Who am I? Who am I?
A question I always find myself asking and yet I have no idea why.
Almost as if I expect the answer to fall right out of the sky.

But seriously, do you know who I am?
I pretend that I don't give a ****.
When really it's an act; a sham.

Feeling like you do not fit.
Honestly it feels like pure ****.

I don't fit into society's giant puzzle.
If my opinion is outside the majority, well let me put it this way, if I were a dog they would force upon me a muzzle.

Freedom of expression.
Really? I think they mean repression.

Do this! Do that!
She's too thin! He's too fat!
He must go here! Now put her there!

All we seem to receive are your endless commands.
Expected to follow at clicking of your fingers or the clapping of your hands.
Did you ever stop to think that maybe we have other plans?

Have you turned me into some kind of drone?
Is my mind no longer my own?
Are my individual and unique thoughts not allowed to be known?
Somehow this hierarchy needs to be overthrown. 
We need to let our shining personalities be shown.

Celebrate Individualism!
Let us express, share and have optimism!
And even scepticism!

Being ourselves is a basic human right!
Thank you and good night!

When I see the news stories
And read the vile comments
I’m reminded of my own
And how for him it’s past tense
But for me and for them
It’s every day
We live with that pain and that shame and that
Way of surviving
Like no one ever ripped out your heart
Like your dignity wasn’t stripped from you
Disbelieved in court
Ridiculed on Facebook
And ******* about in bars
‘This tortures him too’
‘He’s always been fine with me’
That’s what we hear when we try to seek
Validation from those who know our abusers
scepticism and the audacity to accuse us
Of being dramatic, of lying, exaggeration
Well tell me where is the dramatisation
In the fact that in my story when he was done
He wrote ‘No’ on my wall in permanent marker
To reminded him that next time ‘No’ is the answer
Like he should need reminding when he heard it from me
But I am a woman, was a girl
So you see
What I do doesn’t matter
Which sadly is proved
When today we read of Sarah Everard in the news

Hell sometimes can be a comforting thought
When you consider the promise
of some ire of comeuppance
some reasoned placement
of interminable exile
for the ******* who deserve to end up there.
When all is considered,mortal pain working as the ruse
for an endurance of condemnation
(Mothers still wailing in their sleep for closure two generations on)
Mortal oppressors deserve to be confronted by a special kind of fear
It makes sense
The punishment is apt
Guilt has to work both ways.

But that thought is still not a resolution for me
Particularly as the opposite does'nt attract
Given the fact that I've spent the majority of my life
Frightened of Christ.

It has its origins in my own childhood
when I remember back
To when I hurried weary past
the old imposing church
on my way into town
When I was a four-year old believing
If I was'nt quick
The whole-heaving Bulk of it
would tumble flatly
upon my fragile frame
The old road home
eventually winding its way
to my limbo of soothing distractions
that childhood’s orchestra of daydreams
so fleetingly informs.

Senior Infants Religion class did'nt help either
getting to grip with the crucifix and the like
my parents having sheltered me from the harsh realities of martyrdom
and the cold damp mass congregation on empty Sunday mornings
and the scowl of that year's teacher
who had complained that I wrote too much like a spider's web
Giving us throatfuls of original sin and the rhetoric of  Easter Monday
and my childhood innocence
exposed in the opinion spoken aloud
to a classroom of trained apatheticals
that not only did I not believe that Jesus Christ was the son of god
but that he never existed either
perhaps history disproves my claim on the latter
but the former is still full of endless possibility.
(And all this before I read anything about what really went on during the Twentieth Century-Dear accomplice,I can already hear your sweetened cackle.)

Yet still faced with that emblem of womanhood’s inheritance,I accepted my first compromise of all too humane sympathies.
Bleeding Mary Immaculate,she who suffers,she who in her suffering
silently invokes that long,unquestionable certainty of life,that jump-lead rattle of conscience
and contemplation,she whose warm moments in stony acceptance of fate’s misfortunes eventually led me down that scented path where all my troubles truly began.

