HOME IS WHERE IS HOME.

Without the summers heat, we've moved to a flat with a graveyard across the street. 

Home has situated itself in a place where reality speaks plainly and the sun stays tucked away.

Stays inside, bent on the hopes that the torrential rain will sort everything out, bring the plants back to life.

They come dressed  in black, with a somber hats that wilt to hide the mood and glasses that scowl reflections of the scene.

Just another afternoon in Dalkeith, 

Our city at a safe distance to keep the season's spirit.  It grows and breaths on thespians, on capitalism, on the dreams of seventeen's willing to work for three quid.

An exit from the depths of it,

My face gleams warpaint, my heart snipped from my sleeve.  I arrive too late, as everyone has introduced themselves to the festivities.  

How can I keep my composure?

Just another obstacle in the everyday retreat.

When one knows they should have stayed home to watch the mourners from the window and feel better about living.

Immobility as my middle name.

pretend.

I have gained a portrait of a woman, I have gained the legs of a man.

Susan Sarandon purses her lips, perched high on my desk.  The blue visage of her celebrated face carves a barren chest to heave and whimper.  

David Bowie's limbs arch and twist to remind both Susan and I of thrilling times.  

When sex was plentiful, when nude was the only report of daily news.

Susan's eyes would scowl our starved bones, our bodies swaying to and fro.  David would perform the dance of the Dream Man, allowing us our animalistic nature.  

We'd come in the soft light of the afternoon, flooding in alongside the voices of school children, their Mother's cries. 

We'd devour with lust succulent suppers of rich proportions, the infamous duo close enough to set the mood.

Now, these likenesses mock this lone cub with reminders of the candy walls, the sweetest flavors,  the luxurious. 

All I must forget.

As if they were make-believe, as if it were just pretend.

division.

The antecedent and the consequent's relationship grew farther,

a ratio recognizable to the untrained eye, 

an equation for an animal to multiply

to divide.

Engrossed in her own precocious addition to love, she chewed over our lust.

Wits quick as a wolf's reflexes,

sharp as a fox, 

she saw our consumption of one another,

the re-creation of arithmetic between bodies,

the quantity of space lacking.

Blood on her paws, rum on our hands

Clasped together, in hiding.

Formulating an escape from the captivating beast, 

we fled, subtracting one from the animals game theory.

The competition came to a close, the numbers ceased to please.

She went home unsolved, with a mystery threatening.

With mathematical minds, we deciphered how to repent,

from a question we'd never expected.

and a calculated union.

N O N E W Y E A R.

The temperature boasts tepid 

a most exciting adjunct to this new year, 

the weather in Scotland seems the only warm front.

Traditional thoughts could not promulgate a more bitter frost.

There is a mirror to capture my exterior,

to cast the length of my frame, 

anew and ripened for Springs arrival.

Though, my complexion argues, 

its likeness barren.

Worn from winds of a previous locale.

January's mistress emits ennui.

A sexual storm has calmed,  only a light snow lingers,

but the task at hand reflects a thin veneer,

a cerebral black ice. 

This proves to be yet another desire to just slip my mind.

the noise made by people.

if you think nothing is yours,

if I think everything belongs to me,

how wrong I'll be,

none of us have anything.

there's a place I have never explored,

Another world we have yet to conquer

and until then, none of us have anything.

--broadcast.

king & queen.

the poorly timed delivery. 

the scottish snow, nervously gazing at the window 

a limpid picture, our television screen.

the bedrooms view, for a king & his queen.

for, what a vision it was,

powder drifting in time with the melody, 

cascading to coat the earth, 

purity.

wrought with contradiction

we're frozen.

possessing a heat to melt the ice, 

these divine minutes,

a moment 

to write home about.

in the thick of the sin,

foreign skin touching the born and bread,

breaths placed accordingly.

we breed the ruins. the death of a monarchy,

the end of an era.

at least the world appears pretty as we lie.

eyes to our sky, watching it,

all fall down.

a girl can DREAM.

a girl can dream.

she slept through all alarms, all signs of warning.

she awoke in 1940, when a woman's strife was glamorized.

when women were forced to fight.

she'll stay situated between the sheets,  she'll take this one laying down.

for her severed limbs can't hold her up,

the beast has harrowed her zeal,

her will to persevere.

the narrative of a tragedy, Oh who will save the heroin?

the whore, this bitter burden with breasts,

glowing and thin.

her body looks alive, though her pale heart claims otherwise. 

