same again

waiting forever for nothing to come. a sponge rung dry on the bench. dormant and bitter until further use. affirm for access to wash yourself again. tell me that you miss me when you need your wounds rebound. cry into my pores and let me listen til you’re clean and good to leave. let’s play the way we’ve learnt. please let me hear your fickle words. I’ll try to care the same again.

to the trunk of a tree

disposable and weathered and well aware of the depths of difference between hope and reality. look up from your phone. peer through the clouds for refuge somewhere else. disappointments fill the trolley I push through the underpass lit by billboards of failed franchises and bus windows. healing as a process holds weight, clouding over empty fields and Sunday afternoons. healing as a process wears many faces, none of which appeal at first glance, unfiltered and frightening and ghostly. healing as a process never ends. we wake to breathe and continue and fish out our own answers. I lurk in the shell of a life I can’t love: still attached to the trunk of a tree I’m now not.

scream

I scream for reason from the storm

she says there’s been none all along

and though the tempests never cease

at least in ignorance there’s peace

I scream for reason but she’s gone

don’t cry but keep the camera on

theres so much content to be made

you’re looking too good for the grave

perhaps my sense of self is lost

just how much might another cost?

what can I do for anyone

if I despise what I’ve become?

invoice

the therapist asks questions only she can get away with. I surprise myself with answers I've never shared. her probing conjures shameful revelations out of words I fill with feeling. she nods into her notes. I cry at unexpected tears. we talk about the monuments we build for days we hate. there is a cause for every hurt and a brain that deals with both. she says the way I care about the world is lovely but I need to take a break. 'it will all be as it was when you return'. I laugh at the idea. turn your back from what you know to sleep a little longer. just forget about the massacres you're funding for a week or two. 'you'll have more energy that way'. we rest to keep going and nothing changes. she tells me to go gently. I pay the invoice in my inbox with the money on my phone.

into birds

9 years disappear over night. for a glimpse of today I remember how it felt to find out and not know better than to hope it wasn’t true. I think about what happened and wonder if we’d still matter to each other had you made it to the picnic. is there a world in which we find our feet and live the dreams we wanted? if you could meet him would you want to know the person I’ve become?

my missing comes in tears and thoughts that cannot find their words. I hold onto your memory and fold it into birds.

the rocks at the beach

I bus to the beach to watch my friends swim from the rocks. the day is too hot under overcast skies. I sit in the shade of the ledge above and think about dipping my toes in. they’re splashing and laughing and I have done the same before. their joy is effortless and unremarkable and I know only I stand between that feeling and the escape from the well I’ve poured into. they clamber up to join me, smoking and stretching their bodies to dry over towels. my body is tired and fragile in the presence of others better at knowing who they are and finding comfort in their skin. I count the ways I need to change and wish I could transcend myself to live for something else. I curse the walls I can’t hold back from building. why can I never stop the thought from coming back to what the moment means for me? the cities fall to flames and my sadness triumphs all. no loathing is enough to move beyond the mirror. vanity forever from the rocks at the beach.

built to crumble

we packed our bags and left what we had built to crumble into nothing. do I dream of our ghosts and that shell of a hotel for five years more? is there any meaning left in memory when I know we never mattered? if I choose to find my feet can I wake and still remember how it felt?

choosing baubles

I talk to my parents on the phone. they're excited for me to come home for the summer. on Thursday we will find a tree and hang the lights in the lounge room. every year we sweep the ash from the fireplace to make space for the nativity. I remember helping build the stable out of bark and choosing baubles for the branches as a child, when time was too slow and tomorrow was a treat I couldn't wait for. though the feelings have changed - and that line of thinking is foreign to me now - the charade remains the same. we sing the songs that once stoked the excitement with petrol. I lay the baby Jesus in the hay under an angel. the glow of the lights on the tree washes softly through the hallway til the morning.

