The silence is deafening; unbearable
all the gaps you have left behind cannot be filled:
a gaping chasm inside me
pain pushing me apart from the inside out
anguish ripping through me every second, every moment
tearing me to pieces
exploding through my veins

The deepest longing
for your touch
for your voice
for only you can make the pain subside

but you won't.

Limbs
made up of
undesirable flesh
and blood that leaks
through the skin.
drowning in cells
absent euphoria
dysmorphia
distorting glass and
laying scars over skin. 

desire taught me how to
measure my life in numbers;
testing the boundaries of the body 
and the mind.
cotton wool clothing
and skies always darkening
peeling my eyes open
in the hairdressers mirror.

Insides crumbling
trash cans fed with fear
inescapably inescapable
I am totally incapable
of making up my mind. 

I am flesh and bones and blood and muscles and organs. I am scars and tattoos and piercings and make-up and hair dye and scabs and skin. I am pain and anger and love and trust and misery and honesty and fear. I am fire and edges and thunderstorms and whispers and bite-marks and lust and the second the shutter snaps down. I am tired and energised and head and heart and old and new and life and death. 
I am able to carry the world on my shoulders but even a leaf could crush me where I stand.

Tell Me.

Tell me how to quieten my mind without emptying my body,
how to walk through the trees without counting the time,
tell me how to feel like I’m not just so normal
without watching the numbers decrease, yes I’m trying

Tell me how to taste without feeling guilty,
teach me how to feel full without wanting to gag,
pull me to my feet when I fall down on bruised knees,
rub my soul back into my skin, trace lines down my back 

The darkness is calling but the light wants me closer,
though the numbness and bruises are beckoning me home,
I’m nothing without it, I can’t trust the brightness,
it may stay for a while but it always leaves me alone 

Open my mouth and force in seeds full of sunshine,
listen to me whisper, watch blood fall from my lips,
watch me twist, and morph into monsters,
hear me cry over razor-sharp hips

Elusive memories flutter around my eyelids,
fingers dancing across jutting bones,
it’s time to start smiling, a voice breathing gently,
but just as I said, darkness is calling me home. 

15/05/12

I try to find textures like sunshine
and patterns like summer
and pretty little things that can open up my heart to light
the only times when I can feel a slight glowing within
before it is quickly replaced with cold, dark hands that clutch at my insides
and turn my mind in on itself before I can cry out.
I try to find solace in cigarettes,
cups of steaming tea,
good books,
a warm bed,
photographs, 
and other souls
but
sometimes I take refuge in 
too much of a good thing and then
the bottom of a toilet,
exhaustion,
or lonely fast walks in the middle of the night,
and each good thing fades away in my memory 
until all I am is a build up of numbers, and that is all that is left of me.

Some of us live
lives so hollow 
that our minds are sewn together by
frail little thoughts of
sun rays and green tea
fragile tiny hopeful glimmers that
appear for only a short time
but they are all that keeps us here

I need sunlight and
short walks 
and daffodils greeting my step
soft green grass
daisies and bumblebees
wooden beams
laughter
warm mattresses
and a clear head

but what I really have is
cold dark days
hard concrete
boxed in rooms
hollow words
and a blackness where my thoughts should be

I feel like hard
plastic
soft
skin
sweet like
cherry drops
cold like
winter
and bitter like
the harsh wind
that blows on 
the days the snow falls. 

How nice it was:
you rocking me gently;
your arms around me,
and your breath in my ear,
and we both know that
it is okay
to say nothing for a while
and just let our chests
rise and fall
with our heartbeats.