Restoration

If I could draw my own self portrait – I’m blindfolded, gagged and bound.

My window’s drawn.
My light is shattered.
My floor is bare.
I turn away into this corner.

Frozen shards of silver emptiness.

Fingertips shatter the glass
Moving closer – pulling away the dust
And still the view is empty.

Cracks, decays – cutting just to feel.
Bleeding, staining – opaque, brittle and rotten.
Brittle, dust – older than time.
I gave you life…some truths will die with me.

If I could believe that your soul would burn forever
I’d take my sins and commit them eternally.
If I could draw my own self portrait
All you’d see is a tattered canvas at my feet.

Wash

Break me here now, discarded by my bitter dreams.
Lost on an older shore crawling under sky.

But I’m older now lost to myself – the eldest hand reaches in to end this child.
I’m a wise man now, such a wise man now – repair myself under these pretended waters.

Erosion of mind dragged through the breaking tide
Sand stings my eyes, staining the tears beneath

But I’m older now lost to myself – this elder hand reaches in to revive this child.
I’m a foolish man, such a foolish man – but I promise it will be different next time.

Speaking into the wind a rumbling monotone
It’s one of those things isn’t it carved in stone
That every consequence initiates through action
Yet my silence is the weapon provoking reaction
Crane my neck to offer you the vein the point to strike
Salt water stains the cut that etches years off my life
Lungs on fire, thrashing impotence a lone voice roars
With pain this final drowning, purifying over.

Rising to my Reflection

Light reflects from the surface and I flounder - I can’t see or hear
And freezing now, weightless in suspension - Maybe now I can hope

Barbs of sunlight...I could drown here

I’m changing inside, becoming someone else - Maybe I could grow to be like you
I could live that way and no longer question - What life has made me

Breaking the surface tension, Drawn back to the world
From the bottom of an ocean, driven from the light
I can feel alive

This feeling eludes me
Signs…definition escapes me
Fear…too cold to hope
Death…life suffocates me

Driven from the light and I’m caught up inside
Myself…it’s the only prison I ever made
You don’t get the joke that I’m my only enemy
And I blame everyone else for my inertia

This I understand…tearing away
This I understand.

And I Don’t Sleep

This shadow doesn’t fade with the sun, or closes with my eyes
And the air never seemed so clearer, it’s closer than I ever realised

And I’m walking away, I can’t hear your words
This hate is so real, and born out of love

Time has no meaning here
It slips by just like this slipped in

What could I mean? What could possibly force me to turn my back
On you forever? Turn away from you forever.

I’d feel alive
I’d be alive
If it were not you bleeding
Me dry
Left to die
Left without even a choice
I’m freezing…I’m screaming
At the emptiness that screams back at me
I fade with the sun…And I won’t awake

I reach out for you and I feel nothing
I look inside for you and I feel nothing

Every damaged thought, every falling tear
Every scarred tissue, every bleeding sore
Every dying nerve, every failing cell
Every wasting muscle, every crumbling bone
Couldn’t kill me more than your heart

My sleep fails…My hands shake
Uncontrollable waves of fear blind me
Face to face with death and I so much want to live
I’ve still got so much to give,

And I want to be held by you
On and On
And I need you so much now
On and On
And I can’t stand to be alone
On and On
And I can never forgive you
On and on

I don’t want to be alone
You’ve bled me dry
And I can still remember
Everything you meant to me

Under The Fury

Grazing skin on stone – what has been done?
Welts on my knuckles as I cling on

Hide these crimes and I can’t feel the pain
Without a needle track the mapping of my vein
One word from you moves tendons within me
Oceans of guilt – yet you are free

Time…Love…Age…Hope… (Won’t comfort me).

Blood on my tongue and the feedback in my ear
Swims in and out but you won’t disappear
Now I’ve found purpose I’m no longer the man
I crumble to dust as your guilt sets me free

I swallow my own blood…I clear my vision
I open up to you… so you can grip my neck and poison me with fury

Under the what? Fury.

I can’t trust this.
I won’t trust this.
I don’t want to feel this way.

Inert

Arms behind my head staring up at the sky
Focusing through a lingering bittersweet smoke, I reach deep inside
Backing away closing in from all sides, the attack is short lived – my defences overrun
And I’m bleeding inside, and I’m burning inside and all I gave has been for nothing

And you still mean something to me
Angered and wronged, not brave enough to move on
And you bleed something from me
I’m not made of stone, I’m not that strong

This painful dwelling on the past becomes addictive to me I’m warmer here
My stomach is so cold I strike blades through my heart just to feel
A blackened cancer of thought infecting everything I do and everything I say
It’s always been for you
And I’m living for your memory blindly hoping you approve
From obsession to insanity I would kill myself for you

Down through this, I take another step
In to the madness the chaos and the horror
Sleep through this I shift through fires
In the name of your memory

Through bittersweet smoke
Arms behind my head
Sleeping alone
Imagining that you’re here.

Filth

Abusing your substance your wreckage rusts quicker
In heat rising skywards in spirals of suicide
Tearing out your eyes to see in old light
Ashes in your throat chokes you and your words

And what of you my only father?
Lost his way some years ago
Now burdens his own shoulders
With the guilt he smothers in grey.

Broken family.
Darkness is colder (than your hearts)
My light is deeper (than your souls)
My mind is older (than your years)
I am nothing without you
Freezing…blinding…pure - Breaking stone.
Freezing…blinding…pure - Welcome Home

Over and beyond the ruin of your soul
You claw and scratch out existence in this earth
Bleeding and choking and strangling and freezing
You made us. Choke on it.

Ice Walk

Suspended like petrified branches
Dusty stone blistered in stale air
Creeps like dawn…a winter storm
They electrocuted him here…he was alone

Clawed his name – a stone testament
Bleeding fingers grip this rusted tomb
Resounding from the cries, air stifles then stills
Silent now and savouring a righteous kill

Criminal how they gathered at the fringe
Singled out him, stamping feet
Clenching teeth shaking fists in the wind
Ice air returning to the river

Ebbs and flows…
In blood, exile

Ice air returns
Back to the river
Course already run
Blood ebbs and flows
Melting this ice
And damning their souls
This blood’s on your hands
In blood, exile.

Deserter

Pulling out my veins
Unpicking my nerves
Unravelling down to the ghost

He claws at my skin
Whispers another insult
I try to silence his voice

He’s within me, fingers at my throat
I can’t see how he tears this away
I feel so separated, re-created
As he casts me away

I forget how to move
Sever tendons in my wrist
Sewing closed my failing eyes

I can make no impression
I can disappear at will
I’m a ghost that refuses to exist

Glass full of water
I’ve stared at it for hours
A layer of dust settles on the surface
And I’m gone

Will I live? Or will I survive?
It’s all I can do just to feel alive

Down Low

Feel me in the darkness
Gathered tense on this locus
You could not penetrate
To soothe or calm me

Down low here, pain won’t find her way
Down low here, she won’t find her way

Fingers clutch my own
Opposition on this flex
Drawn out through some method
I protect myself

Down low here, pain won’t find her way
Down low here, she won’t find her way

Send a message to my unborn child
No lies can pretend I’ve not failed you before time
I so much want it to work this time
But I back away before it starts to die.
And you work a little closer move by my side
And take the liberty of control over a weak heart
Generate confusion and dischord
Cause these threads to unravel and fray
Could you ask for more?

Down low here.