My eyes are heavier than a thousand oceans,
my breath settles      
                        one          
                                                two.
I'm drifting off to the peaceful abyss,
galaxies dancing under my eyelids.
Ping.
"You up?"
Why, yes.
I am.

Have you ever missed someone so much that your arms feel numb without them there to be held in them? So much that you can see their absence pulsing round your body? So much that you'd give anything to be back in their arms, kissing lazily as the sun makes stars out of the dust particles floating around the air? So much that you've started believing that maybe single beds weren't made for just one person? So much that you're starting to think maybe phantom limb syndrome is the only way you'll be able to feel their touch again? So much that you have to pull over on the side of the road because them not being there is causing a sickness inside of you? So much that missing them is the only feeling inside of your body and so much that it's infecting your chest with a sadness that never feels like it's going to go away?

I miss you more than all of these combined.

I smoked all of your stale cigarettes and I wore your t shirt until the scent of your cologne was gone and then I drank every last drop of the alcohol you left behind until every memory I had of you and more had disappeared. but I'm keeping the empty cigarette packet, the bottles and your t shirt in a shoe box in the furthest corner under my bed; I'm keeping train tickets and old photos and I'm keeping the love letters that never meant anything to you. I'm torn between wanting everything about you gone and needing memories of you to keep myself sane.

I've been waiting for the day
that my footsteps
are quiet enough
for me to walk across the room
and not make a sound.

I've been waiting for the day
that the only thing
you can hear
when I sit down
are my bones clicking
against themselves.

and I've been waiting for the day
that I can look at myself
and not want
to make myself sick
because of the way
I see myself.

see,
I don't have
the best perception
of life
or anything, really
I can't tell you
what is real and
what is fantasy
but I can tell you
that my days
are getting shorter
and my time
is running out
and I want you to know
that I have never felt
more loved
than when I was
cuddled up
safe and sound
in your arms.

I don't miss you, but I don't sleep with the covers tucked in anymore. I started changing the sheets more often and I'm doing okay, but I'll never flip my pillow the way you did.

I don't miss you, but I leave crumpled wet towels on the floor now. I bought a new one specifically for my hair when it has just been dyed, it's plain black. I hope your blue towel is stained pink forever.

I don't miss you, but I haven't watched the sunset for the last two weeks. I've started watching the sunrise instead. I'm tired of endings. I'm still doing okay.

I don't miss you, but every time I write about you my heart races and everything turns into darkness. My doctor would probably suggest a pacemaker. I suggest another drink.

I don't miss you, but I had to block your number to stop myself crawling back. I still remember it better than my own.

I don't miss you, but maybe I'm lying to myself.

I don't miss you, but I hope you miss me.

I don't miss you, but maybe I should.

Today, I looked in the mirror and I noticed that my left collarbone pokes out more than my right. I noticed that one of my eyes is a deeper green that the other, and that one of my arms is just a smidgen longer. In the garden, I noticed that no two roses have the same amount of petals, no two blades of grass are the same height and no two trees have the same number of leaves. See, it got me thinking about you and I. It got me thinking about how neither of us said "I love you more." We rarely said "I love you too." It was always just "I love you." And it got me thinking that if no two roses, if no two trees, if no two arms on the same human body are the same, then maybe my "I love you" was different to yours. I know that when I told you I loved you, I meant I loved you. I loved every part of you, every nook and every cranny of your body, every inch of your mind and every skeleton in your wardrobe. ****, there are so many skeletons. And maybe when you said "I love you" to me, you only meant that you loved the better sides of me. The smiles and the funny hair colours and the softer parts, or the parts that turned you on and touched your whole body until you were shaking underneath me. The parts of me that are whole. Maybe you didn't love my empty spaces. And maybe love is always different, maybe you'll never love me the way I loved you but maybe it's too ******* late for you to try.

One. No matter how much you scrub at yourself in the shower, you will never wash the feeling of his hands from your skin. You will learn to be okay.
Two. His lips tasted like strawberries and you'll never be able to eat them again without tasting something sour.
Three. Getting under someone else won't fix your problems, but it will help you forget.
Four. Hearing her name will spark a fire so intense in your chest that you'll think all of the flowers have been burnt, but I promise you they will grow back.
Four. It will pass.
Five. He'll never get tired of the way your body feels underneath his.
Six. Let him miss you.
Seven. Let him be angry that he lost you.
Eight. Let him hurt.
Nine. Burn his t-shirt. Burn his boxers. Burn the love notes. Burn everything and let the ashes be the last of him.
Ten. He'll get bored of her too. Don't let him crawl back to your bed.
Eleven. You'll let his empty coffee cup fall to the floor and you'll let it smash and then you'll cry as you pick up the pieces and you'll write a dumb poem about how your heart was his mug and he let it smash and then you will delete it and then you will heal. It will be okay. You will make it.
Twelve. Your first heartbreak will never prepare you for your second love.

