There is a tear in my existence,
the gap between two milk teeth
breaking away from wide-mouthed childlike innocence
and falling out,
lost to ice cream cones and garden fences
teen dream dancing and cool pretenses
ignorant bliss, aimless goals
and the taste of near-empty Jack Daniels bottles
seems wiped from me
like a milk moustache.

Adulthood, what are you but a mistress who is cruel to be kind
curling and winding around me until I choke in your perfectly proper pencil skirt?
What are you but a greater knowledge of the world and a lesser understanding of it?
What are you but a greater understanding of the self and a lesser affinity with it?

Adulthood, what are you but broken dreams and disappointment?
What are you but bigger dreams with arms that reach beyond death itself?
What do you bring except shrivelled skin and nostalgia for once upon a times?
What but wisdom and a sense of sanguine satisfaction?
What are you but blood and cells and bells and *** and terrific notions and consequences and deckchairs and chinaware and despair?

Adulthood, what are you but glazed-over wasted days and self-loathing?
What are you but three hundred responsibilities taken care of all at once, caffeine eyes and welling pride?
What are you but the inevitable crash and getting smashed and suddenly remembering why I should do things one at a time?

What are you but change upon change upon change upon mistakes made again for the millionth time?
And my changes, now lifeless
cause an identity crisis
about whether I'm really any different in the end
the likes of which will no doubt be seen again
when Monday rolls around,
what are you but Mondays, endless Mondays
driving me into the ground?

Oh Adulthood,
what are you but a downsize of naivity, a self-belief redundancy, a vitamin D deficiency and a proper place for everything apart from me?
What are you but desperate faces smashing into one another, drowning lungs, curtains pulled down, curtains put up, curtains being suddenly important? Curtains ******* me up?
What are you but woodsmoke and patios, warm faces, good graces and the ceaselessly mounting cost of Freddos, buildings and building things and falling in love...

And falling in love, falling asleep, falling awake, falling apart, falling together, falling
falling
falling
down.

What are you, Adulthood, but always always getting back up again no matter what, and alarms and reminders and no bed times
but being so tired you start to admire
that even the sun must sleep sometimes,
even if it always comes back up, shining even brighter
until the timing is right until the living is right until the mind is right only then can we stop trying
only then can we die
no wonder the afterlife is idealised
and even then, will I see the light?
Can I stop now?
Is it really alright?

What are you Adulthood, but a long list of questions?
Because I have so much to ask, you see, but mostly

What are you here for, except to show me how good I had it before?

Adulthood, I don't know.

I believe that fairy tales are just that: fairy tales.
Magic doesn't exist, and of course imagination is just that: imagination.

Something not real, an internalised, idealised creation.
Happy ever afters,
and Prince Charming hero's,
are just a lovers fantasy notions.

But we are there,
You know,
at that stage where Romeo is madly in love with...Rosaline.

Those evil family relations surround us and a wicked stepmother who overrules.
Girls everywhere are obsessed with being the fairest of them all,
Eagerly anticipating a dark and handsome: Mr. Tall.

Waiting on that fairy godmother to appear,
but its already too late because the wolfs already had his dinner,
and a sleeping beauty has yet to be kissed out of her nightmare.

our bread and butter...
     the web of stars,
     the scatter of moons
     and orbiting planets.
the entire universe
harvested and crammed
into the metre,
of a poetic verse.

our bread and butter...
     harnessing the regal rays of the sun.
     inflating the fluff of quiet clouds.
     drinking up the winds of the weather.
     revering the magic in the flight of birds.
we fill our cups to the brim...
with fantastical dreams
and let spill
over parchment
the cornucopia of idealised words.

our bread and butter...
the incessant peeling and picking
on healing wounds.
of which we have learnt to savour...
     let bleed
     the willing blood...
     feed the seeds
     with impending flood.
nurture to fruition
thoughts stunted in discretion.
bring to light
thoughts hidden in the nether.

our bread and butter...
we dip...
the nibs,
of our word worn feathers.
let them sink,
shallow beneath the surface
to the sanctity of a familiar place.
     *casting our trials,
     and tribulations...
     pent up emotions,
     and what we think
     unto paper
     with the burn of
     everlasting ink.

