My writing

Things I write at all hours of the night. Most are work in progress, some are rather old, all rather bad.

[4amwriting]

houses

You no longer think of suicide as a house you will build one day - Neil Hilborn I never believed suicide an option i had, See when you live 14 years without a future Why turn the page back now? I do not know what houses i will build But i like to think they will pay bills regularly, Put the rubbish out on time, Smile at the man next door The first time I held possibility in my hands it felt like rage How dear i be breathing brother when your last breath is spent Did i rip it from your chest? Am i to blame? I do not know what houses i will build But i shall call them temples and worship all those who have gone befor, Worship the way he moves in sleep The stars upon the sky Pull matariki to the ground, imprison her daughters to stop the seasons from changing. I thought suicide an option only for others I desired a future Therefore i deserve this hollow taste that just won't go away No matter how many sweet fruits i buy I do not know what houses i will build in the future But i hope they are warm And safe And i hope you are within them -May Smith

[4amwriting]

“culture of violence”

On the 6 o'clock news a man in a well pressed suit talks about our “culture of violence” I wonder why he sounds so surprised I’m sure if you peeled back his selves his veins would burn the same survives blood as mine. See I have a theory about the anger that leaks from my fingertips, I’m sure it comes from the same hollow place my ancestors called hunger It’s hard to be polite see Civilised Non violent Productive members of society When the first memory you have taste like other people's hope. Hope The thing that first turned us into survivors My ancestors came first  to this land at the bottom of the world On board waka with blistered hands and salt soaked tongues Its wasn’t violence then But survival , Why else would you come to a land hell bent on burning everyone of us Hope That is what my grandmother speaks of It wasn't the hunger she said that chased her kin across the ocean,  But that bare knuckled morals of a catholic kicked too many times, Hope was the only survival they knew Hope that their whiskey stained blood would not pass on to the next  And yet they landed at the bottom of the world upon , a country hell bent on shaking everyone lose You see it’s hard to stop fighting when the only truth you know is the taste of blood in your mouth Forgive me father for I have sinned but i am not sorry for my fight.  My mother rejected our “culture of violence” no man would cross her threshold with the devil on his back. Pity she failed to see the demons taking seed inside of me The man on tv talks of our “culture of violence” Yet if you peeled back his sleeves i’m sure his arms would bear the same survivors scars as mine As theirs As all the hope for this place Hell this land At the bottom of the goddamn world. It’s hard to have time for hope when i am so hell bent on surviving.

-May Smith

[4amwriting]

88

88 and dieing my grandfather never fought in your wars Yet plenty of his brothers are dead He was too young then, a boy on the cusp of something Anything I have no knowledge of my grandfather as a boy Did he understand the work that was to come? The battles his sons would fight with each other? His grandchildren with themselfs? Did he ever dream of 88? 88 and dieing my grandfather is a man of faith Take care of your family and god will take care of the rest I would ask him what he thought of god when his first grandson went to heaven at the age of 8 The second on the eve of 21 I doubt my grandfather would answer me, perhaps clench his fist dry his eyes and get on with some work that needs doing 88 and dieing my grandfather's body is worn Worn from work From broken bones From that cow with the gate From loving a woman he ran miles for 88 and dieing my grandfather has never been a man of words but rather actions he doesn't say i love you instead gets up every morning at 5 to keep the farm going He doesn’t say i’m proud of you but rather hands over hard earned cheques towards university fees He doesn’t say i’m disappointed Just gets on with tomorrow 88 and dieing my grandfather took me in, took us in when my grandmother couldn't face another bastard without a man named dad Told her to shape up and taught me to milk cows, eat ice cream Yell loudly and pray easy My grandfather is 88 and dieing. He is the closest thing to a father i will ever have

-May Smith

[4amwriting]

gods

They place statues of gods in temples built upon hills, made of the bones of those long dead. Call gold and raised arms the puriste worship while avoiding beaches that hold the truth. the only worshiper to life, an ocean, the mother. cradling whom she can, while she can. Casting her salt ridden tears against rocks, begging anyone to hear, but all the good men are too high up that hill, voices singing praise too loud to hear any ocean's call. How many gods can you name who have stopped the stray bullets and ever moving tanks, what is the point of a god who saves souls when a body bleeds to many holes to hold any more breaths. The only god who can save them now is the dirt, and the earth, the last embrace before we all become another bone under some hill you build your god filled temples on.

-May smith

[4amwriting]

24 hours of Breathing

I am beginning to learn that breathing is not the same as living today will hold 30,000 breaths for me tomorrow another 30,000 for you if your lucky, if I’m lucky see breathing is simple, subconscious dumb luck, I merely open my mouth and oxygen flows in, fueling every last inch of my viens you close your lips and i skip a beat wondering what they would taste like, oxygen from you to me only 29,999 breaths for me today I was lucky, you stole only 1. Living you see though, living is harder to live i have to leave this room, but you have built windows instead of doors and i fear if i break them, i will take all the breaths you have left. 17,000 the fewest breaths you can take in a day and still be alive there's a god dam giant leap from 1 to 17,000 that holds no purpose, 16,999 breaths that mean nothing, they are not living no matter how many times they try to grasp life, reaching out in the moments of dawn, determine that they will mean more than babies cries, and the last gasp of old men who once carried guns along side young boys it was somewhere between 17,000 and 30,000 on that beach at dawn that all breaths become 1 one last moment of living and now i ask myself what on earth are my breaths for, if I’m not even living?

