You can just sing

Button-minded

I've gradually, and then suddenly, grown apart from being such a tiny thing. I'm still quiet, still little button-minded, blossoming right out of an open palm. But maybe I'm a touch louder, a touch more upfront, a little heavier too- with open things, with possible things and hopeful things, a shock of mess but a smile to go with it. I think about holding hands a lot of the time, rubbing shoulders, and I help elderly ladies carry their bags onto their buses, chat to them about their grandchildren, and I don't feel lonely when they smile back at me. I think too about dancing, about how I'd like to try it again in the New Year with my girl friend. I've become fresh water running down skin and wettened eyelashes. I don't know if I'll ever be comfortable in my own skin because I haven't felt connected to this body since I stopped feeding it for the first time, and then forgot how to feed it completely. I'm really making it up as I go along, but I do feel some connection to something else- something that isn't my physical self but something like threads, stretching and contracting with every movement I make. And I think of interconnectedness. I think it so strange that now I'm more aware of my little button-self but somehow not so terrified. Somehow established and sinking into a bottle of warm, brightly coloured sand.
I think Ella would be proud of where I am. I miss her more than I can possibly say. I never believed in an afterlife really, but I hope there is one, just so that eventually I can get there and see her again.

Spills and sunlight and sanity

I understand, and maybe you do too, what it's like to hold your hair back from your face, reach further and further into nothing, and end up staring at the wall. I am still relatively young, or at least look very much younger than I am, yet my back has been all twisted. I have felt heavy, a balloon, a glass full of salt, a floater. I have experienced days where I am that and then I am this and then I am that again, and I forget that nothing is permanent. I think I'm learning that I can map out safe spaces for myself. Coaxing weeds and daisies from sleep, spill a little water from a jam jar of plucked pansies, shake some sunlight out like dice from a palm; a calm chatter, a trickle, an almost totally silent collision.

I've had a lot of time to contemplate insanity. Back when I used to bang my head against the bathroom wall, or cut open my wrists, or spend months in hospitals, locked behind the doors of those warm wards, echoes of girls and women and boys and men and wasted. 'You remind me of myself, when I was your age,' said D, a woman who was 40, also with a diagnosis of borderline, who had attempted suicide many times and also tried to scratch off her own scalp. I remember thinking in that moment that I was not going to be like her, going in and out of places like that, scratching out my brain. We all had a ticket, and she'd thrown hers away, but I still had mine, and I was not going to make her mistakes just because of a diagnostic label. But what of insanity? Is it a constant repetition, while still holding out for a different outcome? Is it a coincidence or is it something else? Is it a torn up napkin, a hoarded pile of grocery bags, a crumpled ticket? Is it the continuation of rolling a boulder up a hill, fearing the whole time it might roll back and crush you, until you reach the top only to find you were wrong and you aren't safe. But you continue to believe, because you have to.

Confidence in what I can expect from myself has been progressing. What is possible and what isn't? I don't know those answers. I will keep on pushing because I want to believe, it's what matters most to me: hope. Sure- sometimes it seems like a knife through butter and just another chance to get cut, and sure- that can drive anyone mad. Crying in the shower, yelling into a pillow, downing some whiskey and shut eyes and disappear, disappear? No, not this time. I'm shaking that sunlight, scattering across the path ahead. I'll do what I always do and spill the water, but this time it will dissolve all the salt, and maybe it will resurface again, but here's to hoping.

I will dance in heavens that I've never known.
Flowers blooming in places I'll call my own.

The True Reflection

Things I can't do, and things I am not 

Mathematics, even basic calculation
Pose
Speak loudly in public
Confident
Put on make up faultlessly
Speak knowledgeably about politics
Chat on the phone
Organised
Stable
Graceful
Roller-blade
Give up hope

Things I can do, and things I am 

Apologise
Use British sign language
Take good portraits
Word play
Clumsy
Bookworm
Understand
Forgive
Writer
Lose a lot of weight quickly
Recite the entirety of The Love Song of Alfred j Prufrock, and Hamlet's soliloquy, from memory
Remember the details of conversations
Keep trying

Then and Now

A couple of days ago

I am trying to write you out of my skin.
That is to say: You are still here.
You are running in circles, you are making me dizzy. I am confused.
I thought these years had put me back together;
you’d found me broken, now we were whole.
Then you broke the promises you made and I’m not ready to break again.
I’m trying to write it all down, every corner and jagged edge.
That is to say: I am not finished.
I never can be, can I? I meant what I said. I never will be finished.
These words are stains on eyes and lips, on the tips of planes
that have torn the skies and crashed, buried in an afterthought.
I’m trying to end it all.
You already have.
I am trying to catch up with time, all over again.
It was light outside when you left for work. I was barely awake.
I should have stayed there, in sleep, in a permanent dream.
That is to say: I should have drowned.

Now

Poems are finicky things. Portraying a girl, wondering
what it is so wrong about her, what is so worthless?
And that is an accurate picture, and I would never
want to bury her without the decency of flowers.
She was just left to falter. She was just wordless,
having been betrayed before, just not by anyone
who had promised certainly never to do so.
A shock like that strikes the hours apart,
solitude can appear to push them aside with a touch,
and words start to flow and at first it's just hope,
getting all tangled in reasons, reasons that
trip over hemselves as they rush to leave.
Then it's just choking on doubts, covered in dust,
carrying you, the words all there and all lost
before they even leave the mouth. Unravelling.

The picture becomes different once you sweep up
the remnants, change the bedsheets, rearrange the life
you let go of without protest. Knots loosening from
around your heart. A sailor to the wind, to the stars,
broadcasting to the world- I am not broken, not
unravelling. This is nothing compared to what has been.
The memories and the memories of nightmares-
products of wanting and unwanting and biting back.
When you run, run away, isn't it because nothing
makes you happy? Or because you are asked to do so
and believe in the reasons? It wasn't one giant mistake.
But I was mistaken, I was gullible. That is a fact.
Running away- never explaining myself.
Running away- never letting the nostalgia in,
though it made me sick, though it made me ache.
Running away- finding myself somewhere
that I never expected to be. I'm sorry, and not sorry,
and I'm relieved I am myself again.
But after all this running,
I'm asking permission to return.

We don't know the same song anymore

Sharp Objects

From the TV series 'Sharp Objects' and quotes from the book by the same name, Gillian Flynnn

Adoxography

Stay

The hope of what can be made real, even if it seems ridiculous ot others or highly improbable or very difficult to reach out for, let alone make steps towards- well, that's always better than the disappearing act. When you start to disappear from the world, you lose things: memories, friends, idiosyncracies, rroutines, purpose, aspiration. It might be a solution to the terror of failing and the fear your hope will never come true, but I'm leaning towards not abandoning hope, because it's it's always been hope that kept me alive. 