IT KILLS.

AT WAR.

I am a sap.

Three recognizable characters grazed the screen for a mere 36 seconds.

wet, soaking wet.

There is no rain in my Scotland.

WAR, missing warmth.  

Summer stings, his hot breath .

The film finished, the theater roared, 

unaware, unaccompanied.

I hold my own hand, silently.

I am a sap.

The night licks my hot cheeks, I brake the bottle on the castle walls.

I walk along side her volcano, I profess my love, 

wasted on rocks, on hills and meadows.

I am gothic, numb as black lips. black tongue.

I want to mirror her, the undying, undeniable charm.

she is strong.

Instead, I embarrass myself.

I am a sap.

I spit in the sink of a strangers pale blue bathroom.

I watch the violinist with hunger, his socks match his shirt.

I count eyelashes, prominent and beautiful, though his words don't resonate.

A lover kisses his mouth, I am quietly enraged.

I steal cigarettes, I reapply lipstick repeatedly.

I prowl and prance, I ask to see his bedroom.

I fall asleep next to a man whose name I don't remember.

He holds me, we freeze, 

the embrace, lulling.

I am a sap.

I wake, 

in sheets I've never seen.

 lights on, bra off.

I piss, I eat a croissant. I use his ex's lipgloss.

I take pictures of his typewriter.  

Ten minutes spent trying to open the door to the main road,

his neighbor finds me, drunk, on God's day.

bemused, disoriented, I can't find home.

Daylight casts a hideous shadow.

so, I sleep until it's dark again.

I am a sap.

with no method to mayhem.

this is all I know 

of war,

ME VERUS ME VERUS ME VERUS ME.

coexistence.

left.

there was no sun to set.   the light dissipated, simultaneously, the city glowed.

a group of spanish men observed us like birds in a sanctuary,

flapping our wings softly, making tiny noises with our throats.

we'd reached a peak.

upon flat moss and rabbit holes I wished I could crawl inside, we sighed.

for, this is a finer moment in life.

After, while guzzling gin beside a toilet,

the bleakest of black tiled walls,

I secretly wished these moments were permanent, 

not a capsule of time.

that she would stay, keep me feel safe.

ease the transition.

Sunday, I woke up with that daunting ache,

as though I'd slept with a man I loved,

but knew, it was 

over.

he was 

gone.

 left to fend, 

with my only friend, my only lover,

the city which breaths me,

keeps me warm at night.   

MURMUR.

wake, drown in drink, sleep, wake, drown in drink, sleep, wake.

the cycle consumes.

the weekends here are kept wet, 

in body, in soul, in mind.

we hitched a ride to the oldest pub in Edinburgh to sit coy in boxcar

quaff ale,

gobble ostrich.

refusal brings out the beast in us, lungs tight, clandestine.

a melody sneaks quaintly into our corner.

violins, fiddles, tam-tam's, the traditional bagpipe, a tin whistle.  

20 deep, locals have assembled to jam.

to romp,  to tap their heels. 

we watch, we steal, we run.  leaving the 'piobaireachd' behind.

transformed into mountaineers, we climb twin peaks.

the rain pours, Ring around the Rosie, we all fall down.   mud cakes between lacerations.

steep slope, stone steps carved in 1361.

hands held tight.  carrying the weight of the world, we totter until we're upright.

frogs squirm from pavement to grass, wishing us well.

dive into a dive bar full of 15 year olds in poor fashion playing bingo.

He's lost control again. On the floor, again.  We gulp as quick as our throats allow.

screaming, scolded.

sip the smoke, grasping the night air, again, we're out.

We galavant to an old movie house.

Intimacy surrounds.  One man down, and it's couples therapy.  We speak of failure, of loss, of interest,

of socialism.  Tarantino looks on. 

Two brutes appear in the form of women to ruin the fun.  I'm silenced, sensing tension.  He abandons me, once again reminded why I keep so cold.

I duck away, hide my face in shame, I cry.

In the water, I am beautiful.  I am honest. I am raw.

