I don't want an easy love.
Sure, I want a napping in the sun,
Doing everything and nothing
All at once
Staring into each other's eyes
And giggling at an in-joke
Kind of love.
But not a simple one.
Not one that settles into my bones
With the inevitability of old age.
Not one that grows so comfortable
It becomes ordinary.
I want fire.
I want passion.
I want a love that makes me fight for it.
Over and over again.
I want a love that keeps me on my toes.
That never settles into routine.
Sure, I want a coffee in bed
Cuddles with a film
Soft pillows and warm skin
Kind of love.
But I also want to look at it
And see that it is ephemeral
And changeable
And all the more precious for it.

Sure, I want a lifetime kind of love.
But a lifetime's a long time.
And I want it to be a wild tango,
Not a slow and stately waltz.

Smile.
“I’m fine.”
Smile.
“Just tired.”
Smile.
“oh, sorry, I’ve been busy.”
Smile.
Smile.
Smile.

It’s funny,
isn’t it?
How hard it is to tell the difference
between a smile

and a grimace.

It’s funny,
isn’t it?
How people are so willing
to swallow a lie,
If it’s what they want to hear,

And you’re baring your teeth.

I’m slipping again.
I can hear them.
Whispered admonishments,
Echo in my head…
Louder and louder,
As I feel fuller and fuller,
All my spaces filled with shadows,
And the demons start to creep,
Clawing up my throat
And through the cuts in my skin.
I can’t control the chaos,
My hands are sliding on the reins,
I wish that I could ask for help,
But they won’t let me.

I don’t recognise the face I see,
Staring from the mirror,
It’s pale,
empty,
An ill-formed shell,
A weak and cracked container
For this maelstrom,
My hell.

They’re scratching at my skin again,
Make it stop, make it stop.
My bones are breaking through again,
Make it stop.

I am not one of those
To wax lyrical,
And proclaim loudly that
“I HAVE NEVER LOVED BEFORE!”
I have,
Of course.
I thought that I knew
The crushing ache
Of love,
Seeping through my bones.
Oh, but I was wrong.
He is not the first
To creep under my skin
And make my chest a home.

But he is the first
I have not resented for it.

He is the first
To make me feel awake.
To play music on my ribs
That vibrates long after he's gone,
Setting me quivering,
Gasping,
Overwhelmed and unsure.

But full of colour;
I was grey for so long.

Half asleep and mostly numb,
Adrift on a lonely sea,
He dashed my boat
Upon a rock,
And forced me out to swim.
To make my own way into life,
Instead of passively waiting
For it to begin.

He waited on the shore for me,
Dazzling in the sun,
A vibrant ray of feeling,
A shard of light that pierced my skin.
And I realised that love
Is just your heart breaking,
Sweetly,
Over and over again.
Stitched into a patchwork,
Of everything you are,
Woven through
With threads of them,

So it's not just yours anymore.

And I will fall for you,
Not like rain
Or drifting flakes of snow,
But like the sun.
Everyday.
Endlessly.
Over and over again.

They say demons should be
                                                               exorcised
They say in the dark lurks
                                                               evils
They say in your soul 
should be nothing but
                                                               light
That washed out is better 
than chiaroscuro.
They say all these 
                                                               things
But what do they know,
these people who live in the grey?
My muses are demons
My pen is a knife
My life is much
                                                               better
With black ink in my
                                                               veins
I suppose if their minds were to
                                                               open
We'd all be exactly the same;
A world full of demon filled people
With eyes open
                                                               wide
Drawing beauty from shade.

I am jealous of your life before.
Of all the fingers that have touched you,
And the ears that have heard you say
“I love you.”
I am jealous
Of all the parts of you I will never know,
Of all the years that I didn’t play a part in,
Of all the smiles that I didn’t cause.
I know I have no right to be,
I cannot claim every piece of you,
I cannot deny you a history,
I cannot be your everything.
But god knows, I want to be.
Because what if those ghosts of fingers
Still touch you?
What if you still hear the echoes
Of “I love you”s that tripped from tongues
Other than mine?
What if all those smiles,
Half remembered,
Make you long for lips you used to kiss?
What if,
What if,
What if.
I don’t know how to not be afraid
Of losing you.
I am scared that one day you will wake up,
And look at me,
And realise I am so hollow
And I have so little to give.
I am scared that you will realise
You are worth so much more
Than me.

I am a woman.
Or so I'm told.
But how can I be a woman,
When the me in the mirror
Doesn't match the me in my head,
Because I just can't comprehend
Seeing ****?
When I want to peel my skin off
Because it itches at the seams,
Of the stitched in expectations
Of my ***?
When the people all around me
Laugh and say “it's natural”
When I dare to express my discomfort,
And it seems I'm the only one
Who struggles with the day to day
Of existing as a “miss”,
And my name doesn't fit unless it's shortened?
So I strap down my chest
So you can't see it.
But still my face screams woman,
And my voice
And my hips
And that ever ******,
Mother ******* “MISS”.
I know my **** are still there,
Their discomfort physical now,
Not just a mental ache.
And every month I bleed,
And it's like my body's betraying me.
But the whole world says that's just the way it is.

I'm tired of the way it is.
I'm tired of your boxes.
I climb out of one
To be kicked into another,
Not a woman, fine.
So I must want to be a man?
I must want to join the ranks
Of the people that have disgusted me,
Debased me
And repulsed me?
Of the people making sport
Of the gender I have lived with?
No.
No.
I won't live with a gender,
With your ******* expectations,
Or your games
Or your stupid little boxes.
Pink,
Or blue?
I LIKE ******* BOTH.
I want hairy legs,
But not a hairy chest.
I don't want ****,
But I don't want a ***** either.
I want long hair,
Without assumptions I'm a girl.