The apologetic verbal tic

8 Friday Thoughts and a sonog

i. I am my own worst nigthmare. A glass drops into my hand and my palm shatters- conclusion: I'm too fragile for all this. I try to bite the rust from beneath my fingernails- conclusion: there are endless walls and walks and rides and the damage collects, and I know it, I'm just no good at fixing it. A book opens and closes, another on top of it, a hand is raised expectantly in a school room- conclusion: I am a question, unsure of being answered. A phone rings and rings, hands shake, the blinds close- conclusion: I am afraid, I would prefer to be invisible. So why is it that it means so much to me that I am remembered, noticed, loved? I blush, I hide, I need, I rattle. I am a nightmare.

ii. Pits of hunger feel better again. I'm a fool and buckling and I know it. I used to be able to stop it. Where did the strength go? Where did the rain go? Why don't I talk anymore? I would give anything to go back and start over, to when I could be and wanted to be heard, and I didn't see a tombstone standing in my doorway, and I didn't see myself from above and see an eyesore.

iii. Somewhere, sometime, someone said I was going to be okay. I didn't believe them before. I believe it now. I am still porcelain and not stone. I am still rust but not decay. I suddenly finding it strange to be myself.

iv. Possible diagnoses (not yet invented): disenchanted brain; history not one's own (delusion); abandoning of flight; undemanding tightness; birdbath stomach ache; translucence; corner cowaredice; blind trust; a healing through scar tissue; sanity through sentene structure; a reckoning.

v. I suppose this is half-imagined. Like imagining choosing songs to whistle in the mounains or to sing on the street, like a radio looping in your bain. Like looking straight into an eclipse. Meeting a cheerful ghost at a rundown factory. Leaving something special behind when you go.

vi. The walls sweat anxiously and you whistle softly to me. There's nothing but nostalgia in the clouds and a heart thrumming in my mouth- mine or yours? Why did I never have the right words to say? I tried to write them. I tried to be a dream more than a nightmare, but maybe self-knowledge at the end of it is better than being just a phantom of regret.

vii. Someday- if I have the time- all of this will get the better of me and that will be the end, and I'll go to a place beyond this with books and bathtubs or just waste. Or it won't get the better of me and I will shrug it all away, or else I'll do anything at all- with no exceptions, besides having to remain alone forever- to fit the puzzle pieces back together. Loss breaks me apart in a way I can't articulate. I'm not finished. I'm not crazy. I do love.

viii. I don't know where I am going, or who I am, or what I can do. You have to tell me. I'm just made up of mirrors. I've known dead-ends and disasters but I'm still here. I shouldn't be but I am. War should never be happening, but i is, always will. I don't deserve to be happening here, but I am. Isn't that some kind of evidence that magic really exists?

Words at dawn

I don't blame anyone for not understanding how it is to hurt with both hands, like a blown circuit. I worry that the genesis of my brain is disenchanted, uprooted from its stem, burnt at the stake. I feel like- I worry too that I feel like- my body is a lost continent; the evenings sit and become nights and become mornings without rest, just empty eyes. Am I rusting? Am I still here? Stitch me back to something. I hope this will be more probable in the next few weeks. Winter tends to the prayers of the lonely.

Sometimes I am sure I'm alive because someone else isn't. My life and heartbeat whisper obligations. I panic, I lose my lungs for a minute, breath pouring o ut of me, stale and hot like mercury from the remains of a broken thermometer.

I know I'm sick. I know I'm not myself. Does one depend on the other? I hope that soon I'll be able to look at my reflection. I wish I could feel it again- that glimmer of hope, even just a glance of that fool's paradise.

A new recording

I apologise for my apology (?) towards the end and all the quietness. It just moves me quite dramatically, the lyrics.

Split

Taking a stroll down the knife-edge path
dragged by apathy, vague ambivalence-

Looking in the mirror and the immediate
need to leave the room, lest you pull it down-

Out of breath, on the floor, in the shower,
forgetting the words to explain yourself.

Worth nothing? Worth nothing? No.
You are not merely the contours of shadow.

Where you are walking, dreams don't go.
I know that because once I felt worthy.

I want to be invisible, to disappear, but
that's not true. I want to speak, be heard,

I want to be remembered. I believed?
Didn't I? Yes, I always have, I still do-

I'm screaming into silence.

There is no absolute truth

We cannot ever hope to win
without learning man's many games.
We can't hope to understand God
without learning his many names.

We can't see the top of career ladders
without counting their many rungs.
We can't define in other languages
without speaking their many tongues.

We can't know or try to quantify
without observing what's not seen.
We can't know a mile in other shoes
without being where they've been.

We can't say we know what's to be good
without knowing what is to sin.
We can't say we know others at all
without ever letting them in.

We can never say we know truth at all
without admitting our many flaws.
We can never say it's the right choice
without opening the many doors.

We can't see the sparkling of lighting
without the many claps of thunder.
We can't say we really live at all
without the endless ways we wonder.

Heavy Is The Pen That Writes 'The End'

1) Nothing has been noticed yet. Nothing has been felt. Calendars still shed pages and schoolchildren keep growing up. Newsreaders always speaking in tongues, in muted voices giving soundless shapes to weightless words. The tide still comes in and goes back out. The clock tower chimes again; nobody hears. The sea is a mirror.

2. They will eventually say that they always knew, even as early as this. In basements and fifth floor apartments, these individuals have headaches, bad dreams they can't fully remember, persistent deja vu. Tiny breakdowns felt like repeated tiny earthquakes. The heavy bearded man sleeping on the street outside the train station has felt it. Collectors of article clippings reporting terrorist attacks and loudly declaring themselves non-believers probably felt it too. But they weren't to know this was the real thing. Many of the incarcerated population might have felt it with fight and not fear, but their view came in slices, from behind fortified walls, mostly recycled, or only remembered.

3. Light sleepers are woken by friction. Paperclips, earrings, the buttons on winter coats. They swear their televisions aren't working. They secretly swear that the figures on the television aren't who they are supposed to be, they've been replaced by impostors. Breezes seem to thrum and sunbeams whistle through hair and fingers. The postman signs in to work under the wrong name and waits for something to post. Under the cacophony of everyday, small bells are heard ringing.

4. No one can say the last time they remember a new novel being published and publicised. Favourite radio channels are tuned out when listeners realise they have heard the same songs on a broken loop lasting about a week, and every week starts and finishes to the same soundtrack. Magazine articles are chewy, conversations about current events stick to people's teeth. Charity workers are seen shredding their literature and begging for change. Something feels different but nobody says anything because nobody understands exactly what has changed. More people hearing bells, fearing insanity, accepting loneliness. The priest notices that the church pews are empty but so many come asking to confess that he dreams in black and white, and words in the confession box feel like words exchanged at the bank and at the supermarket. There's a commonality in the way food smells. Drinking water has more viscosity. It feels harder to pick up a pen. Furniture appears to sigh in frustration when you sit or lean on it. Newspapers quietly fold themselves.

5. Policemen cave in the cheekbones of a seventeen year old car thief. Their radios are scattered with reports of domestic violence, fire-setting. The neighbour's cat turned up dead in a garbage bag in the shallow parts of a reservoir. Breezes seem to bruise and sunbeams sting.

