Crushed flowers are beautiful,
dried, pressed
not useful but certainly nice to look at
My sister affectionately called me a 'delicate little flower' one of the many times you made me break down, crushed from false accusation
until i eventually dried up
pressed myself until the pain no longer hurt.
I wondered why i had become such a fragile thing
shouldn't heartbreak build you up, a learning experience rather than reducing you to a few petals and a stem.
i feel more like a tree
green and great during the warm summer months
unaware of the freezing winter winds that will blow away all my protective leaves. barren. cold.
i hope someday i will become evergreen
beautiful, tall, luscious and full- pine or cedar or spruce
staying fragrant all year round

but for now i remain a daisy
nothing special
dried, pressed and crushed between these pages, within these words.

the difference between 2017 and 2018 is

in 2017 i met you
in 2017 i fell in love with you
and in 2017 i lost you
and in 2017 i must leave you

in 2018 i no longer have but a memory of you
in 2018 i have myself and layers of trauma i'm not too sure me and my friends are ready to deal with yet

in 2017, you were You
in 2018 you are now Him

he does not deserve the privilege of You if He didn't recognise the privilege he had when he had Me.

fourth day without prozac and i can feel the ancient thoughts of 'pre-medication' time settling themselves back into the holes they chewed out of my brain.
writing this about myself makes me feel selfish. a part of me is telling myself that i am me and all i am is Me meaning my thoughts consist mostly of me but the part of me that had moved back in after being evicted is shouting
'selfish, self absorbed'
and I am confused
because if i am being Me- and me being my thoughts- is selfish
does that mean that I am selfish? Therefore, I am unworthy? Of what, the dusty thoughts are shaking themselves and reminding me exactly what it is i am not worth and i begin to feel ill because it has been so long and now all these first person pronouns are making me (again) feel conflicted i have to use them in order to write my thoughts but my thoughts are telling me not to and i am confused i do not want to be ME i feel as if i'm going mad and i want to dissociate completely but i hate it but i also dont and these stupid pronouns are something so simple yet they are making me lose control and i hate myself why cant I control Myself
I Me Myself My
Selfish.

i stand, rotting
a small wooden structure in a large city
barren and empty
one window, a single pane of glass

surrounded by skyscrapers
tall and terrifying
yet they too,
they too are rotting
windows smashed,
cavernous corridors tainted by crude slogans,
abused.

my small frame is fragile,
a foundation that is questionable,
my walls are depending on these skyscrapers
willing them to stay tall and terrifying
yet they are crumbling at the edges,
the debris beginning to become almost too heavy on my roof.

he drinks into oblivion
stumbles home drunk
hate slipping off his tongue like the alcohol that so easily flowed past it before
insults crashing into the ears that are so used to it, numb to it
his needle sharp words tearing into the scarred flesh of his beloveds' minds
pushing and pushing until the point of no return
gone

hopelessness
a poison infecting my system
rendering me paralysed
the world around me
mirroring the darkness of my mind
i look forward to nothing
all i see ahead of me
is an opaque abyss
and i fall
uncaring
unmoving.

i am, what my friends so sarcastically yet exasperatedly say, 'an idiot'
why?
for many reasons
one being, it takes a solid ten seconds for anything even the slightest bit confusing to dawn on me and when it does it is expressed in the form of an over excited "oh yeah!"
"remember the english homework we got last week?"
.........
"oh yeah!"
two, i cannot drink and not drink to excess- but i'm working on it, i promise you best friends who have looked after me far too much on nights out where we should be dancing but instead they're holding my hands as i throw up ***** and cry over the dog that had wandered into the pub
three- all good things come in threes, right?
i'm an idiot because i care too much
not in the sense that i care too much for my friends and family, or that i care about what other people may think of me
no, i care too much about the boy that has already forgotten about me
i care too much about how he is and where he is and how he is and how he is and
he doesnt care about me
he's living his own life, like everyone else in this world, taking pictures and smoking **** and making friends and drinking coffee and doing what he does best while i sit here writing this poem wondering if he ever loved me
i dont think he did
i was just a distraction from her, who he said he was over but then why were her pictures still up on his wall staring directly at me when we would lie and talk about nothing and everything for hours and i was nowhere to be seen despite how he claimed i was "his favourite person" and now i know how little i meant to him because i am back here drowning and he is safe on land and he does not care
but i do
i'm sorry i'm an idiot
but my friends also say that it is endearing how i react to finally understanding a conversation, i can live with that
my friends say that i'll learn my lesson, and i most definitely have because i'm never drinking ***** again
my friends also say he didnt appreciate me, that he took me for granted and that i deserve better
i'm still working on that part.

addiction is not so taboo as it seems
it is rampant and spreading
seeping under the floorboards, dampening the wallpaper
blind to the pain your not eating does to your body
blind to the effect your constant purging has on your best friend
blind to your mother's secret tears as she sees the fresh scars you promised were gone
blind to the fact that he does not love you
but to all you are unwilling to see
because you are unwilling to accept.

i told you
released the burning words that had been trapped in my fiery mind for weeks on end and i watched them disintegrate in the cold night air between us
and you looked away
silent

the stillness of that morning still haunts me
the moment of conciousness and the whole world just feeling off balance is something i had never experienced before,
knowing something was wrong and having that inkling of unshakable doubt
was terrifying

then the phone rang
and the fog of doubt
seemed to condense


the waiting was hardest,
sitting across the kitchen with an anxious mother,
nothing but the out of time ticking of an old clock on the wall keeping us present

the gentle opening and closing of the door
hesitant footsteps as my uncle entered the room,
bad news surrounding his being like a black cloud.
my grandmother turned as if in slow motion

the liquid froze to a solid along with my heart
as the distressed cries of a grieving mother
echoed around the small room.

the first time we met

i was drunk
and you were high

anxiety was present, the alcohol just handing the internal slander a megaphone

i may have cried but
your soft hands,
despite how they shook,
carressing the skin of my neck
and your gentle voice,
despite how it cracked,
grazing my ear was enough to calm my racing heart

and we kissed

and a sense of relief rained down on my being

for me, it was love

since i last let my feelings flow through my fingertips, things have changed.
i have achieved, i have progressed, i have loved. i have lost.
oh my god.
i have experienced loss so heartwrenching, so achingly, emotionally painful it was physical and a black hole has burrowed into my self that vacuums happiness whenever it pleases.
this pain will not ease- it will become normal.
without choice, memories and pictures must suffice.
but oh my god.
i have loved, been loved, am in love and loved. i am experiencing a love so strong, so natural that i feel empowered. this love is like no other- it is like home. it is comfort. it is a warm open fire on the coldest
of winter nights. it is the feeling of sun on your cheeks on the most carefree of summer days.
This Love does not counteract the black hole by any means. It complements it.
replenishing happiness that has been hoovered away, always reminding me that every dark side has a bright one.
"Yin and yang, you know?"