It’s hard to keep going,

Get up

When you keep getting

Knocked down.

But to fight against

The forces

Weighing you down

Takes strength.

For so long,

I lay in my own blood,

Waiting for a hand to

Appear in the night

And lift me up and

Out of it -

It never came.

The nights blurred

Into days, into weeks

Into years, and I still

Lay, waiting.

Till one day,

I realised:

“I am the creator of my own reality.”

.

No use in staring at the scars

That stretch across your tired skin,

No use in looking to the stars,

It’s all waiting to be found within.

I overcame myself,

The destoyer.

And now I decide.

If I believe I can,

And I am willing

To do whatever

It takes to reach

The end of that road,

Is that all it takes?

.

Is it enough to hope?

Enough to pray that

Things will go well?

But good things

Don’t usually happen

To good people,

Do they?

.

The weak bend to

The will of the strong,

Mercy becomes

A weapon,

And kindness turns to

Bitterness and rage;

Soft, tender hands

Turn hard and red-

Knuckled. No heat

Left to replace the

Stolen light,

Body surrendered.

.

I suppose I have

Let the world

Make me cruel,

Hardened my skin

To catch the knives

Propelling themselves

Forward -

And I fight,

I know no mercy,

I fear no evil,

The shadow is mine,

And I am the darkness -

But there is light

Shining through

The dusty cracks

Lurking down below.

It all resides in me.

.

Strength is not

A fight for submission,

It is love

And protection.

It is fighting for

Yourself,

When no one else will.

I fight -

And I fall,

But I get back up,

Again and again -

Strength is a

State of mind,

Surrender to it,

Let your fear recede

And become

Unbound by the heavy violence of being.

I wonder what

Will come of

All these stories

In my head?

.

Will I bury them

Somewhere

Deep within

My lungs?

Will I hide them

Away in the

Darkest, most

Unvisited parts

Of my heart?

.

Or will I let them

Grow and expand

And take root?

Will I let them

Bloom into endless

Fields of lavender?

.

Or will they burn,

And their ashes

Swept up by the

Blazing winds?

.

Will they die and

Disintegrate back to

The soil, where my

Bones can keep

Them company?

.

Will I build

A great graveyard

Of unspoken words?

Or will I plant

Endless, living buds -

Leave no word

Unheard?

.

Will I spread my wings

And take flight?

Or will I wither somewhere

Out of sight?

.

I don’t want to die,

I’d rather be seen.

There’s a chasm

In this house.

.

A graveyard.

An ancient

Divide, veiled

In black smoke.

.

There are nightmares

Lurking in the corners;

Behind every door

There is pain,

Waiting to jump out

And be looked upon.

.

Tears that soaked

Through the old

Carpet and bled

Into the sunken

Floorboards, the

Windows cracked

And shattered -

All the shards

Of thick glass

Which stab at

Your haggard skin.

.

And nothing

Has changed,

Will it ever?

.

The lines in the gravel

Will grow deeper

And deeper.

.

The earth will push

Itself apart, till there’s

Enough space

To fill that void

Between.

.

The landscapes that

Once stretched

Before us will

Darken and

Turn to coal

In your hands.

.

And I’m somewhere -

Floating in that void,

Drifting across the

Chasm, gliding through

Rifts and valleys, till

Something can meet

In the middle.

Find me hiding in my fear.

.

Wrapped up

In the darkened shelter

Of an empty home.

.

Overrun and overshadowed.

Beaten and fallen

And beaten and

Fallen again.

.

What do you do

When what once was safe

Is no longer safe?

.

When the place that cradled

Your heavy heart

And wiped the tears

From your eyes

Now fills them with blood,

Where is there to hide?

.

When the sand

Which softly caressed

Your sullen skin

Now cuts

And bruises it,

Where is there to hide?

.

When your hiding place

Is overrun,

What choice is there left

But to run?

- Keep running.

There’s no love

To be found in

These fists that

Clamp round my

Throat and

Squeeze.

.

There’s no fire

In this beating

Heart, only

A heavy frost

That lingers and

Bites.

.

There’s no ache

Of wild desire,

No easy sin

To be moaned

From my lips

Bloodied.

.

There’s nothing -

Only fear and flesh.

If cowardice be my mortal sin

Then why not let it be?

Etch my fear upon my weakened skin

For all to come and see.

I don’t know how to be brave -

When all I’ve ever known

Is these anxious bones

That turn to dust

On a windy night,

Disintegrating

In the push and pull

Of the storm.

Yet in the morning

When it’s passed

I am, somehow

Moulded and compacted

Back into shape.

And the fear is lifted -

For a time.

.

Maybe courage is

The process repeating

Itself, and looking in

The mouth of the storm

Again and again,

So much so that

It gets easier.

He wants to get a good look at you.

He’s been following you

For so long now,

Can you not see him?

.

Can you not sense

That blurriness in

The back of your head

That beats to the

Pulsating of your blood.

That vibrating in

The corner of your

Eye, that each time

You turn to catch it -

You see nothing.

.

That shadow that

Lurks behind the

Curtains and drags

Its heavy feet across

The carpet when

You’re not looking.

That stomping thud

In the corner of your room

When you’re trying to sleep.

.

He’s always been there.

Following you in the street -

Creeping behind lampposts,

Sliding between buildings and

Slithering up behind you,

Trying to get

Close enough

To smell

- you.

To see you,

Memorise every ridge

And bloodied bump.

Every crag and

Wrinkle, every fine

Strand of silver hair

And each deep-cut scar.

.

Now he waits for you,

Somewhere -

Sneaking through

Dark alleys,

Knowing that every path

That stretches and bends,

Every step you take

Will lead you

To him.

.

Turn around.

Let him glimpse at what awaits him.

.

