I might be something, dreaming.

Suppose I write a new, for the old?
My dreams have been so tell-tale lately!
And so unco-operative as I attempt pen them down!
Blasted, unrelated, unrealistic sub-reality of one's own mind!
But so realistic! It is the problem, they are so!
For I feel in them,
Feel as you might breathing in the rain on a routine stroll to work,
Feel as you might on that first dive into the cool of an outdoor pool!
The people in them, I have seen, mostly, I have!
I have grown with them, I mightn't have all of them any more,
But they have been here, in this supposed waking world.
And growl, have I, at waking on occasion,
To find they are still not here.

It is proof of my time-walking?
It is certainly proof of my dreaming!
And it is all of the dreaming, it is all of the mumbling in my sleep,
And the constant logging of dreams!

Suddenly, I awake and am onto something,
Suddenly writing is as writing can be,
And I've a beginning to that story I never finished,
And mightn't finish if I should have trouble sleeping again.
On all these notes and the above and below, I return to my dwelling, I return to the screen and pen my endless papers! It might just happen, I confirm, it might!
I may have stumbled onto what a life I am supposed have,
Or at least the same road.
Well, same city at most,
But the same nonetheless! On the map it all is!
I can be something,
Can't I?
As awkward as I am in daily situations,
As dull as my voice sounds,
As vague as I ever am,
As unshapely as I may be:
I might be something.

I might be.

An awkward conversation.

There was a dull chill in the air, a handful of stars in the sky. Her skin had taken on a pale defence to the night's weather, and yet still she sighed contentedly. She must've been sat on this mound for around four hours, more or less. Her legs had become slightly numb, but she needn't have realised for lack of movement.
"You don't always come here, do you?", Came a sultry Voice without intention, as though it had always been there.
"Well... no", she replied rather obviously, glancing downward slightly to the mound on which she sat.
"Oh", came the Voice once more, as though expecting much more of an answer, "Well... You aren't planning on leaving?".
"No actually", she replied wistfully, her colourless eyes fixed upon the few stars and the lack-lustre blue beyond it.
"Well it won't go away..." came the Voice, now seating itself beside her, though she paid it no attention, "That is to say, it won't come back? Well you know, that, that down there... it won't go away, but, the thing that it was, well... it's... gone. Yes. Quite gone".
"Aren't you supposed to be a little more... informed on this matter?", the girl asked quite naturally.
There was a pause after this, in which the Voice sat quite calmly at her side, imitating the girl's glance toward the stars. It shifted it's weight upon the earth now and then, and applied itself to an itch upon it's arm, but otherwise it was rather still.
"It just becomes a little bit of all the same... if you follow?", the Voice queried as an unidentifiable bird swept past heavily with one lift of it's wings.
"I don't I'm afraid. I'd of only assumed you were here to offer me something".
"Offer you something?", the Voice's velvety slithering tone took on a slight crackle.
"Well yes, advice, a choice, an offer, an exchange... Is that not how the stories go? The stories I had read as a child...".
"Well that should tell you it all! You were a child when you read them, things have changed", the Voice came with a classic huff, had it have bothered moving it would certainly have folded it's arms and turned it's head at this point. But it's ancient-tones shared enough.
"I am eighteen years old. And these stories have been passed to my school from the Greek times. I do enjoy reading you know", the girl maintained her wistful tone, her eyes ever upon the blues and silvers of the night.
"Well... do you not suppose you should be at home, reading then? There is not a sweeter way to mourn than to read into another view of life that you only wished was yours!".

Her expression did not change, but she said no more. A desperate and rolling cry came from somewhere nearby, of which the Voice assumed to be that recently passed large bird. It ceased, and the general clatter and scurrying of the middle of the night (which It was so very used to) became clear once more.
The Voice rolled it's hands around one another slowly, and glanced back to the mound on which they were sat. The girl had slightly sunken into the fresh mound of earth, having been sat on it for so long. Little tufts of grass from either side of the mound were poking through and swaying in the breezeless eve, and the stone of which the mound leant slightly against glistened silently and still in the silver glare of the moon. It looked alone, and for the briefest of moments, the Voice felt rather sorry for the girl. But it passed, as it always had done.
"Look", came the Voice once again, after a long quiet, "I didn't mean what I said, I suppose, well... you know... you've got that job at that bar and... well, don't you just get irritated when customers tell you how to do your job? Not to say you're a customer... Or even a client, I mean, this is different...".
The girl looked slightly toward the Voice, and sighed. He really was mumbling on about nothing, and with her view on life as it currently was, she was aware that she no longer had time for such rambling.

