Chop off their ears

A father clever but cruel

Had many children

He watched his wife give birth

To every single one of them

They entered the world

They opened their eyes

But as their lids rose

They saw their father,

They cried and cried

He was scared for sure

What if they abandoned him

For another father

He knew not love

But he knew control

As they cried and cried

So he did decide

Better all my life

I shall be their guide

Then let them see a world

They might deem better than me

So he cut out their eyes

And they could not see

So they followed him blind

Until the day they learned to speak

And they learnt words

And asked why the world was dark?

And was it the same for everyone?

And so he had others cut out their tongues

Better they think a type of loyalty to me

Then realise the cruelty I decided

Before even memory they could not see

Knew nothing but me

I made them blind

And now my servants

Made sure they never realise

He considered having their ears chopped off

But watched their behaviour

They lived in a prison

But were still loyal to him

Without the senses to understand

They directed their anger toward the servants. 

Speaking to mirrors

Shouts come back as if in an echo chamber

Blinded to the fact we are speaking to mirrors

What we say, the replies we receive 

Mere reflections and copies

All these screams make silence

apathy, indifference

No coercion needed

No words stifled 

No voices stilted 

No word left in minds 'individual' 

No sounds found in crowds digital 

Taught not to speak 

Not cause we can't 

Cause opinion is invisible 

Saying it for the first time

The thing is with some words,
Some sentences, some memory
Avoid the word fact because
You're not certain
The thing is some
Declarations once said,
Said for the first time
Are so heavy,
They make sound become 3-D
They come out and inhabit
They sit in that space in between
Seem to take on a life of their own
Those words, they sit between
They don't look frightened
They look confident
That makes you hate them
Gives you a burst of instant repulsion
Because you seem to have given birth to them
But now you can't relate to them at all
As if they sprung from nothing
They have none of you in them
You squirm under their calm almost accepting gaze

Listen

Can you hear me?
Of you course you can't
You can hear YOU
They're my words though,
Missing something aren't they?
My tone, my accent,
The rise and fall and stresses of sound
You'll make it up - won't you?
Please?
Listen?
It might take a while
A couple of seconds
Minutes
The full read
Your fourth read
(although no idea why you'd read it that many times)
But you'll never get it
RIGHT
What you will get though,
Is a little further from you and
A little closer to me
See it's not all about you
Did that sentence make you uncomfortable?
Is it something you pretend to know?
Or really know?
Or maybe you don't even pretend?
Maybe you just never thought about it?
Or maybe you just don't care?
Anyway maybe it doesn't matter
I just wanted you to listen to me
For just a little while




Did you hear anything?

Box

I keep you in my mind

It acts like a box

I keep you there

Because you seem perfect

Like some nerdish figurine collector

I want you in original packaging

Sponge

I absorbed everyone in the room
And then I lost myself

In their examination
I can't see how they see me

In judging them,
I feel blank

Fireworks and Rivers

An explosion from nowhere

Eyes following the blaze as it streaks across the sky

We ooh and aah from a distance

Yet if we were any closer

We’d scream

That’s how detached I feel sometimes,

Like I’m watching a firework show

I don't want to touch but I have to watch

Aware of the danger,

Aware that I’m saved by distance

Other times they creep in like the rivers through cracks

I gasp and choke 

Patchwork and Rubble

Not a river but a patch work

Which I wrap myself up in

Not natural but crafted

Part reality but stitched with my own desires

Threaded with seeds of intent

Obscured, disjointed, fragmented

Shards and rubble which

I pick up loose and plaster together with deception

Constructing monuments to the past

I stand in their shadow

And pretend like they sprung from the ground like flowers

But what are lies only a memories made false by coincidence? 

There is only a now.

