I had a meeting with myself
“Your works not up to scratch.”
I said, a nod of agreement from everyone else not in the room
Ensued
“Quite frankly, you just don’t have what it takes.”
I sighed and took the criticism, felt an urge to apologise
But I carried on with myself, “You can’t cut the mustard, all in agreement with your leaving your writing at the door, put your hand up.”
I raised my hand, including myself
“There we have it. Meeting adjourned,” I look at my watch, “At 17:05.”
writing
Mass delusions.
Oh, save my soul
From supposed blessed hymns
So full of much delusion
I can’t bear this omnipresent illusion
It’s all so full of shit
Everyone looks delirious
In this oppressive house of ‘sin.’
Where they rejoice in a ‘saviour.’
Not fit to be a king
Fermenting
She’s the apple of my eye
And that’s why
She’s fermenting in front of my eyes
Now it’s going to my head
I couldn’t put needle to thread
To sew my lips sealed shut
And there is no gravity for broken hearts
They never really land
Because there was never any start
It just goes down and down and down
and down
And down
and
down
and
D
O
W
N
A
N
D
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Weirdo
I breathe my name on Windows
Smearing love hearts
for lonely widows
They think they’re messages from god
because they don’t see me
branded into obscurity
I’m the local weirdo
Not a fucking hero!
Bioluminescent
I’m outside the submarine
watchin’ you through circle windows
As I drift inside my own quarantine
I’ve seen the most terrifying fucking things
Living in the depths with me
I’m no Frankenstein
Till I see you, in your yellow submarine
Down here I can be ugly like the anglerfish
When I smile, I’m all fangs and teeth
But I see my reflection
When you all harbour resentment
Blinking behind submarine windows
I’m trying to become Bioluminescent
Can you see me in the dark yet?
I’ve evolved to be this ugly
Do you care to see the horror
That is me?
Monsters
Puddles harbour reflections
In black and white photographic hue
Reminds me back when I
When I thought I loved you
But I paused just a little bit
Let the dots roll past
And now it’s all gone
My moment of victory came to pass
And I did not, I did not drink that glass
It was an imitation of
The finest wine
Said to be the blood of
Jesus Christ
Well I said, I don’t believe
Let me take my bow and leave
I don’t believe in sin
Just some people who sunk within
Trying to show scars without
Cuz no one cares unless you bleed and shout
If only we had eyes
In each others minds
But we’d only want to shut each other out
Because there is no peace
When you know they don’t scream
But the pain still seeps within
There is no shroud
To smother it out
No curtains can be drawn
To cast any doubts
You just live in your own
Little terror house
While the fire burns
Everything down
And I thought I saw
Hopeless in his eyes
But it was just a glimmer of hope
And I know that, much like a butterfly
It’ll whizz past in the blink of an eye
He’s better hopeless
With you and I
Staring into the abyss
With the monsters
That we missed
Gutter
Dark clouds are brewing up a storm
While we brew our beer
We’re gonna get pissed
Before the filth sees us here
In agony and irony, we roll our tobacco
Yellowing our nails
Before they take us back home
Shipping us off to goodness knows where
Cause goodness is like God, it ain’t even here!
I’ve got a mean streak
without the spear
I’ll grab you by your hair
and clip you around the ear!
In a newsboys hat
Looking all dapper and queer
Because it’s how I roll
My marijuana …*ahem* tobacco
And the heavens are opening up
The storm above our heads
While the pigs chase us down town
We got suits on! You can’t run fast
Without creasing ironing
Lord, thank our mothers
She’s gonna have a fit when she sees us here
“Shoulda shipped you off all those years.” She’ll mutter
And we’ll walk downcast into the gutter
Cause goodness is like god!
It ain’t fucking here!
Sex & Smoke
Sex & smoke
Dazzled us in clouds
Of champagne
Frothing at our feet
Admitting defeat
Already on our knees
Taking it
Melting in the moment
Breathing in the decay
Of innocence
Wrapped around our skin
Peeling in layers
Letting it all out from within
No inhibitions
Just naked oceans
Of forbidden lust
Under a fever
Our minds, we can no longer trust
As we go in for the final thrust
Less hope for you yet.
