I collapsed the seats of my Rav4
You watched my *** the whole time
And saw an opportunity
As I bent over between the front seats
One, two, then three fingers
While fumbling to turn off the hazards
Biting a seat to keep quiet
Accidentally turned the music back on
"Stay In My Memory" by Bim
The song from Him
**** him, I'll ******* instead
The hazards were off
The music still on
Your fingers making my body quake
From the inside
Twice
Strong enough to throw me around
Like I was someone cuter and smaller
And put me on my back
With a hand around my throat
Kissing at me like a dog
Making me submit like a *****
Three, four, five
"On your knees"
And you threw me there, too
Six
Around we spun
Getting rug burn
Lost count of the quakes
They started to blend
With the aftershocks
"Are marks okay?"
And then you left one
A hickey on a weeknight
And a Monday, no less
Next time, we need a bed
Rug burn is a *****

He made sure to show I belonged to him.
And of course his trade mark,
was a bruise.

So I've got this story...
And it goes a little something like this-

There's a girl that I hurt really bad on way too many occasions that I love more than anything. Pretty much everything I write on here is about her. She became the love of my life, and I told myself she was the one I wanted to spend my life with. Except I was a ****. She was going somewhere to an event that lasted 2 weeks and was really important to her and let's just say I ****** it all up really really bad. She made a lot of friends there and it was a great experience for her, kind of like camp is for some people, how boy/girl scouts are for some people, and she learned a lot there, and had lots of fun too. I was so horrible to do what I did.

At least we're young though, and there's still time to grow...right? I'm only 18, she's almost 18, and we both have lives to live ahead of us. I feel like I need her though. She treated me perfectly in our relationship. I mean, looking back, there's nothing I can fault her for, at all. I just got ****** at stupid crap that doesn't even matter.

Except, she's into somebody else now and probably thinks I'm no good for her. She doesn't talk to me anymore. Anyway, I'm rambling, I haven't gone to bed, I took a bunch of pills, am getting sick, and it's 7 AM...so here goes. This story is somewhat censored, though.

_________________­___________
"The Worst Weeks of Our Lives"

I met this girl and she became the love of my life. She took me places I'd never gone before and her and I fell in love like some people wouldn't believe. Ask my friends. Ask her friends. No, her friends probably wouldn't admit to it anymore. But I choose to remember the things they said. Kids were like totally rooting for us all day every day. We were so perfect. It was great.

So with a few mistakes here and there, (mostly me...all me, really) we realized we weren't perfect. But it didn't hamper out love. Nobody is perfect, right? We realized that. Overcame.

But then, we went too far. Her parents drew lines we weren't supposed to cross. Oopsies. Her mom really put me in my place. I'll just leave it at that. Asked me when my 18th birthday was, so she could mark her calendar as the "day she could touch me". Told me I was a liar. Husband in the background drunk and screaming, as usual. Except screaming "that ***** ain't sorry. He ain't ******* sorry, ******* ******* marking up my ******* daughter I can show him how to be ******* sorry"

Lots more. I'll go crazy if I speak the rest. It was a hickey on her neck. We didn't do much more.

I got really scared. I mean, they were brutal. I wasn't used to that kind of brutal. Psychotic levels of brutal. All of the sudden I became numb. I stopped being so intimate with my girlfriend. They told me not to come around their house anymore. I started doubting myself. If I was any good for her. She cried and cried. Told me how sorry she was. For getting us in trouble, and for what her parents did. But it wasn't her fault. After all, I am the vampire that bit her neck.

After a few weeks, her parents dropped it completely. I didn't though. I was so traumatized. I'd been getting flashbacks. Nightmares. So scared, I was. I kept avoiding her, not only her parents. I mean, I didn't have a car anyways, so the only place I could go to see her was at her house. She reassured me I was allowed. But with no contact with her parents since the phone call that changed my life I was reluctant.

This was around 2 months before she was going to go to a 2 week event. A special event to her. One I'd even wished I'd gotten involved in. Really, I did wish. I just missed the application deadline. Throughout the next two months, we grew more and more distant. I was harsh on her. I hurt her. I'd get mad at her and then call her and talk to her until 3 in the morning. I made her hate herself, and then she felt bad about me feeling sorry too. "You always force yourself to be nice to me just so I feel better, but I'm ****, I'm trash, I'm nothing, I'm so sorry" she would say. Most of the time, she didn't even do anything wrong. One of my best friends died at the same time her parents killed me inside, I spent all my days sleeping and crying and when I wasn't doing that, I was getting angry at her (and quickly regretting it), manufacturing conflicts that were completely unnecessary. Not to mention I'd had health issues, and my parents kicked me out of my house a few months beforehand.

In the time before she left to her special event, I really tore her up. I said the dumbest things I've ever said to someone in my life. I'd never even said such dumb things to even an object, or myself. Why I would say them to a girl who saved me from suicide (I was very unstable and depressed when coming out of a bad relationship, and getting kicked out of home) and why I said it all to someone I wanted to spend my life with I'll never know.

The dumbest things I'll ever say to anything that breathes in my lifetime. I told her one night that the "only reason I was still with her was because if I left she'd hurt herself" (she had a history of self harm, even though she's the sweetest girl I've ever met) and another night I told her "If only she were going somewhere important I'd understand" and lots of other insensitive and selfish things that I can't even believe came out of my mouth. I mean, the whole basis of it was that her and I hadn't spent much time together (really because of my own selfish fears) and I was going all *** on her testosterone-fueled-rage style for days over and over and over.

Don't I sound like a horrible person? I was. I was horrible to her. As much as I hate to say it, I'll probably make similar mistakes again someday - It's like relapsing - but I'll make every effort I can to learn from my horrible past and never be that person again.

