black glassy eyes staring back at mine.
double reflections. doppelganger.
a hawk with spread wings,
attacking a nest. Its claws arched
aimed at a chick.
Stuffed and basted like it's Christmas without the carols,
it is still.
unmoving in the glass.
the chick, too, is frozen in time. or fear.
or stitches or reflections.
crown of feathers stuffed in my pillow,
I think of the hawk at night.
that chick.
those talons and that eye.
that little eye
staring back at mine as if to say;
save me.
I cannot.

i sit and I ache
waiting for something to happen.
for anything to happen.
sometimes I wake up and the
room is spinning
and there's something in the
corner
of my
room
send someone
anyone
i just want to experience
something
warm
agai
n

Our love is like an echo at the end of a hollowed-out tree trunk;
Catch me if you can or not at all.
However much you told me
that this was home,
the feeling of being grafted
leaves an impression
on the skin.
The story could never find a final sentence,
The poems are half-written
The words are never given.
I wonder if you understand how
Odd it is to stay up,
writing about people who actually live their lives
Whilst we are still avoiding ours.

Our love is like a car that has veered off the winding road,
and crashed, headfirst into a
Sleepless river.
It refuses to let us leave
because it fills us with warm water,
and hope of salvation,
with smiles and girls nights in,
with beers and old
fond memories of us in class,
And I wonder if the river ever thinks
About the relic’s it hides below it?
The people drowning.
The buried treasure and pure gold
Waiting to be drained and used
Like a doll to a child to a check to a businessman.

Our love is like a bottle of wine left unopened.
The sweet turns to sour-
The bubbles turn flat,
The cork is soggy and the red is a mess.
Sometimes I wonder if you even see this
House anymore?
How the pillows droop
And the flowers are dead
And the candles have melted
On the wooden tabletop in dread?
Tears stain the skirting boards like
blood splatter on the floor.
I just don't think I can do
us
Anymore.

Night attacks,
they sit in my eyes,
forcing me to the bed and covering my cries.

My Night attacks,
cowering in the corner,
faced with the fear of their mourners.

Night attacks,
visit me every night,
minutes are hours, and I roll in their plights.

My Night attacks,
allowed to roam free,
after having their way with me.

We sat on your bed. It wilted under our weight.
Old and frail- stale to a fault, we always said.
Side by side. Knees touching knees. Hands
in packets of sweets from the corner shop.
How many can you fit in your mouth? I got
eight. You beat me every time.
We laugh until we ache. Funny pictures.
We jump in slow motion, I catch your eye and
we smile.  My best friend.

I sit in my bed. It's strong under my weight.
New and durable- Squeaky to a fault, I always say.
Cushion to a body. Covers suffocating hard. Hands
on a face, smudged with mascara from Asda.
I can fit four hours worth of crying into one if
I think hard enough. I beat my record every time.
I sob until I ache. Funny picture, that is.
I lay in slow motion, my phone rings in my ear and
I smile. My best friend.

The call isn't from you.

I haven't been so sad recently,
which is rare. I had the bad five months last year-
to the point I nearly killed myself.
And now I'm okay, but then it makes me think;
I'm not acting how I should act.
I don't feel like me anymore.
I'm bored,
I don't cry so often,
I feel like I'm wearing new shoes
that are slightly too small, to the point they
rub but don't leave a mark.
I think it's because I got so used to
being let down, that my body automatically
drops me a few stories every couple of weeks.
My eighteenth birthday was bad.
I think I just gave up on birthdays
and to think they used to be my favourite.
Now, I spend my time doing what is asked of me;
go to classes, smile, do work, go home, do homework,
sleep and not dream.
It feels weird.
I don't feel like me;
I want to feel like I'm dying again,
like the world itself is crumbling beneath my feet,
that, if I smile or move a muscle,
my whole being would explode;
shattering thousands with reminders that I was here,
because now I feel empty.
I'd rather feel like death personified
than nothing at all.

Bright lights. Blue, purple, white. Sweaty
people. Standing too close. Eruption. Cheers.
Happiness. I turn to look; lost.
Afraid. Anxiety. Asphyxiation.

