HEADACHE

my head hurts
From the deafening
Silence between us
And these dying ends of cigarettes
Serve to remind me
of the better boys,
Standing next to you

PLUG DRAIN

we circle round this plug drain of a place
a drug plain
of wasted men,
painful try hards
and hard boy die hards
lard drips from kebabs
onto our dead scene
every man keeping to himself
for fear of being exposed
as a real human being

when you've seen this,
is there any going back?
to the future, maybe
hoverboards and lost footballs
kicked by the bigger boys
away from our tiny hands
these tiny dancers
given the chance
to kill
or be thrilled
by the illness of a group mentality
the sentimentality beaten out of us,
life presented as a game
(not suitable for ages 18 plus)

DON'T PASS GO
don't know too much
and don't question such gods
as TV, tight jeans and that guy with the better ipod than you

because this is what they'll tell you:
put your head down
and your hands up
struggle through anything that makes you different
be depressed but don't talk about it
be undressed but don't walk around with confidence
be impressed but never give a compliment
bend the rules as much as you can to avoid helping others
trouble is something that happens to another person
so keep your hands clean
and your browser history cleaner
be selfish,
not selfless
unless you're stupid
move on the path of least resistance
shoot down anyone with any weakness
like kindness
or shyness
or saying hi, how are you?
to a stranger
and always remember the danger
of thinking for yourself

we circle round this plug drain of a place
a drug plain
of wasted men,
painful try hards
and hard boy die hards
lard drips from kebabs
onto our dead scene
every man keeping to himself
for fear of being exposed
as a real human being

4 EYES

he said imagine all the people
but i can't do that when i can't see them
my eyes don't work,
every day they just get worse

yours are his
mine are hers

but all i see
are the blurred lines
of a reality
that's always one step ahead of me

IN LOVE WITH HOW I FEEL

so maybe i'm not in love with you,

just the way i feel

but that doesn't make much difference,

doesn't make it more or less real - 

in fact,

it just makes me ill

and i know that lovesickness is a cliche

but a walking,

talking

cliche

is what i've become

ONLY LONELY

am I scared of being alone
or just refusing to grow up?
scared that if I'm ever alone
i'll know the pain of loneliness
I've only previously heard about
from you
and all the other broken homes

ZOMBIE

I am a zombie
half dead, half alive
telling the truth and lying
at the same time
trying to live, but waiting to die
and the thing is in this life
if you're not laughing, you're crying
so I pop these limbs back in their sockets,
empty my pockets of last night's treasure
and nurse my hangover
like a post-adolescent Florence nightingale.
the marks her fingernails made
are still on my skin
as I think to myself
what it's like to be living
I realise I'm no longer a man,
but a zombie:
half dead, half alive
telling a truth and lying
at the same time
trying to live,
and
waiting
to
die