Febfair

Pondering all alone

Sitting with cold grass

Between curled fingers

And unfinished coffee

Making lips quite sticky

My unplugged earphones

Afraid to make sounds

.

Myriad stands flickering

With flashes of neon colours

Selling dresses and candy

And music and rowdy revelry

But just tell me, Mr. Vendor

Please, where can I buy

Someone to walk with tonight?

.

The crowds passing by

Friends, family, familiarity

Cheering, laughing, enjoying

When there is none for me

Surrounded by old strangers

White noise for humming ears

White noise for sad eyes

White noise in my tired mind

.

From thinking about eternities

Until there is nothing but space

Lost and loved and lost again

An unsent greeting hovering

Anxiety creeping and crawling

As I patiently wait for a person

Who doesn’t even exist at all.

shut up when you’re talking to me

We keep the beat with your blistered feet
And we bullet the words at the mockingbirds singing
Slept through the weekend and dreaming
Of sinking with the melody of the cliffs of eternity
Got postcards from my former selves saying “How’ve you been?”

~*~

those clever words

are only things

you said in your sleep…

but i still listened,

and i still believed in them.

i’ll wear my heart on

my sleeve just so i could

wear something new

i’ll wear my brain over my shirt

just so i could pretend that

it’s something true—

but feeling and thinking

is already out of style

so guess my fashion statement

is faded, bleached out in

the bad kind of vintage

so won’t you give me

a cheap trick and tell me

“don’t be cruel, honey”

like the parasite that ravaged

our lips turning to scarlet

but i couldn’t find the letter

or monarch butterflies

in our holiday down in las vegas

when we lost the highway

for the third time that evening.

it’s a picture perfect eternity

the goodbye that never leaves

it’s the most insincere you and me

the “happy birthday” that doesn’t age

have i blown your mind yet?

or were you distracted by misery?

there’s no take two’s, i’m afraid

but encore’s full of apologies

so just talk, like it’s all we can do

talk because it’s all we can do

and listen to the insomnia

lash out in crashing profanities

if you’re too afraid to stay

‘cause these doldrums won’t play out

forever…would they?

~*~

Whoa oh, we’re so miserable and stunning
Whoa oh, love songs for the genuinely cunning
It was ice cream headaches and sweet avalanche
When the pearls in our shells got up to dance
You call me a bad tipper of the cradle
Tired yawns for fawns on hunter’s lawns…

It’s not like I want bad dreams, but anything that’s a breakaway from the pure hellish darkness I see every night would be quite nice for a change.

In an ocean of noise, I first heard your voice
Ringing like a bell as if I had a choice, oh well
Left in the morning while you were fast asleep
Into an ocean of violence, a world of empty streets…

~*~

I don’t sleep anymore.

I forgot what it feels like

To slow my heavy breaths,

To dream, and be paralysed,

And be afraid that I’ll never

Wake up from the nightmare.

.

I don’t even remember the

Goriest of dreams, even if I

Swore to myself that I would

But as soon as my bleary eyes

Open up beyond the reality, it’s

Like nothing ever happened at all.

.

I don’t know how it happened

But now all I do every night is

Stare up at the dripping ceiling

And think about everything and

Nothing, and imagine that I was

Levitating lucidly, and I’ll wonder

.

What it was like to breathe and to feel,

To resemble a human, and I look back

On the days when I still pretended, and

I did it very well, but now my skin is just

Beginning to peel and melt off like petals…

And then it’s morning, and I don’t wake up.

~*~

You’ve got your reasons
And me I’ve got mine
But all the reasons I gave
Were just lies to buy myself some time
I’m gonna work it out
‘Cause time won’t work it out…

The Castaway

Do you feel you’re not enough?
And impossible to love?
Or like if you spoke your mind
All your words, they would be too much?

~*~

You’re all growing up

And sailing across the tides

Without my untied knot

To render your destination

Oblique, to the oceans unknown

Where a red X marks the spot

.

Uncharted islands, they are

Waiting for your faint signal

For your toes to touch the shore

And your joyous cries to echo

Ringing against the salty breeze

For the treasures you have yet to adore

.

While I sit here, marooned

By my own spiteful conviction

Still tethered to tedious safety

I am unafraid of change, or voyages

Though; it seems, that they both

Are still very much afraid of me

.

While you celebrate among your kin

And depart; to further and vaster horizons

I can only bid you all a great farewell

As I’m stranded, not to my own volition

Shipwrecking paper boats and throwing coins

In my own shallow sea at the bottom of the well.

~*~

Well, I stepped back from
The doubts overtaking me
They were breaking me
So I know what you’ve been through
Don’t you stray or run away
From the good that I know you do…

counting stars and other mayhem

“Stars awake
But we can’t see them out
So why pretend?”

~*~

come count the stars with me

for i am far too afraid to see

how much darkness there is

drinking in light on a chalice

.

reflect the moon in your eyes

like the final breath of paradise

i’ll never be able to take another

so i hold it in like i’m underwater

.

conjure another whimsical dream

where everything is more than it seems

and black is white, and grey is none

i’ll be falling west like the tenebrous sun

.

so come and count the stars with me

i wouldn’t be afraid anymore once i see

that in the consuming darkness, there is

a star glowing next to me, bathing me in universes.