Christ himself continued to present
(however loud the familial chorus
attempted to reprimand my nurtured,
after-school-scepticism)those same
tingles of spinal sensitivity,that same
epidemic-like aversion,years after I had
left that winter playground where children
splashed puddle water at each other
to make reputations,and shouted mispronounced obscenities
as a means to show they had no time whoever wanted to act adorable that day.
(The first chance they were given they realised the bluff-ladder of office mentality.)

I could never really face staring
into the eyes of the owner
of that sacred heart
for more than five seconds
He accused me of far too much
without having any notion
of who exactly I was
As I got older teachers
tried to convince me
that he really was
full of love and understanding
but those portrait-painted deepest-blue eyes
could lead to a war criminal's breakdown.

And I was’nt willing to take
the sack and ashes
for any man.

Enjoy every day and make each moment last.
Don’t bring into the future, the bad stuff from the past

They say what doesn’t **** you, will only make you strong.
Sometimes admit defeat, accept you may be wrong.

Don’t fill your life with scepticism and always casting doubt
Just go and enjoy yourself, that’s what it’s all about.

Yes there are the times when we are feeling really ****.
Inside there is so much anger, that person you want to hit.

That doesn’t mean you do it and let your anger out.
The way you always wanted to, just let it go and shout.

There are better ways of dealing with things.
Talking is always a good start.
It’s so much easier to be honest, when it’s coming from the heart.

Within each and every person is the bit we hold so dear.
The bit of us we never show, that’s hidden because of fear.

Well don’t you think it’s about time we open up and let them in
Enjoy the time we have together, let the journey now begin

If we end up getting hurt, it’s not about the pain.
It’s how we get back on our feet and start all over again.

What’s in the past is gone, don’t hold that feeling of hate
All it does is drag you down, on your shoulders it bears a weight.

Tell them how you feel, get it out and clear the air.
Your loved ones are the people who matter and for them you will always care.

The corner street awaits with pride
Raise the palm and wave me hello
As the eyes melt reveal your heart

The smile is the manipulating trap
A stance you gaze magnifies my life
Stay in the zone oozing not snoozing

Disengaged in bases of sinking shells
Float on the wavy stretchy topography  
Claim my proponent inside the rigid iris

The splash of the canvas sprays attraction
Alternate the kaleidoscope fluid flashes
A slash, smashing my scepticism cynism

Untitled spiking depths and radiant flames
Erode past the sizzling chargrilled grins
It's in my eyes, my very soul sits and shines

Say yes to life
He was in the hospital tubes and oxygen mask
his heart had stopped but the good people had got it going again
Raindrops ran down the window matching his scepticism
he closed his eyes what's the point.
When he opened his eyes again sunlight danced on the window,
he asked wanted to go home, she smiled, doctors smiled
their patient was getting better.

Times turn for that night on the town
All week at work and now it’s time to be found
This way or that way a few shots at the bar,
A pint or two now just settle the nerves
Skin on skin if it’s Sonny or Cher
A night back at mine for I don’t really care

You’re a desperate case of loving if that’s what you want
Anywhere will do if you drink from that font

Hello, from the ***** side of drinking
Hello, just what had you been thinking
Had enough, of this desperate kind of torture
Time to change, to a newer type of nature

A new you well that’s what you’re thinking
Giving up on highs and the ugly side of sinking
A road of new signs, travel now to somewhere
That new name, taken out of fresh air
Let’s build this man, another to mix with the yes I cans
Married with that job, no different from you and me man

You’re a desperate case of loving if that’s what you want
Anywhere will do if you drink from that font

Hello, from the ***** side of drinking
Hello, just what had you been thinking
Had enough, of this desperate kind of torture
Time to change, to a newer type of nature

So, this is me, fresh new eyes to a world of cynicism
The choices I once now made open to your scepticism
Times move on so let’s forget the mistakes I made
I was young and open to most things I’m afraid
There’s no next time so lets just try it now
You’re along time dead, just give it all a go
Its goodbye from me as I take my final bow,
Easy tiger.

