I find symbolism in the moments
living in train cars and taxicabs
Between here, home and where my heart is
with a night cap, cloak and dagger stabbed
straight into my open chest
paint pictures when I remenisce
of times where all my female friends were angels
now all their wings are clipped
it’s funny how I’m still alone
still holding on to better songs
and better words in better poems
when you used to mouth along.
I’ve been a ghost this year
and my parent’s say come visit
my little brother hates me
’cause he knows I do not miss it
all the shouting in the living room
and holes in corridor walls
that house is black and blue
and it has liquor on it’s breath
it was the death of my childhood
and stands as memorial of dreams
but the best thing to ever come out of it
was me,
still holding on to better songs
and better words in better poems
when you used to mouth along
Metaphor
All is flair in Tolstoy and Exhibition
I broke my own eyesight with St. Patricks closed fist
in a bar fight with the boyfriend of my first Kiss Me I’m Irish
I might have layed on the accent a little
Talked with more than a little flair
But In love and war and drunk girls on Exhibition street
All’s fair, so I got beat fair and blue and white
You should have seen the other guys from this side of the bar(s)
Rain on marble and masonry
There is a castle by the sea;
Children play and grow on the beach
Some swim in the surf while others kick sand,
Some are lost to the tide
Broken homes amongst the stones along the shoreline
Broken hearts make estuaries to the sea
And up above inside her tower stands Rapunzel
Screaming “Why has my god forsaken me?”
The Maiden’s tears are rain that drums upon the rooftops
It causes restless sleep for those inside instead
While down below the rain falls heavily unnoticed
It soaks the pillows of an uninviting bed
And on the beach in the charcoal black of nighttime
Hazy eyes look up at skies instead of stars
They don’t waste their light on shining for these children;
They’re destined dead, addicted, lost or behind bars
Fault lines lead like horse and steed back to the castle
Where people view with such indifference from their marbled balconies
As violent winds and waves come rising with the tide;
It claims more victims every time that it recedes
Maddison
She’s broken, like me
a fragile little marionette
I played with her heartstrings
enough to hear her smile sing
we kissed in an empty schoolyard
elegent apostles leaning awkwardly
no truth in love we dared to tell
our lie was told to spite this hell
and our lie was love. Adolescent one of us
enough to be a secret trist, our cloak and dagger
toke and drag, her coughing
cold air showed her breathe
and when I held her skin to mine
a whispered “yes” was all it took
for the last shred of innocence to leave
Morse code through the ocean
I took a handful of loose change, nuts, screws, bolts
scrap wiring and 12 volt batteries,
constructed myself a transmitter which plugged directly
into my radio heart to send Morse code through the ocean
with hope that eventually the pings would reach those souls
lost at sea, as I am
clinging hopelessly to their orange inflatable life raft
with the instructions, ironically printed on the inside
Reading “In case of emergency:
Grab your photo albums, baby clothes and awards
pack the past into boxes and move in a calm, orderly fashion
to the exits, indicated by the lights
at either end of this tunnel,
in case of friendly fire
keep low and cover your mouth, closing all doors behind you
as you make your way to the designated assembly area
at the center of the pacific.”
We make plans and have contingencies to handle
all sorts of emergencies, broadcast step-by-step
solutions and 12-step systems,
but sometimes
when you’re sinking on the capsized bow of your driftwood ship
clutching at straws like phantom limbs
it’s hard for your screams to swim.
A muse and a shoreline.
Spaced between ivory and ebony
is a hidden sea, one where you can
drown, once when I held my breath
I found a note in a shipwreck that read
“I’m not a sailor, I’m a vessel”
It made me shiver as I realised;
I don’t think I comprehend the meaning
of music anymore.
Forgiveness?
I want to hate fuck her.
Amelia.
kiss those lips and say
“We’re never going to be together
Like this again”
And smile when she realises
what she’s lost.
Spoon, sugar, bitter pill
resentment is the opening of old doors
closure can only be achieved by
closure
and I’m too busy
knock three times
it’s locked for a reason
Schoolboy
It occurred during the annexation of words from my tongue
bleeding, hopelessly I clawed at your shoulder blades
until a sickness welled up inside and I spewed out
apologies and unsent love letters from a few months back
when you still smiled at the mere mention of his name
and when you didn’t call him yours.
Finally, you thought.
I was never quite alone in my lament
kept the company of poets and my thirteen year old self.
Here was a girl that made me feel like muesli bars at recess
and I could never quite get the lions wish to sp sp speak my mind.
Back then it felt like forever
but little did my little boy self know that in a few months
she would need the comfort of cliché scrawling’s
because the smile she once displayed so radiantly
broke
and along with her heart and the title of ‘mine’
he would be painted out of the picture.
Despite the fact I’ve made myself a fool
I still offer everything I am worth
and if you happen to change your mind
you can find me swinging life away.
Morning, Mourning
Mornings come and go
with the sting of immunisations
and melancholic morning breath
we drifted from this ephemeral moon;
From milk and sugar
to black and one
we started our lives together.
Top heavy
My heart fell crooked when you waved goodbye
Two days spent, four hundred dollars and smiling
Every cent wasted ‘cause I couldn’t find the courage in my empty
Heart to admit that I cleared house to make room for you
You took the paper that I gave you, pinned it up onto your wall
You let the words I wrote upon it hang there like they were furniture
Good god if you were a little less naïve,
a few torn up and burned photos more bitter
a little more careful with what you say to someone when they’re actually listening,
you might just understand how much I sink when you mention him
how great it must be to be beyond your glass boundaries
see it’s right in your face, has been this whole time, screaming at you to turn around
as you limp away crippled from another failed forever, follow me
down into my hole, join me haunted by these ghosts and I’ll
hold your head down on my shoulder so you can cry your conscience clean
while taking little pieces away from the bottom of my heart
until it gets top heavy as you wave goodbye to me
Highschool bullshit 