my doctor closes his eyes when he 
sees me, taking my blood pressure
and listening to the various ways
that i’ve let myself down again. 

there is a boy who lives in my dreams
wishing that i’d get well, he blesses the
sneezes and forgets to care sometimes, 

most times. we’d do nothing at all but 
scribble our thoughts across a discarded
napkin or envelope, brushed with dust
and what once was, history. 

there is a howling in my wrists, wheezing
when i smile, brimming with hatred and
the desire to watch me drown.

i avoid corners and shadows, because they
might engulf me, they might strangle the
thoughts of stability and the smiles that caress
in the sun, in the daylight.

goodnight sleepyhead, i’ll wake you when it’s
over.  

taint me, dye in my bloody
veins. chinks in my skeletal
armour, blemished with impurity
and arched bones, cradling. 

i wrote to an angel when i ws
eight years old, begging for the
love of a man in the clouds and 
the salvation that blesses those
so pure, so undiluted. 

i took a knife to my skin and a 
bullet to my memories last august,
wishing for the nights to end and 
the mornings to wash themselves 
away, down a riverbank, down 
a gutter. 

leave me where you found me, 
haunted. 

i am forgettable; the realisation
that i was mediocre came hard
and fast in the middle of a spring
night, shaking and sweating from 
the terrors in my bones. 

i will leave nothing, there shall be
no memorial coated in floral dresses
and awkward glances left behind. 
this information is why there are scars,
pale white against flesh pulled and 
twisted. this is why i fantasise about
sleeping until the end of time. 

what else is there when you’re invisible?
when you’re nothing but a blotch in time
and the moving hideous nature of a world
so fraudulent, so lonely. 

i used to mouth the feeling 
of being hungry, like a metaphor
for the abyss inside of my chest. 
the starvation echoed my hollow
lungs, full of blood and breath

but empty; caged bird, fleeting 
to the sound of empty with fluid
draining the sides. i couldn’t
formulate the sadness trickling
down a throat of bile. 

blurred lines and broken fingers, 
the world fell softly away. 

lose me, in the arteries of 
your heart. follow the darkness
to my shadow and break 
the down the dams behind
these eyes. 

darling, you whisper in the 
night of dead. we’re breathing
in hushes tones and pleading 
for the sun to rise again. 

goodnight, goodnight peter
pan. we’re stuck and slowing
at the rate of a dying old man 
full of memories with nobody to
listen, nobody to care. 

oranges and lemons said the 
bells of st clements, bleed me 
black and blue, brushed across
the streets of london.

i’m unhappy, like the night falling
asleep in the arms of saturn and 
the drift of the ocean waiting with
baited breath. 

hold on darling, there’s nothing like
being sober whilst you’re stinking of 
booze; breaking in the husk of a 
stranger’s heart whilst you’re waiting
for the tears to come, the night to 
end and your real life to begin. 

what more is there than tobacco 
stains on your fingers, teeth and 
lips, brushing the secrets that you
only utter when it’s dark. that 
sometimes you even forget, i
don’t even know where i’m going.

i miss you sometimes, 
whilst you stare into the 
distance, holding my hand

and watching the moon 
whistle. i miss you in between
the cracks of our lives and 
fingertips.

i get lonely, bone cracking
lonely. shifted sighs and 
broken knees waltzing over 
glass. coffee spilt, from the
endless fatigue of a person
split in two, wishing for rain
and hoping for understanding.

watching you smoke cigarettes
hanging out of the window, ash
caught on your fingertips and 
condensation mourning the 
window; you’re turned away,
barely recognising my fears
and barely thinking, relishing
nicotine and the thoughts that
consume you.

i get restless, feet like flight
and wings like origami twisted
in my blood; waiting for the next
forecast of fear. we run, breaking
shins on the wind and rain, who
would know, if we left, leaving only
breath on a mirror and a shadow
of our former selves. 

i need to lie down for 
a hundred years, thanking
the stars for princes and
thieves. 

it’s cold down here on earth,
shivering with all the fears
of heaven and hell, picking
at goosebumps and scars
from a past life. 

sing me to sleep, ivy wrapped
around wrists of ivory and
poison seeping into skin so
fair, so fine that veins lead
you home to my heart.