I’m malleable
A Chameleon in heart
You can undo me

I'll hug you till you smile out loud

My arms will hold you tight

I'll hold you till your tears dry up

And stay with you through the night

Then when you awake

And it's a brand new day

Your heart is fixed

Nearby I will stay

Just until you really believe

That your heart is pure

And ready to receive

The light awoke gracefully as it gently rose up
so pure, and so beautifully bright from behind the calming blue horizon.
Grand and vast in its presence.
It was a sight to behold, that could heal the darkest of days.

She could feel it from behind as she walked, warming her swollen mind.
And she knew that all she had to do
was to turn
To let go
reach out and let it engulf her.
Saturate.
To enter deep inside her worn out body and wrap itself lovingly, around her torn soul.

She new that in its brilliance, deep within it's warm and loving beams
It could heal her.

But the enduring familiarity of the darkness, was calling to her yet again.
It's voice masked with a calming lure that had for many lives, led to a false feeling of safety within its carnivorous, colossal walls.
An imprisonment that made promises with no intent to commit.

Light has always prevailed over darkness. But when darkness bleeds inside a vessel with a heart and mind as strong as she possessed, light has to work a lifetime harder
Indurate this troublesome being.

Within her shattered trust, she struggles to believe that the light is forceful enough. As darkness rubs its beastly hands, in its vast approaching victory.

Once again she is still
The light willing her to one side, and darkness enticing her to the other.
Heart fighting over mind.
Angels fighting with the fallen. Tears escaping within the struggle.

The battle had commenced.

Heart sinks and smiles

How can it be, that tears can arrive so quickly, that they burst out from you like an explosion from behind coloured glass?

From reading some beautiful words, coming from a heart so deep, that it almost feels they wrote from the very heart that lies heavy, within your very own soul.

How can another being from this same and too often unbearable life, create a page that mirrors yourself all too well?

How can the heart sink and smile simultaneously? As the knowing that you're not alone, warms you in a way that it probably shouldn't.

How can two people live separately, but with the same dark pull, that will almost indefinitely keep them alone?

Trying to understand the 'How' would be insanity itself.
Keep feeling, keep writing, stop pushing it back, and learn to live with it.

Whispering I love you
after I’ve swallowed you down
Your perfect little angel
from the ***** side of town

You cleaned me up
You loved me
You made me feel brand new
We were meant to be together
I was made from a part of you

I’ll never be that girl again
self respect that’s torn away
Because you saved me
Helped me to love myself
And I know you’re here to stay

Long forgotten by everyone
Slumped on the street
They had injected her
Left her contorted
They had made her weak

How dare you judge
knowing nil of her dark past
If you knew
You wouldn't walk by
You'd see behind her vacant mask

Vulnerable and scared
She clung to every lying heart
Older than her years
New to the street
Stranger to the dark

You think you know her
From behind your ignorant desk
Your life an easy ride
You know nothing of her Mr
All she knows is wanting death

If I bare my soul to you, will you still love me?
If you see the scars upon my skin, will you turn away?
If I run from your love, will you give up on me?
If I hide away, will you stop searching for me?
If my heart dissolves, will you turn your back on me?

I bear my soul to help you.
I have scars to provide you the evidence.
I run from you, to save you enduring my sadness.
I hide so that you never seek out my truth.
My heart dissolves, so that yours can stay whole.

I love you
I've never met you
But I love you

I've seen your face in beautiful strangers
I've kissed your lips in my dreams
I've touched your face deep
within my heart

I won't give up on you
Because I long to kiss you
I live for you
I'd die for you
You are my life's work

I won't give my heart
until I can give it to you
And if you don't come
My heart will stay hidden

I am yours

Don't take too long

Did you pray for me
***** knees
Spliff hanging out
Smoke in the breeze

Did you pray for me
Lick the glass clean
Bottle empty
Last night just a dream

Did you pray for me
Old hands upon your skin
Allowing them inside you
Self respect gone from within

Did you pray for me
Rolled twenty in your hand
Powder running low
This wasn't what we'd planned

I prayed for you
Your heart smashed on the floor
The men that were too old
The drugs and your lust for more

I prayed because I love you
And I know you love me too
Deep behind your wounded soul
Life returning back to view

I pray because we are one
We can't survive alone
I pray because you are enough
It's time now, please come home.

