we-are-still-human

I still remember the Spring You didn't grow. Your father carried bruises Under his eyes, While your mother's became Permanently red As if to prove That they still bled Her sorrows Of yesterday Into the ruins Of tomorrow. Your brother lost his voice From screaming on the inside. I don't think I've ever seen Someone grow up that fast. Your name became taboo So as not to encourage Your ghost into speaking, But we saw you everywhere. You should have seen it, Your face filling whole streets, Your voice whispering on the wind Too quiet to make out words But we heard it anyway. I remember the Spring Where the sky felt like A slap in the face. H

It started softly at first. Little words and instances, and small betrayals that left questions sticking in her mind like needles. Words that hit her skin like stones, leaving bruises that spread and scarred and left fear in their wake, words that kept her up at night. Who I am? What am I doing here? And who are you? The words start tumbling faster now, and come with twisted expressions of anger, bitterness, resentment and blame. It's taking her back to her childhood; the memories of disquiet and fear and always, always the blame. It's taking her back to the fear of speaking, the fear of being touched, ever. The fear of meeting someone's eye

It wasn’t as if Thomas had known what to expect; it just that he hadn’t expected, well, this. He read the obituaries every Sunday out of a mixture of habit and morbid curiosity – or as he liked to call it; “professional interest”. At least that’s what he told his wife, anyway, when he noticed her brow furrowing, or her lips puckering into something dangerously close to resembling a pout over breakfast. She didn’t like dead people; his “clients”. She didn’t like hearing about embalming, or caskets, or hilarious anecdotes of “you’ll never believe the cosmetic work I had to

There is a scream before time stops. A woman is lifted through heavy doors by gloved hands. Her body cloaked in low murmurs, weighed down with the urgent scream of sirens that split the night. Her fingers lie curled like soft-shelled snails at her thighs. Headlights stream out behind them, gold slug-trails instead of the silver gilt webs of spider-spun lies, and guilt written on the faces of youths loitering ill-spent in half-empty hostels on cracked sidewalks; trying to catch a glimpse of half-naked flesh and trading green paper or little packets of white snow for favours. Glass litters the road at the man's feet. A man in uniform writes i

"You're nobody." "No one" "Nothing." Lost in worlds of 'no's and nothingness Searching for "Somebody" "Someone" "Something" to see inside I looked back and found: Me.