I love the majestic ugliness of the Eucalypt;
Aesthetically more appealing in its twisted, gnarled appearance
Than any uniform northern conifer;
Infinitely more adapted to the unforgiving antipodean climate
Than those idealised European deciduous living monuments
Still transfixing our collective view of how a tree should be.

Those dropping leaves allowing scenes beyond;
Those tendrils of bark denoting Darwinian fitness;
All tug at the heart of we new Australians,
Conflicted, as we are, by sensibilities born elsewhere,
But borne, nevertheless, into an Ancient Eden.

I didn't push you
You decided to walk away
Couldn't bear the taste of
Defeating over a heart that
Was once in your hand

I'm not even surprised
I would throw up, too
'Coz my heart is dark and bubbly
Bitterly smelling and rotting slowly
In a chest of a girl
Who's perfectly alive

And now you're here again
Visiting my mind
But I won't let you stay
You've started a graveyard
In my head and in my heart

Maybe if things went different
There would be “lover” on your stone
And few days ago I saw here “friend”
Now I can't help but write “stranger” again

And there you are
Wandering in my mind asking for flowers
But I won't visit your grave
Not even once again

Because there's no point
Mourning over people
Who are dead, yet alive
Why would I cry again if I did it before?

The corpses are falling apart, slowly
Memories idealised, lying
Pretending how pretty it was
When we were together, trying to
Make me remember things I don't want

The look in your glassy eyes is irking
Not even trying to pretend the woe
Over somebody you've lost
Because you don't care enough to go to the funeral
Of someone you loved and trusted blindly
Calling me sweet and holding me tightly

And in my thoughts
It's like kissing a skull
Dead hand grabbing mine
Reaching from dirt and mud

We are the same
Living skeletons of one another
Living without a shame
We lost a lover

You started a graveyard
As a first man
I started a graveyard
By not loving them

And you started a row of lovers
But their love was never requited
So I pushed them down a cliff of disappointment
Or they choose to go the same path as you did
Not like there's a difference

Because whatever way you choose
I'll let you down, either fall or walk
And at the end you just see your name on a stone
And me, putting the heart I ripped out your chest
To put it in another and bury it six feet down

Where I can't reach it anymore
Unfortunately, where you can't reach it, too
So after all this time, I still have your heart
But I won't call you mine

You're just a memory on faded photograph
That I put by the stone
One last time I visited
And never came back again

they're nothing but glorified bus drivers*,  said my father after i told him i wanted to become a pilot.

the opposite of love is not hate, but contempt.

what causes the kodachrome to fade little by little to grey? is it really bred of familiarity. the wear of gradually learning the truth about somebody. the minutiae of the everyday sanding away at the idealised, sculpural dream.

or is it triggered rather by the dull shock of an identifiable disappointment; the inevitable transformation towards sallow disgust justified by the devastation of slap-to-the-face betrayal or loss.

must we fulfill the dream simply to learn that it was only ever empty?

my father, a devoutly unspiritual pragmatist, had nevertheless as a young man fallen in love with the expansive embrace of the blue above. the son, grandson, and great-grandson of farmers, he worked his hands down to shredded red sores to put himself though flying school only to have his application for a commercial licence rejected due to a doctor's confounding eleventh hour diagnosis. colour blindness. an all-or-nothing man, my father never once returned to the enthralling blues, yellows and pinks offered up by the cockpit, and from that point forward became a farmer.

i gave up on the thought of becoming a pilot, and later, (much later), developed a fear of flying.

May we speak for those forgotten far to soon
You play deaf to requests of human soul
Reptilian lies encasing the heart of stone
Oh Captain, No Captain. On this ship on the edge of the dumb new world
Idiots raised upon the pew, Hailed as Knights of the people
All they’ve brought is numbered days and promises far too few

Too Little, Too late
Deadly victims to the Maybot’s fate
Pillaging idealised dreams of united pride
All the people can do is run and hide
Democracies throat ripped out by the vile disease
British sorry, Not sorry state
Broken system, Shattered across the isle
Devoid of soul, To death do us part
Its Brexit that will drive the steak through
The Iron witches,
Cold.
Dead.
Heart.