JJB

my own importance is swallowed like a pill,
by the resonance of his voice,
vocabulary ****** dry and replaced with a sheen of the need to
stay so unbearably quiet.

i always want to waltz in open spaces,
feel the air rushing past my arms as i spin,
but walking into a house so white and so cold,
i feel like i have ignored the welcome mat at the door.

it's his alleged presence,
or maybe it's just my own scepticism acquiring the patina of caution.
i walk with soft slow steps as if not to wake the dead in the garden,
cut short the swirl of my movements,
replace air vents in cartilage joints with rocks or plaster.
am i even supposed to feel like a person in my own right?

i wish someone would drop a pin for me to assess the quiet,
but there is a soft small current of people feeling at home,
or the quiet and the cautious mixing in like a cavity in a set of white teeth.

when i step back out into the sun,
my lungs grow fuller with oxygen, the leaves appear greener and the sky is more vibrant.
i do not feel his eyes on me as much; or the weight of being contained.
perhaps he just wanted me to go home.

I recall those days, living in the state of being someone who still suffers in my own direction, assuming that falling in love just equates the emotions that flare up in our heart when you glance into their eyes or hear their voice.
I presume being in love is just about convincing them you are still in love with them just like yesterday and the day before yesterday.

Until I have gone far, and found you.

The debate about fear lodged in my head, I perceived that my feelings were not enough to carry us further.
Sometimes my mind wanders on its own, it takes me to the time I have never sailed,
Showing me a big picture where you have fallen deeply in love with her whom you now recognize as someone who disappointed you,
Watching you invest all your life and death in her hands just to keep her — and you fail and fall.

I don’t know how many pages of the scenario have ended until we traverse in the same chapter. Two figures who never genuinely know who has ever made our hearts crushed and trapped us into a sense of being at an inch with death.

But it tells me you put your hope in me, and so do I.

I put hope in myself if I could draw the figure out of your fragile heart until love traps us on the same roof.

I might have to stop assuming, maybe you are my next lesson.

I’m sorry, I have never recovered from putting my hopes in what is present.

I drink to you perfect stranger
You who ignored the danger
I drink to you son of another
You who took time to bother
About hapless misfits like me
Clueless sods that still believed
In the fictional good of humanity
In your moment of supreme grace
You freed me from my scepticism
So we became joined at the heart
And sealed our fates in perpetuity
For to have a mission is to perish
And be interred in some parish
A sentimental plaque the epitaph
To the vanquished dead and gone
By the ungrateful living here now

When you fixate on the petal of a flower,
Time moves off beat in waves of an hour,
Time bent,
And money spent.

All to impress someone who impresses you without trying.
You send me flying.
A scepticism
Proves all old mysticism.
You wear on top dark,
And your bottom light, like a shark.

I'm the wader in the dangerous tide,
And if I said you weren't worth it I lied.

You remind me of the sweet smell of baking cookies.
Remember getting treated like one of the rookies?

Ever since we met my knees grow weak,
I'm afraid my feelings have sprung a leak.

Something harder?
There is nothing, I'd barter.
For the affection I hold,
Must be met by you also, I am told.
So I must earn it, take the time to bond and learn,
Only then can the chemistry between us burn.

I don't feel desperate toward you,
Not at ease, the butterflies in my stomach still make me feel blue.
But it's OK, because in your eyes something has me go red,
While most of it is in my heart, not head,
I still feel a great interest here,
There is something special I don't yet know, dear.