So when she went to the event, I was with my grandparents out of state and I downloaded my favorite sad playlist (Staind, great band) to listen to on the trip.

Yes, seriously. I told her that stuff and called her event unimportant and then I went away too. How stupid I was for what I said. I should have been slapped or something.

A day or two after I'd left, I realized how stupid it was of me. For the whole thing. That whole time. That whole span, those two months where I not only neglected her, but emotionally ****** her.

There's a song called "Tangled Up In You" that has the most wonderful and intimate lyrics and I listened to it and sung to it over and over and over late into the morning (I'm talking 3-4 in the morning) every night for like 10 days and along with a song called "Right Here" by the same band. I cried myself to sleep so extremely ashamed of what I'd just done to her.

I knew I was wrong, but what I didn't know was that she was crying her eyes out wrapped up in (someone else)'s arms at that event...
I didn't know she was getting all kinds of love and support.
I had no idea...not that it was bad, it was good because she needed it.

But it got her to thinking about me, what kind of person I was.
When we both got back, I started making more of an effort to spend time with her and go out of my way to talk to her, make her happy, and basically, stop being such a ****.
Except she just got confused and conflicted because she was numb and falling out of love, because I was nothing that anyone should love, to her, over that prior time.

Her mom broke us up about a month later, after some...you know what, I'll just leave that bit out...
I told you how the first phone call went. The phone calls I got from her and her husband in the end were just so much worse. I don't even want to think about them. I went into convulsions and kept dropping the phone.

I went back to these two songs to help keep my sanity and I belted out "Tangled Up In You" every day in my car... so loud I was losing my voice.

I'd had some communication with her, surprised her at her work one night, bought her flowers, wrote her my true feelings on some napkins, showed up when she got out of school one day, when she was deathly afraid, and surprised her with a smile and drew a heart on her hand...

Her and I were on the same page. She still loved me. She was just hurt. I still loved her. I was just trying to make up for the compromised mental state I spent so much time in. I had compromised hers too. I needed to get her out of it. She told me she would wait for me. That we were in a speed bump, that it would all be okay.

So some weeks passed, a month, and she still had my back. As strong as ever. Her parents found out I bought the flowers. They found out I'd been talking to her. But...

Knowing she still had my back, that she still loved me, and that she would wait for me...she called what her mom did (in breaking us up, in our break) a "speed bump"...I was okay with it. I mean, I really wanted to be a part of her life, but man, her parents HATED ME! (In retrospect, probably with good reason. Shame on me for the things I did to her. Really.)

We had some major issues (mostly due to my inability to shut my stupid mouth) and I decided that maybe some time to ourselves to focus on ourselves and think was a good thing. She could focus on loving herself again and I could focus on becoming a better person.

I mean, when her parents found out her and I were still talking to each other after they broke us up, they blocked my number on her phone, went to my church and made up extra stories to my pastor, (told him I'd came and banged on their door at one in the morning one night), when I called to apologize to them they didn't pick up, called me back later to cuss me out and hang up on me, logged into their daughters facebook account and blocked me, then told their daughter that I had called them when she was sleeping and cussed them both out, and that she was to have nothing to do with me again. They threatened legal action against me, too. Tried to make my life hell. They didn't want me around their daughter, ever again. A blind rage that went on for a very long time until every communication route was blocked.

She went to school and told her friends the false stories her parents told her, and her friends already didn't like me...I mean just look at what I had done before...it wasn't good. Not for me, anyway. Also her. She felt duped. Used. By her parents. She didn't know who to trust or what was real. Everyone was telling her how horrible I was.

I got a chance to talk to her one day. We talked for hours, face to face. Sat in the cold and talked. It was an amazing talk. We caught each other up completely on our lives. We talked about our love. Our past. Our emotions. All of them. Good and bad. But we told each other we'd always love each other. She stuck by me, and also reassured me that she always would. I left that conversation feeling so secure. The most I'd felt since way before I'd become a total **** to her. When her and I were so deep in love.

She's always wanted to go far away from college. She told me stories of her past and what her parents did to her, what she did to herself that were not good. Not good at all. She wanted to get away from her parents.

Meanwhile I was so caught up in the feelings she gave me when I was in her arms, I almost couldn't handle the fact that she wanted to leave. I pleaded for her to stay, in a time that her and I were both unstable and it was already taboo that we were even on the same property. But still, she said "she wanted to stay" because her and I work so well together...when we work together, that is, and I and her were both determined to work together. I told her I would do anything for her. In all of it though, I told her that the decision was in her hands and I would still love her the same if she left, and that I would wait for her. Because I loved her more than anything.

After that talk, things got quiet. I guess, too quiet. I was legally bound to stay away from her. I talked to someone she worked with and asked them to tell her hello for me. I thought though, we were on good terms following the talk, I thought she'd be elated to hear from me.

She never responded.

One day, a couple weeks later, she told me I really needed to get over her. That she didn't love me like that anymore. She told me she'd been falling out of love since the summer, and she'd gone crazy and needed space. She said she wanted to be friends, but no relationship. No relationship anymore. She said she couldn't handle it. She said she couldn't handle a relationship in general.

She made that message a bit accusatory. I'd been talking to two friends, one who I'd known for years and a new one I'd just made. Both overlapping friends with hers. Those two helped keep me sane.

She started that message with "I heard you've been messaging my friends, and to be honest, I haven't had the heart to message you back." She repeated multiple times that I needed to get over her. She told me that it wasn't anyone else's influence too. She even listed people. People who'd separated us. Hurt me. Hurt her, in a way, but encouraged her in others.

At the same time, she blocked me on facebook again. She had unblocked me when she found out her parents did it for her. Odd though...I thought she wanted to be friends. I mean, it was like the only way I was able to have her in my life at all. To read her facebook posts and her read mine. To have discussions with friends. We have a lot of overlapping friends.

