Pretence.

4/3/09
Both my knee’s are on the ground
Getting grazed but I don’t care
And I won’t let my scream fill the air
I have only once and I plan to keep
it that way.
‘Cause I don’t let my anguish escape
through my mouth,
My fists hold my pain and I hit
and I hit again
and the bag glares right back at
me as I bruise my hands.
The bag is my worst enemy
and I just can’t stop my fists
The bag is the world
and my fists are crying now
But I won’t let my eyes shed a tear
Out of breath I can’t believe there’s still more
inside after all that hitting
I’m not relieved.
I can still feel the pain
eating at my bones and giving my throat lumps
I just have to swallow a pill to feel
and then all I feel is hell at my heels,
is an explosion in my stomach
creeping up my insides
up my throat, in my saliva, on my tongue,
always on my mind and in my eyes I hide,
‘Cause I just swallow and I just smile,
and I just hit the bag and I just cry in the shower
so I can pretend it’s just the water on my face.

Diseased

3/4/09
Disease – what a simple word
for such a complex thing.
The line blurs between disease
and living. This disease in my head
is driving me quite literally crazy,
Sometimes I think cancer or some
physical disease would be easier to
deal with. Death would greet me,
shake my hand with an evil grin.
Instead, I get all his cousins
spitting in my face as Death lurks
in my shadow, just teasing,
teasing me like a dog with a bone,
the chain of life chokes me as I lurch towards
Death and he just laughs like I’m the biggest joke
he’s ever seen and I don’t blame him.
I am a joke but even pathetic at that,
I am just plain pathetic,
This disease is curled up inside my skull,
Just sleeping but beating blood into my veins,
Just relaxing in my head and pouring out of my mouth,
and filtering all my thoughts
and interpreting the world through sick eyes.
I just can’t move on.

Standing Still

3/4/09
I hop on trains to places
I don’t know just to
feel the movement.
Because I cannot move myself forward.
I am so stuck
in between the tracks.
And trains just rush right past me
without a second glance.
I am just standing stock still
in the pouring rain – I won’t cry
not today. The chemicals
made me better for a minute
but then I got too used to them.
Drivers are beeping at me to move
but I’m just paralysed by the things I’ve seen,
And by the nightmares I dream.
And my eyes are trying to turn the image right way up
But my mind just doesn’t want to see – I fall
to my knees and hide my tears within the rain.
Because my eyes are showing me all the sickness
and sad memories I tried to pretend didn’t exist.
And now I’m just screaming with the thunder
but my mouth doesn’t make a sound
My heartbeat beats faster and loudly in my ears
I cannot hear the storm anymore.
I just close my eyes and let them burn with salty tears
as I force myself to forget for another day
and as I force myself to stop crying and put on
a brave face, just for everyone but me.
‘Cause it kills me inside but it brings to your
face a smile so I grit my teeth and smile.
So I cover my cuts and smile.
So I bury my memories and smile.
So I swallow the pills and smile.
So I silence the screaming
until I’m alone again.

Cryptic tongue

31/3/09
I am too cryptic.
People always stare at me
like I’m speaking in tongue.
People always glare at me
like I’m making no sense.
A foreigner in my own home.
I am speaking your language
You’re just not listening
I am speaking your language
I just don’t speak simple.
My tongue is riddled with lies
and puzzle, mysteries.
My words are always bent
I cannot just state facts.
I must always hide the truth
in complex sentences and metaphors.
I am speaking your language,
It just takes a little concentration
to decipher the meanings of my messages.
I just can’t speak straight.

