Emotion and Strength

AND THEN WE WEREN’T

we were pointless once;
that is to say
we were always in growth
and there was never a time
when what we had would
stop
to be what we
‘had’

our map didn’t come with those flags to pin that say
– this is us –
or
– we are here –
we were the whole map
we were every map
and then we weren’t

now
we are no longer pointless;
that is to say
we are ‘that point’
the marked X
(without the treasure)
the one that simply says
– here –
and my heart is this map
and it is pierced and leaking
and all that it contains
will run like ink across the world
our red flag standing on end
and flying alone
to remind me

SEIZED

I
am at
II
a complete loss
III
to understand the
IV
inner workings of your mind;
V
the cogs that turn to
VI
wind your clock
VII
have seized, and
VIII
the only hands
IX
that pass time now
X
are mine
XI
alone
XII

I NEVER GIVE UP

Why now, at this peak?

the one we climbed like we were foraging,
like the treasure was ours, and
like we were owed the magic;

the one we promised to ourselves,
like the challenge spoke to our needs
– like spooning, and completeness –
like the familiar sound of Soulmateship;

the one we both ate hungrily
like cheesecake and strawberry sauce,
like viking sex and the sound of rain,
like the walls called for our skin;

the one we privately rode
like thunder and like history,
like couch kissing at 3am,
like the pre-cum that belongs on my lips;

the one our lives changed for,
like losing everything to win,
like the years mattered more now –
like purpose was our new team;

the one we physically yearned,
like this distance made us lovers,
like the words we longed to speak,
like our eyes smiling in perfect silence;

the one we learnt to master,
like the Gods of old had promised,
like synchronicity was our call,
like the prophecies had written us;

the one our dreams showed us,
like we undressed our karma,
like it was destiny we could touch,
like we had angels for our guides;

the one we paved and craved
like the path was suddenly clearer,
like the bumps were sensual touches,
like the signposts contained our names.

Why now, at this peak?

the one we fall from, both alone,
like we have forgotten we had a bond,
like our chemistry now parries –
like our freedoms matter not.

MOBIUS

He said those words
– I can’t –
and my heart fell out of its pocket
like there was a hole in my
chest and
that very last stitch
heard him speak.
Our mobius strip
lay suddenly flattened
– I on one side and he on the reverse –
like destiny and distance
were the same bridge
too destroyed to cross.

Now I wait for life to end
as I lean down to hold
what’s left in my lungs,
my final breath leaving as
I fall beyond the edge
where
by some miracle
this leap of faith might save me,
felled atop arms that wait beneath
where
the only strip remaining
is the one in which
we remove each other’s clothing.

KALEIDOSCOPE

With you
I spent my years like money
and what is left now are the shells
of every decision afforded –
the skeleton of time
the only backbone we could manage
not to crumble. Our own had weakened.

For many years
tears would leak like suicide
and I became an expert swimmer,
my exclamation mark of strength
the board on which I’d surf;
later, the oar with which my raft would be paddled.
I cried an ocean
but still could not willingly drown.

Of late
I ceased believing that I lacked worth
and stopped just existing to pay the karmic debt
my reasoning concluded I must owe.
I unshackled and chose to live outside the cage.
Giving up on failure gave me purpose.

Without you
the tangible clutter we gathered gets dusty
and I can’t decide if I should blow it clean
or leave these fingerprints to remind myself why.
In shedding the weight of commitment
I am no lighter, but my kaleidoscope now dazzles like a jewel.

BOTTLED MINDS

Words I’ve left unsaid
collect like tombs inside my mind,
resting wide awake
without a sound
to pass the time.

Blind beneath the surface
losing purpose, long repressed,
my words now sleep, unspoken,
lacking passion,
unexpressed.

Just outside my reach
my words are hidden, cast from light;
without a voice to feed them
they recoil beyond my sight.

Depleted words
– malnourished –
thin with hunger while they grieve
and when my lips re-open,
they, destroyed, refuse to leave.

Resigned, my words inside
have lost their courage,
weak, deformed,
and destined once for freedom,
now detained alone
they mourn.

These broken words whose author
still retains the will to thrive
return instead to thought form
in an effort to survive.

In fluent tears,
these wordly souls
– admirers from my past –
expire rolling from my eyes
to fare me well at last.

And left with me,
a silence,
for my naked void to dress –
the lingerie of alphabets
strewn high upon my chest.

THE JAILED FREEDOM OF WRITING

Sour, my attempt to write –
the flavour lost in every bite.
Undecided words, unheard,
but seeping out, expelled,
disturbed: a self-invaded,
cornered bird, un-winged
and clipped from flight,
while

I rumble with poetic temper,
my bleeding soul,
in part, dismembered,
blank, un-whole, alone,
distended –
my belly full of passion,
yet, my appetite untended,
and

expression jailed and flawed,
dissolving quicker than it pours –
a vat of garbled, bubbling
troubled thought
that rivals typed impression sought
to pillage mind and spill from core.

