I feel like a detective
brushing down
a crime scene,
or perhaps a
runaway bride,
hiding in plain sight.
Lost
but not gone,
the fingerprints
washed away,
the ****** weapon
left behind.

There's no past like it,
and no future to follow;
a ghost that
breathes,
a newborn that
doesn't.
I feel
like the
final chapter,
and nothing
more.

I haunt,
I linger,
I remain,
though only in
death and decay.
Though only as a ghost.

My mother
taught me that.
My mother taught me
how to haunt,
how to be there but
not really.

How to be
a ghost that
breathes,
or, perhaps,
a newborn that
doesn't.

Bones asleep on ocean floors
tell a story like no other,
we are a natural machine,
a creature cursed.
To soil, earth, rock,
it's been no time at all.
To us it’s been an eternity.

I think humans each have a few fundamental flaws,
and that each one is its own personal tragedy.
I think one or two are someone else.
A natural result of hearts incompatible,
not everyone can love you back.

You are to devour me one day,
or perhaps I, you.
Currently we are blank slates,
beings so young,
beings so old.
We knew each other back then,
I can feel it.
Quarks coming together,
fossilised footprints whose paths intersect,
fish in a fishbowl,
rats in a cage.
But one day you are to devour me,
or perhaps I, you.
And we will be joined as we once were,
two people sharing a body,  
hearts beating together,
lungs expanding as one.

The word soulmate springs to mind,
the idea of my heart beating anywhere
but besides yours terrifies me.
It unsettles me,
makes me sick, absent.

And I’ve felt this absence for years,
it's starting to get to me,
weigh me down, a led balloon,
a ship in the storm,
pockets filled with rocks.
A part of me wants you to feel it too.
Another hopes you never know such a weight.

Sometimes I can’t stand it, alone in my chest,
I lay it out on the table,
watch it pulse and ooze, beat painfully,
beat alone,
and I dream of a time long ago,
an eternity away,
where you and I were there, combined,
with no before and with no after,
quarks coming together,
rats in a cage,
thoughts lying only with each other.

I dream of a future, much the same,
our hearts beating, our lungs breathing,
thoughts simultaneous,
laying side by side,
bones asleep on ocean floors.

I want him to love me the way one loves
a whimpering and
neglected dog,
with pity and
with worry and with
shame. He will find me
in an alley, shivering and
shaking, hiding from the rain.
He will coax me out from beneath whatever
discarded scrap I am cowering under, he will wrap
me in a towel or blanket or his jacket, something - anything - warm.

He will carry me home, to his home. He will place me
by the radiator, turned up to full. I will curl up
beneath it, still shivering, still shaking, while he goes to the kitchen in the
hopes of finding me something to eat.
He will rummage through the
fridge trying, to the best of his ability, to recall
exactly what does
and what does not
**** a dog.
"A lot." I will say. "More than
you think." I will say.
And he will just smile and bring me
something that doesn't.

I tell him I will not live long. He could
do anything and I would not live long. He says he has
forgiven worse sins. I tell him I
hope he never dies. He tells me I will
be disappointed. I tell him I love him. He says I love him
the way a whimpering and
neglected dog does,
desperately, painfully, with a need and
a hunger found only in children and
anorexics. He tells me
he loves me too. I tell him
I am sorry. He says he has forgiven
worse sins.

He strokes between my eyes,
a gentle spot, designed only for soothing something
to sleep. Perhaps by morning I will be
cured, my whimpering ceased, my shakes subsided. I will
run through his house, tail wagging, while he smiles and
laughs and drinks his coffee. Or perhaps there
will be no change, perhaps he will have to drive
me to the vet and have me
put down. Perhaps he will want to. A mangy thing, sick and
diseased. Irreparable.
Unsavable. Perhaps he won't need to. Perhaps
by morning I will
already be dead. But
for now I will sleep, warm
and fed, a hand soft between
the eyes.

My memories are few and far between -
a strange symptom of a strange sickenss -
a brain worm: one that chews.
One that leaves spaces, pauses,
where previously there were none.
A parasite, an affliction that eats, that consumes.
My memories are few and far between,
they keep me up at night. Loud and unruly.
Misplaced. Incomplete. Lacking.
They are a large crowd, gaining, invading,
growing, incoming, moving ever closer,
attacking. Pitchforks made of wood
and something I don't recognise.
A vague feeling of unease,
a displaced feeling, uncomfortable and unreal.
A reminder of all I am not. Of all I have not.

My memories are many and chronic,
a forever affliction, unending and all-consuming.
Mistakes I've made; feelings I've ignored.
Things I've lost: sisters and lovers.
Things I've found, fading out, fading in.  
It is a sort of death, in that regard:
I was a child and now I am not.
An age, a past, laid out beneath you,
stuffed in a box,
suffocated under six feet of dirt,
a tombstone rammed between its eyes.
One memory or two, a lifetime,
sinking into the mud.
An earth worm: one that chews.
Your body belongs to you,
and you body belongs to someone else.
A boy. An ancient thing.
You and the other you.
You and all you could be.
You and all you are not.