We are a mess of contradictions
A million different fictions
Constantly opposing forces
Driving us to different courses
Products of circumstances
From culture induced trances

We say we're this or that
Anything beyond simply human
Merely you or me
Knowledge - power
Uncertainity - insecurity

All these names, all these boxes
All this information, all these causes,
No room for the present tense because of this pretence

We talk like our brains are machines when we are all in one
Well then there's too much oil on these cogs
Cause they turn and turn
We go round and round without reason
It pumps out more and more and does not stop

We can't admire distance that wonderful afar
Because we simply think we are who we are
And that's it
As if a machine does not have a switch

We shop for solutions as if they are put on shelves
We look for leaders without looking to ourselves

We live lives based on timetable
Habit and repetition dictate who's able

But there is only a now, nothing slower or faster
You can't split the truth into a before or after. 

Blind and Blank

Your mouth like a hundred curtained windows; drawn shut.

Your face, a thousand unfilled copies; blank.
Your eyes like those of a million cart horse; blinkered

Your floodgates hold no water,

I can’t even swim,

When in truth, I want to

Drown

Can’t even

Float

Not

Even 

A dead sea

Constriction

Suffocation

The way of burdensome emptiness rather than

Overwhelming questions

The ones that can’t be answered

But you pose none.

No solace in this silence. 

The Unbearable Grandiosity of Inferiority

Feeling so inferior

The thought that they don’t

So you are better because

You do.

Even though,

Your flaws are far many and

Theirs seem few

Yet you take great pain,

Not just to acknowledge but to

Count and name them all

Feeding them scraps like dogs under the table

In secret

Your pets, they gulp hungrily

And you love them in a way that surprises you

Because you know they don’t deserve a full dinner

Do you pity or is it genuine?

Enough to keep them alive and you

Never deny yourself

There is grandiosity in that

“Oh benevolent master, feed me what you do not want”

But it is an unbearable grandiosity,

A shameful one that must be kept secret,

The guilt

Sense of superiority over knowing you are not. 

I ate my imperfections one day

I ate my imperfections one day.

I put them not in an oven,

But my neo cortex

I baked them

Ate them not with a spoon

But new words

A sensation like no other

An explosion on the tongue

What can only be described as

Perfection incinerated

The most glorious feeling

Filled with the depths of pain

They burnt and they scalded

They ran down my throat like a raging volcanic stream

My insides melting, they consumed and took over

Do not bake your imperfections,

Like fire and wood,

One gives birth sustaining new life,

While the new life tries to

Destroy what is keeping it alive. 

Beauty

Beauty you stand alone,

Isolated and exposed

On the pedestal humanity raised you onto

Yet they remain blind to how much more you are

Your potential

Not just beauty in that which is pleasing to look at,

But all beauty

That terrible beauty which crawls under our skin

And whispers furtively to us at night

Pain is easier to express

But beauty is difficult

Because it stands to defy our condition

Whatever it is that is

We resist to call it beauty

We merely look

Yet yearn to submerge

The misconception that beauty

Is to be admired

Not to consume and become,

A game, folly for fools with no regard,

Leave beauty to them and

Concentrate on more serious matters

Beauty are you lonely?

Or do you find company in the gazes of many?

Solace in separation?

A unity with all because they think you are untouchable

Home

I wish I could go home one day to find its changed

To arrive and not to have to explain

To not struggle for my own words about change

To see it materialised in front of me

To not fumble and falter

To not allow my gaze to fall hopelessly upon the same

To realise the turbulence inside

Is mirrored in all sensory perception

To see the world outside yourself

As if it could understand

I wish I could go home one day to find home has changed

Times Advance

Entertainment, hobbys, recreation and leisure

Temperaments like doormats

Minds that can be stilled

Thoughts like meek children,
easily silenced

A hobby is an insult to time

Satisfaction, contentment,
such mere solutions

Pleasure respects time,
overwhelms us

Obsession praises time,
envelops us,
obliterates all else

The point shouldn't be mere amusement

Time is not empty space,
that can be forgotten,
just because it is filled

The point is not to be distracted
The point is to be consumed