Let him touch your skin,

Let him whisper

In your ear -

How you’re his.

.

Yield.

Resistance is

- futile.

.

All you can do now

Is wait -

Hide under thick covers

And in dark rooms;

Gently whisper, not a

Drop can be heard,

No echo reverberated -

For he will hear

And he will

Find you.

.

Try your best

To run and hide,

But his thirst

Will never subside.

.

Turn around.

- He’s right behind you.

A collection of poems about bugs.

Domicile

The moth clings to my bathroom door -

I keep it slightly ajar,

Wouldn’t want

To rock it

Too much.

.

It flew in hours ago.

I opened the window

So it could fly out, but

Still it stays; as if

Choosing me,

Coming to my home

To be a wild tenant for

A while - “my days are

Numbered anyway,

So let me rest here

And by morning my skin

Will have withered to

The ground and you

Can brush up my remains,

And wash me away somewhere.”

And so I let it stay -

Make it as comfortable

As can be. Watch

Its beautiful,

Dusty wings, like

Deep, dark eyes

With sunken lids

Carved into soil,

And pupils that jump

To meet my gaze.

.

All the wild creatures

In this house

Who have come

To find themselves

Here and now. Like

The spiders who

Tap at the glass,

Begging for release.

The ones whose

Blood-stitched homes

I sweep up.

Like my blood

Which is spilled

And woven into

The grey carpet.

We all ended up

In this place -

And though my skin

Burns in the sun,

And theirs glistens

Ultraviolet,

Beneath it all:

Just two beating hearts

Connected by veins

And nerve endings.

Pulses that beat,

And eyes that see.

.

Just blood fighting

For a patch of dirt

To call home.

Anthropomorphosis

As the caterpillar sheds its skin

And its body rips itself apart

And wings grow from its back -

You too must shed the

Slimy, grimy cocoon

You’ve built around yourself.

Dig yourself out from beneath

The cold mud, and see the light

Shining through the gaps

In your fingers.

Breathe in,

Breathe out.

Let your body surrender to

The wild, wild changing of things

And come out the other side new -

Metamorphose.

I used to be terrified of bugs as a child - I had this recurring dream growing up, where cockroaches would crawl up into my bed -

Catharsis

In the heat of summer -

Beating and writhing and dripping in sweat,

I shed everything I’ve held in since the last.

.

The cockroaches flock to me in my bed;

I feel them crawl onto me,

Into my nostrils and out my mouth.

Through veins and passageways,

Settling in my brain.

They embed themselves

In the marrow of my bones -

I feel them feast on the lining of my stomach

And hatch eggs in my heart.

They fill my lungs and flutter in my chest,

It hurts to breathe filth.

Every year they beckon themselves to me,

Like a parasite yearning for a host.

.

I hear their scurrying stampede,

Feel them grab at my limbs.

And then loudly,

Gutturally,

Screaming and wailing,

They drag my body back to their sewers

And wash me in filth.

I observe them,

Memorise their shape,

Every ridge and bump

On their glazed wings.

.

I hollow out my body to make room for them,

Clear the dread and decay that builds up through the year.

And after the whole ordeal is done,

After they’ve cleared out my organs

And filled my body with filth -

I feel cleansed.

.

I always struggle at first,

Resist their takeover of my body.

But I soon learn it’s easier to comply;

Sit with it,

Let them consume me,

Purge me.

I yield -

.

There is nothing to fear, anymore.

Let them take me,

Let them carry me away.

And when summer ends I will be me again;

Clean and new and

Resurrected.

.

And next year they’ll come again.

One night when I’m laid out

Like a corpse in my bed,

And I’ll greet them like old friends -

Again and

Again.

After a while, the dream stopped, and in the summers where everything felt foreign seeing them would be a glimpse of a familiar pain.

I guess we’re all just -

Hungry little bugs.

So many words

Are said with intent.

So many lives

Are lived beneath

The shadow of

Cryptic meaning.

So many lies

Are disguised

As truth.

How many times

Have I lied and

Meant it,

Believed it,

Like I could speak it

Into existence? Yet

A lie is a type of debt;

The more we tell,

The more debt we

Incur to the truth.

And when the veil slips -

The heaviness of reality

Floats up from beneath

Cold, murky depths.

.

The glass shatters

And sprays in

Scattered shards

Sweeping through,

Like broken

Sunbeams peering

Through grey clouds

To illuminate the

Ground below.

.

And your words

Puddle on the

Surface and get all

Muddled up,

As you push

And push, desperately

Trying to make them

All go away.

.

But time is running out,

The light is starting

To shine through

The broken window,

And all that’s left

Lurking behind your walls,

Which you so

Agonisingly built, is

This dizzying loneliness,

That cripples you;

And the blood

Pours out of you,

Your thrashing attempts

To close the wound

Remain futile, and

They’re watching you now.

.

No more

Easy anonymity.

No more quiet lies

Left to hide behind.

They’re watching you.

I’m more me when I’m alone, anyway.

These eyes that gleam through

The cracks in my walls and see

Straight into my raw flesh,

Fill me with the deepest dread

I have ever known.

.

I’d rather be a drop

In an endless sea.

A dandelion in

Limitless fields.

An ant marching

Forward, one part

Of a collective.

Small, and

Inconspicuous.

I want to be

Obscure.

Found only by

Refracting light

At a certain angle.

I’d rather lurk in

Hidden corners

Than have light

Shine down

Onto the glass shards

That encircle me,

Pricking and poking,

And cutting into

My weary skin.

I can’t surrender to the fear of being seen,

Can’t let it wash over me, till I come out clean.

Can’t feel the feeling, and hide myself from righteous eyes,

Can’t gaze out the window, or drop my tired disguise —

It’s all just

A frail illusion,

And now it fades out -

To black.