Man, she killed me. One second I thought she was my soul mate and the next I was in the bathroom puking my guts out because she was telling me we'd never be together again.


So fast forward to today...I still love her. And she's basically in a relationship with someone else. She's also either on the fence about her sexuality, or decided she doesn't like boys anymore. I feel bad about that too. Its like I ruined male relationships for her. It's only been a few weeks since she told me I needed to get over her. She doesn't talk to me anymore. I go to high school events even though I graduated last year just to see her. When I don't approach her, she ignores me. I'm just another person in the room. When I do approach her, she has such a scared look on her face. She doesn't want to talk to me, but she can't be mean to me. She's falling in love with someone else and she's getting happier. She doesn't need me showing up everywhere just to depress her.

Yet I keep bothering her. Because I'm a sucker for her. I can't help it. I love her. I want her to be my future. But at this point I'm grasping at straws. So hard. I shouldn't be trying anymore. But I'll end up trying until the day I die. And only then will I stop believing in her and I. I know it's a pipe dream. But I'll hold onto it. Because it's the only thing I have left of myself now.

Last night, (I mean, right before I wrote this around 5 AM, it is now 8 AM) I played those two songs again. I forgot they were at the end of my playlist and I started shivering and crying my eyes out. I got chills. I got so cold. The tears just ran. They ran down my face faster than I've cried in a long, long time.

I'm only okay right now because I took a bunch of pills. Pills that have this kind of effect on me. They make me kind of numb. Kind of happy. Upper and downer both.

That's pretty much, my sad ending to a sad story.
I'm living the kind of life that only people like Shane Koyczan know how to explain to people.

Ironically, she loves Shane Koyczan.
I do too.
We grew up in broken homes and lived broken lives until we found each other.
Then we broke each other.

But she's falling for someone else, because I wasn't what I should have been to her, and she knows
But she doesn't believe in me anymore, the way I believe in her...because I wasn't what I should have been to her, and she can't hold onto me when I'm a 50/50 chance, of bringing her down again.
If only she would let me hug her again, kiss her one more time...I could die happy, knowing I poured all my heart and soul out into that last kiss.
But I'm a gamble. And she can't put her heart out on the line for someone who wasn't always good to her. She used to call me her "sweet boy" and she still tells me I'll always be her "sweet boy", but the fact of the matter is, it doesn't cut it to only be sweet s

You called it a love bite
Like the word hickey would burn in your mouth
and strip away the taste of her still on your lips

You called it a love bite
Because hickey sounded like troubled teens
and stained sheets

You called it a love bite
Because her perfume still stuck to your shirt
and you didn't want to take it off

You called it a love bite
because you loved her
But you knew she called it a hickey
and nothing more.

Purple was the color of the shirt you wore when we first met
Purple was the color of the flowers you brought for me on our first date
Purple was the color of the sky when we first kissed
Purple was the color ink you used when you wrote me love letters every week
Purple was the color of the hickey on my neck
Purple was the color of my dress and your tie at our first school dance

Purple was the color you left my skin after our first fight
Purple was the color of hand prints around my thigh, on my back, neck, stomach
Purple is the color shirts I started wearing,
hoping we could go back to the first day we met,
when you wore

a purple shirt

I have a sign on my chest
that says "trespassers
welcome."

It's written in red ink,
the cheap kind that never really dries
and with each new boy
that invites himself into my home,
the letters become smudged.

I try to remove the sign
but it remains there
etched into my skin
and the more I pull at my skin
the stronger the pain
in my chest grows.

Trespassers are only temporary
and I pray that one day
they will stop reading my body
as an open invitation but

until that day.
My chest
will be painted
​red.

Two bottles of Southern Comfort, Black Keys on iTunes, profile picture with sister, stir-fry, 30 Rock, Gorillaz poster, pancakes at 3 am, spontaneous lunch at Barone, friends with benefits, need a hug, Columbus Day, touch my ****, too much tongue, crumpled into wall in the morning, Urban Outfitters for a t-shirt, silver medal, free Dominos, Workaholics at 12, secret sleepover #2, ******* because i thought that's all he wanted from me and i wanted him to stay, hickey on my neck, studying in a room with the round table, drew a horse on the whiteboard, fill out a police report, Redgates from Firehouse, he looks cute today. Tackled into metal, did I break my back? Jump on it, it's not funny, I'm crying, cold beer, kiss on the porch, stop kissing me in 12, *******, more kissing, blood everywhere, come over, comb through hair. you can stay over again, skips class, uses my shower, makes the bed, come with me to doctor. Vermont secret, Batmobile, on Prius, dune buggies, Phantom Menace, brother-in-law, supermarket in Newfane, stir-fry, statement at 6am. Hurricane, in my basement, halloween at the fire station, knitted scarf headpiece, mother's phone number, red gate sandwiches by Citi Bank across from library. Confirmation party, Chartruese, Coldplay at Mohegan, Torches, enchiladas, screaming, stuffed wolf, comic book finishing touches at 1 am, new roommates, L.O.L., I was going to propose to you - in the hallway, 3 month long orchids, Vermont trip #2, no riding allowed, nap by the fire, bare butts touching over unscented blanket, sapphire ring too big under lamppost in parking lot, happy. Sarasota, hide my eyes with Mosley Tribes, take a walk without me, Game of Thrones, cold sand, hair dryer joke, need eye drops, Ringling Mansion, gator bites, silent walk by traffic, kayak in shallow water, families too different, bike ride to tune of Star Wars, nervous about the summer, panic into shoulder on flight home. ******* in the middle of the night, drive around campus, leave me alone, pack up N-64 games, fight before final presentation - only one group gets an A, instant milkshake and magazines to pass the time, make a pizza, here let's make out again - apparently that isn't so bad, almost forgot my friesian mug and vase by the trailer. Texting *****, sick stomach, Lord of the Rings, try smoking, Magic: The Gathering, first communion, wedding, Chip's Family restaurant, high school graduation that I couldn't sit at, Miya's with the mini *****. Fireworks on hill through trees. Retna laptop with blue cover, HGTV's Next Design Star, I have to leave. this is where I stop.

