calamity

𝖍𝖊𝖑𝖑𝖔 𝖘𝖙𝖗𝖆𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖗

game nightI am finding it to be, all to be,
rather hilarious again, howling dry crack cackle lodged deep
in my throat.I emote, but the sound is suspended in space,
you pass me the ace,
big responsibilities I naturally fail, you pass me the ace,
claw at it with haste, my face is telling, I expect to fail-This freezing rain burns my red thighs raw, saw myself burned alive, winced twice, saw myself smoke and whistles, the birds faced backwards, eyeballs pulled out
and down, black hole’s in the sky, the rip
in my jeans, the fluffy dark matters of what we believe,
this is the supreme consumer of everything,
tell me how it works,
where are we going? can you see me? am I still there?Well, you materialise sometimes, you signed off on this,
red hot wax and blisters, your finger prints, all over-This isn’t mine anymore, I think this part is
all yours, do you claim it?
respecting myself, doing it my own way?
cut me off, I embrace it, it’s easier sometimes to leave it resting, arrested in motion, hazed out and blazed out,
we are stuck in the cliches, static little people, awaiting
a costume change, and pixelated, breaking in, STILL KIDS.We remain grimy, and stay choosing the bastardised chaos, black rims to our magenta and burning orange
stained glass eyes, lit from behind by desperate beggars
with our hefty prayers hushed into candlelight,
phantom black horses heaving around us, nudging our chins with their frosty wet noses- ink bleeding, patched void burning the wet plastic of the shiny cream paper.
Would we cease to exist just like that?
Gone forever?You sigh and flick your small hands up, it’s the relentless rotation of dust, you tell me, flipping over, face down and sinking down into me and gone, once and for all now.I wave to the old you and she looks angrily back, smoothly
dissatisfied, wearily content. Your arm ruptures out and
grabs for my neck, we should
vent this here, BREAK IT, if you must.I keep seeing the dead, I saw you last week, your algae slimed sea eyes morphed into one huge one, the fungal source, and leaked all over, out and back into the horizon line. I swear to you, I am making the same awkward mistakes, here is my
fucking offering, feast now, dinner is served.You raise a frail and sharpened glass to my lips and funnel your vision in, how you prepared me for this, before,
I drink down and get the liquid all over my skin, it turns to latex on contact, my howls screaming
out now, loose and ringing.I’m lycanthropic in that “New Yorker” way, I tell you, cheesed with the joke- dressing up as a scare, the teeth huge and plastic, the fur burns hotter in the creases of my stomach, the fat burns wild, streaming and snapping, twisting
my spine up and out.I howl, the pin drops, gently retching up blood, feeding through the chunks, concocting the frenzied laughs of my, free for all audience, my trick was their treat, the irony
persists, I stand victim and victor in consumptive bliss.That dice is still suspended in the air, I tell the table, everyone spins in their chairs,
eyes lilac blazing tail lights. WE ARE
BLIND NOW. where is everyone? swiftly spinning
up the storm, broken fences, stretched out
masked faces, rolling out fates. Friday night escapades.I reach for you when I know we are drifting in open waters, it’s me or you now and we aren’t anywhere close- Marco-
I think about all the times I’ve been you, I have done this.I track my past closes. I don’t want to be them,
I grab at your cold dead face, pipes locked up and down and groan viciously, creaking with the warmed blisters of our life, at least let this be the faucet-
let this be the raining dawn.My claws loosen and drop heavy from my purpled fists, hitting the frozen sediment at the bottom like soon
to be relics, left in that unlit murky shade
until we are long dead, here it is easy to identify
the dead weight, everything here is a drag- Polo?Where are you? maybe together, our cold FULL bodies, bloated with this multiplying frosty salt slush? I already returned to that natural beast once, again, back we go, washed up, rocking over to the edge,
what will face us there, the end?
< >

'rose petal bliss' the nail polish for the wedding he paid for.the blackened & burned oxblood slices,twisted away from their fragrant source, stuffy anemone head with its powdery notes,
natures vanity project scalped for the now tender and dense, clipped summer air, soon to dismantle into its blood clotted jammy rot as time is almost up.safe from the greedy eye and meticulously eyed with those humanoid sharpened claws,
seeking a denser bush, slap foot against the soil, Hut, 2, 3, the picks will be disarrayed in that intentional, calculated way, for the very Big Day, only the plump, lively ones, chosen to forget the natural rhythm of the earth will study and reproduce the beat of the Lovers celebratory march. Foot soldiers to this occasion.the world is so safe now,you might think I am privileged for saying that,these paid experiences- don't you know to put a pair of scissors in your side compartment? if the seatbelt chokes you in the molten & fiery constraints of the blitzing spitting metal cage of your second hand car. Happy Birthday, it's the keys to your first ever ride, you can even name it.the twisting dig of too soon death around your pink lungs, the life insurance payout that comes, after you're bagged and tagged, won't even arrive in an envelope, just a shrill siren muffled by the crap in their purse, the bank app notification produces This song only once (if you're lucky).you aren't allowed to wonder how they'll spend it. This paid for security, this predictability. If it is preventable it is our Duty.even the drugs are tested for your safety,illegal substances tasting like sweet curdled milk, hands held to our lips, Bliss.repeatable, reproducible highs, clean enough to soar, held back from the screaming pit falls, from the itchy scabby elbows and the violent consequences of our own choice to Crash and Burn. Pedicured and rolled out to rehab so, no one has to send out save the dates for a funeral.
< >

