i'm a cola bottle
not jellied
sugared, set, nor stagnant

but fizzed -
in annealed glass
boiled until its crystals burn
when poured into a hydro flask
it always breaks the seal

soaking the crumbs in my canvas bag
left over from god knows what
i'm just dishing about
in soggy granulated lint

but if containing feels like choking
in a bottle safely holding
my whole so very safely
the screw top cap still poking
a breathable gap
in the plastic i lack
how do i let the oxygen in

let myself be held
with an open lid
without losing all of my fizz

i'd like to write a feeling out of me
squeeze the nib so tight that ink pours out of me

black blotches spewing
maybe a thousand memories

do the memories control the ink
or does the ink control the memories? -

ebbing, flowing,
growing and sowing
every whole part of me

but as i sit in thick viscous liquor
drowned in ink

i've tried to find less space to think
- actually listen -
to what my body says

treat myself a little
find the time to feel it

turn my ink into resin
sit with my mind

hold myself in the fear
of what i might find

as with the pen
i can only think

it's how i feel
that shows

how i flow
how i sink

i could fix

carefully curate the shoreline
on the beach of morecambe bay
sow each grain of sand
with hopeful and precise positioning

i could run circles around grass dunes
etch every shape so they fit
a whole family of sea creatures

i could be kind -

unassuming,
shrink softly like sand,
fill myself in the gaps of cockles
buried beneath

but no vessel could i fit
the rage in which i sit
no ocean could i shape - bend - or fix

without the safety to be held
just once
by the arms of predictable tides

i lay my hammock in frog spawn
rest speckled in an onslaught of fruitful goo

and if each iris baby were a sound -
(as if on cue)
a crowd of all familiar eyes
would sing back to me

as a wise old toad reflecting
through the tadpoles -
holding a jellied jam tart
some steaming hibiscus tea
croaking a synth like sentimentality

in that sloppy saucer eyed sound of water
(like spawn, pole, frog, to moss)
i bathe in a cyclical wash
and let the mesh of my hammock recess
into a cerebral sea of spawn

i will always be beautiful
but when will i learn to presently see it?

whether i perform
or bereave
that little girl that i breathe
might stick around much longer
with a little more self love
and just a little less fear

she'll stand there in an archway
white light embossing her outline
palms outstretched
smiling at me
soul encompassed
held out to see

i look inside the bedroom mirror on my luteal phase and think -
i really see myself

i choose to no longer be afraid
of my reflection anymore
i see the child of me

not reflecting
but in the corner of my minds eye
tucked right under the mirrors edge

a glossy 4 by 6
of me at 3 -
eyes closed
mouth open
mind somewhere in space
all adorned in costume jewellery

i wonder what she's imagining?
something safe i think
emblazoned with pink butterflies

when i glance back to me
i am still her
but my wings broke free

we have the same minds eye
only my rings now aren't a costume
and i cradle the core of her cocoon

i am hopeful of joy through the processing

yet my childhood diaries were written like a stage
a presumption of what others wanted
should they ever read it
for sure they'd soak in every page?
with enough desperation to be seen they would

i designed my life to be penned with validatory applause

others had to know i matter
it had to be confirmed

i tried so hard in making what i was putting out there meant to be
for others to see
to be seen
with a pleading guise
i could be good enough

but who would read it? other than some dustbin or drab collector of 2086?

(they found it collecting dust on an ebay listing -
thought they'd give the old girl a chance)

but the only person reading was me

and i matter more than she ever thought i would
or did
or should

so the stage i grew up in
my pens now poked holes in
self-made gold glistens through the eye of each puncture

light now peeking
i'm centre stage
but it's only me watching
and my voice fills up the whole auditorium

for the first time with security
i don't sound half bad

i'd love to own this on my own
what spots and circles make a home
as i'm sat here in the centre
feeling kind of oblong

less than more
i'm less alone

i find doting on the latter years
best

scared of a man that could make me whole
cheerful, deep, full, low
joy of stability that i chose to sow
so

i want to relish in the risk of the brisk
trauma is a stone that i skip

and as i bask in red
procrastinate a bed
i feel a wholeness saddened by a hole

that only i can see

so do i choke
do i break
do i seek
or do i sow

if they could remain consistent in anything
it was absence

and consistency in anything
in a way

is soothing

i don't wish co-regulated avoidance on myself anymore
so please
if anything
don't pull me back into ambiguity

it may be painted safer there for you
but i see through its canvas

and with no picture for me to draw
in a way
all i can see is clarity
comforting clarity