Cold beer in the left. Camera in the right.
Grabby hands. Singing. Guitars. Drums
that bang too loud. Hurting ears.
Headache. Nausea. Tequila shot.

Smiles. Greetings. Sitting at the back
of the room, tearing up. Favorite song.
No one to dance with. Too small in
all this space. Too small for this place.

I've been winding up the walls of the music hall,
watching the couples dance to La Vie En Rose,
the song is stuck on repeat and
to silence it I need to hear the end note,
but it never comes.

I weave my roots into the ground. They
kiss softly. Romance is making love to them,
And yet my love has not arrived,
crashed in the parking lot,
and she never comes.

I see then that I was never meant to love,
a lover like you,
my heart stutters when your machine beeps,
in case it prolongs longer than I want.
The day seems to be coming.

Our wedding song is on vinyl, unplayed
and dusty. I watch it spin as the couples leave,
their scents taking yours with them,
I am alone again.

You left,
just when I thought the stars had come out for
us.

The sun peaks through my
window, and hits
your face.
I feel the heat on my arm,
my leg and neck.
The pure, slumber of summer.

How can I be down when the
world feeds me such
beautiful scenes?
How can I leave when your
face lights up when you
hear my voice?

How could I be sad when I can
make it through all of the hail of spring,
to see the rays of
summer, the beautiful
repose of my birthday?

Stiff bent fingers like roots of trees,
disfigured and bent to sunlight,
clasp gently to the pine box soon to
burn up and in the end,
your skin is still thin like slices of paper,
your thick, wormy veins travel through
soil like flesh, sunspots like kisses
or lovers names or history span the range
from fingertip to toe,
gold rings like auburn leaves and diamonds
like raindrops on winter days, nails like
petals and knots like knuckles,
roses like knocks on wood,
and kisses like knowing what you do now,
doveri farla finita
così possiamo essere completi.

If you can't think of it one way;
think of another.
You wouldn't let your car run from place to place
consistently for a week
without checking it's oil,
the tyres
or under the bonnet.

Why should we do any different?

I love you,
and I hope that you can tell
by the way, my eyes stare too
long into yours.
If I was to speak I wouldn't know what to say;
as all, I can think of is how pretty you are.
Pretty in a dark chocolate sense,
the kind that lingers on your tongue,
the bitter, harshness of beautiful boys,
the type you know you don't belong with.

You smile and I hear old dancehalls,
haunted with melodies of yesterday night.
Put your head on my shoulder, darling.
Come lay in the sun,

and watch the shadows of our grandchildren
play.

The Baphomet at
the bottom of the bottle
said he'd drown if I
didn't drink.
He said he'd drown me
if I tried to throw him out.

Beatings. Cries. Shells raining down like
tears from his mothers face! Another coffin
to pay for in all this madness. Who cares if
she's lost everything she held dear to her?
She's screaming;
"He's too small for all this space!
He's too small for this place! His boots
don't even fit him right!"
Limping up and down up and down towards
the end and even then his eyes won't stay open;
all this fighting for what? Another war?
Another scream? Another ten million voices silenced at
the hands of word like bullets.
With the rampaging, and the madness,
the air becomes too much.
Things like to implode and combust like silence does...

is that...it?

is that what silence sounds like?

I drank your thoughts,
and created your masterpieces,
hoping the love of yours will transfer to
mine.
They feel like water on a sunday,
the blush of a teenagers cheeks,
and the heat of the fire on my legs.
Mine feel like anxiety and stress,
the ones I find under my bed.
Hidden from view.
Obscuring me from you.
I need yours to make mine feel lighter.
Tell me them once more, and intertwine
with me.
Just, intertwine.

The feeling of being pixelated,
of being weightless and nothing.
Swimming in the air,
and watching sober friends
waiting down there.
It's like wading through
keyboard keys.
Square. Unorthodox.
Choking on letter x's,
using them to spell
'help me' in sign
language- you
don't speak it.
Blinking in morse code
at your teacher, tugging down
sleeves. Hiding yourself from
your reflection- Make it think of
you as a child; untouched. unchanged;
pure.
I swear I'm still me.
I'm paper soft and tearable.
I swear I'm fine.
Toes curling under hardened shoes,
blisters on your big toe.
It throbs under the pressure.
Grounding you.

