When I wake from my nightmaresI’m more afraid of the breath in my lungs than whatever might be chasing me.

In May I keep count.Two and a half more days of school;five between exams.Twenty thousand words of a noveland four poems and six borrowed books.More numbers to add to counting my pillsand trying to work out how to stay awake.

I want her sinful arms wrapped around me,bloodied and angry and triumphant in shame.

But nobody writes fairy talesabout the ugly and poemsare not there for the brokenand I will never find myselfin the words of a hymnnor will any whispered prayerever say my name(which name, which meam I looking for?)because I am shoutingat a cross splintered into piecesby my angry fists, and cryingat the stained glass fallinglike killing rain around me.

I cut off all my hair, cut awayat the soft curves of my clothinguntil I have edges once again,using my body like broken glassto slice at the world around me.I have to take something back,because I have nothing more to give.Eloi, eloi, lema sabachthani?

In July I thinkabout the idea of being cursed(because it’s not strange to me;when I look in mirrors I’mnot there, blank walls gleamingwith bloody condensation,and my shadow behind memocking me with his persistencewhen I keep telling himto leave just to leave to let me be).

Some people unfold into a thousand wordsand others never speak to me at all,never take the blame at all,never look at me at all – I wonder whyhe never looks at me at all (perhapshe cannot bear to meet my eyes).

I cannot love my neighbour as myselfbecause you bid me do him no harm,and I cannot love my enemiesbecause they keep crawling inside meand tearing out all my emotions:if I am made in your image then youare not somebody I want to seebecause why believe in the broken,why depend on the weak,why seek the lost and bewilderedwhose only answer is “please”?