Suicide

Every Us

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For the one I hardly knew. For you, B

The weight against

my left arm;

the calm;

deliquesce into dreams,

& all other words that can never reach

across the distance between us:

 

return,

return to me,

don’t

leave, don’t

leave 

only empties,

& drained memories

of masochistic anarchy,

& romantic naivety;

 

the weight no longer against my left arm:

 

how can I dream of anything without

your human heat beside me,

the scent and sense of you that lingered

for days; the way

each morning I would be made to

force myself to leave

from beneath

the bed sheets & between

transcendent moments of butterfly wing

flickering eyelids unfurling

into the purity of attention

beyond

the iris reflection?

 

You saw me & didn’t look away:

I thought I saw you until the day you

finally found tranquillity, that day

I remember so vividly, the day

I realised I was blind:

 

only saw what I wanted to, never

gave the true love you were long overdue.

 

With your name tattooed into my skin; with

these still-born memories knowing I will never hold you

again

 

I continue

for every me & every you, for

that short time when nothing else existed

but us.

Persevere

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“…poetry makes nothing happen: it survives” -W.H. Auden

For J

The wish to kiss your eyelids &
                                lift
that heavy weight of images
living beneath,
                forever haunting you.

You’re no Princess & I’m
                        no Knight:

I cannot rescue you &
                    you can’t rescue me.

Yet,

    I still so madly want to believe
“I am with you / and know how it is”*.

I know nothing of your suffering,
                                only
that yours leaves scars & so do mine.

I’ve nothing left to write about, except
                                the dream
that will not leave me:

a Guillotine quick & clean,
the blade
         glistening
in the most golden
morning light we’ve ever seen in our lives,
leaving only beauty behind,
                            even
the beauty of suffering.

Until all that remains are the memories
that help you to

perservere.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

 

Suppose

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Surprise surprise,
                what’s the price?

Suppose you lied, suppose
the scars bring you pride
because they display your fight against life

            &,

since there’s no shadow without light,
no death without life,
you fought life & death &
                            you survived.

Suppose, suppose you
            posed like

the question came as a surprise – why
not try to act like you don’t know
what made you
strip naked & run screaming
into the abandoned building
licking flakes of old paint from walls bleeding cold
skin:
    petals on the floor lost to rot
            decaying fray-
                              ing & ignored, what
does the paint taste like, why
did you decide to stop when
the dirt-black sky
ran to hide from the bleeding sun that never dies?

Suppose,
suppose you only wanted to try & fall

suppose that you never meant it at all.

Different colours, different shades*

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The track was carved too shallow to follow
but still remains & always will;

water warmer than blood & a bandage
of elastic bands & any paper
to be found proceeded by dreamless sleep.

In the morning a red-stained scene
of failure & a shame deeper
than the track that missed its path by an inch,
& lead instead to survival.

Weeks passed without a word
until, where the track ends
something was discovered
to be beautiful & trembling with life**,
in unknowing defiance of winter.

Then a morning came when
I awoke to the smell of your skin, &
the hope
that the journey would never be
attempted again

until the time was right
& the endless night would arrive

in due time.

*New Dawn Fades – Joy Division

**Three Peaches – Neutral Milk Hotel

Enough

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You have a favourite tree in this city,
& the one he hung himself from
is in the same public garden.

You took me there once:
                        2 am.,
we were drunk.

You climbed the trunk & sat on the branch
where he swung
for hours, years ago, until
the grounds-keeper found him in the morning.
& quit their job soon after.

He is always somewhere in your mind,
the memories you want desperately to survive
come flooding back to you sometimes
& the pain in your eyes is unbearable.

So much trauma.

Every year
you plant flowers at the base of the tree.
Every year
you despair as age reminds you again
just how young he was.

So much trauma.

I asked permission
& you let me sit on the branch with you.

Looking down on the ground,
every suicidal thought returned &
I realised I wasn't ready;

                        I wanted
to lay beneath a cherry tree
& bleed, buried beneath fallen blossoms:

no,
I wasn't ready then…

was your friend?

You asked me & the only answer
that I could find
was that some of us need more

than life can provide,
but we search
                    until the searching

becomes too much.