-May Smith

[4amwriting]

To understand

to understand is hard a weight a cloud a flea that sucks every bit of my energy i swear i can feel it leaving my legs pulling down like a weight glued to gravity it is the only thing that stops my mind from flying away see away is easier away is numb and dark and nothing away is my blanket like a cocoon away doesn't require shopping trips a job or interactions away makes me nothing some days it scares me the most how can i run from a monster thats inside me own head? i have learnt its voice as well as a mother's lullaby hate failer ugly stupid failer unwanted failer a reputation of obscenity i know the voice isn't real but that does me no good when it is louder than my own it doesn't listen you see i have tried to drown it but i am too poor to be a drunk music for a time soothed but now i find myself crying to once happy tunes it to has stolen them from me replaced with its own memories understand i can't my own body won't obey my orders nails bitten down to a stump just to get out the door i forget when life got this hard im doubt easy was ever an option.

-May Smith

[4amwriting]

and

and here we are again. in school i was told never to begin a sentence with and, but, maybe, however, because. but here we are again doing the the things we shouldn't. maybe if we were older we would be wiser like our parents or teachers, role models of every kind of failed relationship there is. however i find hope in every bit of our disaster you say we are two trains headed for a head on collision, but i dont care. because i like the way you taste when we burn into flames the teachers may have been right, but you break all my rules time and time again.

-May Smith

[4amwriting]

I wrote this a month ago and already so much has changed.

I have accepted the madness that is my mind.  Brain cells made of bright ideas and vodka mixes, normality is merely a word that rolls of my tongue I have no urge to hold it in anymore there is no room amongst the screams anyhow. Some days the voices even sound like my own more often than not they are giants beating my small frame into a corner but I don’t mind, spiders always made better friends anyway. On mornings when I can not find the sun I will use the moon to light my way instead it after all never burnt me the same. Music they tell me will heal it barely keeps me sane most days sane enough perhaps to smile and nod trick them a little more into believing its all alright. I don’t want them to see this edge I stand on I fear if I fall they will take my madness away with pills and good intentions but see I have accepted what I am who I am and the voices the madness its all just a part of  that, take it, and i'm not sure how much of me will be left.

-May Smith

[4amwriting]

another for you and our mountain

There is a mountain at your head, built from our ancestor backs, when we laid you to rest beneath it I did not expect them to be so loud. Your eyes now join there’s, painting my sky the same shade of forever blue that I see every time I look in a mirror. I thought I’d heard the last of your voice when the fantail carried it away, but every now and then he brings it back, down this river and across the land, you call for me the only way you know how, with chants and repetition. One day I shall join you there beneath our mountain, but until I do I ask please, please, stop haunting my dreams.

-May Smith

another one for my brother, he seems to be haunting my words as much as my mind lately. 

[4amwriting]

storms

I Do not understand those who fear storms, I have long come to crave the purification of rain striping the world away, it takes you from me layer by layer until water drowns you out of my lungs and thunder beats you from my heart. lightening doesn’t strike twice they say yet I climb broken trees burning like Moses’s bush as if they are a message from the gods, screaming to be struck. It is the final way to remove you, you see, to burn ever last cell of you from my blood stream. I do not fear storms, without them you would never leave.

-May Smith

[4amwriting]

Silence

I never understood silence until your absence become the loudest thing in this room, How is it you are long buried in this ground yet every time she speaks she breaths you out. I have given up trying to find her she is buried there amongst the dirt and daisies with you.

-May Smith

just a short one iv been working on.

[4amwriting]

love, I believe.

I do not wish to write love poems anymore. She loved me first I believe, when I just a seed inside of her, she chose to keep, rather than the option of an early ending in the compost heap. Love me I believe yes she did, enough? No but hardly her fault spread too thin in a world of demons she gave what she could, and I took the crumbs she left behind, called them diamonds and memories. As if they were enough to satisfy a child’s soul. I wish to stop writing love poems to her, comprised of memories I’m not even sure are real.

He loved me yes I believe. there were those who doubted his capacity to love, named studies and science, called his mind a prison. None however knew him like I did, love me yes, he did I saw stars in his eyes looking at me as if I was the moon bringing light to each night. One Christmas he gave me a bike, all I had asked for was skates, was just how he was. I wish to stop writing love poems to the ghost he become buried amongst dirt and mountains. I cover my mirrors at night to avoid his visits.

You said you loved me yes, and believe it I suppose I do, doomed to fail however as neither of us knew the true name for love. You saw it as a closed fist, me as absence. I’m not sure which one was strongest when your lips collided with mine, all I know is your skin felt like fire and I named it the strongest love I know. I wish to stop writing love poems to the boy I called a man, I have left you in this hospital bed alone, I am sorry, but love doesn’t fix these cuts anymore.

