To love another person, you must first love yourself
What a crock of shit,
A trite saying not worth the breath
To speak the words
I’ve loved others far more than I’ve ever loved myself

The endless nights spent
Staring at my misshapen form
In a toothpaste-stained mirror
Waiting for the moment
When I see past the truth and into the lie
Shaping the neural network of negativity
That lights my broken, barren brain
Knowing that I’ll always feel this way
I’m on the outside of an inside joke

The meagre love I have for myself
Has only come through others
Friends who stand by me
Lovers who ran past me
Strangers demand more of me

I don’t see my beauty until I catch
The whisper of love in a friend’s eye
I don’t think I’m funny until I hear
A laugh pulled from the throat of a stranger
I don’t feel real and grounded until I unmoor
From the world around me and I am pulled back
By the power of the people who believe in me

My sight can not be trusted, I wear glasses
Made with lenses of self-doubt and frames of self delusion
My hearing can not be trusted, I wear speakers
That blare paranoid, anxiety-ridden propaganda
My touch can not be trusted, I wear gloves
Lined with spikes that hurt me and others when they get close

Filtering who I am through my own mind is like
Trying to fill a cheese grater with milk
Messy, confusing and pointless
I have to trust others when they tell me
I’m worth it, I matter, I am more than what I know

So when I hear someone say,
To love another person,
You must first love yourself
I sneeze, shaking the shit smell
From my stopped sinuses
And I say

To love yourself, see through the eyes of others

I was jealous of you
When you dropped
Into my life like a stone
You were funnier.
You were kinder.
You were loved.

I see now that put a
Space between us
Even as we grew closer
A molecular gap stayed
You were my friend.
You were my enemy.
You were my shame.

I knew that I was putting
My insecurities on you
I carry that cross
You are unaware.
You are heavy.
You are dead.

How could I have said this
To your face? My soul
Is kept safe in a vault
I was a fool.
I was a coward.
I was a liar.

You carry my shame too
I know now I will never
Take this regret off
My splintered shoulders
You cradle my secret.
You walk with my weight.
You don’t know my heart.

The air will always be hazy
When I think of you and
I will always wonder if
You knew that I was jealous
You were funnier.
You were kinder.
You were loved.

And I am sorry.

A weed grows deep roots
It crushes the soil beneath
Drinks the nutrients dry
A hungry toddler
No control, no care
Only consumption

A weed grows deep roots
Never to be interred or
Destroyed, a botanical
Hydra fighting for its
Survival against its killer

So crush it, burn it, cut it down
A weed grows deep roots
It flowers above and spits at you
And says that it shall not be removed
I have rooted in your mind and will
Hollow you out with my tendrils

A weed grows deep roots
Its nature is to be resilient
There is strength in facing
An enemy with stubbornness
And a string of fuck yous
There is beauty in failing and
Getting right back up, blood
And bruises be damned

There is peace in knowing
That a weed grows deep roots
That it can not be overcome
That it can never be beaten

When the weed dies
The world remembers
The soil mourns
The roots stay

They walk up to it
Wrap their hands
Around the hilt
Like money-lenders
On collection day

They want the sword
The respect
The adulation
The entitlement
The power

I know she’s mine
At night, I see her.
Excalibur shines
Her light blinds

I see her truth
Lost lovers at war
Meaningless quests
Fallen kingdoms burning
The weight of the crown

I feel her in my hand
I see my death
Excalibur broken
Camelot only a tale
Told to children to
Remind them that

Nothing gold can stay
There is no magic left
Destiny’s path ruins all
Who blindly walk it

My hope is that one child
Will walk out to the mossy
Lake behind their broken
Home and squint into the sun
Waiting for a flash of metal
To rise from its depths
And remember that destiny
Is not always cruel nor kind

It is the weight of the crown
It is the smile of a woman
It is the wonder in a sunset
It is the legend left to dust

So she waits for me
The stone in the square
A shining city gleams
Excalibur beckons
Destiny calls

I can ignore it no further

Peel back the universal membrane
Flimsy and fragile like a cheap shower curtain
Feet leave this world and step into the next
Ignore the rainbow swimming at the edge
For science and exploration is the goal

The newspaper reads “Sanders wins nomination”
This is common knowledge to all here
Don’t react with anything but acknowledgement
Blend in with the paint of people, you are just the primer
Underneath and invisible, keeping the walls from rotting

No spacesuit, no ATV, just walk into the next universe
Peel, step, assimilate. Peel, step, assimilate.
Home is gone. An eternal traveler searching
For a feeling of comfort and security that has
Melted into the membrane that lies below

An ash-person falling apart with each step
The only identity is in the movement
Time passes, cities fall, people die
Ignore the rainbow swimming at the edge
For science and exploration is the goal

You are a god in the skin of a mortal
No one knows who you are and what you did
There is a freedom in invisibility, Vagabond of the Parallel.
Riding the train, your bindle filled with the treasures of the tracks
Your only purpose to keep moving, your only direction forward

Peel back the universal membrane
It feels different this time, heavy and soft
Like a velvet curtain across a bay window
The sky looks familiar, red light with purple clouds
Made it back. Hope drains. Identity lost.

