In an earlier incarnation, Hayden Veil enjoyed a successful career in software engineering, writing late-night poetry in pursuit of sanity. On 2 February 2020, the world of Hayden Veil changed: Ghosts became real and with its soul laid bare there was no turning back from the perpetual path of poetry.

A Pretty Picture (not)

Picture yourself having an accident, falling down the stairs let’s say. You break a few bones, arms and legs and dislocate a few fingers.

Now picture yourself not getting any help with your injuries. You lie in bed for a couple of months while you wait for the broken bones to heal and eventually you feel strong enough to get out of bed. Your legs aren’t as steady as they used to be, nor are they straight and your arms, well they could put a smile on any scarecrow.

As you make your way down the stairs you stumble and fall head first into the hallway. This cracks your scull and gives you temporary memory loss and a strange hissing sound in your ears. You are yet again facing recovery in your bed without any professional support, the cracked scull could have used a few stitches.

Some time later you decide that you want to leave your bed as you are feeling so much better and as there is no-one to stop you from getting up you eventually reach the stair again… SO YOU MANAGE TO FALL DOWN THE F* STAIR AGAIN. Breaking arms and legs in multiple places. Sigh. Back to bed again…

Now picture yourself in front of a mirror many months later, seeing yourself with disfigured arms and legs, fingers pointing in all directions.
Physical injuries upon physical injuries has created a monster, someone you hardly cannot recognise. If only you had received support along they way in straightening out those arms and legs and fingers too, that would have made all the difference.

You realise then for the first time that internal injuries, mental health issues that are recurring and left to heal themselves might also lead to monsters being created, the only difference is the lack of visual signs. You find yourself wondering why physical and mental health are not equally valued in our healthcare system. You feel the rage building inside.

the storm of ruin

They came in sets of four,
the harbingers of death,
from each corner of the void,
their mantra reverberated,
murmurs of old;
scattered through the realm.
They came in sets of four,
and left none to record the
wind; the storm of ruin
foretold

n.i.b

the knights in black; passion of stallions crucified; prancing gods overturning the dawn; the fists rising; guttural reverberating overtones; the iron men – acolytes of past tense, emerging

rbr

My mortal Sin 
     Breathing 
            Down my neck pearls of sweat 
      Dripping 
             Cold; 
             Wet air 
             Arrows shot in tandem; 
             Cupid in error 
Embrace me
             Solely
Rubber gloves 
             Mandatory

Maybe

Maybe one day I will go to uni, maybe one day later I will feel adequate, maybe years later I will understand my purpose, here on earth.

Teflon Shoulders

another night on Tumblr spent

YESTERDAY asleep in bed

no sunlight seen

no fresh air felt

spiralling downwards fast

as the corkscrew anew

no regrets

no punishment

sticks

no worries

only sorrows

Y.A.F.F.U

I didn’t choose to stay alive
Like all other matters
I failed to do anything about it

Hand Me

I need a hand to hold
to mentally breathe
to physically squeeze
to metaphorically bleed for
to rhetorically
lean to in
silence

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