The Seat

Crackles and ice sheets
Rumpled lands
Carved paths
Of many feet

Sun shafts
Slivers of steel
Soft grass
Stick in the heel

Stop here
See there
Chest sharp
Sweat dries

Cold creeps
Fingers deep
Push on
And on

The top is near
Farther than that
But near still
To hear the rant

The wind shrieks
The crows float
Caught in jets
Of Air flow

Flat rocks and not
Melted smooth by feet
Years of ascent
Endless views

What happens when the heart just stops?

Framed by the light
His face in your space
The air between, empty.
The look in his eyes
The look
The look in yours
How do you know if it is real?
It looks real
I can't tell
I don't know
You are supposed to know
Right?
Has it just stopped?
Can I start it again?
A kicking?
A shock?
Does somebody need to die
Before I feel this again?
Then that's how it ends
Truly ends
How do I sort this?
There's something wrong
I'm thinking
I'm wanting
But do I think about what I want?
Do I want all the wrong things?
Are the right things there
I just don't want them?
Is it all
Forever
And
Ever
Gone?

Stop

It's tight right now
Wound close
Each breath keeping it held
It screeches and reaches
To pull closer it's fears
The fear of being alone
The fear of being with someone just to not be alone
The fear of being happy
Stretched by continents and walls,
Footsteps
Arms lengths
The hot rich fills my face
Pours out my eyes
Which widen
To give space
To dry
I can't let it out
Let the spring spring
The calm control
The tight smiles
And thinking looks
The brain that won't stop whirring
The mind that can't stop weighing up
Each and every little drop
Thinking before it happens
Thinking after it has
What does happen
When the spring springs
What does happen when it over flows?
Bliss and chaos
The brain doesn't switch off
The world doesn't end
It keeps going
The thoughts keep clicking through the torrents
And the doubts surface
After the plunge pool of bliss
And you retreat
You pull back
At least I do.

House swap

We once swapped lives
Country to city
Young wild loud country calls
Squashed into a box amongst all other boxes
The fear in my mothers eyes
When we would call and shout
Like we did at home
The shame
It was a freedom
That like I had not known
At five years old
With an annoying brother and a foetus
To return to the loud.
The laughs and the distance
No one for miles!
No one I cared about
But I didn't care about the city folk
living on the other side of the wall
And yet I stayed silent
Stayed still
Petrified in my bed
Still listening to them
The others
On the side of the wall
With their lives so selfishly private
I would tell them everything about mine
But they said nothing
Peering over gates,
Staring into windows
Searching for the sounds
The bodies that they bring
To be pulled back
By the shamed mothers hand
"don't stare!"
Stare at what?
They were never there.

Momentum

Feel the weight of your human body
The one with fragile heavy brittle bones
Wrapped in a constant moving sheath
Of living striving wet and perfect muscle
Each one places you
Each one holds you
As the world moves around you
Under you
The bag pulls on your shoulder
The phone fills your hand
You fail to drop the phone
To save yourself
The body moves
It rests you
It keeps you
It holds you safe
You curse it
When it fails you
It fails you
It will
You will miss the confidant pull
Of erector spinae
You will miss the way with effortless ease
You pulled that door shut
Stayed upright on that rolling bus
Held your lover close with tight legs
It all ends

Memories of Christmas sold here

Tinsel and brightness
Lights boxed, promising glorious
frosted glimmers from dark boughs
Winter fruit hanging heavy
Held safe warm inside
The hope grows as winter folds
We fall deeper into its dark crisp embrace
Golden hollow fruits gleam from the sitting room
Windows steaming
Warm hoods
Cold fingers to type
Boughs trapped
Trailed from the wild mountain oceans
Caught
To stand sentinel
At our windows
Flowering against the dark


(I claim no ownership of this image)

Suffocate

The seconds of panic
Where the cold hole inside you
gasps for air but instead turns to frantic heartbeats.
Echoing amongst your thoughts
Your worries
Your fears, so heavy and sharp
Pulling deeper until the breath can save it
The deep breath that envelops
That holds
That suspends above the fragile vicera
Hold it there
Do no harm
Keep it still
And wait