The fear of others, becomes the dismissal

Long before now

there was a time I did not write

could not write, would not write

I danced, I moved, I climbed, I painted

with our heads together like arrows, friends and I

toy rabbits, ladybugs, a glow in the dark star

would entertain ourselves with crayons and pastels

plasticine and Lego, wooden blocks, old socks, foil and glue

I built fortresses in the woods near my grandmothers

house where she looked out occasionally, a glass in one hand

erected camps in trees fallen in the storms

or beneath protesting furniture that wasn’t meant to be moved

turning into a gypsy tent, bedding, blankets, string

anything the imagination could seize and shake out into magic

I did not write

even then I felt

words were just words

so glib and easy

words like; ‘have a good birthday’ from

people staying absent

words like; ‘you know I care’ from

people not caring

I couldn’t spell, so I didn’t reply

I didn’t enunciate, so I didn’t call them back

the phone would ring in the distance, mournfully

if it got too loud, I turned the music up

all this by the age of ten

I was free of words, they were not my language

a song and the movement it encouraged was

an elongation of expression and urges

and later, a dance club, even at 14, seemed safer

than three sheets of echoing, empty paper

rubbing shoulders with strangers who sought like me

to raise their arms through the strobe lights in search

of something missing

not seeking drugs or sex but the fury and beauty

of dancing away their sadness

I didn’t know it then

acting upon instinct

the instinct to run, when you cry

dance when you want to jump

push away those who clamor for attention

stop feeling the pain you do, every single day

whilst some of my friends who were depressed

listened to The Cure and other sorrowful LPs

I scorned anything sad and

stepped into the light of disco, rock, electronica

in time I found there were other things you could do

to turn off the hurt

and I did them ALL, every damn one

…

There is an honesty to admitting to yourself

I don’t know what’s been happening, but I’m in pain

everything I should rely upon has gone or never been

I am alone and I am scared, I haven’t yet grown up

nobody will help me so I have to help myself but

I don’t know how

…

I learned it felt good to lie in bed with someone

even if they were nothing more than warmth and key strokes

I learned it felt good to give rather than receive

because you protected those parts of you, rarely revealed or wanted

I learned drugs were not a menace but a street form

of antidepressant for kids who couldn’t tell their hurt

didn’t know where to begin or how to heal the

emptiness and anger growing in their bones

I learned if you are crushed badly enough, time and again

you grow a skin of fur and you become a feral creature

not human anymore

but living for the night, pulse of music playing

brief flicker of excitement, when you forget being yourself and all that comes with that