6. The heavy sleepers are woken by large bells ringing, knocking about in bell-towers. Some people hang flags from their balconies. Those who live on the ground floor throw beer bottles out of their windows. Long vindictive and threatening messages are passed back and forth between computer keyboards. A disproportionate number of people privately plan attacks on strangers, on family members, in schools and on playgrounds and in churches. Hospital nurses stay home with crippling migraines. A politician is quietly arrested on the grounds of sexual assault. Trees falling in the forest, everyone can hear them. Nobody explains why the leaks from nuclear plants are infecting surrounding civilisations. Nobody explains why no help is coming. Nobody explains God anymore and the priest wonders whether he ever existed. Roofs ripped off. Rivers drying up. The incarcerated broke out then broke back in, reading their own last rites. Bridges are teeming with people who dream of jumping.

7. Houses are left empty, when families pack their belongings into cars and just drive away, with nowhere to go. Policemen break the spine of a fourteen year old vandal. Most people don't read magazines or watch the news. Every well-known radio personality has gone quiet. When books and music records are burnt, people yell and cheer and fight, some throw pipe bombs, some set cars and houses on fire too. People don't pick up pens anymore, nothing is written, no names are signed. The monuments in cities cannot be repaired, and the pigeons that once crowded them stopped visiting.

8. Even the smaller towns are flattened, their foundations pulled out and crushed. People rarely say their own names with so little need to. Trains don't run and when the air traffic couldn't be controlled and a plane full of people making a last effort at escapism dropped from its road in the sky, nothing was left but ash. Breezes are bloody and violent, sunbeams stop. While the priest tries to pray, the congregation pull his church down around him and when he turns to God, all he hears is footsteps. Hundreds of people in a crowd followed one another off a bridge.

9. An epidemic of self-mutilation. Revolutionary suicide. It is impossible to stand. Nothing moves, nobody tries. Nobody knew the extent of damage until it was already beyond repair. Smoke does not rise, it just hangs, moving horizontally. The only things that don't break are the waves, boy's voices. Not even promises get broken anymore because nobody makes them. All the birds nested in one tree that was chewed up paper a long time ago.

10. Complete catastrophic destruction. Damage is entirely total. Nothing is felt but perhaps the very quiet motion of the hour hand on a clock.  The sea is white.

Telling Tales

Tremble by tremble,
Cold, low-burning headlights,
a beautiful disused sentence
folding crumpled mouths over
stretched broken curfews.
Winter never meant to hurt you.
Stories are so tired of being told.

Tales of Aesop and of Chaucer.
Broken bone, teacup and saucer.

Your short shadows.
Your loosened forgetting.
Falling like a hammer
Falling like a suitcase,
 full of ageing wistful neck scarves.
Didn't I say I don't do things by halves?
Stories now so tired of being told.

Brothers Grimm and Rumpelstiltskin.
Tired of weaving the same words in.

Until the facts forget themselves.
Until book spines crack the shelves.
Until the morals can strengthen themselves.
I kept the best until last.
Our fate is told by the past.
Stories not so tired of being told.

Thought machines and iron cutlasses.
Sleepless birds and grey trespasses.

Stories never tired of being told.

Carduelis carduelis

The growing blush and the beating hearts
of sun in flowers will bring the charm-

spreading wishes, adrift on seeds and thistles,
carrying rubies, bars of gold on each arm.

A call to these arms or a cradle song learnt
becomes bolder, meanwhile their charm ages

until years that have been burnt mean little
more than memories, left trapped in cages.

Hamlet (the first drafts for the musical)

Slings and arrows, now natural shocks can start.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
The rub of words, words, words; I'm sick at heart.

The woman changes faces, I know her as Frailty.
And we know what we are but not what we may be.
Shake off this mortal coil, get thee to a nunnery.

The rest is silence and to thine own self be true
Though you listen to many, you speak to a few.
You see clouds in the mirror of nature, hanging on you.

The bad beginning, the worse stays behind.
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
There is method in the madness of my mind.

The brittle bones, the fallacy.
Two telephones, buried at sea.
The lifted flag, the lost milk teeth
the paper bag and what's underneath.

A web you weave to catch bad dreams.
A heart on a sleeve, ripping the seams.
A secret past and secret scars.
Driving fast into a wall of stars.

A lighthouse beam, a lullaby.
A polished gleam, a butterfly.
The poetry that I never wrote. .
A symphony and an old love note.

A hymnal page, the sinking sands,
the critical age and the handstands.
The endless fight to conquer fears
Put world to right but no one hears.

A halcyon day, a rumour mill,
The buds of May, the walk uphill.
The watchmakers, the tides of time
The undertaker and the victimless crime.

A cracking spine, a cool pillow
The borderline, the black echo.
The language no one can understand.
The clenching fist, a holding hand.

A lone scarecrow, the warm weather
An open window, a bird's feather.
The telephone line, a pair of shoes,
Look for a sign among the cryptic clues.

A climbing frame, the ace of hearts,
the misplaced blame, a sum of parts.
A train station, the empty seats.
A publication by the king of the beats.

The stepping stones, the wooden style,
The distant moans, the gap-toothed smile.
The rule of thirds, and the quiet place.
The unsaid words to find in your face.

The ballet shoes, the broken string.
The lost marbles, or wedding ring.
A fire escape, a creaking door
A cassette tape and the sound of war.

A poltergeist, a crucifix.
A jewellery heist and pick up sticks.
A panic attack and a perfect plan
that leads right back to where it began.

The atomic clock, the dream seahorse
A rusty lock, an obstacle course.
A penny tossed, found on the street.
A fortune lost to the vast concrete.

An empire falls, a city grows.
A stranger calls, a TV glows.
A cigarette, a creased street map
A risky bet and a dripping tap.

A whiskey slur, a suicide.
The days a blur, the nervous bride.
A nightingale, a fireman's pole.
A lucky pencil and a last minute goal

A daisy chain, a pharmacy
A growing pain, a bleeding knee.
The looking glass, a game of chess.
An all day pass and a cotton dress

An inhaler, a mountaineers grave
A suit tailor, an underground rave.
A man's best friend, a Masters degree,
a pardon to mend, and a dictionary.

The bitten nails, the guitar chords,
the fairy tales, the hospital wards.
A Greek tragedy, a lucky break
A dead body dragged from the lake.

The thunder claps, the perfect ten,
the afternoon naps of way back when.
The foolish gold, the treasure chest.
The winter cold, the Sunday best

The ecstasy, the forget-me nots.
The peace treaty, the polka dots.
A makeshift phone, a string and can.
The long way home for the homeless man.

The paper planes, the splashing tears.
The picture frames, the Brighton piers.
The message I heard so long ago
and don't remember a word but somehow know.

The railway tracks, the acid rain.
The jumping jacks, the weathervane.
Something too bad to ever tell.
Just as sad as horses on a carousel.

The sunlight spills, the Richter Scale,
the wind that fills and pulls the sail.
A time capsule that no one found.
The deadly duel, the speed of sound.

The wishing well, the final scene
The kitchen hell, the quarantine.
A new currency, the falling leaves
The conspiracy no one believes.

