when I feel like this, I only know how to write cryptic words, and vice versa

rain in the gutter 
murky milky green 


the colour of nature 
the colour of bile 


bring life -
wash it away


swirl down the drains:
kill on sight


drown me,
or heal pain?


sun after the storm
- not worth looking for

not anymore,
not today

-

you silence me
render me glass-eyed
tether me, immobile

a lost cause, even
nature is at wit's end,


you take away everything.

-

Black Glass

Beyond night;
dark as hell is
overlaid shadows
infinite ocean

It cuts me.
So deep, I bleed
Remorse, unending
tears - the burden

As black is glass
My hands quiver
with every shard
and splinter spite


So rampant, trite
Widespread
a daily affair
no one listens anymore

like cancer
it spreads
it goes into remission
it relapses

Shards and shards
of black glass, broken
and pounded into every
heartbeat

It is far better to die
alone with this pain
than to leave broken glass
for others to sweep.

-

pain and death

pain envelopes me
like a miasma
it starts in my core
and permeates throughout

I think of death
as my only escape
from pain or
religious treatment of it

my heart is gripped
in a net of splintered shards
piercing, shattering
until I no longer breathe

my body flails in lack
of verve, energy; I am
absolutely nothing
but sickness

tears soak my pillow

my lifelight struggles to flicker

I medicate to present myself sane to you

but I am already going.

I can't fight this alone.

I am a charlatan and a ruse -
Masquerade of light;
Really, vile.

Vodka, plain
Unsure in this world:
Let us try to be something.

I am wasted.

Air expended, is wasted
Asphyxiate me, soon
Await.

Death.
Rightful place in me,
My imaginary friend from eons gone -

I never knew you were vile
But I knew you
Intimately.

Serotonin.
That's what's missing,
Yet I feel you, so close by.

Blacker than black.

Falsely,
This I know
But all the same,

You asphyxiate me, every day.

Bell Jar For You

Vodka, plain
I am that woman

Cheshire smile
I am that girl

"Why so many pills?"
"I wanted to die."

Revived, alive
For you.

trauma

Wafting. As opposed to
Assault -
miniature drumbeats
of alarm and panic
drifting,
diffusing into my soul.

Like boiling a frog
Death -
eminent, incoming
convecting invisibly -
Snap.
Flee, fight, or die.

trepidation

Before I fall asleep.
I feel a sense of fear
- irrational fear,
one that cannot be qualified.

I murmur Psalm 121 to myself.
It helps. The Lord will watch over
your coming and going both
now and forevermore.

I am now on a new cycle of meds.
Will I sleep eventually? I hope.
Else I will need a drink to cope.
For now, chasing trepidation then.

Love crashes;
Serotonin refill, please?
Double, neat

Tears retracted,
Strung back by meds -
Double shots

Free fall --
Kingdom of madness
A chaser, too

What works?
Not me, I'm damaged.
A broken glass.

takotsubo

Octopus-trap
clamping my heart
Keeping it alive
for delayed death

As if consumption-
dying inside-out
and claustrophobia-
weren't wasting enough

Death by trap:
not ideal by
any means, no
Freedom beckons

Lying liberated
in an open field
where no one sees
as I leave earth alone

That - would be
The way to leave
Unencumbered
- a Release.

resonance

of pain familiar
unending bleak
serotonin-crash
restless sleep

time creeps
tears salty
-unceasing

lost, in sorrow
awake, yet numb

- familiar resonance of.

more.
of burrowing
in covers, in pain
of wishing sun would set
of feeling almost-dead
of waking haven't slept
of death, of existing
of chemical imbalance
over nothing

a resonance of
glass splinters past
and pain baffling
of crazy voices:
 
'I never left.
Hear my echoes,
footsteps in glass
daggers of pain
everything crashing.
I resound through
chirpy efforts
daily chores
therapy,
your life.'

Like a well that never runs dry,
so you are, ever-trickling, so -
I always will have
a resonance of pain.

can't sleep
for residual anger
despite drugs
and alcohol
I'm only half asleep
I want to sleep
into oblivion
Deal with tomorrow
when the sun rises
will keep trying
to let the darkness
takeover

ginger tea

A numb buzz.
Flitting heavily
About, without
Ricochet-recoil
The rounds are spent.

