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.

I'm falling through the looking glass, not really knowing,
That the world's spinning past and everything's growing,
There's a rabbit and I gasp for he seems to be glowing,
Tell's me time's moving too fast and I ought to get going,
There's a cat that I can't see except his twisting smile,
And he's been haunting me and hunting me for mile upon mile,
I keep my mind off that grin but I know I'm in denial,
Then my head starts to spin and I'm gone for a while,
Not to my surprise, I find this place is taking it's toll,
Then before my eyes, I'm crying, losing control,
Trying to claw at the dirt, falling down the rabbit hole,
Feeling nothing but hurt and a fear for my soul,
This is my role, living to entertain,
Cake and champagne, drinking tea with the insane,
Smeared against the pain is the smile that I feign,
It's a colourful country but my colour has drained,
Turning blue like my lips, like a vein, like the chatter,
With all of these psychos God knows who's the Mad Hatter,
A mouse, hare, a man, and I'm guessing the latter,
Then my images shatter, a woman dressed in red,
My heart is a **** in her lover's bed,
Two colours clash and I'm sure I am dead,
Red royalty laughs and screams "off with her head",
But I have not sinned, I have not marred,
I will not be scarred by the Red Queen's guard,
I am the wind in the houses of card,
The joker you treated with disregard,
This land's full of wonder but that wonder is callous,
I will bring down the blood stained palace,
Felling diamonds and spades with a purebred malice,
I win, for I am, the Ace of Alice.

My duvet is a map,
It remembers all I’ve said,
And I’ve slept here and loved here and cried here,
All of my demons, awake in this bed
And I know I’m selfish, I’m unkind,
But I won’t apologise for half my crimes,
Because you’re closed up like a fist,
Ready to strike,
But I’d still lay with you here,
And we can set our fear alight,
I keep waiting for the bad news,
In every declaration,
And do the ghosts of your past,
Saturate our conversations?
I can’t hear you singing in the shower,
But I know the sounds of your heart,
You’ve grown entangled in my muscles,
And to tear you apart,
Would be a haemorrhage,
I would be bleeding soul for hours,
But take all you want from me,
Don’t ever give me flowers,
I can’t stand to watch them wither,
And I never say goodbye,
I'll tattoo a garden on my body,
And those will never die.

‘Almost’,
Is the saddest word in the world,
Aside from ‘He almost died,’
It’s blackened and shrivelled and curled,
It's chances never taken,
Opportunities that we miss,
Dreams that somehow got squandered,
Breath that could have turned to a kiss,
But I am one of the loved ones,
I believe that I’m good for you,
Because we could almost make it,
We could almost see it through,
These imperatives you use,
Could all be turned so morose,
"She did it, she said it, she was it”,
If they only incorporate almost,
See I could be smart, I could be pretty,
But I’ll try not to boast,
I promise everything’s great,
Everything’s fine,
I’m happy,
So happy,
Almost.

Some micro poems about antiheroes.


I give my best friends black eyes,
I wont lye,
Some of it's their blood,
Some of it's mine,
But I cant talk about the first rule.

Tick tok,
Whirring cogs and grinding gears,
Going after low hanging fruit,
While we're,
Singing in the rain.

Returning video tapes,
Often leads to Huey Lewis and the news,
Raincoat, reservation, rat, rage,
I escape through blood lust and *******,
But this is not an exit.

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.

I spent Christmas in a foxhole,
Listening to Stille Nacht across the way,
The tree line sang,
And it was dark, deep and snowing,
But the white ground reflected just fine against the moon,
Now I can't eat cherry snow cones,
Because of the way the tracks dragged along and then stopped,
You could still make out a body if you tried,
Well we were taught never to leave a good man behind,
But sometimes there wasn't much man left,
And sometimes there was just too much man to take,
In a land where over twenty-five was old,
Me, Don and George we were just kids,
And my Ma kept trying to send me birthday cake for finally becoming a man,
She kept asking "Was I keeping warm?"
Was I keeping warm?

