rats, bloody rats.

these scurrying bastards,
foraging deep inside the guts of my mind
where the pillars still stand strong in their places
whilst their marble tiles crumble,
stripping the surfaces and unveiling underlying structures
that built this mind fortress.

this is where the weak lay to rest
in silent wonderment
and lies find themselves tucked into the cracks on the wall.

this is no safe haven
this is no hiding place
merely a temporary refuge
where you either accept that the world is deteriorating around you
or carry on lying to your sweet, naive self
because everyone is a self obsessed cunt like you
taking everything for granted.

everything is creaking
like the doorknobs that hang tired and abused from their hinges
leaving doors ajar that breathe in their frames
and lead to fucking nowhere at all,
so don't be fooled, my friend, because this
is not a strategy game, this is not a puzzle,
whatever you choose
will always take you
back to you.

judgment day in cups of tea
swallow it all, for when your lips are dried and cracking
from this coarse reality,
nothing will quench this undying thirst,
life as you know it will become a mere mirage
of truths, truths, truths never
to be realised, only to be dreamt upon.

these purple days and satin nights
they give me visions that glow like cheap lampshades
though it is my mind that suffers
this is the best place to get lost in;
these crumbling pillars, they hold my sanity
like a prisoner
like a foreigner.

--

i feel like crumpled paper
watching the days pass through my pupils like
blinds blocking out the sunlight
as these fingers tremble like leaves
in the passing of unforgiving winds

i align myself to the rhythm of old washing machines
and heavy music, segmenting
the little trails of what is left of me on different corners
for cobwebs to build defense over
until the day comes where i will pick up the
shattered pieces like breadcrumbs
and put myself together again

--

this is an unbearable time
everything is rushed and raucous
the words fall like rain
on the fray of conversations left unfinished.
the bitter cold
meets my fingertips
clogging my breath and piercing my lungs,
it is the cold of misery, haunting
but endearing, like the ghosts of loneliness
seeking comfort in your peripherals, like a witch on fire
casting spells to fend off her agony of an honest existence.
scream aloud, scream aloud, scream until
your voice breaks into a million discordant notes
that rings out to the dissonance of
an uncouth rage.

everything stalls at once
these are the moments you hear something
break
in the distance
so i keep going, keep going
keep going
run fast, and run out of breath.

--

the lights are flickering a dreadful fluorescent,
this is the color of a blind man's soul,
playing mind games and eye illusions that keep the world at
a double vision.

the demons lurk in the shadows you  build for yourself,
the demons, they lurk and smirk, and dance around the sleep you learn to abort,
giving birth to night and shadow puppets that
tell stories of your impending death
egging you on to play
to play.
my friend, succumb to this,
for pain is so much easier to understand than
a full and flourishing
hope,
hope is for the weak
hope is for the weak
hope is for the weak.

wake up, shake up - rape yourself
and become the bastard child of your own
mind's abandonment.

--

these guts ache.
they ache like the end of the world,
they form beautiful disasters in the sky
of a catastrophic mind that survives through
the sufferance of others.

the sudden crash,
i ask you, what is it worth?
this twist of a story that ends almost always
in imminent damage.

light refracts into the pores of my skin,
pinching at veins that feeds out a dead crimson hue,
everything tastes like iron and stale bread,
casting shadows on the spine of every matter,
these shock and awe exhibits
they scare, they intimidate, folding into the corners
of this origami perspective

these scurrying bastards
knew exactly how to pick up
from where they left off.

i stare at the damage
laughing, crying, screaming
and immediately become the witness
the victim
the perpetrator, and realise my statement alone
is enough to put me away for life
but it is times like these when it is clear
that is is easier to take the blame
for all the wrath the world has to offer
than to keep running.

noises

sometimes i am sick of talking to you

and you and you and him and her and them and us. 

there is a language that lives within silence

communicating so much more

as it takes the wheel and steers me in directions

i cannot find on the tip of my tongue.

i can feel it in the distance

growing and breathing in the corner

where i place unwanted objects 

under the blindspots and shadows

it is watching my every move

in sheer mockery.

waiting.

it is waiting for the moment i do not need it most

to plunge back into my life

foraging through the thoughts i have left untouched

throwing them all towards my direction

like unfinished duties left like unwashed clothes

at my feet

forcing me to look at all the things 

that are wrong with me right now.

it is waiting to laugh in my face.

this language is brutal in its honesty

but i have learnt the art of conning the truth before.

this dirty, dirty contraption of heavy, crass pockets

filled with nonsensical thought-process

will one day dribble unto the forefront of my sight

until it is all i can see

and i become blinded 

once more

by a ruthless mind that does not forgive.

these unbecoming noises

they wake me up

they always wake me up

with their anguish and chaotic brilliance

urging me

they want me to respond

they want me to hear it all

to sift through the layers of a sickening black

until i am no longer myself

but an actor playing out the script of a twisted

addictive mind with nothing better to do 

than to infect its darkness

upon the lightest of shades.

but i have learnt the language of neglect

thundering through these waking days

where slumber is tucked into cracks for spiders to 

make home

and everything will taste like wine and tea for a while

as i stare into skies searching for moments the ground cannot give me

whilst this heavy mind screams its unnerving notes

its song for the restless

its song for the wicked.

