Dysmorphic

It’s a dark, dark road
that you venture down
when you can’t even look yourself
in the eye,
When the words ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’
explode
like landmines
in your mind
every time you look in the mirror,
When you’d rather
rip your flesh and
gouge out your eyes
than have to look a second more
at what you’ve become,
When you punch the fat
hoping that it will vanish,
When you punch so hard
that you might throw up
(and somewhere inside a voice is
lurking
sneering
taunting
“that might actually
do your fat arse some good”),
When you’re jealous
of those with a tummy virus,
When you consider buying laxatives,
When you eat your lunch
and then you start to panic
and you hate yourself,
And hate yourself,
And hate yourself
until it’s dinnertime,
And the cycle starts again,
And again,
When you won’t let him
see you naked
because you
know
he’ll be as
disgusted
as you are,
When you won’t even let him
touch you,
When your skin crawls
at the very thought
of him feeling those
lumps
and
folds
Yes;
It’s a dark, dark road,
And no help is coming,
Because no-one knows
that you’re so far
from home.

Invisible

You don’t see me
as I move
across your day,

You don’t see the things I do,

You don’t see me,
So I shouldn’t be surprised
that you step on me,

Walk all over me,

Without the faintest
acknowledgement
that I’m

always

by your side,
You don’t see me

and

you don’t even care,
You do what you do,
You don’t care what I do,

You don’t care when I cry,

You don’t care about me,
You don’t even

try,

Invisible,

Unseen down here
on my knees,
Waiting to be thrown a bone,
But you won’t,
Because you don’t see me,

Because I’m on my own.

Porcelain Dolls

Dedicated to my beautiful cousin Erica; gone but never forgotten. Thank you for the smiles. Sweet dreams, Angel.

Porcelain dolls,
Side by side,
We are grey,
We are cracked,
We are broken,
Limbs shattered
yet entwined,
Bodies huddled,
Shuddering,
Swaying to a rhythm of
despair,
Please hold my hand
for it is crumbling,
Someone hug me
for I am breaking,
Hold me up
before I fall,
My disjointed
knees are weak
and tired,
I need shoulders
for my heavy head,
We are joined by
one prevailing sadness,
Held in the stasis
of our grief,
(But still we
eke out a smile
at a joyful memory,
We slip a laugh
between the tears…)
One doll is gone,
One doll ascended,
The remaining dolls
are now fragmented,
Left
picking up the
dusty remnants,
Tiny bits of porcelain,
But we have each other,
We are together,
And many pieces
can be
one.

Unchained

Mr Organ Grinder,
Please discard your bait,
I will no longer dine
Upon you hate,
Your slurs
disguised as playfulness
serve only to fat my
stubbornness,
Heels dug in,
Now listen well;
You do not own
this coloured girl,
I will not dance,
No sir,
Not today,
And your ignorance
is in my way,
If you want a monkey
for a toy,
Find another sucker
to employ,
Now I suggest you up
and take your leave,
For
I
have some
greatness
to achieve.

Worked to Death, Death to Work!

I’ve had enough
of all the office politics,
Of sickly pricks
and inappropriate wit,
How many ways could I get out of this pit?
Take a hole puncher to my finger tips?
Or perhaps I could just staple my lips,
Or jam pencils into each eye socket,
Use scissors as a hara-kiri sword,
Or hang myself with the telephone cord,
Inhale the aerosols the cleaner has stored,
Or wait for the impending death from being bored,
Being stabbed in the back is
an occupational hazard,
But alas words have proved to be inefficient daggers,
The computers are so old
– pray they explode any minute,
Or lick the keys of the keyboard
– there’s bound to be smallpox within it,
Sniffing glue has been done to death (ha!)
But how about a different orifice?
Perhaps pushpins for some sort of
deathly acupuncture?
I’d settle for anything at this juncture!
So many ways to get out of this pit
But I guess the easiest
would be to man-up and
quit……

15 Years Later

If you asked me
15 years ago
If I thought that time could heal
that wound
I would have looked at you
– A rawness in my eyes,
My light nearly all consumed –
And I would have told you with
intense certainty
that it would
never
fade away
A hurt that great is itself
an entity
that will haunt me every day.

But 15 years have passed now,
The wound is healed,
The scar; less defined,
And the memory
tickles
only softly now
like a feather on my mind.

Time is kind.

Autoimmunity of the Mind

I’m on the precipice
of an explosion,
Complete soul erosion
and a loss of control,
Autoimmunity
of the mind,
Impunity is blind,
Cabalistic thoughts
that could swallow you whole
disempower each other
– they devour each other –
before they can fruit,
A dissociative fugue
that calls into question
the need to…
reboot?
But with no memory
of sanity
and no manner
of clarity
surely that point
is
just
moot.

Cusp

The sky bleeds pink,
Fat smears of solar ink,
Smudged like mascara on the cheek
of the angel who weeps
for the inevitability that creeps
in across the sky;
The day must die.
And how can the finality of death,
The taking of a final breath,
Yield a beauty that could steal it?
That could make a mind reel in it?
Feel in it
an awe that can change a life?
Make a future bright?
And all within the dying of a light?
Yes, the day must die…
But oh,
the endless possibilities
of the night!

Headache

Hello dear Headache,
How you must have missed me so;
Gone for just three days.

Debt

I owe you money
I cannot afford to pay
Harassment can kill