"Life is like riding a bicycle,
To keep your balance you must keep moving."

This was said by Einstein,
A man of talents, many,
Who would share his thoughts,
For much less than a penny.

He did have a point,
Life simply goes on,
It needs to be savored,
Before a chance is gone.

"It is as easy,
As riding a bike."
But life is harder,
Than we'd like.

It requires skill,
Focus and time,
And sometimes life,
Doesn't go by design.

Sometimes it feels like,
Make-believe, pretend,
But it is still life,
Until the very end.

The walls that whisper while I walk
Seemingly pressing closer
Soon to be caving in on me
Soon to be whispering my cries

I'm called on in a class
A sea of heads turn towards me
Like seagulls staring at a struggling squid
Ready to swoop and snack on their afternoon meal

I open my mouth but nothing comes out
No answer to the question that I've already forgotten
No way to take the spotlight off of me
No way to escape

They call it shy, I call it wanting no one to look my way
Wanting nothing to be wanted from me
Wanting to not need to "speak up"
Or "voice my opinions", or "be more social"

They call it anxiety, I call it the monster that tugs at my vocal chords
The monster that feeds off my silence
That hisses at social gatherings
And pounces at excuses to leave

This monster is my downfall
But I don't have to submit
I don't have to bow down or worship
I can choose to fight it

People will not stand to judge me
For battling my own wretched beast
And it seems that if they do
They have one of their own at least.

Most friends are people you can,
Do a few things together with.

And if you have a friend that,
You can do anything and everything with,

You usually end up,
Marrying them.

fluttering wings in morning sun
handsome bugs filled with beauty
a myriad of lustrous peculiarity

Man cannot recreate
What it does not know
The sky we see everyday
Is more than it may show

The blue above our dreary lives
Fills me with such peace
And no painting can depict
The clouds of wool and fleece

The sky we see everyday
Is more than you may think
It's blue and grey and red
And scattered purples and pink

I truly believe no one can see
The colours the sky can bare
Because when I look up at it
I walk through life prepared

When I see the sun ablaze
And the clearest blues around
I think to myself, and feel so free
Like I'm walking on a cloud

Locked away,
For no one to find,
Is that special place.

The place I hide,
My deepest treasures,
My best moments,
My fondest memories.

The place I go to,
When I need,
Something to do,
Or when I need,
To be cheered up.

The place I engulf myself in,
For hours on end,
The place where I feel,
Truly safe.

Where I hide,
Is the place in my heart.

Depression is a beast,
Of utter madness,
A being filled with stress,
And overwhelming sadness.

Inflicting its own pain,
On unsuspecting townsmen,
Never taking a break,
Striking again and again.

A mighty sword won't cut it down,
Neither will an arrow,
A dove isn't able to show it love,
And it can't learn freedom from a sparrow.

This treacherous monster,
How grand, how tall, 
Has no way of being taken down,
No way it will somehow fall.

This monster is strong and you are weak,
Or that's what it wants you to think,
But with time and spirit alone,
You can fight it with a blink.

It will cease, and it will fall,
It will leave you to not defend,
It will find another victim,
And you have made the monster your friend.

Some call poetry the language of Love,
And a poet is one sweet mistress,
But I call it the language of Heart,
Of Mind, and Soul, and Distress.

It is not Love that drives a writer,
But the fear of Loss and Strife,
And with these bittersweet words I say,
One might fear a poet's life.

In the darkest depths of unimagined,
The imagined rises true,
And Love somehow, against all odds,
Strikes out of the blue.

I feel the most beautiful
After a warm shower
It has created a smile
From a previous glower

My once natural curls
Straighten out long
My hair cascades
And my makeup is gone

But I feel this is the body
In which I belong
Because anything else
Would just feel wrong

Whether I was crying
Or sitting to contemplate
I look in the mirror
And I see a clean slate

After a shower
It all washes away
The goods and the bads
Ups and downs of the day

When I finish soaking
I stare for a while
I think about how much
I truly love my smile

I watch my eyes glaze over
I see my deep brown hair
I wonder what is happening
Beneath my own dark stare

When I look in the mirror
After I have showered
I feel more like myself
Where another is towered

How are you?
They ask.

