I have been occupied
Like the sign on a toilet cubicle
I have been subjected to your ridicule
Your voice comes and goes
like the wind that blows
Maybe my heart was hollow
and needed to be possessed
but now I cannot rest.
I have been occupied
Like the sign on a toilet cubicle
I have been subjected to your ridicule
Your voice comes and goes
like the wind that blows
Maybe my heart was hollow
and needed to be possessed
but now I cannot rest.
Man kind?
I have a hard exterior
I feel inferior
I have never heard of unconditional love
conditions have always existed
behave
be good
do what you should.
If only I could
be the person you’d love all the time
and my thoughts were no crime
I am a man
I maybe kind
but suffering is why
because I know I cry
behind the mask
and tasks
are hard if you don’t why you’re different
and love is the only answer but it’s frightening
because it won’t be offered if your strange or different
and this is evident
from what I have experienced.
so I look to myself
for my own mental health
and kindness
to be a loving friend to myself…
Schizophrenia and the caveman
I dreamt of telling stories
forged in magic and music.
I heard voices of gods
angels and demons
In the flickering flames
that kept me warm.
It was part of my evolution
but sometimes
did wisdom is seen as mental illness
Nowadays I am known as a schizophrenic
I was a caveman with a shamans knowledge
Now they say I am something to be feared
When I was just reaching out
to understand.
People tell me it’s easy to reach forty
I waged a war to get here
At 10 years old I ran away
a post man found me
and delivered me back to my mum
At 16 psychosis blew my mind
always out of step with time
At 18 I found poetry and rhyme
but suicidal tendencies stuck in my mind
At 21 I climbed a mountain in foreign land to see the Dawn
At 25 I wrote a letter to myself at 16
Because although I saw stars I still bore the scars
from my breakdowns
At 30 I pressed the reset button
and found myself in hospital again
but my life twisted and turned my heart burned
I found creative writing course which inspired at 32
I recited poetry on the radio too
and fought for community projects
to advertise and endorse
At 40 I live my life
I show love and remorse
I fight to live but that’s what life is for me
but in between moments of pain and work
Is the happiness I desired and the freedom I planted like the seeds that formed a tree
I sit in their shade
One day my body will fade
but I will be a soul free in the wind
guiding others my kin.

I want to Swipe left
On this world
no love finds me
no matter how I try
the right way to live is to cry
but at least I am here
I leave my mark
my divinity just a spark
I have written a thousand poems of longing
I have ached thousands days of love
and never been touched
I clutched at thousand straws
fought a thousand wars
in my head
if I could ever be respected
I’d choose love instead
as love is hope
and fear is respect
I answer in the tongue of the goddess
the only language I understand
in the chaos which haunts and daunts me.
I love you like you are my light and my life
wanted you to be my wife
loved you like a fetish
black like a rubber skirt
the words you say hurt
you cut my heart to ribbons
and still I am giving
my all
in your dominance I fall
I hit the wall
but I drill through
I love you I still do
but I am ruled by you
the wisest thing to do is to walk away
but I can’t eat or breathe without you
I love you I know I am no wimp
maybe I am a simp
but I love you all the same
in our deranged game.
Under a sign of neon loneliness
We are all drifting
shifting uncertainty.
If you don’t say what you mean clearly
it falls apart!
Like the shifting sands of a man’s heart.
I love yous repeated like rhetorical questions
a quest never to be won
a word we lean upon
but who really knows what it means
we can only dream
of being narcissistic kings or Queens
with enough love for ourselves
the magazines sit on the shop shelves
Do they dream of being read?
Loneliness the killer of lives
love the flip side of the coin
but they join…
They call me the bravest man in the world
but I just want to be held
and kept in her cage
admired at her whim.
From the lake of fire
to the snake of desire
I am lonely.
Hell is carrying around loneliness with you
it grows out of all perspective
it grows with you
it starts with a child’s heart
of wanting acceptance and love
people’s love
then it turns into anger and rage
that you cannot have those connections you yearn for
that you burn for
in later life
a maddened heart torn apart of the fear
that you will never see one person from one day to next to make meaningful conversation
that ache in your heart becomes more than a sensation
You learn that your needs won’t ever be met
that life has caught you in its net
But you are forever alone.
No one knows what you go through
in truth even if they saw your entire life
their perspective wouldn’t change
or see yours, isn’t it strange?
to be cast adrift in world that promises much
and delivers very little
hearts grow cold and brittle
and they break in many ways
Not just in half in the centre
you may plan your ventures
you may look for adventure
but your only friend is you
and love is only love if that’s the truth
Alienated alone
Friendless in the friendzone
No forks to give in a world of spoons
A real world character in a world of toons
a goon army
that want to harm me
I must be barmy
An only child to a wild man
a Stan to other people
imposter syndrome makes me feel unequal
the film I wrote won’t be a prequel
it’ll be where I stand
to where I finish as a man
This life is bitter
a litter of ironies
this life is a cycle
but the spokes won’t break on this bicycle
I am a nutter
with clutter in my head
I am smart but not book smart
I am art
but in chaos
I am the freedom you find in loss
I am joy but the heartache it cost
I am the I am and I am god
I am the I am but I am a little sod
I am the odd
one out
I am you and your every doubt
the beating second
the way it beckoned
I am reckoning
I reckon
When I reach the end
send
for help
I know I am freedom
this is where I gulp
for air…