what have they done to you,
dear girl with the rainbow hair?

have they saddled you with their insatiable thirst for perfection,
my sweet girl with the rainbow hair?

have they demonized the ground you dare stand,
fearless girl with the rainbow hair?

have the non-believers tore you piece from piece,
my messed up girl with the rainbow hair?

the world will always tear you down,
tender girl with the rainbow hair.

you were never supposed to use your voice,
my deafening girl with the rainbow hair.

do not let them defeat you,
sweet heartbroken girl with the rainbow hair.

whilst machismo is still alive,
the girls will never be safe.

There’s a little coffee shop
Down an avenue, I like to walk.
It smells like I imagine you still do,
Inside that little coffee shop.

That little coffee shop is where we used to go
When life was good and happy.
We didn’t have a care in the world,
Inside that little coffee shop.

Looking back on that little coffee shop,
It still amazes me how much things have changed.
I would never have imagined that you could hurt me like this
Inside that little coffee shop.

That little coffee shop still feels like home to me,
Its warm fire still makes me glow.
But it will never be the same without you
Inside that little coffee shop.

In that coffee shop is where you first showed me
How it truly felt to be loved.
I would never have realised that your love would lead to this,
Inside that little coffee shop.

As I walk past that little coffee shop
I am hit, again and again, with the familiarity that our love is over.
I walk past in the knowledge that I will never see you again
Inside that little coffee shop.

That little coffee shop will always be my home for you,
Its where my memories of you
Have laid to rest. It will always be
Inside that little coffee shop.

The blue skies are coming.
This has always been my mantra,
my calling card,
my peace in this crazy world.

I do believe that the blue skies are coming.
I do believe that I will once again sleep,
without waking,
and without screaming.

I do believe that I will once again
be able to walk down those streets
and not feel fear
at the thought of seeing him.

I do believe that I will be able to drink,
and not feel every person
that has ever bruised me
touch my skin.

I believe that the blue skies are coming.
I've been saying it since I was a child,
ruined by an eating disorder
and chronic depression.

I do believe that the blue skies are coming for me.
Depression stole my love.
Anorexia stole my childhood.
But, still, my blue skies will come.

A train station is like a second home to me.
It’s where I last saw you, as you walked away
For a train that would take you so far astray.
Tell me, did you ever look back
to see me standing there on that platform?
Did you ever have a last glance, my friend?

I did not realise then that that would be the last time
That I would see you, my friend.
Even though you exist still,
You’re not at home anymore.
You are not my friend that got on that train.
Does my friend exist at all?

Since you turned away to that train,
The world has changed you, my friend.
You’re no longer the innocent one
That once held my hand through it all.
The world has turned you as cold as an icy winter
Since I last saw you, my friend.

Train stations are now a familiar echo to me.
I travel to them,
One after the other,
Searching for the person that I once knew.
They do not spare me of the knowledge
That you are long since gone, aren’t you my friend?

Standing on the platform so that I could watch you go,
I could never have imagined how much
The world would change us.
You no longer exist in the sweet hue of my memories,
But instead, lie in the barren desert
Of my depleting mentality, as you’re no longer my friend.

The way I have dealt with my traumas
Has varied.
They have moved as swiftly
As the seasons change,
And have always adapted to the current climate in which I live.

For a short while, I could pretend as though
Nothing happened.
I could pretend as though my pain was as
Invisible as their ability to love me,
And that I was as unaffected as
An old oak that has weathered storms past.

Then came my acceptance, and my fight.
I fought.
Hard.
To be seen, and heard, and believed.
But alas, this was not to be.
It was then I learned, that sometimes silence is what is needed
To weather a great storm.

Then came the talking.
With endless cups of coffee,
And whistles that glowed in the dark,
I learned what it truly meant to share my pain
With one that would not tell my secrets.
Who could not tell of the demons dancing throughout my head.
To truly learn that trust can
Also weather a great storm.

Finally, has come nothingness.
I try, desperately to forget the remaining threads that
Tether me to my memories,
Even when I still can’t sleep with my back away from a wall.
It is not a time I wouldn’t be keen to forget.
There is no storm worth remembering to weather.