Every day, at least twice,
Someone asks,
How are you?

But they really don't want to know,
What is the point,
Of asking,
If you're looking for a lie?

I'm great, how about you?
I'm as great,
As the Great Wall of China,
Broken,
Barely there.

I'm as great,
As the Great Barrier Reef,
Slowly dying inside,
Deep within me.

I'm as great as great can be,
How about you?

We struggle in life to make a living,
We work ourselves down to the bone,
But never are we thanked for living,
Instead we make it on our own.

Every artist that you know of,
Famous in their passing.
They never know their legacies,
Never know their lasting.

Not just those with a brush,
But each poet in old times
Will never see the day
That kids study their old rhymes.

Each composer will not hear
The symphonies they create
Being sung by a choir
Until after meeting fate.

Fame does not come easily,
"All he had to do was die,
It seems a lot less work,
We ought to give it a try".

We respect those that did,
Not those that are doing,
It seems this way of life
Will be our own undoing.

If we have no regard
For each soldier that fights
For each star that sings
For each poet that writes.

We will lead them to their graves
Just for that single taste,
For their legacy to remain,
For their legacy to be graced.

It seems that man is hungry,
Power, wealth, all the same,
It seems that man is greedy,
Needing his final fame.

Sparklers go off,
Light emitted,
A birthday princess,
In a dress well-fitted.

Party pipes ring,
Filling one with sound,
Leaving no one behind,
No unsmiling face around.

Knife brought out,
To cut the cake,
The very first slice,
For the princess's take.
___

Sparklers go off,
Fire everywhere,
Nothing can help,
Can only stand and stare.

Party pipes ring,
Like a siren's sound,
Hearing a shot,
And a thud to the ground.

Knife brought out,
No cake in sight,
Blood's decoration,
Is that of the night.

You know when little kids
Come up to you and ask
"Can you please help me?
It's too much of a task!"

Well, usually they made mistakes,
Or had a minor incident
And I find myself in that same boat
What a coincidence

But my situation is unlike theirs
Where they may have lost a crayon
No, mine is to do with a girl
A challenge I must take on

She's quick and smart and talented
And she knows her way around
But my minor incident
Isn't very profound

See, this girl is all I want
All I could ever dream
And her smile makes me blush
To the world, I want to scream

My minor incident
Makes me want to twirl
Because, it was falling—
Falling for this girl

Love is a social construct,
An empty train to conduct,
A missile set to self-destruct,
A faint light, by trees, obstruct.

A forest of unknowing,
Lies are of the showing,
In the trees, blowing,
A struggle is ongoing.

It will be the end,
All made up, pretend,
No way to defend,
No longer a friend.

Causing you strife,
Haunting your life,
Were husband and wife,
Now a blunt knife.

Useless, neglected,
*****, infected,
All memories collected,
No longer respected.

Life isn't simplified,
This relation long has died,
Told and forced to take a side,
No rules left to abide.

Slashed and yelled to go away,
Waiting like a sitting prey,
Filled of an emotional buffet,
Soon to become a vicious fray.

This surely can't be right,
Wasn't supposed to cause a fight,
Grasping for thin rays of light,
In the darkness of the night.

Impossible to find,
They say love is blind,
But I was defined,
By a tightly closed mind.

They said this was our time ahead,
Chose not to listen to what they said,
I was fatefully filled with dread,
On the floor, my soul had bled.

They have nothing left to say,
No one there for my dismay,
Just needing someone to come stay,
I'm left, lodged in this cliche.

Only destruction in its wake,
Love isn't blind, but love is fake,
Nothing to give, just wanting to take,
Until it drives you to finally break.

Love is a social construct,
An empty train to conduct,
A missile set to self-destruct,
A faint light, by trees, obstruct.

Stacking upon each other,
A coil of pythons stand,
Tails holding their weight,
Holding hand in hand.

