Staring Stars

They wept for hours on end,
In a storm of despair
And left their mark 
On the windows of this room.

Now, the sun shines so bright
Reflecting in each eye – 
A thousand stars 
In a transparent sky.

All the marks and eyes,
Look into the windows to my soul
Which bears its own marks
And scars, from trails of tears

After years of erosion.
Now, however, there is only silence
Before the storm, and I
Can only watch.

Forgotten Baggage

With tears in his eyes
He stared out of the train window
At a world that passed him by
Ever so quickly.

He looked, and saw
The trees falling,
The grasses wither,
And the birds falling

So deeply in love
As they fly in pairs
Through the trees
And build their nests

So they may settle
In a home in the shade,
High in the green trees,
Away from all harm

Before they too, leave
For a better place
Where they will find their warmth
And final resting place.

The sun dried his tears
And a smile slowly spread across his face
As he turned into a bird
And flew to the horizon.

Buckets and Toast

I threw up a few times this morning. I stared blankly at the chunks of my peanut butter toast that floated in the blue bucket I was given by my mum, alongside the palpable disappointment.
Briefly I remembered the events from the night before: the sound of laughter, a full glass, an empty glass, dry heaving, my friend’s dinner in a black bucket next to his bed. After we put him to bed, I was walked to the station by two people I barely knew a few hours before, but after bonding over buckets it felt as natural as toast.
These sort of nights are not what I imagined when I was younger, and thought about how it would be to be all ‘grown up.’ I wanted to be a firefighter – but not just any firefighter, I wanted to be a firefighter with a hat.
Now, however, it seems as if the only thing I am capable of effectively extinguishing are my hopes and dreams. Every glass of that tempting, pain-killing poison, every night awake till 3am to escape responsibility, or to feel like I am for a brief moment in control of my life and I can do what I want. It all adds to the increasingly extinguished dream life I once wished for.
All this may sound rather bleak, but it is in those worst moments that there is usually a sliver of motivation again. Motivation that is resuscitated by feeling so close to death. Gone are the days of firefighter dreams, but at least there is hope.
Though I must say, the hope comes at the strangest moments. In this case, I was staring at my measly breakfast floating in my bile, in a blue bucket. I took a deep breath, and stood up. It was a bit too much to ask, but after one more heave I was ready to not just let my life be buckets and toast.

Endless Depths

Flowers for the dead –
Crushed by the grave walkers,
And watered by the dreamers.

The resonance of decay,
And tragedy in eternal limbo
As their silenced souls weep.

A grey affair,
Perpetrated by the angels
And witnessed by sinners.

Come to your senses

Your eyes gaze at the light
That shines so brightly.
But can’t you see how he burns me?

You could have heard the whispers
That he brought so quietly
Into my ear.

You could have seen how he burned
My hands, eyes and mouth
With his love.

If you know what I knew,
Hear what I heard
And see what I saw,
Would you look away?

Death and a Couch

A Memoir Piece instead of a Poem

I never liked that swamp-green couch. Maybe it is because that’s where I sat when I heard that dad died. He had reached the end of his line, while I had only just begun mine.
In my innocence I could not comprehend death. I did not understand why my brother was crying, or why my mum looked as if her heart had been torn to pieces. I believed I would come down the stairs one day and see him there on his favourite chair, reading the newspaper.
He never sat on that couch. I don’t think he liked it either. But now I have more memories with that couch than I have of him.
It’s where I sat with my brother during a thunderstorm, a few years later. The clouds had turned an evil green, and I only dared to look for a brief moment before I closed the curtains again. I remember crying into the couch while praying for the thunderstorm to pass.
There was constant anxiety in me. Ever since my dad passed, I was stuck. Stuck thinking that I could die any moment, or that my mum also wouldn’t come home one day. If she did not get back home at the exact time she said she’d be back, I became the embodiment of panic.
I paced back and forth through the living room while constantly checking the front and back of the house, sometimes sitting down for a second on that old couch, but I could not find my rest. I went to the neighbours, crying and begging if they could find out if she would be coming home.
Sometimes I would just sit on the couch with my gaze fixed on the front door while my mum was away from home. Those years of my life were a living hell. The anxiety would strike at random times and when it did, all I could do was sit and try to breathe. As I matured, it gradually became less severe.
We threw out that old couch when we moved house a few years after my dad’s death. We went to the dump, and I still remember the couch’s dying sounds as it was fed to the crushing machine. The first push of the metal on the wood broke its back as it seemed to break in two.
I looked away after watching the macabre display for a moment. The couch did not want to give up yet, as it managed to cling on for a minute. When I looked again, there was just a mix of green fabric and wood. It was the end of another chapter.
I still sometimes miss that couch.

Melting Point

I throw them into the sun –
Every thought, hope and dream,
One by one.
The wishes I thought I had,
Now belong to the past.

They join the eternal flame
In the heavens above
Where Yahweh and Eros
Can fight over my love.

I wish the best to Persephone,
But she can leave me be.
Cupid can shoot someone else 
With that stupid arrow,
And join Icarus for all I care.

It is my life and not theirs.
I do not need them by my side,
And they will not get my prayers.