I feel absolutely,
Inconsolably
Defeated.
I wish you liked me,
I wish you didn't hate me.
I wish you'd take pictures of us
doing fun things,
and not just of the friends you
claim to hate so much

I am ill.
And it is you
that cannot save me.

I move and I retch...
you grab the bucket
and hold it for me;
but you cannot save me
from my
demise.

I long to live for you,
but the more I wish to
live, is the more
I wilt and die.

I wake up
and fall asleep
on your shoulder.

Kiss my head?

I knew that they would break;
the wax sun and paper moon
that stood like clouds above the bed.
The ones that spoke like absent dreams,
when the teddy in my arms wasn't
enough.

I cry a lot for myself.
I think about myself as a toddler. With a blonde,
choppy bob, and a mouth as big as my face. Those
little rows of perfectly aligned teeth grew to be
wonky in the centre.
Those bright eyes that held so much happiness,
somehow flood towns and rivers now.
That picture of my sister, mother, father and I,
huddled around a pub table. My cheeks are flushed,
my small red top so bright next to the blue and yellow of their shirts.

They all smile while I just stared, afraid;
Knowing something about the future I could never quite
comprehend.

It's a shame that we aren't soul mates,
because we used to be.
But now we're one-seventeenth of a whole teenager;
hormonal,
angry,
depressed.
But all I can say is,
when you think I'm overbearing,
instead,
think of how heavy it is to carry
a whole friendship on one back;
it's dead, lulling weight
digging into your spine,
slowing you down,
hoping you feel better
when it tells you, drunk,
how much you're worth.

I can't do this alone,
I need you to tell me sober that you love me,
or leave my life for a better one.

What kept me sane was knowing that
you were close.
What made me break was knowing that
you never left.

I swear to you,
the unstable heads of the masses are lacking hearts,
and in their places,
the empty, sickening hole,
the spongey, earthy remains of what used to be,
lie hollowed out carcasses of the devil,
next to their sycophants and empty graves.

Swing until the world stops.
You could eat the moon like a piece of cheese
on a *******; although it's dry and choking
you munch through and smile,
hurriedly knotting shoes and off.

Friends in long socks, pink dresses
and school shorts on hot days. Passing
around carrots and milk like kisses.
I kicked the ball into Millie's legs,
she laughed after crying a bit.

We found a magic cave under a rock
where an Ant Queen ruled and subjects
were sent to prison for telling a
best friends secret; (she fancied
Jasper because he had nice eyes- don't tell him)

Shrill ringing of the bell. Moans of anguish;
math and religion next. "Quick!
Sneak under the fence and into the
field next to the school!" Loves me, loves
me not falls onto deaf ears.

Float, float, floating away....

I'm finding it hard to be
anything but myself,
I feel the waves of water lap at my wrists,
the ones where I carve out your name,
I'm sending you a letter,
a resignation of my life.
I want for it to end, but I long for it to live,
I want to sleep and forget you
and everything you do
but the more I wish to sleep,
the more I hear your voice,
and the more I wish to wake,
is the more I wish to drown.
To tumble down below the waves,
and choke to the sound of your voice,
it's muffled.

Your lips taste like you hate me again,
but your hands look comfy in mine.
You said that I smell of the Sunsets on Titan,
and my eyes are like our old VHS tapes.
My smile is like the evening sun,
hitting the patio of your old English home.
That my touch is a whisper,
and my heartbeat is irregular.
It doesn't mean I'm different,
it doesn't mean I'm sober.
Let me li(v)e my life away,
into the arms of our conscience,
don't stay in wait for me,
we won't meet again.

sit and think. very still in that chair.
your feeble hands can almost touch the
memory- if you tried.
that freckled hand. the white bed sheets.
you can almost see her awake in your head.
well after all she is still there.
in memory.
and ash.
in love.
and dreams.
that drop of blood. her white lips.
in the night it's harder. you can see her
in your room- just for a minute.
wrapped in those bed sheets. hospital room.
you can still smell the flowers she held.
those pink lilies. her small hands clutched.
stiff and unloving.
that rigor mortis. those closed eyes.
you can smell her perfume.
it wafts towards you in your dreams.
that vanilla scent. that hint of dirt.
you can almost touch her- if you tried.
sitting still on that chair. thinking hard.
in love she never dies. not even a little bit.
not even at all.