it's my last night
and i'm thinking i should write
but in the end
he had all the words
and i had none left

i feel fearful of a change i feel not in control of
but i fear i could find control
if i just stay boundaried

when i feel my body swells
an orchestra of knives
like choking on strings
or swallowing a crescendo

i'd like to sit on sound
or words
on the texture of dry mouth
or whatever noise there is outside of this place

i'd like to trundle down our empty corridor
to find an open palm
which slots into mine like a lego brick

but then theres this discordant swelling
i cannot mute my strings

and i want to replay them softly
in the safety of my own hands

in the dregs of the syrup
i'm sucking up water
still flavoured with the tinge of its goo
then i see you

tiptoeing down there
in distance of concave frosted glass
dancing with each sip through the straw
bellowing up through the tube to me
eyes like saucers
a mind that can't breathe
anything but sugar

but theres not much syrup left
so all i'm sucking is just something
that's now makeshift and bereft

to keep sipping
would be sucking on the soul of me
and i want the whole of me
to taste something that's true
i can no longer sit in molasses with you
i need to feel
i need to chew

embodied the name really -
the light in her eyes could overflow
a banquet of saucers

my judgment of initial perceived simplicity
joy and drive
inhibits my prospective learning, yet -

to dream blindly -
dream big
with lashing and lashings of hope
(without the squashings of a blistering adult reality)
may result in a statistical failure sure -

but that sliver of potential success
gleams a light that shines bright with only the spirit of youth

a light that i have forgotten to see
who is more blinded by reality?
me
or the young girl with big dreams?

crackle pops on the smooth oil slick of a circle -
gallowed grooves engrave the sphere shape of its flow

and on unkempt soil i grew me -
(in a cyclical fashion mind you)

so here i am
so sliding -
coping
coaxing
finding - composure
in the past joy of a sound.

and in the coatings of coping,
this noise bleeds right on through me

i'm reminded of her -
too unseen to know why
she can never remember to look after even her most prized possessions

and as the record pops -
i'm lost and forgot.

choking on hoping to be seen -

i'm unsure
but the chew of the bottle
the gummy bounce pull
the cola chew kindess that uncovers the wool

feels nice
to play in the pick and mix
with his unattainable words
complexity desired
could be
shouldn't be
bitten away by senescence

kindness sincere
whole as a sugar jellied ring
placed on juvenile fingers

but also lacking an animosity desired
through the push and pull of a father never wanting
needing
only loving
through saccharine grand gestures

a packet of sweets after the rain
always feels electric

but saving one per day
might just keep
(my sellotaped door unsure)
nightmares
away

there's beauty in the bottle
the gummy bounce pull
that cola chew kindness that uncovers the wool
and as i pass the pack
to you and back
you've fished out all the cherries for me
they look like hopefully fizzy grand gestures


-or a saccharine blip-
in the dip and the flip
that encircles your connection to mine

easy
too sticky
-just fine-


yet if i had the time-
i'd teach you soliloquies
unattainable verse
i'd take each sweet
every smile
every feat
and dine inside sealed cellophane
with nothing but sugar to drown in

i'm crying into his arms wanting nothing but their touch
but touch is all they can give
no soliloquy of thought can transcend through his finger tips
no warm harmonic hug
can hold the depth of spoken sound
just space between our fingers
in which
a thousand of my questions
sit

too late to break the silence
for it is not up to i to guess
it is more right for i to be
safe in the freedom of me
authenticity
in speech
no longer teaching forlorn ability

i seek more than i love you
i'm sick of searching for just something in some wide eyed passive saucers
no symphony
just distance
and i can no longer ask for something unable to give

i mourn him
yet i seek to be seen
but instead of the words i so desperately need
what stops the tears
is his reminder
-his silence-
that i am doing the right thing
for me
finally

it's all moving faster than lightstreams
a clock regressive in its ticks

i look back on myself as if i were statues
yet the movements i make
exhibit stagnancy now
cyclical as stone
i have clouds in my judgements
it's a soup i dont own

in flavours named regular
i've concocted only bland
a cocoon that maroons me
where the salt tastes like sand

i'm tired though
of safety shaken on
i'm tired of living through performative action
regressed through authentication of my own conscience

was i every really there for myself
was i always on a stage?

