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312 · Apr 2024
Take me to Antigua
Birdie Apr 2024
Take me to Antigua,
Fall for me under the sun.
Love me for my soft, tanned skin.
Make me your only one.
I know you have it in you,
I know that you feel for me.
If you didn’t I would know,
I know more than you can see.
Just take me to Antigua,
You nearly flew me to Dubai.
Tell me that you love me,
It’s not your style I know, but try.
Rub sun cream on my shoulders,
By an infinity pool.
Tell me that no'one  ever  
Made you feel this way at all.
I’d make your life a daydream,
If you would only say you will.
Just take me to Antigua,
I’ve been yours, 2 years and still.
302 · Sep 2019
Small person, big bed.
Birdie Sep 2019
I do my best to fill my time,
With friends and family,
Work and plans.
I distract myself with empty flirtations,
And TV, and alcohol.
Every day I try not to think,
And sometimes I go a whole day without remembering.
Sometimes I’m happy for a long while and I think
“I’m starting to feel better, I’m going to be okay”.
But when the days out end.
I come home from work, the Netflix credits roll across my phone screen,
Suddenly everything is silent.
And I’m so small,
And I remember how alone I am.
Just a little something that suddenly struck me this evening, I’ve been trying to sum up how I’ve been feeling recently and I think this explains it. Sorry all my poems are so depressing!
298 · Dec 2024
The girl they want
Birdie Dec 2024
Always the back up girl
Never the girlfriend
Always the second choice
Never the happy end
Always the background noise
Never the chart hit
Always his favourite secret
Never his ‘this is it’
I’m always the girl they want
But never the girl they need
Always wishing for more
They never hear my pleas
297 · Nov 2023
Backwards
Birdie Nov 2023
Serenity won’t sit comfortably
Peace won’t be palatable
Calm isn’t comprehensible
Sleep never quite settles
Chaos is collaborative
Complication celebrates me
Sadness sits in my favourite chair
I am backwards but I am trying to turn
295 · Sep 2019
Levitating
Birdie Sep 2019
The trouble with me is that,
I’m completely immune to reality.
I’d always rather close my eyes and imagine
Than see anything at all.
In my dreams I can levitate,
I have always been able to.
And honestly though it sounds insane,
Dreaming has always seemed more real to me
Than living ever has.
291 · Sep 2023
Dream man
Birdie Sep 2023
You spin dreamscapes across my mind
You weave a skyline made of satin clouds
You burn me with flames made of stars
And keep me in your pocket
Safe and sound
In my imaginary world you created
289 · Nov 2019
Home
Birdie Nov 2019
Maybe I took for granted
How beautiful it felt
To climb in bed beside a person
To love the cards I was dealt

Maybe I was selfish
And didn’t choose to see
That you were struggling too
And it wasn’t only me

Maybe I was careless
And threw caution to the wind
Betrayed you and waylaid you
And bathed myself in sins

Well now although I’m happy
Become used to being alone
I still can’t help but feel like
I’m never really home

I don’t think I was ungrateful
Maybe selfish but I cared
I pray the world gives a second chance
For me to find love again out there
284 · Apr 2024
Just like them
Birdie Apr 2024
What happens when you bleed
To many times?
Do you run out of blood to shed?
Do you run out of dreams in bed?
What if I’ve met too many
Bad men?
Do I become just like them?
Do I stop loving and play pretend?
What if I’m cold and bloodless?
What if my feelings are spent?
Do I feel at all anymore?
How to I repent?
283 · Nov 2022
Things I’m bad at
Birdie Nov 2022
Boundaries
Saying no
Self respect
Moving slow
Sensible drinking
Eating enough
Sleeping schedules
Calling their bluff
Saying goodbye
Letting go
Forgiving myself
Staying at home
Telling the truth
Falling in love
Reading whole books
Acting tough
Playing sports
Doing maths
Waking up early
Avoiding his wrath
About the only things
I am able to do
Are make bad decisions
And regret them too
282 · Dec 2022
Guilt trip
Birdie Dec 2022
I wish I could tell you,
I wish I could describe,
The way my soul feels rested,
From one glimpse of your smile.
I wish I knew the protocol,
I wish I knew the rules,
But nothing could prepare me,
For how you've made me your fool.
One touch from you gives me more energy,
Than hours and hours of sleep.
Your kisses are my favourite secret,
I don't want to keep.
In your arms I feel safer,
than I ever have before.
Any day without you leaves me empty to my core.

I know it should be wrong,
And I know you're not my own.
But something in me sees something in you as just like home.

