quitvision Poems, Writing

Chewing Gum

Dig deep down into pockets
The evening stretches long like chewing gum
Sit in my lameness as taste is fading 
Why do I find this joy in waiting?

Decide to search the mirror for stuff
Careful to dodge eyes of the creep
Grazing the edge of their good time
Hanging in the reflection of my seat 

Cool looking people
Dealing really well
With certain fun types
Of consuming social hell
Do it for me, I’m rooting for you
Go get ‘em team, I’m cheering silently for you
quitvision Poems, Writing

Frozen Pipe

You cracked your life like a frozen pipe
Trying to flush the blockage clean
The fluid artery creaks a whale sound
Then spits the haemorrhage in your face as it bleeds

The pressure drops into the mop bucket
Collecting spilt lifeblood as it leaks
It’s pouring out in shades of sour rust
You never felt its creeping toxicity?

It’s stained your hair
So shave your head
And burn your clothes
Douse every remnant
quitvision Poems, Writing

A Bicep Full Of TV Static

Find consciousness at the bottom of a puddle again.
A set of eye sockets to break in like new boots.
The awkward numb of lateness without consequence
Like a bicep full of TV static
Free demo of what it’ll feel like as a corpse

Slept like a log on the forest floor
Woke up built into the walls of a hunters cabin
Did the rest start to exhaust me when the calories did?
A surplus like no nature could ever imagine
The dissonant instinct of always having too much
quitvision Poems, Writing

I’m… Sorry

Today is one of the hard days. They come and they go. 
We have fun and we don’t. 
Things are fixed then they’re broke. 

I try to be a sponge for the pain, but I caused it too. 
And you caused it for me before I turned back at you. 
The balance is lost now, but it was my numb hurt that kept it in check. 
So yes, I brought this hurt, but I didn’t invent it. 
It wasn’t born in me and to have me is not your default, no matter how it feels it might be. 

Today sucks because it rains
And we lay writhing in pain at each other’s opposite visions.
 
You cry and I am blank. 
For once in my life I am prepared and preplanned. 
I did my crying in instalments and now my debt is almost paid. 
Unlike everything else, this time it isn’t you who has saved. 
And you can blame me, and I’ll take it from you, 
Because despite what you say, I cared and still do. 
I’m sorry that it’s only hitting you now,
And it feels like I’m stealing from you somehow. 
I’m sorry it’s hard and I’m sorry it hurts,
And I’m sorry that you can’t believe all my words. 
The person you need no longer exists,
Because he is me, the one rupturing this. 
It’s been the hardest design that I’ve ever made, 
And I’m sorry we never could feel quite the same.
quitvision Poems, Writing

Pockets With Holes In

The blossom drifts like confetti in the street after a parade.
The afternoon dilutes weaker each consecutive deflating day.
Crashed the morning into dumpsters leaking dopamine and faith.
That the next fertile hour won’t be spent in the exact same way.

Bare calves in bitter wind
Pockets with holes in
Nothing is safe in my possession
quitvision Poems, Writing

Six Storey

Gag on a pneumatic drill
The pavement regurgitates
Squares of digested concrete
The sound of illness all day
Makes me want to puke
My string cheese brainstem
Unplug the way an elbow
Of scaffolding might drop as I look up

And kill each migrain
As it kills me
A sudden windfall gifted
From a six storey fruit tree
quitvision Poems, Writing

Back Fence Burned Down

Mexel eats a rice cracker.
Tony gestures for one with squiggly fingers across the decking.
Mexel throws one like a frisbee.
It is instantly picked up by the wind and carried over the neighbours fence.
Tony doesn’t look up from his four-piece hammer drill set.
The garden’s lawn is patching yellow vanilla in the weeks since rain.
Mexel has mixed the plain, caramel, and salt ‘n’ vinegar rice crackers in the same tube.
Tony stays out of them this way.
He doesn’t have the psyche for that kind of Russian roulette.
The backyard hangs open at the bottom, spilling out into the local park behind the house.
Mexel watches the baby swings alternate like pistons in the distance.
Tony basks in the clicky precision as he assembles his drill like a sniper rifle.
The back fence had mysteriously burned down in the night.
They blame each other.
Mexel blames the cheap flammable paint Tony bought at the carboot by the train tracks.
Tony blames the swarms of butts Mexel flicks as catherine wheels from his top window past 11.
They both know that only one of them cares enough to fix it.
quitvision Poems, Writing

Frozen Ricochet

It’s always felt sad to lose
The stuff that touched your life
The headlights silent scan your room
In the middle of the night
Shadows swell and carousel 
Sweeping the dormant air
The stillness bends but doesn’t break
The furniture doesn’t care

This is every place you’ve ever held
Keys to lock up for the night
And never once imagined how
It rests outside your sight
And driven home defeated
Followed hands and not your head
Making slow turns lost in thought
Empty streets pulled past by reflex

With a lifetime’s worth of practice
You’ve grown too tired to sleep
Eyelid scissors have scraped too blunt
To cut off from the conscious stream
Didn’t even realise they weren’t closed
Until the frozen ricochet
Of soft lamps passing unaware
Showed you your home in a new way

And literally lit up your life
As laid across this space
That you rent and that you cherish
And you wake in and you hate
As a stranger you will never know
For a washing degree
Gifts you a feeling rare and precious
Warm and sad and temporary
quitvision Poems, Writing

Heavy Duvet

How much more talking can we do
In the face of disagreement
In the face of something new
A face so ugly to you

The patterns in our curtains hang
Strained and pale against the dawn
In my chest I feel the bells clang
Without a thought my shoes slip on

And it’ll force me through the forcefield
My brain objects but knows it’s true
It’s fed on my magnetic blood
That’s polarised to repel you

You’re a heavy duvet
You’ve always kept me warm
Let my muscles atrophy
And soft edges sore
And I’m so well rested
That I sweat and spin
Waking up is an ending
If you might never sleep again
quitvision Poems, Writing

Torn Fantasies

There’s so much to do. 
And it seems so terrifying. 
I’m always sweeping
Tiny beads off the edge
Pottering and waning
Avoiding eye contact 
With the standing stones
I live most of my life in the shadow of
This isn’t home

On a north facing lawn
On the cover of a magazine
Dancing on the pavement in a storm
Spilling torn fantasies