Turned 25
Disappointed to find
That I’m still the same girl
The one who can’t hide
From needing validation
Love self deprecation
And never on her own side

Turned 25
And was sad to find out
That I still don’t love love
That I’m better without
Despite being desperate
To feel something affectionate
And never really knowing why

Never grew up
I still love finding seashells
And feathers on the beach
Fathers to meet
Despite all my history
I think no one would miss me
If I vanished and changed my name

Never grew up
Collecting sparkles and gift cards
And losing my pills
I can never sit still
Despite diagnosis
And not of psychosis
I feel like I’m losing my mind

Since then I feel smaller,
Like half a person,
There’s a reason people call people their other halves.
The tears rock me like an earthquake and it physically hurts.
Everywhere I go it’s music, and food and terms of phrase,
Screaming your name.
Like the world wants me to be in pain.
My bed is way too big just for me but I don’t want it full unless it’s full of you.
I think I took for granted the beauty of normal life with you in it.
The worst part is I can’t even tell you how much I miss you,
Because you’re healing too.
That’s okay.

Actually I haven’t
Decided just yet
How I will
Doom myself today

And there I go again
Deciding upon the worst way to
Hurt myself so that I don’t feel
Dead

Attention
My span is short
Fickle and false
I barely even have a pulse
Deficit
Of all of use
Of anything that’s not obtuse
Hyperactivity
In my brain
In my movements
I’ll never change
Disorder
That’s how they describe
My silly little broken mind

Would you tear the petals off of a fresh red rose?
Would you stop the sun from warming your skin?
Would you take the birds voices from the morning chorus to silence them?
Would you dry up the oceans and never again feel it’s waves lap your toes?
Because to do any of these things would not be nearly as terrible as hurting you.
And yet you do hurt you.
So next time you want to hurt,
Remember the roses and the sun.
Remember the ocean and the birds,
And stop to remember how precious you are.

I hide my limp as well as I can,
Whilst my Lacoste trainers bite at my heels.
I try to look like I know what I’m doing,
Striding along central London streets,
A hidden google map at my side.
The sun is too hot to wear makeup…
Or socks as it happens which is why I have blisters.
Dodging past women in laboutins and men in suits,
I think to myself,
It’s lunchtime for the rich.
All of the restaurants are too expensive for me,
And they’d all want to eat me alive.
So I find some shade on the grass at Finsbury circus gardens.
I release my stinging feet from their white leather prisons,
And ground myself.
Whilst eating an egg sandwich out of a tinfoil wrapper,
I breathe a sigh of relief.
Exhaling my earlier fear,
I lived another day.

She’s not a typical beauty,
Hers is painful
It’s overwhelming, haunting.
Eyes of the palest green,
Satin gloves, translucent shields.
She’s a glider, she floats,
Never settles, never stops.
Her words are fragile ribbons as they tie me up.
You’d give mostly anything to save her wouldn’t you?
Yes.
She’s so delicately wonderful,
If there’s a god he loves her.
She’s a bird who’s feathers are as exquisite
As the bruises that stained her skin that day.
She has been free falling for a while now,
But she’s not there yet.
She needs to know that love is what is left
When everything you have has been stolen and your own emotions are no longer yours.
That’s when you know you’re loved.
When you and they have pulled each other through a hellish cloud of tears and blood.
And though your clothes are red and wet,
In their eyes you’re wearing the same green satin that your eyes and wings are made of.

Try to imagine and
Try to perceive
What your actions must feel like
To someone like me
I can’t be fighter
I’ve tried to be strong
I move on and say I don’t care
But I’m wrong
There’s something about your stupid face
That makes me feel safer
And like I’m in place
You’re reckless and silly
You’re just immature
But for some reason
I just keep missing you more.

