I couldn’t just give you half my heart
I had to give it all
I didn’t care if that meant I wouldn’t have anything for me as long as you didn’t fall

Pressure for perfection
more from me than from them
I don’t know that they would even bother if they knew my own mind is my worst critic
Stopping me in my tracks sometimes before ever even starting something new
Dragging me backwards without a moments notice  

Why am I my biggest adversary ?
My mind a war zone
Where am supposed to find tranquility, serenity?  

Then I remember your smile
Yours and mine combined
It can calm any reckless wave of anxiety
So greedily, I want to capture those moments  
Freeze them forever in time and placidly encompass them in my embrace

Even the feeling of a void is amiss
I have gotten to the point beyond nothingness
How did it get this bad

I can't even remember how to be who I was before the pandemic
I miss that girl that was confident-ish
that was hopeful
that looked positively upon the world
that loved adventure and sunshine

I miss her laugh
her smile
I miss her eyes that used to sparkle not with tears but with joy
she was just starting to leave her chrysalis
she was just learning to use her wings
her wings along with her freedom were claimed
all she loved stolen by what felt like a deadly gust of wind

Now I've just built up the strength to regather those scattered pieces of myself
but I don't think I'll ever be that me again

Unaccomplished
Insufficient
Unworthy of being hired

Unloved
forgotten
Not worthy of being remembered

Silenced
A little too quiet
Not worthy of being heard

will you tell me what you're feeling
what you're thinking
why don't you speak to me when you're angry
what is going on in your head
why am I met with silence when I try to unlock your voice
it is what picks at my flesh the most
it is what speaks idiocy in my ear
telling me it's all going to disintegrate like it never existed
telling me just like everything else in my life
this will turn into nothing

You are such a sweetheart
I'm a cold-hearted *****
I think we are perfect

Now I have too much silence
too much peace
not enough pace
I think it is foolish to want a little trouble
but right now I'm floating on motionless water
with no storm cloud in sight
and I hate the stillness of it all

I envy how the rain can just wash away what it pleases

All I ever wanted was stability
somewhere I could be safe
not afraid
but the universe has chewed up every bit of familiarity I held like a heartbeat
and made it flatline

Sometimes we regret that we let people flicker in and out of our lives
like a broken light bulb
we think that its our fault because we didn't hold onto them with our whole souls
and now empty rooms seem to echo even louder now that they are gone

but now the light bulb has finally died
and we sit quietly in the dark
we've realised that light bulb wasn't worth replacing ever
because they chose to leave you in the dark

It’s a little colder now
A little harder to breathe
Harder to get the words out
I’m a little choked up
so please don't ask me if I'm ok
I just might breakdown

If there was a way self love could be bought
I would have invested everything I had into it

You will find me where the water holds tightly onto the horizon
You will find me in the way the clouds cry oh so slightly
but just enough to water my dry roots
You will find me where the breeze hits the sunflower fields
You will find me in the way the sunflowers sway at their elongated stem
You will find me in the way the petals fall as you say
She loves me not

I rather age like fine wine without you
Than be poisoned everyday by words that do not allow growth

I have already mentally prepared myself
because you have already drifted
So I know where this is heading
but physically i'm not ready to go through that kind of pain
It’s soul ******* .

Unravel yourself you said
you said I have been bound up soo tightly
it is hard to even begin unknotting
it is hard to for anyone to decode the arithmetic's in my mind
you said I never let myself feel what I have never felt instead
you said I lay dormant awaiting a match

But I know of these foreign blazes that come and consume like a flame
sometimes I want to be immersed in their heat
it is what I crave
but I feel like the more I run towards burning fire
the more the smoke begins to suffocate

Don't think about it too much
just drop all the weight that has been causing you to sink
then maybe for once you will be able to float

Sometimes I wonder why they aren't moving
maybe I am not mentally or emotionally prepared for what I can not see yet
maybe what I will see will break me
maybe I am already broken
maybe I am the mountain

