Flavour

It’s funny how things work out
She offered as her lips delicately traced
The long edge of the thin paper
And soft fingers rolled it expertly into a small stick

Chapped lips and yellowed teeth
Teasing, tasting the words more than the nicotine
Watchful eyes wandering across my care – etched
Face, faltering as I stuttered and stammered what

Little I could, blinking blindly into the sunrise with my
Legs dangling limply over the seawall
Struggling to process
She noticed the blink

It’s kinda bright here, dontcha think
Should we walk or stay sat here
Politeness, a kindness
Sincere, no veneer
But it mattered not

Who is it, what is it
There’s no-one, it’s nothing
But that’s kinda the point
We both knew there was a shelf life
To love life, an expiry to the perspiring
The sweat drenched wild nights

When they’ve come and gone
And seen their best days fade
Frankly, it’s, well not a drag
She took a drag of the fag
Breathed in, drew down
But time waits for no-one
Not us

And what have we got
Some laughter, some banter
And that’s just our lot
It’s not you or me
It’s us
This
Right here
Just doesn’t do either of us any favours
When neither is each other’s
Flavour of the month

She turned to me
With eyes black as jet
Soft lips formed a final word
Cigarette?

Oscillate

Love of a broken heart
Cut on it’s edges
A finger round a glass
Resonating, oscillations of the light
Through sheer weight of emotion
The glass breaks, a rose sits
Atop the wing of a raven
Crucified on the mirror

Like the pain of hope we cry
The lord of love shall die
There’s nothing but raw emotion
Lacerated flesh, shot through with the thread
Of our loved dead

I’m not your messiah
Though I bleed just the same
Ripped out, engaged, humiliated
Edge of a spade, this is realising
We are now, muscles like string
A sinew ripping audibly
This is over, no legacy

Love of a broken heart
Cut on it’s edges

Haemophilia

Agnostic, maybe a touch poetic
Fuck etiquette, we’re deaf
Dumb and here again

This is like a disease
I bleed for you, scream for you
Yet you don’t care
Why won’t you listen
This is all I have to give, hold me

It never clots, always flows
How many times must I touch the steel
Behind your eyes, the cold
Inside it stings

I loved you, why won’t you care
Fucking haemophilia
I’m drained here

All I ever loved in this world
Has been stripped away
We return to what we have left
Empty hearts and broken dreams

When will we make you see?
That this is all we have
Our clandestine kisses
And teased lips
My back is tensed and still
It tears in again, flesh and sinew
Sliced, by contempt in your tongue

It’s all a bit much
And I’d rather not know
Your reasons, just go

A Portrait of A Pretentious Mind

If my heart is an open casket to be draped with fine garbs of sorrow
Then this verse is but one thin silk veil of blood-drenched woe
If the finely entwined threads of this garment
Could give voice to their thoughts they would only choke
And retch their way through epic dirges of lost hope
Tell tales of hurt and abandonment

For now these cloths bedeck my docile heart and whisper
Soft reminders of my life, wrapping tighter round the muscle
Til the arteries are cut off and claret flows no more through it’s ventricles
The heart withers and gasps, faltering and unnerved by the blood’s absence
As too do I, for you are the blood that keeps me alive
The thread that weaves through my mind and keeps my thoughts together
Gathered is all I can be at best and only with you do I cling to that

Without you I am not living, I am but barely breathing
And the absence of my heart weighs heavily on my lungs
For if my heart is an open casket then
Without you, my mind and self have made a bed of the coffin
And are to be buried inside the cold heart
Without you I am merely a pallbearer
And the solitary mourner at my soul’s funeral
I am cold without you
And I realise now that I can’t lose you

I’ll Be Here

So, it’s been a long time coming and now it’s come to pass
But I’m still standing, stock still stunned and cold
My heart’s been pounding faster than i’ve known
In fourteen years spent twisted and alone

In all this time, I never knew your reasons
Girl, turn the key, and call open season
Release the wolves and bait my breath
In sheeps clothing and stained blood red

Choking, wretching, choke the wretch
Sip a litre then down the rest
Fuck the flock, take what you can
Out for all you can get, but left me alone

The door’s open pass through it, and don’t look back
Because theres no turning back, run along
You’re just a part of the past and a long long way from home
And I’m still standing, yeah, i’ll be here

Fatalistic

What if, what if i never make it out of this alive
I ask her
Would you mourn for me or carry on in ignorance
Not allowing my demise to affect your poise and countenance
She laughs and smiles, flashing her yellow teeth

You’re so fucking fatalistic, she replies
Without truly understanding the word

I push harder. Would you even care if I died?
Followed you around,
Screaming agonised declarations on the afterlife
Would you even care?

She smiled once more.
I would be distraught, she whispers.
And I’m startled to note the sincerity in her voice
Then I scream. Why won’t you fucking love me?

Because, she says, stubbing out a cigarette
On the tabletop, you’re so fucking fatalistic
And our time has passed

Resurrector

The writing on the wall is running onto the street
Became the fifth raven, I’m widening into nothing
Taste human smoke as I draw near
Enter resurrector number nine
Call open season on thought crime

Oh Lord, I’m screaming, end this torment
As the shit fills my lungs, my skin is crawling
A litany of corruption, a written lie

There is no question, I held this cross far too long
Some things you’ll never know
A bend, a twist of the truth, dead, torn and far from rapture
Slowly tasting suicide, this corruption is a painting

Don’t stand so far from it, choking into life
You felt dead liars, you don’t smile
Wounds run deeper with each passing day
A bloody memory
You’re so shamed and I’m fucking cold

I run my fingers down my neck, this monster haunting you
Is but a taste of the hell you’ll meet after life
I guess you’re just another fucking whore
To Abaddon and the corporate lords

Tastes sicker than revelation, there is no pariah
But yourself, spiralling, ending this fucking life
You’re but an object in their game
You lick this dirty rotten flesh
And we all suffocate in our special way

Crush

A whispering waif waltzes in
Wailing wordless warnings
Wondering, wandering, waiting
Always waiting, seeking

Searching, scouring
Peeking, pacing purposefully
Back and forth
Four more times, tip toe wall to wall

Watching, listening then go forth
Never go thirds, split it right down the middle
Mainstream and diverting sharply from that little trickling
Babbling brook

You so carefully nurtured, aided and abetted but
You can’t fight nature
Blank faced and bemused
Why do you do what you do when you do what we don’t do son

Wake up, smell the roses
Or the daffodils and not the nightshade, never the nightshade
Dull and dark and drifting along
Rein it in and feel the rain of mediocrity
Running across your smooth sore skin

Hooray for hemlock said the first and
Last martyr, this world isn’t built for us
We who wonder what effect, weight
Tone and timbre tell us

Of your mindset, her mindset
Anyone’s mind, once it is set and firm
Immalleable and uncompromising
A battering ram against us aqueous fools

But you can’t crush water