what must i do? after being left bare
stripped of all flesh and innards scooped out
swaying in an empty field; what must i do?
when my nerves have been burnt
by the unforgiving sun, and my eyes
fall to my feet from their sockets? how much longer
do i need to wait? until my body disintegrates
into dust and gristle, too brittle to be broken down
by even the barren soil?

bending and snapping
in water, like a sprout
of a tree
i am unused to this
having grown too early
i am being pulled from the roots
by the current, and ******
into the gaping maw
of the ocean
my bark erodes away
and whittles down to my core
i turn into fish food
and separate into microscopic pieces,
until i can't feel anything anymore

loosen my mind
working fluid changed
oiled and stinging new

nettles growing up my spine
need a weeding; yank them out
from their roots
and give them a new home
in my fingertips

stretch out the tendons
like elastic, by plucking at
them as if
tuning a guitar
make the world's worst song
and start again
as the poet born yesterday

stuck, bent over and
stooped; ankles creaking
elbows whistling, body
cracking, begging to
unwind. laid out to dry

like strips of meat, in the
unforgiving sun. made into
pieces of pottery
blazed in an oven
and glazed once dry

each limb twitching
pottery pieces shaking
stuck, bent over and
stooped

until the night stops bleeding
gutted, spilling stars, gauche display
it should be ashamed of itself
laid bare
in front of the entire universe

until it stops speaking nonsense
to little travellers
after the sun has disappeared;
until it grows wiser, knows not
to open its arms so wide, as if
encompassing the whole earth

it should keep silent.
it should not betray its secrets
to every being that
traipses under the
treacherous sun.

i am in a sea
under the riverbank
sat in the riverbed

hands in each estuary,
my hair flows through
the banks of the Seine
and my tears travel through
the Ganges
washed up on the shore
with all the other weathered rocks

i turn glass bottles into pebbles
and smooth over my worries
letting the river current cradle
my sorrows gently; letting
the waves bring me up to
the surface
and when i float
i become the entire ocean.

i don't see faces in popcorn ceilings anymore
nightmares galore
chest drawn tight, eyes looking forward

i don't sleep anymore
submitting to nothing but
still yielding; silencing
a part of me
and still weeping

i am not sure who i am anymore
two people in bodybags
stuffed into a living corpse
under darkness i stand
and under light,
i remorse

there's this sense i think i lost
although i have never quite acquired it
i often think about
well, odd things
consisting of book dust
from utter boredom
head in hands - but as
a child, small hands
and awry thoughts
leading me away
like a balloon on a string

there's something i think i need
overhead lighting
constant sun
endless reading
and some type of joy
that doesn't run out

i do what sounds good
and i think i think too much
so i simply ignore
my head screaming from
the end of the precipice

i've probably seen god
in between the clouds
under astroturf
and between bits
of gravel
scuffed loose from
my impatient feet

this dullness is blissful;
this woollen blanket
that drapes over my eyelids
so hard it compresses
my eyelashes
mouth smothered
by the sheer weight
of it all
lungs pleasantly depressed
head pressed to the side
and breathing steady.

something serious
tapped out on the window
morse code on
insulated walls

something strange
seen today
under a hedge
akin to
a bottomless pit

something strange
in the air;
breathed in
swept inside my lungs
sticking like asbestos
turning my very veins
grey

the universe played a cruel trick on me
pulling over wool
harvested from deceit, over my
guileless, unharmed eyes

the universe did me a great disservice
by placing the letters in your name
into each word i speak

the universe did me a great shame
i see a face like yours
behind every windowpane

i set each vigil of you on fire
and embrace the pain

i am aware
night stripping me bare
of each sentence that
keeps me sane
i think too much,
ruminate,
over said words
turning them into
busted quilts
i am aware
that they have lost their worth
i am aware
that they no longer have any meaning
i am aware
and yet my consciousness
defies me,
threads slipping through the cracks
and corners
of my mind.