I have seen you pluck your feathers and give to those that wouldn’t do the same
why must you give and give until you have nothing left
why must you let them stop you from flying beyond restrictions
Can you not see how they are stealing your air and replacing it with carbon monoxide
they are jealous that you flew so much higher than them
they were jealous that the stars would shine so much brighter when you approached
my love have you not bruised your knees enough falling on behalf of others
you do not have to ******* yourself for beings that will not give you water when you are dehydrated

Your fingers were outstretched towards me
but instead of reaching forward and grasping my palm
you were taking steps backwards until you were a speck on the horizon
if you didn't care,you didn't have to act like you did
I would have preferred you wither away merging with passing of seasons

When I say I am out for repair
I mean I am removing, rewiring and renewing
the toxicity that is slowing my progress

All these bolts missing and screws loosened
no wonder the machine does run smoothly
it's ok to be out of service for maintenance
it's ok to have to remove some anomalies  
that maybe causing your wires to spark
you have to replace the bad with the good
and the old with the new
to be whole and fully functional
or just be a better you

I wonder sometimes where shooting stars go with all of our wishes ?
will they ever be granted?

While looking for the meaning of the stars in your eyes , I saw only her reflection in them
I knew I she had already become your moon
To you I was only a passing cloud

Instead of comfort you were the monster that lived under my bed
Instead of being security you unhinged my life and buried the screws
I wonder if you know you are a reoccurring nightmare
I wonder if you know how you make my skin crawl and my hairs raise to the sun in an attempt to escape the darkness

My forever never seemed so far away

I know it's hard to be comfortable in your own skin when the world tells you it's not pretty enough
Don't let them take away your omniety
your freedom to roam this world as you please is your born right
don't let their adjectives subject you to living a life of suppression
in fear of feeding the label of being "angry"
let those words be as brief as a fleeting breeze
let it only brush past you and get caught in the trees  
Do not give them the power to restrict your oxygen
So when they throw blows to your chest you can quickly recover

I have learned that these types of encounters come frequently as a person of colour

It pulls me apart and puts me back together
it stitches and plasters
it smooths and deepens
then it stabilises and heals
all to break me down again
and start all over with a different problem being the centre of the hurricane

what do you see when you look at me
do you see me at all
the real me
do you see it ?

through the straight lines they try to balance us on
do you see me in the way I stray away from the parallel

do you see the real me not the picturesque airbrushed version I present to you
blemished and bruised do you see me?

do you see the way I hesitate to say what I'm feeling and whats on my mind  
because I don't have words that can make those things cascade beautifully from lips

can you see I am not a spoken word or speech
I am a written letter , twisted font conjoined cursively
on a blank piece of paper, not restricted to lines

not many get past the sealed envelope
not many want to

Following your heart is one of the most dangerous adventures you could ever decide to pursue

My heart runs so freely
While my mind runs frantically after trying to pick up the scattered pieces of my everything left on the dirt path

I'm not an option
a maybe
I'm not your whenever I'm bored
I'm not a parachute you can pull so you can land safely into someone else's arms
I'm not going to water your ego when you get rejected
Do not call me when your lonely at 2 am
I'm not your Plan B

Dear past me, if I could tell you one thing it would be that
you are so strong
no one will realise how many things you have overcome by yourself  but yourself
so don't forget that those ordeals have broken and remade you into the blossoming woman you are now

Dear past self, you are not everyone else
you are you and nobody else
so you do not have to pretend to be a different person
you do not have to fit into anyone's mould, it would never hold  because everyone is sculpting using different materials

Dear past self, you do not have to be loud
because the people that are supposed to hear you have heard
everything you are saying

Dear past self, I want you to dry your tears now
because where I am, the sun is shining so fondly on your face
you are more or less happy in your skin, it is beginning to feel like yours

I lost nothing but everything at the same time
I never took that step forward to be who you wanted me to be
I was too selfish to give up just a little of myself to make room for you
but compromise was the missing words in our story book that had already been published
it was too late for us

I finally decided to sit down and listen to the music that was hummed as you strummed on my heart strings
The song you played was a fairytale
Without a happy ending