so, soI squat down (hardly),
beer coloured eyes,
meeting the shelves,
levelled off somewhere past 3am,
containing what belittled things,
concerned me back then,
must have been a day, or two ago.
ah here, again,
where my routined buys fail to contain themselves,
each one spilling a little,
into the rest,
teasing outsiders,
into superficial judgment,
of my failures to regard myself.
with routine,
certainty,
or something of similar sorts.
I’m still unsure how “I am” statements can slip so easily from the tongues,
of the overgrown children
I kiss when I’m drunk.
this too recalls the peeling skin,
that rots the hood of my eye,
where paved streets ripped clean lines into my gummy, bouncing flesh,
concentrated down to my left,
the better half of my loose head.
a fountain of oxblood laminated
into my socket,
an intangible sticky expectedness,
cheap wine for the temples,
the chin, the faint bump on the bridge, of my less hated feature.
a crutch for my comedy act, saved for later,
coaxing spoonfuls,
of jumbled letters into my system,
face to the table,
always that of a friends, can’t say no to a state, I promised wouldn’t wear me in the end.
I wish I was brazen by nature, and not for the sake of it.
It’s oddly in character, to be coloured in blue, from mundane tasks, shoddy luck,
feeling the slide of the promises,
I made, that I can brake, can indicate.
and so I wonder if being content is some curse.
maintaining it more so,
without a blip or a slip,
a so so, in the midst.
staring down the empty office blocks, lit in the night, set into light, always,
I wonder if certainty is some bizarre benign thing, with watery eyes,
nose a seeping shrill agony,
anticipating rest, awaiting breath.
I’d call myself a fool to wear it, with a chest stretched past it’s limits,
filled with what swirls around it, breaking down in its own time.
If losing sleep over what doesn’t come easily makes me a coward or,
some divine guy,
some individual in my own right.
< >

avoidance catharsisI think I got a bit too self aware,
so much so that,
hitting repeat, became my one, only,
futile imagined business venture,
into the ever confused realm of “authenticity”.
I slip in and out of my skin and words,
feel like something I would say,
a relapse, morally dubious and grey.
play dumb, play dead, playing at change.
see what sticks, what fits, what can stay or can be held up and into place.
I want to be good. I say every day.
Am I good?
Is this good?
It should be good enough, right?
good enough of me, a me that is,
suitably good, a slightly smudged,
off beat but good, still me, me.
the kind of good, that doesn’t rupture,
doesn’t roll out pretentiously,
drips down slowly, progressive but patient.
the contradictions I am well aware of,
the overactive imagination, the escape,
the return, the retelling.
always asking for second, third, fourth,
fifth opinions until I am as far removed,
from my own being, as I can be.
and all options feel like a parody.
the realisation that no pain is unordinary,
no pain is unique,
that every hard felt thing,
that I clutch and clutches me has been had,
has been held, has been user tested.
patterns are shared, the experience, is felt and feels and feeds and eats.
every face strung up to their habits, the ones seen, the ones hidden,
the ones that form in the minds of others,
the ones that are prettier than the version prior, a better phrasing of the same: “fuck this” “fuck me” “fuck”.
and people will try to live, on the surface of your fleshy body, like a gnat,
will it be habitable, suitable,
will the weather up there, treat them well.
and they’ll love the future they think they can have, so hard they’ll find something to hate,
ponder with superficial distaste, a secret planted uncertainty, for a lot of faces after, for a lot of good enough, people after.
I think the more apathetic I seem, the harder I feel, the harder I understand,
the true beauty of a finger painting, a re-rendition of something,
for safe keeping, these little hidden,
thoughts and feelings, shaded in a different colour each time, so distant from their outline.
there are many ways to be,
many things to be done incorrectly, to be redone again and again, each time similarly but so very differently.
Am I good? Is this good?
Is it good enough?
does it matter?
The more I ask the more I see,
how so very desperately the things I can’t touch without questioning, shake me.
the things that demand to be pondered again and again, break me.
there is no use in overthinking emotions, in overthinking the thinking of my emotions,
yet every time I do, every time I drain my flesh of one lifetimes worth of blood,
dragging my mind through a blueprint of something long past, never had,
I find the essence of who I could be, who I would have been, who I so desperately,
wanted to be.
blind woman sniffing for lashings of her
own blood, desperate for certainty, is this me?
is this what I was supposed to be?
is this what I want?
does it matter?
< >