Alone

30-3-09
Rotting bones - I’m disintegrating.
The shovel shop down the road
has decided to close down.
I am all alone. In this I am alone.
There’s no text on my headstone.
The grass over my grave never grows.
I am all alone. In this I am alone.
Everything I never did and never owned
flashes through my mind. In each
picture, I am alone. In this I am alone.
You can put your flowers all over me,
But flowers always die so quickly near me.
You can send your best wishes but
six feet under costs a bit extra and who
wants mail when you’re dead anyway?
With flies in my eyes and worms in my mouth
Even the insects die all around me as I tried
to scream. Dirt tastes just like it looks
-so ugly, the only thing covering me.
Get away. Don’t visit me here anymore.
I am speaking through worms to tell you
…to tell who?
No-one ever knows and nothing ever grows.
I will never know and I will never grow again.
I am alone. In this I am alone.

Moth To A Flame

Cliché. Moth to a flame.
That’s my building block.
A moth flies towards the light
it looks so innocent, so nice,
but little electric waves see me
reeling back but one look at that
lovely orange flame, I must get
closer, I must see the center,
I just crave the company
of my arch enemy.
Electric waves through my insides
again – feel so shocking
,feel so familiar, feel so homely.
A moth to a flame, the only difference
is I’m crawling back on my bleeding
hands and knees and I know this is going to hurt
I just really need the company.

Literal metaphor

24/3/09
Just a step or three backwards.
A dangerous step backwards.
A step backwards is only dangerous
when you’re standing on an edge.
I’m always standing right on the edge.
So three steps means I’m falling
into the depths of the past
And I’m so used to this feeling
I can’t believe it still hurts so much.

I curse the faces around me
for not knowing what I’m thinking
.I curse my surroundings
as I try to escape them.
Feet, train, there are always windows though.
I cannot escape the world.
But I can escape the known for a while.
And live in the freshness of not knowing where I am.
Funny how I feel most alive
when I’m away from the common world.
When I’m alone in an unfamiliar place.
Excitement ignites – that breath of fresh air
in a new place turns into a sigh…
as I realize this place is no more my home
than the place I come from.

Literal or a metaphor?
They alwayswant to know.
Well this started literally
but it seems my literal actions are just
the physical actions of my mental games.

Fly To A Spider

Thoughts. Poison.
One and the same.
Once this disease gets in.
It twists and turns,
It plays all kinds of games.
It never gives up and never loses.
It kills if it must,
It changes shape to fit,
It does everything it can
to make sure it will win.
It rolls my eyes to the back of my head
so I watch childhood memories
and other tragic things I’ll never forget,
It traps you then rolls you up
in your own mistakes
and like a fly to a spider
I have been caught
and like a fly to a spider
I am so helpless
and like a fly to a spider
I am so doomed.

*unnamed*

26/3/09
Once a fleshy hand with veins and blood,
I held in mine with nothing but the time we had,
Life has never been on my side ‘til now
but death is on yours,
and I just want to be where you are,
I’m standing atop your grave with a shovel.
And the tears are watering the flowers I left you.
And I’m left here holding the hand
of a skeleton.
And I won’t let your bones crumble.
And I won’t let this hand ever slip.
And I’ll knock at the walls of this cave
until the walls crumble
And we’ll lie here eternally.
Your skeletal hand in my fleshy one.
I’ll breathe in dirt ‘til the end of my days.

Suicidal Pen

18/3/09
Fingertips filled with ink
smear the page creatively
Oh the joys of being a pen.
Unless it was mine
filled with misery.

Fingertips filled with ink
paint out this hell
Oh the misery of being a pen
of being my pen
writing nothing but misery.

Fingertips filled with blood
smear the page creatively
mixed with tears
‘cause now my faithful pen
is suicidal.
Well I guess I’m contagious.
Well I guess the ink hit my blood.
Smash – my pen is doomed.
I am contagious.
Even my pen is suicidal.

Gears slip away

3-3-09
Weak minded fool to let him in,
At least dreams cannot face the blame,
But daydreams are conscience acts of the
minds desires.
As if this mind wasn’t fractured enough
without another arrow in the works
without another spade in the gears
forcing them into reverse –
whichway? What way?
Blurred vision,which way? What way?
Shaky vision,sore head…which way?
What way?
I’m trying to walk through bricks
to safety but danger is taking over
as the gears slip out of my hands,
slip away, the wrong way.

