little robert corder was a really crazy person

he fought his father and mother and little brother

with all his might, you see he threw stumpd

and threatened yo **** his parents

and robert was suffering so ****** much

robert was really looking quite smug as he gave his family hell

like ever time he threw things at his family, his family were remotely scared of robert

and robert didn’t care, he just hung around with his mates talking about

how much he is having giving his family ****

and robert’s best mate tom said to robert

try and avoid hitting your family, you could end up in the nuthouse

and robert said, yeah, dude, but they are really driving me crazy

and when tom decided to go his separate ways and stop being robert’s friend

well he was a distant fried in yjr same city

roberts brother said, i am getting out of this stupid family problems and get married

and have kids and leave, he had two girls, which was what robert gave him as a little gift

and then robert’s mother and father tried to calm robert dow with medication, ya know enough

to make robert miss his favourite show, and force robert to sink into the chair

with a can of victoria bitter on his belly

and every time robert will try and be an adult, his rathe and mother will set the hose on him

and say good riddens to bad *******, yeah robert wasn’t really acting like an adult

saying in a little wingy voice, let me be like tom and the kids

and robert’s father said, if you want to be a kid, i will take you out of your sports team

and robert yelled at his father and mother saying I AM THE KING, I AM LIKE TOM

robert’s father said, no your not, your like me and your mother, you are not a young dude no more, robert

you gave us so much ****, and robert started to reform well with the new medication

but deep down he hated being on it, but it was making him into the man that robert’s parents wanted

and robert helped out at the homeless shelter, and he played santa claus which his parents disagreed with

because of robert’s violent temper could retaliate and hit a kid, because it was only a matter of time before

robert was going to stop taking the medication, but for a while robert became a gentle giant

yeah, he was a real pleasure to have around, yeah he drank coke, but that made him happy

but being gentle like that wasn’t really robert’s style, it made him look like a freak

and it was only a matter of time before the mental health doctors pick up on this

at first it was distant voices and then after a reduction of medication, the voices came closer to home

you see he started having weird delusions about working in outer space

and forcing his mates to work in outer space, to help rebuild lives up there

and after about 3 years, robert was as gentle as a freak, and the voice of tom was planted in his head

because robert’s sub conscious wanted him there for protection

and robert’s family wanted to forget about their little plan, because robert was very fat and gentle

and was getting teased on the street, and in clubs, so, robert wanted to change

and ge wrote so many stories, some nice and others not so nice

and one day robert bought a computer and read his stories, ALL HIS STORIES

on youtube, as well as post them on the writing web site

but after a while he was hearing tom’s voice louder and louder and

as he was on the medication, he got this awful nightmare where his family

wouldn’t leave him alone, every time he opened the door his brother was there saying

you are ****, you are a loser, and robert said don’t fight me, i am like tom now

and roberts family said, no your not, you are like us, now, man

and robert’s brother was running around robert saying, you are not like tom

robert said, tom was nicer to me that you guys were

and robert’s brother said, you are a ******* robbie

a real little *******, i wanted to have boys to tease you with them

and then robert said i hold out this sword and wave it a through times

and robert grabbed the sword off his crazy brother and his brother said you put us through hell

and now it’s time for revenge, where we stay outside your house forever, you can’t sleep you can’t eat

robert said, tom will protect me from you guys, and robert’s brother said no he can’t and your not like tom

and robert grabbed the sword off his brother and finished by throwing him out of his house

saying, i am on fucken medication, so leave me alone, his family said, wake up robert

and expect us in your next dream

Stainless
by Kayla Corder

I was going to change clothes
but I didn't. I'll cling to the dust
like we cling to those memories of us.
Those lingering smiles. Sweet touches.
Breathing heavily on my neck as I melt
into your caress. Love too pure to be real.
"I can't handle real life..." You tell me
when I've found someone new.
But nothing can replace what I found in you.
My broken boy. Found me. Saved me.
Repaired what I didn't even know was broken.
This tattered heart, parts still cling to you.
Like the glue that sticks to the steel. Stainless.
Like this love.
Stainless.