I am sitting in my bedroom on a fresh summer morning, and I am thinking about you.
I am sitting in my bedroom on a fresh summer morning, and I am thinking about how gentle your hands are when they run themselves over the steep curves of my body.
I am sitting in my bedroom on a fresh, and somewhat rainy, summer morning, and I am thinking about the burn I got my on thumb last night when I was making a hot chocolate, and I am thinking about how it doesn't hurt. Your hands are electric, your mouth sparks fires in-between my thighs and they burn and burn and burn, but they never hurt.
I am sitting in my bedroom, and it's a rainy summer afternoon with a cool breeze and I can hear the trains passing on the track nearby and I am thinking about you and all the ways we could be great. And how, for the first time in my life, I don't mind being burnt if it means I get to share these fires with you.

I'm six years old. I'm six years old and my favourite colour is green because it's the colour of my eyes and I think my eyes are the prettiest things I have ever seen.

I'm eight years old. I'm eight years old and I had a nightmare so bad I felt like my eyes were deceiving me. My favourite colour is now the same pale blue as my Mum's floral bedsheets because they make me feel safe.

I'm ten years old now. I'm ten years old and I'm a big girl because I'm allowed to walk to school with my friend instead of my Mum. We walk past fields of buttercups and other pretty flowers but my new favourite colour is the peach of the rose in my front garden.

I'm twelve years old. I'm twelve years old and I can't stand the colour green anymore because the meaner people in my school decided my self worth was less important than their jokes. I don't have a favourite colour anymore, but if you ask I'll say it's purple.

I'm fourteen years old. I'm fourteen which means I've been a teenager for a year and I still can't stand the colour green. My Mum let me dye my hair for the first time and now it is red and red is my favourite colour, but if you asked I would still tell you it's purple.

I'm sixteen now. I'm sixteen and I think I know everything, I met a boy that I like for the first time, my Mum doesn't know, but I think he makes the colour green a bit easier to look at because he told me he loves my eyes and that they are the most beautiful things he has ever seen. He gave me a pair of rose tinted glasses and I'm not quite sure why, but for now my favourite colour is the deep brown of his eyes but if anyone asks, my favourite colour is still purple.

I'm eighteen now. I'm eighteen and I can finally drink without it being illegal, and I have started drinking to forget everything except the colour of my Mum's pale blue floral bedsheets, the peach of the rose in my front garden, the bright red of my hair and the green of my eyes but most of all I'm drinking to forget the purple of the bruises that litter my skin, the purple that I always insisted was my favourite colour for reasons unknown to me.

I should be twenty years old now, and my favourite colour should be the orange of the sunset, the pink of the sunrise or maybe even the yellow of the buttercups in the fields I used to walk past on my way to school, but I did not make it to twenty years old. My favourite colour was never purple and I never asked for my skin to be constantly tainted that way, but you made sure I never healed and now my Mum is laying purple flowers on my grave and she's wishing she fought more to get my favourite colour to be green again like when I was six years old and in love with myself and the world around me, because if I still loved the innocent green then maybe I wouldn't be suffering my greatest nightmare as a child with the only comfort being tucked up in the seemingly endless sea of brown. I always tricked myself and everyone else into thinking things were perfect with rose tinted glasses but the lenses shattered and the last flower you laid on my grave was the peach coloured rose from my front garden, and now the petals have wilted and all of the colour has been drained from me but this new world has more hues than I could have ever dreamed of.

i was broken
once.

i don't even know what
i was before
maybe a vase or a
common water glass
a ceramic mug or a glowing
stained glass window.

i don't know how
it happened maybe i
got dropped or cracked through
contact or the temperature
changed too quickly for
my fragile self to handle.

and i don't know who or
what cracked me like my
twelve year old cd cases
or if it was a slow stress
fracture brought on
by myself.

but the signs are
there
that i was broken
once.

yes, i was
broken
once
and i am still
shattered
in my darkest places.

but i make a
**** good mosaic.