She is preserved at the greenery
fading inside the floating yellows
her mellow as the sun set strikes
face wondering on the future mirror

She longs to encase inside her cocoon
unhurt the pain pierced in her ribcage
the spent morrow of blunt perceptions
wavering the chronic deserted day

She is alone in a world of within
without the touch of the yester clouds*
the tremor of her upset is unreliable
watering the chronic ail she donned

She feels the crystal pain on the dial
rails of entrust and forgotten tense
the troubles of the self sacrifice travellers
trespassing ***** gates of wired shield

She knows when her well is overfilled
finding a self that can embrace life
the compromised placid meanders
flowing the alive esse of a today

She moans of eons undignified
trying to excavate her sinking soul
the one that made her feel like she
revealing the reality of her unusual peace

She jumps like a seasonal seesaw
illusions parading the absolute truce
a muse of delicate authentic flavours
transversing the idealised time and space

She knows herself best when isolated
when the moon sinks and the night draw
when vagaries explode in the chaotic skies
*when the pearl starry sun stares in her iris

Does life even have a purpose
Or has society given it meaning
I don't remember being born with a checklist
But society saw my gift and wrote my destiny

I try to elude it, but it always finds me
Is free-will a myth and is success the only deity
Don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining
I’m not the recalcitrant teen who rebels to revel
I’m the one who’s lost at the intersection of fate and destiny

God decides your fate they told me
They told me there’s a god inside me
And the fate I’ve chosen is poles apart my destiny
I am coerced into craving this utopic life idealised by society
Who should I pick, who knows better?
Society that evolved over eternity or a teen just past puberty

In these moments I turn to love to help me
I think of my parents and do as they tell me
Love demands selflessness and that will drive me
My purpose on this earth is to help everyone besides me

I plan on using your shaving mug.

a plan not worth telling
unless you knew of
the many howling adolescent evenings
I spent
jabbing my fingers in the snout
to touch your leftover hair.

It was stuck,
preserved with ancient soap,
cleansed of life, of pigment.
I wanted to touch the filament
that once burnt you
into being.

Yourself entombed
in pottered clay, soft beige
monument. The hands that once
shaped it, like yours;
they tend to me, bring me shape
in a formless world.

The same shoots grow here;
on my crown and over the temples.
I worship your concept,
myself a replication - thin haired
and inadequate. Less loved, more turbulent,
with naught left but life.

It's less than what you have;
idealised memory, a shrine of compliments,
a spotless life of saviour and sin.
How I love you, oh privation,
How I miss you,
dear Father.

now is the time though,
to clear my reflection.
now is the time
to wash you out.

Am I stucked to the same old page of a withering book?
Has our story ended, why have I hopes?
But you go on forgetting me, maybe hating me,
why didn't you just explain?

Everytime I read a poem I wonder what would you think,
or if you cry reading unsatisfying,sad ends.
And I'm hiding behind my dusty glasses
while you're a step in front of me in a running over-crowded bus,
not greeting like we've never met before.

Because I miss you that's why I can't form a proper friendship
and people leave, like you did, inexcusably.
Maybe I only miss those idealised memories,
or need someone who understands all of my aspects like you used to.
And they'll keep the promises I believed in.

What if I'm stuck to you calligraphic inscription in a tiny note?
Do you still read those five pages letters?
Do you remember them? Do you remember me?
Are we complete strangers again?

The blind beggar plays
to the tune of the river,
a Parisian lullaby;
une ode à la Seine
to deliver.

Oh, quickened street,
oh, passing joy;
my concrete slab,
my Helen of Troy.

Please stay with me now,
my dear wine-soaked friend,
do not linger on beginnings;
nor focus upon
the end.

We’ll sing over coffee
just to welcome November,
a Parisian ensemble;
une chanson pour la saison,
dying ember.

Oh, rainy skies,
oh, painted prize;
my lucid dream,
set before my eyes.

Please stay with me now,
my idealised sight,
do not lend to compromise;
in these foreign streets
of no plight.

And the blind beggar still plays
that tune of the river,
a Parisian lullaby;
une ode à la Seine,
et chaleur pour l’hiver.

You’re the one the I need.
You’re the one that I wanted.
You’re the one I get hurt for
You’re the one that I lean on.

I sit outside contemplating if I’ll ever have the right words to fully orchestrate the greatest love song.
Pondering on the ideology behind each symphony and melody.
Trying to figure out if I can truly compensate for each octave. After all I’m no singer.