I want to exist outside society.
It's broken.

I wish we could exist,
just you and I,
curled together
in a sound-proof bubble.
Nothing but breathing
your air
and kissing
your lips
and touching
your silk-soft skin.
I wish we could float,
unseen and untouched
though this world
full of judgement
and hate.
You are my peace,
my smile,
you are the moment
I close my eyes
and my mind stills
and empties.
The moment
when nothing else matters,
but the feel
and the smell
and the taste
of you.

I wish we could be,
just be.

I never meant to love you.
You caught me
On the way to my solitude
And tripped me,
So casually.
Did you even notice
That I fell?

I have never been afraid of fire.
Which is good, I think,
Because when I am with you
I feel like I might go up in flames.
You have consumed me more thoroughly
Than a pyre would, love.
And I have never been so happy to burn.

My whole world
Crashing
Down around my ears,
And all you can do is
*******
Laugh.
"It’s schadenfreude, *****.
Nothing I can do.
You gotta help yourself."
Help myself?
Ok.
I get up in the mornings
When I feel like leaving my bed
Might **** me.
Sometimes I even get dressed
Even though the seams of jeans
Scraping against my thighs
Is like a subtle, silent torture.
Reminding me
Of the scars they sit against.
Even though the necessity
Of removing my shirt
Makes me want to peel off
My skin along with it.
Because it doesn’t fit
Has never fitted
Feels so wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
I help myself
Every time I take a bite of food,
Ignoring the voice in my head
That tells me I’m fat.
Every time I step out the front door
Fighting through a wall
Built in my head
But very, very solid,
Constructed of all the fears
My subconscious can imagine.
And it can imagine a lot,
Trust me,
I’m a writer and an artist,
My imagination knows no bounds.
Mix it with self loathing,
And a good measure of crazy
And it makes a witch’s brew
Labelled
“nice try, *******.”
Don’t tell me to help myself,
When you have no idea
What it is like to live
While arguing with yourself,
Being shouted at inside your head,
Everything a battle.
Don’t. *******. Tell me
That you understand.
No,
You don’t.
How can you,
Unless you’ve spent days,
Hiding in your room,
Because downstairs there are knives
And everything
Everything
In you wants to feel them
Sliding through your flesh.
How can you,
If you haven’t looked in a mirror
And seriously contemplated
Just hacking bits off.
Because the pain of doing that
Would surely be less
Than the pain of seeing
Those alien body parts
Hanging from your frame
Every day.
How can you know?
How can you tell me
To just smile.
Just think positive.
Just go for a walk.
Drink green tea.
Eat some chocolate.
Do yoga.
Meditate.
Practice
Mind
Full
Ness.

Don’t tell me I’m ok.
I’m not.
And that’s ok.
I don’t have to be a perfect,
Functioning member of your society.
They’re your rules,
Not mine.
I don’t have to be happy in myself
All the time.
I don’t have to smile
Until my face aches,
While holding my tears inside.
I help myself.
Every day.
Just by continuing to exist.
By continuing to look ahead
And try.

Falling asleep

With your
                 Hand
                         In
                             Mine.

I think this might be heaven.

Look at me.
Tell me what you see.
Dark hair
Blue eyes
Pale skin,
Is that all?
Look again.
Look closer.
Please,
Look closer.

Do you see them,
The scars
The bruises
The cracks?
The shadows,
So many shadows.
When I look in the mirror
They're all I can see
But you say that I'm fine,
Am I fine?

Please.
Please see me
Please hear me
Please.

Can you hear them
On my tongue,
The pleas
The cries
The screams?
They sound so loud
In my head,
And taste so bitter
Always sitting there,
A sodden
Seething
choking pill
That I can't swallow,
But can't spit out.

Do you understand?
Please.
I just need someone
To see me.

I wanted everything with you.
To wake up one morning,
and see your sleeping face
and know
that from that moment on,
your freckles would be the first thing I saw
on all my mornings.
To go on adventures,
holding your hand
while sitting on the roof of our van
and exclaiming over beautiful things,
then looking at you and realising
I’ve already seen the peak of beauty.
To kiss you,
and know that your lips will be the last
to ever touch my own.
To experience that breathless moment,
hanging like gossamer between us,
right before the “yes”.
To sign that stupid piece of paper,
that nevertheless means so much,
because it says that even the law accepts
that we’re meant for each other.
To share a name with you,
to call you my spouse.

To open a front door,
sunlight highlighting the grey streaks in my hair,
and go out into our own garden,
and look at our little piece of woodland
and hear our burbling stream,

and know that all is as it should be.

All I can do is close my eyes,
And hold my breath,
And pray that this is not my life.
That I was switched at birth,
Or switched in time,
Or maybe I just haven’t woken up yet.
That’s it!
It must be!
This is all just a dream,
a nightmare,
This merry go round
Of work and bills and people, oh my!
And the tune that it’s playing
As I spin round and round,
The cracked cadence of a broken music box,
Do this, do that, why aren’t you married yet?
Hey don’t worry,
You just haven’t found the right guy.

It should be so easy,
To dance to their tune.
Everyone else does it…
So why can’t I?

Love strangles me.
My heart
Creeps, scratching, up my throat
Seeking release,
To hang itself
From my impotent tongue.
What use are words anyway?
What use my love now,
Turned to acid
That drills holes,
Sizzling and weeping
Through my chest.
I wait,
I wait,
I wait.
I hold on to a hope,
Too bright,
It shears the sight from my eyes
And flays me,
Laying me out
Broken and naked beneath it.
I pull on layers of gauzy dreams,
Hiding the cracks in my seams,
Where I'm tearing myself apart.
Smiling
And smiling.
It's ok,
It's ok.
I'd do it all again,
You're worth the pain.