vulnerable you touched me
vulnerable you touched me
vulnerable you touched me
vulnerable you touched me
vulnerable you touched me

im always so vulnerable with you

you told me you only let yourself be touched when you cant feel
when the alcohol
when the drugs
when the substance has mutilated your insides so that when they are inside they do not touch you vulnerable

but you touched me vulnerable
would you not let me kiss your neck because its outside?
because that intimacy is closer than all the men, all the women, that have been inside you
because you would feel the spasm of every one of my lips muscles contracting and convulsing against your skin.
because my kiss on your neck would demand to be felt,
like a knock, like a doorbell wanting to be inside, an echo that you can't ignore.
breaking the blood vessels just on the surface of a cavity holding your air to existence...
would i break your existence?

a bruise for you to feel on the surface
a bruise for you to feel the exposure
a bruise for you to feel what can be lost in memory with every heavy sigh you take in
a bruise reminding you that you took my breath away
that you took my innocence away
that you took my virginity away
that you touched me vulnerable...

you made me stop...
in your taunting saftey word phrases, in your pauses, in your avoided eye contact
i felt your vulnerability most

i confessed once that i love when youre vulnerable

you said youd walk around later hearing "let me let me let me" as i whispered at your throat
begging for you to let me into something more than your mouth, something more than your body
does it haunt you like the doorbell?
does it haunt you like the echo?
do my words stay at your throat like the kiss that never made it there...like an invisible threat or torment to your vulnerability?
do my words strangle you and suffocate your air?
are my words grasping prsion bars from the outside?
trying to touch something locked away...
would my kiss have broken your existence?

would my kiss on the outside awaken something inside you, that if i touched, would hurt you more than the bruise at your neck
because a kiss that hard is somewhere inbetween pleasure and pain
and we both know how both,when felt together, weaken your mind, your body, and soul to be stripped down, naked, VULNERABLE, shards of self not inside or outside
and that feeling of inbetween is more vulnerable than the definite evidence of a hickey left on your outside, or the definite reaction of your body to the sensations when fingers are inside
because the phsycial cannot touch your soul
because no matter how many ******* or hickeys penetrate your body,inside and out,they cannot touch your existence

i wanted to touch your existence

i didn't want to make love
i didn't want to have ***
i didn't want to have pleasure or pain
and thats why i also confessed that when you touched me vulnerable i felt nothing
because i was waiting

waiting like the doorbell that you never came to the door to answer
waiting like the knock that you never came to the door to answer
waiting like the echo i whispered that screamed for you to "let me" in
waiting to feel your existence

to exist with you inbetween;inside out outside in

i told you once before that you felt like a soul mate to me
and you touched me vulnerable
you touched me vulnerable
you touched me vulnerable
but you did not feel me

so now when i slip my fingers inside myself i feel to see if my innocence is still there
i feel to see if my virginity is still there
and this bruise that you left on my throat i press my fingers against to feel the throb of pain so i can feel if my vulnerability is still there
and they are...
they are because i kept those when i left my existence on a tongue thats tasted many souls but never swallowed
on the fingers of hands that touched many bodies but only felt the wet that washes away with the soap...clean of something permanent
a temporary high
would you let me touch you without being high? no.

you didnt care to be my first, said it was a weapon, that the only thing you wanted was for me not to regret
i dont regret. i dont regret at all.
but i hope my existence that i left to you is a weapon that you can't fight off with the drugs or the alcohol
i hope my existence that i left to you stained your hands and is holding onto your teeth like those prison bars
so that when we ****
**** because ******* has no love and is a pitiful attempt to be ***
when we **** again
i hope that if not my existence, you at least feel my presence
my presence that will be your echo, your knock, your doorbell for the ignored and dismissed love i feel in the depths of my soul for you...

the love that you will never desire to feel more than my body (outside)
that i, more than your body, desire to feel your love-not for me or for anybody else but the love you feel for yourself (inside)
and we will never be what's inbetween

we will never be more than you touching me vulnerable but not feeling my vulnerability

vulnerable you touched me
vulnerable you touched me
vulnerable you touched me
vulnerable you touched me
vulnerable you touched me...

Baby,
I just got home.
I'm about to pass out
but don't worry,
I've put on more than enough
toothpaste to rid me of
your love.
With crossed fingers,
and a heart still pounding,
I close my eyes hoping
your magic cure works.
Either way,
you were so worth it.
Okay, goodnight.

“That’s so high school,” they say.
“What are you, fifteen?” they ask.
But why?
I call them battle wounds,
And you’ve always hated that.
But why?
What we do in bed is who we are
Let me carve valleys into your back
With my sharpened fingers.
Puncture my legs with your jagged nails
Until I stain the ocean dark, dark black.
Claw, bite, rip, tear, gnaw
Your way to my heart.
Take it in your mouth and crunch down,
Until we mix into one. Until we are.
What were we?
Friends, acquaintances, lovers, enemies, strangers,
It doesn’t matter anymore. Now we’re one.
I will leave whatever marks on you I can,
Be they out of love and passion.
I will colonize your skin, make my home in
Every pore and crevice.
I will mark what is mine in that moment,
Out of fear that you will be gone tomorrow.
Do the same to me. Make me yours.
Strip my identity from my bones,
Replace my flesh with you, with us, with this.
Your friends’ lovers don’t leave marks like that?
Your friends don’t know how to love like I do.
We are what we do in bed,
and I leave marks.