It's at times like these...
when your hair lies in shreds on the ground,
that I have to tell myself that I am useless in this situation
and that there is nothing wrong with being so.
Because
I can't force myself to check in on you every minute,
because I simply cannot trust myself.
How can I save you if every time I see a tear fall down from the heavens,
I stick my neck out onto the tracks,
so I slice in half?
How can I save you, if I would force myself into the blistering heat of an oven,
just to cool down my thoughts?
And yet, even though I scream this at you,
you still expect me to pick up that needle and that thread,
and the outdated burn cream from the cupboard
and fix myself so I can soothe you instead,
ignoring my gashes, my revolting, rotting, diseased mind,
and lie in bed with you,
like lovers in a coffin,
just so you can fill my head with tales of YOUR woe,
like flowers on a deathbed?

And yet, as angry and as frustrated as I get,
I would still unravel my bandages and use as them as a makeshift pillow
for your weary head,
and I smile as you
You to grab the knife you aim at your own heart,
twist it around and stab me,
and even though we fight, and we scratch and I
curse our love,
I still want to save your soul,
even though mine is lighter.
And yet, once again, here I am,
sleeping outside your bedroom door,
in case I hear the thud of a stool being knocked over,
and the silence that follows the hollow dread,
in case I hear the wallpaper peel at the horror it see's,
the scene of my lover,
hanging from a fan by their own hair,
And I know you know that I'm there,
I can feel your presence on the other side of the wood,
I see your shadow under the door,
and as I see you walk away from under the crack,
I, myself, stand up.
Grab a dustpan and brush, and sweep up your broken heart,
and slide it under the door with the plaster that I just used to heal my own throbbing head,
holding the shattered pieces together.

And, after that, I walk away.
Because I'm allowed to rest.
I'm allowed to love myself more than I love you.

Our hearts are too loud to hear the music,
but we dance to our own beat.

I'm telling you,
that if you feel an inkling that they are violent,
they make you scared,
they threaten you,
isolate you,
if they will love you to death
and not the romantic sort of love-you-to-death,
the scary, dark, horror-fueled death,
the one that makes your hair stand on edge when they enter a room sort of death,
leave you walking on egg-shells death,
their voices are glass covered in glitter death,
if they are your father, mother, step-dad, sister, best friend, roommate
anything or more,
leave.

They aren't worth your life.

You forget what it feels like to see an old friend.
Like the one
you keep hidden behind picture frames.
The small, cutouts of their faces,
detached from their bodies
make you respond a certain way.

You remember how they made you feel,

(hopeless, desperate)

How they felt against your skin,

(sharp, sudden, like a knife to the soul)

How they made you weep,

(you were useless under their control)

You forget how much you need them,

(You depend on them for your every move)

You think about them day and night,
they could creep into bed with you,

kiss you,

make you snap awake.

You wear them on your sleeve,
and you hide them under heavy coats,
and thick jumpers.

You forget how the bad you feel,
when you see the marks they leave on your skin,

(the violent, puce lines that tore at your paper)

And yet, you leave their head behind the frame,
because you're not sure you're ready to quit them
just yet...
So you count the days since you last saw them.
Watch as their grips loosen.
Even though you relapse into their arms now and again,
you believe you can become sober in the future.

In the midst of the wreckage,
amongst the embers and the pain,
my signal broken,
my life draining,
the Electric voices,
a message lost in the channels.
'Zero, are you there Zero?'
and I lay.
Lay within the mess, and listen for your voice once more,
my beautiful sacrifice,
my partner in red.

You're crying.