Have I really got to be worried 

About losing you?

Not now, please, not ever

I understand you're scared

I know you're hurting

But it isn't always like this

How can you forget about love

Precious, warm, trusting love

Look at the photos of the two of us

Being total idiots

Happy in eachother's company

At least I thought we were

Just like heaven, listen

Its even a Friday

Read the letters, both of them

How can you say that

You don't see the point in caring

All I want is you

I thought all you wanted was

Me

I'm not giving up on you

Until you can convince me

That you're better off without me

This isn't me boasting

You said so yourself

I want you back in my arms again

I'm hoping this is just

Another storm we're riding

We'll be okay in the morning

Won't we?

fat, bald, insecure

stupid, worthless, nothing more

candle, extinguished.

I feel like I don't know how to grieve.
There must be some kind of etiquette,
Some innate way to deal and cope with death.

A family friend. She was lovely.
How can my last memory of her
Really be the only one I'll ever have now?

How does the world continue
Without her presence, I mean
She was such a crucial part
Of so many lives
A husband, two sons, family.

What if she's forgotten?
She can't be, surely
What if people aren't told
And expect to see her tomorrow
Or she had a meeting with a friend
Next week, a coffee and catch-up
Now she'll never make it.

Life is so, thin, opaque
We'll certain it'll last
That we'll make a difference
Goodness knows what happens afterwards
But does it really matter that
We exist, at all?

Emptiness, as if
with her last breath she
blew out a candle
flickering in the dark.
The world will surely suffer
without another woman like her.

So many questions,
but no answers.
Must be why words
are never enough for these things.

I just want to feel it.
Is this it?
Grief must be like
talking under water
crying under water
there's no point,
but you're still drowning.

May she rest in peace,
not be forgotten
and live on in those
unmade dates and
unanswered phone calls
and the dignified, happy memories
chosen to be preserved.

onion man.

sometimes

I just want to feel that serrated edge
snag on the folds of my skin
it catches

the blade, like waves
gliding, slicing through
layer upon layer
pain surfacing
from some place deeper
burrowed in the decaying recesses
of that old forgotten wound

this is all I'm made of
layer upon layer
worry upon guilt
upon worthlessness
they all have the same
metallic, cloying smell
when they meet the cooling air
they like the view up there
but they never go

you'd think, which each strand of hair
falling, they'd go somewhere
but no, they clot, exit sealed
they burrow deeper still
and wait for that salted tide
to reach lidded shore again.

continuum.

eyes to the ground
to stop you from looking up
and facing the world

one tiny step at a time
it only takes a breath of wind
to knock you off course

what course, you hear them whisper
how you can be naive enough
to think you have a plan
you'll never have a plan
its just one step in front of another
not looking up

lost is not concept
to the perpetually blind
and fear, always lost
to the ones without a mind

keep it simple, never stop
you'll reach the end
when its time to jump
one foot, two foot
the journey stops



pushing forwards
always forwards
no rest for the wicked
or shelter for the good
best to keep your eyes down
life ticks on.