waiting for dust to settle.

i catch myself staring.

i am staring into cupboards that hold the past, onto the vineyards that once breathed passion, i am staring into the hems of these sheets, onto pages that hold a different handwriting to mine, i am staring at the porch that swallows stars during the night and catches the sun, i am staring at these wallpapers that bracketed in photographs, and i see clearly, what memories can do to a human being’s threshold of pain,

when i look in the mirror

and do not recognise

who is staring,

staring back,

that very moment with

eyes placid and dulled,

shoulders pulled and exhausted.

these lines were drawn with 

dotted uncertainty,

the ebb and flow does still push in

too much,

until i bend with its tension.

my mind is its worst enemy,

i have long learnt to stop blaming

external forces and you, him, her, them

for my mind’s own demise.

to the man who 

struck and struck and struck, 

you are not the cause of my fear.

i am the cause of my own fear,

for i took it, and took it, and took it.

so i throw it all back,

i throw it all back in,

like swallowing dirt,

because i tell myself

it is the good that counts.

it is the good that counts.

it is the good that counts.

the big bad wolf will not howl tonight,

the big bad wolf will not howl.

my mind is on fire

as i lie asleep,

amongst the throws of visions.

i have always slept through treacherous times,

which makes it harder to get away

from these wretched mares, that burn

and shrivel my thoughts until

my eyes, my skin and my strength melts.

i wake from these bleak and self concocted spells,

cowering, sweating, weeping.

but spells will wash away, eventually

and i hope the tides will wash me away with them.

quakes

there is no middle ground to when an earthquake hits.
the plates shift,
hurtling through the plains,
a monster with its heavy feet,
destroying years; everything in its way
will be left
inflicted.

those untouched
thank their gods it is not them as they
step back and stare from their safe place
with their piteous sighs and
while some will feel awe at the courage of survivors,
many will feel pain for the loss of
lives.

you are lucky
if you can catch these earthquakes
early enough,
but when it shakes your balance
and throws you off your feet,
you are left 
picking up the pieces and 
rummaging through the debris
searching for every little segment of yourself strewn
amongst the aftermath.

you will learn 
to build yourself back together,
but when you have shattered
like porcelain,
there will always be gaping holes
in your entirety,
that will cast shadows
and also 
let light in.

when you find yourself
fingers deep in dirt
scraping for a piece of you
you cannot lose,
you will almost always,
find other broken pieces
that fit just as well,
and learn to fill yourself again.

the earthquake is swift and unfazed,
the shock that never quite sinks in
until you feel the weight of its aftermath.

but aftermaths, too, will become the past,
and where will you be when that happens?

worldly acts

these breaths are urgent.
my heart is rotten sometimes
seeking life through every beat
but i feel this.

i can feel the panic churning like
ecstasy in the air,
the smell of rain that tastes like shock
and feels like hands grasping at your skin
for affection. 
this breeze is hanging off my spine
whispering sweet nothings
as the sun undresses layers and layers of-

i can feel beautiful
at times like these
as the ground falls away and i fly.

these phallic towers
penetrate into the clouds that move
like muscles in the sky,
and i sigh, watching the world in its
nakedness, becoming one in a single
fleeting moment.

ties that bind us free.

this is always home.

the clouds have sunk beneath me,
beneath these feet that have travelled
along the most dangerous paths
and ran many miles away from the weight they carry;
these feet that have slipped and fallen.

now i am stood, catching my breath,
solitary but never alone.

the skies have stretched beyond my horizons,
and falling down to our world
where everything has an end
are raindrops that hold life that shine
effervescently, so everlasting,
they become the tears that knead their way
from my eyes, into the palm of my shaking hand,
tired from trying, but yearning for more.

this is home, the haven that no disaster can shake,
where i look into the knowing eyes
and remember,
where all was safe.
where all is safe.

sometimes, it is the moments 
often misunderstood at surface level
that is most pure and increasingly
infinite.

though we all stray at points in our lives,
i’d never forgotten this home,
which we left to journey unsheltered,
to experience the world and all its
pains and beauty, to love
to love, to love.

we now know,
as the years grow into our eyes, 
our bones and our calm,
that no matter where we land when we
soar forward,
there is always a key under the doormat
that fits the door that keeps
the home we built together,
for us to let ourselves in again.

this is home.
within ourselves,
is where we find immortal love.

6.18am

these veins once ran dry
and felt the pressure of the world
pushing into spaces too small to bear it.

there are uncertainties in the way
the air smells now
like i have stepped into a
new layer of existence
from the void i had lived.

everything feels blunt within
but sharp like daggers
when everyone looks in.

have you had your daily notion
of living with your eyes sold and used
when all you see are lines 
that never bend
no matter how you try to refract
or reflect?

this weight, it is carried endlessly
like the pull of a tide
expanding and colliding to the shores
that will never hold home to the sea.

i am the fray of loose material
aged with the stretch of wear
the kind that are hastily ripped out
or singed to the edges
unwanted for the part it used to play
in holding something once whole 
together.