Hell

3/3/09
‘Patience’’ He says
tempting me with not an apple
but a knife, a rope, a bottle of pills,
Tug of war – the casualties over the last
five years
wouldn’t come back on Halloween,
Beating hearts but dead to me -
I’m dead to them in the ring of Hell
where they threw the towel in.
At one end – now all alone,
I was always alone.
And He’s at the other end with the best
and most overused excuse
‘a test of strength, a test of faith’
but secretly willing failure upon me,
knowing my demeanor is weak,
"I surrender, I surrender,”
I pulled, I pulled,
He let go and let go a bolt
I am flying backwards
all alone
with only the fires to break my fall.

Metaphors

15/3/09
I wish I could just sit in a corner
As a fire burnt everything down around me
Closing in so quickly
So it wasn’t just a metaphor anymore.

I wish I could just sit in a corner
And watch my life burn to the ground
Closing in so quickly
I’m so fed up with metaphors.
I wish I could just cry in a corner
As I watch my hand strike a match
And cast everything into flames
And shadows dance on the walls
Pointing, laughing, burning, screaming,
Mocking
Because this is only a metaphor.

I wish I could just sit in a corner
And feel the heat from the flames
As I prepare to burn
So it wasn't just a metaphor anymore.

Wolf

11.3.09
Sponges are supposed to scrub
the dirt away.
Clean us, cleanse us, refresh
us after a hard day.
I am a sponge of the most absorbent
kind – too absorbent
I got thrown in the ‘fail’ pile,
Sponges aren’t supposed to poison
everything they touch.

I am the asbestos-filled orphanage
That forgot to warn you of
the horror in the walls
and that has puddles of blood
on every floor.
Blonde curls finger paint red sunsets.
Innocent eyes fill with smiles.
Unblemished ears listen to the story
of little red riding hood.

I am the wolf.
I am the wolf fighting nature.
I am the wolf losing the battle of wills.
I am the wolf wishing to be human.
I am the wolf locked in a room of my enemies
who are trying to shoot me down
but apologizing for their actions as they aim
and I am so aware of my big, bad teeth.
I am the wolf…

On my hands

11/3/09
I am dressed in red and blue
my clothes are so heavy
I am on my knees
on the freshly painted ground
what’s this on my hands?
specks flick into my eyes
what this on my hands?
what’s this stinging my eyes?
I am my own scapegoat – I can
be yours too – throw bricks at me
and we could be best friends.
These bricks are not for building
but destroying,
what’s all this on my hands?

Tiresome

20/2/09
They say write what you know
So I have written misery,
tragedy and pessism,
And I’m sorry if it’s tiresome,
But I can’t write what I don’t know.

Sirens

1/2/09
I’m sick of every emergency siren
ringing In my ears
And every red and blue flashing light
blinding my eyes
to the good in the world as I wonder
Where’s the fire?
Where’s the pain?
Where’s the crime?
I bet it’s horrific.
I bet someone’s dying.
I bet he’ll get away with it.
Right now, I know someone somewhere is dying.
I let that thought fill me up with despair.
Right now, I know someone somewhere is laughing
But that doesn’t fill anything at all.
Because someone somewhere else is being raped.
Someone somewhere else is committing suicide.
And every emergency siren attatches itself to my shoulders.
Ringing right in my ears ‘til I can’t hear anything else.
Flashing lights right in the peripherals of my vision
‘til I can’t see anythingbut red and blue.
And it makes me question –
Where’s the fire?I bet it’s horrific.
Where’s the pain? I bet someone’s dying.
Where’s the crime?I bet he’ll get away with it.
And I know those sirens mean someone’s crying.
And it makes me question –
What’s to be content about in this world?