I have dropped all my weapons pointed at you
I'm not used to having to surrender and seize fire to let an ally in
but love has waged a war against me in the past
I was just defending myself

I did not ask for you to paint your feelings of past hurting from other lovers on my body
But you did
I want you to know
That I would not never clench your heart
And squeeze out its contents
In an attempt to fertilise my own insecurities
I want you to know that
It is ok to show emotion and to be delicate
It is ok to show weakness because after weakness comes strength
I want you to know
That I know it takes great courage to pick yourself out of the rubble war has caused instead of burying your head in the dirt
I want you to know
that I am not like her
I am like me
I would not inflict the pain of a million heartaches on you to appease my own hurting

I’m speaking at you
I’m always speaking at you because the words never seemed to penetrate your thick skull
I’m breathless
I feel like I’m running marathons just to never cross the finish line
I keep circling endlessly
Never moving forward
Never moving backwards
Never moving
Never growing
What is the point in watering grass and it never getting greener
My love I have to uproot myself
Start afresh on new soil

I cried a river
only so I could drown every bitter encounter with you

I don't want to get up and walk through the rubble
gathering pieces that had been glued imperfectly together once before
I don't want to disturb the peace
it only just became quiet , muted

I will just lay still here
clinching to the hushed disarray

Because they will pick out the bad
and poison the apple before it begins to ripen
I scatter my seeds in secret and only when they begin to sprout they shall know

It was a day where the sky cried for me
and I cried for me too
it was a day where I decided to ignore the cuts and bruises I gifted myself as a present and keep walking on the smashed tiles                  
I was desensitised to the ache but every slash that broke my skin seemed to give release

looking in the mirror, the eyes that blinked back carried no colour
the mirror cracked under the sting of my hateful gaze
and for some reason my knuckles bleed from this
drop …… drop
oxidised deep red stains followed me to the timber balcony
the wood absorbed every distress from me and the sky
the silence on my mind as the rain played with my face was disturbed by wondering of what it would be like on the other side of the world
where there was a small barrier between fire and eternal peace

She wasn't the type of girl that plunges herself  into oceans knowing very well that she couldn't swim
but for some reason she wanted to taste how salty his sea was
and float on the unpredictable waves
all while watching how the clouds created stories in the form of shapes above them

What is a love story if it isn't written in tears and hard-times  
what is love if not the days you can't stand each other but can't stand to be apart at the same time
so you lay watching the ceiling on separate sides of the bed while hands are still intertwined firmly
what is love if not the ear wrenching screaming and the bruised knees from the tumbles and turns
what is love if not the heart swelling affection you have for each other
that heals everything else
and the eyes that smile admirably at each other  
while the world seems to freeze and observe such as sight

Broken,
the key was broken in the key hole
so that door was never really closed
that's why it was so easy for you to re-enter my life

Let me know if I'm wasting my time
let me know if this,  whatever this is has all been in my mind
let me know if I conjured up these feeling from thin air
because it will hurt a lot less than knowing you were playing some sort of game with my frail heart
a game I was late to get the instructions to

let me know if you feel the same way
just let me know so I can loosen the tightness in my chest
because it's getting harder to breathe

Not every wound creates painful and ugly impressions
some create beautiful illustrations on a beautiful soul
so be careful to nurture those wounds
accept them because they are yours
time will provide healing no matter how far in the future that maybe
so beautiful soul hold hands with time
because it is your friend
a friend that has been with you on every journey

I always end up burning down every bridge
in the process of being built
in an attempt to save myself from foreign emotions
then I proceed to complain about not getting visitors
knowing **** well that everyone is stuck on one side with no way to reach me

but until someone is smart enough to use Morse code to write a message in the sky
I will be content on my little island

It wasn't all about you
it wasn't all about me

that was our problem
we were our problem

we couldn't get over the hurdle that was our self pride
and canter into happiness

we didn't communicate our issues
because the only place they were voiced was the back of our throats

we didn't work out maybe because we weren't ready to let the pieces of each others wool be crocheted together to form an imperfect cushion
that we could both fall back on