A helter-skelter, a crocodile
The summer swelter, the final mile
The clever pun, the lost balloon
The eclipsed sun, the honey moon.

The one mistake, the highland fling
the homesick ache, the birds that sing
A twin sister and a toboggan sled
An orchestra on the ocean bed

A promised doom, one of his cons
The same perfume, the ghost of swans
The spindrift dancing on the beach
The mermaids drift singing each to each.

The static shock, the red yo yo
the city block, a grand piano..
The daffodils, the way night falls,
the yellow pills and the lecture halls.

The time you chase, the lips you kiss
That remembered place that you miss.
The words that fail, the fairy dust,.
The hold grail and the wanderlust.

A circus clown, a thirsty flower
A quiet town, an old bell tower.
The dinner guests, the soliloquy,
the cuckoo's nests and the library.

The human brain, the therapist,
a hurricane, the bucket list.
The one sentence that is true.
The repentance and you're good as new.

The story told, the war drum
The broken mould, the tunnel's hum.
A pledge we made when the sky was clear
Some people fade but I'm still right here.

The topmost shelf, the ruins of Rome.
The Divided Self, the nowhere home.
The huge tree roots, the ego death,
the muddy boots and the stolen breath.

A time to grieve, a crystal ball.
The make-believe, the wake up call.
These new delights with violent ends.
The city sights and the childhood friends.

The astronaut, the song you hate.
An afterthought, a big debate.
The work that's praised for it's content.
The voice that's raised in argument.

The cradle songs, the wrecking ball.
The righted wrongs, the Berlin wall.
 An open throat, the saltwater
The swaying vote and a problem daughter.

The rolling stone, the loneliness.
A large trombone, an awful mess.
Dropping the plates, I hear them clatter.
Everything breaks so what does it matter?

The copper wire, the candy floss.
A forest fire, a massive loss.
The dream that stays by a sapphire lagoon.
The hope better days are coming soon.

The censorship, the whitest lies,
A synthetic hip, the Nobel prize.
The democrat versus the fanatic.
A sleeping bat hanging in the attic.

The handshake deal, the paranoid.
The Achilles heel, the asteroid.
The paper route, the superstition.
Forbidden fruit and a premonition.

The golden ratio, the parted sea.
The status quo, the etymology.
The traffic jams, the hide-and-seek.
The anagrams and the doublespeak.

The artifact, the coat of arms.
The signed contract, the lucky charms.
A rattled cage, a pitted peach.
The golden age and freedom of speech.

The hummingbird, the same routine.
The spoken word, the guillotine.
The wisdom tooth, the family tree.
The absolute truth and hyperbole.

The politics, the chewing gum.
The River Styx, the rule of thumb.
The little hours travelling in boxcars.
Keeping flowers inside old jam jars.

The purgatory, the barrier reef.
The allegory, the comic relief.
The chalk outline, the golden fleece.
A valentine and a masterpiece.

A flowerbed, a show of respect.
The figurehead, the retrospect.
A skyscraper and a rocking chair.
The newspaper and the serenity prayer.

The altitude, the winds of change.
The solitude, the mountain range.
Ear to the ground, story in the soil.
A merry-go-round and a mortal coil.

The silver screen, the alphabet.
The submarine, the safety net.
The vocabulary and Desolation Row.
The cemetery and the devil you know.

A message in Morse Code, an inglenook.
The less travelled road, the holy book.
The unconscious mind, the master race.
The moment you find it and it looks like grace.

The nom de plume , the Sistine Chapel.
The waiting room, the poison apple.
A sleepy yawn, an amphetamine.
The break of dawn and a tambourine.

The hierarchy, the boarding school.
The patriarchy, the swimming pool.
Mother's day. a cup of tea.
Feng shui and reality TV.

The improvisation, the summer heat.
A murmuration, a skipped heartbeat.
A kind stranger, a Swiss army knife.
The threat of danger and the meaning of life.

A hangover, a Suffragette.
A four leaf clover, a pirouette.
An election campaign, a case of frostbite.
A line of cocaine and the gentle twilight.

The curiosity, the Edelweiss.
The velocity, the paradise.
A weather forecast, your own keepsake.
An iconoclast and a little earthquake.

The new president, the bourgeoisie.
The long lament, the life philosophy.
The past connection you try to forget.
Making a collection of all your regret.

The curtain call, the dismissed case.
There wherewithal, the hiding place.
A skeleton key and exponential growth.
An insanity plea and a sacred oath.

A heart transplant, a turning screw.
A confidante, a dream come true.
A Gothic arch and a motorcade.
A funeral march and a masquerade.

The work of fiction, the vertigo.
The drug addiction, the mistletoe.
Modern jazz and a chromosome.
Alcatraz and a broken home.

A paperweight, an intrusive thought.
A blind date, a contact sport.
An archetype, rules of etiquette.
A tobacco pipe and a marionette.

A weeping willow, a fountain pen.
The fashion show, the three wise men.
A pantomime, a master of disguise.
Organised crime and wandering eyes.

The innovation, the give and take.
A hallucination, a birthday cake.
A careless blunder and a a turn of phrase.
Dare to wonder what is in a gaze.

The sad violin, the laughing gas.
The original sin, the fresh cut grass.
A watcher of game shows, a hit and run.
All the dominoes falling one by one.

 An accident, a research grant.
A circus tent, a nuclear plant.
The call to action and Murphy's law.
A chain reaction and a tragic flaw.

The third dimension, the tectonic plates.
The best intention, the direst straits.
The cover girl and the taciturn.
The precious pearl, the point of no return.

The hunting season, the olive branch
The voice of reason, the avalanche.
A sycamore and a nervous tic.
A prisoner of war and a walking stick.

The speech in sign, the tired feet.
The closing line, the bittersweet.
A small goodbye, a tale to tell,
The always why and a last farewell.

The Knowledge Fallacy

I wait for my backbone to pick me up, skin as thin as petals.
I wait because it will be clearer once all this dust settles.
Time goes by and I can see the spots that once were blind.
Time goes by and I feel I can understand more of my mind.
I think I'm getting wiser but perhaps I'm just getting old.
I feel like it's been twenty lifetimes but so much is yet untold.
Yet if I talk with conviction don't believe a word that I say.
Really, I know nothing at all anyway.

Some people see a house of God, others walls and a roof.
Some aren't persuaded by Einstein, others claim to have proof.
Having faith that there do exist that which you can't feel or see
must bring comfort, but it never felt comfortable to me.
When our beliefs are wrong- textbooks and papers on heuristics
and research into judgement fallacies all backed up with statistics.
We put our trust in numbers but we invented the scale.
We picked out the measures, deciding where evidence will fail.
I'd tell you to shun the idea of proof but don't listen to what I say-
Really, I know nothing at all anyway.

Life experiences take on a shape, always changing as you grew.
You poured into the mould and now that shape is shaped like you.
You've seen enough of living and had the use of your free will
you're sure you know your every fault, idiosyncrasy, fear and skill.
There come moments of epiphany, and they feel so profound
I think I see completely but when those breakthroughs come around
Life throws a curve-ball, something unseen, so I have to say-
Really, I know nothing at all anyway.