A blemish
Purple and red
What went through your mind
At the time
As she ****** on you
And her lips touched your neck  
Was there panic or distress
Or where you so far gone
You didn't care she was attached to your neck
Where was the respect
And now this relationship is a mess
Still in recovery
Unable to move to the next step
How could you betray me
You shattered the trust
Just for one day
But hay  
Enjoy the memory
If that hickey
That wasn't given by me

Poem 3
How to raise kids

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

I got into to teaching to make a difference,
To add some joy to a kids existence,
I knew, so well, the hurt and pain
That kids in secondary school sustain
The tears and the fears and the dread and the...
"Ahahahaha! Look at his Nicks!! He thinks he's got Nikes but he's wearing Nicks!"
And how it switches you off and makes you not care,
Because you just don't want to go back there.
So, you wander into town to HMV
Til your parents feel let down when you only got an E
Until you failed Art and Graphics and Literacy
But at least you got an A in history...
Because academic subjects are "more important"

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

So I left 6th form and I needed change
And wanted to go to somewhere strange
(And new)
Somewhere away from all the drama
At 19 I went by myself to Ghana
"God bless our homeland Ghana
And make our nation great and strong,
Vow to defend forever
The cause of Freedom and of Right"
And I taught
Maths and English
With no books
And no training
And no observing
And I was ******* at it... Really bad
But somehow, i felt the change
Just because I cared and they cared

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

A few years later I started teachin.
GTP, hands on, straight in.
My teaching mentor was called Mr Hickey,
He smoked a pipe and drank down whiskey
(In school)
My first proper job was Bradford inner city
It was a bit rough and the buildin was ******
There we had a guy who was a lazy old ****
And he had kids tracing instead of learning Art
When I first got there I was overwrought
These weren't like the training lessons that I taught
These kids had opinions. They needed to engage...
To be taught in a way that suited kids of their age
I nearly gave up, because I felt so scared
But at the end of the day, I knew that I still cared

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

In my 3rd year I had this year 11 class
They wanted a good lesson and they wanted to pass
But they needed convincing and I nearly cried
So I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried
To listen
And react
To change
And Adapt
And those kids made me better
And for 3 years I got better
Our grades were sky high
The kids wanted to try
They wanted learn, they wanted to know "why"
But I got to the top and I needed to fly
Because I needed somewhere that I could ask the "why"

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

You have those moments sometimes in life, where you know that a decision is important, but you don't know why and you don't know which way is the right way to go with it. This was that point for me. Sat in the interview, saying I wanted to pull out but letting them convince me to stay. That was the point, I think where everything changed.

2010. New job. New government.

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

I was head of Art and I got noticed
Within a year I got promoted
Faculty leader of creative skills
This is the part where it really kills
What do you do when you just aren't wanted
When people are angry that you're there
When all of your decisions seem to be haunted
By the ghost of a culture where they just don't care
Where nastiness and gossip always bite
Resting in the coffin of a lost tradition
Kids so bored they're turning white
Beaten down to bored submission
And everyone seems to have given up the fight
But they're still convinced that their way's "right"

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

After so much pain, we were getting through it
We realised there was much more to it
No more easy working out of booklets
(The teaching equivalent of rhyming couplets)
But every time you made a shift
The goal posts seemed to start to drift
And this all caused a further rift
The final one I couldn't lift

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

Gossip and lies caused by others stress
Creates a catastrophic mess
Turns people's lives upside down
Gives off the sense that they're a clown
They're trying. They're just really down
Simply trying not to drown
Marriage ending
Friends unfriending
Children's lives are slowly bending
House and finance are up-ending
Mediation sessions need attending
Everything seems to need mending
And the pain seems to be never-ending

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

Professional life vs Personal life
Professional strife = Personal strife
Personal wife goes through professional strife
Personal strife =

"I understand what you're going through, but we need to think about the learners."

Stress in teaching is the expectation
Work life balance has no correlation
The pressures of a confused nation
Makes teachers into the poor relation

Goodbye btec, goodbye vocation
Hello Gove and his minds creation
Goodbye Gove and hello Morgan
Hiding behind a gritty slogan
Creating the pressure of pointless change
For teachers to correct and rearrange

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

But here's the thing. It's not their fault.
Sure, they've no idea MPs
They've less common sense than a piece of cheese
But all MPs really do is set
Some criteria that need to be met
A league table
Academies
Appraisal
Curriculums
It's nothing new. They've always done it
But it's given to schools to interpret
We don't lose money, we just get judged
We need conviction that can't be budged
We need to get a message out
To every parent, round about
And what this message needs to say
Is "we aren't doing extra maths today,
We're going to go outside and play
Because whatever MPs say
We'll do what's right for the kids
And here's why it's right you know
Cause we want to see your children grow
We're not just for levels, grades, progress
We're also here to relieve stress
We're also here to make your child feel
That happiness is something real
That in spite of all the crap you see
You can become head of art when you failed gcse."
Learn People skills
Determination
Creativity
Imagination
Honesty
Integrity
Sen­sitivity
And empathy
It's not an easy sell I know
You can't measure how people grow
You can't report or give a grade
But they're qualities that are heaven made
And maybe think the same for teachers
We're all very caring creatures
We care about how kids are raised
We don't need to be constantly appraised
Default 100%?!?
Like energy is heaven sent
Like when your kids are down with flu
You just man up, there's work to do
When you've got a quality person who just needs backing
Why give pressure and then threaten with sacking?

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

School - this week mark all your books
I need them up to date so I can look

Teacher - I've got to take my daughter swimming
I've got to see my son try winning

School - read through your teaching standards mate
And leave your children at the gate

End of the week the books are done
But head and deputies are overrun
"We'll have to put these books aside
To push our children down the slide"

And good for them. They work really hard. It's not a job to take lightly and they deserve to be there. But they don't have the time to step back and think "big picture"

Let's flip it round and just imagine

Teacher - I'm sorry, I'm afraid I'm ill
School - you can't be ill the learners will fail
Teacher - I need some patience, I need some time
School - the kids need work which is sublime
Don't they deserve that? Don't you think?
Do you really want your learners to sink?

