Adventures

These days are all untitled
They bring me nowhere that my feet want to stand
No traversing for me
No tactile thrill
Of dragging my fingers
Along the walls of old red bricked buildings

No adventures for her please
She can't sleep
She's locked in a room of thoughts
Where she huddles and winces
Where someone should really hold her
And ask:

You look so sad
How can I protect you?

"Well it's a funny story actually"
She just needs to be found
And nursed
And nestled
To the sound of English
Then we'll go outside again.

Fires

I'd like
Damp, muddy shoes
And bright red knuckles

The smell of burning wood
And whiskey wrestling with itself
All the way down my throat

A scarf
A shiver
A stare
From you illuminated.  

Belle, book, candle

There's someone missing
Some mother missing someone, something
Untimely ripp'd
Do you know of him?

Let's remove
Reduce
Replace

It doesn't matter who
Just speak and listen
You'll do
Just tell me something safe
In the back seat of this car they gave us
She's old. She breaks
But if we could just be children here
In a backseat of a car
Grip my hand
Squeeze my thumb blue
Radio struggle to sound
Crackle, bristle, brush
Whisper
Kiss

Tell me I'll be okay,
You'll do

"Eight is my favourite number"

TICK TICK TIME

Kick my shins
Comb my hair
I was never my father's son
He was a man built of concrete words

I'm but a boy
With hollow vowels in maroon holsters
Standing so still
Feeling so small
With my eyes wide
Looking up

Reflections of clouds
At eight years old
In the whites
The whites
Of my eyes

Oh Isobel where have you been?
I've been worried sick
You've been so sick

The sky is falling darling
We're all safe now
We needn't worry
Look how bright the blue is

My black and purple shins
The blue and white sky
Your bright red being
Brought the breath in
I can
Taste it

The purple
The red
The black
The words
The blue
The nerve
The blue
The eyes
Your eyes

Your eyes
Are all painted Sinatra blue

For Dara

These days go by just slow enough
to catch a glimpse.
Eight second days
and four second nightmares
all ploughing into
a heartfelt moment of slight,
swollen eyes
puffy cheeks
tiny fingers
stretching up at me
to meet my own
stunned at the sight
of emerging teeth,
separating and forming to meet curves at the sides of a mouth
such a beautiful, bright
perfect
minute
new
pure
smile

My lips, your elderly friends

I'll be honest
We brush and touch;
twist and touch

Fill and twist
but still we feel
the awful pangs
of missing out
on kissing childhood

Stick on the leather, dear.

I'm no skyscraper, Julian
I sit and stir
and stir and wank
all the drool
all the lucid
touching
brings me to shivering.
I'm no laureat, Charlie
I crouch and bend
and bend; don't break
I'm much much
stronger
and amsrter.

I've the balls to peel my skin clean
of all your silly heartfelt
nonsense

all the words
and eyes
and lilts
and thighs
and all the
things I wish I missed.

Blurred

I think this is perfect
But being a vagrant cannot last
Knocking on doors
Shutter stuttering and shutting light on ribbons
It comes out a little blurred
Hugs and kisses and blind raging friendship
Bouncing around the room in euphoria
Like a toddler hopped up on the non toothkind kind of Ribena

I don't have to ask
To even sleep in this crooked bed
Makes it feel like I'm slipping
But not the kind of slipping I used to feel

Me and my friends, we wake up slowly
With the worlds best intentions
And I'm really quite scared
That in the the morning light
With the stinging realisation of where you are
When everything is a haze of dry thick, salty tastes
With their squinted eyes
They will see me for who I really am

In the blizzard

No one really wants to be here
There’s a density in the air
All the shirts. Swaying in the inebriation.
All falling over themselves

In thought balloons we say it all
Much more than all we said
Was it?
“Don’t do that!”
“It’s her birthday”

I had lines of frustration and eighteen cigarettes in my pocket
Choirs interfered with and surrounded the young
They lapped it up
Never felt cheated at all
You pressed against the wall
Watching white patterns dance into a fall

I, in all my ungentlemanly fury
Barely glanced for a beat
My glass half empty
You pressed against the wall
Someone shouted something about someone; startled
The buzzards, the buzzards, the innards
You pressed against the wall
I don’t really know you
I should change that