everything rippled.

this is fucking bullshit. they warned me that this will come, but people are not aware that this is a constant stream of white noise. there is no good enough reason for me to feel like this, but i do anyway. i am unhealthily stubborn. deep down, every inch of my being is addicted to the mental abyss of fucked up thoughts and suffocating truths we just want to neglect and neglect and neglect, as we sink into the pit of distractions, distractions, distractions. i am going crazy and it is so fucking obvious but everyone just doesn’t have a fucking clue, and that is my fault, that is my fault because i make it look so fucking easy to handle the broken pieces of constant bullshit with care. i make it look like i am capable of holding the weight of every fucking problem and everything that is wrong with the world, i make it look normal enough because i do not want people standing around me with arms at the ready in case i fall, i don’t want people to feel the way i do, so i make it look like i am strong, when i am nothing but a liar who gets away with her wired state and constant fatigue. but i am not capable. i am not capable of holding even my own problems, therefore i am not capable of holding your problems, his problems, her problems, their problems, everyone’s fucking problems. i hear these words, familiar words, familiar feelings, everywhere, everyday, people trying so desperately to make this depression their own, when in reality, we all share the same fucking issues, we are all potential patients, we are all fuck ups. it never gets easier, it never gets better, and that’s just the fact. stop being so weak. stop being so frail. stop being so trusting. stop blaming, stop pointing fingers, stop being dramatic, stop judging, stop believing your own bullshit, stop challenging people you care about because they will never appreciate it, words fall as easy as rain, worth so little they aren’t even worth listening to anymore, because people will always choose their self pity over self reflection, because we are all time wasters, because we are all pretentious, because everything alive will die eventually, because some days, everything is a fucking lie.

i cannot decide if this is bearable. i cannot decide if this is acceptable. this limbo is killing me. this limbo is killing me. i don’t want to be here, right now, feeling wrong and unparalleled. i cannot breathe, i want to rip my skin off and hang them to dry and i want to dissolve, i want to dissolve into the air and sink into the floorboards, crawl up the walls, seep through the windows, i want to fucking vanish. i want to fucking vanish. i want to fucking vanish like airplanes and children and lighters and people you love. i want my mind to fucking die.

i don’t want to exist in your world. i don’t want to exist in anyone else’s world anymore.

forge

these lips
bitten and bloodied
from frustration
hold the words of ache
that leave my mouth dry
coloured in wine as they 
bracket over cigarettes 
suffocating pleasure
moving silently
screaming words 
cutting through my mind
these arms these legs
scarred and tired
from the tugging 
the pushing and pulling and prying away
of everything trying to crush inwards
like the dark that 
curtains keep in
loud and forceful
these thoughts 
rape my mind
feeding my own poison
to the worst of my being
until all is heavy
bruised like 
these knuckles
this feigned happiness
always an easy disguise
they will believe 
the weight of a laughter
over the waves of tears
turned away
these eyes
squinted and sorrowful
they shine for 
nobody
they shine for 
nothing
anymore

"seems like a relapse", she said.

my guts churn like they want out.

it would be such a sight
to sever every limb from bone
and pull it all out for a better look.
perhaps then i can find out the colour
of my mind, for there is clearly poison
seeping through it and i would like to 
get to know this little sneak a little more.

my blood curdles,
i gag.

i am sick at the sight of 
this colourful spirit, fooling itself 
with its flight, though it will always only be
three feet above ground,
chained at its ankle to its
black, black alter ego,
lying face down and hopeless,
wishing it all away.

the thing about black, is it can wash over any colour
because black is fucking contagious.

i am my own cancer. i am the kind of crash that kills 
both parents and child. i am 
that drunk driver. i am the little boy 
at either ends of the rifle; 
which is sicker to you? pick it. 
i am the abortion, 
dripping down her legs 
and sucking life out of her. 

i am the one that laughs at
someone else’s depression in films
because it is funny
when you can relate, the one who 
smiles at the darkest, sickest of thoughts 
when i hear them said aloud, because 
finally, 
it feels like somebody is speaking my language. 

i am the whirr of a truck, flying over the edge. 
i am the broken parachute. i am crumpled 
and corrupt, like the tax forms of the poor, 
like the insurance forms of a dying man 
who never missed a payment. this blackened state 
is irritating, 
like an itch you cannot find in
the sides of your fingers where the nerves 
seem strangled and sometimes feel like 
it might be easier to just chop the entire bloody thing off. 

i am fucking black.

i would hate to be an axolotl, in situations like 
these, where i wish for this pain to be a 
stump. but i suppose the advantages 
of ever-growing pain is you’d have severed yourself that many times 
you stop feeling it.

but i still feel it, so i am tired of it. i cannot disregard 
the surging anger screaming neglect, 
and i am running out of ways to 
churn it into positive action, one after another 
after another after another, like waves, growing 
and growing until it will one day rise above
where i am paddling by shore
and swallow me whole.

i will be so exhausted, when this happens,
i will just throw away that beaten down piece of wood 
i am holding on to for dear life
and let myself sink to the sea bed
where everything is quiet and composed.

where everything finds their end.

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.