Sadness lives in my bones
It’s settled in my marrow
Happiness is harrowing
Like a fracture
That never healed
Entrapped pain
Within my structure
Never to feel whole again

When I see the news stories
And read the vile comments
I’m reminded of my own
And how for him it’s past tense
But for me and for them
It’s every day
We live with that pain and that shame and that
Way of surviving
Like no one ever ripped out your heart
Like your dignity wasn’t stripped from you
Disbelieved in court
Ridiculed on Facebook
And ******* about in bars
‘This tortures him too’
‘He’s always been fine with me’
That’s what we hear when we try to seek
Validation from those who know our abusers
scepticism and the audacity to accuse us
Of being dramatic, of lying, exaggeration
Well tell me where is the dramatisation
In the fact that in my story when he was done
He wrote ‘No’ on my wall in permanent marker
To reminded him that next time ‘No’ is the answer
Like he should need reminding when he heard it from me
But I am a woman, was a girl
So you see
What I do doesn’t matter
Which sadly is proved
When today we read of Sarah Everard in the news

June,
A Tuesday, almost seventeen.
You were unexpected,
So out of the blue,
And green of your eyes.
I saw stories,
Through the picture.
I decided that yes, I wanted to know
You and all about what you’ve seen
And lived.
We met in heat,
And those eyes and smiles
Had me captivated before we ever spoke aloud.
You’re older and taller,
But you never act better than me.
I love that.
July and August,
We became us.
Two of us together.
September separation,
philosophy, theatre, literature,
Less of us.
We compromised and nothing changed.
But I loved you more than I did in July,
When I spotted your eyes watching me dancing
And singing on the stage.
October, November, December.
Cocooned in our heat,
Our personal summer.
Preserved, nothing changed,
But we got closer.
Partners in crime,
My favourite distraction.
New Year’s Day,
It’d been half a year.
I knew long before and so did you,
This is what they talk about.
February, today, a Wednesday.
Clinging onto our summer,
Yearning for this year.
I love you like nothing has changed.

I lie in bed
awake till 2,
Every night
To honour you.
I wrap myself in
Tears and wine,
To take away all my
Spare time.
I tell myself that
I’m okay,
Listen to Muna
Stayaway.
But I can’t breathe without
Your breath,
Without your depths I have
No depth.
I’m hollow and I’m filled
With pain,
Couldn’t bare to
Love again.  
I lie in bed
Awake till 2,
That’s all that I know
How to do.

Serenity won’t sit comfortably
Peace won’t be palatable
Calm isn’t comprehensible
Sleep never quite settles
Chaos is collaborative
Complication celebrates me
Sadness sits in my favourite chair
I am backwards but I am trying to turn

I have heard
A very strange fact.
You could bite off your finger,
If your brain allowed the act.
Letting go of you
Is a similar feat.
I have to stop loving you,
But my mind admits defeat.
I would stay away
If I could fathom the pain.
But science prevents me,
Because of my brain.

Sitting on cold pebbles
watching the sunset
over the sea in December
Makes me wonder
That if I live my life
As close to the sun
And the ocean as I can
Will I become those rippling
Blues and oranges
When I go?
I hope so

You’re like a bruise that I can’t remember getting.
You just appeared one day,
And now I look different.

You cant make your worth known
To those who would steal it
By giving a freebie to any who feel it
Your soul is expensive as is your mind too
So to cheapen your time is to cheapen you

They say that women,
Search for love and choose the right one.
But men just take whoever is
In front of them when they’re ready.
So if I never leave,
If I’m always in front of you,
Maybe when you’re ready,
You’ll choose me.

My cognitive
           dissonance
Won’t make any
           difference
Because his
           effervescence
Rotted all of my
           essence
His self assured
           ambience
Expired my
           relevance
And no impotent,
           ignorance
Can unbalance this
           turbulence

I am so convenient.
You’ll find me where I’m needed,
To he and him and they,
You think I don’t need to be heeded.
I am so amenable.
Always kind, accommodating.
My man, my friend, my father,
Always cooperating.
I’m sick of only sometimes,
But I won’t complain out loud.
My drug, my grace, my enemy
I’ll never make you proud.
I hope I’ll become difficult,
Say no with insolence.
To men, to you, to anyone,
I won’t be so convenient.

I can’t imagine how many times
I’ve cried
Driving my car
On a dark motorway
Over men who don’t care

Curling I knew you
Curling I waited
Curling we reunited
Sleeping you met me
Sleeping you loved
Sleeping you lied and wasted
Reeling I tried
Reeling I changed
Reeling I sacrificed
Lazing you lost
Lazing you ruined
And lazing you’ll stay forever

Romance is dangerous to desire,
When all of your flames are hellfire,
And all of the men you let touch you,
Do nothing but claw and clutch
At your heart,
Till it bleeds and you’re sore,
And you can’t see the point anymore,
Of love or of loneliness,
You don’t know what’s worse,
But you do know one thing,
You’re cursed.

