She interupts the manic depressive with five minutes to go,
'You haven't said anything yet today?' she says to me,
I see tears prick the manic depressive's eyes,
This is no time to mention the thing I am trying not to think about,
The room falls silent.
Silent but for the ticking clock.
This torture is a strange routine we have accepted each week
In the blind hope that it will make us different,
'I'm sorry if I upset you', she says to the manic depressive
He looks down, 'well, you did',
She says, 'that's good, you wouldn't have been able to tell me that a few months ago'
But we all know that she is kidding herself
That anything other than the totally usual and expected has happened.
The manic depressive gets up and leaves.
Nobody speaks. I am a well-kept secret and
No changes are taking place everywhere we look.

this snow journey I will remember as the end
you will take your silence and shadow away
but it will still be with me

choking on the future again
i decide that i cannot be here for when it happens
i start to make a plan
but there is no plan
if only there was a plan...
or some other options
if only i hadn't met you
i am broken, this wasn't supposed to happen again
i cannot be here for another exit
i just cannot bare to see you go
say something, anything...
too late.

This life is

Standing in front of automatic doors that don't open

And checking a silent phone

For no replies and

Still not entirely existing properly...

Here I am being completely dysfunctionally brilliant

To no avail

Your veil is thick

I look in the rear view mirror all the time

Sometimes the things behind me are way too close

In last night's dream the wannabe rockstar was back

Turning into a black cat and slinking out of my grip,

I have never had any hold on anyone...

And if your songs were supposed to be about the beginning of love

then I am malfunctioning because

I could only hear loss and endings in every line.

And I wonder if I will be able to get through the barriers

Of your personal fortress and my own mind

To tell you

That when I am with you, I don't want to leave

And when I think about you going back

It is like a death to me.

Outside the cottage at the back of the Victorian hospital
I think about how my pain has been expressed and somehow contained inbetween these walls,
Left there to fester, to mould over, to be added to by the millions of others,
Us humans with our lives and our hearts and our sorrows.
Surely these windows should be black from acres of discharged bile
But yet they stare down, weary but clear,
The years of suffering have floated through them like ghosts,
Removing all debris and the dust of a thousand lives
Has been absorbed into the plaster and mortor.
Am I closer now? Am I getting closer to existing....
Religiously, week after week, I come here,
To this church for the Destroyed.
Through the secure doors I greet the faces of my fellow pain-holders,
Tired smiles, we sit in a circle, someone sighs, my heart is ragged but I can't speak,
I will listen to this building, as the layers get striped away from those around me,
I am so aware of the walls and they are crying gently,
'Why does no one ask me how I am?'
I am full now, I am heavy,
Inside me is an ever-expanding sponge of sorrow.

Little Red Car

Little red car sits by the roadside one overcast March morn
These are the days of darkness
Litte red car, some warm embrace and sadness starts to dissipate

Little green dress sashays down the corridor one September day
She speaks of champagne and gladness
The Montreal wedding awaits

Little brown butt cheeks carving their way up the mountain
Some foreboding peak this day
Before tiredness can defeat
"Not I" say little brown butt cheeks and we continue on our way

Little pink shoes running lightly
OK hills, It's OK by me, it's AOK
That's us today

Little hands make light work of misery
Little hands give us the time to party
Deftly weaving words with wine
Blueberries become bubbles in the hot tub light

Little old heart sings sweetly, joyfully, greedily to the night
These two souls clamouring, comforting, cajoling to the sound of endless giggling
We'll awaken the neighbours this fair old time

Ah little friend of mine
Little wonder of these cruel times
Little less than the best of the rest
Little joy that spreads its wings to all who need them

Oh little house of Keegan come take me away.

Dear Panic,
You have made me a terrorist.
Every morning upon waking,
A suicide bomb drops
In my brain
And I battle exhausted,
Through suffocation and blindness all day,
To get to the night
And pray for a ceasefire in the morning
Which never comes...
Dear Anxiety,
If I believed in god I would
Say you were a devil that
Has possessed me,
Made me distrust myself,
Made me believe the wrong things about life,
Ripping my heart, throat, stomach with clawing, shaking hands
Made me desperate to get out of this body this brain these thoughts,
I’m so exhausted now,
I have endured so much
And still your work is not done.
Dear Fear,
You have taken the past and the present from me
And so there is no future.