I wish to stop writing love poems, when I can barely remember what love feels like anymore, my heart is bear my hands empty and when tonight falls you will all be gone from my bed, I give up on believing in love, it serves me no purpose in the dark. 

-May Smith

[4amwriting]

whiskey inspiration

When poets talk of whiskey inspiration all I see is your eyes at 4am, and how you burnt on the way down, just the same as the drink from my grandfather’s cupboard. I don’t know which one holds the answer anymore, so I drink you just the same as the bottle, my lips on yours tipping back, until you wash over me drowning my brain in you until escape becomes a memory and the bar tender knows me by name. Laying here reading the freckles on your back as if they are a language no one ever taught me at school. You boy, you should come with a warning label; don’t drive don’t operate heavy machinery don’t fall in love I am too far gone now to ever be sober again. Instead I’ll clutch you tight as if you were my last drink of the night, place my hands on your hips, and find my inspiration in your whiskey brown eyes.

-May Smith

[4amwriting]

To my mother

I am told that I should love you; media, life and family beating down my door, they say I should love you like spring and warmth yet I ask what, what have you ever done to deserve my love? respect yes I’ll grant you that, respect for a women who would not back down but love for hands that never held mine no love you I shall not. Can not even. On nights when monsters haunted my mind, when they creept up my spine and took every inch of myself with them, where were you? Here? No never here. It was after all too hard for you, him you understood, fought and breathed for but here I am neither to broken nor too perfect to warrant your attention. I am a sorry, I know I am the daughter you wanted but if I had my choice you would not be the mother I chose. But ifs are useless and you despaired halfway through this poem anyhow. So listen carefully the next time I said goodnight, because one of these days it will be goodbye and you will have lost all chances to ever build a home with me.

-May Smith

[4amwriting]

21

At 5 it sounded like silence and tasted like fear. My hand upon my heart promising someone else’s idea of god I will believe if only he fixed you. ignorance in the belief you needed fixing, innocence in the belief things could be fixed.

At 7 it sounded like school yard bullies and tasted like salt. Oceans filled with the tears I cried. move an inch and they’ll see you, breath and they’ll get you.

 At 11 it sounded like punk rock and tasted like blood from the inside of my check. Heart beats in time to drum sets and black jeaned boys. The year I first learnt to bleed for the future and not just the past.

At 14 it sounded like the air leaving my lunges and tasted like vodka. The numb cure to forget that you no longer filled my life, my earth, my future. Freedom always comes with a price, your life for my future drowned in the bottom of this bottle, if only she saw it that way. instead she turned and I sunk lower.

At 16 it sounded like love songs on bad speakers and tasted like his lips. A chemical mix of me and him, of want and need, I was never that good at science see and even now, I still struggle to understand how one person can taste like home.

At 18 it sounded like cheers and clinkies, slow capping across the stage, it tasted like smoke and damp grass. The strange blue hue of sunlight through a tent, as I sung away my last few moments youth, Standing at the edge of choice, I have already forgotten weather I jumped, or merely fell pushed like so many others into this world.

At 20 it sounds like rage 20 it sounds like hate, 20 it sounds like disappointment 20 it sounds like hospital beds rolling down corridors, 20 its sounds  pill bottles and silent screams held back by will power and poisoned lips, 20 it sounds like bone against skin your knuckles my stomach, your hands my throat, your face my fist, 20 it sounds like echoes of want and need hope for some kind of god dam future, 20 it taste like blood and salt, 20 it taste like bruises, 20 it taste like hospital food and home brew, left to stew in the kitchen for far too long,   20 it’s the end I have given up on you and you on me, I have given up on future and forever’s.

At 21 it smells like spring and taste like new mourning due. At 21 I pray for the chance to be 22.

-May Smith

[4amwriting]

Will not

I will not write sonnets to the sound of her voice, her smile and the freckles on her check. I will not write lyrics to the cadence of his laugh, or the way his hair falls in his face. I will not memorise the routes we drive or the miles we went in order to remember their jokes and how it felt to belong. I will not forget and I will not remember and I will not love them all.

-May Smith

[4amwriting]

a mistake

  We have both been made of mistakes, of other peoples hopes and dreams, they project failure onto our lips and call it normality, we seem somehow to even fail at that . Most days I try and forget her eyes when she named me her third failure, a mistake you can’t take back, she said, not once its already got a pulse. I should have realised the last time I kissed you was goodbye but see I had come to accustom to you tasting like my own mistakes. It’s hard to pick hellos from I hate you, but I’ll try till both our lips are blooded with forever’s, always, no end, and goodnight. I am a sailor constantly searching for a shore they keep moving. I think I saw a light house once, but then again just as likely it was the fires of hell, certainly not saint peter at the gates. I gave up believing in saints they don’t make enough failures for me, I want the bastard saints the depressed gods the bi-polar Titians, I want rain and storm and rage, I want madness and mistakes, that is after all, all I am, and all I have to claim a mistake, the third, just like your lips and the way I climb back into your bed.

-May Smith