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.