Angry didn't begin to cover the way no one mentioned him again,
After he fell,
I was keeper of dog tags, locked in my fist,
Fear like a sneeze,
Always at the back of my throat but I didn't let it go,
So I cried alone,
And we tried to get by together,
And I wish I could say he was always with us,
The forgotten shadow in the foxhole,
But the truth is he was taken with little resistance,
And I never saw him again,
Third grade captain of the baseball team,
Kissed a girl before I did,
I was afraid to wash the filthy clothes he left behind,
For fear of wiping him from existence,
They let me keep a shirt without bloodstains,
And it felt like home for months,
Until the smell of my friend began to fade.

I had to stand up,
To be the best man I could be,
Because German was in my tongue and so far away for everyone else,
I saw the dead walking towards me in striped pyjamas,
Shook my head and said: "I don't wanna",
Well my boys picked me up and said: "Joey, you just gotta",
So I saw the worst of what humans can do,
Looked apathetic, like a soldier,
Didn't cry,
But when he told me: "I am a Jew",
I answered: "So am I",
And the star of David he wore on his arm,
Mine was tattooed on my heart,
Once we'd calmed them down,
Denied them my box of rations,
I fell to my knees and sobbed,
Humans punishing humans punishing humans,
And no amount of screaming would stop the film behind my eyes,
They told me I did well today,
"Joe, you did good for your people."

It's been a tough war,
It's been a long war,
And my girl back home,
I married her straight away,
Even though she wasn't a Jew,
But I could have lived and died in her beautiful blonde hair,
So my Ma loved her anyway,
I wanted several daughters,
And I wanted several sons,
So they could have brothers like I did,
My girl called me a hero,
But I ain't no hero,
I ain't no saint,
I ain't no warrior,
I ain't no order,
I ain't no weapon,
No blood,
No war,
I am the cry for a medic in the dead of night,
I am the line of defence that would not move,
I am no surrender,
I am a survivor,
I am surviving still,
I am a husband,
A father,
A friend,
But most of all,

I am a Brother.

******* internet,
Stop picking roses and asking me to ignore the thorns,
Cut off their heads,
Give me the thorns,
I don’t need to make myself smell sweet for you,
Empty head,
Brain dead,
Fill it up with faults in our stars and the perks of being a wallflower,
We all know ants can carry away common sense,
If there are enough of the *******,
But don’t peg me as a simpering idiot,
Sitting in the dark waiting for poetry to illuminate demise,
I’m not black and white, tears rolling, all alone,
Go **** your rusty razors,
I don’t need anyone to kiss my scars,
I am forty thousand thunderstorms,
I destroy what I want and I will always make you run for cover,
I will use all my energy to summon starving rain,
Just to make everything feel normal,
I have been my own casualty and I have been my own champion,
But victim isn’t in my vocabulary,
I never wrote wailings on white,
Or measured my problems in aesthetics and ‘reblogs’,
You are not ‘beautifully broken’,
Love is not masked by exquisite pain,
And I don’t believe in the charms of your never ending night,
Because the sun always rises,
And I would rather let it burn me up,
Then lurk in the shadows like you.

You say you’re a ‘boss’, does that mean that I’m God, next,
Time you mess with me you’ll see I have a God complex,
Whatever, I mean this rap’s getting complex,
My effects, they perplex, my ego’s getting convex,
I could say that I’m strawberries but I’m much more like lime,
Acrid, like acid, I rhyme, I’ll keep my clothes on that’s fine,
Your sexisms pasts it’s prime, Gatsby’s acts aren’t fine,
Calling me out is a crime since you’re completely irrelevant,
The orders are mine, YOU strip but you best make it elegant,
I can take off my clothes for fun and still be ******* intelligent,
Dodging your blows, fo’ sho, street talk but still make it eloquent,
I might be teeth, ****, toes but lets make one thing clear,
The only head you’ll be getting is off the top of your beer.