The pythons work their hardest,
Prancing on their prey,
Yearning a sweet defeat,
But there is more at play.

A master of disguise,
A master of deception,
One will stop at nothing,
These pythons no exception.

The coil of pythons stand,
Holding each other strong,
A war to attempt success,
For a place where they belong.

I write with no inspiration
Except longing on my mind
A siren call of missing you
With silence hard to find

The sirens sing louder
And louder through the night
I'm drawn into their ocean
And spiral out of sight

I wrote with the intention
That this piece would be of joy
Of 'happy' and of 'wonder'
And not a darker ploy

But alas, here I sit
In a stranger's bed
Alone with my teddy
And nothing to be said

The sadness in my mind
Screams louder than before
The tears begin to stream
And I'm sickened to the core

After all this writing
I know the only ploy
Is the silent sniffles
Of loving a boy

What is shared,
Is to cherish,
Not to disregard,
Not meant to perish.

Love is a thing,
So delicate, fragile,
Distributed willingly,
Confirmed with a smile.

To give out this love,
Is a simple process,
Something achieved,
Simply needed to confess.

Your job is not difficult,
Just be you, so cute,
And I promise that my love,
To you, I will distribute.

I’m not okay, but that’s okay.
I don’t need to be okay all the time.
I don’t want to be okay all the time.

That’s unreasonable.

I’m not okay, but that’s okay.
Waves wash over me in each gulp of broken breath I take.
Waves wash down my cheeks in every glimpse of this greyscale world I get.

It seems unreasonable.

To not be okay, is it really okay?
To have thoughts of everything in a field of nothing?
To believe you are nothing in the moment you are the most something?

It’s unreasonable.

I’m not okay, but that’s okay.
I won’t be okay all the time.
I can’t be okay all the time.

Unreasonable.

I’ve said it so much that okay has become unreasonable,
that a word repeated has lost all meaning
and all emotion.
It has lost structure and no longer looks of a word,
but the remnants of one.

Explain how a word that can be simplified to but two letters can lose all meaning.

It’s not okay.
It’s unreasonable.

We are lovers,
Loving those in need,
Those who deserve it,
Who sit broken, they bleed.

We are friends,
Of the paper and ink,
Writing what we want,
With little time to think.

We are tenants,
Of a place we call home,
Writing freely in this space,
Which we wish to own.

We are dreamers,
We live in our heads,
Connecting our thoughts,
With thousands of threads.

We are poets,
Writers of the arts,
Sharing deep secrets,
From the deepest of hearts.

Fruit of the best kind,
Is all I want to give,
Hand-made, hand-cared, hand-picked,
For as long as I may live.

Do you ever get a sense,
Of overwhelming fear,
Sadness and anger,
As they whisper in your ear.

You don't know how to cope,
So you push people away,
That have done nothing,
But you want them to stay.

It doesn't make much sense,
But as it's almost midnight,
I can't help but cry,
As I sit alone and write.

Such a common metaphor
“Roller coaster of emotion”
One moment without a care
The next in deep commotion.

But sometimes there’s no other way
To describe this pressing fear
A constant dread of the imminent
The unforgiving and austere.

The first drop of the stomach
A quick fall of the cart
The moment of pure horror
You’ve feared from the start

There’s no reason for a mood swing
No rationale behind
But it happens with full force
The unforgiving and unkind.

“Roller coaster of emotion”
Not much else I can say
My mind is a predator
And my body is it’s prey

No other way to describe
This endless looming feel
But once the roller coaster starts
My emotions become surreal.

Memories faded,
Locked with no key,
Hidden in great depths,
Wandering, but not free.

Mirror, mirror,
On the wall,
Who is the fairest,
Of them all?

Mirror, mirror,
Tall you stand,
Who is the greatest,
In all the land?

Mirror, mirror,
Mighty, strong,
Tell me who,
Is in the wrong?

Mirror, mirror,
Don't play this game,
Who is the stunning,
Most bewildering dame?