home hairdressingI think again, I should have spared myself,
and I know it is bad to regret,
but I have done the four hairbands,
the uneven sectioning, before,
yet it never serves to teach,
me my lesson.
I chop at each side enough,
to even out the abomination,
and in the rough hacking motion,
trembling with adrenaline,
I find my only source of control.
and I intellectualise this basic act,
of sitting at the sink, with stolen scissors,
like I do many other things I should,
leave alone.
isn’t it much easier to hurt in ways done
before, to cut the same strands,
with your own hands,
aware it was,
better before, before you touched it.
It’s like I’m scared to leave myself alone for
too long,
like I’ll develop into something out of my own
control, I’ll grow a second head if I—
look away for a minute or more.
nothing feels mine as per usual,
and really,
the same fear that rules it all, dictates that,
timing will forever be impossible,
I’ll kill anything before it has a chance to grow.
< >

calamitywe swayed,
only for a little while,
fingertips swirling in,
the gentle air, marking points with eyelashes that,
would soon be, kissed, adorned—
by humans made of sand,
and those favoured in circumstances.
palms in molasses,
bittersweet,
sticky traces in,
bitten fingernails,
never changing,
from these unfelt, natural forms,
laying, achingly static in dusty air.
held up by clasping chests,
for breaths, just,
a little while longer.
stay. dance with me,
again.
soles scared to,
scuff pebbles, bathing in the distant closeness of distracted bystanders,
unaware of our little dance.
heavy bodies lulled by stubbornnes—
and this moment,
will too soon flee into the darkness,
chased by roudy stars,
don’t hold as they should,
but linger for a moment too,
long, taking in smells and tuffs of hair,
with their head start,
lightly formed unlike,
yarn ball hearts held down,
by needles and coins,
all facing, the wrong direction,
and the forming me,
will regret buying shoes with intricate straps,
unfit for chasing those loved,
through busy streets.
sand already leaking through,
onto knees and, the moon with one eye,
closed, aches knowingly, for soft cotton dancers, numb with flight, too scared to fight, as they break apart.
< >

won’t you?clear my conscience,
pretend you cannot read between the lines,
I know, I know,
you’ve got bigger things,
big things on big minds.
I’m the chaser you can’t see,
shrunken into-
I think I split in the process of tiptoeing in place in a dark room I pay for,
seeing if a mime creates noise,
in tiny these tiny,
more more rapid movements,
-down into a sum of my parts.
I don’t know if I’ve ever felt my insides all,
at once- not sure where this all goes,
in relation to- it’s neighbour’s neighbour.
the geography, if you may,
maybe with my eyes closed,
finger on your pulse.
I’ll summarise it,
I’ll get it on record,
before the scraps float up too far and wide,
And loose.
But maybe The Clench,
the rapid that throws my body back sometimes,
The seize back, will remain in muscle memory,
will keep my components,
Distantly related, cousins,
“Yeah, we met once. I guess I knew her, it was some time ago though, a while back for sure.”
they don’t like themselves, I say, to myself.
I don’t think I like myself.
But back to business: finger on your pulse, hand gently cradling,
Your apple.
So, so, so, wipe me down,
I know you can’t see me, I know you can’t feel me and I know, I don’t know but I feel I know-
that the tremors are some latent resentment maybe, imagined definitely,
but you are doing the dishes, you can’t see me there, you don’t know I am there and I am not real and neither are you,
you are my brain right now (a football of pink knotted flesh floating, spread away from home base),
location: unknown,
gentle hum.
Listen though, I need you to stand there,
And I need to step through you and into you for just a moment.
You stand, you do the dishes, I feel your pulse and it stands in for the rest-
I imagine you are warm, always warm.
Warm like peach cobbler, bubbling over,
Caramelised fruit, tongue burned, tube burned, stomach full, burning.
I feel so fucking-
I feel-
Feel? You can’t- You are a static outline rolled over an imagined body,
listening to the p- musical arrangements of a b- you haven’t felt in so long you couldn’t even imagine it,
for longer than a minute without-I picture you reading this someday,
You wouldn’t like it.
I don’t think I existed to you,
I don’t think I like myself.
< >

geminimy sister asks me
sometimes
if I would want
to be a twin.
have a twin.sometimes I think I already am one
am boththat I was born with two peoples worth
of energy
two peoples worth of pain (self inflicted for the most part)
two peoples worth of indecisiveness
and that the me that screamsto be seen—
is held back by smooth reigns
bandaged aside temporarily
by the other me who is
crispand cooled off
rarely piping hot, settled
never wants to be what others do not
wanttransformative
and so I am stuck
An ingrown hair that doesn’t know
which way is home
which way is up
both bottoms up to the sky, up to the light
head inches deep in the soil
suffocating on the putrid wet grit
eyes full of pink wormstwo sets of lungs yet
at the drop
of a pin I am unshackled
unheld by gravity and sobbing
into a dark space
a floating something
a smudge on a lens
this pseudo-womb wheremuch like in reality
I can only really understand me
I can only really hold me
my otherness, my truthbecause it only makes sense
the lack of order
the scattered
the unfiltered
the insane cyclicalness
the do over, the do twice
the think againprocessed twice
as fast
to make space for double the new
double the stuffI cannot read because it doesn’t feel like enough
doesn’t feel like I am immersed
I feel like I am skimming the surface of
being taken in, being taken elsewhere
but time is much too slow
I can feel my other partsI am still at the station
going nowhere
and I have one ticket when
I should have two
and the part of me that wants to jump
in front of every train
she sees
is quick, she makes our feelings seenand no one wants to be bombarded
to be tossed at
with double the person
when they’ve signed off on one
or maybe even half
of oneno one wants that.
so I hardly think I had a choice.
< >

