Is there any pain without the present?

Any guilt without past?

Is there any sail without the wind and

Any boat without mast?

Is there any portrait without a painter?

Any words without voice?

Is there any tree without a branch and

Any roots without choice?

Is there any of me without a frame?

Any thoughts without glass?

Is there anything here without you or

Has it already passed?

Boil up their words,

And break them all down, 

With the Earth every letter will die.

Bottle up their anger,

And shatter it into thirds,

With the wind shards fly away.

Break down everyone,

And glue them all back together,

Within script there is only one eye.

Run forward time,

And keep every message carved,

Within stone the voices of art lay.

Forever us and them,

Always black and white, 

Are life’s lines ever nothing to you,

Or are they ever

nothing to I?

I remember being sat at the end of the gallery looking at the glowing portrait in the corner. Its eyes had reminded me of my mother, warm, and unmistakably so.

‘Have you ever forgotten your past?’

I felt something tear down my back, realising I had heard these words from someone before. I wanted to ask her how she knew, but she read that thought, too.

‘I just observe. I don't make a choice to get out of bed in the morning. I'm laid over canvas.’

One day, I'll forget it ever spoke: maybe that's what it knew for sure.

Leather jackets fall apart

And the wool of scarfs fray

Tie it all round your spine

Let it cushion backbone and heart

After dust is wiped away

The twenty faces of you lie

I looked in the mirror today

Saw the reflection of everything

I am, I was, shunned behind light

But I’m torn from it, torn from framed guide,

So push us both back into the glass,

And shape skin around its cracks.

There it is again. That hum. Behind me, through my walls. It’s not the radiator. It’s not a streetlight. It’s only been here for a week, but it’s always there. Always underneath everything else. Always at the back of my mind. Always pushing into my skull. A reminder of the stuff I’ve done and the stuff I haven’t. Always underneath everything else. Out of my control.

I took a sharp and cold breath in as I stepped into the hallway to console what was left of me now, and I saw my thin and pasty face reflect back as I walked past the mirror centrepiece. I watched a car drive past the window, flickering in the single-pane glass. Could I really be alone with this now?

I felt my skull rattle as I lent all of my body into the side of the train once more. There was still that unshakeable pit deep inside my chest the closer I got to the station. Never-mind the hours of preparation I had done or blissfully running it through my head - I knew I was out of control this time. No matter what I would say, how I said it, no matter what I would do, or how I did it would end up swaying the members of the board into my hands. ‘I am only a junior’, I so ignorantly reaffirmed myself. ‘They don't care for your sugar coated demeanor or risky financial ideas.’ ‘It will mean nothing.’ ‘You mean nothing.’ God, I'm such a nihilist.

The mile of street that paved the way to my office seemed as though it only served to lure and trap commuters like myself and the unemployed there. Job adverts, posters, street signs, shop windows and bus timetables always took you patriotically up, and further up the road. Many of them were for the same firm, my firm, too. ‘Build the future of tomorrow today!’. I'd be jealous of whoever was reformed enough to have joy to work sparked inside because of those words. Maybe working in software was never much of a positive life outlook.

Fire embers, floating in the darkness.

The car's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel

A middle-aged man stands on the side of a road, only a silhouette, stuck in stupor watching a car wreckage burn.

A body of a young man, lying headfirst in a shallow river. The roaring fire lights up the water.

And the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides

A strong wind rushes through the trees, blowing the embers away from the fire.

And a dark wind blows

The White House, raided and in ruin.

The government is corrupt

The middle-aged man turns on a sink, washing blood and dirt out of his hands.

He empties a tube of prescription medicine into his hands, swallowing most of it aggressively, leaving the empty bottle and the rest in the sink.

And we're on so many drugs

He walks to his bedroom, looking out at the orange light shining through the veil curtains.

With the radio on and the curtains drawn

A ruined lighter rests in his worn jean pockets. His hand, resting at his side, twitches.

We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine

The exhaust of an old car starts, spluttering out smoke.

And the machine is bleeding to death

Blood drips from the fingers of the man as he switches the lighter on.