Mirror, mirror,
On the wall,
Please, I beg you,
Answer my call.

Who knew a word would hold such power
Who knew a single syllable could hold fate in its hand
Who knew this concept could make a world crumble
Who knew that just the sound of it could break me where I stand

Soon can be impending
Soon can be a promise
Soon can be a dream
Soon is hiding from us

Soon is my worst nightmare
It laughs while I wonder
I shatter and I shiver
Thinking of life yonder

The future is unknown
The future is soon
The future is a melody
With an ever changing tune

I hate that word
With every fibre of my being
I just want to live
The dream that I'm seeing

Soon is a promise
And I promise it will be
Because soon is the future
Just for you and me

You’ve had one,
You’ve had two,
A liar to some,
And the lie is you.

You’ve had three,
You’ve had four,
Wipe away that glee,
Because there will be no more.

But no, you’ve had five,
You’ve had six,
Karma will eventually arrive,
And that, you can’t fix.

You’ve had seven,
You’ve had eight,
You want that ticket back to heaven?
Yeah, well, you’re too late.

You’ve had nine,
You’ve had ten,
This is now a crime,
Don’t ever talk to me again.

You’ve had your last chance,
And now, I’m warning you,
Next time, you won’t get a glance,
And there’s nothing you can do.

Streamers raining down as snowflakes in deep winter.
Cake, all over my face like armour.
But I sit and ask myself, what is the cause of this ceremony?
One day, every year, no problems, no frief, or melancholy.

But the only thing that seems to change is the number.
Life goes by so quick, who'd have thought?

Every year I say the same; seems like only yesterday.

On this special occasion, that is my birthday.

Roses are red,
Violent, sharp,
With love and life,
Music of a harp.

Roses have thorns,
Making hearts bleed,
Stealing their dreams,
Of ever being freed.

Roses have petals,
Soft as a smile,
Falling down slowly,
As they gather in a pile.

Roses help people,
Trying to win hearts,
But why do we use them,
We'll just get torn apart.

Roses are danger,
But are used to propose,
So many faces,
Of a single rose.

This tear falls,
Leaving a trace,
Leaving a scar,
On my weary face.

What's done is done,
Now, you can't go back,
Inside, where my heart was,
Now it's black.

All this destruction,
Was caused by you,
The damage was assessed,
And it needs more than glue.

You can't cover it,
Not even with a bandaid,
Nothing can hide the harm,
Of this heart-breaking blade.

The wound merely grows,
As the days pass by,
So, now would be a good time,
To say goodbye.

"I posted a poem,
So don't scroll past,
Read, like, but please,
Make it fast."

"I'm yearning for approval,
The attention of you,
Just write a nice comment,
What more am I to do?"

I've gone through the effort,
But don't give me my fame,
Because asking for your love,
Just isn't the same.

Sometimes I forget
Not everyone knows I'm a poet.

That's okay because sometimes
I forget too

I forget the weight that words have on my chest
I forget the feeling of my fingers moving freely across my keyboard
A million thoughts clouding my mind until one materialises through written word
I forget the freedom of writing

I sometimes even forget the meaning of a poet.

What is a poet?

An artist?
A lover?
A fighter?
A hater?
A cynic?
A critic?
A human?

Human.

Poetry is art
Humans create art
Art makes us human

It's funny how that works
Because poetry is like a therapist
Some will never set foot in their office
Others will have scheduled appointments weekly

Me?
I forget Dr. Writing exists until my life turns to shards
While I smell the daisies, she hears nothing of me
While I break down in pieces, she is all I know

Now I greet Dr. Writing as an old friend
I greet her with open arms and open heart

And yet sometimes I forget I am even a client of hers


Today someone didn't know I was a poet
And this shocked me
I thought it was obvious
I thought poetry was all I could speak of
I thought poetry was all I could speak.

And yet
I was shocked

Because up until I had been reminded
I had forgotten that I was a poet.

I am always told
Patience is but a virtue
I do not possess.

I feel so homesick,
Tears tracing my face,
I sit on my own,
In this new place.