I’ve always been

Fighting this

Unholy war.

.

This sinful

Push and pull,

Between good

And bad,

Between me

And me.

.

The voices

That beg to

Be heard,

That whisper

In my ears

Words of

Malice and

Callous rage,

And I shield

My ears

In some half-

Hearted attempt

At defiance;

But they ring

And echo through

Every synapse and

Capillary that

Cuts through

My heaving flesh.

No time for rest,

When the drums

Of war are

Ringing out.

.

When the horn

Is sounded,

And stampedes of

Severed horses

Are ploughing through

Fields of flesh,

And the cries

Of cursed soldiers,

Fill the blazing sky,

And beat to the ringing

Of the belting

Battle drums.

.

Fighting for god,

For glory.

But there is no

Glory to be

Forged from this

Bloodshed.

.

Still, I don’t know

Who I am without it.

Without the drums

Pulsating through

My limbs,

Smoke filling

My hollow lungs,

Cannons roaring

Through my

Vibrating skull -

One sip, one puff,

And I’m me again.

Not really me,

But something - elevated.

All the violence

Flows out of me,

The fields soak

With more blood,

And the sky

Turns to ash

In my mouth.

.

The unholiest treachery -

For eyes that bleed

And lips that sin,

There is no solace waiting,

No ordained win.

I wish I could take

Your pain away -

Lift it like a blanket

Of snow, melt it

Under a gentle flame

Till it withers and

Turns to black ash

Discarded to the ground.

.

I wish I could hold

Your worries on

My shoulders, so

You could walk

Upright, not held

Down by the cracking

Of your spine,

And your ribs that

Groan and rumble

Like the clambering

Of great cantering

White stallions.

.

I wish I could wear

Your fears, your

Deepest, most

Insidious sorrow,

Tie it all tight

Around my throat.

And wipe the tears

From your cheek,

Leaning into warm,

Tender hands, that

Tower above all the

Heavy violence

Of being.

.

And I’ll lift my wings

And fly you away

Somewhere else.

.

If I could grieve your grief,

If I could feel your hurt, for you

Maybe life could be easy.

.

I would make every

Terrible thing in

This haggard world

Fade out of sight,

Till you’re up above

Soaring through

Clear skies, the

Sun shining the path home.

.

I would carry you up with tired hands,

And light the way forward, to better lands.

I’m not a pushover —

Is that what you want to hear?

I can be strong,

I can stand up

High and look

Into the eyes

Of the beast.

I can scream and

Bleed for you.

I can fight for you,

Not for me, but

Would you do the same?

I just want to protect -

And be protected.

I can’t sacrifice myself for the love of you.

I can’t bear your bones,

When mine crumble

And turn to dust,

In the rushing of the tide.

When this ancient,

Sinister dread has

Gnawed at my throat,

Since I can remember

Feeling.

And I can’t bear your pain,

If you can’t see mine.

While today brings only rain,

Tomorrow the sun may shine.

I can’t rip myself apart to carry your sadness,

Without descending into my own madness.

Every year a reckoning comes - the warmth hits and so does the nostalgia, the long, deep yearning for something. The sun emerges from the cold, winter depths. The birds are chirping up in the sky and the children of spring are starting to grow wings and take flight. The world is moving, beating, living, ready to grow again. I’ve always loved British summers; everything is alive again and people are out and about, smiling and laughing and being with one another. The light shines on old wounds and heals them shut, light glides over my skin and I feel myself reincarnating.

Every summer I find myself looking back at ones before. To when I was 10, at home in Cyprus, laughing and swimming in the sea, ice cream dripping down my face and cold, crisp watermelon melting on plastic plates. To when I was 17, drinking every night on the beach, sleeping on sun-loungers till the sun rose and morning runners giving us dirty looks. Lost in a teenage daze of drugs and anger, not wanting to go home, not wanting the night to end. And endless nights of possibilities, my first, fresh taste of freedom. To when I was 18, just graduated school and figuring out how to navigate the world. Going clubbing with my friends and drinking till the tears would pour out of me. All the violence of being flowing out of me as the drink flows in. But I’m young and thin and free, and I don’t give a fuck about anything. To when I was 20, coming home from my first year at university; picking up the pieces of my broken self, healing my body after a long, long winter of hurting it.

Every summer, I shed all my old layers, and learn to piece them back together. Learn to let the warm sun-beams shine upon me and illuminate the dark dark cold that cocooned itself around me.

And I shed all my layers,

Till I’m me again -

Or at least

Something more closely

Resembling me.

Will I dance the same

As I used to?

Will I laugh, gutturally

And wholeheartedly?

Will I sing and

Chug vodka on the

Beach at night,

Like I used to?

I wish I wasn’t such a slave to nostalgia.

Sometimes I think it’s too much pressure. I view summer as my return to something. Something I had once upon a time, something I have tried every year since to get back to. This shadow of my former self that lingers over me, and as the sun reveals itself, I too can reveal myself back to the world. No more hiding and looking out the window, waiting for something. No more dark nights that echo in sinister silence. No more lies to hide behind. Only truth and light, creeping out from behind the veil of darkness.

Who will I be this year?

Will I find my way back to myself?

Will I feel the sun on my skin

And let myself be free

Without checking to see

Who is watching?

Will I let myself

Live again?

These shackles that

I wound tight around

My throat, will release

Themselves from my

Grip and wither to dust,

Like the sand which

Caressed my sullen skin,

Will it cut and bruise me now?

Or will it wash away the

Dust and grime that

Built up through the year?

Will streaks of light

Pour down over me?

Like a tree wilting and

Reviving in spring,

Shedding old summer

Leaves, and floating

Down to the ground.