no strings attached
snipped on the cloud
that connects us all

no miles to catch
when the train has
broken down

no need for worry
when the mind has
run out of endorphins,
utterly sapped
of all of its glory

no need to keep any strings
for they get entangled,
and as a result,
bring you closer

you have me strung up
peyote style, all twisted and
crammed into each crevice
of my compressed, unforgiving,
dastardly mind

i wake up
in a living hell, and i sleep
dreaming of you; each thought
looming on the precipice
of my mind
is all about you

i hate this codependency
absence making the heart grow fonder
when there wasn't a distance
in the first place
i dislike the way i feel
vagus nerve twisting into
a peyote bracelet, interlocked
i am not sure when
this will end

head thrown back as if to sleep;
someone unhand me of my endorphins
which i surround myself with

using straining muscles and
blood pumped into each crevice, i
forget how to feel again
gym rat brain
odd body
head ******* on in all the wrong places
and thoughts littered on the ground, around
each of the weights i lift.

my hand seeps under moonlight
of deep, profound, blasted, cursed,
affectionate love
in sunlight, nothing at all
and under hanging stars
it weeps

my eyes bleed
at night
body horror show
mirror is a plight
crusted, flaking glass
frosted bits peeking around
the shower curtains

sometimes, at times
late at night
my hand reaches out; silver
foil reflecting
my hazy counterpart
bathroom sink squeaky clean
the other person
with their eyes closed
as if in a dream

there's an inseam to be found
when the galaxy bears its plump thigh
and moves around thousands of stars
as a result

there's something funny in the way
the skin folds over when the ocean frowns
because it can't seem to get
its catch of the day

there's an oddity amongst
the otters swimming in the arctic
like tiny, dotting buoys
showing a line that should not be crossed

there's something strange in the way
the valve in my
mechanically strung body
refuses to automate like everyone else's

under a hedge
late at night
eyes open
hands skittering through
the smooth grass

a temporary escape
held in a jar
suspended above real life

an invisible structure
and youth in isolation, despite
it being unnatural

and several words
disappearing into puffs
that fade into thin air;
god granted me a genie
and made me the wish granter
instead

cold hands, smooth grass
head full of popcorn
ceilings falling into structures
and all integrity lost
to the skittering hands in
the smooth grass.

each new green shoot,
shot to hell and back
with a silver barrelled gun
and razed to the ground
with the surface of the sun
is benevolent
to the poor earth

in my past self are crumpled papers
and in the present they are resolved
folded into little triangles,
and boats that sail down
the ferry lines of my veins

amongst the static world
i remain free and untethered
amongst my past
i remain liberated
amongst my present
i am fine: this is an ode
to my well being
and the numerous
conversations i had
with my dental hygienist,
(as practice for the real thing)
and the adjustments i made
towards a better future

i have been floating, suspended, for a long time
and now i soar towards the skies
pelicans holding each string
to prevent me from slipping

the wicker chair i support
has enough space for hearts
and futures, and successes
and emotions

my own chest is
whole and healed, a chamber
for which something beautiful can take place;
i am fine. in this world
which is dynamic and elusive,
i am fine, and i have the power to always be fine.

it's intimate
under cold skies
anteaters at our feet
it's intimate
nonsensical thoughts
floating about
in nonsensical minds

it's intimate -
this underwhelming feeling
of two waves cancelling each other out
destructive interference

it's intimate?
sitting at the top of the world
and being none the wiser
sharing two spots
of the same property
is this what it is?

intimacy?
cold skies
frosted cheeks
two different people
stuck together
for a long time. is this it?

to get sick of things
when you least expect it
to undertake some form of a burden
for so long, and then to suddenly
give it all up?

