I saw my mother for the last time
The mortician whispered in a silent voice I'm aware your mother didn't wear much makeup, but we had to put some on her as she had some discolouration."

I walked through the slightly opened door
Across the room was a light brown casket
Roses as red as the breast of a robin surrounded you

I couldn't seem to get my feet to move
My feet cemented to the ground
All your artifacts lay around you

Step
By painful step
I made my way over to you

I felt the sting of tears behind my eyes
My orchid hearts petals fell slowly to the pit of my stomach

My mom didn't look like my mom
Not with that makeup
But they put it on you to cover the discolouration, the discoloration of the carbon monoxide that corrupted you beautiful mind, or maybe it was the demons that had haunted you for so long

When my tears began to overflow my red eyelids I could have sworn I saw you breathing
My mom is gone
My mom is gone

I kept repeating over and over

(If there's spelling mistakes I'm sorry , I don't read over things )

Its 8:00 pm. The streets are speckled with cars and airport buses bringing people to and frow, but whether that be to the airport or a nearby hotel is beyond my knowledge, only a flirtation of an idea that's briefly allowed to waltz around my head.

There's only a handful of people on this bus, most people usually drive cars around here. Or is it perhaps a bus doesn't come at a convenient time for them? Or is it that they live in a remote part of the city where buses simply don't venture? Or can it be that theses people are perhaps not old enough to drive and those that are seemingly can't, or wont.  

The bright lights in the bus sting your eyes in comparison to the dark December night, days get shorter and nights so much longer, and colder. Surely the eyes of the drivers passing by must sting from the lights of the bus? Almost like you check your phone in the middle of the night and remember that you never turned the brightness settings down and as a result when you go to check your phone it feels like someones dowsed your delicate eyes with acid and you put your hand over your eyed and reenact a scene from an old 'Dracula' movie as you cry, "The light! It burns!" Ah, I'm morbid.

I remember getting onto the bus. The greeting wasn't something I'd choose to remember. I was met by a round, middle aged man in his fourtys accompanied by a face that could only be described like he was constantly ******* on a lemon. He was bald and had deep, sunken in eyes that were turning a beetroot shade around the bottom. Alcohol? maybe. The own self knowledge that this day would never end ? possible.  The knowledge that this job was, sooner or later, going go lead him to a deep state of depression and eventually he'll get fired for telling an elderly lady in not-so-nice terms to get off "his bus"? Could happen.  The addition of all of the above? Most likely, no offence to any other of you bus drivers.

Oh, his fake gold company name tag told me that 'Gerald' had been the name his parents had written on his birth certificate all those year ago.
The noise of persistent and agonising coughing bleeds through the sound of my headphones and I look up to see the cause of my disruption. The sound seems go be coming from an elderly woman sitting across row from me. At first, as the natural thing for you to presume would be that she has a cold, or perhaps a dry throat, to which you'd be the good citizen and ask if she was alright and offer her your water, but upon further inspection of the situation, I've come to the wrong conclusion.

Her skins crying out for the oxygen its been deprived of for years. All thats left of it now is not something left to be envied, I've seem white towels with brown tea stains on it with less discolouration on that of the skin hang upon her old face.  

The burgundy lipstick she decided to support today was no use in trying to conceal the lines that had taken shape on her  lips, sadly.
Behind those lips I can only imagine what horrific delights might rear their ugly head. I imagine a once pearly, perfect set of teeth now nothing but yellowed decay married with the horrible mix of sugar free gum to try and remove the smell. I wouldn't say it works very well either.

Lastly, her eyes. Something we all have a dreamy tendency to stare at. Hers were grey, almost like that of an artist's 2H pencil. Around her eyes, yellow rimmed the grey scene. The contrast of this and the streak of a one shade purple colour on her eyelids was all to much to bear and I broke my gaze from hers. She was beautiful once.

Beside me was a young mother of 9 and 20 years holding her child. Perhaps he found the rhythmic journey of the bus's adventure soothing and for that I was grateful. Its late and irritated children are the last thing anyone needs on their Tuesday night. She looks tired, but that's to be expected. Whoever said raising children was easy and involved sleep? But what would I know, I don't have children of my own. She didn't wear a wedding ring. Perhaps its of more convenience for her not to wear it. Or maybe she isn't  married. Or maybe she isn't romantically involved with someone. Was she once?

The bus stops outside a middle class looking estate and an impatient looking business man with a a bag carrying his laptop and a very expensive pair of shoes walks out and just before he steps off the bus he turns to the driver and thanks him for his service.
He didn't mean it.

All is quiet and I start to feel tired. My head bounces off the pole standing costumers use when the buses are packed and it doesn't appear that seats even exist. My headphones are in and I look out the window to see the sea, peaceful and graceful on this cold December night, greeting me, almost with open arms.