Maybe it shouldn’t matter so much. Since the start of time, the seasons have ebbed back and forth, from birth and rebirth, to death and decay. To be alive is to change, to move with the push and pull of the seasons, though I can’t help but grieve for all the versions of me that knew this joy I will never be able to feel again. But there is joy to be found in every summer to come. New joy and new lives. New people to laugh and cry with. New versions of myself to discover.

I will find my way back to me

In scattered strands of golden light shining through

On a sunny day, calm and free,

Outgrow these old words that glimmered silver blue.

These poems are a commentary on the feelings/stages of being in love. The good and the bad, trying to view love as something beautiful in spite of all the bad that may come with it - learning to be stronger than the shame. I hope you all enjoy!

To love

.

No soft hands,

Or warm words

Tonight.

I’ve only ever been cold.

.

No heat in your

Steel embrace,

No love in

The words you

Hiss at my face.

.

I’ve never known

Sorrow like the one

You milk out of me.

I’ve never known

Pain like the one

You thrust upon

My shoulders.

I’ve never known

Love, like the love

I feel for you.

And the shame

That comes

With it, I never

Could’ve guessed —

But maybe:

It’s all the same

In love and shame.

To be loved

.

Elbows dig

In as you

Press me down -

I hear my

Tendons break

And blister,

I hear a

Humming

In my lungs

Like fingers strumming

Across my ribcage -

I feel it

In the marrow

Of my bones.

Your eyes

Hollow black

Trembling,

And I crack

Under pressure -

No more symphonies

To be rung,

No broken love songs

To be sung.

Will the light shine brighter than my shame?

.

No more dreary words

To rest upon my shoulders —

No sorry blades wrapped

In silk and dipped in blood,

Hanging over my head.

No more dreams of cold

Wet tar, sleeting through

Caverns and dark dark stone.

No rogue fires that burn

And boil through the veil

Of haggard hope, and tear

At slow-mended fabric.

No more callous lies that

Chip away at your soul

Day by day, as it flows

Out and into oblivion.

No light in the dark tunnel,

Till one shines through cold

Cold black, till you stand up

And dust yourself off.

Let the darkness recede —

Weave through the dark night

And light the way to better days.

Who am I?

Who are you?

.

Are we everything?

Are we nothing?

.

What does it mean

To be something?

Must I grasp at

My heaving skin

To prove to myself

That I am real?

Must I claw at

The sodden mud

And feel the worms

Crawling up my arms

So I know that

I am connected

To something?

.

Am I?

I think I am —

My capillaries

Cut through

Blood-soaked

Landscapes,

And the red

In your eyes

Stretches and

Branches out

Like lines on a map.

To be human

Is to be the universe

Experiencing itself

And breaking through

The barriers of

Consciousness

To know.

.

Being is total.

It’s stamped upon

Every fingerprint,

Every hair follicle,

And every cell

Of all the organisms

In our world.

I am the trees.

And the sun.

The wind soaring

Through green pastures.

I am every blade

Of grass, each grain

Of yellow sand.

I am the smallest ant,

And the tallest mountain.

I am flesh,

And I am soil.

I am the crow,

And the berries

It crushes

In its mouth.

I am the vultures

And the festering

Flesh they

Feast upon.

I am the farmer

And the lamb

Being led to slaughter.

I am the waves,

And the shark

Tailing its prey.

The veins which

Flow between

You and me,

The veins that

Root the trees

To the soil,

And the ones which

Run between it all,

Red and purple

And brown,

Muddled and

Meeting in

The middle,

Interconnected.

.

I am the earth —

I am human.

I am me.

I am you.

I am everything,

And I am nothing.

It’s all the same, anyway.

We don’t move in straight lines.

We loop,

We learn,

We grow -

Everything is cyclical.

Life spirals on,

Like a spinning spring

Through highs and lows,

Through light and dark,

Through calm

Into chaos.

Today was a day,

But tomorrow

Is another day;

The horrors persist

But so must I.

Through every cycle

That has rolled on

Through me,

Healing and unhealing,

Being and unbeing —

I am still learning

To proceed without certainty,

To heal

Or roll under the wheel.

When I was younger I used to ask myself: how can I be so self-aware yet so unaware? I’ve always understood the sadness that fuels my turbulent heart, understood that there was something inherently, radically sensitive within me. This deep dread that lurks in my stomach and fills every vein in my body till it’s spilling out of me. Fear, of the unknown. Fear, for myself and the people I love. Fear, that no matter how much I heal, life will keep on demanding more. How do you move on to new things when the old things are still so raw? How can I trust this broken, vengeful world?

How can I start

Moving boulders,

When even the

Pebbles in my path

Are too heavy for

My shoulders?

The first time I decided it was enough, I was 18. The summer before had been one of the worst periods of my life up until that point; a manic phase in June followed by the most severe depressive phase I had ever experienced. And I went back to school in September like nothing happened. Everything continued to roll on around me, when I had just experienced something so deeply altering and became someone completely different. After the cloudy fog that ruled my mind started to dissipate, I saw it all so simply: I just had to choose. So, I made the choice to try and be happy. Think positive thoughts. Be grateful. Tell people I love them. Think through the thoughts and create the life I want to manifest. I became more spiritual. And I was happier, for a while anyway.

I’ve always been a pessimist, really. Eventually something happens, you derail again, and you realise that beneath the mantras and positive affirmations, you’re still you. That beating, heaving pit of sticky black rage has always been in you. For years since then I have lapsed and relapsed, ebbed and flowed in and out of it, from phases of joy and plenty to phases of grief and loss.

But that’s life.

