I remember the night death offered me

a tempting invite to fall asleep,

wrapped in anaesthetic snow.

Closer to caring about the icy, cold release

of unbearable, mangled tension,

than I was about waking up

the next day.

I imagined, sliding down the sword-sharp chute of 'given up' and landing by the river to blissfully freeze in a wayward,

drifting demise.

I declined.

He came back, with a wounded fracture crowbarred open by rusted metal, and incessant desperation to control. His own guilt - a formidable shadow, eclipsed my view.

So I sat, head in hands, with no saviour on my side. The only road lit was a hot,

angry release from the bars of

intolerable anxiety. A road that lured me, willed me, to crash my car.

"Escape" he whispered.

Dreams replaced with paralysis, haunting sanctuary, safety, and home. Screaming demons piercing the early hours of new days, and prolonging the nights.

He was losing his grip.

Now only able to reach me between asleep and awake, I dropped fear,

took his hand,

and let him drag me down.

There was - no resistance.

And it killed him.

I was tired, exhausted, but anxiety dominated and rendered the escape of sleep redundant. My feet, cold and crippled on the floor of my concrete cell. I was so used to the pain that I'd discarded my cries after an eternity of being engulfed by darkness. I could hear the whimpers of others rising up into the already dense fog of despair. 

I tried at first, when I still had a soul, when I still felt life; I tried to connect. I remember it once felt natural to be affectionate, it once felt natural to trust. I learned though, quickly and brutally. I saw whenever I dared meet the eyes of our warders, that there was no connection, no friendship, no compassion. 

There's something worse than being hated and detested, something far more wretched. To beg for mercy and it be cast upon deaf ears, to plea for your life when it plummets upon padlocked hearts and visionless sight, when you're irrelevant and people look right through you; then... you're invisible. 

My pain scorches.

My fear swamps.

My screams pierce.

 And my skin bleeds. 

I saw a fraction of humanity once. The day I momentarily jolted back to life. Seeing that stranger walk into the prison, a day I'll never forget. That stranger who looked a lot like me, except, he was free. He strolled past our cells with an air of joyful innocence, kind eyes, and a pure soul. He stopped briefly as he passed my cell. He stopped and looked, right at me. His smiling eyes in direct communication with my own. He SAW me. It was the closest thing to affection I ever remember and the jolt it gave me was like a defibrillator to the heart. 

The warder came in almost immediately and I feared for the stranger's life. I shouted out to warn him, and that's when I saw it. The connection. The warder ran straight over and launched his hands towards the stranger’s neck. I winced, awaiting the violence. When I heard no scream I looked up to see the hands thrown around the stranger were in an embrace, of love and tenderness.

My head thudded in an agony of confusion. If the warder could SEE the stranger and was capable of such gentle kindness, why was I treated so differently? Why was I invisible? Maybe soon, he'll see me too… and then I'll be loved like the stranger. It gave me hope. For a while. But it didn't last. 

Soon came the dark day. 

I'd been allowed outside and I was walking around inhaling the freedom of fresh air, when two men dragged me into a narrow hallway. I couldn't move. I was so choked with fear that I couldn't breathe. They straddled me and rammed something hard inside me. 

Twisting. 

Tugging. 

I screamed out. 

They laughed. 

That's the day it began and was repeated, more than I allow myself to remember. I killed myself that day, emotionally. The extinction of light, led my mind to black, and I blocked out this hellhole of a nightmare. 

Sometime after, I don't know how long, I was brought into this cell. Confined. Unable to move. Pain. Blood. Agonising pain. My mind was so fucked up I had no realisation I'd gone into labour. I can't remember much about it. They took my child, I know that. Of the tiny fragments I recall, that was the most painful. 

The attachment you feel after giving birth is so fierce. Mothers around the planet will generally risk their life to protect that of their babies and when that's taken away from you, the grief of loss, the mourning, is desperate despair. 

I wasn't the only invisible soul trapped in inescapable torment. I watched as they dragged another girl out onto the floor, whilst she convulsed in agonising seizures and spasms. "Hurry up and die." the warder sneered.

I sensed death. It was near. 

We'd heard the rumours, but you can detach yourself from a story. When you read of horrors you don't want to believe, you divert your consciousness so reality remains veiled. Like all diversions though, at some point it must rejoin the road, the intended direction of travel, the highway of your subconscious that remains ever aware of the terrifying truth.