the disappointment, the heartache, the rejection

you’re just a shivering wretch, gaining admittance into forbidden light

you’re just a body that can move and shake and vibrate

beneath the waves as they engulf the roar and scream

…

every morning I swam 25 laps

every night I ran in heels for the bus

every stroke of midnight I transformed into anyone but myself

it felt good, it felt more real than trying to

inherit the mantle of despair and unwanted closing walls

I climbed out and didn’t go back

I never wrote down a word

not even when I received

another letter stating things that were never real

words were lies, words were lies

I’ve always been drawn to truth

…

Somewhere in those years, something changed

maybe you get lazy, maybe you forget your way

or the pain becomes something you think is who you are

or the hurt is a coat you wear without knowing you do

I stopped swimming in the mornings

I quit dancing in the evenings

in my blood lay a virus of dormancy and despair

it grew and grew like a wild flower teasing out of concrete

until I’d forgotten my way through the elaborate maze

I was just another lab rat, waiting to live their life, turn to ash and regret

…

Now the irony is, I’m writing all the time

I write how I feel, I write how you feel, I write out

the hollow cries kicking from inside out

but words are fickle, they are not your friend

words convey what you mean, and equally they contradict

words don’t get things done

words are on pages, often unread

…

If it would work I’d burn my thoughts

watch them light up the night on the 5th of November

put on my running shoes

go to you

take you by the shoulders and shake

all my words out of your head

run with you down the highway

find the place we can be in my mind

get on the dance floor, pull you with me

try another communication

another way of getting through

anything but the languages that leave us empty

mistrustful, doubtful, not waiting for more

we’ve both been there before

at the end of a letter

shaking our heads

for all that was done, versus said

is often quite the opposite

you tell me, if I knew you, I would not like

the person I came to know

but you are wrong, so very wrong

it is in the imperfect there is wonder

I’m used to people backing off, going cold, erecting walls

it’s what I experienced every day

the fear of others, becomes the dismissal

there is another way

let me show you

but not like this

let me show you

in between words

with every gesture of my soul

give me this

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Showbiz

I am not a singer

you will not find me on stage

I was never her

she held a sway over you, a celebrity

that I did not puncture

now I see it was always

you and she

I was never there with you

I am happier that way

though it took some mending

for no mortal coil wishes to be deceived

or possess no value

be a thing of ridicule and promises

empty and fanciful

least by silver tongued claimer, with beautiful eyes

some seek big cities, bright lights

those of us born beneath incubator bulbs

among shut out people with dull familial instinct

want something sincere and reaching

not blistering and hot, a thousand egos in a city that doesn’t sleep

I spent

a long time realizing this

I wasted time trying to change hearts

that can’t be altered

though time, for a writer

Is never truly wasted

and emotion

for a lover

Is never truly without value

even if it was only I, who loved

there is a place for all things

and I know now, what to do

the next time someone

spoonfeeds me dreams

says; It’s only you baby, it’s only ever you

I’ll check

who is performing behind their eyes

before

giving

mine

Open wide

Here the unsaid

Rests her weary head

Dropsy Titania

Tarnished blade sheathed

The hard mouth of discipline

Come down from the mountains

The muslin of her dress

Hung still dripping

Her fingers wreathed in silver

Blown glass suspending

Filaments of metal

As she would, pull from her mouth

Precious cavities filled with toxin

Permitting her wood-worked smile

And show you

What lies behind

This prettied veneer

Thin girl

The afternoon

like used rubber

lost in roll

one in pleasure

the other cold and full

beneath their day clothes

thrown off like wings

she looked nude like a thinner version of herself

lost in angles and jutting hip bones

a little skinnier than his wont

but you know what they say about skinny women?

you can put them on top of your pencil and rotate

sharpening to a point and using until blunt

her smell is on his fingers and in his hair

his mouth aches from kissing her between her legs

she’s showering with the door open

the tiny bones in her spine popping

as she leans into the heat

the steam fogging up frosted windows

he inhales her and his fifth cigarette

simultaneously

it is this

the indistinct

stillness of afterward

sought most of all

when his body is sate and slick with her dew

nothing, not anything, matters

she

will ask for him again with her eyes even after

she has washed him off

it’s the contradiction of

passion

to re-dress only to have them torn off

he traces with his little finger

a selfishness that tells the rest of the world

to go to hell

languidly replaying how

her thin body rose and fell above him

weightless

the sound of her pleasure

pressed against his neck

like vibrations from a train

speeding into station with

oiled momentum

 

The high & the low

Whilst you in your helium balloon

parodied cause

for attention and reward

the high & the low of cruel regard

I observed your shift and nuance

they say hawks are not smart

my IQ would concur

we watch those who

flail in baskets of grandiose words

promises made by false hearts

unable to suture

truth

they are the ruin of

even those who knew

their fate would warp and turn

evergreen from copper

plunged by impatient fists

with metallurgic use

those fevered minds

hoisting mercurial delusion

as flag over reason

swim shallow at day break

tinkering in their playground

and we who are

fatigued by empty surety

hold on until the cold burns us

lapsing down into clasping water

where no echo of their vanity shall show

but a still surface of glass reflecting

would that they could pause

finally see the error

mouthing lessons

unheard by fools

with inflation and sharp need

for the clamor of diffident stranger

over the solitude

of one heart

beating in

deep freeze

The surface

Play the chord

fingers synchronized with musical word

if it could music would

speak her ache and exchange seats

pass the parcel

good children canceling upbringing

she was told early in life

click your heals, come what may

stomach flu for those who try

cucumber eaters reward the beguiled

not everything hot seeks to be mild

she has shorn her hair

she had snipped her tinny heart

a changing in need of firm foothold

women flock together

temptation to condemn grows bold

she wants to say

do not condemn her

because she reminds you of a hated sister

or provoked in her fist toward the sky

some outcry

the cantor of what ifs

rich healed but poor in charity

make do with petitions nobody reads

can you eat paper?

served empty stomachs before bed

you liked her for the very things that tried to kill

a blue jay lands in her hair

she is beholden of magic in mosaic hour

nobody talks to the lax or those who having lived say

i am tired do not stone me for my wish to sleep

they tell us to wake refreshed and give thanks for every day

as the woman with tumors can attest

we never know our last act

but she is unappreciative according to modern science

she has only felt horror in the divulge

show me purpose in this false world she cries

show me meaning on the flat tyres of transport

choking concrete eyelids

she never spoke her own language

she spoke through bandages

swaddling true message

could it be for some this world is too much?

the refuge of the underneath bewitching

thronging temptation far across water

she smells just like your childhood girlfriend

capturing applies in her cotton frock

go back through time

give your place to another

let them pluck the skinned chord

tune the piano with violent glove

close audience’s raptor with honest stare

beyond them and the sweating lights

disrobing in darkness

stirs

a familiar urging retreat

come

bow your striped head

step away in foil

take your now

it is all right

to seek to let go

and skip

senseless below

the surface

Only one fall

When we met

you treated me as if

all the world did no longer matter

so long as I

was within your sphere of sight

you said

sunlight was always

warm on the top of my head

turning me golden in your regard

as echoes of reflections

cast like arrows from dark windows

reaching up, tall glass shining down on us

I knew

a person on a pedestal

has only one fall

a fracture deep in marrow

hurting more than broken bones

when you finally

stop seeing my light

I will love you more

when you finally toss me aside

it will hurt me greater

such is the game of chess

of uneven love

a synonym of unevenness

two people who thought

hurt and pain could never

be part of their bond

becoming the greater sound

like blood in my ears rushing

filling up my cries

into pillows not stuffed enough

to stay dry

(art by Lorenzo Mattotti)