It’s circular. And to get to the top, you have to go through the bottom. And on and on it rolls. Till something brings it to a halt, and it cracks. But these mortal hands can’t stop the wheel of fortune - they can only move with it. I used to view healing as some be-all and end-all. That suddenly the miraculous, all-healing thought will construct itself in my brain and everything will be new. I’ll be fixed and all my problems will be solved. But it isn’t that. You’re never fully healed. It’s gradual. It’s building the tools to deal with things as they come, to regulate heavy emotions and tune your mind’s eye to see the glimmer of light at the end of the long, dark tunnel. And knowing that what lies at the end, is worth the wait.

The spiral

Swings to meet itself

At the beginning,

At the end,

And somewhere along

The middle, I think:

Does it even matter?

If you know yourself,

Understand the depth

Of your ocean of being,

That’s half the battle.

Surrender your mind

To the ebbing

And flowing;

Let yourself float

In the waves of change

As they drag you

From shore to shore,

Not knowing why

Or how,

But just trusting

In the process,

And understanding

Life’s natural rhythms.

Like the seasons

Which drift between

Death and rebirth,

You’re only a body

And a mind,

Connected by synapses

And bone.

And even though

It can be hard

To believe there is

Purpose in suffering,

I’m still here

Trying, and

Learning to move

With the uncertainty -

To dream,

To love,

Or to suffer,

To weep.

To see

And to be.

— At one with the wild, wild cycles of change.

Everything happens for a reason.

A friend of mine once told me:

“You never go out and grab something for yourself, you just wait until someone hands it to you.”

And it struck - somewhere deep within the marrow of my bones.

It’s like there’s this missing piece

In the puzzle of my soul,

And my arms and legs

Are broken, so I’m waiting

For someone to find it

And put me back together.

And I wait.

For most of my life -

I’ve been waiting

For someone

To take control

Of my tired body

And steer me

In the right direction.

Waiting and waiting,

Decades pass

And I still feel like

I’m nothing without

Somebody else

Telling me who

I should be.

I was the youngest of five. My sisters are all much older than me, so I was the baby of the family. Everywhere we went together, I knew I never have to pay. Everyone we met, someone else would lead the way and introduce me. Every time I would mess up, or fall too far to pick up the pieces myself, someone else would come and gather them for me. I’m not the decision-maker. I do as I’m told.

I’ve always tried to be

Balanced, and inoffensive.

I’ve spent my life

Lingering in the middle,

Trying to appease

Everyone involved.

People rage

At my throat

When I don’t take

Action. But

I’m the middle man

So I hang in the

Middle. One foot

In, one foot out.

No conviction

No heaving ideology -

Just keeping

The peace.

And still I yearn

To be more

Than these

Anxious bones

That turn to dust

On a windy night.

How can I be loud when all I’ve ever known is being silent. How can I autonomise myself when all I’ve ever accepted is other people telling me what to do, what they want me to do. And I do it because I love them, yet in it, I find that:

I don’t know who I am

Without them.

I don’t know what I want,

Or where I want to go.

I am, at my core

Empty,

And a boiling pot

Of indecision.

I find myself

Missing the days

Where nothing

Meant nothing, and

That was that;

Where yearning

And dreaming of a future

Were all I had to know.

People ask me what I’m doing now

And I don’t have the heart

To say:

Nothing.

My parents ask what jobs I’ve applied for

And I don’t have the heart

To say:

None.

I guess things were always

Handed to me

So now I don’t know how to provide

For myself

Or others.

By supporting me in every way

My parents raised an adult

Who can’t contribute.

And while I understand

My privilege,

I can’t help but envy people

Who have had no option

But to fight,

When for most of my life

I have had no fight in me.

Forlorn and floating

Like a corpse in an endless sea.

And as the world marches forward around me,

I crawl on,

With every basic deed

Feeling like an accomplishment,

Slow and broken,

Just being.

I’ve always believed that

I couldn’t be,

Without hanging

In the shadows

Of someone else’s

Achievements.

But as I grow

I find that:

Nothing is certain,

And the river flows

In a current that

Is predetermined,

But it can steer itself

Off course and

To greener pastures.

Maybe life is fated,

And one day

Someone will come

And outstretch their hand

And tell me who I am.

Or maybe I will find a way

To pull myself up

And create something

For me, and

Of me -

To learn

How to be me,

And not an extension

Of someone else.

So when I do, I try to make the most out of it. Spend as much time, plan as many days out, talk about as many things with her as I can.

But she’s not really like that.

She doesn’t like to talk,

Or go out.

So we just sit

In silence.

And I tell myself: it’s enough to just spend time together.

I’ve always been jealous of people who have close relationships with their parents.

Who can talk freely and openly, and be themselves.

But I can’t.

I always remember, as a child, my mum locking herself in her room for days. She wouldn’t speak to any of us, and my dad and sisters would try and pick up the pieces. I remember being so confused - my mum was always so calm and strong and unyielding, so to see her shrink into herself broke my world view. Was it my fault? Did I do something wrong? It’s funny - I always thought most of my issues stemmed from my dad - being gay and the trauma of his unwillingness to accept me as I am, and not the son he wanted me to be, but as I’ve grown up I’ve come to realise that I took on my mum so deeply. Everything I do and everything I am, is because she never taught me to deal with things. She taught me to be cold - in a world that demands it of you to be strong letting yourself feel your emotions is weakness.

She didn’t start drinking till I was older. Or maybe she did and I was too young to know. But as a teenager, sneaking my friends in past her while she’s passed out on the couch, and my dad trying to take her to bed but she fights him and pours herself another glass. We all whisper around her and try to appease her because we love her. But I have never known fear like the fear she instilled in me. I have never known sadness like the sadness she taught me to bury. I have never known silence like the silence she spoke to me.

I know she probably had a hard life. Irish immigrant parents who hated each other and an emotionally unavailable mother who made her look after all the younger siblings - but I don’t think she realises the ways in which she has continued the cycle. And now I continue it for her.

My sisters say I was always her favourite,

How she never let me out of her sight

How I could do no wrong.

