Shining

Some days I am an elevator

filled with blood

and when anybody wants to use me

I bleed right in to them

as they run away screaming

and I close my doors for the last fucking time

I swear it, the last fucking time

until somebody else presses my buttons.

Some days I am the mirror

watching you pick away at yourself

staring until you look like a mosaic 

made of tiles of self loathing and disgust

and I want to reach out and tell you

you're beautiful

forgetting I am the one doing this to you.

Some days I am an unwashed duvet

intimately protecting someone for a night

when they don't care that I am disheveled 

until they wake up in the morning 

with a cinder-block for a head 

and a laboratory of corrosive chemicals for a stomach

and they never need me again

Some days I am the crack of sunshine coming through the blinds

making the day worth getting up for

a beam of warmth within myself

the subconscious part of me telling myself to wake up

make it through today, I will keep you warm.

I will drive you to work and feed you

and I will comfort you whenever you need it.

So please wake up.

Sound

When she was a little girl she used to hear shouting and crying all the time.

She would hide under her blanket with her fingers in her ear and wish that the world was silent.

Every day she would go to school and people would ask too many questions she wouldn't answer.

They thought that she didn't because she couldn't they didn’t realise it was because she wouldn’t

because all she wanted was silence.

When she started going to doctors there was no more shouting,

Just the almost unbearable sound of her mother crying as there was nobody left to shout at.

The doctors saw she was in her own world and put her on a spectrum,

Because the mind is a piece of glass that does incredible things with light,

But can only do so much with sound.

The first time loud noises ever made her feel anything was the bass in a dark crowded room,

Everybody was shouting at each other because it was their turn to shout.

The shouting was better than the screaming because once you scream you never stop.

Everybody was talking over her and even when she was talking she was talking over herself,

Because her mother told her never to talk to strangers.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder but she’d never met silence to distance from it

And these days she was not entirely sure she was fond of the unknown

So she found comfort in the sound of the stray dog barking outside her home

Because she imagined it was calling for its missed owner

Find me, find me, find me.

The world let her mother down one last time as they lowered her coffin into the ground,

The rain sounded like static making her think she was losing signal with the world

She doesn’t know if it was a good or bad thing that everyone around her looked slightly relieved

She was dying long before she was dying, and it occurred to her now that her mother was silent

all she wanted was to hear her crying.

Smashes of empty bottles, creaking of a car door opening, Car door slamming,

Rev of the engine, Boom of the stereo, car horns honking,

Splashes of rain interrupted by squeaking of windscreen wipers

Buzzing thoughts interrupted by screeching of tyres, crash, screaming,

Car alarms, sirens. Beep, beep, beep.

They’re called senses because they help us make sense of the world,

And the world had always been somewhat overwhelming,

They told her she was lucky to be alive despite the damage she did.
No amount of sign language was going to make anything make sense again,

Because now her world is silent, and its deafening.

Creak

He told me he faced his demons once,

and now he checks for where the creaks are

in every floorboard.

So he can hear,

when they're coming for him.

Six word stories

i. Be nice all the fucking time

ii. Someday you'll cry, and I'll smile

iii. I am worth staying awake for

iv. if you're happy, then I'm happy

v. I am being ironic, I swear

vi. Hearing about peoples dreams is boring

vii. Kiss me like you're a vampire

viii. Dark comedy with strong female lead

ix. Don't cry, it's not considered attractive

X. You tasted like an ashtray anyways.

XI. You make me afraid of dying.