Scored, the days it takes between,
in floor and wall,
to key the lock that binds
this isolation door,
ancient finds arising
in my lust for seeking more
and more –
buried words upended
with surprise, and unintended,
for,

from I, the Jailor,
baseless accusations rise,
lashing, fast, acidic wind
that primes the rhymes I tongue within,
and
never one to coat my words
too thin/too dry/too weak it seems
(by definition) I resist
to drown (at best)
or leak,
while anchored here, existing,
with unflinching frozen speech,
but

the accidental draining of my
purpose-tended bed of prose,
is waiting hand on foot
with sweetened
suicidal pensive throes,
as I,
with mocking rows
and rows of written doubt,
release, in lines,
my stomach
churning through and out
demands to hasten
one true last and final shout,
so,

this filtered care
that stains my lungs with ghostly stare
and soaks my throat
as vomitus
as stinging air
that leaves me rendered,
flailed and flared and wounded,
brooding, undeclared –

through THIS
the words escape,
an icing on the freedom cake
all cherry-topped, and cut, and baked:
a timeless meal to share
without the food to waste,
the friend to taste,
the key to exit,
smitten,
from this solitary mind-induced
persisting empty prison space.

POSTERIOR SUFFERANCE

This night carries me,
blinded,
in the back pocket
of dirty minds and
shabby dreams where I,
flat, and molded,
press against this folded denim,
warm and splayed with
arms outstretched,
longing,
for another day, but

what if I turn my head
to over-peek the top
of these fraying jeans instead,
grasping threads
to keep me still within its seams
– will the exhilaration
of watching where I’ve
just this moment been
allow me inspiration
– asleep –
– awake –
to boldly look,
clinging to the back end of
these thoughts that write me,
penned in ink:
a pre-determined book?

Perhaps I should just
– winded –
forward face,
ignoring the sour stench
of this unmoving,
walking,
waking race,
stalking through the darkness
in a covered veil
at quiet pace,
destabilising future steps,
accepting this acquired taste,
processing my obsessive needs
and bathing clean my crumpled face
in chafing tears that fear progression,
awash, alone,
in one more nightly session.

Devoid of light,
hear, ye, the theme:
this narrow, stunted, damned depression,
the fabric of a self made bed –
this
bottomless pit without expression
unstitching dreams of fortune
as I swelter, melting hope
again,
apathetic,
white of noise,
inside my broken head.

KARMA

sometimes
mistakes are forever
and regret is the undercoat
that primes your life

perhaps foolishly
on the surface
it might seem calmer
(karma)
to forget the original dream
than to colour it over with
shades of new intention

when all you want to do
is bleed the red out of your eyes
until the copper rusts your face
and runs finally clear –
a dried salty ash
the only pock-marked
stain on your bloody canvas

the minimalist collector
your highest bidder

A CALMING STORM

I watch in retort
as you blunder
over causeways
of stammering lies,
hurtling weathered blows
from your
mournfully
tarnished
mouth.

The sound alone
asphyxiates
and I would rather it hurry
than disable my
regal silence
with the screeching noise
of your
thunderously
garbled
deception.

BACK POCKETS

Something
in my damaged whisper
from within begins to roar
and your secrets
– as I shake –
fly far from where you left them

I watch
vocals shredded
limp and newly sane
as they tumble
– like a silent movie –
into the back pockets
of sweet revenge

1,000

p l e a s e t e a r m e
i n t o a t h o u s a n d p i e c e s

for your silent destruction
will be the womb
that nurtures
my growth

SHUTTERS

shut me out
all you like
but the windows
to your soul remain wide open
and i
the great visionary
see everything contained within
beyond them

SUPPORT

I
despite my distance
refuse to let you drift alone
morphing
in my own subtle way
into the very raft
that keeps you dry

LESS ONE

Every mistake you make
is one I will own
with you
because
every one I own
is one less
you shoulder
without me.

WOKEN

I swam in the dream
that drowned me
– once –
but I swallowed its soul
and floated away

PRISON

say no again
and you will build this love
with weakened walls
– a prison –
standing only to fall
as kindling
for slow revenge

MY OWN

belittle me
and like a singularity
I will become dense
and invisible
and drop from your space

i will gravitate
inside my own world
(my owned world)
– my mass, not yours –
and use my volume
to prove your theory
is full of holes

– black holes –

that only carry purpose
like a stain
that cannot be washed
from its own fabric

SOMEWHERE

somewhere
there is a space
where I will find myself
amongst the dust that falls so calmly through the air.
I’ll find my purpose lingering there.

meanwhile
I’ll stay partitioned off from ghosts
and other 5th dimension beings –
sharing this part of the room
with my cold desire to belong.

ABREACTION

carnal lightening reaped my brain with verve
and sickled fever, emotion sloughing clean
my tortured psyche

and who was I to challenge
this narcotic self-ablution –
yet, what of my resolve to linger
undisturbed
in bias mental disarray?

pathetic hypotheticals
engorged my blood
like nothing new
the tension burning scars within this
manic carcass grew

until

my hybrid-self assaulted what was once
un-failed but often wrong integrity
and swifter than a scarlet blade
my conscience was absconded
to a heaven: peace, release, and ease

had I commanded armies to retreat?
my palsied mind
was finally worth its bloodied ground
and tissues thick with matters
fed on independence
lost amongst the strain

I must remember where I left my genius