I resent your success.

I hate your corpulence and your life is so fucking nice smiles.

I want to stick you with a knife.

You have everything and still

you bleed that barrel bone dry.

I listen in disgust as you force feed

your bloated gut, pig,

I hate having to use the same toilet as you.

You fart in bed and I have to open a window it's so rank.

Fuck off and die.

I've heard say that you are never more alive than when death is but a step away, and I can see that. I can see that illuminating light that never burns brighter than a moment before it is extinguished forever.

I have lived it on two occasions and can say that at those exact moments my mind was in turmoil.

First time that heart attack hits, it catches you always when the last thing on your mind is death. You're doing your thing and concentrating on some mundane triviality and suddenly your breathing becomes laboured, your chest tightens, and before you can say what the fuck you're caught up in a boiling vortex that leaves you breathless and struggling to survive.

The other time I was watching TV and eating a sandwich, some food become lodged in my throat and I couldn't breath, everything stopped as my brain struggled to get me breathing again but all I could do was feel the heat, gagging, desperate for air and slowly turning blue. Suddenly, I swallowed the wedge of meat and air flooded into my lungs as Death smiled and walked away. Man, that was beyond intense.

So then I have come close and I know that normality can stop at any time. It's scary. Proper scary.

Any one of us can surrender our lives at any time and be hurled into an eternity of nothing without even being aware of it, and it's that suddenness that sends shudders up my spine.

But should it? I'm assuming that when you are dead, you don't know that you are dead, so is it that different from life?

We go about our day to day business habitually do we not? We set alarms to wake us up, to remind us of things and we attend functions, and parties and go swimming all with a rehearsed normality that precludes the need for thought, thus freeing our brains to remember more important things, like saving money, paying bills or making small talk.

Occasionally we are as I am now, enjoying the last days of my holiday, and jolly nice it is too. But, although we live, how appreciative are we of it? How often do we stop for a moment to savour the fact that we are living, sentient beings? I never do, I'm far too busy catching Pokemon, or shovelling burgers into my face, or babysitting (that's enough babysitting!).

Ask yourselves a question here, what does it feel like to be alive?

Go on, do it. Does it feel good or not so good? I myself cannot answer that because I just....am.

So how can I describe life?

Life is a series of adventures that culminate in Death. Well, yes, I could put it that way and I wouldn't be too far off the mark. But life is different for everybody isn't it?

We are given a chance to experience it, a fleeting opportunity to breathe air and walk on grass, to gather rosebuds. Life is truly a gift.

bring me a ladder

taller than anything you've ever known

let me hold it steady while you climb into the depths of your own soul

and when you've reached the final rung

set your feet down on the foundation of our trust

and hold the ladder steady so that I might join you

slowly but ever surely

gaining ground

becoming us

All my life I was a slave

Slave for all your requests

"Work harder! This isn't enough"

Is just what you would always muster

For years I've longed for your affection

Yearning for all the attention

You never took notice of me when I'm at my best

But at my worsts, you're first to infest

Now I'm ruined from inside out

All complements, I just laugh it out loud

They all look up but still I look down

You're voice, like record, leaving me broken and damned

Hate saturates your words,

Like alcohol does your breath.

You lived without loving,

And now there's nothing left.

Pain suffocates my hopes,

You tie around me my noose.

You lived without seeing,

And now your grip's so loose.

Oh god.

I have homework.

Did I finish the chapter in this book....

What am I going to eat for breakfast in the morning?

Ugh, I wish it wasn't so late.

What time is it anyway?

I wish I didn't hate everyone so much.

I wish everyone didn't hate me so much.

I wonder if I'm annoying.

No one probably cares.

What if I just didn't wake up tomorrow?

Would anyone notice?

I wish I could sleep all day.

Oh well. I guess it doesn't matter.

I'm going to bed.

Journal opened wide

Hands poised to write

Gears in my head are turning

Since last night i have been thinking

Yet--

I can't compose anything

I can't find a subject that's interesting

What the hell is happening

I need some enlightening

how can you even say

the way the world

was just the earth before

you saw their face

how can you describe

the way the wind

was just a breeze before

it became a hurricane

I said nothing as everything I never knew cascaded from their lips like rain water from the gutters sputtering as a flood of confessions destroyed the damn I never knew I'd built around the tiny town containing the tears I'd never told and as their ocean of pain infiltrated my pond of Dead Sea ache I could feel myself rolling with the waves of our mutual heartbreak and when our lips collided it was less like the glaciers I was used to and so much more like an earthquake

two tech tonic plates never intended to be brought together creating a catastrophe, pure entropy, with nothing but a black hole between our bodies we were sucked in and before either of us knew it we had drowned and the sea of our tears turned sweet

separate we look back and break away knowing now that we're ok nothing will be the same but this decay we've created will always remain to remind us all that nothing ever came from truth telling and all we ever really wanted was uniqueness but the truth is we were searching for a likeness we never found

And you came out shrieking. The womb opened up and set you free, slick and hideous. Your face was scrunched. Your head was a malformed cone from being pushed through your mother’s chute. The doctor slapped you on the ass or stuck a tube up your nose for suction. You sputtered, snorted, and began to bawl. You wailed red-faced and beat your fists at the air.

Round one. Begin.

You learn to crawl. Learn to walk. Learn to defecate in the toilet instead of in your pants. Your bones ache down to the marrow with growing pains. Time shoves you on the rack and starts cranking the chains to make your limbs longer. You’re a gangly thing. Together with others like you, you find people who are less or more gangly and laugh at them. Camaraderie.

Round two. Get in the ring boy, you ain’t done.

Say goodbye to the nest. It falls out from under you and you don’t have wings. Walk along the ground pecking at the breadcrumbs tumbling from higher perches. Get shit on by the birds sitting on those higher perches. Wait until the fat cat comes along and eats one of them. Watch the feathers float down. Hop out of the way of the blood spatter. Climb up and take their place. Corporate ladder.

Round three. Broken? Boy, please. You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Find the love of your live. Give her your love without reserve. Reach your fingers into your chest and rip your heart out. Fall to your knees before her and hold it up still beating. Keep smiling as she plunges her acrylic nails into the ventricles with quiet pops. Keep moving until you find someone with packing tape and a defibrillator. Settle down, but mostly settle.

Round four. Tired already? Oh, there’s no throwing in the towel now.

Hate your job. Work it anyway. Enter the data you don’t care about to get a result that is meaningless to you. Turn in that project. Start another one that looks exactly the same. Give yourself ulcers with coffee to keep yourself awake. Pay a doctor to remove the ulcers. Pay a therapist to tell you why you still never wake up. The alarm is shrieking. It’s Monday again.

Round five. Relax. Put some ice on it and the swelling will go down.

Retirement has come. You’re back in diapers and have a rash. Turn on the TV and watch wheel of fortune. Notice your wife is knitting and wonder when she learned to knit. Look in the mirror and think about offering to play the crypt keeper if they ever do a remake. It’s half past five. Swallow your pills dry.

Round six. Push it to the end, baby.

Look around you. You’re in a hospital bed. People are smiling. There’s the kid you shoved a bully off of. There’s the guy you gave a job. There’s your kids who were never wanting. There’s your loyal wife.

Ding ding. That’s a match.