to keep time

never forget.

the gasp you have gasped

every day since the first,

is because you choose every second

to have lived the myriad of colours that

greeted like the wink of a handsome dawn

all-encompassing and ever-growing;

these colours, which you could only see

in the dreams you kept

and in death, chose you to

choose this exact reason

to invert fate and live

- entirely.

never forget.

that in your lifetime

the skies carry on into your windows to

bring you the limitless flight

within the cracks on the wall that 

divides time and

space so stoically.

never forget.

this gasp that leaves you

one breath less to waste

on the spillage of stolen air

that get caught up in the

grenades that spew from your lips

at your blackest shade

and your spine holds a no man’s land

for the weak.

never forget.

we are not here to encourage

the same pain we chose

in our million lifespans

to leave behind.

never forget.

every drop stained

every note flattened

fills the score

of the symphony

we listen to at the heart of this kaleidoscope

that churns within the palette of life itself.

never forget.

these faces you will learn to 

draw with your eyes closed

over water

under earth

are the faces who will close their eyes

to draw you.

never forget.

that all this rage you feel is the 

kill that finishes that tip of our spears

we send into the unknown to

end the hate before it takes over

this utterly immense universe

creating a planet of solidifying ground

under our feet as we drift through the

impossible timeline of

now.

never, never,

bring the rage home.

never forget all this

that you hold now on the tip of your mind

and the rush of your breath

or else you will only hold the ghost of a memory

and remember the person who borrowed 

your skin and bones

the person you
only just began to forget.

listen.

listen.

listen to your pulse thunder through the shield 

listen to your life dislodge into fast forward 

then see it past you, this pulse that distracts

from the calm that you stoically wrap around your naked being

the paper thin sheen like muscle tissue pulls

at its most tested stretch, the risk of tearing

the risk of 

snapping

uncoiling

unraveling

unraveling

unraveling

unraveling.

listen.

listen to the silence, wait for it to deafen you

wait for it to vacuum you inwards 

spinning like a hurricane that settles for less than a hum

listen to it as it pulls at your pace

as it lingers around the corner

as it shouts

angry and loud

angry and loud

this silence is angry and loud

when you hear it from the outside

because you are always waiting

waiting for it to pass.

listen.

listen to the waves of reality

crash over you

a tidal free fall where you slip into the undertow.

listen.

but don’t stop moving.

the channels they switch off

the phone doesn't ring because i matter today.

the colours don't match from my skin to my shoes;
i am an unwashed palette
murky and lacking form.

my words taste sharp and sound rusty today.

i forget to place my pain into the melodies
that stretch over guitar strings
it begins to seep out in my godforsaken
muttering echoing the demise of an eighty year old woman
who has forgotten her place in the world.
it begins to seep out in the dull of rushed smiles
in the strain of my left shoulder
under the words that remind me day in day out
that there will always be room to become unfamiliar to myself.

words that make the silent screech
words that bring the dead back to life
words that send the monsters scurrying under beds
because they too need shelter from wrath.

the lies that wake with me are not mine to bear today.

they are the lies that belong to the ones who
left us behind, and i am angry
for this ugliness i feel does not sit well with the beauty
we summon so naturally on better days.

it is a sad revelation
of trying to convince an unbelieving world
that in finding you, i felt less defeated
yet the world tries to even defeat
this prize of years and years of self repair.
why
is love so abused?

today has been almost half a year of
an unhinged grief
that swells from the fires
of contorted paranoia
of tampered memories.
i have witnessed enough
to want to not witness it all
but to live it all.

i am not a victim of anything else
but this shameless blame
you fucking cunts.

we do not want this throwaway life
so many live
choked with ungrateful resonance
we do not want this life that hangs heavy
on the slump of my pillows
and the strands of my hair.

the lies had long begun before i was born.

there was never a time or place
before you
when i got the right answers
from the words of another human being
because there will never be an answer
honest to a question that surfaced from within myself
from people who never latched on to collective
consciousness, letting themselves become shells of
collected information.

sometimes
i am the eighty year old woman
and it is always a lesson to be learnt
to never listen to these thoughts
because thoughts never listen to me
they only rant and rant and rant
and rant
and most of the time
they don't even make any fucking sense.

sometimes
i am already dead
sleeping in a paralysis that even stuns you
as you sit by my side
fearing the state of cold blankness
when i open my eyes and do not
see you, for i do not see me

all i see in times like these
is the sheen of hate
that is not ours.

reality does not shift over my fears anymore today
and i do not shift over reality.

it is an ugly lie, fear
and people like us do not give fear that much credit.
when you are neck deep in its pool
and you are kept there with the mere idea of
watching the one you love also struggling for air
because then
no one will even attempt to float over with a lifeboat
this pool full of people too unfazed
to go off the grid that keeps them in line.

i do not want to be kept in line
but why is the alternative to become
deadweight thrust upon cliff shores?
why is it the norm
that though freedom is as priceless as its definition
but always highly contracted
when demand for redemption and imprisonment
is the only other option?
i do not want to be kept in line
but i do not want to be the ones they pick up
from the shores; we are not built for the news
and channels they switch off.

if i want to be unseen,
all i have to do is hide
under the waves
where the waters are calm
where all is dark
deaf and breathless to life beyond the surface.
if we want to be unseen
all we have to do is hide
but
why would we?

the bowing rain

these days are withered and damp

like the dying grass of Northern winters

drowned under the swollen earth

these groundbreaking waters don’t belong here

but they keep falling, falling, falling out of place

piercing into our skin through our pores nerves bones

freezing acid

reminding us that pain will force us

to seek shelter within ourselves.

this dawning year

dormant and unlived

is only just awakening, now

at the grovel of our patience

where the days have held 

the depths of paralysing sleep.

but we shed light 

in the shuddering darkness

for it is the light

that teases shadow play

and we are the good that feeds evil’s

never ending hunger.

fear only thrives in its job

alongside those that are brave enough

to keep its position credited of its worth.

these winds they shake even the strongest pillars

like they shook you 

like they shook me

we are the autumn leaves

dancing frantically until the whistling wind

pauses to catch its breath.

we have grown to memorise

mesmerised

our worldly beings as the map

to solace and away from every blow

this angry life aimlessly throws

because we have been shown

in sleep and in wake

the magic of our ethereal accord

can warm the deepest of chills.

the panic can only contain within the binds

of the pages for so long

before the smoke begins to rise

and the chapters have singed

the pages brown

catching fire for new ink to settle

these unforgiving times

they show us the hues we bathe in

teaches me to dive into the spectrum that grows

from the rainbow’s end where my eyes

open

and i laugh

i laugh at the unforgiving

and take your hand

knowing this time

hell will not remain inside us

because we are the ones

that travel across realms

and break from ties that bind.