Stabbed, brambles that already burst with blood

Snag me.

I suck my purple finger, swear

And noticing the naked trees -

Quivering, shivering, bare in the frothiness of the light,

The moon exposing: bulges, knots and graven eyes,

I long to make them decent once again,

To make a fancy cloth of golden leaves,

An autumn patchwork stapled to their trunks.

Demented owls go twit-a-twoo

Shhh! Can you hear?

One spears a mouse, look!

Bloody, writhing,

Bright,

Its sticky blood glows in the lanterns of her eyes.

Echo and Narcissus

The mirror cracks and splits your grin in two,

My lip’s still bleeding from the kiss you gave,

A silver curtain’s draped around the top,

The webs are thick with dust and fossils of

Flies.

Like Dorian’s portrait maggots could breed

In your eyes.

I tear your face off the wall.

It shatters, clatters like the din of war,

Your face swims on the floor,

A sea of silver; memories are splinters.

Surrounded by your face so proud but grim,

Your lips are bluer than the grave is cold,

And mine are stapled, I speak with my eyes.

The tears are scraping, scratching in my throat,

That hurts with over-straining,

My mouth forms an ‘O’

A broken sound escapes, neither voiced nor silent,

A solemn song like a swan composing its own eulogy,

All words are obsolete now,

I closed your eyes before they lowered you.

I pause by your headstone.

It’s marble, beautiful,

Would win your approval.

The flesh may die but I still breathe the sweet

Scent of your soul.

You push your head up where the bones decayed,

Your eyes are sore and dazzled by the sun.

The gaudy pills beside the water,

Spread like pic ‘n’ mix on the bedside table.

 Sunlight spilling through the curtain,

The harrowing birds,

4am. She turns over, sighs, moans.

5am. Bed-tossed hair and dark circles under her eyes.

She lights a fag, blows the air out shakily,

In her head she thinks of harsh white light, weapons of torture, clocks.

All day, caffeine-wired, pill-popper.

Running on nothing,

Pupils like universes.

Life goes past in a blur of images.

Lunchtime. A dollop of anxiety by this time,

Shaking and nausea, the tension headache kicking in.

She dissolves a painkiller on her tongue,

Crumples a polystyrene coffee cup in her hand and aims for the bin.

Twitching, nervous. He hasn’t texted back,

Her eyes keep drifting back to the phone,

Prick.

Someone walks past and she balls her bitten nails into a fist.

The clock drags its minute hand with some difficulty,

She swears under her breath,

Her leg quivers,

She taps out a tune on her desk; it mimics the humming of her heartbeat.

Back at home. A plate smashes on the floor.

Voices are raised and urgent,

The fridge buzzes in the background,

He is tired, drained. Her eyes are two blue flames, hot and wild with mania.

He tries to grab her, caress her.

She pushes him away, vehement and slurring,

Angry and sensitive, her body feels stripped of its flesh, a bundle of wires

Exposed to the light.

Later. A moment alone in the bathroom.

Tears are ripped from her as from an overtired child;

She knuckles her fist into her eyes and howls.

Hot tears stain her face, mascara tracks,

The blue light sways like a pendulum about to crash down on her.

She unscrews the bottle shakily; the drink is clean and harsh and tastes like bleach.

The knife glitters with promise, the white tiles too perfect,

Blood oozes like jam. Sirens whirr like music.

Valediction

The garden of Childhood has locked its gates;

We no longer feel the sun on our skin or play hide-and-seek,

The path out of Eden is a tangled place;

Teen lust swelters in the atmosphere,

The sky breaks out in a sweat and blushes pink.

We play our mischievous games in the moonlight now;

It shiny, round face wobbles on the surface of the water. My mind swims.

Fountains of vodka seem to pour out the ground. I try to cleanse myself; a rebirth into the person I want to become.

Soon the landscape around me, the trees, all move in a sinister ebb and flow…

I close my eyes and count-to-ten.

Your gaze burns me,

If two cities were alight either side of us, I’d never know,

And desire often carries a torch in its tail,

You move your hand to touch mine.

For one night only, I thought you would be thrilling and experimental,

Tender. Now these feelings take me over

I don’t know who I am, what I am, always on the run. I long for simplicity,

These days everything is a moment and a rush of chemicals,

We can’t think about right and wrong, what people will say or whether it’s a phase,

If you stop in your tracks you’ll spot cracks in your face, white dust on your shoes,

Taste salt in your tears.

The teenage mind is a whirlwind,

We’re alone outside. Shhhh! Put your hands on my waist, kiss me, make me feel beautiful,

Colour rides on the night like foam on the sea,

Love is the world through a kaleidoscope, but sometimes we just see red,

Get angry! Read Marx. Join Greenpeace. The earth is colonised by monsters; the political, the mercenary, the violent, the wheedling. Liars and thieves strut in a nightmarish pageant…

The world is a dead weight which I carry on my shoulders,

My hair is matted with blood,

I pull out my crown of thorns and lay it aside,

Whose sins am I dying for?

Theirs? Mine?

This is already a world of wars,

There’s a hole in the sky and the earth blisters under it,

False prophets lurk on every street corner; their white teeth flashing light from billboards,

Consumption,

But for us the end is closer.

Dreams and passions are put to sleep

Now I groan at the calling of deadlines and obligations,

Bills, B&Q and baby-clothes;

The world outside is monochrome, whichever path you choose,

But you never know, perhaps I will rise up perfect? You won’t even recognise me

Until you touch the wounds.