Can't ever be certain, can't ever know if it's fact or fiction.
You can't ever seem to know enough to make a good prediction
about what is going to happen and how you might react.
All you can do is remember it and make your own kind of fact.
When so much is chaos there's only one thing we can choose-
will the past will inform the present or become yesterdays news?
With nothing to prove it can feel liberating just to say
Really, I know nothing at all anyway.

Dear You

The musician hides behind the microphone.
An admission of shyness or sleepless and
he was the birds, all fluttering in flight-
finally a safe place in the world; freedom;
forgiveness; the future that you found
in your wishful thinking. That part is easy.
It's not an aching radio or wondering,
worrying who controls lines of questioning
about the nature of things; or falling
back in time or into an old loop, a song
you don't like; or people always getting hurt.
Dear Birds- Dear You- Do you know me?
I wouldn't want to assume. I'll only end up
in a darkroom with all the underexposed
and overexposed images I made up like
metaphors. Do you see right through me?
Somehow, you keep my mind on what heals
and what's realised and what fits- because
my body for the first time fits perfectly here.
Dear Musician Behind The Microphone-
I see you. You keep singing and, smiling,
I sink the boat, and we are breathing in
river water. You are a song between stars;
all the birds; my safe place in the world.

Contents

Inside my head- the broken faucets, the drawings
penned by clumsy hands, a poem I might write,
admission of failure, things never stopping,
a series or sequence, a set of rules, it was too late.
Sorry I wasn't at your party. History and distance
between experience and uncertain other parts,
dimmed by nights that are constantly refolding 
and the fear that nothing survives. Inevitable,
like shyness or shame or falling asleep.
This has nothing to do with happiness.
There will always be another set of rules.
History can rewrite itself as often as it repeats
and the old dull pain, stitched to our boots,
just as it had to come from somewhere, like
old tree roots, has to lead to an end elsewhere.
When I ran out of lullabies I learnt the story
of what the night is thinking, learnt the sorry
that is empty- we're doing this to ourselves.
Forgiveness. Harp strings. Broken faucets.
Birds fluttering. Clumsy poems. Almost on time.
A familiar laugh- I also found inside my head.
I always knew it wasn't all fear and failure
and wanting and worrying, but I guess I forgot.

Poetry forms example

A while ago I made my own poetry form that was a poem that could be read left to right, line by line, as any other poem would be, but within it were three other poems, to be read down in the three columns. When I wrote it, each column had a different meaning, and eventually I made it so that the two furthest columns were opposing each other with regards to the poetic content while the middle column was balancing and finding a middle ground in its meaning- you can see it here: Mirror(Me) poem

Since then I have tried to replicate the poetic form but have never been able to work out anything that carried the same meaning and relevance found in where that meaning was to be read on the page. Yesterday I was listening to some songs and used them as starting points to try and at least use the basic poetic form- the poem that can be read left to right, line by line, as usual, but can also be divided into separate poems in the downwards spaced columns as it's written. These very short attempts by no means have parts within them that offset their other component parts, but they can be read as four separate poems, with separate meanings. I'll keep trying but I think the mirror poem was probably a lucky one. 

I am not the only traveller who has not repaid his debt

The Five Stages

Like the cycle of grief is made up of five stages, there are five stepping stones that you have to tread on to cross the chasm, on one side of which is complete self-delusion, and the other side of which is self-knowledge. Before you cross, you have blindspots obfuscating your blindspots. You don't see what perhaps everyone but you can see clearly and you can not see where the blame lies with you or where the mistakes are yours to prevent or else repeat. By the time you have crossed to the other side, you may not have liked what the journey was like or what you had to see- you may have seen an ugliness in yourself that somehow you always knew or have known for some time was there but convinced yourself was not because you were so afraid to confront it. You may learn things about yourself you really should have faced up to earlier on, because while you ignored them, you made the same mistakes, kept falling, kept getting lost and still not quite able to admit are down to you- your fault, your messes, the consequences to your actions. But by the time you are on the other side, you will have realised that when you were back there, before you crossed, you were living in an illusion of your own creation and lying to yourself. You will also know you are now seeing clearly, and that whatever it is you have seen, it is genuine, and so are you. You will have figured out that you aren't helpless. You never really were, it was just easier to believe that you were. When you look back to where you had all those blindspots, you'll see so clearly, through the dark, the broken illusion, and you will see only fiction. In the luminescence of where you stand now, you will see how ugly that fiction truly was, and there will be no ignorance, just bliss.


Stage One

I walk down the street. There’s a deep hole between two paving stones. I fall in. I am helpless. I did not see the void; it isn’t my fault. I am lost. I fall until I land, and in the dark, without direction, it takes an eternity to find my way out.

Stage Two

I walk down the same street. There’s a deep hole between two paving stones and I pretend that I do not see it. I fall in. I am falling again. Again, in the same place, the same dark. But this isn’t my fault. At least I know I will eventually land but it still feels like an eternity before I find my way out.

Stage Three

I walk down the same street. There’s a deep hole between two paving stones. I see it, I know it is there. It’s habit when I fall in. It’s not as dark, perhaps because my eyes are open this time. It is my fault. I know when I am going to land, and where, and I find my way out.

Stage Four

I walk down the same street. There’s a deep hole between two paving stones. I walk around it.

Stage Five

I walk down a different street.

Those who wish to sing always find a song

Where is my mind>

A collection of love notes

He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. He wants to kill me.

When the world ends and the sky collapses, you are the one
that I will look for in the wreckage, even if it's just to be there
with you when it's over. It's been a good ride but we knew
we'd have to get off sometime.

Let me tell you about the time that I drank spoiled milk.
Only the milk wasn't spoiled; it was our love that had expired.

You put me in a cage and you told me it was my armour.

You deserve this.

Eventually I will stop writing about you.

Every moment I spend thining about you is a moment wasted.

In retrospect, I should have known better.

When we first went to have dinner, I had that nosebleed,
remember? It looked like a crime scene. Something about you,
being next to you, has always caused me to spill out, make mess,
fall apart. And I've never felt more like myself, or more alive.

You broke my heart but I'm grateful. You taught me that
love is as deceitful as spite, even more misguiding.
You taught me that words of love don't always mean
what you want them to, that people don't always do
what you wish they would, that life is a sequence of let downs,
but the next time I was let down, it didn't hurt nearly as much.

You were already dying when I met you but that had nothing
to do with loving you, though I wish I was the kind to cut losses
because any future without you in it, I don't want to be in either.

The next time someone asks me why I prefer the solitude,
I will be sure to begin with the story of you.

I've only just figured out that in your story, I am the villain.

People say that you cannot truly know love until you love yourself
but I know that they are wrong- I could never love someone like me
but somehow you love me enough for the both of us, and that's okay.

How many lights do you see? The ones in the sky, the ones
in your eyes, the one at the end of the tunnel, the one beside the bed,
the one coming underneath the door, the one everywhere now.

If I were to say that I need you to to stay alive, would you laugh at me?