There is no storm worth remembering.

Sometimes,
When the sun gets low,
And the stars and moon don’t seem to be hanging in the sky,
Taunting me with their ability to disappear into oblivion,
It can feel almost impossible to breathe.

While I know that being unable to breathe
Because there is nothing in the darkness to light my way
Is as about impossible as it is possible for me to love you again,
It is still my reality.

I know that my heart will never be open to the possibility of
surrendering itself so completely to you once more,
Just as well as I know that this weight on my chest isn’t real,
But it doesn’t make the feeling evaporate like water on a blisteringly hot day,
Or even on a slightly too warm for a jumper day.

The harshness of my condition has been taught to me
Like a bunny has been taught to hide
When the foxes stalk it’s way.
Even more so, the cures have been preached to me since
The moment I admitted I led a tormented existence,
And yet my existence has remained tormented.

Maybe this is my moment, my completely, impossible to ignore,
Unavoidable,
Moment.
To quiet those which torment me.
Which taunt me.
Which remind me,
I will never truly escape these chains
That hold me on the starless nights.

My resting ***** face is my superpower,
That and my ability to survive.
But you can’t have one without the other,
My survival and my superpower walk hand in hand through the valley that is
“Sweetheart” men,
Kissy face men,
Will shout at you in the street men
And will say you were asking for it men.
You thought I wanted it?
Look at this ***** face,
And tell me I wanted it, *****.
I have learnt that the world will throw knives and snarls in my direction,
And a simple smile will not end this affection,
And so a resting ***** face ends that sort of *******.
Because suddenly, when you look like a woman who won’t take ****,
Men won’t give you ****.
When life gives you lemons,
Make a **** orange.
You won’t be given anything.
One day, I’m gonna tell my baby girl
“Remember, a resting ***** face is your superpower,
And you can do anything you put your mind to.”
I have survived everything that has come my way so far,
Me and my resting ***** face will rule this world.

“You look pretty”.
It is a cage I have adorned myself within.
In my nineteen years of living,
I never thought there could be a greater compliment than
“you look pretty”;
“you look beautiful”;
And, my personal favourite,
“I bet you look good
Under all that clothing”.

This is a cage that I have locked myself in.
The walls are made of crystal,
But no one who presses their hand up against it
To steal a glance in
Ever sees me.
I am what I will become,
But to the crows that surround me,
I will never be more than the pretty object
Waiting to be snatched up from the filthy floor.

In my nineteen years of living,
I have been conditioned to believe that my worth
Is solely based around
How pretty I am,
Or how good I look in that dress,
Or how I beautifully paint my face to become
Your doll.
I never have believed that I could be
Anything more.

When you gaze upon me,
With your starving eyes searching my body
For something that does not exist,
Do you not see me for my true worth?
Is my capacity for kindness and
My loving nature
Not something which is destined to be adored?
Will who I am
Ever be enough for your ego to coincide?

Whatever it is that you decide,
Your choices will not persuade me.
I know I am worth more than an idle compliment
Which holds no weight or denotation.
I know that I am worthy of a love
Which sees all of me,
And not just the crystal cage
That is shattering in my wake
Around me.

And once again,
My love betrayed me.
He found one better,
One that filled his soul in ways that I could never.
She’s not broken like me,
But neither is she kind like me;
Or selfless like me;
Or caring like me either.
So, when he stares at her
In the same way he used to stare at me,
I hope he sees everything that she is not
As well as everything she is.
She may fill his soul in ways that I could never,
But she will never fill his soul like me.
She may be the one he chose,
But she will never be me.

It’s sad that the first time I speak to someone,
Their opening line is
“Thank you for telling your story, it has helped me.”

13

It’s upsetting that I have so many stories to tell;
Like the time four boys pinned me to the cold pavement
And they took it in turns to force me to kiss them.
I remember how the onlookers did nothing,
They wanted me to learn the meaning of boys will be boys.

17

It will always remain one of the stories that I will never tell,
Similar to the story of my childhood where
Boys would run their hands down the body that came to be my carcass, to claim
What never belonged to them.