"Suppose I were to just stay here with you", the Voice's classic tone said later, "Suppose I never bothered others again, nor stalked the night, nor exchanged anything or made any deals..."
"Have you not collecting to do?".
The Voice went to reply, but for the first time in history, was politely interrupted.
"Excuse me for stating, but in all the stories, in all the books and the unwritten legends... you are rather important. You are feared so much as you are necassary, or something along those lines. If I were to grant you to sit beside me forever, mourning upon my loved one whom you did not even know, I would not, in some twisted and strange way, be doing the earth any favours".
"But I'd be doing you a favour", It said rather simply.
"But you do not grant favours, you only exchange them. And any way, I never asked for any company tonight, I was quite happy to be sat upon this heap alone. Thank you".
"It is only a dog you know...".
"I beg your pardon?".
"No... no, I didn't mean that either, I know it's a human. I apologise. That was uncalled for". The Voice began to wring it's hands again, referring it's glance to the mound and the stone. "I suppose we could carry on arguing though? For quite some time?".
"You really dislike your job, do you not?", the girl asked the Voice, pushing her feet comfortably into the disturbed earth.
"Yes. Quite.", Came the Voice.

~

Unedited.

It is,
Banished has it been, from the dawns cool,
Taken from homely leaves and familar colour,
I am drained.
The worldly spirits igniting the outer in the skies,
With unnatural lights,
I can only sit back and wonder,
From where I watch.
He'll wander into view, a lonely figure on a hillside, by night.
He'll leak into my past so much as the future has hold of my days.
What is it,
That has kept me from them, that has led a gentle hand upon my shoulder,
When alone in the social rooms of days gone,
The slither of an ominous presence, my time, my walks,
My effort to go to a home, to settle.
It has swept by side,
I have seen the flicker in the lights,

My nights are only what he has in mind.
No! Not a relation to the old oak of the door,
Not a trickle of memory, the day passes to the next.
And then in the unconscious, they all look like he,
The all speak effortlessly as he.
Have you never the steady tread beside the demon?
Has there never been an ache in your pelvis,
In your bones?
A slithering fire, an ignited passion,
Has the urge to dampen been overwhelming,
Have you cried into nothing for whatever holds you back?

~
There then, is a strong scent of hay,
The salt-lick, the barrells of horsefeed and the cool of disgusting summer air.
A horizon deepening to red, the clouds few and scattered,
There is laughter of a young boy, missing teeth, albino to look to,
He disapears into the sinking sun,
Running into the horizon,
The hay tickles at my face, the tongue of a dog at my young legs.
The distance becomes ever hazy, the laughter lightening until I only imagine I am hearing it.
Beside me, a moist, dark mound begins to disturb the hay atop it,
It's skeletal back writhing and stretching outward,
The slime of it's skin reacting to the fresh air.
Movement does not take me, and I recall a dream in the shed.
Something like a tail swats about beneath the hay,
And a face is never seen.

If rain.

Delightful it is!; To sit beside a window cracked,
And letting in air as cool as is held in the crypt!
Rain does thud at my glass today,
And grey has coloured the dull blue that was.
Autumn feels closer than the month would suggest,
And a book of age lies at my chest.

To sit is absolute, and to listen to nothing but!
I have the calm and the serene today,
Of a lady who, once, knew precisely what she wanted,
Of a cat who hauled in the birds beside the mice!

I question my dreams today, I ask them why they haunt me so?
I may have taken a restful gaze toward a window dotted,
But the lingering images behind these eyes are of creatures, unsettling.
Yes, just last night I gave in to sleep,
And slept for as long as I might ever,
Until. And then dream did come. Did taunt!
It lay out fears my mind had only just come across,
And oh how well it did!

If my mind would write, quite the story you would read.
It put poison in my drink! It led him by another! It threatened at solitude of an outing,
It may as well have put fire in my sky!
I am distrustful of my mind in sleep!
Here, here I lay in a comfort I have made,
And it laughs, it gives a foul hissing laugh, as I fall empty into unconsciousness.

The sweet rain pounds harder now, it sweetens the horizon,
And my mind is withdrawing the memory,
I pry so that I may word the fears and paint the creature;
Yet it pulls back as slowly and effortlessly as the tide receeding.
My mind but sand, my fingers protruding with difficulty, clutching as if suffocating.
Only to dream again.

~

Murk has my mind been,
And just of late has it swum back with the tide.
I am aware, if at all, that such as the shadow through a window,
Of rain upon a familiar portrait, in a dark and deep, elaborate room,
Forgotten and anachronistic,
Love does begin to patter at perfection.