I near miss her, a close call

A perfect circle
Seven inches of wax
It’s dizzy, dizzy spin
Slip vibrations
To this strung-out concrete head

A little light
In the corner
Shining through the gap
That is your blood red mouth
Pressed against brittle bones

You’re next door
Fucking a girl
And I don’t care

Blake bled black and red

I have so many words
In the front of my mind
In a font that can be engraved
To nothing but ill intent

What could I ever have expected
From something unreciprocated
Suspended disbelief
In a quiet calm of all-knowing eyes

Knives and knuckles
Burst and blunted
Film and friendships
Exposed and expired

I have these words
In the front of my mind
There in the afternoon
Forgotten by midnight

It's not even that I'm all angry

I left my keys on the mantlepiece
A little brass family
Tucked up into a little silver ring

I threw out what you left behind
Because I didn't want to have to see you
For the next sixty days

I didn't stop on the stairs
For a rational reason
I let my lower limbs react for me

When I saw your fingers entwined in his
Cacophonous crackling in my cochlea
Like an out of tune radio frequency
Was all I allowed myself to hear

It didn't matter to me this morning
That I was leaving behind the room in which I first pressed my lips against yours
Nor that I would never get the same particular type of phone call from you ever again

The only thing that mattered was that I was leaving behind a tiny brass family
That built a home in my pocket

The young applicant's handbook

Over lines of ones and zeroes
You sent me songs of love and hate

Over thick tense air
I'm more visible than ever

This body is a mould of a soul
My body is the mould on my soul.

Peculiar little fringe veiled frowns
You're not smiling

"Yes I am"
Well fine; you are then
But you're sad

"We're all a bit sad"

Angela needs friends

It was a raw deal
Something so unfair that God himself did wince
Startled by the rhythm of injustice
A blind blonde mistress
Falling victim to love

From where I stand
“You’re a terrible bitch”
But my relatives just need a smile
A shallow signifier that slurps and swirls
That can make them sigh and think
“I’m happy he didn’t turn out a gay”

We can stay out after dark now

I don't want to write.
It makes me think too much.
But you're damaged goods.
I really like that about you.

Y'know when I said this would be a mistake?

Fuck to no words, just promise to be honest
My mind was melting and our friends had drugs
We fell out of comfort and into sand
We'll be fine, just black it out
I still want to get under your skin.
I still want to make life harder.
I really hope this is all imaginary
I really fucking hope I don't get caught
I'm new to all this.
God, I hate it when I believe in you.

St. Stephen was a desperate aul cunt.

Ten per cent beer
Makes me feel warm
Wrapped up in old promises
Strapped up in my inhibitions

I wish I was Houdini
I remember the old wood of this public house
I hate crowded places
I remember you all
Old friends
I don't know you, with the bright smile

I'll forget about all that tonight
Because happiness is a womanly bottle shape
Filled with bitterness, smoke
And ten per cent alcohol.

At least I think I did

You told me you're afraid of me getting too attached
You don't want to break my heart

But you don't know,
I'm only in this for another fuck.

Promised Hand

I've always felt like an anachronism
I've always felt slightly out of place
Everything would be childhood simple
If it was just a different year

All the parties seem crooked
All the faces too similar
A brown and white swirl of clay
An eye too clear
A mouth blurred

If I could hold out just a little bit longer
I could get back to 1985
When it was alright to make mistakes
We'd drink and laugh and feel like there won't be a future

I feel like I have a future
I know that I don't belong here

I just want to sit on a park bench
Listening to the Cure
Staying out all night.
Being young, belonging to nowhere.

Fertility and Fragility

Welcome home,O poster girl for pretentiousness
I can't say you're what's wrong with the world
But you're definitely part of what's wrong with me
A demon for poetic license
And a friend to all I decided to leave behind

In the rain, by a shipyard,
My words came screaming back at me
From the top of an old hotel
Built out of family feuding

I can blame you for it all
The way my head is spinning
And the preposterous expectations
I have to live up to
You can accept responsibility for my downfall,
For my limbs falling asleep
While I'm wide awake
I can't stand pins and needles.
I can't stand it.
I can't stand how
Much of a turn on it is watching you put on my clothes.

Will an asterisk do?

Looking for stars, out of frame
Maybe out of focus
My Nana used to say:"There are no stars anymore"

Turned out she was batshit crazy.
Keep looking dear.