Bare, introduced to a former self. I close my eyes.

Where have I been?

just fine.

today, I wrote a letter,
the first of many.  
It took me a single try to convey fullness,
frugality of ink,
celibacy for the greater good, 
a higher power
idle is love.

93 days, 
count them on your fingers
your toes.

Sometimes FOREVER would be too SOON

though, tomorrow would do.

there.

you are there. 

here, I sleep through days & dread night.

I finally saw city in light.

volcanic rock coats pale sky, bricks, bread and a baron.

isolation, the black block screams.

1660, dark ale & cold meat.

the city breeds life, 

hollow to me.

he's 15, he spits, he holds his member.

he's 18, an avid, angry drummer.

he's 25, the most beautiful man I've ever seen.

wink, nudge, nod, nude.

he's glowing, he breeds,

hollow to me.

distraction, distraction, distraction

manifest

the fear instills itself.  

some mornings I make toast and watch the glowing box glow.  

some days I stare at the ground, the ceiling, the sink.

time passes with nothing on it's mind.  

people forget I live and breathe.

I forget to live, to breathe.

I am a room, only an object.

I am, objectively, alive.

impartial to the hour, a loss of significant flavor.

I am sexless, loveless, I burn cold.

I watch our plants grow, through unaware of their progression.

their height.

What you see is my reflection,

the manifestation of a woman.

outside.

He refuses to remove his shirt, 

the sleeves have been cut off

I've hidden every knife in the house, though none belong to us.

I've never seen a body, a body like his.

the body of a wolf

mutilated, deranged, 

the blood. 

the talk of terminal bliss.

cross hatching skin through skin, motion etched neatly.

I try to read the thought pattern carved into his chest

his stomach, his thighs

his bloated purple lips.

sweetly, I blame myself.

some nights we are beautifully manic, 

we frolic in our bodies 

majestic as our love allows.

today, we are only damaged, ugly.

think of the children outside.

let go.

developing the best ways to avoid confronting anything; sentimental, 

imagining myself small & insignificant, 

each word that leaves my lips just a test for the next, 

inaudible, no sound corresponding with another.

I cease to speak anything worthy.

palms at heart, I sit

in front of all the plants that will soon replace my presence,

except in bed, where their soil would stain the sheets.

I feel like I own nothing,

Lately, not even novel wit.

or a faultless way to let go. 

damaged.

a smell reminiscent of piss between tree's in the Don,

the nurse is home. 

wet from the lackluster anticipation to summer.

it's pouring.

craving banality, 

a sedative.

tending to the parrot as patient.

REPEAT STEPS CAREFULLY.

REPEAT.

lacking narrative in his manual

a needle end polished, too dull to puncture.

still,  the nurse drives it deep 

stake to the heart.

still, the parrot squawks 

reminiscent, of a man learning how to fall.

"Don't cross your fingers. Sundays will never change. They keep on coming. You'll be a freak And I'll keep you company"

werewolf.

Oh the werewolf, oh the werewolf

Comes stepping along

He dont even break the branches where hes gone

Once I saw him in the moonlight, when the bats were a flying

I saw the werewolf, and the werewolf was crying

Cryin nobody knows, nobody knows, body knows

How I loved the man, as I teared off his clothes.

Cryin nobody know, nobody knows my pain

When I see that its risen; that full moon again

For the werewolf, for the werewolf has sympathy

For the werewolf, somebody like you and me.

And only he goes to me, man this little flute I play.

All through the night, until the light of day, and we are doomed to play.

For the werewolf, for the werewolf, has sympathy

For the werewolf, somebody like you and me.

- Micheal Hurley 

fav cover  Chan Marshall

One Very Important THOUGHT.

Banana's contain a specific enzyme that speeds up the deterioration of other fruits when placed close enough. 

Easily, comparable to myself. 

I'M TRYING

I'M TRYING

I'M TRYING

I'M TRYING

I'M TRYING

I'M TRYING

I sit still. I stare. I let the mosquitos slowly swallow my blood. I leave my shoes by the door. I fold the laundry. I butter the toast. I set the alarm. I cuddle, I coo. I read aloud. I criticize my body. I wonder. I eat. I scream. I stumble home. I move the banana's to their own bowl.

Eventually, everything rots.