POEM: Losing Me

It’s been a year at least since I slept the whole night through.

And when I concede defeat and swap blankets for coffee at the sound of the alarm,

I pretend everybody wakes up with their stomach in knots.

That breakfast is a meal best served choked.

And that if I play my music loud enough,

I’ll learn to smile through my commute.

Parking the car my feet feel stuck.

My hands don’t leave the wheel.

And I imagine turning around and never coming back.

Before I sadly turn the key,

Slowly open the door,

Succumbing once more,

To the monotony of cowardice.

But one day you will see;

My secret power is my power to say no.

POEM: Something Good From This Awful Day

When I was a kid

I dreamed I killed myself

A kitchen knife against the throat

Nothing turned black

Everything turned blue

A loving shade

Welcoming me into the warmest nothingness 

And when I woke up I cried

Because I was still alive

Today, at your funeral, I learned that’s exactly what you tried first.

Slitting your own throat.

Just as I learned we were at the same Green Day concert back in ‘09

My dad your Godfather

Your name shared with my grandmother

More in common than I ever knew

Except when you woke up your blade was real

And weeping in a hospital bed

You soon remedied your tears

With your next, more successful, attempt

The priest asked us all to take away

Something good from this awful day

Reflect on you and think of a way

You’ve affected the person we are today

Ash to ash, dust to dust 

I read from John, Christ was the way

Then dropped dirt onto your grave

I watched the hollow faces of those who loved you left behind

And in their sorrow, my gift from you I then did find:

Gratitude that my great blue childhood hug was just a dream

And that I did not listen to that warm, seductive scene

That those who love me still have me driving home to them tonight

And that the only tears I shed now are tears for your lost life

POEM: Finding My Brave

I find my brave as others find their house-keys,

Find their shoes and jacket,

And walk straight out the door.

While they are halfway down the street,

I have yet to cross my threshold.

Catching my breath,

Considering my options,

Thinking of excuses,

To avoid another encounter

With the uncertain world outside.

Daily doing battle,

With the unseen terrors in my mind,

I Sellotape a smile across my trembling lips;

Tell myself the story:

“You survived this yesterday you will survive it again today.”

And with vampire’s peril I step into the sunlight.

Put one foot in front of the other.

And pretend it doesn’t burn.

POEM: Isolation 1-5

POEM: Gothia Towers

En route to the city where my father died,

half watching Dylan, half listening to the Fall,

the plane too hot, 

the bus too bright.

But I was too paranoid to sleep; 

vigilant for the next stop.

Not expecting the name in lights

of the hotel where he died

across the street from a theme park.

Glass glittering its welcome into the night:

the boogeymen just a building,

unaware it was the symbol for so much pain.

As the bus, unconcerned, drove on

and I was moved beyond it, at last.

POEM: Finding Me

The soil slowly shudders

Worms and spiders flee

Disturbance from below

As fingertips emerge

Grasping from the grave

And seeking hidden daylight

That’s me every July

As I finally take off the tie

Worn like a leash since September

Take off the suit and try to remember

Who it is I used to be

Before this job devoured me

Bursting from the grave

My hungry lungs drink deep the fresh air

I zombie-wander for six long weeks

Looking for me

Finding myself

Piece by piece

Until finally I feel human again

Just in time to be forced back down into the earth

Buried alive for another year

POEM: Another Fucking Sunrise

I don’t remember feeling normal,

To the point that normal is unwell,

And bleary eyes and pounding head is all I know.

I just need to get some rest.

It’s easier said than done.

I close my eyes and wish for sleep.

That maybe this time I’ll fall deep.

But it’s 3am and I’m lying in the dark;

Familiar to me as the dawn’s dreadful chorus.

Sunrises aren’t beautiful when you see them every day.

Jealous of my cat and wife who sleep the whole night through,

I try to still my mind

With techniques that never work more than once.

My deficit is in decades not days.

Five years old and lying awake

Thinking about cartoons too early yet to air.

I moved my bed around that tiny room

As if it’s placement held the key.

A different pillow? A newer sheet?

Empty or shared, in bed I’m always alone.

Same wide open eyes.

Same taunting bird call.

In this battle with consciousness

I’ll sleep when I’m dead.

Though even then remains the fear:

Awake again at 3am

Restless even in the grave.

Another fucking sunrise I shouldn’t have to see.

POEM: I Am My Patterns

My old notebooks and journals

Look too much like the ones I’m writing in now.

Though words are different,

I’m older now, of course,

And people and places have changed,

I am just as fucked up as I ever was.

Doing all the same old fucked up things.

Just in marginally different ways.

A reboot barely even trying to feel fresh.

A sequel that reminds us of all the worst bits of the first one.

The background of a sprinting cartoon.

I am nothing more than a pattern of behaviour and thought,

Replicating and repeating.

A childhood trauma fossilised in amber,

Wrapped and repackaged in new clothes,

Pretending to be all grown up.