Embarassed

Back again.
This fucking town
Old drunken women, singing pop songs at me
Grey.
This fucking town
Grey.
This fucking town
Grey.
This fucking town
I might have made a traditional mistake.

You make everything I do seem slightly more shit.

I have new friends who really aren't too interested in any of that nonsense
I smoked by Kavanagh and crossed the Atlantic.
I got home and punched things and broke what I could
I stopped walking to town and I began to lose keys
I found a new way to live but there really wasn't an awful lot of good in it.
Fuck off, I'm in the library.
I need to decide if I like myself at the moment.

Sleeping Vertical

The wall of this building is holding me up
It's making me cold
But my bed is unbearable
My broken books Fixing the photos
Worn by my wall

Strolling through my pockets
Happening upon some new words
Marrying them to concrete

I have jars
Filled with my memories
On old oak shelves.

I'd come out tonight
But I tied my hands
Around my wall.

Walking across puddles

I had a grandfather who was a hero
I had one who was a villain
I had a piano
I had a bad time
At somebody's party
I had a home
I had a girl sing to my skin.

Today

I can't feel my toes
As I'm bouncing from the footpath
Lifting off with my soles
Today, is a beautiful day

Blue bags and faded feeders
Showing off in time to the breeze
I'm glad, for the sake of being glad
There's something wrong with that, but I don't care what.

The sun is shining through slabs of red brick
It catches my eye
My smile goes from beaming to blinding
Today, is a beautiful day

And to think, They issued a storm warning last night.

Foetal

Everything is out of order
My father has no self retraint
My books still have their price tags
My childhood cryptic eye
Casting cobwebs on Lennon

Your maternal fifties glow
“I’ve been thinking it’s a sign”
Remember we were dancing
Your hands flashed black and white
You belong in black and white

At least I think I'm not that certain....

Her tiny fingers untying knots
A well traveled paperback on her lap
She ran out of matches trying to burn down her bad habits
Endless sparks struggled on satin

Started stealing paper planes
Stopped accepting hand-me-downs
She puts her ear to the past tense now
Finding little more than little girl gowns

So if you’re going to drown,
Drown in your own fucking abstract, acerbic assonance

Let go.
I know who I am

Nothing more than carbon
Locked in a travel case
Chained to the corpse of the finest family man
Dressed up in his best three-piece disfigurement

He goes hiding in my favourite birthdays

Count your matches
I've got some glue,
Find me an obituary
And we'll do make and do.

What you should wear in a rocking chair

Standing in the threshold
She trips in with no Grace
Once again that little brass handle
Is given a thoughtless tug

Shrill thanks need not wake me
Yet this this tiny square button
Failing to light
Makes you sigh, shakes the cobwebs from under my eyes

There is nothing tying us together
Only what's tied around my wrist
Only a hospital scare
And the clothes in my room

But in a ten foot box
We're never so alone
I can hear every shuffle
Through oiled gears and thundering silence

But then, these doors eat up the threshold

I should probably stop and sleep
But if this stops I don't think I'll ever sleep

What my thumb thinks

"Hit me"
Violent Violet, hands sunk in her sides
She stumbles up stairs, into my eyes
Lense flairs, shines on old dreams
Skin tears, stung to the seam
Stencil me sickly dear
I need you to scream

The curtains that hang
Wrap round my sleep
My mirrored chest
Holding your head just as deep

As it needs to be

Won't you wake up?
I've something to tell you.

"If you're going to hit me,
Hit me".

Suddenly Sunday

We wake up on the ground
But we don't move
Within the breadth of a breath
I know how I got here
To falling down. Stares
When only pride is bruised,
Browsing for memories
Lit up to a red hue

We go out to the sea, dictaphone in tow
And when we listen back to that little black box
We don't feel very good about the people we are
Yet don't regret waking. Not at all.

Today the bedroom. Tomorrow the cerebellum.

As a child,
My parents bought me things I didn't really need

My eyes could be sold for a crumpled five pound note
Serenely wrapped up in an old man's hand

Gliding into mine
In the corridor of the most hellish of hospitals

I ascended and found a boy dressed in orange
With a parachute for a soul
In the waiting room

Waiting

I grew up
Crying in the spare room
My sisters never told me why

I think it's because, I couldn't breathe underwater.

