Tag Archives: survival

abbey national

my health, my health
your kingdom for my health.
I gritted my teeth for so long
that they have become sand,
and I am not a liar,
so I will not deny that I pray
for your body to be cystic,
anxious, cancerous, unappealing.
I don’t believe in god at all,
yet I clasp my hands to my face
like a raggedy Carmelite
cloistered in my living room.
at least I have a living room-
where do you imprison yourself?
you don’t believe in anything but
your own superiority.
hopefully that will be your
encrusted downfall,
an intellectual toaster
in the bath, as you scream
“this cannot happen to me!
I read Vonnegut!”
my anger has turned into a
hot spare tyre.
of course, I cannot
scream in Abbey National
or the Docklands arena
or the Blockbuster Video
like my Divine mother
once did.
I just swallow the burning.
the sand in my mouth helps.

septic tank

inside my chest
there is a nuclear reactor.
so don’t forget,
you are made of water.

your torn pink flesh
cannot mask what you are,
cannot save you from
my burning core.

inside my chest
there is a dying star.
but I am still alive
and I can still destroy you.

you are not you anymore.
not a special strawberry
growing from a crack in the patio.
you are a shit inside a septic tank.

inside my chest
there is a great black hole
that only I have the key to.
you do not have it now.

float

I know. I know
it feels so unavoidable after
all the things that have cruelly
unjustly happened to you
I know. I know
that it is so unfair how
you have suffered and trialled
and how it seems impossible
not to stand in front of the mirror
and cry at the girl there,
imperfect and scarred and
lost
I know. I know
how it feels to want nothing
how it feels for dreams to exist as
nothing but a dull black hum
how sleep is the only thing
that takes the edge off of your
jagged existence
but I know. I know
that misanthropy is not forever
it does not have to be your way
the purity of living is here
for you and you
do not have to drown yourself out
of being
you are bigger than the
sum of your tragedies
come to the healing pool
expect pain in every
new place you go
float on its salt waters
and throw your heart into life
again
because you know. you know
that whatever you have to fear
is not worse than
isolation and hatred.
survive, darling
I promise
you will love
your life again.

stone

stone girl,
you look in the mirror
who do you see there?

do you see
the cracks
in your
nature

do you see
how you filled
them up
with technicolour?

stone girl,
you feel the storm
weathering your heart

I wonder
if you know
how implausibly strong
your barriers are

I wonder
if you feel
your rejections
of splintered wood

stone girl,
you brace the curse
of a compromise

the others
made of clay
could never know
your power

the others
so delicate
when mixed with water
glazed over

stone girl,
you were thrown
into the fire

stone girl,
you came out
at one thousand degrees

stone girl,
if only you could know
what you have defeated