Some seconds of song

Rattles and Ripples

One thing that's certain is that you will live.
You will live long after the world ends.
(And here's a secret:
it won't end just once.)

There is a secret that nobody knows. 
There is something more endless than infinity
and something more honourable than sacrifice
and something more unpredictable than chaos.
(The stuff that dreams are made of.)
There is something that's colder than what is frozen,
something that's warmer than what is melted,
something that's softer than what is dissolving,
something that's stronger than what is everlasting.
(There's always some other possibile answer.)
There is something that we keep forgetting
and something that we can't stop remembering
and something that we will always think about.
(The power of mind illusions over world realities.)
There is something worthless that we will treasure
and something worthwhile that we will discard
and something comforting somewhere between.
(The parts that were cut out in shades of grey.)

It is raptured, diseased, sunken, scary.
They gave us many names when they called us.
Girlhood as the peacock striking a pose
under intricate webs of falling rain.
Girlhood as a dagger, girlhood as a battlefield,
always a leftover body floating in the river,
always a pulse to detonate the grenades.
Girls playing at being wolves, at being sirens,
at being gods and being demons,
heads bowed in reverence and shame,
praying with dulled teath, chewing up
and spitting out ancient light, crumpling it
and tossing it to the edge of the world with
reborn hands. And their girlish heart chambered
are boxed, personified, turned into missiles
fired at a stagnant wall, rattling like poltergeists
all the way to the ground where weeds grow quietly.
They carry on, heading towards another mid-youth crisis.

Six Word Stories

You still wished me happy birthday.

One more time was her last.

In the end, it meant something.

We didn't make it, did we?

Pain is abstract, then it's yours.

I saw it in every message.

I wish that people were kind.

I'm just one of your stories.

Therapy isn't always in an office.

Is this really all there is?

I counted on a happier ending.

And we just became strangers again.

After it all, maybe nothing matters.

So I finally became a cloud.

I was a dreamer once before.

For sale: me, to fix up.

It got lost along the way.

I hoped you would see me.

One day we'll all be skeletons.

First kiss, last kiss, then goodbye.

Remember when we had a home?

This story isn't worth a sequel.

Flicker

Fragments

I'll take this thought and banish it
to the land of unfinished poems
along with all the many failed metaphors
that are not worth reviving.

----------------------------------------------------------

Fire burned bridges
and melted time
but I still want you
to treasure mine.

----------------------------------------------------------

I wonder if you were put here with me
so I could learn that love feels warm
like a hug, after so long spent thinking
it was a cold and sharp kind of knife.

----------------------------------------------------------

Looking at the sky right now, I can't tell
whether it is dark with light clouds
or light with dark clouds. This confusion
doesn't make me feel lost; it's confusion
in the open-ended that I've been looking for.

----------------------------------------------------------

'I love you.' Three words made from glass
that fall out like my teeth used to do
in the darkest of my dreams.

Flickering Pictures

The glass in my hand clinks against my chest and shatters.
To conclude- I am made out of stone.
I attempt to bite the rust from underneath my thumb.
To conclude- I am a bicycle chain, trapped by endless walls.
I pass through windows, floodgates, tremors and fingers.
To conclude- I am phantasmagoria.

The night has a callous caterwaul, a gently blushing sky.
This body of contorting and changing and blooming
has complete control over me and I can only try
to ignore the undercurrent threat, the persistent looming.

I don't much want to navigate between raggedy portals of love
when the temperature is below zero, sick of plotting maps
for the icecaps of a mind contaminated, mottled stars,
pits of hunger, pits of wonderless. But I still think perhaps
it will all be alright if we stay here and close our eyes
and mime the journey home, creating shelter in imagination,
regenerate wasted time and find substance in lack of substance.

Where did the rain go? Why can't I look at my reflection anymore?
Too ugly- not a hard answer, just a hard realisation.
No stranger to ugly things, spent most of life ugly
hoping for some mercy to come in learning something beautiful.

Tragedy on the train platform, the reckoning, massacre in motion,
losing consciousness, fumbling for the invisible pearl, a spilling
of soreness like sea, a blossoming of conscience. A beheading.
Careering down roads like a panting dog chasing its own tail.
Taking in the first breath after a kiss. Falling headfirst into the water.

It was not something made to speak or to understand,
only to interrupt and scold and belittle. Take note.
I want to tell you that I know and it's okay that nothing can stomach us,
not in this world or in the next. I want to tell you in a whisper,
I know, we are a blast of cold air but warm,we are living and we are dead.

Neuroscience Myths 1-4

1. We only use 10% of our brains.

This is arguably the most popular, persistent and preposterous neuroscience myth to rule them all. The myth proposes the truth to be that we go through life using a very small part of our brains, while the rest of it (around 90%) remains unused- that's 9/10 of the human brain just sitting there, full of unrealised potential, full of unexploited capabilities. Though the exact percentage ratio has fluctuated over the years, this 10:90 divide seems to be most popular.
However far-fetched the neuroscience myths may be, they always have some element of truth to them. It is because of this truthful component, however small, that the myths have become, to so many, truisms. If there was absolutely no truth to them or no reason for trusting them, they would not become truth, certainly not to significant portions of the population.
The '10% of your brain' myth may have roots in philosophy and early psychodynamic psychology. Firstly, in the early 20th century, philosopher and psychologist William James ruminated on the idea that we are in possession of 'latent metal energy'- he considered the potential for energy in the brain that may be unrealised but his ponderings had nothing to do with how much of the brain is used. This may demonstrate a reason why this myth has been so long-standing. The 'latent energy' vs. 'amount of brain in use' distinction is unclear, and these issues are understood differently by different people. Additionally, infamous psychologists such as Freud who were pioneers in their propositions regarding the unconscious mind. Though Freud and his peers have been written off by those in domains of neuroscientific study, no one can deny that Freud's original idea about the conscious vs. unconscious mind being almost like an iceberg- the tip residing above the surface demonstrating what we are conscious of, while below the surface there is an enormous amount that is inaccessible to us- still remains the theoretical root of even very contemporary and advanced practice in neuroscience. Contemporary neuroscientists can tell you that many of our neurological processes operate beneath our level of awareness. After all, if we were aware of everything the brain is doing as it is happening, the cognitive load would be too much for the brain to handle. Therefore, though this myth is a false belief, there is truth to the idea that there is a significant portion of our brain that we are not in control of or aware of. The difference is, we are using all of it, whether or not we know it.
Another root of this myth came from our own Albert Einstein who, for the most part, gets things so right, yet got this one so wrong. There is a quote that came from his conversation with a reporter which describes that the secret to his genius is using the full capacity of his brain instead of just the 10% used by everybody else. Nevertheless, the aforementioned conversation itself might be mythical too.
The way that research in the field of neuroscience is wrongfully interpreted may also explain why the myth has been allowed to go on for so long. One example comes from a study of epilepsy carried out in the 1930s by Wilder Penfield. He directly stimulated the surface of the brains among epilepsy patients and found that doing so provoked various sensations. When he stimulated some regions, however, there was no noticable effect. Findings such as this led to the false conclusion that large areas of our cortex is 'silent'. In fact, as more up-to-date findings have shown, the 'silent' areas belong to what we now know as the 'association cortex', which is far from silent. Its regions of tissue are actually implicated in higher-level cortical functioning. There was also, of course, the practice of lobotomy. The very idea that parts of the brain could be removed and not only would the patient be undamaged but actually benefit from such a treatment no doubt fuelled the false belief that there are parts of our brains we don't need or use and could just cut out and not know the difference.
The myth was popular enough of a concept to inspire blockbuster films such as the 2011 'Limitless' and 2014 'Lucy'. In 'Limitless', the protaconist says, 'we can only access 20% Of our brains', and the story follows his experiences after taking a magical drug that allows him to access the entirety of his brain. In this story, he manages to learn other languages and write a novel overnight. He even manages to make vast amounts of money through his sudden and advanced understanding of the stock market that, back when he only had access to this '20%" of his brain, was totally foreign to him. Moreover, the poster advertising the film 'Lucy' starring Scarlett Johansson boasted the phrase, 'The average person uses 10% of their brain capacity. Imagine what she could do with 100%.' In this film, while a neuroscientist played by Morgan Freeman states, 'I'm not sure that mankind is ready', Scarlett Johansson's character is able to throw a car with the power of her mind and completely master all knowledge.
There are a plethora of reasons why this myth is actually a little ridiculous. Firstly, if you really only used 10% of your brain, that would suggest that 90% of your brain matter is just sitting there within the confines of your skull, showing no activity or signs of life, whereas a small area, or collection of small areas comprising the 10%, is alive and kicking. There has never been a neuroimaging study that showed that any area of the brain being completely devoid of activity. Dependent on individual differences in neuroanatomy, some areas may not respond to specific processes, and some areas or networks of areas may show decreased or absent functioning, but all areas are used.
In truth, we use the whole thing. There is no residual brain matter just sitting there, unused and inactive. No parts of our brains are dressed up with nothing to do. Confirmation for this empirical conclusion comes from countless neuroimaging studies highlighting the activity occuring throughout the entirety of the brain. Even when we think of nothing, something is going on, everywhere. There is even a network of areas that becomes more active in those moments when we try to do nothing, when we clear our minds, called the 'default mode network'. Furthermore, as tiny lesions in the brain can have terrible outcomes, as seen in brain damaged patients, supports the truth behind the myth- we need it all, and it's all systems go.

