I hung myself today. Hanged? Whatever, point is I hanged myself today and I'm still hanging.

I feel fine. Just bored. I keep hoping that someone will come home and cut me down but then I keep remembering that if i knew someone like that I wouldn't be up here. Bit ironic, right? Or is that not ironic? I read somewhere that, like, anything funny is, in some way, ironic. But I don't know if it's funny or not. I don't think my brain owns "funny," you know?

I feel taller. I like that.

I've never been away from my shadow for this long. It had always clung to my feet, parting momentarily for a quick dive into the swimming pool. But never for five hours. I like it. There's three feet of space between my two and the floor.

I wanted something this morning. I may be stuck. But at least I'm three feet closer to it.

You were the bowl of oranges.
Lilac skin and a blue heart
On your sleeve.
The lights and colours that erupt
In stars behind closed eyes:
I saw you even when I drank myself blind.

You were the solution of words
Once all the chemicals lost their kick.
The Truth was out there,
We stayed inside sheltered routines
Which blacked out the skies,
Cast a ceiling on our dreams.

You were the Earthly phenomena
That kept me from drifting to the stars.
The coastline in my breath,
On my tongue - to everyone.
You were the name my friends
Were tired of hearing;
The name I cannot forget.

You were red wine;
On my lips and on your dress.
You were... Late-night farewells,
You were the sun salutation,
The birth of a nation
That could blossom into colour in my mind.

You were beautiful in the cloud forests,
Astral depths: we never had to speak.
What age did we reach
Before that daydream started to ache?

You were the faded fantasy
That I held like sand in my hands.
When we kissed I would tremble,
I would lose a little more of you.

You were sad singers.
Old souls that tread the line of their sanity
In fine-point precision;
You were the art that coursed my veins
When surrounded by grey food, grey rooms, grey walls.

You were the messenger with an olive leaf, a blue feather;
A signpost for dry land. You were the panic button
That would take me to the safe place in my mind.
You were the way I said ‘I love you’
In a voice that was finally mine.
You were my lighthouse in the distance
And all the words I cannot find.

I lost my St.Christopher in the high-rise brawl.
A...one-sided affair which I used to my advantage
To get a day off from school. Even now I think
About searching through the grass that has seen
A thousand residents since. Felt the pain
Of losing my father’s necklace more
Than the boot over my head.
I never threw a punch at anyone.
I did not want to let go of anything
If I could never take it back.
Sticks and stones, sticks and stones,
Sticks and stones is all that they give you
To tell you that words can do the same.

I loaded myself with cheap wine and cigarettes.
****** out of my bedroom window
Every time I was depressed and drunk.
Which... happened a lot.
Even now I think about crazed moments
As if they have stopped occurring.
As if I have stopped collecting
Ornaments of delirium
That stare me out through every move.
Laughing at the mirror when I realise who I am.
The loneliness of a satellite:
Forever turning the Earth without a place.

I lost my sanity on the wrong side of the bar.
On the wrong side of love,
Strong belief that I am always in the right.
Strong belief that I will never get too far.

The televisions are humming on Suicide Avenue.
Scarecrows hang in the allotments
And the residents scream white-noise lullabies
Into their pillow.
All is quiet.
All is still as the street-lights turn off.
George leaves for his night shift at quarter to one,
Careful not to wake a soul.
Floodlights on; signal to the curtain-twitchers
That he will make it there on time.

The house-cats have broken out on Suicide Avenue.
Flat tyres fill the driveways
To remind us of the cost of leaving.
The residents quicken heartbeats
To the breaking news.
The teenagers send laser pens to the stars
In the hope of bringing something down.
A scar still feels like a mark
You have left upon the world.

The residents do not give a **** on Suicide Avenue.
Nets surround the disused trampoline,
Cameras fitted over plasma screens,
But there is no one to catch the fallen.
When solace is required,
All is quiet.
When peace is required,
All is noise.
The youth are lost on Suicide Avenue.
There is only one route to take.

We parked at the side of the road,
You put my hand up your skirt,
Said “I’ve had a lifetime of hurt,
Make me feel that I am not alone.”

Could hardly kiss you for the lack of breath,
Could hardly look at you in the fear
Of how it feels to forget.

You had a man at home.
I was more alone than you could ever be.
Felt no sympathy for your cause of misery
Amongst luxury;

Could hardly say no in this lack of flesh,
This tom-cat longing
Once all the daylight has left.

We parked at the side of the road,
Old-stringed guitar: all rhythm and no tone.
Limbs splay across the gear-stick;
Passionless and cold,

Weak delirium of instinct
Was enough to get me through.
Could hardly speak to you

Once the engine started again.
You pulled your skirt down,
Turned the radio on,
And wondered *who cheated who?

Let me write my books of poetry,
Sing into a microphone with no connection.
Let me wash my hair in the rain
As a means to get myself dry,
To find a connection;

To cleanse my skin with ancient water
That tiptoed the forest before Man.
Let me punch the code of my identity
Into the melody and not the spreadsheet.
Allow me to **** all the people

I was before I felt alive.
Old means for yesterdays,
Ends that caused me
To start over again.

Let me send letters to New England,
Let me drink coffee on the pedestal
Of a day spent sober-
Buckle of the grass in the wind,
Mind lost to cloud canopies
And transparent heartbeats.

Let me kiss a foreign tongue
To learn that all lies taste the same.
Let me take off my clothes
When I am alone, simply to remember
That I can.

Moon: a companion,
Windowsill vigils at dawn,
Medication for the side effect
Caused by the cure.

Let me wash up in the Jovian seas
When my feet are rooted to the Earth.
Let my mind pester the working day
With dreams for tomorrow,
With catastrophes blacklisted in the sky.

Let me write my books of poetry,
Songs of sadness with no tune.
All the feelings I forgot,
All the passion I outgrew.

The old man tempts smoke down
The throat of green beer bottles
From the night before.
Cigarette a tool of precision,
Smoke falls like a lozenge
Until the bottom is occluded; endless.

When viewing art he takes to the moor,
Emergent properties of flocking birds,
Overhead patterns he can understand
Without knowing what it means.
Creation is ongoing, cumulative.
Bone upon bone, centuries of death
To build a monument for living.

The old man paints fissures on the foundations
That cultivate famous skylines,
Smoked windows interrupt sunlight;
No one is looking out for him.
The flocking birds circle the air;
Static black on the page - angry, restless.

When making art he suspends disbelief,
Essence of life locked in time,
No beauty in the fault-lines of a face
If no one has seen it smile.
Empires are falling, unknowing submission-
Tower of Babel, Interstate Highway;
All roads lead to terminal erosion.

The old man bites the skin
Around his weathered fingernails,
Fear is his mantra.
Cigarette a tool for soothing,
Smoke falls like a lozenge,
His hunger is permanent; endless.