how do i learn to accept what never was
or is

i'd love to breathe water
a fluid crisper than air

i'd drop me down into that lake of mine
perfectly spherical
if you were to view it
from a birds eye

to look down upon me
sinking perfectly central
would be swell

i'd be alike that painting of a beautiful siren
drowned in linen
mousy brown locks gasping upwards for air

but no bird is watching
the lake is not a circle
and in the mystical syrup of it all
i realise that i cannot drink brine

but to resurface
feels unimaginable
resurrection is only for the gods
and anyhow
i've never liked the feeling
of water in my ears

without speaking
headphones on
he looks at clouds like fluffy babies out the womb
a wonder that radiates through me
feels whole as a child again

jitter shaped confetti radiates from his fingers
eyes pooled with a liquid blue silver
and what i take for granted
he takes for gold
an intake of breath
a hand to hold
and as the wing veers right
i'm reminded of life

not romantic
nor nice
a depths of hell
not shrouded in the tatters of a bitten black rose
singed petals
skinny whispers
drunken linen
rough spittled egg shell
contorting into porcelain

bones blown into reeds

a landscape
like you could plié right off of her navel
her nape a runway
dancing down to her rafters
toe nails shaped like emery diving boards
no driving forward
without the tag line of desirable
flat lining
cocooned in lily pads of wrinkled skin
left in a free for all

a no more

just word play
fraying
like being thirsty
and biting into a square of dry denim

i feel thicker than a thousand suns over
a fortnight is faster
than the weightness below her

i am thickened
like choking on sand
i feel her
i feel me
i feel soles
soaked through land
a lullaby thicker than spit
i want to drown in it

it's the christmas bells
suffering me away like snow
i can only look back with love
and look centre with spittled sand
like smudged in a pepper corn eye type
i'm a blip in the flip of the lie type

i can never be joyous of the present
of the sturdy stone blunder of wonder i was
of the gold i wintered
of the pearl so candescent in the summer of me
of the bliss sang through the hope of me
the truly special of me
she deserves it
so why can't i
why can't i
please
be carried
in more than the silk of before

how do i feel
how have i ever felt
grazing upon the dregs left of me
mourning a sickness never felt

i see souls dancings in the cockles of a beach
knees grazed against blobs of smushed yellow paint
tears pooled upon the kid in me's cuff
a soiled paper towel
a broken yolk
and flashing lights
threaded through the loop of a polo shirt

each cell and day a memory
a spark blinked apart

of her sat there in the sunlight
beams tint the playground
blobs of primary colours paint a tarmacked skyline

when the sun heated the paint
it became malleable
stuck under your fingernails
and it smelled of playdough

i wondered why i was
what i could be
how it would happen
like a stream of tipped dominos
it would happen
i would be

i now have lines forming round the age of my eyes
thoughts blob black like a migraine
i see them in the roof of my soul
in the grains of my ceiling

continuing the comfort of each and every U turn
excitement once thicker than a fog light
only flickers sometimes
on occasions through the gaps in my black out curtains
they were cut too short for the window

this is not relishing
nor acceptance of a glimmer
snuffed dimmer
but it's been that long i can't pin point the source of it's light anymore

i'm overchoked
over cooked
with a plethora of thoughts
i am a flipbook with no last page
i reject every flicker
if synapsed light -
a self diagnosed epileptic

thinking so much while also thinking so little
i cant connect with her anymore
i'm watching my dreams back on an etch-a-sketch
i fear if i'm ever able to draw the curves back in

i can't remember luminescence
yet i can write about it
as if it was an entity
sat upon that bench across the way
dangling its legs
scuffing its shoes against the tarmac

a yellow paint bleeds between the rubber grips of her soles

i want to die again
it often stops
as much as it starts
rotating back on my track
like a swinging pendulum
a chrome like thud in the back of my throat

how can i pin point what i can, could and cannot feel?
no word is as clueless as i
how do i configure my letters into sounds
sounds into words
and words into thoughts
which convey the static which stifles each of the connections i so brazenly feel

how can i feel so far away
each push backward is a placement less forward
i can't answer for myself but my body still feels it
i feel like a placard
all i'm doing is blocking and shielding and separating and hiding from the thing i am so fearful to be
or already become
many moons ago
or several moons in the future

i can feel an anger i once could never feel
it has personified itself towards the front of my skull
i have become the angry man
a child once feared
he's parked himself on a bench i despise
one that's fashioned out of branches and fickle distraction
how am i going to keep going
the only thing stopping me from stopping is the affect i'll have on others
but what about myself?
how selfish can i let myself be

only when there is nothing
there is nothing less free

sometimes more often than not
i warrant in the delicacy of the insignificant
of bliss caked in chores
cocooned in the dissociation of whores

i romanticise the curvature of my joints
each bend a squeak
each pose a question
i don't know myself
do they even know me?
do they see my disjointed as symmetrical
do they see what i can see