I could eat anything I wanted, where they couldn’t,

I could break the rules and get away with it, where they couldn’t,

The sun shined on my ass and my shit was golden.

But the funny thing is, in spite of all my privilege

I never viewed it like that,

Because she was everything to me

And I loved her so much it hurt;

But I never felt seen.

She would float up like a ghost

And I would desperately try to hold her down, before she would be gone forever.

I was always deeply aware of my mums mortality as a child,

I thought:

If I grieve now, maybe it will save me the pain later on,

Rack it up like points in a game

A really shit game

And so I’ve been grieving her since I was eight.

Since I can remember feeling.

The dread;

It’s the feeling I get today when I look at the man I love:

That sinking pit

That I love you more than being

And one day: I’ll lose you.

I don’t know if I’ve been grieving her

Or the idea of her;

Who I wanted her to be for me,

Who my sisters wanted her to be for them.

I built her up so big and so high that I couldn’t even begin to reach her.

And now I see her so clearly:

A wounded child,

Like us.

And I grieve even harder.

I always think I should be grateful I was the ‘favourite child’ - ‘mummy’s boy’, though I can’t say I ever felt that way.

I’ve learned to connect with her in the ways I can, in the ways she’s willing to.

And maybe that’s enough -

Learning to move

Through

The silence.

When I do try and spend time with her, have a drink and a laugh together, all she talks about is death.

I know you’re gonna die.

I’ve known

And felt guilty

When I don’t spend time with you

Since I was old enough to feel -

But that’s probably because

You’ve always liked to remind me

Of your mortality.

As if that prospect is not the

Most world-shattering pain

I will ever have to deal with.

Stop reminding me of it

I’ve spent most of my life feeling

Like it’s already happened.

I’ve always been called lazy. A dreamer, a dosser, a directionless creative. A lot of my friends have been working for years now and I am still unemployed trying to get my writing to be seen and heard. And I’m tired. Tired of the world that tells me my talent and intellect are only worth-wile if they can be monetised. I hate the grey and the concrete of a world built by machines. I just want to live in a tree, and eat nuts and laugh and get drunk of fermented fruit. I want the life my ancestor’s bodies were built for. That my body was built for. But in a society built on labour and exploitation, how do you even begin navigating a way around without abandoning the world you grew up in. We seem to pretend there aren’t any options out there. You go to university, get a degree and plunge yourself into the world of interviews and rejection letters from cold, corporate jobs that you don’t even want. But in the middle of it all, I find my self yearning for a world that is easier; simpler. My ancestors sustained themselves for centuries on plants and animals, hunting and gathering and later on farming. Connected with their natural environment and living off it. Not above, not better than, but in it; part of the ecosystem. Millenia of struggling and fighting and hunting, all just to survive. And my existence is proof of their endurance. But yet, where they had to wrestle the elements and fight against the river current, the world of today has won, suppressed the elements and drained the river of its current. We are no longer part of the ecostystem, but the masters of it. The creators of something new, machine-made and austere. While some may view that fact as evidence of our superiority as a species, I can’t help but grieve. I can’t help but feel that the disconnection from our natural environments has left mankind feeling empty. We crave community, but not the kind that you can find on a screen, real face-to-face connection with others; community and belonging not to a niche or modern sub-culture, but a tribal one. The earth bleeds and glaciers melt around us, and we go just go to work, in a world built to extract as much money from the blood running through your veins as possible. So what have we gained from this? Does it even begin to compare to what we have lost?

When I was 17, I started to realise that I didn’t want to be a part of this world. I wanted to be free, run in a forest, sustain myself off the fruit that grew from the earth. My school was very clear that the goal of our education was to get into university. My parents were also very clear on that front. And I spent so long fighting it, I didn’t want to go and study, I didn’t want a job, I didn’t want to be a part of it. After many tearful conversations and teenage meltdowns and runaway attempts, I caved in. I promised my parents I would get an education and live the life they wanted for me. At first, I applied for Drama. It made sense for me, I had been doing theatre since I was 8 and I loved to act. I then decided to take a gap year, which was conveniently intersected by covid, and I then decided drama wasn’t for me; I applied for philosophy instead and got an unconditional offer to the uni I wanted to attend. During that first year, I did a few too many drugs and made a few too many bad decisions, all leading to me absolutely despising my course. The pandemic didn’t make it any easier, how is a lesson centred around debating existence and morality supposed to be held over a zoom call. Not very effectively, is the answer. I ended up failing all my modules, and decided it wasn’t for me. So I backtracked again. Asked if I could change course and my request was accepted. I’ve always loved writing, and I thought: fuck it. I’m already doing a ‘useless’ degree, so why not do it in something I actually enjoy and know for a fact that I am good at. And so that was me set. Doing a degree I actually enjoyed, and starting to dream up dreams of being published and fame and building a life of a creative. Freelancing my way to self-determination, where I could live the life of freedom I want; travelling and growing and being in nature, not a slave to the ‘man’ or a cog in some corporate wheel. But I, as I imagine many other people here on substack, discovered eventually this wasn’t going to be an easy goal to achieve.

I graduated in 2024, with a 2.1, and I was working at a coffeeshop at the time. When the time came for me to leave that job, I thrust myself into the world of linkedin and indeed. Pressing apply after apply and hoping and praying someone would deem me worthy. Worthy of work, and subsequently worthy of life. How do you even begin to build a sense of worth, when the only skills you have to contribute to the world are deemed as unimportant. Unnecessary. The arts are a luxury. The humanities only exist so people feel smarter. I am in no way practical, or mechanical. So where is my place in modern society? Even tribes would have had a bard or a storyteller. Yet in the modern world with all its expenditures and made up, bureaucratic job posts, it’s almost laughable that I don’t feel I have a place in it.