7

The story I tell is the assault of an older girl,
A girl who knew what the assault was,
A girl that will never admit that the **** happened more than once
And a girl that suffered incredible violence.

16

I hate how I have so many of these stories to tell,
But what is worse is how there’s so many others that
Need to hear them to feel less alone in their pain.
It is worse that I am not alone in my pain.

14

I wish they could see what remains of us,
The victims of the violence that they have left behind
To suffer in their misery alone.

6

I wish they could see the meaning behind the numbers,
The ages I’ve been throwing throughout this poem
But they’ll never mean anything to anyone but me.
We need to become the leaders of a revolution, no more numbers.

Do not be gentle with my mind.
I know that to move on
I must deal with my past.
My childhood.
The disorders.
The ****.
The trauma.
I know that to truly love
I have to move on.
Maybe I am not ready to love yet.

I have known many men.
I have known kind men.
I have known sweet men.
I have known men
that scream 'not all men'.
I have known men
that are those men.
I cannot claim to have known all men,
but those that I know vary greatly.
I know good men.
I know gentle men.
But I have also known violent men,
Angry men,
men that make me want to rip my hair out
and men that did it to me.
So, while I know there is good,
I know all too well that there is bad.
I cannot change all men,
but I am sure that I will find a person
that does not need to change.
Until then,
I shall not be hurt by more men.

As long as I am alive,
I will always see the boy,
Feel the boy,
Smell the boy.
It’s my nightly terror
And my daily reality.

I’ll be living
Halfway around the world
And the smell of him
Will find me
And drag me back to
His bedroom,
On my heads and knees begging.

It will bring me back
To the fear of this dusty town
And all the suffering he’s put me through.
I will always fear the boy,
And I will always fear you
For you could become the boy.

My depression was not a grey sky.

                     It was not a rainbow, waiting with a *** of gold.

                                 It was not even cloudy blue, yearning for
                                                  high wind.

                                                          ­            My depression did not even
                                                                ­                 have a sky.

                                                           ­                      My depression was
                                                                ­     an endless rabbit hole.

                                  But the rabbit hole has an ending.
                        
                      I can see the blue skies up ahead.

My depression did not have a sky. But my happiness will.

They say at the moment before your death,
You will have a piece of life flash before your eyes.
I wonder if it will catch my baby’s breath,
Or my very first butterflies.
I hope I will see all that is good,
Not my first love, but my last.
I hope I do not see the horrors of my childhood,
Or if I do, I hope it goes fast.
When my time comes, I hope it is filled
With all the I love
And all that I have fulfilled,
Warming my heart like a woollen glove.

Love
Has always been a veiled villain for me:
A trickster,
A demon,
A thief in the night.

I believed that love was pure.
I believed that love was safe
And warm,
Even after I met you.

When I met you,
I thought what I felt was love.
I thought love meant accepting
How you made me bleed.

I thought love meant doing
Everything to keep you afloat
While you drowned me
In your sea.

Until the day you left,
And for a long time after,
I did not know what
Real love was.

I didn’t know it meant
Arguments about all
The stupid ****
Friends fight about with no violence.

I didn’t know it meant
Finding solace
in pizza boxes and
Awful films that makes us laugh.  

I used to be heartbroken by you leaving.
But I know now,
That if you had stayed,
You would have broken

My heart until it bled for you.
You would have taken everything from me
Until I was gone
In that final packet of pills.

My depression is like
Laying in a bed of thorns.
Every move will punish me,
Scratches matching every fear and compulsion.
I wonder what it would be like
To not have this burden hanging,
Like an executioners axe just
Waiting to be swung.
I wonder what it would be like
To not be watching over my shoulder,
With anxiety clawing at my every movement.
I wonder what it would be like
To be in a room full of people
And to know that I am loved.
To not need them to express it,
Because I had nothing to make me doubt.
I wonder what it would be like
To feel anything at all,
Except this ache,
This numbness that seems to cushion
My fall.

I think I should be a plant mum.
Plants require love,
but not too much love.
Plants require the amount of love
that I am capable of giving.
So, while my heart is healing,
maybe I should become a plant mum.
Maybe that amount of love will suffice.