Calloway pushed the blade further into the ground with the step, leaning his body to use all his weight, “ya know,” he started, grunting, “what your problem is?” a cigarette bobbed up and down between his thin lips as he spoke
Max watched the blade cutting into the earth, “What?” He asks, arms folded.
“Ya still holding out for hope.”
Max cocked his head to one side, “Having hope is my problem?” He scoffed.
“Uh huh.” Calloway grunted and leant into the handle, “Let that hope go, boy.” He flicked ash onto the earth beneath his feet, embers flickered orange and then gave up.
Max disagreed, shaking his head. “A bit of hope is what a man needs.”
“Nah, Max.” Calloway let the shovel drop down to the ground with a thud, and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, “We all die in the end.”
“Morbid.” Max rolled his eyes.
A flicker like the embers from his cigarette sparked in Calloway’s eyes for a moment, “What do ya think I’m doin’ ‘ere? Digging for goddamn gold?”
Max looked at the hole Calloway had been digging and sighed with irony.
“The world needs the hopeless.” Calloway drawled on, taking a swig from his bottle of water.
“The world needs more hope, that’s what it needs.” Max said adamantly.
Calloway waved Max’s words away casually, “This world is just a big cosmic joke.”
“Well I for one,” Max dug the toe of his shoe into the ground with an irritated kick, “think there is something more to all this.”
“Something more? Something more than what?”
“Than this!” Max gestured with his hands open in front of him, signifying everything.
“You know why the world is a cosmic joke?” Calloway asked, picking up the shovel again and heaving the blade back into the earth.
“Because it’s all a big accident, blah blah. You’ve told me all this before.” Max faked a yawn.
“There is irony everywhere.” Calloway said matter of factly.
“What are you on about, Cal?”
“There is more hope to be found in the hopeless.”
Max scowled, “That makes no sense!”
“Exactly.”
Therapy
“So, Sam how are you feeling today?”
We both glow brightly in the dark room, I want to touch my face, but I’m afraid I’ll accidently press a button. “I’m feeling an emptiness that is full.”
My therapist changes position slightly in her chair; she’s trying to tilt her head in that human way therapists used to do. “Uh huh. Tell me more.”
That’s in the therapist’s script or dictionary or whatever. “What can I say. It’s everything, and it’s nothing. But there is no connection.”
“Connection to whom?” My therapist asks curiously; I imagine she’d be raising a brow if we were still human.
“To the world, to life, to humans. We think we’re connected, but then we come away empty, don’t we? Just a screen full of emojis.”
“What emoji represents how you feel right now?”
“None can adequately portray anything.”
The therapist nods her body. “Yes, Yes. But you’d probably say the same about words, right?”
“Yes. No words, no emoji’s, hell even no action can quite express what I so often feel. That’s why, no disrespect, therapy is bullshit.”
Her cartoon like legs dangle off the chair, “I think the problem we have is many people have been comfortable putting their brains into their phones, but you’re not quite there yet.”
“Nobodies quite there yet.”
“Isn’t that a massive assumption?”
“No. The evidence is right here. Have you been to Tumblr?”
The therapist looks sad. “Yes. I’ve seen it.”
“They’ve put their brains in electronic devices, miss. And then they’re looking for a reason and well let’s be frank, there is none. So they’re fighting for causes some of them have a grain of truth, but they’ve mutated the grain.”
My therapist nods her body again. She is also reluctant to touch her face, just in case she too accidently touches a button.
“We’re dotting our I’s, Miss.”
She shows me a confused emoji, then says, “Like,” and shows a cross-eyed emoji.
“We’re dotting our I’s because we can’t quite capitalise on individuality, though we’re trying harder than we ever have before.”
The therapist’s screen shows moving dots as she considers this. “I can’t say I understand the way in which you express yourself.”
“That is nothing new, Miss.”
“Sam. You’ll never be happy living like this.”
I glow my full body towards her, my cartoon like legs dangling also. “Happy wasn’t ever a constant or ever will be. There is no such thing as a happy life.”
“That sounds very cynical.” She shows an emoji with a flat expression.
“Perhaps what you call cynism is just the truth.”
She ponders a moment, her legs kicking out underneath her like a child’s on a stool that is too tall for her, “How can we end this therapy session?”
I bend my body, so I glow towards the floor, the light reflecting from the ground back to me, making it too bright to exist. “We can’t.”