undertow brings me to the surface
negative turned positive
riptide going toward the beach -
and in each granule of sand,
contains every want I've ever had

i think my heart is blue
swimming octopi
see through the night
of my empty blood vessels

i think that at times
under influence of the sea
without the moon in tow,
i forgot how to breathe

in each world i am heavy hearted,
bitter and embroiled, boiling and cold
at a loss to the elements
at a sight for sore eyes
under the stupid sky
i can only breathe at night

each encyclopedia holds my sorrows
body written in the universe
free script flowing in me; without it,
simply a passageway gone to waste
no wanderers to lay claim
to the insipid things i say

something near me
a thing i can't see: a soft sound
footsteps pattering on the
clotted ground, no
force to quell them all

veins discombobulated -
all things considered? the
modification of my body
to bend to my needs and
terrible desires
may as well be welcomed

the world is a floating point
opened up and split
scattered to the winds
left to its own devices
and us? we are the particulates
that tag along

At least under influence
The strained sky doesn’t rain
As much anymore, plaid shirts
Sticking to the empty walls
Sundry fabrics staining the
Disgustingly beige paint
And hands brought up
As if to faint? The struggle

To rip the shirts off the walls
And make the sundry fabrics
Less sundry; the struggle,
To watch the sun go down
And bring the sky with it -
It overcomes me, it fulfills me,

It gives me a purpose
That fits like a square block
In the absence of any holes
Busies my hands with new blood
The next ****** victim being my
Unrelinquished boredom
And the next pain I will relish in:
My endless hyper fixations.

all this blackness and sticky fear
until my sides wear thin and I
feel nothing more than a paltry
whisper of something near and dear
until the skies implode, I feel
nothing and everything, until
all that is clear is cloudy

and then each walk and promenade
reveals itself
and while old and withered
amongst the banks
of the Seine: and while a book rustles
and the children play,
a future stretched out in front of me
cat like, limbs akimbo

I want peace
and I want no part in this
anymore - what's the point?
there's a point, I assure myself
and then I stretch thin again
and start back at square one
with a plastic body and a head
full of too many odds and ends
and no thread to pull it all together

you know
until the world turns over
flipping like the coin it is
and what was once done
becomes undone
I think I won't ever forget
the chance I missed
and the useless errands
I would run

I think
that my place in the universe
is convoluted - just what do I
want to get done?
will I ever
balance with the disorder
and become a part
of the sum?

I might
float endlessly, a large
speck of dust immobile
held suspended
by the fear of the unknown
I might never find
peace or normalcy
but I don't know what those
feel like
(and hence,
nothing lost or found)

be lost,
is what they say
and then find your way
amongst all strange things
and amid all the oddities
suspended agape
in fear and all its commonalities

the limit to what I say
around and when I lay
in what seems like
my seventh grave; I have
many lives
to keep, and many scores
over which I weep
until each music note
becomes one elongated scream
pulled out piano wires
baring guts like a burst seam
whiling away time as if
this is the eighth dream:
each sonder and sundry
under the tips of my fingers, god is

just out of reach, six armed swordsman
feet, sixth life just spent and beat
as if I require murderous intent, to be
a swordsman, like god
omnipresent lines(I see them!) and then
vocation slipping between my
rigid fingers: when will
my time finally come? and when
will god slow down for this
mere mortal? it seems that
only time will tell

swim seams in cluttered
dreams, god in between
the light beams - no space
unkept by him, full to the
edges of the fabric
a carefully calculated scream
manipulated daydreams

all the bars are full at ten
past or before ten, sloshed
clocks, someone spiked
the punch again
("aren't we in a bar?")
I thought we left this place
a long time ago, but it's ten past ten

trying to remove a face
from a head, failing miserably
it's such a mess
the subject of my adorations
because I made too much of a mess
switching my own face in the progress
(I felt too mean
to leave him with nothing)
(and now, it seems,
I've been left with nothing)

