Don’t read this if you’re squeamish,
Or if you’re eating food at the present,
Since some of the subjects discussed in this poem,
Are let’s just say rather unpleasant,

On the subject of donating organs,
Or the subject of organs at all,
It’s not unusual for my claims to leave,
Some subjects feeling pretty appalled,

Now I’d say that most people die,
In fact I’d vouch that it happens quite often,
But when my time comes, set has my sun,
I want all of me in that coffin,

Now I get it, I’d save lives if I donated,
And I don’t mean to sound like a **** (yes I do),
But the unmissable flaw, the foot in the door,
Is that not all of my parts seem to work,

My eyes are screwy, my heart’s far too cold,
The state of my lungs’ll make you shiver,
My kidneys too small, I'm not sure I have a pancreas,
And don’t get me started on my liver,

And let me tell you with a face like mine,
Not showcasing this beauty’s a sin,
But it’s awfully hard to have an open casket,
If I’m not sporting any of my skin

It’s selfish and weird I know that,
But my eyes are where my soul is exposed!
…Yeah actually my soul’s pretty tainted,
Can someone make sure that my eyes are closed?

I only want those I love to have a part of me,
So if I’m forced, if I’m forced, to partake,
-
-
-
They’ll be frying up my organs,
For refreshments at my wake.

When I first met you, you took me back to the 70’s,
With anarchy, *** pistols and beer soaked blazers,
****** jeans and pipe dreams and your love for jumping off of tall things
under the impression you could fly,
You spoke to me and I felt the whole weight of my body collapse down,
And to this day I thank my knees for not buckling.

Since when did ignorance become a cure?
Since when did turning a blind eye make everything dissapear?
Since when did ‘are you okay?’ become the only question asked,
And ‘I’m fine’ become the expected and definitive answer?
Because ‘I’m fine’ is the only answer I can give when someone is holding a gun to the back of my head,
I may be plummeting down a deep, dark hole,
But you’re the one watching me fall,
You’re the one who could simply unfurl there fingers from their balled up fist and offer it down to me,
You are the ****** of magpies, the unkindness of ravens,
That feed off of dying things and the excuse of ‘it’s all too much’,
Do not talk to me of burden when my hands are stained with blood and you can wash the paint so easily from yours,
Do not talk to me of burden when you’re not the one hiding nine circles of hell behind closed eyelids,
Do not talk to me of burden when bombed out basements have offered me more shelter than you have ever given,
Do not talk to me of burden,
Do not talk to me,
Do not talk,
Just listen,
There are half a million people out there just waiting for you t die so they can claim they were your best friend and lately I’ve been asking for help,
Lately I’ve been chasing you around fallen trees and you have brandished crucifixes to ward away the devil,
Lately I’ve been thinking about breaking things,
And watching, when so many of them lie like shards of porcelain on the ground,
How many expect me to help.

I keep hearing the church bells chime,
Please tell me it’s safe,
Tell me it’s time,

And we’re not out of the woods yet,
Our lives set to be brief,
All a fleeting vignette,

Give me your hand and together we’ll run,
I’ve been searching for the answer,
Dry you’re eyes, head for the sun,
Ignore their cries, I’ve got a gun,

I can’t face this world alone,
But everything changes,
We have no home.

The world isn’t here on the longest drive,
I still keep what I lose,
I still claim I’m alive,

I am nothing and you, my dear,
I would **** you just to keep you safe,
There is no one above, no one is here,
Hold tight love, and we’ll just disappear,

We are liars, we are immune,
Carry me in your arms,
I see the blood moon,

I keep hearing the church bells chime,
Please tell me it’s safe,
Tell me it’s time.

When I look at you,
I remember who you used to be,
I remember it in the fold of your clothes
and the dirt under your fingernails,
You worked in the garden like you were the flower,
Wearing that mask you should have worn forever.