do they see me as anything at all
or a romanticisation of themselves
each bend a soliloquy
a stretch of what's free

have they given up before as early as me
do they crave desperation for true silence
a personification of tranquility
or a satisfiable hum

i feel each individual bone
i crave each one
as if it were a baby crying
yearning for something more than vocational

pepsi max
and kfc
in a clutter of prowess
a glowing spirit guaranteed

a bundle of success
a headstrong expertise
brave in battle
grinning softly
all wrapped up in ease

you gave me reassurance
(on stuff i already knew)
yet you found it instantly
reminded me its truth

through your own expertise
you didn't need time
reminded me of my talents
emphasized their shine

you let that glow guide you always
inspired me to follow it too
whether you fit that shoe or not
you wore it always
through and through
you were brilliance

the laughter
the stupidity
the talent
the strength
it’s how i’ll remember you always

thanks for the help in my confidence
the imprint
the scope
the cup half full mentality
the hope

i’m gonna miss you mate

charcoal hills made of stop motion snow
squiggles line the spills of quills like make believe
they dance along the Sony’s static

i gleam into a bulbous glass –
my tiny handprint
a clickety click –
i’m inside the snowman

my tongues all fuzzy
and i can smell green carpet
a tattered brown peeking through
a carboarded blue
cassette case

white blobs for snow
and the wool of an unwanted ballet cardigan to hold me through it

i dance with the snowman
my bowed feet peeking inwards

i could only dance when someone didn’t want me to.

she could always dance
along her own misshapen stars

i now keep her safe
i store her magic
the stuff she didn’t know she holds
a star sowed in snow –
now grown.

blood never tasted so sweet
because deep down
through it all
i loved myself always
it's why i’ve kept going
and will continue to keep

my heart wrapped up in tissue
paper folded neat
no adhesive
nor nails
no stitching in the pleats

just carefully placed
a warmth still seeping through
easily unfoldable
that paper patterned pew

i keep it safe
folded up in that place
pliability in the creases
builds character
gives strength
it brings a sense of calming
to be opened up again

no subconscious separation
dissociation to try and cope
just an appetite
a will
an abundance of hope

although damp from vulnerability
delicately held
it's present -

no bows
nor frills
or sealed up boxes
just a bulbous damp heart
tissue cradling
cupped in my own hands

the stench is whole
it saturates
because i understand

it’s godlike
it's strength
it’s a powerful feeling

i’m growing me
my own pulsating consent
the blood never tasted so sweet

swaying in a hollowed out bus
there’s a painted silver lady dancing
pouring spirits and off brand coke into plastic cups
the thin kind that bend inwards with a squeeze
strangers giggling melting smiles with ease

a concoction brews of love and beer
eyes pave bonds without stranger fear

there’s an unspoken glossy eyed connection
a warmth without the need for touch
and as a man sits down on a worn out stool next to the worn out piano
squeezed into the gaps of the hollowed out bus

there’s silence

he then presses the pads and they heat up in the moonlight
familiar songs
set a memorable highlight

still,
in the beginning
i’m sat there
noticing the seats surrounding are made of that vinyl
the scritchy kind that make that fizzy sound
when you drag your finger nails across it

my eyes are glossing over
and in an attempt to stop my house of cards from caving in

i look up

skin is faded and stained thin
capped off scraps dangle from the soles of worn-out shoes
wine-stained teeth still blind with shine in the gaps of grins
warmth is bustled up in envelopes
with the flaps sealed tightly in
souls dance through familiarity
knuckles glow numb with the worn out breeze
it flits through the bits of the buses broken windows
brown rum burns our throats with bliss and ease

so i’m sitting there
singing christmas songs with strangers in the middle of august
someone’s just found a cheap guitar that’s missing a string
and all i can do is chin up, smile and sing

because all of a sudden i get this overwhelming feeling that there’s a warmth in not knowing
in just going with the fluctuations of it

because we all know what ‘it’ is
we all hold it there
in the deep dark pits of our heads
artists together
living on the need to please

but right here right now

i’m just holding out for ease

there’s an old woman on a bus
but she’s not old
her bones weave strong like oak trees
her feet earthed to the ground with each step
and with the bounce of her backpack
her wisp of white hair gleams
wet walking boots testing the strength of their seams

dreams

i mourn for the past as a styrofoam cake

glass cherries filled with clouds of beguiling garble

my sentiments feel heavier than the chemicals they sit upon

and with every month bleeds engulfing surprise

in the guise of blackberry jam