Boyd, R. (2008). Do people only use 10 percent of their brains. Scientific American, 7.

Jarrett, C. (2014). Great myths of the brain. John Wiley & Sons.

Penfield, W., & Jasper, H. (1954). Epilepsy and the functional anatomy of the human brain.

Schenberg, E. (2014). The Mythical Brain: Is the Science of Movie Lucy Wrong?. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research, 5(11).

Stephenson, W. (1986). William James, Niels Bohr, and Complementarity: II—Pragmatics of a Thought. The Psychological Record, 36(4), 529-543.


2. Mental illness is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain.

A recent survey conducted in order to gauge the public's general opinions about mental health showed that approximately 80% of people held the belief that mental illness is the result of a neurological chemical imbalance. This belief is as robust among the population as it is unfounded because nobody, not neuroscientists or psychiatrists or those moving in the circles of experts in the field of clinical psychology, could definitvely say what balance of chemicals in the brain is healthy or correct.
It's not difficult to see how this myth originated. Over the past few decades, as prescriptions of medication in the treatment of mental health conditions, particularly depression, has become more commonplace, people have learnt that anti-depression medication is affective through its alteration of levels of neurochemicals. But though adjusting chemical levels is how depression is often treated and one might assume therefore that depression is a problem with 'wrong' chemical levels, it doesn't logically follow, when you think about it, that the problems are caused themselves by problematic chemical levels- after all, one might take ibuprofen to help treat a headache, but nobody goes on to believe that an absence or 'wrong' amount of ibuprofen has caused the headache.
It's also simple to see why this myth has been so persistent and is so widely-held. Despite its inaccuracy, the idea that mental illness is caused by neurochemical imbalance has been promoted by both sufferers of mental disorders and campaigners for their cause, probably because a health problem seems to be more worthy of attention and treatment if it has a physical basis. The idea that those ways in which many people are suffering due to mental illness could be due to a problem over which they have and have never had any control, something irrefutably legitimate in any physician's eyes, something comparable to a tumor or broken bone because it resides within, resides somewhere inaccessible, resides in the concrete workings of our body and unrelated to psychological or subjective experience, emotion or cognition, which some may believe to be too abstract to consider as contributing factors to their un-abstract, disordered feelings and behaviours.
However, though the assumption may be that blaming it on the brain makes it easier to understand or more worthy of being seen as something to notice, worry about, invest in or treat, research has also demonstrated that the chemical imbalance theory and other biological accounts of mental illness actually may increase stigmatization of sufferers in society, potentially because such accounts endorse the belief that mental illness is permanent or some incurable condition you are born with or you aren't and have no control over.
It's important to understand that this myth is purely myth in order to help change widespread attitudes, because mental health conditions such as depression- the main focus of the chemical imbalance discussions- are treatable, are curable, and can be taken under control by the sufferer through seeking treatment. Someone with a mental illness does not have a naturally skewed brain, they may not be even remotely neurologically squiffy, and though the levels of neurochemicals can be the target of some medication treatments and are theorised to factor into why mental illness exists, there is no known correct balance of chemicals to promote perfect mental health anyway.

Lebowitz, M. S., & Ahn, W. K. (2014). Effects of biological explanations for mental disorders on clinicians’ empathy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(50), 17786-17790.

Pescosolido, B. A., Martin, J. K., Long, J. S., Medina, T. R., Phelan, J. C., & Link, B. G. (2010). “A disease like any other”? A decade of change in public reactions to schizophrenia, depression, and alcohol dependence. American Journal of Psychiatry, 167(11), 1321-1330.