Sip my wit like lemonade,
Kiss between my shoulder blades,
Concentrate,
Can you even remember my name?
Skitter, sicker, savage, sad,
Pop a pill don’t feel so bad,
You say I can do anything,
Yet you’ve never seen my eyes glow like coal,
I am Skaði and I will always be cold,
And I have broken more boys easy as shattering glass,
Cut palms and no class,
I am contagious,
My tongue is forked and poisonous,
So roll up roll up,
Watch me make everything worse,
Watch me spit and snap and talk in curse,
But don’t get too close because without any doubt,
Being near me will rot you,
Both inside and out.

Sip my wit like lemonade,
Kiss between my shoulder blades,
Concentrate,
Can you even remember my name?
Skitter, sicker, savage, sad,
Pop a pill don’t feel so bad,
You say I can do anything,
Yet you’ve never seen my eyes glow like coal,
I am Skaði and I will always be cold,
And I have broken more boys easy as shattering glass,
Cut palms and no class,
I am contagious,
My tongue is forked and poisonous,
So roll up roll up,
Watch me make everything worse,
Watch me spit and snap and talk in curse,
But don’t get too close because without any doubt,
Being near me will rot you,
Both inside and out.

Last Again asks,
But the guy shakes his head and ties her to the mast,
Of disappointment, of tears, as the waves crash past,
He’s edged her again, with his skin of alabaster,
And it’s only after this ******* has won she realises she's the disaster,
And all her hopes and dreams, well they were made of plaster,
Because they were meant to hold her up but she can break
hem if she has to,
And she has to alright because this bloke doesn’t have a
light,
So how’s she meant smoke and make herself feel alright?
How’s she meant to have hope when it feels like the night,
Is encroaching, approaching and she can’t put up a fight?
She searches her pockets and the lining of her coat,
Hoping her findings will enable her smoke,
Hoping finding the lighter will make the night a bit lighter,
But in her mum’s eyes she’s always been a fighter,
So she fights into her bag, against the sticking of that zipper,
Hoping her fingers they grab a zippo or a clipper,
She’s been sticking to her guns but never pulling the trigger,
Then she finds metal’s colder than the wind,
It bites as she brushes, the feeling it lingers,
And it’s never been so appealing for her to smell gas on her fingers,
Like a phoenix from the ash, the butane ignites,
Because we find in times of darkness, we must make our own light.

It's torture,
The way that he stalks her,
Mina, Mina,
Like some childish chant,
He calls her name,
We chant too,
Master, master, notice us,
Love us, want us, worship us,
Because we worship you,
And I have seen seasons pass in an unblinking eye,
How can I sleep when you are always awake?
Entertaining guests in the parlour room,
My pallor turns deathly when you speak her name,
Your next engagement is the chill in my tomb,
The fear I feel in her heartbeats makes my teeth hurt,
They turn into fangs with the bitterness I spit,
When you take her throat, I see red,
But I cannot admit these things to my absent soul,
By you I am vilified,
Like Christ I'd rather be crucified,
My wedding dress you nullified,
Let light stream in and burn me alive,
Burn me dead,
After aeons since the first I thought this bond was unbreakable,
1, 2, 3, women you have guided into your hell,
Still your thirst is unslakeable,
- But what did I expect?
Denn die Todten reiten schnell.

(Translation: Because the dead travel fast.)

Creative Writing


Manchester uni,
Fifteen places, but that's it,
****, ****, ****, ****, ****.



The Fridge

I open the door,
But nothing has changed, no food,
My tears flow freely.




Fluffy

Fluffy the hamster,
In sawdust he hides plans for,
World *******.




Which is it

Some call my writing,
Insightful, to others it's,
Sociopathic.




2500 BC

I find peace in rain,
Ra, the Egyptian sun God,
Smites my insolence.




Look like Crab, Talk like People, Crab People, Crab People.

In the near future,
The crab people will rise up,
Crustacean war-fare.




Lunacy

Awake in my bed,
Pulled to open the window,
The moon calls for me




Lioness

Brave as a lion,
She does not show fear as she,
Devours her young.