The stories that echoed in locked-away thoughts of being shackled, of tongs being attached to their heads, of huge electric currents passing through their brains until unconscious. And, of the times when the warders fucked it up, watching as the poor bastard writhed in a hopeless, miserable struggle. 

Agonising electric shocks.

Paralysed.

Unable to move.

But still conscious. 

Regardless of the outcome, conscious or not, both resulted in the same sequential destruction; blood vessels in their throats slit and then left to bleed to their mortal demise. 

So here we are, born on death row. I don't know why we are here or what we did wrong. I don't think there is anything I could do to change this outcome or to escape my fate. It would seem my life has been overlooked, translucently insignificant, and my death commissioned before I was born. 

I never understood the anger. The force of which was so torrential I could only imagine it came from a heart of disturbed evil, but then, I'd remember the stranger and the embrace of genuine love. 

I once heard a warder scream, "Shut the fuck up! No-one gives a shit about your squealing 'cause you'll taste so good when you're dead!" He said they'd cook our flesh and feast upon our lifeless bodies.

The stranger: a dog. 

Me: a pig. 

So very alike with four legs, equally affectionate and intelligent, capable of feeling love, fear, hunger, loss, stress, and pain. One adored, the other ignored. 

There's something worse than being hated and detested, something far more wretched. To beg for mercy and it be cast upon deaf ears, to plea for your life when it plummets upon padlocked hearts and visionless sight, when you're irrelevant and people look right through you; then... you're invisible.

Lit sparsely by the 

dim glow of a lamp, 

I look up at the 

ceiling of this 

unfamiliar room.

I can't stop thinking 

about our shared night 

sky, the creative high

and sudden goodbye 

from that early time.

Imagination 

infinite, expanding

with you. The music,

the games we'd play 

those dancing days.

Naked essence, raw,

the core of your being

draws - the stars - closer.

Two pieces, soldered,

so beautifully present.

It's 2am and your 

last sentence is stuck,

between my conscious 

day and soon to be 

unconscious night. 

This space, between the 

mattress and the beams, 

is filled with dreams, 

leading my thoughts to bleed. 

I can't switch off that light.

He watched her in her deepest sleep. 

Nail marks scarred her fragile cheeks. 

Her breath so gentle, her body weak. 

Even in rest she depicted tragedy. 

Crying in the bathroom, she scratched away the sadness drowning her face. Staring at her own reflection, a beckoning insanity, coruscating. She’d watched him, these last few days, and wondered whether he had any awareness of his consistently communicated self-sacrifice, his adamant certainty of annihilation. The deepening torture hollowing out her organs, dragging her to a hell she so effortlessly graced. Elegantly waltzing the flames, like the devil itself. She laughed through the despair, at the acceptance of belonging, at the recognition of wanting to be a part of its kill, briefly, dancing with its inimitable, endearing force of lost.

Somewhere between outer space and terra firma, I float. The past four days perfect in initial memory, until I recall the half dozen times my heart fractured. Four days, so simply quarantined, pristinely segregated from every other touch of intruding life, of veins connected pumping tainted blood into the thick of it, barricading the purest form of just - being. Without the eyes, the thoughts, the work, the judgements, the family calling, paths crossing, impacting, changing, distorting the course with an array of agendas. Four glorious days of just... being.

And with that came the dark. The death. The tears. The fleeting, lightening strike of now, of happiness that quickly tore away, back to what was known. 

She wanted to scream through the storm.

The turbulent shake, troubled forlorn.

His smiling eyes so full of grit. 

Unaware of his compelling beauty.

Dying.

His love for her 

unrestrained.

He'd rage 

against her doom.

It's only what 

she makes it.

And make it 

she will…. soon.

I went to this

invisible 

art exhibition 

and walked into 

an empty

room of white

walls and a fine

vapour mist

that gently

moved as I 

breathed it in

the space

and depth that 

inhaled eloquence

an elegant sheet

of satin and a 

skip of playful

freedom we

joined the

sound of the 

mill cascading into

the flow

below

the fields and

splendour of

night’s parade.

It wasn’t until

I left the room that 

I saw the sign 

describing the blind 

piece of 

   ….art? 