Flames

20-2-09

Flames on heels –
never quite a full blown fire
Still enough to burn, to cripple but not to kill
other than my will.
The flesh is willing but the spirit is weak.

note to self - be alive/believe

You can’t kill yourself yet -
There are too many people counting on you
And breathing only through your lungs,
Not to mention the potential lawsuits.
Stop thinking “why them? Why not me?”
Start thinking “I’m lucky to be alive”
And take away the “A”
And insert an “E”
to make “be alive” turn into “believe”.
“The best part of believe is the lie”.
“Sometimes you just have to pretend”.

Vulture

3/1/09
If this disease were a bird
It would be a flock of vultures -Greedy.
Circling a dying body.
He looks up to see staring faces
just waiting for him to fail
And when he doesn’t fast enough
They attack.

Violence Doesn't Solve A Thing

While teaching ‘violence doesn’t solve a thing’
to your young children…
you send out troops to war with heavy artilery
where the orders are ‘shoot to kill’
but didn’t you hear yourself?
‘violence doesn’t solve a thing.’
didn’t you hear the past screaming?
‘violence doesn’t solve a thing.’
Why did people act so surprised
when two kids shot up Columbine?
You say ‘violence doesn’t solve a thing’
with a gun next to your bed.
You say ‘violence doesn’t solve a thing’
and vote in a government who promises wars.
You say ‘violence doesn’t solve a thing’
and sell guns like candy and toys.
You say ‘violence doesn’t solve a thing’
and sell bullets next to fruit and vegies.
You say ‘violence doesn’t solve a thing’
And when you’re kid says ‘dad, im being bullied at school’
You say ‘Son, it’s a part of life…but remember,
Violence doesn’t solve a thing’.
The kids realised it first,
Shooting classmates made things worse.
They turned to each other and said
‘violence doesn’t solve a thing’
with their guns to each others heads.

The End Of The World

Can you imagine…nothing?
Can you switch off your conciousness?
No sun, no moon rising.
No movement, no air or gravity.
An empty nothing.
Aimless atoms floating
invisible to the naked eye.
No sound, no wind blowing
nothing to nowhere.
It’s hard to imagine nothing…
When nothing matters.
It’s hard to switch off your conciousness…
When you’re numb.

Subconcious nazis.

1/1/09.
If Nazi’s are a minority,
Then how do you explain the Barbie Doll?
Blonde hair, blue eyes.
“The perfect citizen”.
Unable to get along without a man.
Ken, strong and abled rescuer.
Who says we don’t live in a patriachal society?
Smalls signs unposted.
Alternative views unspoken.
When one dare raises a hand
It is slapped back down.
A rebuttal for every argument.
How do you falsify a theory to a fanatic
with the world as back up?
When the hot topic is the latest
murderers or missing girl,
How can we claim this the most civilised era yet?
Like a barbie doll
Industry’s choose what should be worn.
Just like when Cambodians wore nothing but black.
Just like Cambodians
We do what we’re told for our food.
Never mind rights, choice or dignity.
Subconcious Nazi’s.
Draw Swatstikas in their sleep
Just like a Barbie Doll.
You have to be just like a Barbie Doll
For anyone to notice you.
If you’re not an Aryan aka Barbie
say goodbye – you’re still the lower race
and Hitler’s ghost is still at large.

Sedated

27/1/09

Sedated yet the best I’ve felt in years
What does that reveal?
That perhaps air was never meant
to reach these lungs,
To activate these muscles
this mind – which all now need sedating
for me to feel okay.

Half Empty World

Half Empty World.

What kind of world is it where
people are so oppressed
that we admire criminals
for having the guts to break the law.
What kind of world is it where
sport takes up all the room in the paper
there’s no space to mention the epidemic
of depression sweeping the world
or the homeless living on the street?

What kind of world is it where
we spend more money on trying
to impress other nations
than we spend trying to help people live?
It’s okay if you die in the shadows.
Just not on the streets where visitors walk.

What kind of world is it where
we feel all excited inside
when there’s an accident in front of us
because we might be on the television.
Our town might get some media attention.
A woman died, but our town could be famous.