97% Sure

Bodies in bin bags,
Powdered lime on window ledge,
Suspicious neighbour

I am an artist,
With a blank state,
And I raise mountains in my lungs,
With breaths of cold air,

I am a painter,
I eat swords, I eat fire,
You can call me Cassandra,
You can call me a liar,

I am a writer,
But my pen has no ink,
You won't laugh at my words but I won't make you think,

I am a fortress,
And I will pull through,
If you bleed for me,
then I'll bleed for you

I am vilified,
Because my stories are old,
Yet as hard as I try,
I can't spin them to gold.

I am science, I am fiction,
Victorian youth, ***** addiction,
I am addicted, no rest for the wicked,
I am not what these glorious stories depicted,
I prayed for my mother, I asked for a saviour,
But scarlet’s a varlet and I couldn’t save her,
Faith laughed at my pleading but science was pliable,
Boundaries were broken, I made fact unreliable,
Doctor! Doctor! Blood’s beginning to boil,
As you work by the light of the Tesla coil,
You’re polite, once contrite, not particularly odd,
Now you’re trapped in your lab and you’re playing at God,
You were robbed of a woman, held hands with her breath,
Your disillusion excluded you, so you made life out of death,
And the blood and the ****** and the bruises on throats,
And the ghost of a sibling that grasps at my coat,
And I strived for ‘it’s alive’ but that’s a misquote,
It was never alive, that was not what I wrote!
It was pale and abhorrent, thread unraveled it’s head,
It’s lips moved but I knew it was made from parts of the dead,
Graves invaded, made empty, just so it could rise,
My shovels were broken, decriminalised,
My secrets unspoken were hard to ignore,
And it was only myself, since there was no Igor,
And my brother was gone, my father, my wife,
So if you seek to threaten me, be it with life,
Nothing left, I fear no death, in fact I seek it with vigour,
But I am no mad scientist B-List horror movie figure,
I am bigger, I am bloodless, I am the lightening’s whine,
I am all that befalls the name of Frankenstein,
I’m disturbed, I’m depraved, afflicted with my plan,
But above all I am only a conflicted young man,
And I cannot compete with tainted world’s so dark and neat,
So call me Victor as I retreat,
I am the monster I must complete.

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.

There’s a burning in her eyes,
High reaching lace like a poison choker,
Hands around a swan’s throat,
She’s the type who would ****** the world,
Then break its neck,
But even then, she still spits poetry every time she speaks,
Everyone has their curses,
She hides hers in the darkness.

I didn’t know what I was doing,
But I left three buttons undone so I still blame myself,
Because I thought having somebody touch me for more than
one night,
Would surely follow from letting them touch me at all,
Slap naive on my head,
And send me home.

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.

My name is Mr. Skullcracker and I'm in the business of cracking skulls,
I whack skulls, I smack skulls, I've got a knack for cracking skulls,
I follow my endeavors for attacking, cracking skulls,
And although it isn't clever cracking skulls is never dull,
There are stupid skulls for hacking that are lacking any brain,
But there are intelligent skulls I'm whacking that are cracking open just the same,
When I'm blacking out from cracking it's the glamour that I lack,
No one's enamored with my hammer or the skulls that I do crack,
And though cracking skulls is colorful there are lulls where I lay back,
And when I'm laying backing instead of whacking there are skulls that could be cracked!
What I need to aid attacking is a girl to watch my back,
She could be tall with auburn hair, or short and fat with black,
Have back acne, be a banshee, I couldn't care less about that,
But if her hacking skills are lacking then my emotions do fall flat
All she needs is a thick enough forehead so that her skull I do not crack,
She could fill stadiums with her voice or be tracking with the bulls,
But she needs a cranium of titanium cause I'm in the business of cracking skulls

“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

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.

