anxiety

Callum Featherstone

To be understood

If within your lifetime

you can use a clock, digit or a hand

to count this life’s time

objectively

when you truly understand…

You haven’t lived,

only breathed.

To live racily in life’s slower moments

is a prize that is totally unrivalled;

Neigh-sayers. Those jockeying opponents

are trampled

under hoof, when you ride unbridled.

In the future there will be others

passing eyes over; your words,

your offspring, your pictures, your lovers.

Voyeurism

through the abstract lens of the absurd.

In the cave of your existence

lives your depths, your thoughts, your mud

a gift of solitary, temporary presence

that is you.

And, what isn’t;

to be understood.

Callum Featherstone

United Kadaver

Collective grief

makes

a corpse of this nation

each footstep impatient

on the arteries and

veins

we call streets.

We –

the beating heart

of the country;

now palpitating.

The salted sweat is

ever-radiating,

despair spilling from our tear ducts;

belief

tears us apart.

Our

zeitgeist is atrophy

rubbing shoulders

to the very bone.

Symbiosis

with a mobile phone

ringtones ring of

unholy matrimony.

This miscarrying motherland’s

hand;

unforced.

But, still kept us for viewing

in a jar

tormenting

delivering mental scars

locked down

in a green and unpleasant land.

And as the gangrene

sets in

the Hydra freshly springs to mind –

duplicitous

for;

every time

your actions prove unkind

viciousness

does arise

and two further unkind actions

affect your kin.

And this is just one

embodied state;

a United Kadaver –

sent to the

morgue

that has become this planet.

What was once

our Earth;

our good and wholesome Gaia,

that which used to inspire.

Each post-mortem

misunderstands this;

epidemic of lies

and death

by company sponsored

dagger

forged in the fiery

pits of hate.

Callum Featherstone

To be a man

In solitary dreams

i wake

the crest of understanding

waves

never reach

me

so small and unable

to reach

the stop

of their poking and prodding

hands

within my very breeches

they breach

my innards

every single time

just like they did before

when I wasn’t but a teen

only seven

and the blood

is intertwined

with every single tear

that I have intent to cry

just a pathetic little boy

that tried to become a man

smoking H and drinking cans

He could have been a man

Could have been a man.

Callum Featherstone

What the Hell

They never tell you

what it’s like when

your body gets older

but you still feel inside

the way you did at

eighteen. Impromptu

is that feeling once again

of the receding smoulder.

A fire in the belly denied

by smothered tit for tat.

You ask those questions

that cause blisters within

your mind. As the heat

steams your twisted tongue

you pour out confusion.

Their answers cause indigestion,

their falsehoods crawl your skin.

A melting of your mind meets

with a recurrence of unbelong-

ing – the age of electrocution.

Caustic cynicism is all that remains

now that the beastly brawn outwits

the worm ate brains.

The stinging scorned proudly splits

a bill with hedonism – that explains

the firmed terrain.

A drought of thinking critically, rationale and morality

created global tyrants; ruling in totality.

You have no reason to fear being sent

to hell because you live there every waking moment.

Callum Featherstone

What is ‘this’?

“If you are the big tree, let me tell you that

We are the small axe, sharp and ready

Ready to cut you down (well sharp)

To cut you down” – Bob Marley

Maybe we wouldn’t have to worry

about this dystopia or Thought Police

if we’d paid attention and weren’t in a hurry

protected our rights and thought of peace

made sure that every little boy and girl

had their freedoms unequivocally ingrained

in an uncodified constitution of the world

that wouldn’t commodify their names,

their games, their chats, their brains

wouldn’t commodify their friendships

wouldn’t commodify in exchange

for our chance to ever end;

this.

This; globalist

end of days.

This; oval disk

of human waste.

This; cashless

new society.

This; ask less

pay more, die early.

This; ‘how much

more can you take?’

This; smiling punch

you in the face.

This; ‘whatever’

disillusionment.

This; forever

can’t afford the rent.

This; take a pill

to ease the pain.

This; makes you ill

over again.

This; wants your life

to be a mess.

This; gives more strife,

more bills, more stress.

This; is worse in every single way.

This; works you til your dying day.

This; takes much

more

than pounds of flesh.