love actuallywe joke,
drunk on cheap rosé,
sand papered tongues,
lips peeled apart like,
glossy tangerine skins,
in temporary disregardthat, it rarely does matter,
if these men, we invite,
into our beds, our personal spaces, powder room boudoirs,
with their endless desireare what we- desire,
if their freckled backs, and whispered words of, imitation love, are- wholly wanted,
for their certain serviceof untitled, hardly fussed over,
tracing of arms, kissing of necks, breakfasts shared with a side of ‘notice me’,
eyes that are always, tough to ignore, pitiful to evadeanticipating a holiday tip,
begging for a cut, of our cold and classic, tobacco and vanilla,
rich black coffee hearts,
that hardly settle, not by choice, but by circumstanceand on occasion will succeed in tricking our dark haired forms,
with our hand rolled cigarettes,
and cherry gloss kisses,
knees to the chest whispered insecurities, just between usthat we are the problem, for test driving feeling, curling up next to a body,
just to feel attentiveness,
indifferent to the source of it,
but i promise weinserted these,
notions, rules, into a by-clause,
it’s an unspoken truth after all, that we save our tears,
our 2am rolling on the bathroom floor, in ourtears and vomit, gargling,
for the alpha-maters, the fuckboy formers, the past shapes of past boys that never loved us,
and now still haunt us(If you really want to footnote source it, it’s ok to say it, father figures)and is it all that bad,
If we’re honest, to say this is all we really wanted, cheap and uncomplicated, black and white,
outlines of what, being loved feels likethat most certainly have a ‘use-by’ date, and as for dates?,
trust me, these ruby lips, have analysed that also,
and are well aware of all the things that our loosenessshields you from,
things that the standards built by the women that came before us,
and things that could never,
be above us, above me,
and instead when given the chanceto, will most definitely fester,
and infect the scene, with unpleasant realities and doors now slammed shut, all because
we decided to become an ‘us’no longer singular people,
but one oversized growth, that I know, and she knows but they try so very hard not to,
know, was never meant to exist,should have stayed, as is,
in constant limbo, by choice,
with unclear but obvious lines and barriers, and no real,
shared responsibilityso sign off or sign out, perform or decline to show up, we can play our parts, it’s not like it’s a one way show, and then if it gets too much, we can goand when the time comes,
the right person, comes,
there won’t be a single doubt, the flaws will be bearable,
in fact, they will not be flawsbut rather quirks,
and for these men, for you,
we force ourselves to ponder what we already know to be,
a happy never afterbecause time and intimacy is binding and can fool even the most certain of people,
that they are obligated to more,
that they should give more.
< >

Memory LaneI chucked it at you, a forgotten mothy skin peached towel, a scratched up fools gold bargaining chip, a thoughtless throw in, a final throw in, a beggars limp toss- in-
“incase you needed it said”, through cinched teeth, those prone to brittling-You are inside me (again), you feel it?,
you must know by now that I was crafted of this feeling, this school of thought that love is a certain and absolute weakness, the weakening, the unbecoming, the dark descent- creeping, crawling and soon the drag. I drag this haggard body to you.
Have this.If you are ever starving, from my incomplete, incomprehensible and faulty attempts at love, know it is yours to eat, and whole.I stumble up the street with haste, I rev, I peel off my eyes, grip the eyeballs and stuff them in the back of my head, so I can peer back longer- see more of what I cannot-
you traced the tooth jagged edges of my fingernails- I’m certain you understand this is an unnatural decay, I am a fiend for this pain.They say it is good to need. You are allowed to be needy, need people,
“You Are Not Alone”, the posters beg of me in electric soft-edged bubbly fonts.
So I practice saying that I Need you.
I don’t use the line until I know I have effectively disappointed you, angered you, pushed this back past starting neutrality and into uncomfortable scorching and forced resentment,
to prove to myself that it is in fact not.
I liberate you from my dependency.“They say it is Good to Need”… I straighten my bowtie, I tap the mic and scream that it is just a thing that people say and people say a lot of things! and the faceless crowd cheers, we all do, hailing this sort of radical self-sufficiency and proud individuality-I ran my own experiments, I whisper after, backstage, throwing a head back in this cruel and relaxed, cackle-
I don’t need anyone, I need to feed on the fresh flesh of captured younglings and an oversized branch of an ancient whispering tree as a walking stick-Look! If you hold me for too long, and too well, I will certainly become the victim of something, prey to what is just around,
somewhere, just around a corner or maybe a little farther back, but-I’ll be blind, I’ll be soft,
I’ll be knocked down, watered down,
Too concerned with my last dance,
Performing love for you-
My baby.I clench my fists hard and seek to communicate intensity with my dry and soured eyes,
I miss the mark. I am on the podium again, mic strapped to my chin this time like a too-tight gag and the same crowd boos.
You need to see the fiercely independent trying, and failing too-I crawl home along the brittle gravel in the purple night, in my sweat soaked dress, soon to be another haunted rendition of a final stroll along Memory Lane.“AN EXCEPTION PROVES THE RULE”- the scream rings hollow, trapped inside my white skull- “please I beg of you”- the message doesn’t land (again) and in the end the shrill cold spills over everything.
< >