Lingering Five.

Half past seven, and at a loss of just what to do. There are options, naturally, an evening free to myself are full of them. I may take a leisurely bath, I may read by the back door, paint upon the stairs, perhaps bake something... I may paint my nails or moisturise my skin with an unusual limitless time.
But of course I know what I would prefer to be doing.
I do wish, and at the same battle with said wish, that I may fast forward a few months, and be sat in the evening autumn gleam, by a window that is then my own. My new predicament, possibly with my home-made curtains already clung and hung, studying indepthly the book I have been assigned on the course of which I have yet, at present, to take up. The excitement of all of this has been sweetened just of recent, oh such a veil has been thrown upon it, such as rose-tinted glasses are put upon those in love.
My veil, it is of silver and sheen, a delicate and grand material, fine like smoke and defined like intricate jewellery. It has the feeling of aristocracy, with the earthly feel of a war-wife's home.
Perfectly does it coat the scene of my hopeful and near future. Glossy, does it have my items appearing and softer does my cushion upon the window sill seem to feel. Whiter is the autumn sun that floods over me and my writing, clearer is my path from there. A winding cobble down the garden, and who to visit me but he, that day. My glance up and a smile without blinking. Broader, it does seem through veiled image.
And oh, how I am shot back to the present! How I cannot forget that just more than an hour, the sweetest, sincerest good bye! And how I may write freely of this feeling, how as much as I wish to be there in my future, do I now wish to lie here in the present, for through wooden blinds, leaking in summer sun, the veil momentarily took the present, and all I did see was he!

A goodbye felt in the hand early in the hours of our afternoon. Should it seem so naturally calm, the blue of sky sitting contentedly above the mass of grey clouds, mingling like marble with specks of the white. Rain upon twirling fingers of hands that no longer ache to sunlight, no longer burn red in stress. They are the colour of skin now, they are! And with wind slipping by so fast through car windows, we could have been comfortably falling once more.

Still lingering in my clouded sky are the familiar doubts, bouts of the unknown and worries that circulate mostly at night. Upon startled lips that still harbour fresh of flesh, a smile still plays doubtless.
And then, came that moment. That the women in the films, the ladies in the stories and the girls in their best friends cars, they had this face, they lingered in these thoughts and they enjoyed life.
Oh how I felt so warm , so suddenly at ease, for this is the fearless running I had sought in times that seemed to have no litten path away from them! Just as mentioned in post previous!
I will always want to go home, I will always will myself toward the ocean, but as of now, i am content! And dare I use a word stronger! Dare I not! So as not to jynx what may be my only chance at an adolescent innocence protruding happiness !

Bristol, sweet Bristol. You have not always been so sweet, for my welcome was sour, by early hour!
By the taking of my innocence you beckoned me in, falsely led hope, safety in a room polluted in large light!
Low wooden table, brick work on show and a flea-ridden garage ! Oh you are nothing to I!
And yet Bristol, sweet you, are proving that I took wrong path just inside of your means, not just at all!
I find that I am cosy in your archways, well trod upon your cobble, oh whether the rain falls or the night is endless, you are alight in ways I never once before understood.
Oh yes home, with it's voices, it's sand and it's nostalgia! It does call.
But now, sweet Bristol, I am here. And i refuse to live forwardly, and live just as it comes! And today, it has come to be, that familiar faces are suddenly smiling, and they are plenty! Oh just today, the sun bent around the car, and just today, the rain hailed us, freshening and gently!

As I lie in the night that was just last, they prodded at me. They fingered at the corners of the duvet, they giggled obscenely as they scattered around the bed unseen. Those creatures who have been around, who ruin me aswell as light the hope in my bones that I am not alone. I could make out nothing last night of their terrors, their lighthearted jokes. I could hear no words and feel no particular way to be. But still they were there.
Small crimson ghosts?
As his cool arm crossed me, it was less a protection than a comfort, and yet still my chest heaved in the slight fear of reoccurance. Of hopelessness. Loneliness.
Those things are only just exitting, but lingering in the garden, in houses and coverts nearby. As I look from a well practised window, I am aware of their presence, their little snarls and giggles, the goblins of the past I am leaking from slowly. Steam rises from the chimney of a home, a warming sign that I may settle.
But the creatures remind me of the need to be upon my toes, should I need to scatter again.
So tired of starting over some where new, and yet so torn still!

Sweet presence, save me, sweet present, assure that I am to be and simply be !