It said the 

mist that 

kissed 

my lungs was 

formed 

from water 

used to wash 

the bruised 

abused 

bodies 

of murder victims 

in a Mexican 

morgue 

following autopsy.

Death inhaled and 

experienced as light 

when viewed 

in a place 

of visionless 

sight. 

The deceased 

connected to 

life through 

pores and cells 

embracing 

the living 

recycling 

the dead 

the existing 

carrying 

history from wars 

as the fog of 

the corpse 

soars 

and creeps 

and penetrates 

deep 

into bodies 

of observers 

the emptiness 

full 

the dirtiness 

clean 

at an 

installation 

I’ve

never seen. 

An empty 

deathly room of 

white 

of struggles 

and drugs 

that forced

violent 

fights 

a place that 

conflict could

not resist

a cause to find

peace with

those

that are mist.

Inspired by the ‘Invisible’ exhibition at the Hayward Gallery where I discovered the work of Teresa Margolles and her installation ‘Vaporizacion’.

I was tired, exhausted, but anxiety dominated and rendered the escape of sleep redundant. My feet, cold and crippled on the floor of my concrete cell. I was so used to the pain that I'd discarded my cries after an eternity of being engulfed by darkness. I could hear the whimpers of others rising up into the already dense fog of despair.

I tried at first, when I still had a soul, when I still felt life; I tried to connect. I remember it once felt natural to be affectionate, it once felt natural to trust. I learned though, quickly and brutally. I saw whenever I dared meet the eyes of our warders, that there was no connection, no friendship, no compassion.

There's something worse than being hated and detested, something far more wretched. To beg for mercy and it be cast upon deaf ears, to plea for your life when it plummets upon padlocked hearts and visionless sight, when you're irrelevant and people look right through you; then, you're invisible.

My pain scorches.

My fear swamps.

My screams pierce.

And my skin bleeds.

I saw a fraction of humanity once. The day I momentarily jolted back to life. Seeing that stranger walk into the prison, a day I'll never forget. That stranger who looked a lot like me, except, he was free. He strolled past our cells with an air of joyful innocence, kind eyes, and a pure soul. He stopped briefly as he passed my cell. He stopped and looked, right at me. His smiling eyes in direct communication with my own. He SAW me. It was the closest thing to affection I ever remember and the jolt it gave me was like a defibrillator to the heart.

The warder came in almost immediately and I feared for the stranger's life. I shouted out to warn him, and that's when I saw it. The relationship. The warder ran straight over and launched his hands towards the stranger’s neck. I winced, awaiting the violence. When I heard no scream I looked up to see the hands thrown around the stranger were in an embrace, of love and tenderness.

My head thudded in an agony of confusion. If the warder could SEE the stranger and was capable of such gentle kindness, why was I treated so differently? Why was I invisible? Maybe soon, he'll see me too… and then I'll be loved like the stranger. It gave me hope. For a while. But it didn't last.

Soon came the dark day.

I'd been allowed outside and I was walking around inhaling the freedom of fresh air, when two men dragged me into a narrow hallway. I couldn't move. I was so choked with fear that I couldn't breathe. They straddled me and rammed something hard inside me.

Twisting.

Tugging.

I screamed out.

They laughed.

That's the day it began and was repeated, more than I allow myself to remember. I killed myself that day, emotionally. The extinction of light, led my mind to black, and I blocked out this hellhole of a nightmare.

Sometime after, I don't know how long, I was brought into this cell. Confined. Unable to move. Pain. Blood. Agonising pain. My mind was so fucked up I had no realisation I'd gone into labour. I can't remember much about it. They took my child, I know that. Of the tiny fragments I recall, that was the most painful.

The attachment you feel after giving birth is so fierce. Mothers around the planet will generally risk their life to protect that of their babies and when that's taken away from you, the grief of loss, the mourning, is desperate despair.

I wasn't the only invisible soul trapped in inescapable torment. I watched as they dragged another girl out onto the floor, whilst she convulsed in agonising seizures and spasms. "Hurry up and die." the warder sneered.

I sensed death. It was near.

We'd heard the rumours, but you can detach yourself from a story. When you read of horrors you don't want to believe, you divert your consciousness so reality remains veiled. Like all diversions though, at some point it must rejoin the road, the intended direction of travel, the highway of your subconscious that remains ever aware of the terrifying truth.