I was taught,
To hold my head high,
And laugh when people tried to pull it down,
You put a sword in my hands,
A helmet on my head,
And sent me to slay the dragons knowing that I could,
But even when I came back with my hair all singed,
I came home to a hug,
Because with a teacher like you,
I understood I could be the princess,
And the hero,
I could manoeuvre an axe made of steel,
At the same time as manoeuvring six inch heels,
You sort of wish my art wasn’t always covered in blood,
But I’ll still produce it because you taught me weird is good,
And that it’s okay to be different,
Although you still rescued me,
From several fashion faux pas,
Because I liked to make people laugh,
But we both know the difference between ‘with’ and ‘at’,
You didn’t want me to get hurt,
Tried to stop the inevitable,
But when I did get hit, and I did,
We could pin-point each pin and pull it out,
With ease,
Because they don’t travel far through thick skin,
I got that from you,
I got everything from you,
You taught me to throw rocks at boys,
Because at the end of the day I’d throw rocks at all of them,
There’d just be some that would tolerate it more than others,
Maybe even like it,
After all, you threw rocks at Dad and he married you,
I’ve asked you countless times to get off my back,
Only to discover sometimes you were the only one who had it,
You’re my anchor,
You’re my rock,
The net that constantly catches the,
Whiny,
Moody,
Temperamental trapeze artist,
Who keeps jumping after eighteen years,
Knowing that you’ll stop her from falling on her ****,
When she misses the bar,
There’s so much more I could say,
About things that aren't poetic,
All the hard times and the ugly times and the sad times,
You stopped me from falling off the edge of the world,
By nodding your head,
And understanding,
You’re more than Superman,
Batman,
Wonder woman,
Anyone,
You’re my hero,
Forever and always,

Mum.

I didn’t know what I was doing,
But I left three buttons undone so I still blame myself,
Because I thought having somebody touch me for more than one night,
Would surely follow from letting them touch me at all,
Slap naive on my head,
And send me home,
Oh lover,
You’re a pyromaniac,
And I’m too flammable.

Tonight,
Like lambs to the slaughter,
You're drowning in water,
Because you're mine.

Consuming,
I'm filling the spaces,
And all the safe places,
Of your mind.

Tonight,
Crawl on back to your circus,
Yeah you've lost your purpose,
Now you're mine.

Infected,
Stealing your body,
Possession and blackness fill the corners,
Of your mind.

My words,
They wrap around your throat,
Your fractures they denote,
That you're mine.

You're blind,
Lost in the darkness,
You're stolen, you're heartless,
So give me your hand,
And your mind.

Broken,
You'll sleep in the lion's den,
And all of your amen's,
Are maligned.

Tonight,
You'll ask me to love you,
To please take hold of you,

Because you're mine.

A baseline that you feel in your chest,
Humming thick in your ears,
And your mouth,
You just want to live in their blur of impactful words,
That you don’t understand,
Because it’s just a baseline to you,
But have you ever felt so proud of someone?
That what they’re saying, or what they’re playing or who they’re being,
Becomes the only thing that’s keeping off the rain,
And you can see every tooth in the room,
Every heart that becomes unbroken and
        every heart that breaks,
Well it’s a shooting star,
Baby it’s gold dust,
Because his gaze is tattooed on your body,
Under your sweater,
Under your skirt,
Yours is a crime scene littered with his fingerprints,
But you’re no ****** victim,
Jackie,
       Jane,
             Joan,
Wife,
     Mother,
             Daughter,
Survivor,
          Protector,
                     Warrior,
Woman,
Know when it’s dark,
And subtle shadows are all that remains of your bodies,
Finding all the bones in your shoulder,
The piano strings that move your fingers,
And each indentation of your spine,
Is a bible,
But God won’t give him strength,
It’s your skeleton that is fortitude,
You’re the dragon protecting the castle,
You’re Rosie the Riveter,
You can hold up the world with perfectly manicured hands,
You will listen,
And you will care,
Let him breathe in the fractions of your soul that you exhale,
That way,
Every standing ovation and
     every wound that heals,
Is saturated with the influence of you,
Though you don’t understand,
That baseline you can feel in your chest,
It is your to be proud of too.

