colour

it's messy inside my head
a lot of effort goes into looking this composed,
but drop by at three a.m. and
you'll see the cracks


it's the stains i've tried to get rid of
but they just keep coming back
and in the daylight you'd paint me
adequate - i blend in rather well


but when the darkness comes
and the quiet seeps in through the floor boards
i lose the keys and the doors start rattling


(l e t m e o u t l e t m e o u t)


it's messy inside my head
there's things here you don't want to see and
thoughts you don't want to hear



what happened to me, i ask
in the eye of the storm when there is
a stillness in my limbs and a lull
in the back of my throat



wasn't i full of colour, i think
didn't they think me full of promise


is this all there is, i wonder
is this all there is



there used to be a time
when i spent my days dreaming
instead of locking myself away

strangers

sometimes i am torn
between which words to pick
my thoughts race and break every speed limit,
inside my rib cage; a fire that won’t go out no matter
how i try to dim the lights.


there is no on and off switch on my soul
i want to find the pause the rewind
so i can make sense of the click shutter flash;
of the thoughts that race me by,
faster than the light, quicker than a heartbeat.



but i am a bookshop after dark
filled with secrets and worlds to be discovered
yet on lock down, behind chains and switched off lights
there’s a password on my heart to keep the strangers out.

(everyone’s become a stranger now)