wound song

too easily I cave! I wound myself, while I try to gather sutures. I won't slip into these tenses.

but before I begin, I tried reading quotes—am I the one that feels nothing? I get more of torment, a violent song. I remain hopeful, but the hopeful quotes instill no rare colour. I was hoping I would not need to write—a good quote could bear the spark, but here I am, pressing myself to a chair as hard as I can.

(I don't like the apologies in the writing, not here.)

so I was not going to break tonight. I had a day that did not start, a quick drug already spent.

(and, see, I'm—still—not—here. I want to show my voice.)

this means nothing tomorrow. so why can't I strike it out. no, I won't ask questions, no, I won't apologise. I am trying to navigate myself around the war tonight. one half of my head holds the crippling poison. it turns bird flight to ash. it turns reflections of light—to pluck away the eyes.

Darkness, I name you. I can keep writing, and you can't stay. you might think you've won again this evening, but I am still noticing, and I still know my palms.

you have been hurt worse than this, and you have remained alone longer than now. you have had so little hope, and so you hold no—I WILL MAKE HAPPINESS. THERE WILL BE SOUND. SUCH FUCKING SOUND. DO YOU THINK YOU COULD STAND LOUDER THAN THIS?

mend: these things do not bring you to end.

and for a moment, the tree branches are spider webs, spun across morning light, cracks in the day, where i can't follow.

at wolves

To the shape of heartache to come, ink blots thick to—pressed to—under the warmth of eye lids. And you cross your kneecaps, and count your sentences, traced to, cracks to cracked lips. Under the hunt, body for sun spots, for wolves blood I can—I can—can wear this blood, to breathing—I'll have you yet.

one day we will be more than neck bones, and our hearts——pull from their frame, i will show my face.

the lightning strike

burial

this is just a mess. I hate that I am ruled by so many things, and wearing bad days like cloaks. but the spark of a song sets it away, and then it—staring at secrets, and counting my skin.

I don't feel bad for mess—simple structure—butterfly wings—chain wire—dog tears.

I have to always adapt to survive the twitch, what spurs hyphens. I eat this pizza, and count higher, play a song for safety.

this will be filed under mess, and that makes it okay. if i say it is to be ugly, then it can't be thought to be thought to be otherwise - the judgment that is learnt. skipping. skipping. skipping. -

and from here i control it all, could go every ways.

i am only one wrong foot in a puddle i didn't need—that far away from—closer, in that.

somedays the reels don't play. the picture is all dead insects, burning their fucking eyes out, writhing. crackling. will they love us in flames?

i would give you answers. i would always give you answers. every answer, if i could understand—the—empire.

hard light.

and suddenly it hits, that weight i seek to put to words - i could explain - but only find the same deficient sting. my brain becomes vulnerable to everything, trying to swallow everything in the room, the hours, the bodies that are not mine. but could i change - i want to provide the map. i don't want just the poison. i don't want just the confusion (i can't feel the right paragraphing that would help. five lines, and that clean space? freeing or damning?) i have to communicate in means that are relevant to me...i have to make a mess but my brain will not allow! i want to. i can escape the hard light... or, i am. i am the light, and that's hard.

(autumn, falling down and i didn't feel my teeth every day) i - and i won't include Try - i am one good thing. i want to be one good thing. i don't care how terrible things can be. i want to be good and bright and hope.

(staring into the plate, so big, such a mess) the problem is i am not stable. but then - the fire light! i blaze true and rasp without. sleep will rekindle.

(at the brink i find my futures) it leaves me so tired, sometimes. dizzying to look away, everything wrong, jarring.

(these people are) unfinished. madness. searing direction.

(a tree once stood there, infested, and its distance... even the tree's ghosts sleep, even she has grown.)

you patch up the world and wound yourself.

always—you

"With so much love for the world, that always you are—always you will—always you know, the calamity of sound."

Ian William L.

keep the car running

a looking

On the morning train to work, and it is really pretty skies again, all purple and bruised lips and sleepy, or grey like rain, and Yellowcard is playing:

"All I can think about is you and me driving with a Saves The Day record on."

Just remembering, that this is not a moment for looking forward, but looking around. Noticing the guy with his knees pressed together, tripping over himself. The pretty girl somewhere between her hair, her headphones. The old angry man of stature, but with stories creased to his cheeks, imagining that one smile would be so hearty.

The story sits alongside you, the world gleaning your smile.

eastern drive

"It is like the track has been skipping, like the city lights begin to your breathing."