Head up. Move forward.
Grab a corner of the air.
A wrapper on a popsicle
Peel. Step. Assimilate.
You are your journey.
Home rides the rails with you.
Smile, Vagabond of the Parallel

Alabaster girders suspended by pulpy flesh
Held together by fluid, humours and will
You are the architect, designs drawn, plans made

I am the overused network of subway tunnels
Cracked walls, broken tracks, repairs unfinished
Dead-eyed drones bustling from place to place
Not knowing why they go to where they go or
Even knowing what to do once they get there
A purpose left suspended in their empty minds

I am the electrical wiring, exposed in certain places
Cobalt-blue electricity leapfrogging rubber insulation
Cables stapled to the wall at uneven intervals
Different eras of wiring on top of one another
Removal is much harder than just packing
New on top of old and praying that nothing explodes

I am the rusty pipes, pumping water from home to home
Carrying the waste away and pouring out the clean
But there is only so much I can do to make fresh
What has rotted from disrepair, abuse, apathy, greed
Skeleton City is dying.

The girders crack.
The tunnels collapse.
The wiring ignites.
The pipes burst.

The drones all die.

I am the structure, left alone
The streets are empty
The lights are dark

I am order without purpose
The night sky is choked with smog
I can not see the stars

EMPTY ME YA BITCH
YOU’RE JUST SHITTING INSTEAD
I GOT YOUR BLOODY TISSUES,
YOUR TOILET PAPER ROLLS,
YOUR TOOTHPASTE BOX

AT LEAST YOU GET A CHANCE
TO EMPTY YOUR WASTE
I JUST SIT HERE
WHILE YOU JUST SHIT THERE
I SEE YOU, YOUR UNDIES ON THE FLOOR
LIKE THE REFUSE OF A ONE NIGHT STAND

BUT ALL YOU DO IS – FUCK ME
ACTUALLY YA KNOW, FUCK YOU
I CARRY YOUR WASTE TOO
I’M NOT AS SHINY AS THE TOILET
OR AS CLEAN AS THE SINK

I’M JUST A DAMN TRASHCAN
AND YOU DON’T EVEN SEE
THAT YOU ARE THE EXACT SAME
AS ME, YA BITCH

FILLED WITH THE WASTE OF
PEOPLE WHO RUINED YOU
AS THEY STUFFED MORE TRASH
INTO YOUR EARS, YOUR MOUTH,
YOUR NOSE, YOUR ASS UNTIL

ALL YOU WERE WAS AN
OVERFLOWING TRASHCAN
IN THE CORNER OF A DUSTY
BATHROOM. AND THEN THEY
LEFT YOU BEHIND, INVISIBLE
AND FOREVER CHANGED.

…..so empty…

Me
You

BITCH.

If you turn the wrong way on a Glasgow street,
You might see a fine white hair, far too glossy to be real,
Float down from an apartment’s balcony and land in a puddle
But it does not sink. It hovers millimeters above the water’s surface
You are too lost in your drunken fancies and mundane worries to see

At night, across the fog-soaked moors,
If you are a restless sleeper and dream yourself awake,
You can hear hoof-beats like ancient drums,
The rhythm alien and enticing, filled with frenzy and ecstasy
You climb out the window, bare feet padding against the dewy grass
But there is nothing to find, only the endless night and endless wonder

In daylight, you pester your guide
“If they aren’t real, what did I hear last night?”
You say to his sharp and quiet eyes. He chuckles
And says “Probably just a horse escaped from a paddock.”
But when he spoke, you saw a smile appear that said
You are not wrong. I’ve heard it too. We all have.

So you keep watch in the moonless night
If you can stay awake for long enough
You know it is out there with its single spiral horn
There are no stars to show you what you want to see
You fall off the window ledge and land in the grasping mud
But as you look up into the sky, the black swallows the light inside

A taxi waits to take you back to your drab home
If you need a hand to get your bags
The driver doesn’t care and smokes a cigarette
Reality sets in, gray sweeps in, your mind wipes the colors away
But in the distance, you see a pearl-white mane, alien and enticing
You chase it, more unreal and alive than you have ever been

Faith is not just for religion.
Dreaming is not just for sleep.
Magic is not just for the naive.
Wonder is not just for the young.

In Scotland, the unicorn waits.

My pencil strokes are unhurried
I trace the grooves in the paper
Gray graphite reveals nothing
An art best left to someone else

My notes fall out of the staff
F#,Ab, I am diminished by music
Incomplete composition tells truth
An art best left to someone else

My dialogue overflow my brain
Rivulets of water from a mountain spring
Sloppy scripts say nothing of myself
An art best left to someone else

My thoughts burst into being
Creation for creation’s sake
Rapid revelations mean little
A life best left to someone else