Maybe the answer is to just runaway to a commune. Or to just keep trying, in the hopes that I can somehow, someday enter the great race which I detest. Because there aren’t any other options are there? Either navigate your way through it to comfort, or fight your way around it. I don’t know how much fight I have in me. But I do know myself and my morals. And the cruelty of nature is equal to that of man. So we move through it. Artists, creatives, writers, visionaries; we claw at it until enough of it has been chipped off that we can get in it and mark our territory. Until it’s enough.

Do not bend yourself or your beliefs for the world, learn to bend the world. Make a place for yourself from the outside. Destiny is ours. And our mammal bodies will have to catch up or be left behind in the current. Eroded and withered. Don’t let yourself wilt in defense of ideology. We all belong to the world. Care for the environment, love it and love yourself. I will build the life I want and so will you.

I’d like to wrap up on a poem I wrote:

Rivers of artificial light flow through digital valleys,

And the execution is being broadcast in the sky.

The trees have wires for roots,

The birds sing the beeping of machines

And animals scrape at towers of metal,

Begging for scraps of something

- organic.

The tiger wants out,

He asks the algorithm whether it can liberate him,

And it replies: validating his feelings and telling him that no mountain cannot be climbed, when it can be torn down to build a motorway.

No river cannot be crossed, when it can be drained and a power plant built in its place.

No worldly wonder or primal scream can be dignified,

When the blood seeping out from your veins has been digitised.

I’ve always been the friend that’s hard to reach. The one who disappears for days, and won’t respond to calls or messages.

The type of friend that leaves people before they can leave me.

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Having close friends and being vulnerable, wholly and openly raw, have always felt like being put on display -

Like going to a museum exhibition, but you walk through the door and see your body, ripped open in the middle of the room and spectators pace around it, gawking at your autopsied flesh,

And they sneer

And whisper.

I used to have this joke with one of my friends that she was my spokesperson - if anyone ever needed to get in contact with me, they would have to go through her because I probably wouldn’t reply and we were always together. She was a good friend, one of the only people I ever truly opened up to. We don’t speak anymore, ironically. I didn’t respond to her for a few weeks during a depressive episode, and I guess I had done it one too many times. She was hurt, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. So I didn’t.

I don’t know what it is -

What fear, or

Hesitation to be

Known, loved,

Rules the mist

That lurks over my mind.

What ashes of past pain

Lie dormant

Within the tissue

And ligaments

Of my body.

But no -

I’m just a coward,

Really. Weak,

And incapable of taking action.

I can’t bear the thought of getting close to someone and then them leaving me - so I do it first. Like I can save myself the pain of it, like racking up points in some game. And at the end of it all, I sit in my bed and I realise that I’m it. It’s me.

How many people have I run away from, because I was scared of connection?

Of being seen, clearly?

It used to be this twisted test -

Push people away

To see if they would

Push back, fight

My hysteric games

And come after me,

Because they care.

And if they stayed, they stayed. And if they didn’t then I’ve protected myself. It was a matter of survival.

I told myself it was my shield.

I can detach from people in a heartbeat and how could that ever possibly be a hindrance?

But when you know

That someone is good,

Helped you, and breathed light

Into your darkened heart, and

Pushed against the silence

But you couldn’t bring yourself

To pick up the phone;

And the mist creeps up

To devour you once more -

How do you move on?

When the night falls, and I retreat back into myself, I realise that I have been voided by my silence. My avoidance, my flakiness, the ashes scattered about the graveyard of friendships that is my heart.

It’s all my fault.

And I pretend not to care.

Which is funny because — I do care.

I care a lot. A vast fucking ocean of caring hangs heavy inside my holey heart, my lungs, filling my chest and boiling up to the surface.

It’s nauseating.

But something about never speaking to someone again, the ritual of it,

It feels sensual.

Intimate.

In some fucked up way -

Maybe I think I deserve to be alone and it’s all some self-fulfilling prophecy,

Or maybe I like being perceived as cool - mysterious, elusive.

Maybe it’s about control.

I don’t know, but it all

Creeps up on me, either way,

And nestles itself in my intestines.

And I run - I retreat - I disappear

- like the hermit.

And the truth is, distance is second nature to me. Cutting people off feels effortless — like a hobby. I’ve ended year-long friendships and felt nothing in the moment. Just another Tuesday.

“I don’t need you.”

But I do, really.

I realise eventually,

The guts of what

I quietly dissected

Unravel before me.

And I see it -

In the same way I can’t bear being seen.

I’m sorry.

I couldn’t overcome my darkness, though I probably made you think I could.

It was never enough.

The mist turns to fog,

The ashes to dust

And clarity still eludes me -

I can’t see how to atone.

So just I’ll keep on telling myself:

How I’m better off alone.

I miss the warmth of the sun, of love.

I remember the first time I went back. I had spent 10 months in the UK due to covid, and when the time came for me to fly, I was told they wouldn’t let me on the plane because I hadn’t done a PCR test, and my choices were to either have one done at the airport, or leave. It was 7 am and the testing room wouldn’t open till 9. So I went and stood outside the terminal and cried a river, like a bear cub separated from its mother, lost and forlorn. I ended up getting a flight a couple of days later, and a PCR test. It had been a hard year for me. The first year of university doing a degree I hated. The pandemic had disrupted most aspects of life in my student halls and it was hard to make friends. I joined a group at the start of the year and stuck with them, only to realise later on that they probably weren’t very good for me. I had lost 15 kg, a combination of copious amounts of drugs and just not eating. I got very attached to MDMA, the dopamine rush was something my depressed brain hadn’t felt since I was 11. I did it as often as I could. And the pain in my jaw was something else. But it made me feel whole, just for one night. And in the morning I’d be back to being me, but at least I felt alive for a night. Eating became hard, my teeth started to crack from grinding and gurning. My body was a shell of what it was. But it was all about to be okay, because I was going home. My parents came to get me from the airport. And I’ll never forget the look on their faces when they saw me. Dressed in a baggy, purple t shirt and stripy, purple pants, with wild, long hair, and so much skinnier than the last time they saw me. My mum hugged me and said:

“Gone full hippy have we?” and I laughed. She said I looked hungry and gave me a sandwich she had made for me. Halloumi and fresh cherry tomatoes in Cypriot pitta bread. I almost wept while eating it in the car ride home. It tasted like peace. Like the war was over. The calm after the struggle of the storm. The fight for breath and sustenance wasn’t mine to tackle alone anymore, I had someone looking out for me again. It felt cathartic. I had finally made it home, after 10 months of destroying my body.