diving after a pearlsometimes I fear people forget just how conscious everyone, everything actually is, for all of this- again-I don’t know about you specifically but…
I know I can look at something and recognise if it is “me”, I do it again and again and again-I snatch my glasses off, clang-k!, roll my whole body in a dynamic swoop off the bed, like some flamboyant diver, or a very skilled eel, into the colossal pulsing light pool spilling by my bed- the sentimental hoarding eating the sentimental hoarder again.“there are many visible portals in this reality”,
I hear a conventional wise and grey old man say, his voice projected onto the inside of my pink and blue veined brain, sharp blood splatter on a hollow skull, as for portals- yet again-
I can only think of the vagina.I refuse to believe people do not consider their own characterisation, man the light show, from the sweltering hot belly of the beast.
I believe in complete and total autonomy in this shit, don’t you dare call on god again-we ride at dawn,
we wash the blood off from up to our elbows in the afterglow- again and again-The chip on my teeth reminds me,
of the reoccurring dream I have,
I am in the dentist, I have no teeth again,
all fell out, the room bulbous and strange again, in this bloated fish eye lens,
theatrical film scenes projected onto the surface of a glass sphere-
remember again- it was an electric eel marble.I am licking my gums close, closer and can’t stop again, I am addicted to the sensation of feeling out every gap with my slimy and slick tongue- over, and again.I miss the distant and flat bodily feeling of pulling out my own loose baby teeth that lays dormant in the history of myself… stored tightly in my ribs I think- pinching me- again and again-I feel like my billowing light portal is harvesting me for my organs and expensive contents again, it is dismantling me again,
I am an unwound loose and shiny much too wide ribbon again-spiralling swiftly in and out of my own pure essence again- blissed out and groove-dancing in this hostile pit blackness again and-
glistening in union with moonlight even if only for my own satisfaction, again.
< >

divine daily beat downI am in conversation with god again,
the planets and the stars are just people long dead, but also those unborn, also dead.
they are watching us like an episode of excellent reality tv,
with meddling rights.
Reinventing god but in a more human way.I burn this poem to my new gods,
I pray to those gripping my strings,
Maybe if I scream hysterically to you oh great fathers and mothers enough,
You’ll see I am truly suffering.
The dead me will watch most knowingly, so full from all of the possibilities and all of this low hanging and full bodied potential.If I mention you again in some stupid way, the viewership will pick up on this.
They’ll invest in this.In my head you always know,
In my head there is no way you could have missed it.It’s easier now.
I tell myself none of it was special, I tell myself it’s mathematically impossible that it was.
Every moment just a recall for the past,
A second, third, fourth, fifth chance with me playing the part in this morality building parable part of the whole thing.I tie my laces wrong. I’m slow with it and I create both loops beforehand. I get my fingers twisted in the knot.I chewed gum in the morning, and I couldn’t sleep but I pretended to,
went to the bathroom and said “I look fucking terrible” and then I,
fucked you and knew I was awful.I need you to understand that it’s in the slightly weird silences.
It’s in the way you don’t hear me because the words just fall out in a mush sometimes.
It’s the way you feel like an item that’s in the wrong section, when you’re around me, I’m curious more than anything- about how I can feel so much about this foreign thing?I don’t even have the correct terminology to describe you.
I see you quite superficially, and un-uniformly.
a worn and long faded cliche.
I tick the wrong boxes on purpose.This way it will be exciting.Shifting my weight from leg to leg,
I’m wearing my ex best friends clothes and spend a good amount of this lifetime wondering if I am just some cheap copy of her,
If I’ll ever see her face again.
Probably not actually, makes more sense for us, makes the story more impactful I guess,
An unrehearsed end to this,
once huge thing. It was totally life encompassing.I tell myself it all makes perfect sense,
That the way your thumb grazed the surface of my skin that one undescript time,
doesn’t make me wet myself.
I don’t think they could pick us out of a crowd you know,
I’m not sure there will ever be anyone else you know.And so i try and be more adventurous,
burn my asshole with hot food,
guzzle wine and then fuck almost every single night.
I sign up to do stuff, stuff that makes just enough sense and then wonder about the contours of your face,
and picture myself holding it like a ball of wet clay. I close my eyes and move over the surface, so as not to disturb your peace. If you feel the wind up against your face,
little cold blows,
never quite penetrating, just titillating.
That is me, I am thinking about you and about brushing my loose lips really really slowly over your whole face.I need you to understand you have full control,
If you text me the honest exact truth, that you secretly despise me and see through it all,
I’ll simply dance slowly over my phone,
A great god with her face pressed into the blue light. Feeling that last lingering touch light up my skin, so lightly,
It’s just my idea of it now and this terracotta brown watercolour paint over all of it. Every single stupid part.I remember my teacher who cheated and how much he hated blue light,
He cheated with another teacher we all liked.
But he really promised he loved his wife.
The photo on his desk.
The bald head.
I wonder if he truly never stayed up past 9pm or if he just wanted us to believe,
He was this example. This martyr for the efficient living movement.I’m grateful now that you told me,
how little you actually love me.
I guess you really didn’t know me anyways.
and still I’ll think about you at least,
200 times a day.Women don’t romanticise men,
I miss your old house,
I know it would have sucked if we had,
And yet every single night-
I do one more attempt,
I close the story in some other way,
I kill us even worse, I never get up most times,
I can hear the bell in my ears pounding,
I can feel my flesh bubbling over.Tough match,
They had to drag me out by the ankle.
I didn’t even get to kiss you properly.
You really surprise me.
Sometime, ago, a really really really long time ago.
I think?The scab you flip over like the lid of a pot, boiled over, and stuff in your mouth,
Saline and thickened, sugar glaze blood,
the texture of oven baked play dough.
The scream you never actually hear,
but always want to hear,
The effective proof that something is actually wrong with all of this.I want to go back, but I won’t,
I don’t trust myself to do it any better,
miss you more than ever,
screaming in the face of these imagined dead people, My God.
< >

