Back up

Ready.
Ready and willing
Lying in wait.
No more excuses, nothing else in the way.
I can do this now.
I can hold my head up through the fog
Watch it disappear around moss-hung corners
"If I could be who you wanted, all the time."
Pangs of fear, anxiety, regret fill the rattling space between my ears
Need to consult my usual oracles,
Hear the real and telling things they have to say
Prophets singing steel and emptiness
Acrid laughter and heavy breathing
Twisting aching longing loneliness.
Bring it, I say.
I'm ready now.
Bring it on.

Hooks

Low humidity.

Crunch.

What am I doing here, why am I going there?

One quick reminder, brings all my walls down.

Humpty-Dumpty and I.

Just the hooks, there,

Silver and silent.

Silken.

Hang me out to dry, this time.

It's always something.

A shoe, a photograph, some change on the windowsill.

And I'm all gone again.

Little.

Deliver me.
Through light and into darkness.
By gentle hands this terrible work done.
By swelling hearts' trembling hope.
Deliver us.
Through laughing little bells
Through fleece and fluffy cotton
Through the comfort and the fear.
Fast-forward to the next one.
Deliver me.
Give me your heavy arms to hold.
By gentle weeping hearts
By tired hands pressed into prayer
By your story's sorrow told.

And here we find you broken at the last, but this labor's love's not lost.

Rites of Passage

"All I can do is keep breathing"

All I can do is keep moving.

Forward, sideways, up or down

It doesn't matter which way or where

Just keeping going is better than

Nowhere.

We sit, three of us creating our own existence

Dreaming ourselves through life

Or into it.

Into life, into love, into simple movement some days

That's the definition of our best.

Maybe I'll slow down

Maybe I'll stop this, and do something totally different

Maybe I'll publish these words, look for something more than just an outlet

Street-wide and sky-wise,

I pray at my own doorstep

Pray for forgiveness, inspiration, happiness and safety.

The same things we all ask for before bed

Before death, before God and these witnesses.

I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry it turned out like this.

I never planned this, although no-one ever does.

But they all nod, knowingly.

As much as we'd like to think otherwise,

Maybe this is just another rite of passage.

Just another step that we all go through at some point or another.

"One of them gets restless and decides to leave"

You find your jacket's too tight

Your shoes too small

You somehow something just isn't quite ringing true anymore.

And you take a deep breath

You are given the choice to stay here in this place, and work it out

Or keep moving.

Worth it.

If this really is the reason,
Trading my pain for your dreams
Trading your bitter hurt for my sky-high someday.
If we suffer so much,
As long as this is why
There is some reason why
Some useful thing that comes of it.
Then it will all have been worth it.
We will all have been forgiven.
And we will each of us spread our rusted wings and fly.

Own it.

Hallelujah.

Saw you standing there, with your beer and your smirk.

"I am Jack's smirking revenge."

I am Jack's reflux pride.

I am always listening.

Walk away, too little too late

Always one answer or another

You ever wish you hadn't?

That's an interesting strategy.

Yes, believe it or not I have a strategy sometime

I have something resembling forethought.

I am Jack's heaving chest.

I saw it there in your eyes,

Felt it in your tight embrace.

heard it in your plaintive call.

Saw it in your intensity, your focus and release.

We all want exactly the same things,

It doesn't ever change much,

We never change much, you know.

Babies and serious illnesses change people, but otherwise we just don't change much.

Its only the very basic things that might or might not keep us together.

Together.

I hurt.

Apart.

Alone.

Hold still.

Comfort.

Hold still.

Hold me still.

Show me care, I hold my head up through the fog.

"I just want you to be ok."

Thank you for seeing through to what's real,

I didn't imagine you at all.

I need to go.

Gotta run, gotta hide

Breathing harsh more than ever

Straight and narrow, clouded with regret and loneliness

None of this makes any sense anymore.

I am Jack's bottled heat.

I am my blurry eyes, my reddened skin, my shining scar.

I am my accident, your pity, my selfish judgement.

Denial?

Not sure, quite, whether this bleeding glass feeds my soul

Or numbs it.

Destroyed instantly, after taking up such arms.

Flattened, with a word.

A simple word, a meaningful expression

It doesn't take much.

A stiff winter breeze with the ocean hot on its heels

takes me away with her.

Take me away, out from here from my clamoring thoughts

From my laboured breathing and dripping sweat.

Give me something sweet, something tender

To tender tomorrow's coming defeat?

I build it up, stack it high, just to see all the cards fall

Over and over again.

A slight touch of comfort

Heady rush of thick bitter oak

I'll take what I can get.

Anything but this.