I won't even see him again?
ten past ten, only in my delusions
do I think I can
warp ten past ten
to ten past nothing

it seems that
I want everything, god
I want everything

yes
at times I do agree
to the things you say
about you and me - at times
I agree
until nothing at all
comes undone
knots having been burnt
by the zany boiling suns

at times I think
that each word crawling
underneath the seams
is worth eating
and each promise I steal
tastes like melting butter
and steel beams

at times the iron
builds up in my core
and I can divulge no more
at times, there is no time
because
for some reason
you control my reality as a whole
and when my world starts to crumble
you simply press reset
so things go back to the old way
where I would agree with you,
again and again

I can get away with anything at all
with just a purse of lips
and then something happens
to the people around me:
I cause mass extinction
of morality, black and deep cracks
breaking society's porcelain skin
shower curtain face split open
and veiny, fabric hearts
separating like liquorice strings
when I disassemble people
I can feel their golden
odd little hearts
in my hands
and when the time comes again
it makes me slightly more glad
to hold something broken
that is meant to last

half moon, melting smile
all serene and
screaming limerence;
at times I feel my body
responding in kind
at times, at night, in the darkest moments
car lights travelling up the wall
incense turns into hallucinogens
body composition changes
arm and leg being replaced
with the frame of my bed
skin nowhere to be seen
eyes craving to rip the seams
and my mind?
deep underneath
the throes of need.

wretched self consciousness
the curse of thinking, the curse of
cursing the ignorant
heads floating over my shoulder
and then I wonder
why I spend so much time
worrying twice
head split in two
melon guts spilling out, because
to the ignorant
the mind is no better
the mind is simply matter
and then
all I do is absorb
the light that dapples over the window frames
that is all.

hazy hazy
never alone
going crazy
lack of punctuation
against the line of clothing seams;
until death again
we part constantly

reincarnation,
I never did give you a name
traipsing clean streams
we can do it all over again
the soul doesn't lose a body
and the body doesn't really
stay, anyway

cropped close, clothing
shed while leaving the
stratosphere
and all I think is:
I can never get rid of you, can I?

oxygen is an after thought
preceding blood pumping
and following hand in hand with
checking the encyclopedia
for symptoms

with crossed legs, you tell me
somewhat callously, about
a certain something eating you away
where's the encyclopedia when you need it?
what illness has the symptoms of
heartburn, but without the burn
and the heart? and since when did
you start thinking that
oxygen was an after thought?

blood pumping
peering over the blue, eye searing screen
why not start with blood pumping? so
you try to get rid of the heartburn, but with
no heart and no burn
by pouring so much **** blood into
every fibre of your being
getting curb stomped by random joes
staring at sidewalk petals as they wilt
(iron overdose)

nose dislocated, blood is fine
remember, oxygen is an after thought
but only to me
and the encyclopedia says that
it's a good thing to breathe
so then(and this is starting
to sound like a children's story)
you say a slightly regretful sorry
and **** up the oxygen like
you had placed it in your worry
world bending over to support your
pore filled form
and none left for me
because I treat patients
in too much of a hurry.

something chasing after me, saltine
biscuits trailing my feet, salty tears soaking
them through their flaky meat, lotus dreams and
finite weeks, never running away from time, instead
waiting for it to catch up to our heels and
leave crumbs behind

time was sluggish and easy when I took it into my arms,
pliant when I bent it around my arms, hula hooping
lifting me to the tips of my feet, time knew me
better than the parents I’ll never meet,
dusty paths and soles of feet pattering on
sizzling concrete

time tells me that I should have been a runaway
ennui says I’m ***** souled and
listless and too far away
sugar in gas tanks and fingers plugged in ears kind of thing
chasing cheap thrills to kingdom come
until the moon is a gleam of white and
mixes and melds with the lines of
empty candle wicks

pop bottles popping off, night breezes, a kiss under palm trees
(ennui uplifted momentarily)
southern Arizona and cool synths, runaway dream
onomatopoeia making a home in our daydreams
furtive eyes seeking to find God, but
reality crashing down around me

it takes me back to this certain,
particular time
blue flames crawling up the wall
boy sitting in the centre of them all
clothes lined with soot and nothing
in his pitch black eyes

a tongue darting out
to wetten his lips
but what's the point? when
everything's on fire? maybe
for him
it's as normal as nothing

blood red brick walls
eyes making contact to rival them all
the start of something: usually, one
finds a spark to light their ambitions
but what does one do with
a fire presented to them?

