every failure has a seat
at the long dark table of my mind
they do not wait to be called
they arrive uninvited
dragging their chairs with splintered grace
and settle in like they never left
they speak over each other
loud and unrelenting
their voices rise like smoke
curling into every thought
every breath i try to take
the one who cost me everything
leans forward with eyes like broken glass
whispers that i was never enough
not then
not now
not ever
another laughs
a low and bitter sound
tells the story of when i tried
and failed so loudly
the silence that followed still echoes
they rearrange the walls of my mind
scrape at the corners
with claws made of memory
chisel new shapes into my thoughts
and paint shame in places
light used to reach
i beg for quiet
but they are architects tonight
they are sculptors of sorrow
and i am clay
soft and unwilling
turning under their relentless hands
they feast
they sing
they remind
this is not a dinner
it is a haunting
and i
i am still the host

Passion is something that coats my skin.
It runs through my veins constantly.... knowing that this is it's home.
Passion is a feeling, a power, being alive at midnight because your mind can't shut off. every muscle in your brain always on memorizing unimportant details because that's what catches it's attention.
Passion is having no one match your energy, feeling like nothing is ever enough.
Passion and I are best friends.... always have been. we live for one another. knowing we'll never find a kindred soul.

Too young for the first
Too old for the second
Quite the fine timing
When all is reckoned
He could have been one of the 20 percent
Destroyed at the Somme
Their flags and their bodies
Horribly rent
Or shredded with schrapnel
On Omaha beach
French liberation for them
Just beyond reach
Instead he was a docker
And fathered eight kids
Imagine the population difference
In this fair land
If Arch Duke Frankie
Had not got whacked
By the Gavrillo and the Black Hand
But the war machine rolled
And the tales all got told.
My lucky grandad
With his dockers hook
Stands and stares at the future
From the Liverpool Dock.

Father Time and Mother Nature
Conspired one drunken night
Off the rip
To meet again
Decades later
Upon my gimpy hip.

My left knee tells me it’s still winter.
My shoulders are still unsure.
Every part of me that aches
Aches more for the uncertainty.
I smoke some Acapulco Gold.
A serpent creeps down from the sun
And curls round my spine.
A warm wind blows over me
And for a while I don’t feel old.

The knife’s worn handle is solid against my palm.
Sharp edges, dull tip,
Stained with resin.
It has lived far passed it’s lifespan,
But it sits in my drawer.
I hold it some nights when
I want to feel the weight.
I use it now and again
When my scissors are misplaced,
But mostly it sits.
I wish you could see the life that I’ve made.

I count my heartbeats in time with the clouds.
I hold the smoke.
Let it blacken my lungs.
Four-hundred thumps in the time they move four trees down.
Exhale, and accept
This rocky path to which I’ve clung.
The horses almost trip,
While dragging their carts.
Like a half-finished sentence,
Lost at the start.
I am stuck in this place,
The air thick with time,  
And lost in gravace.

Is it in your chemistry?
I wonder as I’m choking down
Tears scorching my throat like an acid rain
Hoping to bleach your name from my recesses
Built a bridge past the swap of your defenses
Tried to massage your heart without pretenses
But you burn me down.

Do you feel anything when you immolate
Everything sets you off like a hair trigger,
Bear trap my mind and clamp down while you drill deeper
Pour in your toxicity like a waste dump
And set it all on fire.
I’ll be the embers to dance at your command.
Ashes drifting like autumn leaves
Snow down in a distance like a winter dream.

Is it in our chemistry?
Do I excite you to ignition
Gods envy the way our bodies friction
But you believe the fiction,
So I’ll weep for an ending,
Burning my nerves as the acid’s etching.
Retching flames like an allergic fire eater
Your conflagration rings around me.

Are you the pallid horseman
Can I be the one to the blow the horn?
I’m weary and ready for an ending
And you burn me like white phosphorus .
Can we mix and tether,
One day coalesce
Solvent in your trepidation
Waters deeper than the ocean.

Is it in your chemistry?