Many adore you,  as would more with the chance,
But rather than having them all the opportunity with you to dance,
I shall offer myself first,
Hoping that in matters of this love I am not cursed.

pearl feathers you refuse to call white
scared it would mean something if you did
scared your scepticism will cup cold palms
around your warming neck and squeeze
what little belief you have out of you
a corpse will always be a corpse
but the soul of a wanderer will wander
into the wind and sky and I
and you too if you just let him
so let him

let him be the breeze
that forces you to stop counting
the number of days that have passed
since he last hugged you

let him be your buoy that
serves ground in an ocean
that knows of no stillness

let him be
the flickering light
the white butterfly
the fallen feather

he will be forever with us
let him be

I spend lonely nights wishing time would stand still, waiting in anticipation to once again feel, the warmth and tenderness of your loving caress
Days so long, nights so much more, I cant believe how far I am from the times of  before, there was a world of so much but always there we were, on our own path with nothing to deter,
Storms did rage and the journey of salvation  begun,  out of caring arms reach, out on a limb we were strung, no fables written so myths were to be made, but in the line of fire, along lifes great highwire, the responsibility and burden of modern life was played
And so I lost you to the clutches of the abyss of uncertainty, so many parts of the structure of experience transformed into a grey of normality, I turned as I climbed to see no shadow just a vacant void of realism, I can feel its presence and it fuels the scepticism
Where and why you have gone come of no surprise, no great revelation, life has a nasty habit of just ticking by, all forms of growing up are now passed as you pass into lifes great complication
I embrace each day as I look forward to the next, getting older and learning how to survive are not written in some secret text, the world around continues as you continue to evolve, the conundrums and connotations, the mysteries and diversions, they become problems that on their own they tend to solve,
For me and my life there has always been just the one plan, of conformity, regularity, normality and uniformity, I have never been a great fan, that rock of marble I shall carve, the lines and the contours, forged from my own bare hands, the story unfolds as I travel the lands, no fear , for each imposing year, just as always intrepid anticipation does await, my existence has no time to hesitate, full on , headstrong, and no deviation, my life will not be moulded by lifes great expectation, I am me this is how it shall forever be

Channels I long refused to explore, suspicious
of authenticity prospects, auspicious contacts,
using the web of a poisonous spider, to comply
with society, posting illusions, tweeting whims.

Social circles to flaunt an image, attempting to say
something unheard, as I, unable to scent the body
humours of connecting minds, build a fortress erecting
firewalls of scepticism for a glimpsing human touch,

disguising

in a suit knitted with closeness pretence threads,
between persons separated by oceans, mountains
so high climbers suffocate at their summit, so far
from the ground they are as virtual as this acquaintance.

An encounter with the unknown, for all I know is we both
artfully pen realities to undress the masked and imagine
a nascent bond inspiring these words, out of my mind
and onto the keyboard, just as your words unexpectedly

slithered out of the screen and straight into me.

You infect my mind!
With delusional paper thin cuts; sculpting through my cerebral cortex!
Planting silent patient seeds...
That grow to sow the cosmic slides in my shadow self; blows them away.
Like cobwebs laying in water...
Saturation and dissolve!
Soon to be none existent; tethered to irrelevant findings.
Transfixed, bathing in smouldering gazes!
You move me into...
A bliss, of another kind!

Hunger filled!
Carnal bites smother into my soul; where you sleep!
In mist, with light and compassion...
You spin right through!
How do you? Chew aways through my muscle memory.
Calculate for me what is and isn't...
Set in motion access marks; trigger into my scar tissue!
Moisturise and soothe my livid deformities!
Renew for eleven...new life!

Kindly you offer!
When sky's are too stain filled with rust; alone with scepticism!
Your rain cleanses all, and over me...
To soften this old armour!
Wait for me; a place within you that I can travel.
Stand aware there!
To prize open my third eye; and reach euphoria!
Oh, so easily...you can!

In silence you creep!
Fill and exfoliate the covers of clouds; that perpetrate the view!
Come and shine through my first set of eyes...
Fragile, but still strong!
My focus surrounds your frozen form; despite the debris!
Scattered embers, unearthed from background night terrors...
Sidelines of your smile!
Hypnotise the ground I tread on; balance trades for vertigo this time.
I really I don't mind.

Glassy eyed, you slumber awake!
Inside the beautiful'est the truth lays dormant; like bitter nitroglycerine!
The collected calm notions of your movements...
So dark yet divine!
Luminous insanity for self poring; medicating my saturation.
Cleverly, can I hide in there too? Safe in the currents of you...
Seek splice and solace.
In your butchered sanctuary!