Anxiety
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Riddle me this, with larks rising and eyelids carved with symbols. In ivory tusk, she stalks the ground and spreads herself like a ballerina. In the second sun of Autumn, all divided hearts are replaced with crescent moons. She’s floating over snow, and suspended from beams of light. Her lips warm like honey, a… Read more
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Drinking beer while reading the Atrocity Exhibition, I remember the taste of their lips and the ageless love they held in their widened eyes. Hushed fears as they sighed beneath a sky of hidden stars. Leaves and death, in every breath that ever left their lungs. Now just an empty bedroom, the evening tastes… Read more
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Waiting for the ghosts to come, the hours pass slowly. Pacing the floor, with bodies outlined in chalk, the rain outside is ceaseless. Those who have gone before, wanting so desperately to come back. On windswept nights when a glass of wine is waiting to be drunk, and no one else is around, they call… Read more
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Even in those lowest moments, you keep your dignity. Even when things get so lonely, you smile despite the despair gnawing away at you like a rat chewing through cables. Sunken chests, and the way you paint your face even when no one is looking. Such beauty ignored in favour of sleaze, but cheap… Read more
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Hands trembling while seated at a splendid table, nausea rises and takes hold. Sweat trickling down your brow, you repeatedly swallow to stop yourself from being sick. There was a time when this kind of thing never happened. There was a time when to exist came naturally. But not anymore. Sat at the stupid… Read more
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A taxi to your arms while running through the snow until I can’t breathe. Panic attacks in the shower, and as you hold me close, you just gaze into the whites of my tear-stained eyes. All this pain, hidden for so long within a maze constructed of damaged feelings and uncaring exteriors. Smoking in… Read more
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Mental Illness and the unravelling nature of visions beyond your control. The way your head flowers with cancerous thoughts. Dead skin and daydreams, too much saliva, and not enough love. There’s a poltergeist within your brain, thinking things you don’t want it to. Drifting away, the day is absent. Your eyes always open, never… Read more
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It starts with an absence of light. Dead lovers with their arms holding you tighter and tight. The shame on my face makes it easy to see, even when no one else is looking. In fact, it’s always so much harder when no one else is looking. Walking through fields of trees, nature makes me… Read more
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Whiskey in some cheap hotel room, as cheap as dreams and thin bedsheets. Pissing in the sink while dead to the world, then stumbling around not wanting to fall into the clutches of sleep. Junk food. Greasy hair. Naked as the bath runs while the sound of two lovers fucking leaves me feeling hyper… Read more
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Evening star as the streets call us home. Barely existing, yet alive in each other’s arms. There’s a time to be silent. In the middle of a storm when the town turns its back on us, and when those around are lost in the need to breathe. Captured in a single photograph, a girl… Read more
Author S. K. Nicholas 