slug of my insides,
my future
slid out of me
on a bed of cotton.
and i know now, loss
and what it truly means to be a woman.
------------------------------------------------

andrew says IT WAS NOT CONFIRMED. the death of a child he never would acknowledge.

i am not here and it HURTS.
every day is a struggle. the funniest part now though, is it's too much of a fucking effort to even say it to anyway.

i am somewhere else.

my writing drought....

i had a dream
you asked for three of my poems,
the ones i once offered
as a seat on a crowded train carriage or
spare change for the methodone at a fitzroy chemist,
i promise
i'll show you all
when i find them.

do you need a footnote to my reason?

andrew and kerith take two. (1)

(1a) no more collecting boys to keep busy though i revel in the experiences i give myself. andrew said i should write them down so i can create this book i say i'll make, but i can't quite bring myself to.
you never know what people might read in to it.

(1b) does he know that i am more likely to leave him for a woman because i still cant handle the idea that i would be with a man for my life? that is not who i am. that is not who i want to be.


people have been asking me a lot lately- although i suppose they are normal, every day questions -'how are you' 'are you okay' and i take my time to think of the answer and i say 'yes i am okay. i am. i actually am today.' which means tonight i might not me, or yesterday i was This close, or tomorrow i will have to wake up and see how i am then. and then i shake a little and my heart goes all tight and i think some more.

piled around my feet
in waste
thigh high in
my choose my own adventure

losing.the.plot
is easy
if i don't pay too much
attention to you.r hands around
my neck,
the way i always wanted.

jade and i fought the way i always have and we never did while we were together and i couldnt help but think, there's your passion kerith. as i was vomiting on her bed in to my hair extensions from being strangled and trying to work out why the hell i punched her in the middle of a club and why i went to her house and why i kissed her as she let me in and why i do this to people poison their minds with violence and til death we part.

how the hell? pan left...

what have you done with your life in five years? i used to measure my life in events that i could map and measure the change through now everything's vague and blurred together with common threads and time is confusing and i feel like i have forgotten a lot of my life. and i feel like there are some things that wont let me forget who i am. what have i done?

drugs, sex, lovelust, betrayal, drugs, sex, betrayal, love, obsession, abuse, isolation, violence, drugs, betrayal, love, isolation, drugs, sex, assault, betrayal, violence, drugs, love, clean, assault, betrayal, sex, lust, and after yesterday-drugs.

but i was getting myself back together. i was pretty sure. a wonderful girfriend, STABLE, caring, perfect, a great house, family, acting, theatre, friends. had it been a few weeks ago i wouldve been so proud to say who i was and where i have been. as it was, i showed up cracked off my head.
more or less eight months with out that feeling, eight months of clarity and the only way i felt that i could face the grown up world was by facing it through smoke. and now i have nothing. i have to start again. i have accomplished NOTHING and all i wanna do is have another fucking pipe and i just might and i just might screw the big grown up plan where I get better and get over this disease/obsession/love/hate that divides me and scares me.
and here i am again. the same place i was last year. aching for it. with one foul swoop i am back in this place.

you look so pretty
in your skin
if you'd only wear it comfortably
let me wash
over you
and maybe
i will let you in.

i told you we would marry next september which would be nice if the sun was out and the bees didnt sting and die and rot and lie and i need you to know i think i could love you properly if i understood myself. you jade are perfect and so far away from me.

i want to love you in that crazy way i knew i could if it didnt make me want to throw up and drown in my silence because i dont know how to connect any more only run away and i cant rely on myself any more than you can.

i cant take much more failure.
i cant take your kisses if i dont return them properly.
but i want to.

i want to.

all suited up
she saw me real as i get
i saw her
mine,
our proud eyes echoing
the other's gaze.
-------------------------
i wish she would see herself as i do.

my princess jade :)

i wish i would show her how i see myself.