Which is funny, because as a child all I ever dreamt of was leaving.

I always viewed my home country as restrictive. Couldn’t watch the same shows my cousins in the UK could, couldn’t order anything online, couldn’t walk down the street wearing anything different without being accosted. I always felt confined. And from the age of 10 I knew I wanted to leave. I never knew what that would entail but I knew I had to do it, if I wanted to give myself a chance to be me. To be free.

I hated the heat growing up. Hated the sweat, the smell, the constant film of humidity building in my hair. I hated the people, the close-mindedness. It was hard for me to find anything positive about Cyprus when I was younger. I romanticised the cold and the city life and the freedom of living somewhere with so many people that you can be anything you want to be; total anonymity. I always thought that maybe if I were straight, there’d be no doubt over me staying in Cyprus. It’s warm, it’s safe, my family are all there. And if I wanted to start a family, i wouldn’t want to raise my children anywhere else. But that’s not an option that is available to me. So I left. And when it came time to leave, my friends all helped me pack up and we drove to the town I was flying from. My parents both cried, I had been crying since the day before when I had to say goodbye to my sisters and my 1 year old niece. I never imagined that part. That it would be so hard to leave everyone I loved, I thought it was what I wanted and I wanted it so bad that it would be easy. But I was shocked to discover the emotional toll it all took on me. And after leaving, my first few years away were so difficult, and so many times I would lie down and fold into myself, weeping the thought: I just want to go home.

But now I don’t know where home is. Last year, I wanted to move to Ireland and stay at my nana’s house. It’s a beautiful place. It’s small and remote and wild, but beautiful. In the times I have been there, I have felt almost whole; like I was connecting with something that lay dormant within me all my life. I love my boyfriend and my life in the UK, so I stay for him. But deep down I don’t really feel like I will ever belong here. In my local pub (which I frequent more than I would like to say) there’s this guy who lives next door and treats it like his living room. It’s right next to my auntie’s house, the place I moved when my life fell apart and the place I ended up meeting my boyfriend; he worked as a chef there and so I ended up also treating it like my living room. And I’ve always known this guy didn’t like me; from whispered insults and jabs, to weird, vaguely homophobic questions and even just the way he looks at me, like I shouldn’t be in his space. It’s a very white area, traditional old square, buildings were all built in the 1600’s and the surrounding nature is breath-taking. But many of them have never left this place and they’re not used to seeing people who don’t look exactly like them. One night, I was still living at my auntie’s house at this point, he had necked probably about 12 pints and started shouting at me, saying I was a ‘terrorist’ and was going to blow them all up. I didn’t care much at the time, bants and that. But months later when it happened again, I thought: why am I here? In this place where they certainly don’t want me, where I certainly won’t ever feel a sense of community or camaraderie. It got to me, I’ll admit. There are three places in the world where I see myself living. Let alone the whole big bad fucking world out there, which I would love to see. And in choosing one home, I have had to sacrifice the life the others could provide me with. But how long can I push that sorrow to the side, decompartmentalise the yearning for a life some place where I have roots, where people won’t view me as an outsider, trying to be a part of things. So I just float around. Wandering and wondering.

I’d like to end on a little poem I wrote on the topic:

Welcome home

I fear this could be it.

Torn between two paths, I heave and wrestle my way against the current. As the paths stretch out in front of me, forked and stained with my blood, the words echo in my ears:

“Don’t leave me.”

“This is your home too.”

I close my eyes and I’m sat on the porch of my nana’s house. The sea swirling ahead, dolphins hopping in and out of the depths, as the wind frays my fingertips and Saddlerock looks stunning today. The sun shines upon the damp grass and you can even see Scotland over the horizon. I hold a cigarette to my lips and drag —

Exhaling to find myself looking at the red brick wall at the end of our garden, his voice calling out to me from inside our house, his house. I lay his clothes out on the line and look over to the moors, the skatepark, and Masseycroft. Is this what peace is?

Is this
happiness?

Of course I love you, with every fibre of my fucking being. As I toss and turn in my drunken sorrow and sweat-soaked bedsheets, I picture your face hovering over me. Like a ghost.

I love you but I just don’t like you sometimes.

Maybe that’s enough.
Is it?
Maybe I just want to belong to something.

I want to go home —

But home is sitting on the veranda as my sisters’ children play on the swing, and my mum rests against the sliding door, arms folded, looking across at the pharmacy, at some car that’s blocking our ramp, at the cypress trees swaying gently and earnestly. Wiping the sweat from my brow. Floating, like a corpse in the waters that birthed me.

Home is here.
It’s there.
It’s me.

Home is the veranda, the porch and the garden. Home is him. Home is my family, my friends, my cousins, the fucking dog.

As I clutch and cling at any crumbs of direction, pleading for an answer, the words boil in my lungs and why can’t I just know
which outcome
will save me?

Where is my home?
The one I chose feels distant.
Yet home is so much more to me.
Slivers of home are scattered in three,
and how could I ever choose just one?