at the words directed to him,
he perked up
soot flying around him like
masquering, ill informed snowflakes
settling on his face like freckles
and then began the start of my own
self immolation

with resounding bitterness,
I proclaim, stuck in this meddling prison,
I see mournfully
glass box lines
shaved sparks lying on the inside
at times I pause and
submit, because
what else is there to do?
in this glass box whimsical thing

two emotions vying at my psyche
wrong words pouring out
of the fountainhead that has
replaced my own head
fingers pointed to where I should go
roads pointing over the tired, tried and true
gravel sticking to my feet
pain shooting up where it isn't supposed to be

at times I truly wonder
eyes roaming the sealed dome
mouth full of tricks
if a god really does exist
the pinprick differences I feel in the air
subtle changes
heightening my sense, if not for better
or for worse?
light, at times,
seems like something I can hold
like a ribbon
and in those moments
whether my own perception
controls it, or something else:
"whether a god exists"
what a strange question.

grasped rarely, her hands
wrinkled and falling apart at the seams
move briskly as she walks
and when she waltzes, they seem to
die like dove wings
only to reincarnate into something
more removed from reality
when she moves them as she talks

isn't it strange? how I wish I had those hands
each vein replicated
in an effort to capture the quality that
perhaps something like me
can be used and worn in as time chugs along
instead of looking young and unscathed
instead of grasping themselves
instead of being more fleshy than a
home grown peach: let me have this.

busted open, boring and lazy
sometimes, occasionally, rarely, maybe
I think I'm going crazy
but in a lacklustre kind of way
without zeal, a wet firework display
smoke and steam splaying itself into
tiny fragments. an awful scent left behind,
like petrichor but poisonous, angry clouds
making noise for the sake of it. nature
pales me in comparison to others;
occasionally, rarely, maybe
perhaps sometimes
it snatches the words out of my mouth
and places them in some
newfound place in my brain
rarely, occasionally,
it fills my spine with cold river currents
sometimes, maybe
I feel my body shift and tumble
replaced in parts like an old car
and rarely, but sometimes on occasion, maybe
I look down at myself and don't see myself at all.

occasionally at night, I
traverse into the thoughts in my mind
occasionally, sometimes, I
leave my body to enter other times
occasionally, but actually rarely, I
cloud my head with thoughts that
keep me up at night
occasionally, unrelatedly, I.

and I mean to create a story:
softly but not kept tight
book bound at night under candlelight
hands quivering as they hover over each page
and I meant to create a story:
that shuffled each length of every parable and allegory
philosophers gazing in every pore and hole,
minds swimming in worry
termites burrowing through the sea,
white pages blooming into me
and I created a story:
nothing for others to see
full of holes and spots and too many
unsiphoned, unending untruths in each seam
words flowing over and out of my hands
trepidation shutting it closed
putting it back underhand

hello? relative listlessness says
greeting myself and my other selves
bringing them together with twine
and setting it alight

anyone? clouds of words siphoned underneath
my feet, too many eyes that I find myself, strangely,
unable to meet
alone and afloat, submerged in the sea
simultaneously sinking and floating in
groups of threes
matching my heartbeat
making my mouth sweet

there? the ocean bed I never expected to see
nothing in my line of sight, so perhaps,
there wasn't really anything ever to see
voice bounds off into the periphery
between the boundary of things I try to meet
but can never reach

latent energy I wish I had: cold hands
stick to themselves in subzero, sticky with
regret and stagnancy: too many stags running about
harbingers of doom and gloom
eden's garden disintegrating at the sight of
the new bloom: wind beating in my eyes
turning around trees and warping leaves
train stations leading nowhere
thoughts compressed into bullets
and backwards thinking: could you tell me where we are, please?