halloweenwe lay, melded together,
tracing each others chests with loose fingertips,
as I write a letter to myself,
in my emptied head,
that I will soon be dead.
the twitch of eyelashes,
on plum stained bags,
tells me so,
you already know?
that I will roll my body out to sea,
when morning comes,
and let the breeze,
carry me, frost over my naked body,
and there I will decay,
somewhere unseen,
by anyone but god,
with no gawking eyes and handkerchiefs
over my sullen body,
no broken words and unsaid stories,
I will simply become one with the turbulent sea and my bones will pulverise into,
the dust that it carries,
and I will, finally,
rage on unequivocally,
and bend and break and fold,
into a million shards that could never be,
strung together and reformed to make an outline of my once breathing body,
forever scattered amidst the blackness,
that rolls and ebbs,
only called to move by,
a tug of war with the moon.
I will scream like a scorned banshee,
till my throat is raw and bleeding,
and strip and run and dive,
into the sea and let it wrap it’s arms around me.
you know I’ll be gone,
even if I’m just a weighted object to hold, when eyes close,
I have already planned to stuff my wounds with salt, and never let another man press fingers in, before scars form. I will fill my lungs with salt and grip with full ownership, this final rancid pain, as mine and mine alone.
< >

anti-heroyou cut a hole in my stomach lining,
an ulcer, craterlike and festering,
and when I wailed I felt,
the seal of the knife in my gut,
again,
reliving the slice over and over and-
over again,
so I tried my very hardest to,
use my limbs, my fingertips,
to distract you,
to make you rethink, force you,
to regret,
pouring acrid acid deeper, in this gaping wound, upon reflection,
with hindsight,
you were never built to,
care for me how I cared for you,
and that was a conscious decision,
now as I unlace corset strings and tap gently at my chest plate,
feeling my heart race, panicked pace,
I recognise that the ties will always be,
holding me, tightly imprisoning me,
and I’ll never truly be free, to make you bleed, a buckets worth for every tear,
every tear,
every shrill scare I felt,
remembering the lack of respect I had, for my own home grown body, at your expense.
oh self,
how I treated you unkindly,
with the stupid ways I tried to,
make him see my way,
level the game.
so it’s time for us to plug this filthy grotesque show of a mess up,
take cotton rounds,
and tear them to shreds,
stuff the cuts full till we can, no longer move,
can’t speak, too full,
with some forced balance, some stability,
skewered up like an inanimate dummy,
till we can watch him turn over,
refusing to see, gracing us with an epiphany, one rarely worth hearing,
and witnessing it no longer guts us completely,
maybe then we will feel human again,
feel ready to say we are worth more than,
the scummy puddle water we trail in after us, after him,
after another dutiful day,
commiting to this parade, this knife fight,
with his careless swipes,
and boyish delight,
ones we never win, always left behind, to wander back,
to our stained bed sheets, and scalding radiator pipes, in the pale moonlight,
holding blue screens in both hands,
with tears in our eyes,
ignoring the injuries only to try,
one last time, to go for the side,
jab like it will knock him out, to never rise up to his feet again, and pretend to be our loving friend.
< >

