Exit Here?

I want to fit out
but I can’t escape
the twisty smoke and cool alcohol.
I’m so unique like you
and you and you.
Mirrors always tell me what they tell you.
My Insta is a flood of what gets likes
and my tattooed infinity sign is finite
on this skin.
I want to fit out
but friends keep making me:
they hold me high…
The parties aren’t fun,
the clubs play music that sells by formula,
the beat of it all is always the same.
Day in and out
mom and dad don’t talk:
whose parents do?
I want to fit out
but Disney has me hooked
singing frozen melodies I can’t let go.
And my bank account
is as low as me.
I want to fit out,
help me out the window:
I know it’s cliché but I want to leave.
I don’t want to be a statistic.
I just want to fit out.

I weep

“All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”
– George Orwell, Animal Farm

I weep:
I weep because we see skin
before we see circumstance;
I weep because we’re weak,
and I weep because we think we’re strong.
I weep because it feels like
equality is an ideal;
I weep because Orwell was right.
I weep because we’ve forgotten how to laugh;
I weep because our index fingers grow
and our hearts shrink.
I weep because I don’t feel like I belong;
I weep because democracy
is not about the people;
I weep because politics
are about personalities,
and I weep because freedom
does not mean we’re free.

I weep because this is how I feel…

Welcome

They wipe their muddy feet
on the WELCOME mat at the door.
Enter.
Money in their pockets;
guns in their minds.
Secrets as bullets
waiting to kiss someone’s insides.
Tailored suits and fresh crimson roses
in buttonholes.
Hedonistic intentions kept in place (for now)
by tight-fitting waistcoats.
Expensive white smiles
smouldering holes in soft sofas:
even if they noticed, they wouldn’t care.

This is the way the world works the world works the world works
this is the way the world works oh em gee!

This is the world:
formal, fake.

The Cost of Falling

Pricetag hanging low,
Glass case, expensive glow.
Shiny objects beating beneath:
Bright lights, shiny teeth.
Salespeople hovering like flies:
In grey suits, some in ties.
Big signs warning all:
Useless, though, in this mall.

I see what I want!
This uncontrolled passionate stunt
Bursts from me!
“Please, sir, can I see?
I promise not to break it…
If I do, I’ll replace it.”

He hands me a fragile heart,
In my palms – a piece of art.
It beats in time with my own,
The world’s noise becomes a distant drone.
I feel like just a rag
In the presence of this invaluable pricetag.

He’s Yours

I never stood a chance:
I already counted myself

out.

I don’t belong here,
take him away with you
on a cloud of happy hedonism.
And I’ll watch on my back
as the cloud changes form
to the demons I see inside me.

I’m used to this feeling
of knives stabbing inside,
and I have fertile furrows
down my cheeks.
He’s yours after all,
I could never fit in the picture,
the camera was built for two –

and I’m a third.

I give in, I give up.
I bow out:
applaud and approve.

Player One

This dream in my head
of me sitting between your legs;
your hands on mine on yours.
Playing video games in a dark room:
my smile lit up by you,
I want to be your player two.

You’d teach me how it works
and give me kisses for kills.
Let me win a few times,
or I can be your side-kick
and you can protect me with your guns.
This feeling will be new:
let me be your player two.

We’d play until the new day’s sun
And you’d be my Player One.

Substance Abuse

“At the age of fourteen I discovered writing as an escape from a world of reality in which I felt acutely uncomfortable.” – Tennessee Williams

You lack the depth
of reality…
Come on, man!
Stop abusing, stop escaping!
Face it head on:
flood light that truth,
fly towards it, bug!
Stop injecting with that stuff,
it’s poison for your veins.
Surely you know that?
I’m third tier looking down,
I’ve been through it all.
Don’t you learn, buddy?
Suck up and deal,
sniff a line of life: it’s free!
It won’t kill you,
fool!
Write out those feelings,
we need you here.
Don’t leave the truth unturned,
disturb the insects,
show them the light!
It’s for their enlightenment.

Romanticised Fuckup

Stumble into a crowded haze:
searching and seeking fun times…
DRUGIE LUSTY SEXUALLY ALCOHOLIC EUPHORIALS
hedonistic t-shirts
snapback suppressions
skinny jeans suffocating
used needles
white mirrors
rolled up notes
broken bulbs:
ruined in these ruins…

But we want this.

Razor blades
rotten teeth
failed jobs
butchered hearts
& puffy scars.
Dozen pills popping
dawn to dusk sipping,
wars & weapons
shooting and stabbing at rules
to pass the time.

Do we even care?

I don’t care
don’t care about you.
Taught by my father
who was never there
to abandon and run,
evade and suppress.
This is the life I want, I preach!

Striving for Club 27
HELL YEAH!
We’re c-c-crazy!
Live fast die young,
I don’t wanna live.
Don’t even care!

No compassion here.
Pull the trigger on yourself,
brother bear.

Reflection

The character enters and sets up a video camera which faces him. He pushes a button on the camera and says something to indicate it’s recording. There is a mirror on stage. The mirror reflects the audience back at themselves. The character addresses the audience directly.

Only two types of people are noticed in this world. Only the best and the worst of humanity are recorded. Mandelas and Hitlers; Mother Tereasas and Bin Ladens; Gods and monsters. Never people like me. Too ordinary, too normal. People like me are merely the darkness of the night sky allowing for the best and the worst to shine brightly.

I’m nothing special… I have enough friends to not be an outcast… But I feel so alone. Sitting at a party with my friends hearing everyone talking about their lives, I just feel distant. Like I’m on the outside looking in. That’s exactly it. Standing in the cold rainstorm of my own rage looking into a huge glass window at everyone warm and happy inside.

My friends don’t know I’m hurting inside. It’s always been easy for me to pretend. I’ve been pretending my whole life. Pretended I was okay with being told I was adopted… Pretended I was okay with my brother’s death at cancer’s hands… Pretended I was okay when I read this letter from my biological mother… (Reading from a letter he removes from his pocket.) “You’re not mine, you never were. I didn’t ask to be raped, I didn’t want you. I don’t want to make contact with you ever.”

I don’t think I could ever describe how deeply that hurts me… That I’m the by-product of crime… A forced mistake. My father, a criminal probably not even aware that I exist, that he has a child. (Pause). I’m a nobody (looking in mirror) an ugly nobody fuckup with no sense of belonging. (Pause).

(Addressing the camera more directly now). Now I want you to understand that I’m thankful to you both for trying to make me feel like I belong when I’m clearly a mistake. But neither of you can change the truth. You might have raised me, but I’m not yours. I’m nothing. A human who was forced into this world by a man’s need to dominate.

He takes the mirror and places it on the floor roughly. He proceeds to take his foot and ram it into the mirror in order to break it. He picks up a piece of broken mirror.

This is all I am. A shattered reflection of this fucked up world. And I’m tired of reflecting a world that doesn’t care… I don’t want to be here when the future arrives… (Looking directly at the camera.) Mom… Dad… I’m not sorry for this, I’m sorry for being the cracked reflection of this world.

He takes the shard of mirror and uses it to end his life.