I am a man lacking in memories,
there are gaps in my life I cannot fill,
places and people, fuzzy faded.
Real and not real, mixing together, obscurring,
distorting, corrupting.
False memories: tales of my youth
told only by drunk aunties and dead grandmas.
Fantasies created by others,
a lacking and a need to fill it.
Tales of my youth locked away, burnt into
diaries and journals,
hidden away or destroyed entirely,
told, scrawled and scratched by a boy,
into the walls, into the mind.
A frightened mind. A disease,
an affliction. Delusions and hallucinations,
paranoia. Fantasies created by me.  

And I am a man drowning in them,
good and bad. Real and not.
We are patchwork quilts
of all we were and all we are
and all we will be.
We are sewn together and torn apart.
Our stitches just scars, our colours faded,
unskilled attempts at beauty, at life.
Worn down and dusty,
seams failing, patterns ugly.
Used and loved
and then unused and unloved.
A circle. A roundabout.
New and old. Good and bad.
Used and unused.  
But you are not your body.
Your temple prays to no-one.
You're a work of art,
and you're canvas
of just shape and colour.
You're a patchwork quilt
and your scars are just stiches.  

You have no memories,
a blank slate,
dead and now reborn,
a child and then not.
A body that is not you, that could never
be you, a mind -
a collection of memories, dreams, realities,
people, places, sisters, lovers -
that means nothing,
that has nothing.
A blank slate.
A passing interest.
A momentary madness.
A mind that is not you,
and a mind that could be nothing but.

And yet you have so many,
written into your skin,
carved, engraved.
Trapped, running and jumping
through your veins.
Unstoppable. Unbeatable.
Real or not, it's all the same:
which is the greater sin,
to have too many memories
or too few?
Which holds you by the throat
and which goes straight for the lungs?
The excess and the absence.
It's all-consuming; it's suffocating.
A brain worm; six feet of dirt.

You are a man lacking in memories,
and you are a man drowning in them.

It was a cold and early morning,
the morning I realised the full extent of the universe.
I saw it, glittering and flickering,
blinking softly, twinkling like a diamond,
like a star,
like a universe.
It was Spring, of course,
the end of Spring. Summer on the horizon,
Summer dripping in.
And I caught sight of the universe, glittering like a universe does
and in it I saw a man, hunched and wrinkled,
his face a crater, a ravine,
eyes cold and grey, sunken,
lips chapped,
hair thin.
He opened his mouth and a voice, cracked, poured out, filling the space,
like water into a ***,
overflowing,
curling around the universe,
a liquid voice.
It spoke and it said:
      "I am a wizard, the greatest of our age,
       the greatest of all,
       a necromancer,
       young, killed, reborn, reborn, reborn!
       And I know you and I love you
       and I've always know you and always loved you,
       and I know where you began
       and I think I know where you end."
And then he paused. He smacked his lips,
his cold grey eyes blinked up at me,
and then he continued:
      "Child, I am starting to fear your birth into sorrow."
And I'd never felt so know,
so understood,
so exposed.
And then he took my hand
and asked that I walk with him
and how could I say no?
So we walked, waded through his liquid voice,
circling the universe,
round and round.
And he asked me to speak
and how could I say no?
So I said the first thing that came to mind,
a quiet thought that appeared when I looked into him,
into his cold, grey eyes.
And I said it soft and hesitant, my voice wavered,
but I said it all the same:
      "I am no wizard, no necromancer,
       I am a nothing, a nobody,
       but soon I will grow, I will grow.
       I will grow and behold! Yes!
       Yes, I will grow and behold!
       And behold!
       And behold!"
And our circling continued
and he laughed and said:
      "Child, nobody is anybody.
       Child, once you are grown
       you will be laid to stone, to dust,
       to dust, to stone."
I told him such words reminded me of the construction work near my house,
of how it looks like a desert,
of how I don't think anybody should live there.
Should live here.
I told him that I need trees and I need air and I need mud
and not the kind you get there.
Not the kind you get here.
And he just smiled and stopped walking
and he turned to me,
his cold grey eyes filled with tears,
his smile remained
and he spoke for the final time:
      "We live here only,
       and we live here always,
       and we live here good.
       Come, look with me, child, don't fear,
       don't worry.
       My hand is in yours,
       yours in mine,
       old and young mixing together.
       An eternity between us
       between the spaces in our fingers, our palms,
       old and young merging together."
And so, his hand in mine, mine in his, he led me closer and closer
to that universe we'd circled
until we were millimetres from it
and his hand tightened in mine, and mine tightened in his
and I let him walk me inside.
Inside the blinking, twinkling universe.
For a moment all I saw was sound and light,
a horrible feeling,
a great discomfort,
great displacement,
a feeling I'll never forget.
But then it stopped. My hand was empty, the old man was gone
and I was inside the universe
and it was not what I was expecting.
It did not glitter or flicker,
blink or twinkle.
No, the universe is in fact plain and boring.
No, the universe is nothing but a spiral staircase,
it's walls are made entirely of mirrors.
It does nothing but reflect.
And it was in this moment
that all my thoughts became one,
streaming together
filling my mind,
my body.
And I smiled and my eyes filled with tears
and the thought was this:
      When I die, I have but one request,
      that you bury me where I began.
For in this staircase
in this reflection,
I know that my only want was to live a futile life,
to walk forever and then right back again.
And it was after this revelation that I was returned home
on a cold and early morning
at the end of Spring,
where the Summer drips in.
And I was half awake and half asleep,
and I half dreamt of an old wizard, tears in his cold grey eyes,
a bright light flickering, bringing him home, smiling.
And I half stared at the rising sun and the rolling clouds
seeping into my bedroom from half open curtains,
and I thought:
      We live here only,
      and we live here always,
      and we live here good.