I come home with baggage. the weight of knowing how things are closes my heart away from the child that prayed for gifts he never needed. the smile in dusty photos on the mantel is no longer mine. the hope in his eyes makes me laugh. he knows nothing of the bombs or how he'll learn to hate the mirror and the world he cannot change. to see me in his future would be enough to wake him up and yet we share a name and vital organs. like him I will hang the decorations and hold my mother's hand in church. we watch cartoons and look for chocolate in the fridge. the people seek relief and we are just the same: there is comfort in the trivial until tomorrow comes.

drink enough water

wake and work and wait for bed. drink enough water. walk to the store by the station. fill the basket and the pantry. wash your dishes. spend time in the sun. pick up the phone when it rings. think about tomorrow. remember only what will help you find your way. say thank you. water the plant by the window. share photos with friends. tell them to visit. eat. look in the mirror and floss your teeth. read the news. be mature. cry only if you mean it. thank God for your bed and a house with a ceiling. moisturise your face. think about anyone other than you. think before writing. make something of the day that should have been. listen to the fridge. hope for a dream.

I’m sorry I still hate my birthday.

behind the yellow line

I stand behind the yellow line and write shopping lists for other people. thoughts I shouldn’t harbour catch like plastic bottles in the stones that make the tracks. trains and seasons pass and still they linger: discarded and unmoving. attempts to disregard do little. I work and sleep and they remain. we throw our plastic into bags for trucks to take away and forget. what are we to do with all the rubbish we can’t reach? every track is tainted. does anybody care?

I hug your ghost to sleep

there is nothing romantic in my missing. I walked you to a train before I knew what goodbye meant. it was different then: we were both people in the present tense, saying words we’d heard but not yet learnt or tried to understand. maybe we should have known better. maybe we shouldn’t have met. I recount what I remember into parables and psalms. the scriptures sell a canon that means nothing to the faithful beyond memory and dream. nobody knows what they’re trying to say.

the story ends. I hug your ghost to sleep knowing you won’t mind. we can laugh at what I know I should leave be. you are an idea I water with tears that should be saved for something else, any cause more worthy than the absence of someone for whom I no longer exist. still I wonder how much you remember. am I anything more than a name? do you see me in the cracks of the walls? you are nowhere I have been and yet I cannot be removed with silence. we use the words we want to tell our story though what was cannot be changed. we were here forever for a while. another world was real beyond the dreams and time that come between us since. 

space does little to dilute the curse. I love an idea that ties me helpless to the stake from where I watch the forest burn. on the pyre my view is clear above the smoke at my feet. the sky is pink with flames of fires that matter more than mine. I hear the masses cry for help beyond the hill. with a pulse I do nothing for the screams: the knots I’ve tied are in your name and keep me where I am. the sky is pink until the flames make way for night. with the ashes I ascend over a world diseased, ignored by those ignored by those for whom they shouldn’t long. I miss you in the sky that covers over everything.

like dolls

in the foyer children play and fight over who is older. they dress like dolls and tease the baby learning how to talk. she stumbles round the couches in socks as the princesses parade behind with taunts: ‘hello baby’, ‘little baby’, ‘what a clever baby!’ she smiles and they laugh but the mockery is wasted here. the baby loves her new friends and leads them round the tables to a couch. I sit and read a play about big questions. my brother said I’d like it and though I do I’m far from focus or knowing what the story wants to tell me. the baby asks about the bottle at my feet. I smile and say hello before the father saves her from the stranger and his book. ‘the man is busy; don’t interrupt his reading’. she protests over his shoulder. I close the book to wave goodbye.

air disaster memorial

we drive into the hills

beyond a city stagnant in the sun

running late for a show the rain will almost always spoil

to wind the windows down

and scream into the wind

over the engine and the asphalt

made for people to keep moving

by those who once knew how

we think too much

and need to change

the news is a tombstone we read into tears

and do nothing about

as the moss grows on the mirror

where the ego comes to die

once the tank is empty

and we give up on the highway

no more waiting for an exit

to another outlet mall

full of too much I don’t need

like the roar of the disaster at the door

peeking through the lock

I see the claws 

and sit alone

hiding from the steps ahead

doing everything I shouldn’t

light like nobody I’ve been

full of answers without questions

without water

without change

counting satellites and seconds

til we’re waking up again.

tired for today

the banner on the screen cannot complete my request. in the middle of an email I no longer have a network connection to the server. they ask me to check my connection and try again later and I do as I am told. frustration begs to break but I am tired. the drafts are lost like school friends or hope. what a shame. should I care and scrape for meaning to disappoint a little more? the energy that was has been wrung into the sink. I watched it empty through the drain without a sound: the last sip of a drink I thought I wanted. not enough for a splash, but a few unsteady drops I might’ve used to wash my hands for someone else. 