I stand before a very large crowd. All eyes on me. I hear each murmur from the background. It would seem they are all waiting on me.
Dressed and draped in black, my hands begin to shiver, sweat trickling down my forehead.
I don’t have the voice for this. How on earth do I put on the greatest show.

Deep breath, inhale, exhale. I tell myself. If it’s all for a love like no other.
Surely I can make this work. Somehow I can. Because if it’s for her. Then I need to become the greatest showman to date.

I want to say things like “I’ve never believed in fate and that every fibre in me believes there’s no destiny. That I always sought love to be superficial or more of a fantasy.”
However I’ve always been a sucker for romance.
And I always believed that love could enhance every bit of our surrounding. And in saying so. I am stating to you that you’re my comfort in ending. And I hope that having a knowledge of this is profound. Because at the end of the day, you’re the only love I need and have found.

I stare in awe at the crowd. At first lost for words. But to the thought of you, I’ve found inspiration. At the sight of you, my confidence sky rockets. I don’t know if you know but you’re my motivation. And for as long as I can imagine, all that I want and need is within you.

I’m a victim of love.
I have stood before Cupid and allowed for him to take a mugshot of me love drunk.
I’ve been in a position whereby I fought love and thought it was love.
But my reality always pulled me out of this dream. Dragged by gravity. I realised it was all idealised, conceptualised misunderstandings of what I thought was what my heart needed.
Because at the end of the day. The love I had given out was never reciprocated. It made me feel as if I was doomed.
As if I was to be consumed by the world and to be hastily chewed up and spit by the people that took my heart only to decide that it wasn’t good enough.

Feeling like you’re not good enough and being put in that situation is painful. I remember fully telling myself that I cannot be that again. I need love that is not only healthy but will help me grow and become better and be in a case of “Finally, I feel at home”

When you walked and came into my life. I never expected that.
I know I was wholly curious about you.
I know I wanted to know more, I wanted to know what makes you smile, what makes you laugh, what makes you happy, sad, confused, confident, what ticks you off, what angers you, what makes you. So you.
And how can I be apart of your life. How can I see that smile everyday and make you laugh and make you see the world the way I see it in your eyes.

And it’s weird. I know.
But when i heard your name for the first time.
It felt like my heart finally found its other half.
I love you.

Nameless is the land I walk upon,
despite the flags mounted in wind
and the bloodstains on every front door.

This body is borrowed from the stars,
both a million years old and barely new,
despite the gathering of age in my face.

All money is spent in vacant assumption;
as if these inventions of value do anything
but strip all items of their worth.

Dreaded is the will I place in travelling,
knowing intrinsically about arbitrary birth:
that if I was not born on land, I would simply drown.

I have paid for the sounds of my guitar,
but I lose ownership in their effortless travel
through the air - left to sound through the aeons.

This house is nothing but Earth upon Earth.
Watch as the weeds emancipate through the wall;
it is the people who have forgotten their place.

These old friends are not mine, but obsessions.
Memories of idealised time that I cling to,
as toys are swept up and sold in parts.

Passing are these clothes upon my back,
despite the fashion of my walk
and your letters in my old blazer pocket.

Rationed is my life upon this planet.
All that I meet will fall away,
and all that I take, is returned.

Butterfly landed upon my arm
Touched just once then flew away
Yet trapped in the cage of memories
To remain engraved until I fade

Lives linked through thoughtless sight
And meaningless for one dies so young
But does not leave for the other, kissed
Yet not missed, taste upon thy tongue

Perfection created by not man nor god
Pictures and poems can’t replace
The Idealised of ones eternity
Written upon the others face

Beloved, said but I was not
For wings of butterflies yearn to fly
Alive and caught within a moment
If perhaps it lives longer than I.

Sometimes I look up to the sky and have a longing to propel myself outwards amongst the stars and planets and fragments of dust that cling together in desperation, attempting to create some planetary mass that someone, somewhere, might one day call their home.

The earth looks on. We go about our lives, venturing to her highest peaks and trekking across the open plains. We cultivate crops in the soil and celebrate when the rains flow from the skies and into the rivers and streams and taps and glasses on the dinner tables of business men and dying veterans, and the child who laughs at the forming of the rainbow, that symbolises the unavoidable end of this dream that we have grown so comfortable with.

