chains, abused and threatened and stripped of dignity, in yards and prisons,

in families, in offices and secret hideaways.

Runaways chased, pursued and shooed; harassed until beaten.


Turn your head and notice the scars they hide from you, sleeves rolled down;

the red marks and seeping blood from opened veins that you deny exist for people.

How real those demons are, how terrifying and ghastly they are because even you can’t

visualise such horror.

Blackouts ended in crashes and destruction and blood and tears;

drowning bathrooms, locked rooms, ***** floors and painful years.

Nightmares and paranoia threaten safety.

Agonies of the mind can never be realised, internally cutting.


You want to know what society is like?

You want to know how inhumane the humans have become?

Don’t bury your head in the sand.

You only ever paint what you wish to see, alone on your raft.


If I’ve forgotten someone, some place, some awful truth, you are starting to see then.

You are believing me when I tell you it’s all real.

What are you going to do now?

Newspapers are only covered in ***** print;

of despair and distress and danger playing master of our moves.

So I can’t talk to you through that.


Paintings are for love songs left unsung;

they are the inner kept journals of unrequited dreams,

scrawls of abuse or lumps of hurt, growing like tumours.

You wouldn’t understand.

So I can’t talk to you through that.


Music is only for the sunlit realm of lovers found;

of certainty and confidence and devotion above the sordid,

tangled affairs of wayward souls.

Living in a fantasy to escape the loneliness aching in soft spots inside.

So I can’t talk to you through that.


Letters are lost in nostalgia;

a celebration to be had, words unspoken for decades,

births and deaths, reserved for life events detailed in the past.

So I can’t talk to you through that.


Movies are just reenactments of dreams;

stunning heroes, masters of skill, justice seekers,

adventures of awe, loves broken but patched together with stronger yarn.

A world of little lies to helps better cope with heartache and grief.

We can’t immortalise ourselves in something

when it runs the risk of breaking.

So I can’t talk to you through that.


But I can do something much harder

then writing or filming or singing or painting…

I can give it all up, over to you.

I can trace patterns across your shoulders as you wake,

our special language which tells you I love you, I’m trying to trust you.

I can write you little notes, decadent words and sultry ideas,

and make a trail for you to follow to me.


I can be vulnerable in your arms, more than skin and internals

and a framework of bones.

I can be more real with you than I have never known to be possible.

It’s not just me showing how much I need you by the length I hold your kiss,

or how long it takes for us to disentangle ourselves from sleep, how often

we see each other naked.


It’s more the heart I dare draw on your skin with my lips.