We’ve been here so long,
Longer than a year,
But I miss my home,
Homesickness. My fear.

I miss all the people,
That I left behind,
In the first couple months,
Everything was fine.

We spoke all the time,
But now, barely at all,
Only ‘Sorry wrong person’,
And ‘Accidental call.’

I’m sorry that I left,
But I’m sorry to me,
For being locked up,
And throwing out the key.

I put this on myself,
I left those for which I care,
We’re no longer friends,
Why isn’t this fair?

Why am I so sad?
Why must I cry?
Why am I forced,
To tell them, Goodbye.

Innocence is a bird,
A free-flying fowl,
Free from worries and weight,
Free from the nights’ howl.

A bird of love and wellness,
A dove of utter flight,
A sparrow home at last,
An owl in the night.

A single speckled feather,
Dropping, graceful, to the land,
Lighter than the sunlight,
Warmer than the sand.

Innocence is a bird,
A creature of liberty,
Innocence is in us all,
A part free of hostility.

“I only wish I had your talent.”

No.

Being a poet is not as much of a gift as you would like to believe.

You are forced by your own internal writer
to measure your thoughts perfectly
and pile them pristinely
onto a piece of piercing paper
that wishes
nothing more
than your emotional demise.

Mapping out every thought and emotion
is not a gift,
but a burden.

The more language you know,
the less words you seem to find
to describe the ever growing complexity
of the depths of your mind.

Being a poet is not a gift at the best of times.

I never sleep,
Never breathe,
Never eat,
Never heave.

I watch others as they run,
Running out of time,
And their broken hourglass,
Is what I claim as mine.

The souls of the grieving,
Give me no remorse,
A job I must complete,
Successful by brute force.

I am needed everywhere,
But needed nowhere too,
For I lurk the wailing halls,
With only a job to do.

I have no time to sit and cry,
No time left for my own,
I wander the Earth’s surface,
Searching only for my home.

I know I will not find it,
My company is not yearned,
And over millions of years,
‘Tis the only lesson I learned.

People wait for me to show,
As they grasp for breath,
But I am not wanted here,
For my name is Death.

You can’t find love without loss;
You can’t find joy without pain;
If you don’t go through hardship,
Life would stay the same.

It’s knowing what’s the worst
That lets you love the best,
And every moment in between
Is nothing like the rest.

The people that you fight for
Are the people you should keep;
If they’re worth every breath,
Believe in faith and leap.

If they bring joy in the pain
And provide love in the loss,
Then it was written in the stars
For your two paths to cross.

It seems cliché and cheesy,
But this much can be true:
You must mean every word
When you tell them, ‘I love you.’

Getting a call,
At an untimely hour,
Of untimely news,
Causing you to cower.

Receiving news,
Of an 'accident', so called,
Sitting, listening, waiting,
Sat, listened, bawled.

A loved one involved,
A head on crash,
All hopes and wishes,
Put aside to trash.

News, not the good kind,
Not good at all,
And this was entirely thanks,
To that untimely call.

Teenage love,
Is a sensation,
Filled with irrationality,
And temptation.

No way on earth,
Am I romantic,
Nor am I "in love,"
But I have become frantic.

I told this one guy,
That I might . . . you know,
And the fact I won't say it,
Just goes to show . . .

The awkwardness I felt,
Telling a guy, friends for a year,
And being friend-zoned twice,
By someone I hold dear.

It wasn't easy,
Not even in the slight,
And the conversation ended,
With him saying goodnight.

Why do I push people away?
Lie to those closest to me?
**** everything up in the end?
So blind to what others see?

I become a mindless
Fiend whimpering in fear.
Why is this only now
Becoming crystal clear?

Show me an indicator,
Of what suggests a traitor,
I'll be an investigator,
For this perpetrator.

We have a common denominator,
I promise, it's for the greater,
Good, this will be a creator,
From this treacherous infiltrator.

Because sooner or later,
You'll have to cater,
The need of this gladiator,
So please, show me an indicator.