Now when I look at you,
I do not see a woman,
I do not see palms open with apology as I should,
I see,
The hate that you harbour for me,
You planted your flowers in my throat and now I can't ******* breathe,
Yes I can see,
You settled,
But don't act like I caged you,
Little bird, you walked right on in; I just,
Turned the key,
I muzzled your snarling mouth because I was wary,
Of being bitten,
The only reason I painted you purple was because you lied when you said,
You were a blank canvas,
So don't play the wild horse if you're going to fear the one who breaks you,
You are no bucking bronco,
No, you fought fire with fire and now you're all burnt up,
You played the rose, but without all of your petals you're just thorns,
And you've made me draw blood on more than one of your edges,

But that's okay,
Because I always thought your black eyes looked better than your blue,
And I know the lion always bows to the ring master's whip,
So next time you think about starting to spit,
Your insipid lies, I'd watch your lip,
Because we are a storm,

You can't have your thunder,
Without my lightning,
Or you are nothing at all.

“It’s time for bed,” was never a problem for me,
I was good at sleeping, I could do it longer than anyone else I knew and they
couldn’t wake me if they tried,
I was in over my ankles, waist, chest and head,
Five hundred pillows and a duvet that was heavy enough to suffocate all the
car horns in my mind,
I didn’t have to count the sheep so they sat there and ate grass,
Because I could pass with all the flying colours refracted in crystallised
dreams,
In the pitch black I won all the altercations against those demons that bite,
The narcoleptic warrior is champion of the night, the steady rise and fall of
her chest, the flutter of twitching lashes like spiders legs, arms drawn
tight around ******* and waist for protection against the ties that bind,
It’s a **** art,
But I didn’t realise my excellence was subjective,
For my parents it was the ****** in the night,
Fox screams that would send them running to my side, only to find a steady
heartbeat and lethargic child, head to the pillow and snoring,
For friends and family who came to stay, for them it was wide eyed, white
knuckled, lying awake and clutching the sheets as I cried and whimpered in
the next room,
Trauma spilling over catatonic lips in the most wretched of yelling, pulled
out in a long, choking strings of invisible nightmare,
For my sister, it was ‘*****’, ‘cow’, ‘****’ and all the other curses that
I kicked or hit her with in my minefield of a sleeping pattern,
Bible versus, bolt upright, head spinning 360 degrees,
Charon won’t let me pass because someone wasn’t kind enough to put a coin
in my mouth and now I’m walking a shore I won’t remember in the morning,
I don’t remember in the morning, I’ve been buried in sleep,
Not until I see them unshaven and weary at the table, and I know they’ve been
leaking electricity,
Is it possible to be good at something if no one thinks you are?
I was good at it, once,
In over my ankles, waist, chest and head,
Five hundred pillows and a duvet heavy enough to suffocate,
To suffocate my talent, I lie back and count to ten,
Sleep mask, sleep tablet, sleep therapy, I try not to let it happen again,
I keep the nightlight on now, the sun my only sleeping scar,
How can you be good at something if no one thinks you are?
I don’t think I’ll ever grow out of it, but I’ve stopped reaching for the
pin-****** of white light in those starry night skies,
And now, when I lay awake in my bed, I’m afraid to close my eyes

I’m wishing I was you as much as you wish you were me,
Our minds are missing, out to sea,
See I’m armless, essentially harmless,
Ambling around like an amped up amputee,
But if we put our problems together do you think you’d be after me?
Brinking on a shrink, whose thinking I'm a catastrophe,
Missing linking and I think, that not even my laughter’s free,
People shrinking, slink around, accusing me of blasphemy,
But the truth is, I’m bruised, because Big G never answered me,
My water was water, it never turned into wine,
I never prayed at an altar, I never turned to a shrine,
I never turned to a crime, my life’s not harrowing it’s genuine,
Narrowing the line, being vain and still a heroine,
There's pain from time to time but my veins are clean of ******
I’m fine, though I whine, cause my spine feels my adrenaline,
My life’s realigned,
I think it's time to add the zen again,
How’s that for comparison, do we even compare,
We’re Misfits, and we go where the eagles dare,
People don’t care, where the eagles fly,
Because empathy’s been emptied in the blink of an eye,
And I think that when you cry, you can repair your mistakes,
Let's start replying to the sigh of other people’s heartaches.