And there it is. The teacher guilt.
Because that's the way that we've been built
We care too much
We try too much
We give too much
We work too much
And we lose too much
We get ideas above our station
About how this job is a vocation
When we stop and look around
The evidence just can't be found
Someone tells me what to teach
Someone tells me how to teach it
Someone tells me how to plan
Someone tells me when to plan it
Someone tells me how to mark
Someone tells me when to mark it
We work to targets, get appraised
Residuals to get profiles raised
It's industry. I rest my case.

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

Or, put it another way.

I just think that teaching has lost all its common sense. And it's kindness. It behaves like an industry which is about getting results and meeting targets. There's nothing that measures people's happiness or how deeply moved or affected someone is by what they've learned. It just checks that they learned it. And we are given this guilt trip. That it's about children and that we are affecting their lives if we don't meet targets. We give up more and more because "teaching is a vocation"  "it's about kids", and yet schools use cover supervisors, cut subjects, limit choices etc to save money and get results. So the profession behaves like an industry but the teachers have to give their lives to it like its a vocation. It's not a vocation. At all. It's a job.

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

When the boy you like shows up with a hickey on his neck,
do not linger.
I know what it is like to be in that state of limbo
Between hope and surrender
When every time he puts his arms around you it feels like the stars have aligned and all is right with the world.
But also when his eyes brush over the cute waitress' body for just a second too long
It feels like your chest just opened up to reveal a shriveled heart.

And let me tell you that it is not worth it.
Because while you sit at home imagining his hands on the back of your neck,
He's in the back of a car with his lips on someone else's throat.
You will spend hours,
days,
remembering every little thing he's ever said to you,
And he will almost forget your name the next time he sees you.

Darling let me tell you
that you deserve better.
You deserve someone who will repeat your name in their sleep.
His hands will feel different
but they will be warm unlike the ice cold ones of your imagination.
And if you're lucky,
you will have plenty of hickeys of your own.

Writing his name feels like a panic attack.

I was fifteen. Young kid, lonely.
All I wanted was to be wanted,
And he wanted me.

He was eighteen. Average man,
He already knew me.
I went to his house and he gave me a hickey.

Little red mark on my neck, pretty pink,
On my skin it stayed, as I leaned over the sink.
Last night's dinner was going to come up.

The bra I wore to his house,
I've only worn it once since then.
Wearing it feels like putting his hands on me.

The jeans I wore to his house,
I lost them and decided not to look.
They were a reminder of the piece of me he took.

Everything we did, I said "yes" to.
He was the first guy to touch my chest,
I had to force my body to be mine again.

All I wanted was to be wanted,
And he wanted me.
Traumatized so beautifully.

Boy down the street.
All I wanted was to be wanted,
And he wanted me.

I just wanted to be wanted.
And he wanted my body.
Writing his name feels like a panic attack.

258 days,

June

First week of June?
Amazing. I'd experienced your body...for real this time. Did more with you than I'd ever done with anyone. That party...

Sister, brother leaving...

Couch...
Us...

Not like it matters, now.
Reminds me. I should probably be put in a straight jacket if you ever get close to me again someday. Like, if you ever decide you can be okay with what I did to you. What I did to you was not okay, though.

June 13th
Hickey #2 ("#3) found
Whoops. We got too caught up in this whole ****** business...
Gauntlet thrown down
My aunt was over with her two children
8:27pm: "Please call us ***-***-XXXX"
Replied 8:35pm: "I can't right now. My aunt and her kids are over...
Lizzie told me she was in trouble during her break. I'm assuming I'm in trouble too? I'm not going to make any excuses this time and I apologize. Its my fault. I can call when my aunt leaves."

Around 8:45pm, my cell phone rings. My aunt and her kids are still over.
I am shaking so badly that I have trouble sliding my finger on the touchscreen to pick up the call.
Some of the call is a blur to me.
I cried so hard.
I shook so hard.
I cramped in places I'd never cramped before.
I was gagging on the phone and it just made them more mad at me.
Around 9:55 the phone call ends.
They told me they were going to take all your clothes off.
They pushed me to admit I'd had *** with you.
I wouldn't admit it.
I wouldn't admit anything except the hickey.
God knows we did more.
But I just hoped that God understood that I never wanted to lose you.
I never wanted to lose you.
They asked for my 18th birthday, so they could mark their calendar as the "day they could touch me"
(Because assault on a minor = felony, assault on adult goes much more easily)
I never wanted to lose you.
That threat alone almost made me **** myself. They threatened to hurt me. Physically. On my birthday.
I never wanted to lose you.
They told me they had expectations for me.
They told me I had to hold a certain GPA, and wouldn't tell me what it was.
They told me I needed to have a certain job, by a certain date, and they wouldn't tell me what the date was.
They told me to "let them take care of that ****", the dates they wouldn't tell me.
They told me I should graduate in 3 years, I forgot about this one...
Claimed "I was smart enough to do it" and that "maybe it would prove I was worth their daughter seeing"
They compared me to Zack W. and how they made him break up with you.
They told me they wouldn't force me to do that but that I'd be sorry for what I did.
...by the end of the phone call though, she had softened up.
After all, I was crying so hysterically...she either pretended, or temporarily understood that I was sorry.
She told Ray I was really sorry.
Ray though, was in the background screaming
"That ****** isn't sorry. He ain't ******' sorry."
...
When you got home that night,
They took it easy on you.
They didn't actually strip your clothes off.
They told you they were "kinda harsh" on me and that I "took most of it for you"...
...
...
...
The week before, my friend Nick drank himself to death. He essentially committed suicide.
...
Two weeks later, your mom refused to talk at all about this phone call.
It was sick what she did to me.
I was sick inside. I hated myself. Not to mention Nick invited me over the night he died.
He would be alive had I been there that night.
...
If I had been there with Nick, he wouldn't have died.
...
...
I ended June full of so much guilt. So much confusion. So much pain. I lost a friend. I lost myself.
...
June.