------------------------

rent is painful, wonderful, draining. i am too self involved to just skate through it- i can feel every tiring moment stabbing me in the stomach. maybe i am crying for myself.

and i keep thinking, i'll just buy a point or two for the after party. no one will know. i deserve it. after screaming for it, crying for it for a week non stop, i deserve some numb.

but i won't. if not for my sake, then for hers.

my favourite toy would smash against a brick wall and splinter my cells. hello one, taking each day as my first, treating kisses as my last. it could take a while to get used to this, but i take what i can get which is much more than i had before.

living with living with living with living with living with not dying from disease...
im about to be in a production of rent.
i have a family friend who has lived with this for years. things are not the same. they are just terrifying.

some secrets to be swallowed;
they seep through
your veins like vines
that weed to a
strangle hold tight
around your delicate throat,
entwined with your finespun hands
holding to your silence
while i reach mine in a soft echo
to hold-
when you're ready.

in the future

we'll be wading through
landscapes of landfills
wondering what's become of
our home among the gum trees
and all the children's
plasma screen tvs and
wii willy winkys
will be a rotten mess around
our ankles, ash creeping
up and under
our tapping finger nails
trying to turn wine
to water.

my non-love
i want you to hold me
with out touch.

there's a full blown rain storm
matting down my hair
in drips like spit
and thoughts,
there i sit.
crouched over
in her shower
with the handles i can't turn
finding i love
her bathroom,
her towel,
her touch.

a beautiful woman wraps her arms tight around me and through me in licks and twist to bleed if we can help it. she over-indulges my vanity, my nakedness wet and crying is met with praise and compliments and comfort food of mashed potatoes with the skins left on.

edited...

I count. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. I count one to eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. I say, count. I tell myself to count to eight. I count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. I tell myself I am counting too fast. I count one to eight, one to eight with each breath and if I was counting out loud I think only the dogs would hear me. If I was counting out loud, I’d probably be counting too fast for even them to hear me and I’d be running fast away from animals of any kind. I watch the ceiling be much larger than I am and try and make myself blank like it is. I pretend I am outside with my girlfriend in that big, white, waiting room that is made of ceilings like this. I pretend I'm in her bed and she's the one touching me. I am sobbing and tears are filling my ears, but I am in her bed.

I repeat my girlfriend’s name in my head and I hope she will hear me crying for her. I hope she is holding my hand out in the waiting room, or her room, or anywhere. I hope I am anywhere else.

Stay there, or hold on, there can't be too many one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eights left.

I feel his body brush against my right foot and I listen for him to flinch away or be embarrassed or say sorry. Should I say sorry? My foot is tingling and rotting and I'm not sure if I should move so I don't. I lay still like the metal frame of the hospital bed I'm on and I might be counting still, but it doesn't feel like I'm breathing any more.

I turn my head, and away from the safe, blank ceiling he is reaching under the sheet, between my legs and his wiry doctor-dressed arm is moving like I'm sure mine does when I'm touching my girlfriend's cunt. His face is blank turned away from mine, but his arm keeps reaching and his shoulder keeps jerking like he thinks he could be doing more and if he keeps clutching around between my legs he'll find whatever that is. I try and see if he can feel my eyes searching his, but I can’t stop looking at his shoulder moving, so I look back to the ceiling where I can't see anything moving at all.

I wish he would hurry up and find whatever is wrong with me so he can stop touching me and I can go home and not be sick any more.

Wet and slimy slides away from me, out from between my legs and when I turn my head again I see his index finger glossed in something wet and I am embarrassed. He puts a box of tissues on the table next to my head and I think they are to wipe the wet away from my cunt, which I'm sure I can smell because I'm sweating so much. Then I realise I am crying and maybe they are to wipe the tears from my face so no one knows I was crying over this. I am too scared to ask because I think he will think I am stupid, or a whore.

I pull on my underwear quickly. I want to go have a shower in Dettol and change my underwear because they are the same pair I was wearing yesterday. I think he will tell me to go to the bathroom again. If he does I might be able to wipe my cunt and put folded toilet paper in my underwear so I don't feel so close to myself, like I am a walking, sobbing, vagina.

Instead he asks if I would like a blanket. I must look cold. Am I shivering? Am I cold? I don't think I am. I mumble 'errrriuum okay' which comes out 'I'm okay' and 'um okay' all at once which seems to be the right thing to say because he puts a blanket on me. He doesn't want me to get cold. Am I shivering? I am shaking.

I am wheeled out to the waiting room and I watch my girlfriend from when I turn the corner, until I get to her and I cry. I am two years old and I have grazed my knee and I know I'm making a scene but it just hurts so much and I don't know why and I don't know how to say it.

my cuticles are raw
and ripping red,
because i pull
at any loose thread i find
and hide
men
in matchboxes
in a carefully tuned line,
placed in order
of deeds done
and the ones i don't deal with.