It could take all but one show of lips to a hand and I may melt into my present reality, undetectable and yet appreciated. I'll blink.

Once Upon A December...

I can't sleep for thinking about you.
I can almost feel the air running through my chest.
When you held me I could barely breathe through arms,
But I heard all I had to in a safe embrace through bone.
I don't think I need to say any more,
That I do not speak of this,
Nor soften at a touch so strange.

I can think of nothing more worth doing,
Than writing you a letter you will never read.
I can lie quite peacefully, and sleep better, alone,
But I'd prefer to feel that warmth of morning skin.

All these memories I have, but they have come from no where.
I'm smiling some where, and figures are dancing,
There is music, bass rolling and yet I cannot hear it.
Please don't shatter this, darling,
For once I was allowed to dream,
And simply dream
Until I reached the age where this was not enough,
And crushed myself into reality.
Oh somewhere still, i dance, I'm held.
And somewhere soon, you'll leave me alone on the tiled floor.

Oh and, there you have gone and lifted me somewhat,
I feel my bones cracking within your grip,
And my heart, it swells sweetly with excess air,
I hold my breath and you say it all again.

I was listening dear, I was.
I suppose lying here is out of the question.

A small piece based on an Apocolyptic Zombie dream I had last night.
As it was written, as of yet, no changes.


The sun was shining in the hazy, refreshing way that it only could in the winter as I left the pub that day. And I do have to admit, I felt as if leaving The Kings Horse pub was to be my mistake of the day, for it had been good to me the two years I had worked there, even if most fellow staff hadn't been. It had kept me warm in the winter, and equally as warm in the summer, introduced me to many life friends and needed aquaintances, and told me stories of the likes I never would have dreamt of knowing. I lacked tan from missing sunlight due to it's hours, and my eyes were now permnantly sensitive to sunlight.
The decision wasn't there. I had to simply leave, a life was some how still on the outside, and from a general acknowledgement of life skill, I had to move on. I couldn't hide in a pub forever, especially not The Kings Horse, my Love/Hate and over again boozer.
The cobbled pathway down the hill was quiet, I wasn't sure what time of day it was, but it was certainly very early. It was a picturesque day, damp still lining areas of the road, a bitterly cool bright sun illuminating a glare to which i winced. I kept up my limp, and thought ironically of never having another 'lock-in' again, but my face showed no expression, and i tilted my head.
I could hear a mumbling of people, as i slumped down the Victorian Steps that lead to the main road, and I knew it had begun. They were clear as day, only I was not sure if they were close, and whilst I was nervous, I had an genuine comforting feeling that this was how it was now.
The usual sound of traffic was simply not there, not a whisper of a cars breaks let alone acceleration at a traffic light. The murmurs continued, and at the steps end a few stragglers of early morning people slid by. I couldn't see any faces, the suns glare aided me in making no eye contact.
I crossed, squinting, aware that had I been able to take them in, some of these people were probably just like me.

A dull mist led upon the river that ran through the City, travelled quietly along side me as I walked, dragging my foot. Tendrils of it began to run up the walls before softly cascading back down into themselves again, and seagulls croaking could be heard between the surrounding murmurs.
Somewhere a bin crashed to the ground and a loud murmur slowly faded out. I made no response as stragglers passed me.