My friend insomnia

I know you love me insomnia
I know you get restless if I sleep
I know you hate it when I take a pill
And lie here counting sheep

But I need my body to rest, my dear
And my mind have time to dream
The sleepless nights spent by your side
Leave me angry and wanting to scream

Please my friend let me still my mind
And my sub conscience make sense of my pain
I just want an hour of switching off
Or I feel I may go insane

Inhale-
as your brain consumes itself
Exhale-
as it discards the good

Relax-
as your body resides in the dirt
Be tense-
as your lungs start to flood

Ignore-
as the fight begins to growl
Pay attention-
to the hate you accept

Give in-
to the fact that you’ll never be
Forgive-
all the secrets that you’ve kept

I still believe in me

Even though the bottle pulls me under
And the rolled up twenty sits eagerly awaiting my self-respect to slip on it's own ego
and fall into its self made trap

I still believe in me

Even though my confidence has taken its coat, and gone back down to the pub,
to meet with self doubt,
self esteem
and self hatred
They meet regularly
They are friends for life
For my life

I still believe in me

Even though my heart is buried under a thousand apologies
Caught in a web of tangled misjudged trust
with a master made from hindsight that
laughs whenever I try to escape

I still believe in me

Because despite everything
I'll crawl out of the bottle
I'll rip up the rolled twenty
I'll find self love
cut out and stitch over self doubt, self hatred and self esteem
I'll find my way out of the web
and tell the master that the
good thing about hindsight
is learning from it
That he has no power over me.

I still believe in m

She was beginning her annual  journey; full of hope and excitement, back to what had become her saviour, her second home.
Years she'd spent within Italy's familiar arms, flooding her senses with summers past.

Could it really have been over a year since she last bathed in its beauty?
An entire year since her heart had been snatched away, and hidden behind her walls?

How that time had been good to her, and how strong she had grown.

Someone once told her that self knowledge was only ever accompanied by heartache and pain.
How wrong they had been.
Self knowledge had saved her life.
Self love had brought her back from loneliness.
How can that have been wrong?

Now she'd returned to the welcoming warm breeze, and the streets laced with a beauty that could release the most shackled of hearts.

A country where lovers are found wrapped tightly around one another.
Bound together with love.
Draped over statues from ancient Gods; their limbs intertwined revealing no beginning and no end. Just one heart made whole from two separate souls.

A country where street buses and cars, choreograph their way through the melody that the sunshine orchestrates.

A humidity that brings with it a yearning she hasn't felt in a million kisses. Her Senses re-awakened, a longing to be touched.
Finally freed from her self made cage.

She finds interest and delight in every withered portrait, and in the faces of every chess game, within the laziness its players boastfully adopt.

She soaks up the sticky sweet aroma like a honey bee to the morning dew.
And she is at home.

As night falls, the crickets gently rock her to sleep as she drifts away, into tomorrow's dreams of the awaiting breath taking sights and cuisines.

She falls deep into her bed.
Italy has her in its trusting arms.

She is at peace once again.

Take out my bones and replace with lead

Strap me down on an iron bed

Wire me up
To the highest volt

Smell my flesh burn
I was born to revolt

I wish

I wished for you when I was 5
And you came to me
You were still alive

I wished for you when I was 7
I missed you deep
But you'd gone to heaven

I wished for you when i turned 18
I had lost control
Didn't know where I'd been

I wished for you when I turned 25
When I'd jumped to end things
But remained alive

I wished for you when I was 28
And I was in love
I thought it was fate

I wished for you when my heart fell out
Smashed on the floor
I couldn't search you out

I wished for you in my 30th year
So lost and alone
Feeling nothing but fear

I wished for you but I'd lost control
Too many drugs
My life a lost soul

I wish for you now but I know you won't come
My life is my fault
What is done is done

I write to create a world where I belong.
I write to feel at peace within my surroundings.
I write to provide a safe space between my heart and my mind.
I write so that I don't judge.
I write so that I learn.
I write because knowledge makes me feel safe.
I write because to write, I have to read...... A LOT!
I write to calm the daily anxiety-
I write to calm the bouts of unbearable anxiety.
I write to my depression.
I write so that I can climb inside my own universe and lose myself in my imagination.
I write because my heart would surely break if I didn't.
I write not for you to read, but for me to purge.

I write because the child within me, demands that I stay true to myself.
I write because it's the only form of art that lifts me up, that quietens my hyper sensitivity and unpredictable mind.

I write because if I don't release my thoughts, they'll turn inward and manifest into black.
I write because words are powerful.
I write because it's my life and my choice.
I write because to not write, would mean to lie to my soul
I write for solitude, for happiness, for gratitude.
I write to belong
I write for love.
I write to save me from myself.
I write to protect myself from my most damaging enemy, my fear....
I write because it's my only way through to the other side.
But mostly I write, because it simply makes me happy....