I’m trying to stand in the sun
But your moonlit ******
Hooks my heart
I love the warmth on my skin
But your voice is akin
To musicians
Plucking beats in my soul
Thumping and twanging
When I say I want soft notes
Am I a liar or a lunatic?
For whatever music I learn
My voice only sings in tune to you
I’m trying to lie in the sun
But your night is all I know

I must have a backwards heart,
Or at least a broken brain.
You told me you can’t love me,
But you’ll have to tell again.
You assure me with your words,
And then with careless actions too,
That falling for me is just something you will never do.
But still I can’t and won’t believe,
That you don’t feel like me.
You can’t tell me any other girl,
Visits you in your dreams.
If we are not in love then explain to me my dear,
Why our bodies fit together and your absence I can’t bear.
Convince me I’m the only one that feels so safe and whole.
Manipulate my mind as you’ve done to my heart and soul.
Insist that your hand wasn’t made to rest upon my thigh,
That it doesn’t mean a thing when your eyes knowingly meet mine.
You’ll have to put the work in to persuade me it’s not true.
Or I’m sorry but I have no choice,
I’ll just keep loving you.

I’d prefer devastation
To this desolation
I’d rather feel it all
Than to feel this empty
No tears left, no screams
Just the fakest smile that
Gets me through the day
Till I’m home
And I’m blank

You’re the drug no one  forced me to take,
Warming my brain,
Numbing my pain.
Your sweet, soft remedy used to last weeks,
Now my hours are long,
And I’m singing our song.
These days I can’t feel if it isn’t with you,
Catching my breath,
Sad little death.
My pleasure was short lived but now it is gone,
With truth I broke trust,
Now it’s over for us.

You spin dreamscapes across my mind
You weave a skyline made of satin clouds
You burn me with flames made of stars
And keep me in your pocket
Safe and sound
In my imaginary world you created

You are excruciating
You really hurt my soul
Now I always need you
To feel like I am whole
You are so impossible
Don’t want me then you do
Nothing can convince me
To ever stop with you
Everything you say
Like knives that twist and cut
But darling you could **** me
It would never be enough
Never enough to stop me
Never enough to prove
For even if you hated me
I know I’d still love you

Loving you is new tattoos,
Loving you is rain.
Loving you is a long weekend,
Loving you is fate.
Loving you is our favourite songs,
Loving you is blue.
Loving you is the colour of your eyes,
Loving you is true.
Loving you is testing my heart,
Loving you is right.
Loving you is your scent in my hair,
Loving you is night.
Loving you is all I am,
Loving you is kind.
Loving you is the only thing that’s ever on my mind.

I’m overwhelmed with gratitude
I am loved  
I love
I care and am cared for
I help and I am helped
This love is all the love I will ever need
I am they
And they are me

I may as well have ‘fragile’
Tattooed on my forehead.
For I am basically
A cardboard box,
Brimming with ceramics,
Glass and priceless art.
Just asking to be dropped
And to tumble down the stairs.
One wrong move and you’ll
Have nothing left to put up
On your walls.
Be careful with me when you go,
Or what’s the point in all that bubble wrap at all?

Freedom and loneliness
Sundown’s sickened sisters
Twilight’s troubled twins
Midnight’s melancholy muses
I can never tell them apart
And therein lies their beauty

Messy hair
Windswept
Sea salt skin
Tired eyes
An outfit that doesn’t match
A morning swim
That’s how I want to be
That’s freedom to me

God if there is such a thing
Then save me from this man
God if you are listening
Help him love me if he can
God if you made me, help me
Help me to relieve my pain
God if he feels nothing, show me
Reveal if love is feigned
God tell me you can do something
God teach me to let go
God keep me calm and soft
God help my heart go slow

Goodbye to my broken man,
Your healing is not mine.
Goodbye to my happy drug,
I bet one day I’ll be fine.

Gratitude is a funny thing
One day I’m bitter
Another it spills over the brim
A sunny Monday,
My brother laughing,
Then suddenly it doesn’t matter
That I can’t afford the Maldives
I’m okay as long as they are,
As long as the sun shines and
I have food to eat
I’m okay
And I’m grateful

I love the colour grey
In an October sky
In the evening sea
In a clouded, misted moonlight
I love to wear grey
I love it’s simplicity
It’s like a cool embrace
After a dip in cold water
I love the colour grey
I love how it warms my soul

I wish I could tell you,
I wish I could describe,
The way my soul feels rested,
From one glimpse of your smile.
I wish I knew the protocol,
I wish I knew the rules,
But nothing could prepare me,
For how you've made me your fool.
One touch from you gives me more energy,
Than hours and hours of sleep.
Your kisses are my favourite secret,
I don't want to keep.
In your arms I feel safer,
than I ever have before.
Any day without you leaves me empty to my core.