I guess the reason I text you drunk at 3 in the morning is because I have so many things to say to you and I don't have the courage to say them without the aid of 151 Proof Everclear grain alcohol.

And the boy I was sharing the ***** with didn't mind me talking about you.
The Boy with the Sunshine face didn't mind hearing all about that one time you and I danced.
He didn't mind hearing about the one time you kissed me
and he didn't mind me texting you.

In the morning I laughed it off unlike my hangover.
Just like the day before,
the first thing I reached for was my pipe
and after that it was my phone.
And at 11:30 in the morning I read the text you had sent at 9 the same morning.

I guess all I really want is you.
And that's dumb to say
because I want a job
and a ranch
and maybe a dime bag.
But out of all these things I want to hold you most.
And I want to kiss your face
and touch your waists.

As much fun as I had receiving this hickey
it would be nice to have one from you.

To the Girl who Gave Me This Hickey:
Thank you,
it was fun.

there's a certain elegant aesthetic in the discoloration
of a bruise on pale skin
of knowing that yes, higher up means you are in big trouble
but higher up also means
the world can see
that she is
yours

Love is not just about holding hands every day and night
Kissing each other under a blinking light
Making her scream while she holds you tight
And after the fight, both of you lose your might

Love is a touch and yet not a touch
Touch her heart more than you touch her breast
Kiss her soul together with her lips
Hug her attitude along with her body

Make her smile not make her ***
Love her unconditionally not **** her hard
Give her letters and poems, not Hickey
Make memories with her before making her a baby

Go with her in churches, not in motels
See her with a beautiful dress not naked
Take off her problems not her clothes
Make her tears flow in happiness, not in pain

Tell her that she's a blessing
Save her if she feels that life is falling
Understand her if she's doing other things
Treat her like she's the Queen and you're the King

you loved me good, but
he hated me better. i'm
a sucker for passion, oh,
the thought of him still
bites.

“Sir, this mole seems to be growing and spreading”
Suhail stopped the scissor and comb, and said
“It’s a bit grown than last month and even then, I noticed it spreading”

Suhail is my hair stylist for the last about six years
I have seen him growing from a Hair Analyst to Specialist to Senior Hair Specialist
There is something more than the generous tip that connects us
May be my willingness to abide by his experiments with my hair
Or reciprocation of loyalty that bound us every month

Surprised, I asked him, “What mole are you talking about?”
“Don’t you know the black mole on the back side of your left ear” puzzled Suhail
“You go and check with Madam, may be its my feeling only”

“How would madam know about it Suhail, she doesn’t cut my hair!”
“Arre Sir, you too!” Suhail had a vicious smile on his face
“Come on tell me” I prodded him with the same viciousness
We got into wayward pastime …

“Arre, Sir, they get to see it…
When you lay down on her lap in those afternoons
And she combs your hair with her fingers
And when you fall into that muddle of sleepiness and excitement
Her eyes would lock it”

“Arre, Sir, they get to see it…
When she comes from the back as on paws of a cat
Hugs and hold you tight with her hands
And press her face on your shoulder
Her eyes would lock it”

“Arre, Sir, they get to see it…
When those drenched lips move away from your lips
And the craving teeth leave a hickey on that earlobe,
Her eyes would lock it”

Suhail finished the haircut and I left tipping him as usual
The drive back home searched through the labyrinths of memories
Of caressing fingers, tight hugs and hickeys
Why didn’t she mention that mole, ever?

“Honey, you never told about that Mole,
Come on, let me see and let’s go to a Dermatologist quickly
We can’t take these things lightly; the doctor may even suggest a biopsy
Biopsy is fully covered in your mediclaim, isn’t it?”

Every time you lay me down on an afghan
It's like you're deflowering me again
Your lips against mine, so sweet and so soft, just us two
Skin to skin, you touch me and I melt into you
These positions are very tricky
With every one, you leave a hickey
Our hands intertwined
Reminds me you're mine
You nibbling on my ear
Makes me feel the end is near
Though I don't want his feeling to end
You slowly make my back bend

It smelled like cheap beer
and stale cigarettes,
and my shoes stuck to the floor.

My head throbbed with an ache
even my ***** tonics couldn't soothe,
and watching you watching her made me
feel short of breath.

I shook her hand and smiled
as I glanced at the hickey on your neck.
You gave me a hug and offered me a cigarette,
and I smoked it in the corner
Alone.

like a walk of shame
except i'm beautiful and proud
and the fall weather got here last night
unpacked it's bags but forgot to paint the leaves
and i'm walking and there's nothing shameful about anything i did
and alleyways look beautiful too
in their own way
and i'll skip breakfast because i'm still drunk
and i'm still in love
and my shadow looks a bit taller than i do
i left my underwear behind
lace crumbled in the floor
REMEMBER ME
i stole somebody's mcdonald's
and ate it in the street corner
did i leave my cardigan at yours?
see you tomorrow
making latte art hungover in some beautiful knock off paris store
and i asked you, politely, to leave the mess outside
and you never saw that butterfly temporary tattoo on my chest
everything is temporary
because you didn't even bother to get me undressed
but you left your mark on my neck
thanks for that
just know you're not the only one who i made eyes with last night
i kissed a few on the lips
you aren't the only boy who fancied in my *** perfume
at least you walked me home
it was five am but at least you walked me home
and your dorm room wasn't big enough for how wide my legs were but this dress was tight and you bruised my thigh
or that might've been the other boy who threw me into the dark corner and i fell to the floor as he fell into me
but my hair is long enough to cover this hickey
and i'll take a sip of your coke and whiskey
i listen to that boys song and laugh on my way to work
and the shins are playing in starbucks
and i wouldn't mind if just for a second
i could pretend to die