What kind of world is it where
we don’t learn from our mistakes?
we send soldiers to wars while speaking
fairy tales of democracy.
What kind of world is it where
we judge each other by what we wear
or the colour of ones skin
by our hairstyles.
Whatever happened to meeting someone
before judging them?

What ever happened to the words
freedom and equality?
What about the right not to be judged?
What kind of world is it where
those with money look down on us without
instead of offering a hand, they shout
orders that will make them enough money
to live luxuriously for a lifetime
while we struggle to pay the rent every week.

What kind of world is it where
we admire those who live fast
by doing wrong with so many dollars
they could feed a whole country
instead of buying fifty new outfits.
What kind of world is it where
nobody feels sorrow.
nobody feels pity.
nobody feels responsibility.
nobody feels guilty.
nobody feels…
that more can be done about the worlds situation.

No Release

31/1/09
I climb into the shower.
I let the water be my tears
because I won’t cry over you yet again.
You’re too golden for that.
I stick out my tongue under the water
and wish I could be a child again.
A child who has nothing
but swings and slides.
So innocently oblivious.
I spit down the plughole
in disgust of my own weakness
trying to rid my body of
myself.I put my hand down my throat.I
put my teeth to my skinto feel some pain.
But I won’t let myself have the satisfaction
of that release.

Filter

27/1/09
Most minds come with an inbuilt filter
but I had to wait nineteen years before I
taught my self to filter.
And it’s still difficult for me
not to take on the worlds problems,
not to feel a burden from events
that ended years ago.
But I am learning day by day
to limit the amount of horror,
hurt and misery I let myself see.
Because I’ve been overstepping the mark for years
The doctors call it depression
but I just think I didn’t come with an inbuilt filter.
And I don’t know my limits.

Lessons

Take a step back and close your eyes
Let the images of the world you hold slip away
Open refreshed eyes and take a step forward.
Feel your cipilary muscles stretch your eyes wide
Realise you’re living in a world that’s far from right
And just accepting it as the way of life
When there are so many things that need to change.
Changing the world starts with the first few lessons we learn in life.
After playing a game the question to ask isn’t “who won?”
It’s “did you have fun?”
And your kid might not grow up to want to fight in a war
Just to prove themselves to you.
Next, don’t expect of your kids what you don’t expect of yourself.
If you smoke, they smoke.
If you swear, they swear.
Taking this into consideration, put thought into your actions
And don’t judge others based on colour, race or religion,
Cause we’re trying to flush racism out of the next generation.
Teach your kid “if they hit you, you don’t hit back”
Then maybe your kid can teach you back
“Hey dad, why is our government sending our troops to war?”
“Well son, they did something bad to us so we have to show them
they can’t get away with that”
“But dad…you always taught me, if they hit you, you don’t hit back.”
This is when you close your eyes, take a breath,
No answer in your throat you are forced to open your eyes
And look at the world through new ones
And realise you’re living in a world that’s not right
And just accepting it as life.
Think about the lessons before you teach them.

Contemplation .3

26/1/09

A cause without a rebel
is not a cause at all.
A disorder doesn’t exist
without an account.
I would not exist
if not for the words of stories,
poetry, moving pictures
to connect my emotions to,
and sadly, I would not exist
if not for medication.

Contemplation .2

14/1/09
Vast never-ending emptiness.
Muscles reacting before processesare thought of.
Supressed forever, this is how it opens.
So confusing to the outer eye.
The inner eye understands.
The mouth cannot paint such a picture.
The mind does not even try.
But takes its own understanding as gospel.
Excludes all outside inflluences.
Frowns upon thoughts that lead to any action.
It’s the thought process that holds us back.
Instincts, the id, tries to act.
But always thoughts run interference
Instead of just letting the body react.
Perhaps things could be different
Had victims just let their bodies react
Instead of letting their minds surrender leading to the lack of action of bodies
“If I just lie still it will all be over soon”
It’s the thought process that is our enemy.
“If I close my eyes I can pretend this isn’t happening”
It’s the thought process that holds us back.
“I’m not strong enough to fight”
It’s the thought process that dooms us.
And this vast never-ending emptiness
Is the mind as it should be.

