plastic cups and bottles
cigarette stubs and ash
and scattered powder
heaped as white as snow
amid bunched and ***** bank notes
and piles of wine washed cash

Upon a cracked and half-full crystal glass
A smear of lipstick flashed as red as rubies
and there, upon the littered, dusty floor
lay banana peels and half-eaten apple cores

The blonde girl, with the ashen face
painted nails, and scarlet bee-stung lips
lay there amid the crushed potato crisps
and the flattened curry sauce smeared chips

Her eyes, dilated pupils shrouding grey
stared upward at the rain washed light
of Wintery day, filtering through each
hand -smeared cobwebbed window pane
at light that she would never see again

That morning, after the party, the room was quiet as death
disturbed by a black moth that flew from behind the curtain
settling upon her face, brushing lips parted with her final breath

Sadness is a burden
Sadness is a weighted rope
Sadness is a black hole
Sadness is the absence of
all joy and hope
Sadness is a moth fluttering
inside the darkness of a broken heart
Sadness is a crawling centipede
its seemingly endless creeping feet
tearing your insides apart
Sadness is a leaf left
to rot upon the earth
Sad ness is a fetus never
given birth
Sadness is the absence
of softly shining light
Sadness is the need to flee
with never the chance to take flight
Sadness is the rose
with no perfume and no petals
just a broken stem of thorns
Sadness is the lonely bird
that sings a plaintive song
in the darkness of a thousand
winter dawns

they do not see the differences
beneath the fine cloak of skin
the brain that is wired a different way
so altering the thoughts within
the eyes that look seemingly far beyond
those of others e-en face to face
the legs and the feet that,
though seeming fine
hurt to keep up the pace
they choose only to see
the outward appearance
not what can lie beneath
all the daunting differences
that the body can bequeath
nor do they hear the
weeping
when nastiness is heard
and they cannot comprehend
how cutting can be
the unthinking word

the cosy little nest that she had made
of their relationship is empty
the straws at which she had
one clutched
strewn all around her
now she runs around as
a headless chicken would
trampling on the empty eggshells
she now recognises
as his promises of eternal love

Kindness calms a cry
it is the smile that turns tears to laughter
the caress that wraps a warm duvet
around a cold, cold world

There, in grey depths of minds
enveloped in anxiety
subterranean fears arise

Flooded by tsunami's of fear
the little grey cells
die, clasped in Corona's
crustacean grasp

Author note

Do you see me soar above you?
do you hear the pulse of my wings
do you see the beauty of my feathers
where the dew of healing clings

Do you taste with me the scent of clouds
that carry a Tempest's rain
Do you feel with me the refugees
who suffer poverty and pain

Do you see the great high mountains
the valley, glen and dale
do you see the vast grey oceans
where the ships in beauty sail

Come with me on my journey
you can do so in your mind
forget the shores of unrest
and leave them far behind

See the iced Antarctica
the bergs that fill the sea
see the mighty Jungles where
nature struggles to roam free

See the blackened Ocean depths
where oil its stain has spilled
see the empty African plateaus
where all wildlife has been killed

Now say for me a heartfelt prayer
take the healing from each wing
lift your voices O my brothers
and my Sisters, come and sing!