Pushed down a flight of stairs
The word “*******” is forbidden
But two little girls dancing, flinging their hair about
Zoom, zoom on developing *******
I loved boys the best.

One, two, three, four
Enchanted and consumed in the world of my handy cam corder
I would hit record a thousand times,
Perform with me.
Like another limb, a lens could speak all the words I couldn’t say

Dialect so thick and heavy
Lined eyeliner
Everyone was southern
I was so southern
I am so southern.
Full circle.

And the boys, they truly are gentlemen
Perhaps we are slow in updates
And it takes time to adapt
But everyone here tries their best to be friendly
And kind.

Getting off of a plane
Looking around as if you have encountered another planet
And then slipping so fluidly, so simply
Right back into it.
But grateful to see things--me
Have changed.

Privacy is not frequent
In a house quite so big
But camaraderie and eloquent drunken conversation
Fill your heart
No matter how much you change your destination.

As the waves fall on stony shore
the sword just sits there,
blunting in the washing sea-foam.

England’s winds carry the sand
from England’s rock to the grazes
on our ankles, our feet and hands.
They from the toes of Cornwall to
rocky Dunnet head
will our courage forward
through the first crawl on cam-corder,
to the last drop to earth.

‘We all began at the seaside’

Though days are gone, we linger
snaking through London with those southern scrubbers,
those diamond white men,
the Caribbean accents, the Guajarati, the Jews -
‘A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better one’
- we all patter round Oxford Circus and
climb aboard the number 9 bus.

‘Who so pulleth out this sword is trueborn King of all Britain’

And we watch the waves fall.

‘Hold very tight’

It’s there behind our ray-ban’s, our fake ray-ban’s,
their halcyon glint.
It’s the same secret, not one of us can keep -
Under the setting sun between
England's canals and sheep
the living live, cry and sleep.

-

It was London and my mother that
raised the muscles in my thighs to look firmly planted
and my face to look resolute when turned to the sun.
It was my mother and London.
They grew me up to look like I could pull out
Excaliber.

‘Lay me down trepanner man, but take the stories with you, if you can’.

So I, always King Arthur,
not a yank, not from Roehampton’s towers,
or Peckham. Not Tintagel, or Camelot,
escaped on an eddie to Manchester,
to bury stories with distance
and stare at cobwebs after rain.

'I’ll hear easy music, find out it’s easy, man.'    

But in Manchester’s plastic, in Manchester’s rain
It ran all the same.
Of a blunting blade, I dreamt,
until the Phrenologist came
and I asked him if I was torn up by London grit,
London loves and London’s spit.
But he said no,
no matter where you go
there’s just one secret that you’ll never keep
Under the setting sun between
England's canals and sheep
the living live, cry and sleep.

-

The sword just sits there,
honest as a dog.

And the sun has more secrets than any man on earth.

my shadow scuttles through the suburbs,
the seaside, the city, sideways like a crab.
The sandy cuts on my toes, ankles and knees
are bleakly investigated by a fly.

Has anyone sat at the round table?

It’s out of reach of my skinny wrists.

Lash me to a pole and wait for the Avalon tide
to slowly roll my English soul.

I better keep on living.
All stories, tears and sleep.
We are all just the living secret,
that not one of us can keep.

Cam corder fresh in wet palms
Defining sexuality, freedom
So little. So young.

Hit record, lets dance.

Brown lipstick mouthes
Lets be so grown up
You probably played with legos
I just wanted to kiss all the boys
Run in the fancy woods barefoot
Red Jetta as I got older
I still find myself lying next to men
Casting spells.

Free coffee at an interview
I've got 20 dollars to my name
What glamour, what glamour.

I wrap all my ex-boyfriends in copper spiderwebs
Chucking them through hoops of fire
Only to watch them drown at the bottom
Of cold Lake Michigan.