I turned to follow the girl in the red hooded jumper, i partially regret that decision. She was being dragged along by a small dog, stumbling also, but she had a bag. I was aware she was like me, and I was going no where in particular.
"You're not very good at this, are you" she said in a low, achey tone, as if she hadn't spoken since she had woken up.
The door to the flats gave a quiet thud as it closed, but was over taken by the sound of running outside, and a small crash, and so went unheard by the stragglers. We creaked up the stairs, a window up high let in the hazed sunlight, a wave of dust surrounding us like glitter.
"It's all we have, here" She spoke again, as she turned to me at the top of the stairs, inserting a key and beckoning me in. Her dog took the invite and ran inside accordingly. He was the only one acting normal.
Silence went on in her flat, the murmurs outside, again all that was there. It was bright, and airy, and I'm sure had i cared to look, the view from here of the river was probably lovely. We sat in her hallway, doors on most sides of us, it was slightly cluttered with objects I didn't care to take in, and the dog fussed me.
"We'll just get by" she smiled seriously. "I'll sort you something to eat. Have you come from others?"
I shook my head, although there were a couple of us left at the pub, I recalled locking the cellar and making my decision to leave.
"Well that's just better I suppose, more simplistic, the less to worry about". We were sat on the floor, and she was going through the bag she had had on her person outside.
She began to speak, of what i believe was about a room mate of hers, whom I'm not sure was living here any more, for whatever reason. My eyes went to the window, a reflection of light from the river aided the sound of some one running as a blur went through it. I shivered.
"Do you want to stay?" My eyes flicked back to the girl, she had a look of innocence now, as if she hadn't had company for a while and was beginning to feel it.
"Tell me about you're flat mate" I asked quietly with a smile. And as she spoke I sensed a movement behind her. She didn't watch me as she spoke, a newly released fear riding over her that I failed to pick up on too strongly. Two doors behind her were propped open, both seemed to have obstructions near the door, that seemed to be a bed and a cot.
The movement again, this time i focused my eyes beyond the girl.
Wrapped in a duvet, a rounded, flesh like shape rolled back slightly. The light coming in from behind it made it difficult to see the detail of the sphere, as did the blue rug around it.
And then it slid open. As it did, the one in the room next door moved also. Smaller, and lower in the cot, but it too looked at me.
"I made the right choice, being here alone... There were several occasions where she left the door open..." the girl went on.
I felt as though I could hear it, the sound of the sphere through the door looking at me. It's flesh fell bacward, and the pupil of the eye adjusted, and I was aware it could see me much more clearly than I could it.
"You've seen?" She suddenly asked with a pale blunt voice. "They came not long after those did.." She looked to the window again. She had no indication that she feared me knowing what she had here. Her dark eyes were as colourless as they had been in the street.
She was good, good out there and in here, she had forgotten what expression could be all together.

Twelve Pounds and life would go on, I visited my father not long later and continued to be irrational in my choosing. I had always enjoyed the sea, and a good friend of mine now lived that way. In a secluded area of the seaside by the rocks, I hired a small boat, and awaited the tide to come in and she and I spoke. There were men on the beach, and none were acting. They did not ask for money, although hiring the boats was most certainly their old business.
Since then, the sea has shon silver.

Paths crossing are as little as the skys opening.
I suppose their both rather big deals to small people.
I turned myself over in a coated bed, warm to the sound of clatter on my window.
I wretched as it became courageous floods smashing into the glass,
attempting an entrance.
I held the duvet over my ears and stared at the door before me.
It was much too far to run to.
And so I glared, the water would see me as i had left my curtain partially open.

My dreams held something i could run in.
As i peered up from work, the air was certainly open, though dark.
Grey through a purple black, i could sigh freely.
A creature approached us as we worked, faces in places you wouldn't believe,
a rigid, rotten coloured body with bones aparent yet muscle plasticly shining.
His glazed yellowing eyes darted like cats and we humans ran.
We ran into caves, hid in each shadowing,
i only hoped i ran into these christ-like-crypts with someone i wouldn't mind sharing time with.

We'd made it through a door, even though out in the open.
The epidemic seemed to be over for now, a safe spot, a moment of clarity.
We worked out beneath a huge tree trunk, that was my work, the locks.
A spiralled, slimey (Though not by touch) cylinder was my key.
My boss explained that should there be a problem with the pub, i might be locked in if i cannot work this key correctly.
I glanced down at the alien shape in my hand, then around at the damp oak that was the inside of the large tree trunk that i called 'work'.
I would not like to be stuck in here.
Just then, up the rolling black grass, the black skys shuddered and a door made no sound.
We all looked up, terror in our eyes, at the wall that blended in with the sky.
The door threw open, and the creatures, many more of them now began to file in, looking around and down the hill.

We picked up, ran for our lives, a gate in the wall was the one i had just practised to lock...
And it took a long time, so a senior of my work unlocked the hinges and i threw myself through, followed by my colleagues.
Up a steap, rolling hill, greener than before, it was slim like a garden...
As I glanced back all my colleagues were shooting through the gate aswell, like sperm on route to the egg.
I turned for no more than a second and the creatures had entered the gate.
I'd travelled barely at all when i realised no one was running with me, and on a quick inspection, the mere presence of the creatures had slumped all my work friends into sat-up heaps upon the floor. They were asleep.
I was the only one.
Refusing to sleep, i made way behind a shed, and hooked my hands onto a wooden fence that was far too high for me.

My resistance was obvious, and somehow, I managed to haul myself over and throw myself to the ground of a homely garden on the other side.
Trimmed grass, swingsets, a matching shed and balls littered across the garden. I could sense a patio and a barbeque behind me, as well as a looming house.


If i lie here, they won't find me...






And i don't have to sleep.