Horse shoes and hand grenades

One spicy pepper and a glass of lemonade

Duct tape for the words I shouldn't say

Free hands to rip it off and say it anyway

Three notebooks, maybe four

A few pens to help spill out my core

Some caution tape for the ones who don't know me

Last but not least a heart full of hollow so the pretenders can let me be

sink into the night sky

and exist within the touch

this crystallized soul

smells of

things once felt

blood that hides within a hush

floating under the rivers of thin matter

skin flushed with a fiver

I am your river

I am your tide

the rising and falling of your heart

a rhythmic expansion to those pulsating stars

each of your thoughts are mine to swallow

a light sip of chilled liquid

on a summer’s day

sink into my river

embrace the tide

breathe

**

The tension inside me is crushing. My own blood boiling so hot that it fills me up and drowns me. Heated copper brimming over, bursting my veins, enveloping my lungs. And it rises from the pit of me. Spews out my mouth, geyser-like. Flowing faster than I can release it. Until all I see is red. Until all I breathe is scarlet. Until all I feel is crimson. Until I’m so full that my own hungry shadows consume me.

I write because my demons are illiterate. My grief can be poured out onto the screen and my inner tormentors are denied the bitter intoxication of my tears. I can proclaim joy on the page without the darkness dimming its light with regrets of the past. I put words to paper because it allows me to express anger without the demons twisting it into a mechanism of self-destruction.

When you have time

you want me

you want it

I just

don’t want

you

I love the way it was

so I gotta

I wanna think

you like us too, baby

you are the one that you love

Cold slips

into the space between

my skin and shirt

and i let it

because i am sinking

and i need something

to fill the void.

#poetry#pain#cold#sinking

Don't know when it started/or how I'd gotten so lethargic/being easily distracted and overly outsmarted/making myself too often an easy target/certainly wasn't at my sharpest/broken down discarded/back burner placed on felt long ago forgotten/dismissed and disregarded/but as i continued an artist starvin'/my work only grew more cathartic/the pain which in my heart lived/i was able to find the beauty and art within/found the strength to start again/enough gumption to know the status quo i want no part in it/rather the numbed out and dumbed down try to put a charge in/haven't the time nor desire to conspire or plot against/tell me what's the logic in/trying to argue with/you til my face turns blue and eventually lost all sense/not again will i allow myself to be disheartened/don't forget there'll be nothing left to harvest, if we don't tend to our weed infested gardens, too long neglected for what in actual value is far, far, far less...

And beneath her skin, she holds a whole world. Despite of the cruelties and betrayals of the outside world, a world of her own. A world where there's no concern with the way she sits or talks or walks or thinks! A world where she can dream her dreams, listen to her thoughts, conceive herself invisibly, hear herself in the silence, realize her light in the dark. "She is strong," that's what they say. Not knowing about the broken pieces of her soul that she gathers everyday, to be broken again. "She can't do it," they tell her, but she does new things everyday to be told that again. "She is not our type," they challenge her, she changes her nature every time, to be challenged again.

Among all these, there are still people who know about the hidden realities behind her eyes. People who can be chosen to be with. People who enlighten her soul and heart hidden in the dark. People who know all about her. All this Beneath Her Skin!

We work;

To spend 5% of our time on holiday.

We work;

To spend 10% of our money online.

We work;

To spend 20% of our income on taxes.

We work,

To spend 30% of our time recovering.

We work;

To spend 40% of our dedication on someone else.

We work;

To spend 50% of our time stressed.

We work;

To spend 60% of our life paying a pension

We work;

To spend 80% of our time disheartened.

We work;

To spend 90% of our leftovers on things we don’t need.

We work;

To spend 100% of our lives in modern slavery.

The matrix is real, give me the red pill.

Lost.

No coordinates.

Nothing.

She vanished into a Donnie Darko reality with wild

pikas and downtown streets and injured people.

But I do know the last things she did.

She drove home from the mountains,

with plants in her veins and tears in her

eyes. She tried listening to songs but it

didn't help. Walking was harder, she had

become the injured people. Beaten by time

once again. You will baby sit the dog, they

said. You will baby sit the dog and stay here,

just like the dog, and you will not drive us out

of our minds again, you will not drive, period.

She disapered slowly, going away piece by piece,

frame by frame.

But I do know the last things she saw.

She watched as the light turned from red to

green, she watched people without homes wait

for breakfast, she watched a fan turn around and

around in a room. She saw a game on tv that many

were watching, she saw a chest with the treasure of a

heart, she saw herself leave the room and never come

back.

She left herself at home, wherever that was, running

away from safety as fast as she possibly could.

Melted like ice in a cup of water. Memories leaned back

in their seats and sighed, fire works went off in the brain,

music, so much music to put faces into, do I want you to

be happy? good. looks like it should be cold outside. do you

believe in time travel? Donnie, wake up Donnie. Huh. That

was savage. Best conversation I've ever had with her, my mom.

She chose to disconnect from herself entirely. Log off of her existence

and start a new account. Hmm, what to call this one. Jaguar roaming

wild, stay on the right side of the road? No. The light is green, why are

you coming to a stop? Perhaps. And it's yes in here, not yeah, come on.

Her soul has been forgotten in the corner, nobody came to save it from

burning out. Nobody saw it. Nobody could.

Push the envelope, I dare you.

One more time and you'll lose yourself.

The delete button pulled her in close, holding her being just tight enough,

just strong enough, and she vanished.

Lost.

No coordinates.

Nothing.

Jamie Ashworth cannot be found.