ich hatte genug.

 

there are days like these

grey like ashtray.

no words to explain the complete

dullness of my brain

except the weather pallette these walls keep out.

physically bound and mentally pasted in a world that knows

no other

one that forgets inner warmth 

and bare feet on hot earth.

these placid walls, they echo of me.

i built these walls without a thought,

merely memories that i try to bury into the

cement that holds uneven brickwork.

i was never good at construction

in my years of self destruction.

when i was 16, my heart skipped a beat

and my pulse fell out of time

i guess my life stuttered, shuttered, sputtered

like ket.amine. like clogged fuel tanks.

there are no reasons for feeling like this

so the medical forms remain blank.

the system tires me with its lack of love.

how can we live in harmony

in a discordant system that needs your

full name, date of birth, permanent address

to say you exist - maybe, not even;

all these things they need to know

but no one really knows

who you really are and how you like your cup of tea.

——

people jump in front of trains these days

and the world still turns around the Jubilee and Circle lines.

people who can afford do not give change to homeless old ladies;

people hid behind masks 

long before this sickness, already sick.

i travel miles and learn nothing from these

suits and sullen faces

these police bills and letters of eviction

i learn nothing from the ungiving that reign our every breath.

these days

the air tastes like metal.

i get drunk sometimes

to numb this knowledge.

it doesn’t help.

we dance but nobody dances with us

anymore

the beat echoes into the night

as tired as i am.

every cigarette i smoke begins to bore me

and i cannot find any meaning in what i do sometimes

and hope that i can find meaning in the things i do

for others.

people are scared of a virus

smaller than the virus we already are

we forget purpose;

it is a curse, the new age order.

——

the dog sits on my pain

wanting it to stop.

my fused wires are sparking

the cats sit on those like sponges

trying to put them out.

they try to tell me it is that easy to heal

maybe i just don’t let life be that simple

and remember that i was born with two legs not four,

unfortunately.

this poem is filled with lines i write

without direction

but i just have nothing to send on its way.

——

i break promises with every

line every swig

every prohibited high.

i am always on a prohibited high.

if i’d done things better

it wouldn’t need to be self-prohibited

but instead against my firm decisions.

sometimes it is funny to be alive like this

but it isn’t far from being dead

i always had a dark sense of humour.

the indifference does not scare me

but sometimes i end up the only one laughing.

sometimes i hate having lived past suicide.

the second chance was neccessary

but it can be a burden too heavy

to wear on my skin

and my eyes are tired from watching the world

with these undead eyes.

i wouldn’t trade my world for any else,

but sometimes it feels

like i breathe less air

less life

i lead less purpose.

people care about things that give them substance

where i get none.

i am addicted to how shit i feel

i always have been,

listening to joy division and la dispute

for sheer shits and giggles

my heartbeat is all over the place and i think i have

to live with this

a sidedish of a carwreck hit of cocaine just because.

i get angry with what i choose

and i am living in sin

purely because i decide to.

i am angrier than i love

denying how much love i can feel if 

i let it in.

it only makes sense

that i have always made mistakes

selfish pain,

fucking typical.

i try to write like i once did

kidding myself that i can live in the present

on the script of a rewrite.

the darkness is different now

it is no longer bottomless and more peripheral.

it is in the lingering hangovers and

things i have not done

it lives in the moments i do not love

the darkness is no longer

all-encompassing but within

i feed it without resistance, and 

this scares me.

it is in the nights i lie awake 

listening to the washing machine giving up

screaming in my head so loud 

the cats hear it.

i drink more

wanting this to stop

i have problems i do not face

everyone around me seems okay

so i accept that i have nothing to change.

hitler pandemics

masked realities.

everyone around me seems okay with this

but i am not.

holocaust stupidity

news of afghanistan like ten years ago on repeat

everyone says it is terrible

sitting before their televisions

saying there will be a revolution

that will never happen

because sitting before televisions

will never start riots that gives

the new police bill a run for.

apparently my friend died from this virus

but his death statistic is the real virus

i do not believe his death is justified

and his life will not be remembered,

only his death stamped and sealed and sent off to the government

as another tragic pandemic victim.

fucking cunts.

the world that has given in to this manipulation

will never recover from this virus

nor ever be immune

the world now spins on a web of oppresion

that will only grow further

than the punks have stopped it.

you will be wrong for not believing

you will be wrong for having your own mind

you will be wrong.

we are wrong now, for this world.

the world was for us now the world is for them

and we do not fit anymore in its pockets.

pockets of love, with gaping holes.

i guess we have to learn to teach love

on a needle and thread

badges and patches

music and mushrooms.

i believe my submission to love

is the biggest dominance.

——

my poems were never high

they were sober, drunk, never high

low as the deepest parts of the ocean

maybe pain does disappear

maybe it doesn’t

i haven’t quite figured that out yet.

i learnt to smile when i hurt the most and now i hurt less

but i rarely smile

and it all seems random

pain is random, i suppose

but so very, very there.

sometimes i think i have cured myself

and this is all an act

but acts do not leave you sweating in bed

and screaming inside when all is quiet.

thinking about myself

 this dent remains on the curvature of my mind.

it forms now

like cracked marble

like dinorwig after a storm

the winds stop changing direction now

the winds just blow fiercely now

it is the first time since a long time

that i have fallen asleep in freefall

down this bottomless pit.

i am bored of pain

again.

she looks at me

from the parquet floor where her decisions

lay in brushstrokes of blood

my sixteen year old dying self

and she asks

if i can live with myself?

so i stare

through her skin and emptying vessels

grabbing her legally bound thoughts

and i scream

yes i fucking can,

but can you?