This; doesn’t need

your

excuse for less.

This; what happened

to our fledgling crop?

This happened…

We ‘the many’

never forced

‘the few’ powerful to

STOP.

Callum Featherstone

Sheltered Hell

Claustrophobia;

casting spells, anxiety obeah

feeling trapped in a shell

a gleaming pearl

trapped in a cell

of another’s designer

hell

waiting for the pool to whirl

me down

again.

The heat and the wet

make a vitriolic garnish

causing what once gleamed – jet

to now become tarnished.

Agoraphobia;

crowded house – residential dystopia

all the faces look the same

painting misery – drawing blanks

always strange and often insane

that’s what happens to your brain

when you’re trodden on like wooden planks

and spoken to just the same

you become a broken, wooden frame

a shell without a pearl

a face without a name

and when you push the system yanks

until there’s nothing left to say.

Until there’s nothing.

Nothing.

..

Callum Featherstone

Rescue

You are a pathway strait

unlike your last mistake

and mistakes are learning curves;

they aren’t your overall fate.

You have your being

but their eyes aren’t seeing

what goes on inside

of your mind as it’s fleeing.

Steady your ship

sail yourself to equip

yourself with a set

of masts they cannot rip

or strip.

Rescue yourself from the doldrums

breath fresh air into your lungs

leave the noxious and nasty

to suffocate on their own tongues.

Cause they never will know

what you have lived and do know;

they don’t deserve to encounter

what you can be

what you will be

what you will become

when you thrive and you grow.

Set your sights and show

that beauty bright

and innermost light

of your selfless glow.

Smile like the crest of a wave

and remain deep

leave those naysayers to weep

in their shallow dug graves.

Callum Featherstone

Cracks in the ceiling

The cracks in the ceiling

Make a frowning face

of this house

Leaving a mark

Like the joy that you’re stealing

When hatred spews from your mouth

But we find light in the dark.

Find the light…

In the cracks of the ceiling

In the lines of your face

As you smile through the feelings

Of dread and disgrace.

Though you might

find fear

In the cracks of the ceiling

And find

the end is near

As you smile

through those feelings…

Feel you’re

Just so out of place.

Try to find the light.

Find yourself in the cracks

Plug them whole with your strength

And love one another

to great length

Find yourself in the smiles

Make happiness your self-pact.

Cause those cracks in the ceiling

Are rainfall of sorrow – drowning

Awash with feelings you dread

But when it’s someone else flailing instead

You’ll find those cracks

Can be filled up with care

And kindness;

both buoyant and healing.

When someone else’s house is frowning

And spirit drowning

Don’t let that sorrow seep in

Use your compassion.

Be there.

Plug the cracks with your love.

Fill your house with that love.

Build each other with love.

Lovingly,

Build one another up.

Callum Featherstone

Making sense

When the eyes are opened

By Pineal once closed

A cerebral token

Of belief takes hold.

When their mouth’s deceitful

Don’t eat from chaos’ hand

Keep your diet peaceful

So that your mind expands.

When the scent overpowers

To cover their tracks

Be aware that some flowers

Set deadly traps.

When your hearing’s confused

Locked down in a prism

Paint thoughts colourful hues

Canvass yourself and listen.

And if you’re feeling out of touch

Take a moment to remember;

Our light burns out

by smothering clutch

And there is no fire

without an ember.

Callum Featherstone

The Poisoned Note

Your mind is the pen.

It’s razor sharp. It’s poignant. It’s a tipped point dipped in poison and from it the words which you write inside your mind stain every nerve with sorrow and despair.

Your body is the paper.

Paper which is cut from the original tree that all knowledge and sense first grew from. From deepest root to budding leaf the cursed, bubbling venom courses through each bodily cell and ruptures and dissolves all that is decent and good.

This is depression.

A poisoned note.

A note which throughout your life becomes volumes of lethargy, melancholy and pain.

And, a note from which you discover the true reality of existence.

And, to think, without this note, would you have ever truly existed at all?

For, it is better to have felt that poisoned ink blemish your body and mind than to have left a blank note.

Your note defines you.

Your note is one worth sharing because we are all noteworthy.

The greatest gift you will ever have is to have written a poisoned note so long and live to tell the tale.