My best sweat, just for you.

God, you gave me a first name
Bestowed unto me a lack of noise
For all my friends live in pages
Where we are shattering eardrums and ankles

I want to leave here and find new notes
I want a staircase and a bus to an unknown part of town
I want a new mind and a dirty conscience
I want more things to believe in

If I believe in anything, it's how you feel in the night
It's when it's cold but you don't care
When any lie is conceivable

I believed I could live off you
But that girl was right.
We never change
You indecisive, I uninventive

The scars on your thigh are sticking to me.

Goodbye, I really do love you

But we never change.

Hullo Brian...

The blood was dry, it was sober
The feeling of audible cracks
And I could tell it was over
From the curtains that hung from your neck

And I realized that then you were perfect
And my teeth ripping out of my head
And it looked like a painting I once knew
Back when my thoughts weren't entirely intact

Colly strung.

A pity invitation to an awkward house,
For pseudo-boy who would rather wear a blouse,
I sincerely saw your skin for the very first time

My curly hair and a voting booth,
Confessing, this is the first time I've loved you,
And God I mean, God I mean it, I hope that I mean it

Cause like dying young, idols got the best of me,
Well don't stop calling, you're the reason I love losing sleep,
And the building collapse, we'll shop one for something

We'll shop for something better.

Liar.

And then it strikes,
Crashes on me as my fingers touch your arm

Trapped between two panes of glass


I pity you

Who said you could come into my life?

I was not you until now.

Do you remember when you were small?
All aware now
What happened?

I wince when i see the end of your arm
I stutter when I get too close to your mouth
I smile when my fingers wrap around yours

I know the sides of your eyes
You can only look at me so long before you remember
You are beautiful in blankets

But with these things
I breathe so fast
My bones become loose

You don't love me

I am not surprised.

You said, she said

Slowly I lose all feeling in my arm
You're not quite close enough
It's after two
What happened tonight?

Calm me down, I want to see beneath those eyelids
Your breathing gets heavier.
Why do you do these things
When you can be this beautiful?

I can't find the words
When we go looking for life
So I say what it takes to make you sad
It's after three

You can't have my bed tonight
Your breathing's getting heavier

I can't tell if you're a bad person or not.
I can't feel comfortable with you at my side
I can't stand your exhibitionism
I can't wake up without you at my side

It's time you left
Unceremoniously

I can't feel my arm

I should have kissed you in the dark

You are asleep
Your mind is a projector
I can see your dreams upon my ceiling.

To be lost in a forest

I've been writhing in my bed
My fingers to the wall

I could destroy and rebuild
Fix and break you
With a single swift motion

I want to run at you
To write on your skin
To contain my words

Your shortcomings are bliss.

The sheets aren't skin.

I miss your voice
I miss how your skin feels like skin
I miss your smell
And I miss how every breath is nostalgia

I miss how underneath your everything
Is something radiating
It's like a tiny flame under grease proof paper
You lost your innocence to a mess of adolescence

I miss the bus stop
I miss the cliché
I miss how it feels to walk down streets in the morning
You at my side.
Breakfast is in the afternoon.

I miss the way our legs used to lock
In a bed singing "drink up baby"
The way you look when you have tears on your skin

I won't be a boy who will wait
I won't be a boy who wants
I won't be a boy whose skin
Is thinking of Karen

We deserve better
I don't want you
But denial knows me all too well

Sometimes when our cheeks almost touch
When we smoke in an insignificant part of Dublin city
The possibility of leaving it all behind
Of never growing up
Is in the sounds we make.

Your frame is in time to my favourite song

That makes my skin sick.

I can write things. But not like this.

Cup your mouth to compress the sound,
Skinny dipping with the kids from a nearby town.
And everything that I said was true
As the flashes blinded us in the photobooth.
Well I lost track when those words were said,
You took the wheel and you steered us into my bed,
And soon we woke and I walked you home
It was pretty clear that it was hardly love.