This is the only place that I'll feel safe,
Pace the floors of my beat up faith,
Stoke the fire, stoke the flames,
Remind me of why I feel ashamed,

You warn me that it’s most unwise,
To keep these scales upon my eyes,
Well Hades is calling out to me,
He says: “Take my hand Persephone”,

I lived to please, I swam to drown,
And take this all whilst lying down,
But then you cried: “Girl, come undone,
You're the earth, the moon, the sand and sun

It stretches,
Blotting out the sun in jagged ribbons,
Standing below it, my shadow is lost,
Absorbed,
If it fell, so would I.

“Here’s your morning PSA,
Laced with saccharine and anaesthetic,
Unfortunately the missiles are on their way,
So leave the sick and try not to panic,
Ignore the hysteria, and those calling your name,
Avert your eyes as the world sets aflame,
We apologise for keeping this from you,
Secret for all of these years,
But please keep in mind, though we’ll aim for your rescue,
Death is the least of your fears
This will be our last transition,
I’m afraid the president must catch his flight,
You may wait to hear from us but until then,
Goodbye, goodluck and goodnight.”

We were the PVC plastic barbie dolls,
Waiting to be burned alive,
Unlucky enough to live,
We woke up to an absence of we,
No Nevada left to test in,
So I’m a model mannequin,
Melt me down,

Tick-Tick-Tick,
The light was white and empty,
Tick-Tick-Tick,
My madness steeped in silence
Tick-Tick-Tickety,
Geiger is telling me to run,
Tickety-Tickety-Tickety,
But it’s no use now,

I threw up on Monday,
Tuesday, I choke back fallout,
Ignore the bubbles when it hits my skin,
On Wednesday, my gums blink bright red,
Thursday I know I am all alone because the wind has ceased to blow,
And Friday I realise I am not,

They came with rubber masks,
Silicone,
Respirators and coils of filters,
We both had ******* eyes,
But neither of us saw people reflected in them,
I counted three,
Alpha, Beta, Gamma,
One smiles by exhaling clean air,
Reaches out a hand across the barren wasteland,
Fingers tipped with lead and tells me:
“There’s a prize for the last standing.”

I am not ionised,
So I bruise every time they touch me,
These guides through plagues of acid rain,
The graveyard of monuments stripped bare by a world of rot,
My hair falls out as I breathe dead air,
I don’t remember what PSA stands for,
I don’t remember my name,
I bleed sand and the echo of a failed civilisation,
But with heavy breathing and a muffled voice,
Gas masks filtering what used to keep me alive,
I wonder if there is anything behind those masks at all,
I know there is nothing behind mine,
None of us are human anymore,
And we haven’t been for quite some time,

Together, we watch the sky rain black ash.

He asked me to remember him better than he could have ever been,
He asked me to forgive the things that I had seen,
The people he had broken,
The things he had made,
The blood on his face,
The shaking of his hands with the gun to his head,
He asked me to please remember him dead,
At peace, at rest,
Unable to hurt,
Unable to destroy the things I had worked hard for,
Like the breath in my lungs,
And the beating of my heart,
He told me that we would be better apart,
I didn’t believe him, his hands were as God,
Had wanted them to be,
He saw what God wanted him to see,
He was everything that held and looked after me,
Please, please look up after me,
See the tears in my eyes,
See the fear and the pain and the fact I hate goodbyes,
And I don’t mind the smell of chemicals on your clothes,
Or the fact when you come in you’re too tired to talk,
Too tired to walk,
It grows on me, the electrical shocks,
The bangs, the loud noises, you still hide from the knocks,
Of heavy footfalls on stairs,I can tell that you’re scared,
But I can make things all better if you give me a chance,
This isn’t some textbook, fairy story romance,
He yells and he grimaces, his fingers are tight,
And I wish I could hold him with all of my might,
He bats my hands away and I know that he’s crying,
It would be better for both of us,
He says, I’m just tired,
Of the sunrise, of the sunset, the work I have to do,
Are you tired of me? I ask,
How could I be tired of you?
I would forfeit my safety, you keep your hands clean,
Under the fingernails,
A ******, white and pristine,
Yet so tainted with blood, with a pressure of darkness, of death,
It surrounds you, no escape, there’s already dirt on your breath
Last words, last rites, a madness shaped scar,
Please try to remember, he said, we are better than we are.