resurface.

there are no days to waste now

as the stones plummet from the cliffhanger

i have amounted to

i am close to gravity again

this freefall is the quick way for

hearts to stop

but

these things were not meant to happen.

the sky was not meant to churn its clouds so freely

over my head when there is

dry static in my mouth and the words evaporate before they leave my lips

striking back down, sharp and fierce

white flash.

these things were not meant to happen

i was not meant to learn through love

that it was something i lack

not because my love is always out of my hands

but because love was never mine to keep at all

—

realised my place in the folds of time

making do with the days i was unexpectedly

given to live,

days too young, days too old

to be timeless is really not

some kind of precious

i once thought it was,

in understanding you, i can

understand what is precious is timeless action

not timeless being.

immortality does not fit in this

unsmiling world, still and ungiving.

the world can only learn to smile

through our infinite perpetual motions

we leave behind.

—

come clean.

there is no dirt under her fingernails tonight

only the edges carved from the words that now

lash out at spaces where the only truth

left to draw is the blood that flows within the spaces

where unwanted anchors have lifted.

i lunge forward from the weightless impact

forgetting gravity in this moment

when i touch the love i left buried under the debris

of this little mess that had built around us over time

i cannot walk over this little mess

a little universe i can no longer abandon to

non-existence for it is not mine

to leave behind

what remains in place

but what i can carry i will take from it

to coexist with the worlds i never intended to build

in my lifetime.

—

this is the deadweight of

the tears that never reached the surface

this is how it feels to be struck

stinging and choked, so far from the fresh air

that rushed from our earthly strains

when we understand how fiercely

we can choose to love

the only war here

is the stand we hold

against the currents that divide

the universe that moulded itself

together for our existence

hastily trying to pull us into

the drowning sea of misdirection

i once realised that there is no secret to the formula of i,

or you

therefore does not become more impossible

if we are many

it does not make me a better person

to know your pain and where it hides

and will not teach me to love more than i already could

and will not make me more of an honest being

it will not heal the wounds dug out for your

safe keeping

for those wounds have healed and hardened

i only have to realise this

like i did once.

knowing how it feels to be you

doesn’t make it better

but choosing to ignore it

can only make it worse

i made a promise

and this is simply to not become

like the rest of the faceless world

x

when hope starts to sing along to your pain

oh how i tremble

oh how i tremble when i see my own familiar face
in the distance and i still find it hard to just grab hold

to just grab hold and reach for it.

i am standing at the cliff edge,
one that is big enough for
all the rest
this same cliff i once congratulated as a child for eating whole
snow white's queen
this is the cliff edge
the one with the strongest earth
because it can hold the masses at the tip of its finger

i never wanted to be here
but i'm here.
i'm here paying dull ache for falling
i fell for it, for fuck's sake
i fell for it, the convenience to not stick out
and stand there in numbers
growing numb
without any purpose;
to stand there and not have
the guts to even jump down
and somehow i am upset by this, but not because of the lack of movement

but actually because i cannot say anymore
yes i would do it again

just like that.

nothing can
further shame me from myself
i still blush at the way they look at me
eyes when they don't see i know they all are watching. i will not give up life
for isolation, it is as simple as that.

i can say my poems will
never be as cutthroat as they were before
but those words took a big part of my not many lives
and the words bled me out to
get out
now i can heal?

and on top of everything else, the way the world becomes so claustrophobic
because it is just you
getting sick of yourself
watching everyone
too busy getting sick of your 'condition' to realise you dont want any part of it
a second into the conscious next moment because
the eternal time to spend in that abyssmal black freefall
is actually piss boring to fuck, OH GOD PLEASE DON'T PUT ANYONE ELSE THERE FOR A WHILE!

Can everyone please listen to my plea.

she is behind me
she walks a lot alone now
that is how i lost her,
when the winds ripped her out of me because she had had enough
of the cold slaps
over and over
and my ribs could't take it so she
just stepped out

because of the wind,
that was how i am.

she is behind me
now
she is behind me, she is calling
my  name and she is crying.

she is crying for my return.

come on home
it's not the best of places,
remember how the curtains never shut
but remember all the colours?
it's not the best of places, i know,
but here is where you can salvage your hope;
that one that remains forsaken.

here is where you harnessed your weaknesses
to turn them into the strength you wanted it to be
when it best suited.
here is where you created your purpose,
remember.
remember hard, don't go on,
don't jump over the edge; we already know how it feels
we don't need this again
don't jump over the edge but stop
standing still; turn around

it is not going backwards if you are facing
your right way round

the vessels for your soul
are holding on for the dear life you have chosen
so why don't you
hold on for dear life too, because
it cannot survive a second time.

because the people may tell me
to save a life and a soul on the streets, like
it really would mean anything
because they could be doing what they ask you for, too.

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.

fire in the sky

our grip is firm and unshaking
bearing familiar life,
like the roots that dig far beneath
the tundra of the earth,
searching through dark clumps of dirt
for permanent life matter
that will allow for the growth of the
strongest,
most upright tree.

your worn eyes, burning ever so bright
like fire in the sky,
they reach into me with such
strength,
and a purity so delicate even
Evil will not comprehend it enough
to pull it down from you.

i see my other self when i look in,
and i understand every unspoken word
that gets caught in the fray of
your breath when we are
wholly and all-encompassingly
mesmerised.

there is no pedestal, 
there is only balance, 
for finally, our hearts are
as free as they are full.
the holes roughly dug up and abandoned
are now wide open no longer despaired
nor vulnerable,
as they at last, learn to
let light in.