We'll be in trouble

My friends gave you compliments
So did I until
I realised that should be my hand in yours
Fingerless gloves on blue fingers
Hats keeping our thoughts private
My scarf keeping your soul a secret in your throat

"Don't ever need me"
"I think it's too late"
"We don't work"

We aren't real people
We could be scared
Scared and young and inexperienced
Or we've figured it all out

That old building can fit in my pocket

I stood straight, it looked like New York
In a film still formed in the eye of a child
I stood straight, with the heat in my hands
Wearing white on my shoulders and thread on my fingers
I stood straight, not listening as the boy I once was
The city shouting whispers at me
I stood straight, my collar turned up and facing the cold
I chose not to be much of anything once
I stood straight, as I got lost wading my feet through the grey
I think I'll leave soon, but first I have to stay.

Disappear, for a minute

It started to snow today
Invisible before the street lights
Landing on my tongue
Feeling like a pathetic little kiss

It made the feeling
That my ribcage were teeth
Closing in around my heart
Disappear

Unfinished

I'm up
The goosebumps stretch from limb to limb
The snare goes to cymbal
Becomes a symbol then a hymn
Of breaking thin things

Sing south

There's no doubt
That I stole you and me
And our words from the sea

I can't stop falling over

It's more a vicious line than a circle
Leading straight down
I didn't find a mathematical formula for how I feel
Scribbled in old red copy books, filled with tiny squares
Just the failed equations
Of trying to be a real person.

It won't peak or even plateau
I need to find out why I'm slipping all the time
It doesn't stop and start, it's just easier to hide at times
Then the apathy gets too great
I can't cover up
I refuse to be dragged down
So I'm taking whatever I need
So I won't care anymore
So I'll have the middle ground
So I can win.

I used to think it could be a triangle
But that would mean all of this had a point.

Blood Bank

I met you at the blood bank
We were looking at the bags
Wondering if any of the colors
Matched any of the names we knew on the tags

You said see look it that's yours
Stacked on top with your brothers
See how they resemble one another's?
Even in their plastic little covers

And I said I know it well

That secret that you know
That you don't know how to tell
It fucks with your honor
And it teases your head
But you know that its good girl
Cause its running you with red.

Then the snow started falling
We were stuck out in your car
You were rubbing both my hands
Chewing on a candy bar
You said ain't this just like the present
To be showing up like this
There's a moon waning crescent
We started to kiss

And I said I know it well

That secret that we know
That we don't know how to tell
I'm in love with your honor
I'm in love with your cheeks
What's that noise up the stairs baby
Is that Christmas morning

And I know it well

Stop doing that

It's the sound of all these closing doors
And the lack of initiative
That makes me feel like there is so much expected of me

It's the harlots, not the whores
The ones who see the derivative
That know and steal my see-through glee

It's standing on a pavement
You rubbing my arms to make me warm
When I see what you are

It makes me so angry
That I can care for something this disgusting.

Pricing.

I can't relax

I can't stand still

I'm getting back

To feeling ill.

There's something in the way you smell. Like you've got no soul at all.

I found this today, dunno when I wrote it though:

Crack open your hands and hold them up to the light
Your angelic exterior got in a fistfight
Vicious vowels were exchanged with the local antichrist
When she came out to scream into moonlight
You can disappear after and give me my fright
Because I'm happy to drink down dressed up as midnight.

Scream. Scream. Soup. Scream.

Come outside so I can see you breathe.
This winter is beating me down
And my clothes restrict my skin
I need a way out of my mind.

We won't stay young for much longer so let's get out of the country.
We can buy a submarine if you like.
We can grow up or pretend we're grown ups.
We can write things down for the next few days
Compile lists and indexes of where we can change.

We can stay here and lose all our friends.
I really could do without most of them.
We can sleep in this room full of things if you whisper.

Stay frail and ambiguous in everything you say.
Scream and breathe in everything you say.
I can see your breath.

Public transport, you'll be the death of me.

I was really there once
I was innocent and endearing
I was awkward and charming
Then I looked in the mirror

I can string a sentence together now
I can stop and get blinded by the sun
I love those cold days when the sun is out
You have no reason to be unhappy
It won't rain and you're wearing your favourite warm coat

Today was one of those days
Today was the day I returned to my bedroom
I should have been ecstatic
And I would have been if I didn't feel like I had left something behind
I know I had to
It would be selfish to act in any other fashion

But much like your favourite coat would do if snagged on a branch,
I snagged my heart on the handle of a door.
It's making me sick.