glass knucklesloose spills, inking deep,
dip a pinky in and swirl her around, feel for it- the inkling-
feel and feel and feel, feel, feel, feel for IT,
fuck- there it is, wet tip, nose bridge,
the clay so mobile and fresh.
for once I allow myself, this privilege and
dig in- nail taught, sharply and inside.
unashamed - “you aren’t made to needlessly damage things, instead, be intentional and aid their growth”.
I don’t feel very soft, scoop-able, but rich and heavy, searching for recognisable shapes in the muddy ditch my fist made, fist made.
In the pitch black I feel grateful, appraising this unconscious blackness, and its denial of any real answers.
I don’t want to think about how I aught to feel about myself and women are especially automatic with their communal niceties,
You Are So Beautiful,
No You Are,
So Beautiful!
It’s the rope you can somehow see, glistening-
It’s the wet rope you can treat as a focal point,
forget the rest.
The saviour trap to drag this limp body from this desperate blankness-
The hole / At least I am pretty,
They think so, At least.
We are so kind and so beautiful and so sweet,
Like all girls aught to be, laying limp in the tunnel waiting for our rope.
I see my face in the smoke covered mirror after a too long drowning in the scalding shower, sometimes-
And try to distort my face quickly,
faster than thought.
Roaring like the famished lion, before it takes its first bite, seeing it WILL have the potential to petrify me and keep me stuck in my reflection forever.
Or so I think, hope, but it does not, much like tickling your own armpit, I guess we all have a certain immunity to our own spontaneous indeterministic deformity.
< >

cut to the boneI think if I shed my,
secrets, rice paper thin, layers of skin,
and flick them your way,
you’ll know your worth,
in this swirling moulin, of half formed sentences,
abandoned, soon to be gone, pretences,
that barely live out, in the shining scope,
of this brain-like, CPU, for a millisecond,
crunching numbers,
before they are rolled aside to make space,
for the premature birth of the,
next,
you’ll know your worth?,
beauty is hardly skin deep in the end,
and I have cells, follicles,
to spare, eagerly so in fact,
perhaps I should address that, for her sake,
my watery aura, poor and undressed,
constantly whored out to the masses,
for cheap and momentary affection.
and soon a tumour will fester,
on this remnant flesh, the clumps of cells that-
not even currencies of social exchange can,
demand me to split and dish,
out to soon to be friends, and whoever,
I deem a necessary thread, in my life,
whoever I desperately want to, hold onto, flesh out, plump up,
It’s never gratifying in the end, look at me!! notice me!! validate me!! I gift you,
these sickly parts of me, but also every,
glossed up and purely euphoric, expression of you, that left its mark,
on these bones, this skinned out, green veined, big mouthed goon,
realistically, this currency lacks, a healthy exchange rate,
and eventually I’ll see eye to eye with, my own flesh and blood, the me’s that came before me,
and recognise that having skin, having meat, in spite of my ability to withstand cold feet and heat of a different sort,
will benefit me in the end, develop a safe space internally even if,
like a coin slot machine, these ears, this programming, won’t be activated again, dragged up to listen, diligently, to the words of those who are able to speak,
confidently, without taking losses,
without declining in profits.
< >

hip bones and rib bonesgentle reminder,
the clues are overwhelming,
they are planted, and not whole,
reality becomes fragmented,
when every object deforms,
into its sudden potential.
the wild horse, tamed,
lowered to a subtle stir,
anticipates it’s next shrill breath,
and begs to once again feel,
hasty, bouncing,
like the lean fish, rolled away from its watery origins, from the grappling limbs of its once singular understanding,
of what it meant to sense.
and so thrashing from side to side,
violently grappling for its next,
dry and incomplete taste,
of the upside -
and as the light rendered everything,
visible.
eyes rolled back, arrested in,
a state of red - black - red,
the butterflies finally descended,
to watch the struggle,
aware of their own, bloodied past,
their body once crushed into a papery shell,
their broken becoming,
lives extremely fickle.
so horribly affected by it all, so horribly lost in maintaining their glorious existence.
potentially rare, potentially healing,
so easily dead, so readily mourned.I would as a kid, kill moths,
with the back of a french dictionary,
because they terrified me.
their fat hairy bodies and,
grey ghostly fur.
now the butterflies looping lifespan,
curses me.
I wish to chase balls of light emptily,
and die crushed,
pressed into a wall, screaming,
“lumière”
just so I can feel something,
in its completion.
trust everything,
because I know nothing.
die intentionally, snipped from uncertainty.
< >

summer forecast: rainI thought about you on the train,
with my nose sealed to the steaming window,
caught in a narcissistic tangle of,
uncertainty,
never sure if my reasoning is right or fair,
or if my recollection of you,
will be far too beautiful or scarcely enough,
lukewarm in the middle of,
something that,
needed a little more- of everything.
but who can say for sure-
the line is cut.
sharp and clean, I’ll forget for sure,
what exactly I was feeling,
in that moment.
I draw on a little, but you’ll never see.
the tiny threading, sketched in the gaps.
I won’t know if you tried to finish your parts.
I’ll sweetly tell myself no, before I close my eyes to sleep, so I can feel,
a little less burdened by,
counting your eyelashes, softly-
with my thumbs, in my dreams.
I’m scared to lose a whisper of sound,
that slips from my lips, leaks from my hands.
all I’ll have now is this.
If I hold it too tightly it won’t make a difference.
speaking can’t reconcile your form,
with mine, all the senses that fill,
when our time aligns.
so I guess I’ll be abrupt,
I’ll be something for sure,
maybe I’ll hold and the memories,
will hold too. and maybe you’ll be,
drawn to,
futile thinking, of us too.
< >