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.

12 in the dark, I sit awake by the window,
Across from Hyde Park, and the feel of the wind oh,
Sparking a bark, Nana's remarking from below,
Canine matriarch against the boy with no shadow,
Time's flickering by and I begin to rust,
Consumed, I'm high with lust just for pixie dust,
But to fly you must be robust and adjust,
And I can't, though I try, I just look with disgust,
Sitting on the sill, I think of him mournfully,
Hard as I try, I can't think of him scornfully,
Despite the fact that he talks so informally,
He says my name and I know I was born to be,
Part of the family, I think of them nightly,
Tootles, the twins, Curly, Nibs and Slightly,
Second star to the right, it shines so brightly,
Hope he might come back if I ask politely,
He doesn't apologize, he's immature and he's cold,
Lives in a land without rules so he can't be controlled,
But as soon as I saw him I knew I'd struck green-gold,
Peter Pan is a joke that just never gets old,
Don't smile at crocodiles down in Neverland,
And if you hear a ticking clock, hope the ships are manned,
Because there's a high demand for the taste of pirate band,
And if you're not hooked by now then Hook'll tell you first hand,
I flew here like a bird in a night-dress, frilly,
Scared, trying to fight stress, skin like Chantilly,
Found Peter and I confess that the boy's my Achilles,
Now I'm a lost girl treading on Tiger Lillies,
Acorns and thimbles are my idea of 'bases',
And sword fights with pirates are my ***** chasers,
Watching the boys as they fly and admiring Peter Pan,
But he's the boy who can't love here in Neverland,
I wanted devotion, to marry men who were charming,
So I repressed, left my emotion, I left Peter Pan snarling,
My own species no longer, just a common starling,
Caged by age at my window, I'm Wendy Darling.

When I was dead,
My hands were cold,
Cold as the love of a *****,
And I tried to clean them but grave dirt sticks under
fingernails,
When I was dead,
I was as lonely as unrequited romance,
Still harbouring pain from the day that I died,
Heavy on my chest like a passenger’s weight on a ship,
But it was only six feet of dirt.

When I was dead,
I was like Snow White,
...Corpse Blue,
Both of us awakened by someone who never lost faith,
Never gave up hope,
Or stopped believing,
That they would be the one to breathe air back into our stagnant lungs,
And now I’m a puppet no longer.

When I was dead,
The damage was done,
Four years in the dark turned words to ash in my mouth,
I longed to touch you but my fingers succumbed to decay,
And I was afraid my kisses would leave maggots in you mouth,
So I leave a funeral procession between us,
But your presence still makes colour crawl back into my skin.

When I was dead,
There was nothing left to take,
Now, I have everything to give,
Because of you,
We will be robbers,
Stealing the night,
Stealing the time,
We have left,
Before valleys form,
Chasms stretch between us,
Yawning open like a warrior’s wounds,
Time,
Waits for no one,
Each grain of sand reminds me why we fall hard and fast,
And my new heartbeat made me fall harder and faster,
Than the tumble that killed me

When I was dead,
Things were simple,
I was a lost cause,
Dead as chivalry,
And despite the fact I would love to kick down my tombstone,
Erase my burial site,
And live this lie for us,
Eventually, everyone will leave,
Even though they promised to visit everyday,
I know,
Because I’ve been dead before

But when you are dead,
And the nails in your coffin spell the names of those who hurt you,
Forsaken, like your soul,
You will curse the ones who left you to fester,
But I will sacrifice the blue of my veins,
The very blue you donated from your eyes,
I will pry out those nails,
Knock loudly so that death cannot separate us no more than life could,
And together, we will Rest In Peace.

Eyes are like skies; blue. Mine jealous green,
I keep an altar to pray at, who cares if it's clean,
To me you are so new, I'm broken, I'm old,
Sunrise turns me to copper but spins you to gold