I'd scream if I could sleep

Today all the screens in the shop windows showed pictures of missing children
I felt a cigarette was necessary
The images reflected on the glass
Looked like the televisions were watching themselves.
Men and women, tightly gripped their sons and their daughters
And you could tell that they were scared
I would be too if I had someone to love.
Run away from home kids.
Run the fuck away

Buy a punk album in 1978
And fall in love with girls with guitars who you'll never meet.
Spend time in supermarkets, you'll probably feel closest to the ones you left behind there
Watch films you don't like
Never take advice from someone who says they want to study art
Because there is no art
There's just love, hate, canvas and dumb luck
So run away from home kids
Run the fuck away.

Biko toughen up

Biko toughen up
Biko toughen up
Biko toughen up
Biko toughen up
Biko toughen up

These people are nameless
These people are faceless
These people are heirs to having no graces
These people are shoulders and elbows
These people are spilling.

Biko toughen up
Biko toughen up
Biko toughen up
Biko toughen up
Biko toughen up

I was a faker before you

This is my hometown.
It's sepia toned.
It has something to tell everyone who passes through if they'll listen.
It screams it at the scum at midnight
While we crawl out of the dark
With our friends, marinaded in pity.
It tells us that our youth is fleeting.
We shouldn't waste it in these narrow streets.

You waste it.
You waste it every fucking weekend.
In that 12 euro whorehouse
You show yourself off for what you are
Cheap.
You attract boys trying to become local pop icons
And girls who don't know any better
You know better.
But you waste it.

Me?
Whats in my town for me?

Well I just like getting wasted.

Where do you plan on sleeping on Thursday

If I spend another day like this I'll write a new language.

My insides feel heavy.
I can feel every ounce of me screaming out for medication.
I don't care anymore, I just need some new feelings.
Because the rooms I've been in remind me of headaches, scars, stars and ceilings.

Giving in.

It's lingering.
The smell of smoke
I feel it every time I put on these jeans
It wraps around my arms.
Makes me feel at home

It's deafening
The noise inside this car
I block it out
So I can try on my new conscience
It's second hand

I'm not going to be poetic any more
The aesthetic is left spilled on the floor
I'm disappointed in the human race
That we havn't found a cure for this yet
Please don't touch me.

I need to decide if I hate you.

Please don't fucking touch me.

I feel like a fool so I'm going to stop troubling you.

I think I just got it back.
That night I was so nervous my heart was in my mouth
I left it in yours
But I got it back.

I slept next to you
I couldn't have gotten any closer
But I still couldn't feel you.
All of yourself got underneath your fingernails
When you were digging holes to hide your secrets.

I asked you why and you said nothing.
I helped you up.
I wish I'd fallen further down.

You dissapeared into a gate

I've made a decision.
"I want to know my fate"
It came thudding out
It was obvious.
It was about you
Mostly
Because old ideas of horizontal Christmas trees
May still apply
But I hope it doesn't apply too quickly
On the staircase
I heard the door close slowly
I felt the guilt
I felt the pain
Raging in that corridor
I never felt worse than I did for those ten seconds
And then I realised
That I had to make a desicion
Draw another map
Or I do the most petrifying thing any man has ever had to do
Because "I want to know my fate"

Illustrated songs

I keep ending up looking at sides of buildings
All around me I see people
Like a child's crayon drawing
They are crude, tateless.
And strangely beautiful.
I keep ending up drawing them on the sides of buildings.

Not you. Not this.

They call it 'weighing heavy on your heart'
Grief, anxiety, nostalgia.
I used to find it hard to understand how an emotion can bare any physical consequence
I once thought that it was air
An excessive amount of oxygen in the blood, inflating your heart
It becomes unbearable
It feels like you'll sink into the ground
Like your entire essence is fading away because you've lost something
But you survive
It never leaves
It integrates itself into yourself
It weighs on your heart
And someday, you'll realise you're carrying around exacltly what it was you lost.

March 27 2008

I really don't care all that much anymore

I don't know what to do with all this grey
It's stodgy, it lives in my insides
It drips down onto my hands
It makes sickening sounds

I'm told I may lose my hair
I may stop feeling
It is hard to bare
But it unfortunately is the answer

I was better at this once
Drinking, smiling, being.

I made the choice of speaking out
I hope it was the right decision.