Keep moving

Pack my life into boxes
        Laying down roots
Breeds friendships
        This I must avoid

Keep moving

They won't understand me
        For I am not normal
They will leave me
        And I'll return to aloneness

Keep moving

Then will come the tears
         Better to stay hidden
Allow hurt no chance
         To penetrate my bones
        
Keep moving

Kerosene and the Devil

I would drink up all the kerosene
Until my veins ran sick
and burn to ash from within my lungs
Of which your fire had lit

.....For one more hour with you

I would lacerate my mind
have the devil gobble it whole
Pointless having a mind
when I want to forget
the heart you stole

......After my last hour with you

My broken heart that saved my life....

I've learnt to love my broken heart with every atom of my being.
It has become my best friend.
It has been with me since my childhood and become my only constant, my only go to, my only place tucked away for only me to feel.

It enabled my quiet side, my deep, unwavering pensive and wounded side.
A side, that without it, would never have lead me along my life path. Collecting tools along the way that now prove so valuable, that I know the best is still to come.

It broke me into a thousand pieces, sliced me up and left scars so deep that I had no choice but to embrace it, snuggle it up and with my soul for guidance, quieten a pain so powerful, that it had manifested in a long term physical disease. But this dis-ease, I have recently learnt to live with and slowly reduce, day by day.

A dis-ease that I feared would define me, wrap itself around me so tightly, that I would splutter and choke and surely die.

This disease has, unbeknown to me, regularly pushed me to my limits.
It has tested my strength and my power until I'm exhausted and heavy with darkness.
A disease that boasts anxiety, addiction, extreme constant pain and popping joints and limbs. Fatigue, dyslexia, dyspraxia, brain fog, and depression, plus an entire resume, full of equally delightful ailments.

But I am a fighter. I am strong. And I can beat it.

Me and my broken heart have teamed up once again.
But this time we are knowledgeable, we have gifts and we are brave beyond my wildest dreams.
We are compassionate, we are loving. We have matured. And we are on our way to helping heal the world. Starting from within.

I have a fire in my heart that will never permit me to give up. It is what keeps me from deep waters, deeper pockets and heavy stones.

There is a white light that fills every inch of my mind and body at any time I need it. I could drown happy in its warmth.
Each morning and evening I soak up this light, and I am still.

I am the luckiest person I know. Because I won’t let life beat me.

Love is the answer!

What do you think the clown would say
When you took his frown, and wore it your way

What do you think he’d do if he knew
That his sadness was the mirror
Image of you

What would he say when you stole his suit
Knowing you could be a perfect  substitute

What would happen if you both became one
Shadows like twins
The darkness had won

What if you both
could change your lives
And live in reality
No need for the disguise

I think you’d be happy
Reflection a smile
Make up vanished
It’s been a long while

Passing by
one by one
in opposite directions
never touching
barely looking

Then there are the ones that
none pass by
They might stop
Upset the rhythm
Hoping for a glance
A smile

Some go in the same direction
Side by side
Sometimes different speeds
But always within sight
Until their destination
Separates
Changes path

I was happy, way up high.                    
I was safe, in another land.
It was blissful, when I didn't see.
I was calm, when I turned away.         It was fun, when I was ignorant.

I became scared, when I came down.
I felt Worried, when I returned.
I was lost, when I hit the ground.
I was in pain, when reality set.
I was empty, without my insanity.

How does one live, with the boredom?
How does one cope, with the pain?
How does one find their home, with no memory?
How does one smile, when the view is unchanged?

Tell me please, without my little helpers, how do I find myself, in this world?

Cut off my arms and legs
**** out my brain
seems all I'm ever wanted for
Lies in my middle frame

There is one at each end
Both open to be filled
That's all they ever wanted
The rest of me they killed

Living demons

I read you
over
and over
and over
again
I read you so violently
.....so vividly
You are viscous
Vile
Venomous

Raging red mist
Clouds my vision
Your viscidity allures my fury

....and I would **** you

....I would not stop

Fingertips of razor blades
Knuckles to the bone
Spitting tears
Mouth foaming
Veins protruding with every single
Stab

.....And I would **** you

......I would not stop

Infiltrated by evil
Life for a life
Death hath no fury for what I will commit
......I'm already dead

......And I would **** you

.......I would not stop

And after....,
I would light up a smoke
And finally breathe from the heart you broke.....

I killed you .....

And I did not stop....

Today she wrapped her arms around her fear, and she thanked it

Yesterday, as she lay in bed, and during a new meditation she'd found, she was reminded of her fear.
This fear, is of not being good enough for people to love.

She craves for love, like many of us do.
A lost but familiar drug.
It haunts her, yet she is unable to fully accept it when it appears.