Mother, all the times,
You rocked me to sleep,
And when you held me,
As I would weep.

Mother, all the time,
You spent by my side,
In you, I now trust,
In you, I confide.

Mother, all the patience,
You've had to hold high,
As I grew older and,
Mistakes would come by.

Mother, all the love,
You've given to me,
Couldn't be more grateful,
Honestly.

Mother, I don't know,
How I could repay,
The actions you have taken,
All with care along the way.

Everything you do for me,
Is a gesture so grand,
And in this moment, all I offer,
Is a hug where I stand.

I sit in my cabin,
Mountain top view,
Staring at the valley,
With not much else to do.

I look at passing flocks,
Floundering in the breeze,
Worrying about their lives,
While I'm worried about my keys.

The juxtaposition of us,
A scene like no other,
I see a bird learning,
How to fly from her mother.

I sit in my cabin,
Watching wildlife go by,
Wishing I were that free,
But all I manage is a sigh.

They say when sick in a moving vehicle,
it is best to watch the horizon as it comes in and out of focus.

Watch it as emotions well up to the point of sickness.
Just sit and watch as trees pass your peripheral.
Trying to conceal the sickness,
trying to not let it come up to the surface.
But it stays.
It brews and stirs.

The car rumbles on and
silence
screams louder than ever before.

Don’t disturb the silence.

That’s what she tells herself.

Don’t let your breaking breaths and
muffled cries
disturb the nature of the car.


Liquid daggers rain down from the windows.
You can no longer see her soul
as it has crumbled down to
the particle it started as.

Not a seed,
just a speck.

These daggers drop in

deathly,
dreary
silence,

they dance

down

until they reach a

dead-end.
Nowhere else to go,
only more drop.

The windows have been

cracked.

No amounts of duct tape
can fix this.


Nothing left to do except sit and watch the horizon.

Dearest Australia,
How much you make me weep,
As we drown in sorrow,
Ash from the sky, knee-deep.

We wait for the war,
Against climates to end,
But we cry for help,
No longer able to pretend.

Our sweetest, dearest country,
A place we would call home,
Has become unsafe for families,
Unsafe to call our own.

We cannot keep the children,
Worry and stress-free,
So please help us Aussies out,
Please, Australia, help me.

There are so many things,
About our country we cherish,
But we just sit and watch,
As the flames engulf, as we perish.

Dearest Australia,
I need your support,
So help a mate out,
At Macquarie's Port.

An orb of light,
In a scorching night,
It's taking flight,
A glowing kite.

Twinkles and shine,
I claim it as mine,
Running from time,
With a worthless rhyme.

It seems alarming,
Maybe self-harming,
Bombs I'm disarming,
To meet my Prince Charming.

A frog in a lagoon,
A kiss too soon,
A night's darkened noon,
I look up to the moon.

Sometimes I sit,
Staring at my reflection,
Noticing every minor,
Flaw and imperfection.

A mirror is an opposite,
A flip of reality,
A twisted, woven lie,
Of our actuality.

What we do not see,
On a mirror's face,
Is the flipped perfection,
We yearn to showcase.

We only notice what is wrong,
Never what seems right,
And that is a mirror's fault,
Altering our sight.

But it is just a mirror,
A mere, flipped reflection,
But everyone is filled,
With inner human perfection.

A cemetery is the only place
where stone and flora intertwine.
Opposites of reality
coming together as one.
Flora, full of life and colour, youth.
Stone, drained of all we stand to recognise.
Life and death.

A cemetery is the only place
where the living greet the dead.
Opposites of reality
brought together by the End.
The living bear flowers of light and hope.
The dead carry a stone above their heads,
crushing them beneath their weights.
Life and death.

We were running in the field.
She was chasing me.
I ran home and slammed the door shut.

Banging.

Laughing.

Squealing.

Silence.

. . .

I opened the door.
She was just lying there.

Bruised.
Bloodied.
Torn apart.

What I heard was just my mind playing games.


Pleading.

Crying.

Screaming.

Silence.