Because I have friends on the cliffs
I see grey on my wrists.

Please don't touch the banister

I want to wake up
I'm in the back seat and I need to wake up
While tomorrow, at least, is still in reach

The stones blur when I look out the window
I can feel my arms more than ever
We are passing these old hospitals and I know, that inside
Grown men are screaming into pillows

And again we come back to this
Me. Making decisions
And you. All of you.
Perfectly aware that I'm terrified
Of waking up.

But I'd do it if you were positive that you aren't sure.
I'd stand on hallowed, hollowed ground
I'd clench my fists.
I'd read the label.
I'd stand still.
I'd be alone.
But I need you to make promises

Amongst others,
Promise me I'll wake up in a city that never wakes up.

Leave, this has little to do with you.

I walked by the place where you are
But you weren't there
There was a note on the fridge
Saying I could find you by the stairs

I walked into the room
The sun hung in the most awkward position in the sky
I fucking hate that

There wasn't much,
Just some clothes
A treasure chest
A blanket
And a body

Come around
Watch old films with me
Describe to me your least favourite sounds.

Divinity must be a bitch

I'd like to get a train with you
But not now, in the past
I would have a tattered travel case, filled with my problems
You could leave it at the station
I never cared much for it

I never cared for many things for a long time
Now everything is suddenly sentimental
This room
This floor
Your heart
My front door
The physical space between now and what could be

I remember the broken bed
Sugar and alcohol and shallow similarities
They stockpiled themselves across the windowsill
In the corner
In the wardrobe
They threatened to topple
But we got lucky

I, intentionally got lucky
But certainly not lucky enough

Not so lucky that I managed to catch the train

I saw it pull out from the platform

Travelling case still in hand.

I hope this lives up to the expectations that last year created

This is becoming a dreadful habit
I annually compose; collapse and crumple
I am the vinyl record becoming obsolete
You dance around me
Swaying to the sonic melody of Ketamine

We are fluorescent up there
On branches throwing down reels of exposed film
We'll come down
We'll still feel
We'll still exist
Only slightly less

Tattoo me a fly!

Stand back
Stand back
Join in
This is my street
I can disown whoever the fuck I like.

Mediocre at best

Lets move away
Lets build a home
We'll build a church
Made of expensive chrome

Lets move to North America
Build a house on a hill overlooking the melancholy sky beneath the sea

Lets make sure we dont make the spin slow down
Lets build and ruin and burn this town
I love that sound

You hear it don't you?
The sand
The scrape
Exactly as we planned
You won't know who owns anything
Until you are lying in the grass
Staring at the blue sky
Cornea damage from the sun
I enjoy my time.

Join in! Join in! Stand back! Stand back!

You've been standing by that tree for nearly three nights now.

It won't fall.

It was merely a taxi journey
The windows were blacked out
By chivalry and comic books from the 1960's
Dear God I wish it was the 60's

Just stand back
You're not offering yourself up to Mr. Wednesday
I won't have it
Because I watched those leaves fall
Long before Autumn

Quote me the surrealist
I enjoy it when you do that
It makes my nerves feel like they were in on the deal
Of course,
They were not
Nor was this tree.

Forget it.

It will not fall.

Thread.

There's bright blue wool spilling from my chest
It's accumulating on my blazer
My School's beloved crest

On the courtyard on all fours
This wool chooses you
Sinks through to your arteries
Latches on
Enraptures your heart in a web

I daren't cut these threads
They, with you, hold me together

Shaking hands with a fist

It was the day we earned our 16-bit heartbeats
We closed our eyes and it was suddenly night
When we opened we had broken our teeth
There were no marks

Grey walls bore our names
Our fingers kept grazing
We stopped and stood
We stared because we were startled
Not because of the perverse pleasure in watching ourselves let go
But because of the most sincere of feelings.
Doubt.

We denied ourselves family
We doubted our ability to remember
We shut out the feverish pounding of the rain
When we walked down that hill
I nearly held your hand without feeling I'd fall over
But that was only once

Once is enough for now
But barely manages to fill the gap that always tends to leave behind.

Cheers for dears

Since pixellated handshakes is now open to the rest of the world, this is where I will post all my old poetry/lyric crap. It'll be almost all old stuff, but it will be updated from time to time.