October.

A tumbler of smoked whiskey
Droplets bleeding down the glass
and clinking ice shatters the silence
dissecting the tension of absolution.

A smouldering cigarette hisses slowly to the butt
blue figures dancing against the backdrop of insanity
choking the silhouettes of darkness
and suffocating the seamless madness.

Justifying decisions with a sense of expectation
Allowing the tears to fall into the memories
Gurning while a shadow breathes against my neck
and strings of saliva drip against my skin.

Veins bubble in rage
Fear paralyses the soul
A twisting neck and screaming eyes
bruises that never quite fade.

Desperation seeks to destroy,
Devastation kills the joy
and yet, in a daylight doused in dreams.
Ice cubes bob and shatter the silence.

It's been almost a year.
Two short weeks and it'll have been a year. I feel no less broken, no less able to deal with the shit and yet.. "I've moved on."
I still find myself freaking out. I still cross the street when I feel threatened, I still wake up racked with nightmares and a fear which never seems to ease.

It's been almost a year and I still feel like the broken little girl I was turned into.

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Knifepoint.
Standing in a blank abyss knowing there is little or nothing that will stop the slicing turmoil from leaving gaping wounds in your psyche. Too scared to move, too wise to believe that I can stop the pain.No thrashing, no fighting, no words; it only makes it worse. Twitching fingers tightening a grip on a blade that I do not want to hold. An anger penetrating my mind so profusely that it leaves me wanting the burning sensation to embed deeper into my fingertips, to score my flesh with its icy flame and to make me its victim. To make me my own victim who means something.

Arson.
Caught in the middle of a swirling flame that I began. Falling rapidly into the embers of my own creation at  a break neck speed that is impossible to stop. Hugging my torso tightly to stop the flames from pouring out and protecting others from from the lick of my reality. Matches jump and spark in my hand, the flint calling to me to burn harder, to hit with more gusto and I collapse into a suspension of arguing minds.

Treason.
Being a prisoner between warring mindsets of control and ignorance. Not daring to let myself slip and yet allowing the pain to pour out on to anyone that is close enough to take it. Wanting to lock myself away and realising there is no way I can detach from everything that has kept me stable and someone who is something.


Crimes of my disease crawl up my throat and drown me in self made confusion at the smallest trigger. Throwing everything I once knew and once relied on into a swirling parody of repeating bullshit.

I've been here before. I know this path and how the land lays, and yet...

I am nothing.

Trapeze

A tent made of silk,
bright reds, blues and greens.
A rope fraying at the ends
fibres ripping and groaning.

Slow tiptoes and short glances;
One collective intake of breath.
A smooth sole dares to take the risk.

Icicles crawling and growing
sticking to the spaces in my spine.
A fiery rage gusting against my face
threatening to melt my skin.

Bracing,
Pushing,
Always always breathing.

Tears collect in the sand,
identifying the tremble
of a missing face in the crowd
and a lacklustre performance.

Stiff and unable to move,
slacking rope falls further
swinging to meet it's fate.

A smooth soul dares to take the fall.

Carving into my skin, every memory I have of you; each line representing something new to be heartbroken about losing. I can handle the pain, I can handle the sting of the tattoo, it's the new found sense of responsibility I have because of it. It's almost as if I have made a deal with you. I will no longer allow myself to fall as low as I did that year, if you are willing to help me. The weight of that promise is firmly resting on my shoulders and although I have every intention of keeping it, I can't help but feel the self doubt creep into my mind.

You were always so strong. Even on your death bed you made sure to hang on with us until Dermot came to take care of things. You fought so hard for so long, I am that much more proud to call you my Granda. I wish I could tell you these things; I wish I could thank you for helping me find my way in the world and for never judging me when I fucked up.

It's been almost a year and yet still, it feels as though my chest is tearing in two when I think of you. I miss you more and more - simple things. I miss pretending knowing what you were saying because you kept mumbling, or I miss the tv blasting loudly. I miss knowing that I always had somewhere I was welcome to be when I had nowhere else to go. I just miss you, and this, although you might think it is stupid and a waste of money, is my way of reminding myself that so long as I remember who I am, who you were, I will always find my way out of the shit life throws at me.

I will try my hardest to hold up my end of the deal, I just need you to do the same. I'm not sure I can do this alone.

She turned.