3. Some of us are right-brained, some of us are left-brained.

The right vs. left brain myth is almost ridiculously reductive. Like the brain, the myth comes in two halves, both popular very misguided conceptions- firstly, the conception that there is a difference in the types of thinking carried out by the opposing hemispheres, and secondly, the conception that there is a difference between individuals in how they favour either the right or left hemisphere.
Despite the broad body of research that has in recent years used advanced neuroimaging technology to explore and conclude which regions of the brain are implicated in a wide array of processes, and despite the many informative findings, people still seem to believe that the left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for analytical thought, logic and verbal reasoning, whereas the right hemisphere is responsible for emotion, creativity and visuo-spatial capability. And people also believe that individuals either have a dominant left side or a dominant right side, and depending on which is the dominant hemisphere, their disposition and cognitive styles will fall into a left (logical/analytical) or right (emotional/creative) category.
This myth is so incredibly far from what is true. The only way someone might have left or right-brained thinking is if they had some hemispatial neglect.
As with all the neuroscience myths, however, the myth wasn't plucked from nowhere and is not completely fantastical. There is an element of truth in it- there are two hemispheres that are joined by the corpus collosum, a tract of connective tissue; some processes are partially or completely located in one hemisphere or another, and most processes show some specialisation to the right or left. Meta-analyses has shed light on the concept of lateralisation-  (hemispheric specialisation), first observed in the mid 19th century through the study of brain-damaged patients and their later autopsies, and still studied today, especially since the creation of transcranial doppler sonography (tcds), which uses sonographic technology to measure blood flow betwee hemispheres during various tasks. The meta-analytic research has shown that, indeed, language is, for the most part, lateralised (or specifically located) to the left, whereas visuo-spatial functioning is lateralised to the right. However, it also shows that language is not limited only to the left hemisphere- studies demonstrate how the left hemisphere is involved in phonological processing (the way that words sound) whereas the right hemisphere is also important, but for elements of language such as comprehension of meaning and context, lip-reading and intonation. Most of the time, the right and left sides of the brain work together, and it is this cohesiveness that gives rise to so many of our neurological, cognitive, emotional and behavioural processes. In recent years we have been able to gain an understanding of how the hemispheres are connected, how they interact, and how their interaction varies throughout one's life. It is therefore odd that, despite this improved understanding, so many people still see the brain as two halves that have different purposes and functions and are more interesting separately than working together as the amazing machine that is the brain.
With regards to the second part of the myth- the difference between individuals and their right or left hemisphere dominance- there is an iota of truth in this myth too. Lateralisation between the two hemispheres does vary between individuals. There are structural lateralisation differences- how different the actual tissue of the brain can be from person to person- and functional ones- how different the activity across hemispheres can be between people. Nevertheless, there is no overall dominance of one side of the brain above the other and this is not something that varies between people. Evidence corroborating this was found in a 2013 study, in which more than 1,000 brain scans were analysed. Though some evidence of lateralisation was discovered in the regions that have been associated with particular tasks- such as language-related tasks in the left hemisphere and attention-related tasks in the right- no evidence was ever found that could support the mythological belief that people have some inherent preference for right or left hemispheric processing as more pronounced, or that people are 'wired' to the right or to the left. There will never be any evidence of this because it is not grounded in truth.

Dassonville, P., Zhu, X-H., Ugurbil, K., Kim, S-G., & Ashe, J. (1997). Functional activation in motor cortex reflects the direction and the degree of handedness. PNAS 94 (25), 14015-14018.

Mihov, K. M., Denzler, M., & Förster, J. (2010). Hemispheric specialisation and creative thinking: A meta-analytic review of lateralisation of creativity. Brain and Cognition, 72, 442-448. 

Nielsen, J. A., Zielinski, B. A., Ferguson, M. A., Lainhart, J. E., & Anderson, J. S. (2013). An evaluation of the left-brain vs. right-brain hypothesis with resting state functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging. PloS one, 8(8), e71275.

Vigneau, M., Beaucousin, V., Herve, P. Y., Jobard, G., Petit, L., Crivello, F., Mellet, E., Zago, L., Mazoyer, B., & Tzourio-Mazoyer, N. (2011). What is right-hemisphere contribution to phonological, lexico-semantic, and sentence processing? Insights from a meta-analysis. Neuroimage, 54 (1), 577-593. 

Warrier, C., Wong, P., Penhune, V., Zatorre, R., Parrish, T., Abrams, D., & Kraus, N. (2009). Relating structure to function: Heschl’s gyrus and acoustic processing. Journal of Neuroscience, 29 (1), 61-69.

4. There are fundamental gender differences in the brain.

Stereotypes will be stereotypes and they are, unfortunate and untrue as they are, always likely to be a part of how we understand society. It seems that some, especially the media but even scientists, are single-mindedly focusing on finding evidence from neuroscientific research that will support stereotypical beliefs about gender differences. They are so single-minded, perhaps, that all new evidence is interpreted through the skewed lens of bias, thus incorrectly reinforcing the stereotypes. An example of how this happened occured in 2013 when Verma et al. wrote that they had found fundamental differences in how male brains are wired compared to female ones, in the 'connectivity patterns in males and females.' They stated that male brains had more connectivity within each heisphere, while female brains had more connectivity between hemispheres. It was in the additional statements they made in the press and in their report that could not have been more wrong, yet seemed right enough to believe by so may people- they said that their findings of the differences between male and female brains can explain behavioural differences between the sexes; woman are better at multi-tasking and show better intuition than men, whereas men are better at sports and reading maps. Popular newspapers such as The Independent and Daily Mail picked up these findings and emblazoned them across the pages.
The problem with their findings, though the statistical difference was significant between males and females, the average differences had far too much overlap to ever be considered 'fundamental'. For instance, as a female, my brain might be wired more like an average male brain than one of my male friends' brain is wired, and his brain might be wired more like an average female brain. And as for the information about intuition and map-reading, those were only guesses, hypotheses conjured by the researchers to explain their statistical findings.
There have since been no studies to corroborate the theory that female brains are more efficient in multi-tasking or intuition, or that male brains are more efficient in map-reading and spatial-kinesthetic processing (as in sports capabilities. However, there are indeed little anatomical differences between male and female brains. In women, the hippocampus- implicated mostly in memory- is larger than in men. Conversely, the amygdala- implicated in social perception, emotion and response to environmental threat- is smaller in women than in men. When you think about it, this is the opposite of what the myth predicts. According to the myth, the memory-related region ought to be larger than the emotion-related one for men, and vice versa for women.

Arnal, L. H., Flinker, A., Kleinschmidt, A., Giraud, A. L., & Poeppel, D. (2015). Human screams occupy a privileged niche in the communication soundscape. Current Biology, 25(15), 2051-2056.

Fine, C. (2005). Delusions of gender: The real science behind sex differences. Icon Books Ltd.

Fine, C. (2013). New insights into gendered brain wiring, or a perfect case study in neurosexism?. The Conversation.

(Un)ripe Words

You instituionalised.
You morose.
You of the atypical mirrors
and doors, and wow, the fractures.
wheels overhead-- what over-arching
tumbling. Your ripe words have
an insecure place in your mouth.

The dreams are what matters,
hostile frights in your hand.

You tentative.
You fortunate.
You of the book put next to another.
Find the broken wire, follow
every spark, all the way until
you reach the end, fire goes out.

Some dictionary poem entries P-R

Cluster C

The final personality disorder-related poems. The others are here:
Cluster A

Cluster B

(avoidant)

(dependent)

(obsessive compulsive)

Six Ways of Looking at a Window

I.
Don't let me sit near a window
or I'll never come back.

II.
Enraptured by your peep-show,
glowing windows to your soul
which I can see the shape of
going on to infinity.

III.
Alternates and options-
a window you never knew was there,
they say, will open when a door closes.

IV.
Moloch has hundreds of eyes,
each eye a blinking window,
all stacked endlessly upwards.

V.
The neighbour treated their window
to a bundle of purple flowers.

VI.
Did you see the face in that window?
- She looked like she'd seen a ghost.

Cluster B (PD poems continued)

(borderline)

(histrionic)

(narcissistic)