The stories that echoed in locked-away thoughts of being shackled, of tongs being attached to their heads, of huge electric currents passing through their brains until unconscious. And, of the times when the warders fucked it up, watching as the poor bastard writhed in a hopeless, miserable struggle.

Agonising electric shocks.

Paralysed.

Unable to move.

But still conscious.

Regardless of the outcome, conscious or not, both resulted in the same sequential destruction; blood vessels in their throats slit and then left to bleed to their mortal demise.

So, here we are, born on death row. I don't know why we are here or what we did wrong. I don't think there is anything I could do to change this outcome or to escape my fate. It would seem my life has been overlooked, translucently insignificant, and my death commissioned before I was born.

I never understood the anger. The force of which was so torrential I could only imagine it came from a heart of disturbed evil, but then, I'd remember the stranger and the embrace of genuine love.

I once heard a warder scream, "Shut the fuck up! No-one gives a shit about your squealing cause you'll taste so good when you're dead!" He said they'd cook our flesh and feast upon our lifeless bodies.

The stranger: a dog.

Me: a pig.

So very alike with four legs, equally affectionate and intelligent, capable of feeling love, fear, hunger, loss, stress, and pain. One adored, the other ignored.

There's something worse than being hated and detested, something far more wretched. To beg for mercy and it be cast upon deaf ears, to plea for your life when it plummets upon padlocked hearts and visionless sight, when you're irrelevant and people look right through you; then, you're invisible.

Inhaling deep, the voltage

of present, expanding lungs,

engaging blood with consciousness.

Aware of this exact moment,

this existing second in time.

Feet grounded, mind still, revelling

in light of life,

now.

Drifting away, the force

of what was, descends the dog

of black. Tethered hearts,

unsure, in Robert's yellow wood.

Lost in times that don't exist,

diluted by detail,

dragging just being,

to death.

Gazing up, the detachment

of the Universe echoes peace.

A freedom within a lesson

of graceful insignificance,

resting, eternally, effortlessly

besotted, by the acceptance

of energy

evolving.

A portal of uncertain absolute clarity, wistful thoughts, and blinding vision from a furnace of unfiltered light. My blood, flooded. Glass walls overfilled with dark, fuliginous red wine and blissful highs of eloquent, uncensored intoxication.

Mournful warning, striking blows, through somnambulant, repetitive nights.

The sky lit, a green galaxy of affectionate,

dangerous, historical, shades of heaven.

To never know would be a sin, a lie of living, the marvel of... words, four thousand miles of imagination, seized, in a second of elongated moments.

A world darkened by wild swans, tamed. A complex lake of stricken beauty.

In love, I fell.

It would account for an awful lot, my discovery.

When I think back to Thomas Raddison's 9th birthday party in 1988, for example. The party I didn't go to. Thomas was one of the cool kids and in the year above me at school, so to be invited was quite a significant symbol of social status, for an 8 year old. And yet, I decided instead to sit on the step of our front door, with my Dad, watching the lightening and counting the seconds between the flash and the crashing explosion of thunder. The excitement of sharing such a magnificent display of planetary activity, captivated by the ferocity, danger and beauty of it all. The sight, the sound, the smell, the emotion, the being, right next to my Dad. Tiny fragments of insignificance observing the mighty kingdom of nature. I was in my element! Who in their right mind would choose to be indoors playing a game of pass the parcel over that?!

Every other child that had been invited, it would seem.

I was shunned in school on the Monday following that. In fact, my two best friends, Lydia Smith and Paula Lenny decided they didn't need me as their friend anymore and excluded me for the rest of eternity. By eternity, I of course mean two weeks. Which was as good as eternity to an 8 year old.

School bored me. I didn't connect with the subjects and I longed for 3pm so that I could get out of there and rejoin my favourite world of imagination. School terminated my freedom of infinite exploration on a daily basis and slammed me down into a limited box of gloom.

At playtime, I'd join in with the kids playing KP (where you chase each other and if you get caught you can choose whether to be kissed or punched, hence 'KP'. I always opted for the latter.) but my favourite pastime was lying on the grass, with my feet lifted up so they were almost above my head, and I could pretend the world was upside down and the sky was in fact, the ground. I wanted gravity to be back to front so I could land on the clouds.