The earth looks on and is indifferent. We gouge away, we poison, we pollute and we pillage the lands, and expect to fill that void within us. Destroying the very planet that has given us birth so that we might find ourselves, find our way. Yet the more we gouge and poison and pollute and pillage, the further away from this idealised end do we find ourselves. For we do not only destroy the earth; we destroy ourselves. A drop of poison in the ocean is but one more in our cup. As we pollute the skies, so do our minds become clouded and our vision becomes obscured by the continually evolving chaos we find ourselves in, and we double and triple our efforts to maintain order so that we might fill that ever present void.

Should one look to the stars or the depths of his mind to find that which he seeks? The deeper we dig, the higher the towers rise above our heads. One cannot stand on a mountain top and deny the existence of the stream that flows effortlessly through the valley. Swim amongst the clouds and glide with the raindrops and rainbows will make their homes amongst you.

I’d seen her coming and going for
A couple of years or more,
Her hair in the wind was blowing
Every time she walked on the shore,
I must admit I was taken in
By her eyes and her lips of gloss,
She made me think of imagined sin
The woman who never was.

She wore the flimsiest blouses that
Were loose, and tied at the waist,
And lived in one of those houses they
Put up in the new estate.
She seemed to delight in teasing me
By wearing her skirts so high,
The slightest gust from a breeze would free
A glimpse of a naked thigh.

She never actually spoke to me
But she’d raise a brow my way,
While I hung over the garden gate
Thinking of what to say,
And soon it became a ritual
She’d pass in the early hours,
Then come again in the afternoon
With her basket full of flowers.

In time I noticed a subtle change
In the way she wore her hair,
She started to pin it back, and then
It didn’t seem so fair.
The eyes that had used to tantalise
Became harder, and the gloss
Was fading out on the ruby lips
Of the woman who never was.

I thought I was slowly losing her
But just a little each day,
Nothing would stay the same, I saw
Her slowly fading away,
I said to a friend, ‘What’s happening,
I have this sense of loss,’
And he replied she was trapped inside,
The woman who never was.

‘She doesn’t really exist you know,
It’s better you let her free,
You’ve compromised and idealised
Till she thinks, ‘I can’t be me.’
She may just show if you let her go,
If you don’t, you’ll count the loss,
She’ll stay forever inside you then
The woman who never was.’

I switched her off and I walked the shore,
Went up to the new estate,
Then held my breath and knocked at her door
And I said, ‘I know I’m late.’
She looked at me and she smiled, you see,
And she said, ‘My name is Roz,
It’s been so long I was feeling wrong
Like the woman who never was.’

David Lewis Paget

I must have fallen in and out of love
a dozen times over the years.
This summer I have seen a few of the girls
who once were the objects of my affection-
albeit idealised versions of themselves
whom I created in my mind
and placed on pedestals-
and spoken with them
as though I never felt a spark of passion.

And perhaps I did not.
So what love have I had that lasted?
None comes to mind.
How is it I fall in love so easily?
I only believe I have not fallen in love at all.

And if I have never loved,
yet felt so strongly for each after the other,
I can only imagine the depths
I might feel one day for you.

Who can say what it is to love?
But I wish to find out;
not to fall in love slowly,
but all at once.
And then all at once again.
Like an ocean's waves,
endlessly washing over me,
I wish to endlessly fall in love with you.
To look into your eyes
with a steady gaze and know,
without hesitation or the faintest doubt,
that I love you in that very moment.  

Because I cannot promise to love you always,
and I cannot say I have loved you always,
but I certainly can say I love you right now.
And what is more honest than to love you in the present tense?
And what more could I give than my entire self, as I am, today?

I feel as though,
I was destined for this.
And if you crush me,
I would be so honoured to be crushed.
If you found another better than I-
and scarcely difficult would that be to do-
there would be no surprise on my part.
But were you to knowingly forgo
the possibility of something better,
to be with me,
there is nothing more than that which I desire.

And I am so very often lukewarm,
not feeling strongly one way or the other.
I would have to say I want for very few things,
if I were honest.
But my strongest and most passionate wish
is to be with you.

Between a blink,
In darkness ever so brief,

Against each eye lid,
A visage rest finely engraved,
A visage of my own,

Though immaculate in high relief,
There was increasing unease,
As though to perceive it,
Was to obscure it,

Could this be,
But a buried impression of me,
Of dwindling memory,

Or, some idealised state,
That I hopefully await,

One thing be certain,
What visage linger,
Between the blink,
Is what I will never understand.