The lights of the cars rush by like multicoloured fireworks, so close you could almost hold one in the palm of your hand.

And as the night gets longer and the journey seems that ever bit more endlessly scenic I find myself questioning.

Questioning what I'd just been witness to.
Questioning this December.
Questioning this bus.
Questioning this night.

Then the main question swam afloat.

In years to come, when I might once step onto this very same bus again, who will I be?

And then it was my turn to depart.

I no longer burn
in places that scathed
so easily. My body has erased
every trace of me
laying waste to  space.

I am trying not to write
meaningless things, the way I
have in the past but
I have become
a stain on shirts, a spot
of discolouration on skins.

You see me
as a Rorschach test but I am only spilled
ink that means something
out of sheer
coincidence.

I no longer trust the little
pulses sitting in my brittle
wrists.
I no longer believe
it is tangled
to something greater

I have taken back my life
so much that the flowers have died
they lay lifeless on the counter
the same way i did as they bloomed

Is it selfish
that I really don't mind
the way they droop

The longing they carry
or the dark discolouration of petals
holding the open hands
outstretched by life itself

Goodbye flowers
it's been real

she asks what's for dinner, already planning what she will eat. it's not that she's hungry, but to the point where she is thinking of what she can eat and not feel guilty. it's not that she isn't hungry, but she guilts herself after eating. she could of eaten less, something healthier, nothing at all. she counts the pounds alongside the tears, curses her body for being seventy percent water, curses her curves, curses the stretch marks, that discolouration on her skin. she pinches her cheeks, pulls at her shirt. the fact that her t-shirt hangs off of her is for her own comfort. she's tried being comfortable with her body, but at all instances she is hyper aware of what she's wearing, where it's positioned, what she's doing, how she's sitting. her stomach hurts at the end of the day from holding it all in, from keeping herself from expanding, filling the space, shrinking back from the eye, and crossing her fingers, hoping she's not surpassing two-thirteen. people tell her she's the right size for her body type, but it isn't good enough. she's tall, but she's still pudgy. she hated her prom pictures. she hated her yearbook photo, she's afraid for her senior photos she's trying to lose weight for. but weight doesn't just fall like an apple off a tree, it takes time and time is what she doesn't have, and the depression from the world and over herself makes her too tired to do anything more, and it's a vicious cycle she keeps swirling through.

|m.s.

She was a skeleton inside a snakeskin canvas;
the smoothest of hands to hold it’s madness.

She punctured the cliffs edge
but she wouldn’t meet the venom;
too dull, too grey,
pull at the tendons and never see heaven.

Did the momentum fade with the rain, was the rain golden?
Was it frigid, did everything stand still or was it fallen?

The more I reap the details in which mystery was apposed
the more I sew the waves with my narrative and dizzy words.

I picture a youth in my arms; squirmed in me and yanked out.
I’m too much of a charcoal cloud,
raw, cold yet loud.

Maybe it’s me above the harbour,
I’m curdling on the brink
like pale suns in vintage skies;
there’s nothing else to live for.

She bathes below the faucet of the sea and takes in discolouration.
When the windscreen wipers stop, breathing stops in full acceleration.

A discolouration of the world you knew
The sun is so few and far between
The walls are palettes that have grown on to you
And your urban heart, not a single green

The bedroom, your refuge, the cellar, your home
The lamps and all mirrors, coerced into fear
Despite unread letters, you don’t look so alone
Is it your talks to the wall, or someone so dear?

Dearly, so, but not close to side
For this house is alone, but creatures down under
So where is your dear, your dream-sunken bride?
Are you living out on pastel pictures sundered?

For your eyes are colourless, yet hers so vibrant
Yes, there is more to a festival than the full moon
So close your eyes, fool, don’t be so stagnant
Only in dreams, can you bloom

But when I woke, tears coloured my view
To have and to hold, and to lose to flight!
I fall asleep again every passing hour
To escape, I grow vacant with every passing night

In the cellar, my home, I miserably belong
And fate would never have it any other way
But secretly so, I still dream, and I long
Of a forest outside, where colours take place

Go play with the petty minds of your ilk's
where snowflakes drip
and pennies short of farthings marry tool
boxes with blunt edges
waving neon signs of induced paranoia
and coloured seeds in brine
for in their market place of trading places
its for sale at gun point
after all Chrissie Capone sold the copyright
and the blueprint of
planting seeds of staining and discolouration
as they do in prisons
to prey on and bully and intimidate victims
tap on the demoralising skits
and make yourselves puppies on chained leads
but alas not all are brainless
You can fool some of the people all of the time,
and all of the people
some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the
people all of the time.
do majority decide how long a piece of string is
ye simple buyers of neon jives