Cambodian ghosts.

Black. Everywhere we look people are covered in black.
The colour that stole our freedom.
We can’t even take a walk now without worrying
We might come back without a leg or an arm, at all.
They educate our kids in the art of hate.
They fight now and betray their friends.
Betrayal buys an extra bowl of rice.
Kids are chanting the name of a man
A man they’ve never seen.
A man who caused the death of their very own families.
Chanting the name of a killer.
Chanting the name of the faceless.
Chanting the name behind starvation.
Chanting the name of death itself.
“Polpot will make us strong!
Whose taking away all our food?
Polpot is our leader, our saviour!
Whose introducing these new soldiers?
Polpot will clean up our country!
Why are there dead bodies everywhere?”
Malnutrition. Labouring with disease and infection.
Our skin is hanging off our bones.
Our eyes are hardly staying in their sockets.
Not that we’d mind not seeing our once loved country
Turning into a dystopia before our very eyes.
We go to sleep to the sound of screaming.
The family next door just got their father taken away.
We go to sleep to the sound of sobbing.
The wife doesn’t know how she’ll look after her children.
We go to sleep with the stench of death up our noses.
We work in fields and spy on our neighbours.
We steal and kill for a meal to live one more day.
All for a man who will kill our families.
We wake up screaming to an explosion.
More screams and cries fill the air.
The smell of blood is overwhelming.
A young boy bleeding from what’s left of his leg.
For decades, this suffering goes on and on.
Polpot is dead but his disaster lives on.

A Bomb.

2-1-09
I am holding in my hands a bomb ready to explode.
With my hands I will protect everyone as I’ve always done.
I thrust the bomb through my chest
And let my heart, my soul suffer in place of the entire world.
Cracked bones and bleeding organs are nothing if no-one knows.
Lucky the explosion ripped out my tongue
Or I would be screaming at the top of my struggling lungs.

Contemplation

4/1/09
A year I thought to never be seen.
What gives us the right to life?
Is simply being born enough?
Contemplating places.Contemplating belonging.
Could go on for days.
Self-induced insomnia.
Is it just randomness?
Do we have complete control?
Do we want to know?
Float through birth‘Til death.
I can’t justfloat through this‘til death.
Answers may never find me.
But some questions just have to be posed.
Some questions are just made to make you think.
Some questions exist without answers.
Answers are just a way to say “I know.”
Answers are security.
Bliss is security.
Contemplation is discontent craving security.

52436

I met an elderly woman
sitting on a bench, just staring into space.
I asked 'Hey are you okay? What are you looking at?'
She replied 'I'm looking through a wormhole.
Who says time travel isn't possible?
I live in the past."
Patting the empty seat next to her,
She gave me a message.
"Human beings can be so brutal,"
she said to me,
"I was a new mother
when our family was pushed into a train
and driven far, far away
without a word of explanation.
They tattooed my skin without permission
And took my twin baby boys away.
My husband could not stand it.
But his cries sounded like an animal to them.
Like an animal, he was left bleeding on the ground.
It was meant to be the beginning of our life.
But they put needles in my baby's eyes.
No longer did my husbands brown eyes stare at me.
And when he saw they had stolen his eyes
from his children, he committed suicide.
Bloodshot, fearful eyes.
I could not cease my baby's cries.
Rocking in my arms, I watched
Young men and women
wait in line for a shower
Like water could ever clean the dirt away.
But they never came out clean.
They never came out at all.
And by baby's only stopped crying
after their souls were forced out by chemicals.
Their bodies vessels for experiments.
Even death did not bring them dignity
As a man tugged them from my arms
with a grin and excited eyes.
He was the only one in camp who ever smiled.
And so" she warned in a whisper,
"be sure every night to check under your bed
because despite what they say,
monsters do exist".