They say love should not be idealized
but isn't love the only thing that deserves to be idealised ?
They say we shouldn't get too attached
but shouldn't we give our all for love
if not then can we call it love at all?

They say don't give your self up for love
but if not for love then what else is there
they say we shouldn't get too tethered to love
but isn't love something to get wrapped for?
oh what i would give to get wrapped in those arms

but why did you left me with this void instead of promised future
was it all in my head?
was I the one dreaming of you while sleepless
was i the one looking at your silhouette during the Sunkissed day
was i the one who felt the tug while you were chained at the bay?

How can one know the end still hope for change
how can i fight against the current of the river
while you were the sea itself
How can i stop myself from burning
when you lit the fire yourself.

How hollow the hallowed hours are spent in adoration,
These born not by feeling, but simple desperation,
As false green pastures of forests set as scenery now wither,
That feared cold that the woodland warded against now haunts and hounds, leading one to shock and shiver.

Loneliness. That dark dire and deadly dread that stalks us through our lives,
We're told we're only alone in death but far less than lonely when we die.

We are very rarely not alone, with respect to lives within our heads,
Which hold thoughts and hopes and words, only thought of, never said.
Nobody really knows us, not all of us I feel
The reality is we only reveal a part of ourselves, our self idealised ideal,
So here we're left, severed, distant, and detached,
Hoping, seeking for some form of a preformed idea of a match,
Distinctly apart from each other we are kept for most of the time,
Is there any surprise in false emotion of devotion spoken?
With loneliness as motive, is there any wonder why the crime?

Anything to avoid the harrow of a hallow of the heart
It makes out endings and our starts, but which leaves us more apart,
I see others, remark and wonder, ponder whether or not they are the same,
Lonely empty canvases, blank and always seeking a partner, painter or just a frame.

Though these plays we cast, for a time they do sustain,
I'd like one day, for the truth to at last be known,
Is there a mirror or a soul with who we are the same?
Or are we always to be be left alone?

I’m a gen z baby
Emotionally messed up baby
Snowflake little baby baby
You think you know me baby

**** that…
Apathetic, rude *****
Cut you off without a worry
I wont whine unless I want you to be ******* sorry

***** mouthed lady
Twenty-one and failing
Honey I don’t really care how you wanna see me
In these times, it’s about how I see me

Maybe since I lived in chaos
Now it’s where I thrive
Tried to tie my hands and control me
Now I run my hive

Tellin’ me to simply smile
Ain’t gon heal the child
It’s about my self-respect
It’s learning to take the wild

Hit me once hit me twice
You won’t knock me down
I take the sorrow and I swear
I won’t hit the ground

Lived through a pandemic
You expected me to study?
My trauma came back to haunt me
But you where too busy makin money

Tellin me to look up to Thunberg
All she did is skip school
I could have done that any day
But it won’t have gone my way

Yeah I’m going all dark knight rises
Quoting Joker and blaming society
I went and got my ******* Pfizer
But none of it will repay me

For all I have lost throughout the years
That took you a disease to realise
I doubt you’ll ******* learn
Ignorant and idealised

Maybe I’m always on my phone
Because I was raised wirelessly
Relying on a wifi rather than integrity
Go on and blame me once again

Yeah I sound like a bratty child
But have you ever considered
Why the attitude is needed
Nah of course you don’t listen

Ever since I was born it’s always been this way
You start the fires and let it burn
Leaving us with the ashes
You let us take all these lashes

Over and over again
The consequence simply does not leave
You pollute our lungs and sit there
Wondering why we can’t breathe

An open letter to our abusers
I hack up tar on a daily basis
And yeah I blame you for my strife
You had no right to ruin my life

An idealised view of who
men think they are.

a pop star
a *** machine,
the matinee that women love
and men desire to be,

the macho man,
Peter Pan and
Tinkerbell?
well
it's not the dark ages
anymore.

it's harder to be anyone than the one you thought you were when the ideal isn't ideal even when you think you're there.

The further away I get from you
The more I can see into your past.
Time and space offer a grander view
Of how we made it last.

When we were joined at the hip
And our love was new,
All your faults were totally eclipsed
By my romantic idealised view of you.