I know it should be wrong,
And I know you're not my own.
But something in me sees something in you as just like home.

I know you feel how I do too,
Or else I wouldn't say...
I want to make you feel loved,
and be loved by you each day.

What’s the point
Nobody is ever going to be you
And I don’t want anyone else
I just distract myself
With kisses
And hands on my skin
So I can pretend they’re yours
And stop feeling so empty
Just for a moment

It’s your birthday today
82
I’ll always regret missing your last party
I couldn’t help it
But it haunts me that I didn’t see you blow your candles out
That last time
I moved to the seaside
You would’ve loved it
And every time I look at the sunset sparkle on the water
I see you
Smiling and laughing
With a glass of red wine in your hand
And your family around you
Just the way you liked it
Happy birthday Grandad
I hope wherever you are it’s great

Picture me stood on my favourite rock
Picture me in the sun
Picture me with drink in hand
When I'm dead and gone
Tell me that I'm beautiful and always get it right
Tell me I am wise, then lie and
Tell me I can fight
Keep me in your thoughts as something real and something pure
Keep me as a secret and
Keep me lonely yours
I want to be alive and real and tangible by your side.
But really I'm a dream, a thought, a happy little lie.

Midnight
Mid July
Even 22 degrees at night
Moonlit walk
Beams on the ocean
Hot and drunk from sweet cheap wine
Pebble pushed footsteps
Fake tan and hair dye
A fresh breeze in my lash extensions
The night and I juxtapose each other
Like two parts of myself I could mention

Midnight,
Mid July,
Even 22 degrees at night,
A full moon illuminates my home ,
Beams silver white on the Solent,
Hot and drunk from the lambrini I drank from a plastic cup,
Pebble pushed footsteps crunching my air force 1’s into periglacial river gravel,
cockle shells and swell softened glass dented by my progress.
St Moriz medium dark tan mingling with the scent of the black Schwarzkopf cloaking my mousey brown roots.
A warm breeze tangling my lash extensions.
The night is at peace with itself,
I am disguised as someone else.
Juxtaposing each other like two parts of myself I could mention.

What is there to pump my blood?
 I am devoid of heart and love.
Why do I care about my face,
And slaving for a brief embrace?
The only touch I crave is death.
The coldest skin, a rattled breath.
I’ve felt all that there is to feel.
The deepest pain, their pinching steel.
I’ve smiled and I have sliced my skin,
Religiously let demons in.
Invited them into my soul,
To take me with them when they go.
Regret for every choice I make,
I never cared what was at stake.
So what is there to get up for?
I won’t be what I was before.

If the only way to avoid heartbreak
Is to become the breaker
Then consider me the devil my love
For I will break whatever I please
To avoid you

Heaven is an Italian restaurant
The one from the Billy Joel song
You wait for me there with a glass of wine
And we’ll have a long conversation again
Heaven is the sunlight streaming in rays
Through the clouds over the sea
When the sky wears her grey jumper
Just out of reach to me for now
But I can swim in the reflections
And remind you that I don’t need reminding
Heaven is wherever you are
And wherever I’ll end up

Maybe I took for granted
How beautiful it felt
To climb in bed beside a person
To love the cards I was dealt

Maybe I was selfish
And didn’t choose to see
That you were struggling too
And it wasn’t only me

Maybe I was careless
And threw caution to the wind
Betrayed you and waylaid you
And bathed myself in sins

Well now although I’m happy
Become used to being alone
I still can’t help but feel like
I’m never really home

I don’t think I was ungrateful
Maybe selfish but I cared
I pray the world gives a second chance
For me to find love again out there

I belong to the far reaching sea,
I will have nothing if it will not have me.
I am born of the froth, and the waves marching strong.
I will die with the salt, and the fish all in throngs.
I have only one truth that I know to be true,
The ocean won’t falter when fickle men do.
Of all of the things I think myself to be,
Of just one I am sure,
I belong to the sea.