HalvesI was born,
9 years and 9 months,
23 days,
after you, exiting the very same womb,
we both sprouted in,
two lives barely formed before,
we were forced out into this,
confusing and often cruel world,
one you dealt with for the most part,
alone, whilst I had you.
so now, that you’re grown,
5”11 and whole,
and I’m still stumbling,
like a fawn, tracing your steps in fallen leaves, facing this winter breeze,
without a jacket and scratched up knees,
I think I would be nothing without you,
a lemon tease and arms linked with mine,
we joke that to the world we are nothing alike,
and that a strangers eye must pause and wonder, sometimes, whether we are lovers,
but no we share the same silver blood, the same inability to handle, loud voices and strange entities in our homes,
and when I was developing stronger bones, and guts and a heart that,
were meant to hold,
my loosely strung together brain,
up so I wouldn’t fade, into bare sketched outlines, dependent on similarly silver forms, to drag my cold body on,
you gave me tough love,
and even though you don’t like words,
and you don’t believe me when I say you are beautiful and admirable and complete in all the ways that I’m not,
I believe we were set in stars at some point,
and that someone knew I would be lost,
without clarity or vocal chords,
or respect for my own ability to hold,
myself up and be bold,
so they gave me you, so I could truly experience the world.
you make me believe,
that mathematics can be enchanting and that currencies have more worth than any of Shakespeares soliloquies,
because you have mastered them,
and there is no competition,
no race, no end point where I feel,
that you will stick a finger in my eye,
and say you did it and watch me die,
because we bloom at different paces and I know I cannot teach you much, more, than you already know.
But I love you more than what others know, to be familial love,
You support me not because I am,
Partly yours, by numbers and paperwork,
But because we have the same insight into the world,
and because my happiness is your pride, your artwork, even if you do not comprehend it.
I know you try, for me, to make me feel, like I do for you, that fathers are unnecessary glue and all we truly need are breezy days in London spent,
in eachothers company, knowing we are a puzzle, a secret form,
that most bystanders and simpler folk just cannot understand, will never hold.
< >

BiorkI don’t think I truly understood jealousy,
until I was 14 and thought you had replaced me,
I know now that people aren’t objects and pedestals are bullshit,
but you taught me how to love,
in a sometimes ugly way,
but love is ugly, and when you’re young, it’s often incomprehensible,
but I cannot exist, as me, without you, really,
I know that much is fact.
I cannot keep your name out of my mouth, after all,
I brag about you like you’re a flame,
I rolled out of my bare hands,
and you enchant me and mystify me and sleeping beside you feels like home,
with your long limbs and dark eyes and curling locks you hate to love,
you’re what the fairytale books prepared me for, warned me of,
and you know I’d do it all again,
just for a chance to smoke and drink and dance and laugh and say I was once your wife.
the miles apart just keep us humble,
and I don’t need to see you,
to know you’re there and to know you are mine, and that our souls are truly bound,
together in time.
< >

Szonjawith your bold stare,
and glistening hair,
you teach me how to tread,
into the wilderness around me,
with some semblance of bravery.
I burned a hole into your,
brand new tights,
with a careless flick of a cigarette bud,
and so I kissed you,
with a little bit of tongue,
because like the spring breeze,
you bring relief,
and when you hold me,
it’s always,
completely,
with both arms tightly squeezing,
not a slither of space spared,
for my brain to wonder,
if you’ll still be there,
when the time comes-
and when you show up,
at 3am to brush my hair,
behind my ears,
not a single word falls short,
they all fill me up and round me out,
and make me feel,
almost real for, a second,
there.
because I know that,
you really do, care, eyes lined up to mine, you never quiver or dare look away,
and I’m not quite sure,
what I did to earn that at all,
to earn a love so whole.
< >

SarahI often feel like,
an entire viewing theatre,
observing you live life,
as it should be,
I have so much to learn, clearly,
so I take notes on my knee,
so I can be unlike icarus,
who much like me, lacked patience and civility,
and you tell me we are alike,
both crazy, but no, my darling,
you are like the sun,
you come to me, and bring me warmth,
you touch my skin and I feel gold,
and you teach young boys that wax wings melt much like most,
superficialities in this world,
and at the end of the day,
we deserve more,
and love really is a beautiful call,
and living without doubt and shame is all we should, hope for,
but for now I will try with all my might,
to raise my chin, keep my shoulders back,
and be someone who you can consider with pride, and admire back,
that one day, I can raise you up, as you do me, just by existing, no wings necessary.
< >

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