To the outside, all looks great.
She has a new man, or a new friend.
And immediately, crashing waves of love, she hurls at these people.

She pushes them way up high, and fills them with pressure.
The pressure of healing her.
Of gathering up her pieces and gluing her together with their love.

There is a pattern. It's rooted as deep as the memories of an old spirited tree. A tree rooted over too many years. Struggling to stand with the knowledge embedded within itself.

Then once again, she meets someone. And she falls in love ❤️

Her ego dances with joy. Her heart somersaults in ecstasy.
Her fear is gone? Or so she feels. And all in her magic kingdom is beautiful again.
The grey walls of her life are a dazzling bright white. And she is free.
This person she then fills with her desperate love, her hopes and dreams, and her need to quieten the fear, until they can't breathe, bursting at their seams.

This 'filling up' of people, wears them down. The relationship rips at the edges. She senses this and her fear applies more pressure within this filling up.
The torn seams become gaping black holes.
And she has lost.

The pattern needs to be broken.
The fear wants her to hear it, to take notice. And so it sends her love after love followed by rejection after rejection.
Until she hears it banging on her soul.

So she is teaching herself to love this fear. To read it as an old book and to learn from its pages.
As each time her heart is broken, rejected. It is fear teaching her that she doesn't yet love herself fully.

The heartache is there to remind her that there is still much work to be done.
That there has to be this darkness, to let the light in.
That trying to hide from the pain, resenting it, or getting angry with it. Does not serve her.

She will have love; she will find her magic and she will let in the light.

Today she wrapped her arms around her fear, and she thanked it.

Love is the answer ❤

Living in a flat
Above the old print house
Lived old Madame Jelly
And her cat
Whose name was Mouse

No knocks on her door
No mail through her box
Her calendar was empty
Like the holes in her socks

She knitted tiny clothes
For the mice under her bed
And wrote funny books
From the pictures in her head

The children on her street
Thought her a witch of brilliant white
But no-one ever saw her
She was always out of sight

People left her gifts
Of wool and such delights
She'd send the mice to fetch them
In the darkness of the night

It is said if you saw her
And looked into her eyes
That she'd cure your broken heart
Legend says
She's of the wise

But I saw her once
As she looked up to the skies
And when she saw me
She winked
Then turned into butterflies

Some mysteries should be unsolved
Some stories, remain unheard
But I'll never forget the day
Her butterflies became a bird 🦋

Man and his shoes

There is a man
At the water's edge
He glares savagely
Eyes raging
At the horizon

Unable to steady himself, his mind
Angry at his life
At his world
He spits virulent nonsense at the waves...
But they provide no relief

He hopes each cry will disperse
Each drop of venomous saliva will
wash away with the tide
He is infected with bitterness, but
a hundred moons and a thousand oceans couldn't save his retched soul

There are many watching, wondering, but he stands
alone
Only the gulls surround him
Waiting to feed from his bones
He's redolent of despair
And they smell his desperate heart

As he rocks his upper body
Back and forth, back and forth
The waves greet him mockingly
And swallow his shoes

Another night in
Another night alone
Watching MAS*H 4077
Writing poems on my phone

I wonder which episode is next
off by heart I know every one
Sobriety trying it's best to convince
That I'm sitting here having fun

So if you're going out to a pub or a bar
Please raise a glass for me
I'll stay home and mime the words
Admire my tan from my glowing TV

Hot sweaty nights
Half a life gone by
Second semester
Just wanting to cry

Happy to anger
In 0 to 10 seconds
Want to control it
And kick someone’s head in

Skin filling with lines
Showing up all flaws
Weight out of control
I hate you menopause

Menopause taboo...

And this time of life for me
An invasion of body
Of soul and of mind
Has stripped me of my Identity
It has been cruel, unjust
and unkind

Retreating into myself
seems the only chance
of survival
Wearing a smile  
plastered on as a clown
Since this torturous arrival

I find it hard not being alone
Never really feeling at peace
My voice seeping under the stones
I'm anxious of my heart
My decisions
As nightmares of
great tsunamis
invade what little sleep
I seek

The shame and guilt
Hold onto me
Like old familiar friends
Fear, pain, anxiety
Those who have preceded me
And those yet to arrive
Don't seem to comprehend

And all this just from loneliness
That no one understands
The symptoms that walk beside
of it
Brushed away like grains of sand

A privileged life I've led
Which silences me to not
complain
So I write at 3am
For fear I might go insane

Mocha skin man

Move over
come closer
my mocha skin man
Kiss my lips
Kiss them harder
My mocha skin man
Touch my face
Touch it sweeter
My mocha skin man
Stroke my thigh
Stroke it higher
My mocha skin man
Hold me close
Holder me dearer
My mocha skin man
Love me deeply
Love me stronger
My mocha skin man