these eyelids are heavy
but my mind can’t rest with
the tendencies of being asleep
when the world is awake and 
fervently on fire
the ashes get caught in the wind
like grey snow, falling upon all that was built
and cast out to fall old.

these eyes will never tire
though they feel they have seen it all
and these wounds will grow new skin
and learn with each layer
to abandon hurt

and live again.

wasted electric

the sky is trying to tell me
that the world is ending.

these memories are trying to tell me
that no matter how many different
hats or jumpers you wear or
road trips or shots or lines you
take, no matter how many cups of teas are
drunk cold, no matter how short you
cut your hair, how many kisses
you give a five-year old, no matter
how much jazz you listen to or
songs you write no matter how much
laughter is shared on a watch tower
resting on a London sunset,
you will still break like the pull of a thread
when silence tugs at the very centre
of all this buried pain. it rises to the
surface, scraping under my skin
like cockroaches, and i scratch,
clawing into the layers and layers of
all i have lost with this, finding the point
when i hurt more on the outside
than in.

these shelves wane, like the weight of demise
and i think of my mother and how i stayed awake 
waiting on a call to tell me she will be fine
i think of the words that cut into messages i do not want to read or feel anything for
because i remember the voice and its anger
i think of four weeks ago. 

i tear up the letter thanking me for
telling the doctors that i think i am going insane.
i tear it up because a thank you doesn't make the anxieties go away.
i tear it up because a thank you is not the same as an apology for the two minutes of "i cannot do anything to help you" and "you've dealt with it for years, i'm sure you can find a way to deal with it until we decide if you really are not okay".

the thoughts i hastily wrap to myself draw blood
as they unravel,
and the crack of dawn
is trying to tell me
that it is fine to shut my eyes
even if everything is too bright.

i cannot take away the beauty of it all,
and that is what hurts most,
because it is easier to let go 
of something you no longer bear to face,
but the truth is,
when you have nothing to despise and
a lot more to appreciate over a heartache,
 it is unforgivable and much more is at stake
because grief is simply when you lose something
you cannot bear to stop loving.

the sky is trying to tell me 
that the world is ending.
these memories are telling me
that somewhere in my mind,
it already has.

crumpled

there are paper figures that dance around

and cut my skin, with the way they

eavesdrop and take only half the story

running circles like ants 

i wish i could light a fire

under them until they fall like rain

into a pile of assumptions gone dry

and catch their ashes onto the purpose

they cast out onto the streets

these paper dolls

they hum like witches

they flap like eyelashes 

trying to keep awake

these dancing flakes

they tear

they tear

they tear

where has my peace gone?

this work of art that once grew and grew and grew

all ripped up and caught in the wind

whistling melodies i cannot recognise

paper eyes

all around

open, shut

open, shut

take them off me,

take them out of me.

the saddest eyes in the world.

the world dropped like hail,

the miscalculated momentum sending

horizons askew, breaking

car windows and skin,

she watched every head turn to watch the sunrises 

that never settled in the sky,

she watched everyone forget the moon

and burn like plastic,

falling from the corner of her eyes,

every tear was a corpse that never saw the sunset.

their graves are drawn in red

along the days that hang like washing,

the places that hold her together 

are constantly choked and full of voices

she doesn’t want to talk to.

thunder eyes,

blacker than night,

loud and angry,

sharp like daggers

when they touch their reflections.

there are sighs that linger

under her earlobes 

and inside her cigarettes,

forming within the storm clouds 

that will eventually

break into torrential thoughts,

churning within her entire being.

this mental hurricane,

causing a screaming stir;

she will awaken then,

with sheets that sweat and fists 

whiter than death.

she will awaken then,

but she will still weep.

used canvases.

there is room for more,
here, in these idle hands
that have left home;
these hands have sculpted mountains
but they are tireless, still.

the sound of breathing 
in a dying night
rustles through cracks in the wall;
the bed time stories for the sleepless
drifting into the veins that pushes
the flood of
one thousand two hundred and thirty seven days
spent. 

surrogate eyes,
they lift my burden,
when i choose to look the other way
from overflowing ashtrays
and rain.

confiscate this mind,
that holds no more reservation
for this all-encompassing sorrow.

time trickles from the edge of my thoughts
like honey from a spoon.
every second takes with it, a bit more
until soon, all will be aired
on the clothing line of memories,
and this pain
will dry
like leaves that have reached their summer’s end. 

... but memories.

the skin sheds;

i wanted to keep it

over the chill in my bones

like a paper mache shield

and keep new skin from shaping me

but when you realise you are part of a world that carries on

regardless

you suddenly feel the pull of the wind

fiercer than ever

until you cannot stop the skin

peel like old wallpaper

lifting away like fall petals

waving.

as i feel the chill rise

i am suddenly open and bare

i feel all, raptured by midnight melodies

lingering through the twilight mists

serenading a heart

full of dull ache with healing powers

and I remember the burn of

effervescent passion

when it stings your eyes

i feel the burn clogged within the deep tangles of

my self.

this is an ode to the skinless bones

the leftovers of unnatural disasters

with burning guts and a handful of despair;

carry on

without this stagnancy 

for it is much easier

to move as a part of

everything,

than to be left behind

with nothing…