the bus keeps moving and the clouds roll in to sleep. maybe I should do the same. there is rain on the window for a bit. we pull the plug on thinking to watch wartime on the phone. I am smaller than tomorrow and too tired for today.

motion picture soundtrack

I fall through the thought

til it’s gone and I’m not

and it flies through the clouds

that I’d keep if I could

but I can’t so I won’t

and they pass over seas

from one day to the next

and I’m still on the bench

falling inside myself

as I watch what I see

a movie I hate

I’m screaming and crying and ready to leave

but the exit is blocked

a barricade of what I’ve lost

toys and games I used to know

lonely names we used to use

the place we left our flowers

bouquets of hopes and dreams and clouds

you in my stars

and the lies I told myself

the nightmare is just a nightmare

a dream is a dream

I can’t wake up

and so I sleep

and so I sleep

and dream of meaning in drought

with pulse and time and all the air

I’d ever need and never want

I’ll feed it to the void

they’ll sell it at the shops

or hang it on the trees for any bird to take

hear every sigh

spend my every day

take all I’d have

what good is breath

when you’re not here

and I was wrong

and all we were has come and gone?

until Christmas

every breath feigns control of the beast. the addictions stunt his body and the mind I wish I knew a little less. no pill or thought bares poison enough to forget who or how I am. the self transcends will beyond mirrors. we should know better than to hope for growth behind the curtain.

my inbox is a graveyard: I live and let down with storms as they come. change is a ghost I have known and want to believe in again. water runs through drains to clouds that drift for stars. this body belonged to a child who couldn’t sleep or wait to grow up. when did he stop counting how many sleeps until Christmas? 

while I sleep

we swim after school

and dry in the car til the annexe floods

from the palace to the green

there are toys from my shelf on pillars in the park

I see their faces cast in bronze

and Basquiat on the back wall of the lecture hall

though no one knows his name

running barefoot through the inner west rain

missing the bus and the train again

to crawl through holes to nowhere

lost in heavy smoke and dancers I can’t see

finding myself in a home I don’t know

fanfare in the kitchen for the birthday boy

he has so many friends

I miss out on a part in the play

the queen is dead

and you don’t want another drink

a few too many questions

or the wrong face

maybe you’ll see me soon

disappearing through the cornfields in the dark

I walk through mud and strangers

window shopping for tomorrow or a sign

waking up again

to dream of moving to the moon.

splintered

I wake with less to say each morning. my ears are still open, though I start to feel my patience wain as the days get warmer and the heat of the sun bleeds on into the night. compromise takes more than before and I find myself less willing to sit and wait in the dark behind a smile. rejecting the illusion, the puppet crumples in a heap: splintered and exhausted by the show. they throw him on the pyre to laugh at the thought of being something more than firewood or a means of keeping others warm.

I have thoughts that shouldn’t surface into feelings. friends notice a difference and tell me. some ask what’s wrong or why I can’t be how and who they’ve come to expect. I don’t know the answers and have to look deeper. when I listen to myself I chase thoughts into a cell. we light a torch to find my heart locked behind new bars I’ve seen before: bones scavenged from the debris of unmet expectations and the depths of past mistakes and disappointments. the cage is small and leaves less room for what I shouldn’t carry. I don’t know why or when it came or where I left the key, though I know it’s for the best if I’m to try to keep afloat. the questions wait for answers I don’t have. I cradle myself at the foot of the cage I cannot open. why have I learnt to love less when all I ever do is want more?

the dust on the shelf

the sky weeps over the masses and their banners in the streets. a storm only serves to swell their shouting louder. they cry for justice in a world they once believed in. the man on the speaker tears a knife through the facade: ‘there is no law and order’. we shake our heads and mourn the hope we held for what we thought we knew. heavy rain makes rivers of the sidewalk and buckets of my shoes. I shout along and love the storm more than I could ever love the sun.

when the words stop working there is very little left. the lack of sense persists without a language. I face the abyss in the absence of reason harboured in the mirror’s eyes. I smile and hate my crooked teeth as though they matter. my hair is a nest of straw I fight the urge to tear out. the fixation alone is cause to smash the mirror with my fist. there are children dying on my phone and I can’t get over myself. I bottle loathing from the fountain of my daily disappointments: stored for myself and no one else in cellars only I can find.

sleep waits on the pillow I dread leaving. tomorrow is another stone I’d rather leave alone. I am the dust on the shelf I can’t reach.