I can’t wait any longer
My mocha skin man
But I will wait
forever
My mocha skin man

My friend who broke my heart

I told you my darkest secret
Because I trusted you
Because I loved you
You were the only friend
Who got me
understood me

Yet you threw me away
Like so many before you
There is a reason that I'm a loner
And that reason is for fear
Fear of not being good enough
Normal enough
sane enough
For people to keep around them

I never felt this fear with you
With you I felt safe
I felt good enough
I felt calm around you
I made you my best friend
Maybe that is what frightened you
And made you run away

My heart needs nothing but you, my love
My dreams of castles and fairytales are no more
For you fill my head completely, my love
You are my fairytale
and my castle forever more

My soul no longer searches for its mate, my love
For it now resides within your soul
My fear no longer engulfs me, my love
For you’ve replaced it with a love I’ve never before known

I would die without your love, my love
My mended heart would shatter
and wilt
You are the glue that keeps me whole, my love
My broken life you have beautifully rebuilt

I yearn and ache for the day, my love
When you ask for my hand for life
There is nothing I was born for more, my love
than growing old as your faithful wife

In the dead of the night
When there's no one around
Nothing clanking
Or making a sound

That's when the night pains
Begin to creep in
Tortured bones
Aching in skin

Diazepam and codeine
Bring no relief
My sleep is stolen
By the pain giver theif

These are the things
That others don't see
I just want my life back
I just want to be me

Ladies and gentlemen,

That person that didn't want you, love you, pick you for their love, for their life. For what ever reason.
That person doesn't deserve you.

Those texts you send when you shouldn't, but you're drunk and your boundaries have slipped.
They are not the real you.
The strong you.
Don't send them.

Looking at photos of their new love. The one that they picked instead of you.
That's not going to help you.

Those poems you wrote them. Stop!
Save your beautiful words. Don't waste them on someone who reads them but doesn't feel them.

Don't feed someone's ego, and destroy your self respect in the process.

That ocean of tears you cried, over someone that wouldn't even catch one tear for you.
No more.
Save your tears for those who deserve your love.

This self destructiveness, isn't you!
This never has been you.
Miss guided passion.
The drinking, the texts the phone calls.
The modern day problems of blocking and unblocking of numbers and Facebook profiles.

This isn't life. This isn't living.

This is wasting precious time.

I know it's hard. I know your heart is heavy with the cracks it now must endure.
But time can stitch over the cracks and pull the pieces of your heart back together.
Trust me. I've done it.

Surround yourself with your own love.

Hibernate, metamorphose, lick your wounds.
Heal yourself.
Take as long as you need.

It's not easy for us sensitive souls. But it can be done. Overcome.

Learn, be brave.
Then Love again.

Cradled inside the affectionate arms of Sicily’s warm hearted streets, the November sunshine takes pity on her, nestles in and resides within her worn out body.
Eyes closed and face turned towards the light; she imagines herself as a sunflower, grounded, rooted, dependent on the sunshine for any movement.
She sits outside the gates of the Teatro Massimo and listens as the sounds of the deserted streets from the early morning, gently begin to swell with the eagerness of tourists and local students alike.

Her carelessly chosen cafe is nonchalant in character, and sets the theme for the day ahead.
She has nowhere to be, and no one to be nowhere with. She is as set in her unplanned ways, as the sun will eventually set into the sea.

She sits down by the harbour... the gentleness of the sea calms her swollen mind.
How she’d give up her soul to sail away and discover the inviting coastline.
But she couldn’t even navigate her own thoughts, even out here, where she feels at home, her mind is as unsettled as a compass that has fallen for a magnet, pulling in every direction but never actually leaving. Lost in science, but bound by love.
Too soon the evening sky dresses in her finest and she is draped within fine silks and the days newly found darkness

Nighttime falls all too quickly as the singing of the locals chatter begins to fade, and the sunshine pulls over the shades, she settles herself into the evenings cool breeze and forgets that soon it’ll be time to return back to her mundane life.

The sun still rises
And the flowers still bloom
As paper angels fly
above me
in my room

Life goes on
And good times end
too soon
As paper angels fly
above me
in my room

The sea still rises
And sleeps with the moon
As paper angels fly
above me
in my room

I still sit here
And hope the tears dry up soon
As paper angels fly
above me
in my room

Photo of Leonard

I stare and watch your face
as it contemplates
your smile
You are but a photograph
Yet my heart still feels you

After the lense had shut
and the negative lay still
unborn
I wonder if you were
there
how I see you
here
now