Spring came and went quickly this year,
a brief headache as the air
pressure shifted and then
the sun came in. And then
the Summer came in.
Too hot and too dry. Too busy.
The hustle and bustle of
sweaty people who wear too
little and talk too much.
This season is no good
This season is no good at all.

It will be a bad day today.
A bad week perhaps.
A bad month. Too hot and
too dry. Demanding.
Taxing. The machines
not working, the people
not stopping. Hate. Hate. Hate.
It is ungodly how much hate
one can feel towards the
changing of the skies,
and all who abide by it.
Hate in the nanoangatrom,
unequal to one one-billionth.

There is no season shorter than Summer,
not here. Spring and Autumn
stagger themselves: a birth
and a death, spread out across
two months or more.
And Winter lingers, clings;
it doesn’t easily let go.
Summer is Summer once
and then it’s done.
Summer is Summer for a day
a week, a month,
and then it’s not.
And yet it stretches.
An eon, an age,
eternal, hot and dry,
unable to sleep; unable
to stay awake,
a sort of purgatory –
long days and short nights.
No end. No end. No end.

And so, wait, a day, a week,
a month, on and
on, over and over,
until around comes Autumn.
The leaves browning,
the blossoms falling.
A decay that spreads,
the beautiful kind:
soft on the eyes,
on the soul. Breathable.
A breathable decay.
October again; slow, calm.
Blossoms falling. Slow. Slow.

And a thought, soft
like the growing clouds and
the promise of snow,
a thought that lingers, that
fades in, that leaves a stain:
    if today is not a good day
    then make it one.
The trees are bare now, there’s
room for more. Room
for you, to hang
and dangle, snap and
crumple, to drift gentle down
like falling blossom slowly
into a heap on the ground,
buried in pink or white,
buried in the death of Summer,
in the death of Spring.

Full room,
heavy boxes - emptied.
Small and cramped,
pictures on the
walls, on the
floor, unfinished
works of art,
drawings,
poems, writings, scrawled, unintelligible,
unfinished, unfinished, unfinished!
And his mumbling. God, his
constant mumbling.
Humming. Behind the door.
locked, trapped.
Stuck.
A moment, a
knocking, a
rumbling.
A constant room,
a heavy room -
emptied.

It has tall concrete trees,
mountains, black glass.
This noisy town,
this noisy town.
It has statues from long ago, shining
like moonlight.
And he shaves his head,
his violent head
until it is clean and pure.
He just wants clean, he just wants
pure.
There's makeup and skirts ripped,
long, ankle-length,
statues again, boy/girl
80/20,
music, laughter down the hall.
A silent bedroom,
a pounding on the door,
echoes.
Deep breaths,
deep breaths.
Echoes,
echoes and deep breaths.
It rumbles here,
the echoes, the breaths,
this noise town,
silent.

Blue eyes and
blue sea crash and
explode and
push
against the rocks, the sand.
There's a rumbling,
down below,
cars and drawers,
this monster food, locks, locks, locked.
Opened.
Closed. Unlocked.
Furniture scraping across the wood, the dancers
dance backstage,
in the restaurant,
in the alley,
the church, the pews.
It's the wrong language and
no translator.
It's the car accident, the train crash, plane crash,
shipwreck, ship start.
It's a hand against wood.
It's a gentle sea and
sunlight on
skin.

Ebbing and flowing in
winter months,
buried soft in
snow and cold.
Painted skin and eyes
so they
pulse in
deep red.
Painted hair and nails,
green.
Glowing.
Sharpen the
edge of arms and
fingers to
points and prickles of
festive delight,
mix with crowds alike,
Make whole
and make useless
and make
holly.

She likes it
when it barks,

she likes the noise it makes:

a child crying
without the guilt.

Agressive and violent;
not her fault.

The victim of blood-soaked eyes
and gnashing teeth.

The victim of a deafening silence,
and the deafening need

to fill it.