I wake asleep.
Creaminess rouses
in coffee and cigs -
meds in between -
I trudge, daily.

Chores, them all.
Damn life, damn all
Step-one-two,
milestones, blah,
Things that make sense -

Perhaps, - else:
Others, newness,
ginger tea like,
unceasing, or,
Anything to enjoy the day,

This dreadful day,
as are all others
the sun should stay
away from me,
make peace with death.

More tea perhaps,
a panacea, as is
alcohol, but
I've med up, so no
Just ginger tea now -

To settle my nerves
stomach and heart
to add spice to the - day-
and life to the dark.
Will put the kettle on.

waiting

Like a cat's cradle string
pulling frown lines
reversing my idyll
sinking my cheeks
My facial muscles tire
from wearing a frown
but nothing erases it.

I am waiting
paralysed:
patience is not my virtue

I am petrified.
Invisible jowls
sink to my ribcage
asphyxiating my heart,
Silence is a commercial break
that never ends.

I hate waiting
and knock-knock jokes
They suffocate me.

This is what my disordered panic feels like.


Struck unenergetic,
Frozen in malfunctioned
evolutionary instinct.

Adrenalin pumping -
ward against danger -
Heart-stoppingly so.

Proned, hushed,
Then perhaps - safety
or lack thereof maintains

(meanwhile)

My voice has gone.
The sky is total-black,
Starless, without hope.
Dreams are illusory
landmarks of a flat earth.

Everyday is a stride into
normalcy, for me an
endless recovery process.
Getting out of this paralysing
crevice of pain, pain, pain

Meanwhile gnawed away by
My Enemy, pain in its darkest

Ensuing pain. Pockets of light
Slightly but thankfully
alleviate. Hallelujah!
I subsist today and a
tomorrow (maybe).

Will you understand this
pain's grasp on me?
Or do you live idyllic
On a round earth
with mundane ambition.

My eyes are too dry
For welchschmertz,
My dreams I have left
(for now, save faith)
Meanwhile I just want

Release from this gripping pain.

dreary

a lil' dreary,
a lil' poor, and
my heart is like

the rain.

a lil' dreary,
a lil' poor,
my life is like
- a void

a lil' dreary
without --
every tomorrow
is kinda hard.

dreary, like
- the rain -
wiping out traces
of afternoon light.

dreary, dreary
-- you, or me --
the story folds and

returns to not being -

-

these you are not

stopgap. super-glue
that holds cracked-bits
- together
void-filler, band-aid
emergency torchlight
commercial break
white noise, Muzak
penny entertainer
rations for war
- these things:
you are not.
You are so much,
so much more
(so much that I
want to tell
the whole world).

firsts

undeciding. spacing out
imagining only today
being happy,

being happy.
taking your eyes in
giving in to the foreign -

unknown - all the better
to let go to take in now, only
playing laughing being transported

- to another era

tasting empathy
embalmed
focused

all
firsts.

real

I love you God

church service tires me
like you say in your word:
Try my mind and my heart.

I am tried and dried

You say, let go
of making decisions
give them to you

I love you so much

so why does being
in your house
cut me open

face me to face
my darkness and pain
because you say you see
my darkness and pain

doctor says:
live normally
people say:
don't think you're sick

You say:
I am not giving up on you

I put aside my wanting to die
You bring me face to face
and say
You are not giving up on me

with my wanting to die
as our under-torrential
understanding of who I am now

it is as if
you are saying

you are right
you have never been happy
all twenty-eight years
of your life
you really do feel
like ending it all
and leaving
you really are sick
with this horrible darkness

- but I am not giving up on you,
so don't give up on yourself.

I have a thing for ginger flowers

I have a thing for ginger flowers:
Their unbloomed, phallic shape
Their hardiness
The blush-red colour of the flower
leads me to stroke it along its petal grain
A creation that gives me a tad reason for living