In the mirror
the hickey looks like
lipstick. When I rub
my neck
her teeth stay
stuck like kissy lips
on mirrors
of girly girls.
On the surface
the blue-blood egret
and his
white-toothed egret
friend look like
enemies.
They share the lake’s
surface like comrades splitting a spliff
during war.
The mirror’s surface
reflects my haggard
face.
The kiss on my neck brings me pleasure
that is difficult to peck in the eddy formed after she swelled along my desire.

In the mirror:    
his naked body
my naked body
like the cartilages
of comrades marching back
to their bombed base.
That night he finished quiet like the veteran
egret pecking his prey.
That night I spread––
the eddy after the prey was pecked. On my surface I can’t find any traces
of his breath or his pecks. The mirror’s surface reflects our haggard love––
tired of slithering away
from egret beaks
finding it difficult
to breathe
lifting its long neck
above the swell
in the eddy
in this sea.

258 days,

May
May was a good month. Our only "good month".
If you can even call it good.
We fell more in love than I would have ever believed.
You made me believe.
I started to believe that the storm was over.
That I could finally write a new chapter with you.
That you could write new chapters too.
You told me you threw away your blades. (To this day, I don't know if you ever did)
You told me you'd love me forever.
I told you I'd love you forever.
We told each other we'd love each other forever.
May was intense.
My feelings for you had never been stronger.
Sweet girl, I wish I could relive May for the rest of my life, that when I'd wake up from it,
It would be the beginning of May again...
I think one week you and I spent every single day together
We were spending a lot of time together
Word on the street though was that your grades had been slipping.
Word...on...grades...slipping.
I remember coming over and your mom asking about it
She wasn't really being that mean
I just took it too harshly I guess.
Your parents seemed a little upset that we were spending so much time together.
You needed to focus on your school work, they said.
We did our thing though.
Somewhere in between April and May, a hickey...I gave you one...I had one too
Your mom called me a vampire.
She made jokes about it like every second I was in the car, or in the house (when Ray wasn't there, anyway)
Gave me a little warning not to do it anymore.
So I guess near the middle of May, a hickey appeared on your neck
I'd been making sure not to bite, so I don't know how it got there. Maybe it was just a bruise?
Your mom wasn't so kind this time around.  She warned that next time she was telling Ray. She seemed angry, but seemed to let it slide.
Did I mention I freaked out a little?
I'm overly sensitive.

Going through the rest of May though was bliss with you. We made some more ****** advances...
We just made sure to be careful about them.
Except we weren't ACTUALLY careful.
At all.
Nope.

I still remember May 24th...graduation day, kissed your stomach. What the **** was I doing?

So that was May.

You're a hickey on my neck,
bruised and red,
marking your territory,
refusing to fade.

(In memory of Norris Hickey 1935-2014)

Love of family and fly-fishing: twin tributaries flowed
into your heart like a braided river.
Paradoxically, a sociable man who preferred to be alone
on some braided river,
basking in the peace of the wilderness,
hearing only birdsong and the gentle whirr of the fly line,
its nylon whipping to where you hoped the fish would rise.
Patience comes easily in peaceful surroundings,
unlike waiting for the blessing of grandchildren.
Eventually rewarded with five blessings.
You always said what a lucky man you were.
I’m glad your luck held because you would weep to see
your precious braided rivers drying up down here,
****** dry by the farmers’ greed for white gold
and the threatened tarāpunga (Black-billed gulls)
getting their nests crushed by callous four-wheel drives.
It would be enough to make your big, generous heart burst.

© Andrew M. Bell

When things were good, they were
weightless.
We could stumble down the streets
at four in the morning,
wearing hickeys like tattoos
we'd be ashamed of at dawn.
Sneaking wristbands from friends
with fake IDs,
or faker ****.
And if we were low on cash,
we might take turns
lifting our shirts, shifting our bras,
until a flash of something sacred
earned a free drink.
I could have been
ashamed
if gravity were working.
But we were all
weightless.
Mistakes just floated away.

Our dresses were too short, and
our dresses were too tight, and
the boys wore shirts
that were good at hiding stains.
Sometimes we didn't even need words;
we could walk into
a smokey, sticky bar
and fall in love with a boy's arms
while he fell in love
with a too-short dress
and the chance to see underneath it.
And we knew
we'd be waking up
with those hickey-tattoos.
But we didn't care, because
we were all
weightless.
The boys just floated away.

Maybe we wouldn't find any
dance-floor-love,
but that was always okay, because
we were in love
with ourselves.
Our hazy heads
whispered pretty words,
and as we burned our throats
with shots of pure love,
pretty words began to slur
into a pretty song, but we could
never remember the melody
when we awoke.
So the next night
we'd shimmy into our too-tight dresses
and start ******* down
more liquid love
until we began hearing
that pretty song again.
We half-knew our sober hearts
would never be able to recall
the tune,
but it never mattered.
We were all
weightless.
Notes just floated away.

These nights, things are
heavier.
I'll pour myself some love,
but it burns like regret now.
I don't wear any too-tight dresses
because I don't much miss
the dance floor.
I don't miss the hickeys
or the four A.M. walks.
I don't miss the shirts
being lifted and pulled.
I don't miss the smoke
flooding the bars.
But I do miss the song
that I'll never quite know.
For though I am grounded,
that tune is forever
weightless,
and the notes will just float away.