Ian William L.

i saw lords but they were cheap, now all the stars are cold and wet, clinging to the glass of my passenger seat, just wandering the streets.

you will always know this

And it's just so hard not to feel alive. On the train back home, and it's so dark, the entire world outside, weak moon and hungry sky, under the eye of winter. And then Kings and Queens plays, and the train moves through this burst of city lights, as the chorus hits. And that's where I don't have enough words—that moment—where everything melts aways, and I am just colour. All of their slow indifference, and I am just love.

brightest dark

"All of that suffering, and still we soar, a hawk struck to the lightning bolt—what brightest dark."

Ian William L.

every time, look

"For every time you got to see the sky, to breathe in the warm sunlight—the sound that traps in your eyes—words without bodies for the beauty of it, and then past."

Ian William L.

the train is a cinema

I think the tennis courts are ugly

I think the mansions are empty

I think the graffiti is bold but not limitless—not yet

I think I remember your sadness

more than the photocopies of your smile

I think I will find you in a passing train

I think Flagstaff isn't far enough.

gay pirates

head house

but whatever i come to make, i still feel small, the curtains crawl and crack and hiss, no sunlight, and i don't like the light bulb, what i used to think about eating it, and my feet aren't that pretty on the cold floor, they are just cold. a graveyard of papers, a hum of machines, hours falling limbless out of my eyes, and i would grab at anything to make it okay, staring at the webs in the corners, the old paint cracked and the new paint doesn't... whatever i come to do, it's small, it is taking my temperature quietly, a funeral illuminated and buzzing and shitty seats, just a little faster than my art. i breathe out, press my feet into the floor, the dead warmth in the dust of, his feet. i can't make the voice calm, even though it is quiet. the world is staring into a refrigerator, losing its guts on chipped tiles. the world is pretty. but my hands are so cold. the answer is on the tip of my skull, and i shouldn't.

that all of this is just the weather playing tricks. this is my breath taking the world away, the ticking of metal. this is cold feet and papers unsigned. this is a lover in a restaurant ordering the cheapest shit. this is a favourite mug shattered. this is car keys and napkins and the sweat on a forehead and a printer that never fucking works. this is the clouds without the sun, an old woman in a business suit, a spider shriveling in a window you never open. this is her face remaining in a rot of weeks, beaches of mud, urine in the sheets, the television glow. this is a library of magazines and snakeskin, the darkness of planets and cracked lips, old cars and heavy medicine.

it is standing barefeet on cold dull coins and all i can taste is broken cds, warming my hands on insect husks, a permanent summer of rubbish. it's a torn newspaper clipping of your mother's crumpled smile, a dubstep love song, that scabs of the nights remain in filth, on teeth, a crippled kiss.

i kiss your lips and chew my teeth, holding at my mug, finding you so well, i no longer sleep beneath my head, my heart climbed below the cliff, beneath.

the falcons

headstands

It was a smile bursting out through fingertips, as a headstand in sunrise, falling over.

Ian William L.

i wander such worlds.

it's a slow thing, chewing coins for a coat check, the girl hiding behind moths wings, and then your crooked swan sings.

i've laid you out here in the softest sounds, but i can't keep you forever. you've remained as flowers on the table for a week now, but they are dripping colour now. they can't find the sun. i don't want you to fade this slowly. i don't want you to go without the sun.

merle

rest in peace, Merlene Margaret Hallett. you were a truly brilliant and loving person and grandma, and all that you gave to the world, how that came to surround you at the end. it makes me so proud to carry on your awkward smile, your love for animals; even a portion of your heart, your steadfast, your compassion. you remain forever, in every memory of my childhood, in every christmas warmth, in every song.

i remember so much that it hurts, sharp burns where you once were. i remember that house, that bedroom. i always terrified of that room, that house, how big and old and alive it came to be. i remember a waterbottle, the teddy bear, the old comics, the garden gnomes, the pictures on mantles. i remember the beltstrap when i wet the bed, but also the biscuit tin when you just wanted me to smile so much, that it meant so much.

i remember the hornet nests, the rocks that only lived in your garden, the reddest sand, the deepest grass near the back fence, the walks down by the river, up the train tracks, always so afraid that a train would come along. i remember the milkbar and how i found two dollars frozen to a popsicle you bought for me. i gave it to the milkbar owner, but he told me to keep it, and you were so proud.

i remember the old couches, the rugs, the paintings, the SEGA, sitting next to you while you played your favourite games, tongue poking out.

i can't write any more. it's breaking me apart.

i wish you could come back, but i will conjure you in me if you can't.

if they accuse us of anything, let it be that we were held such big dreams, that we leaked and lost beauty, that we clung to hope so loudly, with such magnitude of heart.