Séance

There's a ghost of you in this house, in this mind.
A ghost of your smile in the kitchen,
Aromatic and bare,
Your laughter a haunting echo.
A ghost of your body on this bed,
Unmade and cold,
The scent of your skin tumble dried.
A ghost of your lips on my skin,
Split and silken,
Kept secret by the Tricyclic*.
A ghost of your fingerprints on my heart,
Precious and rare,
Fading away with my fragmenting breath.

There is a ghost of us in this house.


*Tricyclic is one of the three main forms of anti-depressants used in New Zealand.

Storm

The sky is grey.
Left unpainted, abandoned
By your hand as you
Coloured my soul
In watercolour radiance. 

Flying Cars

There is something romantic
About self-destruction,
You once said.
That should have been my first warning.
So I shouldn't drop diamonds against my skin,
In penance for your departure.
For birds aren't meant to be caged,
And reality is a gilded.

Modern Mentality: Three

To Do List:

-Inhale
-Exhale
-Repeat

A Series of Poetic Statements.

My eyes are sleep-blurry, but I can still see the pores of your skin breathing under the moonlight.

*

The night us dark, scattered with clouds of violet smog and frozen lanterns that hang from streetsides.
My breath stinks of your disappointment, again.

*

A hail of bullets splatter down, frozen capsules that drum relentlessly against my ungiving skin, a beat to my pulsing rage.

*

I'm all messed up, someone help me, my distorted eyes see nothing but my fading edges of perception.

*

Like and amputated acrobat, I am uncomfortable in my own skin,

*

In the loneliest of nights, you are the soft draught that ghosts over my skin.

Happiness

At the edge,
of the abyss. I stand.
No blood, only terror.
Should I venture
into it's bottomless depths,
I shall be wrenched from reality,
and upon me, thrust, shall be
the unattainable.

Modern Mentality: Two

Useless things:

-Phone charms.

-Game shows.

-Telemarketers.

-Reality.

Highschool Infinity.

You...

In a city of cellophane people, origami crowds, are carved from the plastic - a porcelain child with cotton thread hair. Like muddy sneakers in the dryer, my heart beats in it's calcium cage, as your iridescent eyes peer into me, thinking. Your presence is like drowning, whilst watching everyone around me breath.

So I do not understand why they judge your skin, for the ribbons tied into your ivory wrists, for the mauve lines etched under your eyes, your comic-book clumsiness that segregates you from the class. I slave to replace a bridge that never was there, with soft brushes of skin and an army of angry anthologies directed at the rotten hearts that don't exist. Veteran I am not, my one consolation prize is a medal branded into my jaw, a Purple Heart* to fade with time. 

Yet I watch your eyes glimmer, sparking with a laugh, the sunlight clinging to you as I bleed on your kitchen floor.  I can feel your smile against my skin, fire hot against frozen peas and I love you. 


*Purple Heart - A medal awarded to America solders who have been wounded or killed while serving in the war on or after April 5th, 1917. It is the older military medal in the United States.

Modern Mentality: One

People who need to be shot:

• Fascists.
• People who eat popcorn with recklessly loud abandon in the cinema.
• Misogynists.
• Power-abusive law enforcers.
• Bad drivers.
• Those who find 'funny' adverts funny. 
• People who make these lists.

Galaxy

You are the sunset.

A blistering star that brushes against the horizon,

So softly, the sky blushes,

And my soul feels occupied,

By your radiance.

Women : A Haiku

I am strong enough,
I will not be undermined.
Man is not mighty

James Webster

She has a tall figure, slender,

Alluringly alcoholic,

Daring me, taunting me.

Yet whilst the drink is sweet,

It sears wounds in my flesh.

Pink organs, still new.

Adam bobs in my throat,

With large swallows

Of the honeyed poison.

My insides ascend,

I dance with the Reaper.

My breaths are numbered.

A flashing light, black and grey,

White, on my eyes.

I can see the stars.

My dead hands are cold like winter.

Your tears fall, slowly, like leaves

In autumn, from your eyes.

A wooden box with a shiny grip,

I am carried, shoulder high,

To the stones of sorrow.

Flowers laid, rivers stain your face.

Dry your cheeks.

I am buried in the clouds.

James Webster : A sixteen-year-old student of King's College, who died at a party, over-dosing on vodka. RIP. 2010. 

Dorothy Counts

They jeer, point and snicker,

Laughing lily masks of fragility.

Ignorant of our sameness,

They threaten my skin.

Leviathan Letterman,

You will lose this crusade.

I am not afraid

Letterman : a student in high school or collage who has achieved honors in an interscholastic or intercollegiate activity especially sports.

Dorothy Counts: An African-American girl from Charlotte, North Carolina, who was one of the first of her race to attend Harry Harding's High School in 1957. After four days of attendance, she was forced to leave due to the police being unable to guarantee her safety.

Doubt

I sit here, on wooden steel,

Curved back, addiction upon my breath.

Stained glass Jesus stares down,

Disappointment in his gaze,

As I peel through well-thumbed pages,

Murmuring prayers too often said.

I do not believe a word whispered.

I am lost now.