States of Panic

Thoroughly encumbered by you
my ribs stricken…
I am falling into states of panic.
Swallowing my breath as the depths consume me…
An all too familiar territory
I fight hard to return to the surface
I battle against inevitable currents
As I am swepted from under…

Loosing myself in you
Was pleasant when your warm gaze caught me.
But here I am gasping for air alone.
Here I am emptied of knowing.
Here I have forgotten what I know,
and I send myself deeper.

You wave oblivious from the shore…
You,
in my life,
all think I can swim.
You all believe I can run marathons…
I keep it secret that I know how to drown.
I know how to sink.
I have deceived you by learning to float,
but all I need to do is let go,
relax…
and I will drop like a stone…

I take on the house!
Attack the carpet.
Dust the shelves.
I pile my needs at the door…
dirtied with fear,
stained with my own self loathing…
I fall silent in the kitchen…
I am caught
Forgetting to breathe
and now I can’t move.
I listen as my chest expands,
and the laundry begins to flood…
I let it!
Let it flood out my pain,
let it rinse me clean
Readying my fears to be hung out in the dying of the last winter’s sun…

I am emptied for you
as I grapple for relief.
I demand attention
I pull at strings
I conjure games
I run!
I turn on my heel and I bolt!
You can’t give me what I want…
My needs smeared in manic nestings across the walls
As I pile my excuses in the corner
and let mould grow on them…

It’s not being left alone I fear
Its forgetting how to be alone

Never mothered for need
I fight against my genes with a ferocity that leaves me standing numbed…
Longing lost in the distance,
regret falling loosely at my side.

I inflict myself,
contaminate my purpose with dirtied blindness…
I let them shovel their hatred into me,
as I pretended to lick it pleasurably
Soaked in their resentment I lashed my desire into wounded flesh
I watched her eyes grow grey with it
Her teeth yellowed
and face sunken
as we both lived it…

But I was not exploited as a child
Through seedy hands
In broken farm lives and living death.

I was not thrown down stairs by alcohol breath
Nor raped in the back of a panel van

My body lives it
My body lives this pain of generational trauma
and her fear teaches me to run

In the hallway
The vacume cleaner is dropped
I, heavy against the eaves
Weep with release
I suck breath in
exhale her pain
My own journey starts as I remove dust balls from the corner
in strong vigorous strokes.

Through my domestic meanderings I am liberated
from panicked states.

it's enough

my tears dwell in your sleep
my spine extends to your touch as I fold myself into you...
Made foolish by wine haze
i miss you when you breathe softly next to me
I will your eyes to open
their gentle in their reassurance
and i feel silly all over again!

i feel you grow in me
and the pain just extends touch my heart...
I don't feel like I'm falling
with you I'm soaring!
You meet me in the stars
and we drift across the endless space of our lust

Disappear a little more into me and
salvage my ends from the wreckage!
When your with me I feel like your treasure hunt
and you always come up with a handful of gold
where did that come from?
perhaps you grew it in my
while I slept

if you panic I promise to breath courage back into you
just let me close enough to kiss you

don't forget me again
your imprinted on my skin...
i will leave traces of me through you hair...
my breadcrumbs lead me back to you
and I feel you soften with the magic we make

never stop finding the rabbits in my hat
their pink noses makes me cry with laughter

I am willing to fight for you
I will build you a tower for you
and when you need to hide you can pull up the ladder
but when I call to you
send me down your kisses

knowing you are there is enough for me
you are enough
just like this
eyes on mine
it's enough

so this is what all the fuss was about

World don’t you smile so gloriously at me through these specs
Your voracious tone
wiping it’s smug across my face…
Lacquering idiocy into giddy giggling grin…
I wrap my fat grossness around you in public
and the single boys cringe!
The girls they weep behind green tears…

Defiant in my glory
I believe my language beautiful
and my figure handsome
when molded by your stare

My thumb pumps out my wandering temptations
while a small blue screen lights my face from beneath the desk
or within the draw
At work, in class, on the bus…
I hope the man behind is reading!
I want him to whisper
“ludicrous”
such a pretty young, peached cheek thing she is…

I hold back!
Oh… I hold back

So this is what all the fuss is about!

What fun!

from within orange thinking chairs

the amount of times we 'not' do this
link like paper chains in decorative times.
we staple coloured limbs methodically
and soon the room is looped in our efforts...

we play scrabble with laughter and teases
through coiled lines and underground wires
from bed, from beneath the desk, from within orange thinking chairs

I am in my flannel p.j's and uggy's with me kidneys snugly wrapped
from my granny lap seduction coils
and my tone is slightly huskier in your distant presence

nothing is unusual about this
but still i wonder when I'll blink awake

this is what real people do
this is how things begin
things with ends that have no meaning now
things that loop like paper chains
only stopping when the staples run out!