A couple cuddles with no hours ticking by
A few feet away from me
"Real Deal"
"Real Deal"
"You're the Real Deal"
A boy said to me last night
A legacy, I've got one he said
Everything is stupid
Everything is beautiful.

This song makes me feel like a rebellious teen again
Breaking through windows
Texting my child hood crush
I didn't know how the hell to wear black eyeliner
I lined and lined and over drew my eyes
The darker the better I thought
Alcohol poisoning, Alabama sunshine
Drunk driving on the weekends
I'm 18 I swear
A girlfriend and I lied, bathing together
In sensual forbidden fruit.

Dating apps, meeting in person
Everyone got somethin' to ******' say
I could dive off of this balcony right next to me

SPLAT.
Pink and purple paint
Would cover the room
Red and emerald green
Rising from the ashes.

Billboards selling us
Selling us all
Loud music echoing through my girlhood ceiling
Not much has really changed.

Hey Star Child, are you listening? Do you know?
There is a woman who is seated at the edge of existence;
She sits at the blush of all creation
And in her deft hands, the fabric of time and upon it, she will sew
She will sew ever so lonely, the joyful memories of those of space
Such thankless work

Her skin is as dark as the unknowable void and her eyes as bright as celestial sparks
She wades her long, thick legs in the primordial ooze
From which all life grasped onto her endless scroll of the fabric of time which she marks
With all the spectrum of human knowledge and human emotion: humanity itself.
But for her deft craft; it is thankless work

And she has name; a name of decency and order
Cosima of the Cosmos: divine being of all with tranquil auras upon her lips
Her soul is that of chaos and order; blooming with gentle petals that did corder
The interconnectedness of the realms and worlds at her fingertips
With deft fingers, she sews and she sews and she sews
Unaware time has passed at all; her endless chore without beginning where she goes

Without end, without thanks
Cosima sews. That is the true nature of her celestial,
Of her ethereal
Duty to us, the children of the stars whom she is unaware of; hark
Tis us who are unaware of her
She who sits, sewing, at the gorgeous turmoil of the beginning and end of the universe
That she has crafted, blissfully unaware of her how fingers bleed for us
She sits, sewing, and crafting the fabric of time rolled out infinitely upon our Earth

Oh Cosima, oh darling Cosima of the Cosmos, do you know?
Are you listening to I?
I who wish to bid you praise for your stellar talents
I who cry out in the astral abyss; completely separated from you by space and time
I who cry out in a weak, perishing voice
I who wishes to acknowledge your tireless, endless work

The work Cosmia, oh Cosima my darling, who creates all the pleasures and misfortunes
Of the human experience we write, we sew, we who praise all your efforts
Unknowingly so
To which is met with more bitter, ignorant bliss
For you, Cosima of the Cosmos, do not realise you are not alone
You do not realise that your astral fingertips is more lives than you will ever know
How horrible it is, such thankless, beautiful work
Imbued with loneliness you will never fathom
For such loneliness is all you’ve ever known

The ordered universe: symmetry and entropy
Petals of magenta, unfurl and it does greet
The morning sun in joy and the evening moon in farewell,
A name by any other just as sweet
Cosmo, the one with the name of peace and order, Cosmo
The flower we have signified to mean such pleasantries
In the feminine name of the motherly woman who sits at the edge of nothingness
And all
We did name such a pretty petal pink
But does she know?
But do you know?

Hey Star Child, did you listen? Do you now know?
Hey Star Child, will you be the one to let her know?
Will you be the one to thank Cosima of the Cosmos?

I have a friend who visits me.
When I'm alone is when they speak.
All my faults they help me see.
They're my voice when I am meek.
Whenever I'm imperfect
My friend tells me what I should do,
In the end it will be worth it
But for now, punishment must ensue.
They whisper reminders in my ear
Like a tape 'corder of the things I've said
Whispering a truth that I have feared-
Bad equals me and good equals dead.