What was unusual to most seemed like obvious normality, to me. Now, I know why.

As an adult I couldn't understand why in meetings people would take themselves so seriously and talk for 15 minutes around the same point, saying the same sentences in slightly different structures, repeating the same message using a variant of the same words they'd just used. It was like a display, a show of superiority and importance, about subject matters that were as interesting to me as they were at school. A frustrating waste of time. I didn't talk for the sake of talking, I spoke when I had something of relevance to say. Forget the guff. Roll on 5pm so I can get out of here and rejoin my favourite world of imagination.

Work terminated my freedom of infinite exploration on a daily basis and slammed me down into a limited box of gloom.

I stopped watching daily T.V. It bored me. Space was my passion. How could it not be?! I joined an astronomy group and would look up at the night sky and imagine gravity was back to front, so that I could fall through the atmosphere and land in another galaxy. Recognising constellations, seeing Jupiter showing off his splendour, the magnificence of the moon and the miraculousness of meteor showers. Captivated by the infinite, incomprehensible complexity of it all. The sight, the sound, the smell, the emotion, the being, right there as part of the whole. A tiny fragment of insignificance observing the mighty kingdom of the universe. I was in my element! Who in their right mind would choose to be indoors watching T.V. over that?!

Lydia Smith and Paula Lenny, obviously.

It all makes sense now.

I was cleaning my apartment, in a little market town of Hertfordshire, listening to a random, American radio show, online. They started talking about a subject I'd never heard of before. They used a word I was completely unfamiliar with. It was as though they'd heard my thoughts because immediately the presenter went on to explain exactly what a 'changeling' was. I laughed. Only in America. Then for the next hour I entertained myself listening to the rantings of crazed lunatics talking about aliens replacing human babies with their own offspring whilst they slowly infiltrated planet Earth.

Hilarious.

At the end of the show, I decided to play some music and walked over to my bookcase upon which my iPod sat. I selected 'shuffle songs' and went back to organising my CDs in alphabetical order. The instantly recognisable sound of 'The Doors' filled the room and I realised, despite being a huge fan, that I didn't know the name of this particular track. I stopped, got up, and walked back to the bookcase. Touched the iPod to make it light up again and leaned in closer. My heart, froze...

Jim Morrison looked back at me, pointing his hand towards me as per the cover of 'The Very Best Of' and next to him, the name of the track...

'The Changeling'

Time stopped.

My brain particles splattered.

My soul was sucked up out into the universe, thrown at the speed of light into a parallel existence, did a cartwheel, numerous fucking show-off backflips and then hurtled me full pelt, back into the confines of my apartment where I found myself still staring into the screen of my iPod.

There's coincidence and then there's outright ridiculousness. This was the type that made me text my mother.

'Mum, this may sound like an odd question, but... when I was little, did you ever leave the room and then when you came back, maybe the following morning, thought I looked different?'

Her reply was instant...

'No Amy, you're not a changeling.'

AH HA!! GOTCHA! How could she POSSIBLY know I was referring to that?! She knew! And her reaction was a panic driven cover-up. That was all the evidence I needed. It was quite clear.

I'm a changeling.

There are loads of us, you know. Tiny fragments of extraterrestrial significance, observing the mighty kingdom of Earth, able to catapult ourselves onto other celestial bodies with the simple power of thought, and imagination. Most of whom don't even realise they're alien, but those of you who suspect, probably are. I'm in my element! Who in their right mind would want to be human, sat indoors, over that?!

The wretched space emerged from soulless nights and a wincing truth that coldly crept inside. Scattered emotions lacking veracity refusing to merge into one solid fragment of absolute understanding.

Loveless kisses twinkling like festive decoration, fleeting displays of temporary, seasonal magic, interpreted by the observer as beautiful, yet soon to be returned to their unlit cardboard box.

Nonsensical elongated disconnection, a destiny drained of graceful desire. Withered sadness dispersed upon a perceived, integral, structural necessity. Eroding.

Vessels navigating through darkness unexpectedly guided by the glow of a lighthouse. Unseen rocks illuminated, shattering boundaries of familiarity. The light enchanting charters of life... for the living.