On edge.

Can they see what I see?

I watch their faces as I walk close
past in the tunnels
under the rising heavy footstep city.
But do they see
that sadistic beast
in my rib cage?
Do they hear it laugh at me?

Do they hear the tears
as it rips at my windpipe
threatening with clawed hands
if I speak?
Do they see the nail marks
raked
in the sweat-soaked palms
of my being?
Do they see red pulsing terror
in lily skin
squeezing
to be free?

I daresay I hide it too well,
I’m not ready for them to know
that the morning light sets my teeth
on edge.

What would they think if they knew
I am terrified,
of silly things,
like attached strings
and vulnerability,
Of any more
than that
which already
scrapes and rattles
inside this empty skull?

I daresay I hide it far too well.

Cyclone.

I am sorry that
as I watch you
I know
better.
I don’t know why
it is
that
I do.
I just wish you
could help me
to help you.

You are a remnant of their mess
and your choices,
informed by their
weeping undressed sunset
of fallen
nightmare dreams
and hopeless hidden
goodbyes,
of their own tortured
silence.
We were – no
you were
her best chance
at redemption
and absolution
and even you ran
from her –
but to what?

I’m sorry.
I’m sorry I could not
sit
and watch.
I don’t feel only shame.
Is this survivor’s guilt?
Because you were the one
who was meant to build all
that we can be?

But now it’s been left
to me
and you sit
atop your mountain throne too far
away
to watch your kingdom crawl.
And I can’t be yours
anymore.
It takes too much
to hold you up
and then watch
as you
fall
too
far –
too
fast,

Brother,
On your endless cyclone
merry-go-round.

How could she?

Lay and wait

eyebrows raised

and tears

threatening to

break

their quiet seal.

Did you say all you had to say

before the tube

silenced your

disquiet?

 

Daddy,

did you know better

once upon a time?

I know I knew better.

 

“God bless you,”

she said –

that granddaughter you knew.

 

That girl that you recognised

has grown

but she hides it

far from you.

 

The wind reminds her of you.

You didn’t die

but part of you left

long ago

when you let your wife

steamroll

your better judgment

and your children.

The wind reminds her of

all you could have done

and she misses your only son

and she thinks of the damage;

It cannot

be undone in his

unravelling mind.

 

Is there absolution for such a crime?

For a shadow of a man

who is too scared to fight?

It gets him nowhere,

but he won’t find another

route to

somewhere.

And take us all

where we’d be better off.

He stayed and watched.

And here we stand,

stonecold hearts behind our hands,

protected by the wall of

fiery rage

that consumes

even my even breath and

sense.

How could you?

 

The memory of that white-cold hospital smell

twists me back

to that woman’s green stare and unhinged

cackle.

I watched it bounce,

reverberate,

around the heady silent room

full of those you watched her drive away.

They were

those who had

the best chance at loving her.

She was not always this way.

How did you

wait

until far too late

to realise

she is too far gone to save?

We

are

too

far gone

to save her.

She is the sad, pitiful manifestation

of this

mockery of a

family magnified

and unleashed.

And still we all ask,

“How could she?”

Did you say all you needed to say?

I’m waiting.

 

Know you.

Collecting sleep

from around my eyes

in the closed-shutter

early afternoon

light.

I dreamt that you kissed me.

And I wished

to fall back into

the bleary,

unclear,

tingly

moment.

But it’s gone

for good.

I miss you,

boy. But

I have never known you.

Fools.

Most people run

and dive

and react

thoughtlessly,

aimlessly.

What a storm mess.

They are victims of their own

careless invention.

 

Most people never stop

or even pause

to consider

the control they harbour

over their own

sedition.

 

Rejoice in that for their weakness is the

(forbidden)

blood drink that

sustains those of us

who know better.

Oh, mother,

how sinister.

Oh, mother,

how lessons learned from you

keep me rolling

in my nighttime grave.

 

 

 

heartcage.

So inward-facing.

Never tracing

The lines in

Faces

But his own.

 

He has his story.

His mirrorglass

eyes

Sing it

To me.

 

And I wish

It hadn’t taken me

So long

To hear it

Out loud.

Thump.

And it’s gone.

The heart.

That beat hurt

When he realised

It wasn’t all okay.

Again.

 

How can he not see

Through the glass?

His eyes are not

Windows

But mirrors

To his heart.

Trapped.

The questions his

Eyebrows raise

Are quickly hushed up

By the pools

Spilling out and over.

It’s too much.

He will never know,

Because he will never try.

He will never learn,

Because he cannot see the sky

Filled with all of the stars

And all of the moons

And all of the planets

That orbit

Not us,

Looking through us,

Never caring

That we walk,

Or kid ourselves

That we know any better.

He will never see.

He cannot.

He could choose to subvert

His trapped gaze

But he won’t.

He cannot see

Better.

He will not will

Himself to

Be better.

 

It’s easier this way.

The sky won’t fall in,

this way,

And crush his feebly thumping

Heart

That covers the ripping

Shreds of his soul

Where the bloody

Memories once lived

Before he let them

Dissipate

Into the tissue

And fill him up and in.

He is no longer hollow.

He is no longer in agony.

But he mourns

Because this is not

What being whole

Is meant to be.

 

We are a whole piece of

A small man,

And an angry woman,

And a sad story,

And a home

Less

Than it should have been.

A whole piece

Of an aching

Soul.

We are not whole.

But I am not done.

she is the lucky one.

She is a girl

Who misses home

And rightly so.

Not the simple solicitude

Or the icy bluemorning frost.

She misses the music

sung

by her mum.

 

She is a girl whose skin

And hair,

Nails

And teeth,

Speak of where she came from,

And all she wants to be.

 

She is a girl

Whose beauty

And complexity,

Are only just deeper,

Than skin deep.

 

It doesn’t throb in

the vessels that

Climb to her heart

Or beat in her toes

As she dances

Late into morningnight.

 

She can answer

strangers’ questions

Like, “How’s your dad?”

With ease.

She can tell of missing

Home

For what it’s meant

To be.

Not blacking out

Or running far

Or breathing fast

Or vomit tears.

Her story falls simply

On their simple ears.

 

She is the lucky one.

 

You disarm me

Hold me and fill my

eyelids

with hope.

 

As I press them closed

I will have faith that

you know.

 

My body shivers and writhes;

I am a snake shedding its skin.

I am stripped of my defences,

Like I needed them anyway.

 

You disarm me.

Guns blazing – Lord, silence me.

Pulsing heart.

Racing mind.

In this moment, they beat as one-

for you,

my dear.

For you.

Snake

This distance

helps.

Your hurricane handbag

and

arsenal of fireworks

threatened

to drag me down to hell.

I couldn’t be you.

You shouldn’t be you.

You need nothing more

than my love.

But I cannot feed you,

not now,

not ever.

You pushed so hard that I was broken.

And now you will never touch me again.

Writhe in the snakepit you dug.

It is the only place

you are still welcome.

 

sing to me

You broke me,

scared me,

left me in constant purgatory.

You pushed me,

crushed me,

until my heart struggled to beat.

 

You made me feel so worthless,

I very nearly

swallowed it whole

and allowed you to engulf

all that I could ever be

forevermore.

 

When I walked,

I stumbled.

When I spoke,

I stuttered.

When I woke,

I wished I would fall into endless sleep.

 

But now with wet eyelashes,

of the memory,

I beam into this

warm pillow

and sleep sound

                                  until the beautiful morn will sing.

And I will awake to harmonies

of my name.

Tomorrow, my love,

sing to me

now that I can

hear

the sweet music.