She turned. Too fluidly for it to be accidental and too robotic for it to have been planned, and yet she did it. She turned away. Her eyes drawing across dusty surfaces and forgotten ornaments in order to wash the disappointment from her pupil. It was slow; almost all too real, and yet still so distant and rehearsed. She wore a mask made of butterfly wings and broken harmonies upon a face once so vividly portrayed as a masterpiece. She hid behind the beauty of things she couldn’t possibly possess in order to remain truthful to her own mind and soul. She hid behind the broken atrocities of someone else’s life in order to remain the fortified mess of hormones she had grown to rely on.

Dragging dirt from beneath her fingernails, she tore herself in two. One dreaming of an existence where music played and passion erupted on the corners of dimly lit streets in the rain, the other resigning to the fact that streetlights shone too brightly and cameras buzzed too loudly for the moment to be sacred. Raindrops fell too similarly to tear drops. Corners had too much of a point. Fear held too much power over her; the shadows leering and spitting. Someone could get hurt and she learned a long time ago that that someone would be her.

Night falls, lingering mournfully on her paling skin; Moonshine casting a glow of empathy on her curved neck and rigid shoulders. Her eyes glossed with the turmoil of an aging veteran and the brightness of a million heart breaks. I cried. I couldn’t help but get lost in the words that she wasn’t willing to share with me. I couldn’t fight the pull of a million hands begging for me to break the chain that encroached on her ability to love. I moved towards her; uncertain footsteps bringing our bodies together. Skin to skin, we stood. Her gaze not lifting from a figure in the distance, her head turned in shame.

She turned. Broken and forgotten, every item was dragged out in her line of vision until it blurred. Tears refusing to fall -memories refusing to dissipate. I turned; so enveloped in her movement that, without realising, I began to mirror her actions. Smoothly, I wrapped my mind around hers, my arms too, while she stood in silence and allowed the danger of regret destroy what was left of her composure. Screaming in absolute silence, her body slowly shook – taking beatings from the words she left unsaid and the bone cracking violence of people she let slip away. I wrapped my body around hers, begging for attention, pleading to be allowed a chance to have captivating eyes fall on me. She barely noticed.

She sighed and she turned. Falling into an abyss where the overcrowded remnants of thought soaked up the energy she once had and disabled her ability to hope. 

Graveyard

Glistening blocks, moist from dew and silhouetting an endless escape from reality, sat between visitor debris and trodden patches of grass. Store bought stones resting in plots of family pride, lilies of varying colour and life expectancy dangling precariously from painted glass urns, and yew trees with leaves so vividly green they almost hurt the eye to look at. A grey sky loomed overhead, as intrepid footsteps were slowly made through the maze of past lives.

Leisurely, a small girl walked, her hand held tightly by a dark haired man, a stubby hand pointing to dates and names. A game, almost, was made of who could find the oldest plot, who could find the strangest name, or who could find a connection to the world in which they lived. Excited whispers and affectionate glances sullied an otherwise unbroken peace; awakening the magic from within the engravings and throwing them like wishes into the serene surroundings.

A projection of life; an assumed play by play of the lives, with which they were toying, as they plucked small details from fragmented life stories and sewed them together to reanimate their corpses. Men, women and children surrounding them, tugging at their clothes and begging for air. The childlike curiosity flitted across the girl’s eyes as she invented entire lives, her hair catching in an unfelt wind and waltzing above her head; spinning and curtseying to an unheard song. 

Unsaid words clog at the back of dead throats, choking the fragility from the young girl’s wisdom. Her eyes, barely blue, widen at the strangulation of a century’s worth of suffering; a hangman’s rope woven with secrets of corruption and greed. Sponge-like, she soaked in the pain of hundreds and volleyed it through her tiny mind in order to lighten the load. Twisting and searing, the memories scarred her from the inside out; leaving silver lines of anticipation on her already burned body. A spectrum of light burst from her pores, lifting her from her standing and floating her into a realm that beckoned forward sympathy. The dark haired man, her father, left standing, watching as she disappeared; lost to him forever. Indifference marred his kind face, the lines of loss deepening around the eyes he had given his first born, and propelled her further into the intent of independence. Their shadows swimming in circles, a sparring of sorts, before gliding in opposite directions; their souls immortalised in the glisten of a cold morning’s mist.