I know you feel how I do too,
Or else I wouldn't say...
I want to make you feel loved,
and be loved by you each day.
276 · Dec 2023
Freedom and loneliness
Birdie Dec 2023
Freedom and loneliness
Sundown’s sickened sisters
Twilight’s troubled twins
Midnight’s melancholy muses
I can never tell them apart
And therein lies their beauty
275 · Sep 2019
Lies
Birdie Sep 2019
Tell me another lie.
How about the one where you’ll always take care of me?
I loved that one.
What about the one about this being just as difficult for you?
But I never did believe that I’m afraid.
Tell me another lie again to make me smile.
I haven’t heard a good one in a while.
274 · May 2022
Our roots
Birdie May 2022
If you and I became a tree,
I’d be the roots and you’d be the leaves.
Just know that though you’re higher than me,
You’ll fall if I don’t give what you need.
273 · May 2020
A letter to a friend
Birdie May 2020
Would you tear the petals off of a fresh red rose?
Would you stop the sun from warming your skin?
Would you take the birds voices from the morning chorus to silence them?
Would you dry up the oceans and never again feel it’s waves lap your toes?
Because to do any of these things would not be nearly as terrible as hurting you.
And yet you do hurt you.
So next time you want to hurt,
Remember the roses and the sun.
Remember the ocean and the birds,
And stop to remember how precious you are.
269 · Feb 28
He said
Birdie Feb 28
He said my standards were too high,
But my stepdad would drain a river dry
If I needed a drink.
He said the love I want isn’t real,
But my girls would give me their last meal, If I was hungry for it.
He told me I was too much for men,
But no'one treats me better than my best guy friend.
He said he couldn’t marry a girl like me,
But if that’s how I need to be,
For a man to really love me,
Then I would take never again.
266 · Jan 2024
Desolate
Birdie Jan 2024
I’d prefer devastation
To this desolation
I’d rather feel it all
Than to feel this empty
No tears left, no screams
Just the fakest smile that
Gets me through the day
Till I’m home
And I’m blank
261 · Sep 2023
Heart beat
Birdie Sep 2023
What is there to pump my blood?
 I am devoid of heart and love.
Why do I care about my face,
And slaving for a brief embrace?
The only touch I crave is death.
The coldest skin, a rattled breath.
I’ve felt all that there is to feel.
The deepest pain, their pinching steel.
I’ve smiled and I have sliced my skin,
Religiously let demons in.
Invited them into my soul,
To take me with them when they go.
Regret for every choice I make,
I never cared what was at stake.
So what is there to get up for?
I won’t be what I was before.
258 · Jul 2020
Cursed
Birdie Jul 2020
Romance is dangerous to desire,
When all of your flames are hellfire,
And all of the men you let touch you,
Do nothing but claw and clutch
At your heart,
Till it bleeds and you’re sore,
And you can’t see the point anymore,
Of love or of loneliness,
You don’t know what’s worse,
But you do know one thing,
You’re cursed.
247 · Aug 2023
The devil I know
Birdie Aug 2023
Better the devil you know
They say
Better get watered to grow
But wait
You’d better be careful and think
She warned
You’d better be quiet and shrink
Or else
They’ll find someone better and leave
You there
But maybe you’re better alone than shared
A poem about the irresistible, incomprehensible, irritating reality of being in love with men who won’t love you back
242 · Nov 2020
Normality
Birdie Nov 2020
I suppose the reason I’m so ******* myself
Is that I was an exceptional child
Who became a normal adult
And now I’m trying to teach myself
That normality is acceptable
And even enviable
That my achievements are good enough
Even though they’re not loud or spectacular
Even though I’m not the best
At anything
I suppose that becoming okay
Is about learning to become an exceptional adult
By not doing much at all
240 · Oct 2023
Twisted root
Birdie Oct 2023
I am a twisted root
Bent in broken directions
So that now
The sweetness can’t get to my leaves
And my tree is dying
235 · Nov 2024
Sacrifice
Birdie Nov 2024
I sell myself so cheap,
Give my soul for so little,
In hopes that I might keep,
A half loved love so brittle.
In handing him my body,
I am weakening my mind,
And in keeping saying sorry,
I leave myself behind.
I wish that I could hate him,
And remember who I am,
But dangerously I love him,
I’m his sacrificial lamb.
He’s killing me,
But I like it,
I’m dying,
I am.
234 · Nov 2022
The loneliest
Birdie Nov 2022
The loneliest feeling
I have ever felt
Was laying awake
Next to a sleeping man
Who didn’t care
Birdie Jan 2024
My cognitive
           dissonance
Won’t make any
           difference
Because his
           effervescence
Rotted all of my
           essence
His self assured
           ambience
Expired my
           relevance
And no impotent,
           ignorance
Can unbalance this
           turbulence
I was inspired to write this one because there’s a song I like called cognitive dissonance and I wanted to see how many ‘ce’ words I could find to describe how I feel.
231 · Nov 2022
Head and heart
Birdie Nov 2022
Midnight
Mid July
Even 22 degrees at night
Moonlit walk
Beams on the ocean
Hot and drunk from sweet cheap wine
Pebble pushed footsteps
Fake tan and hair dye
A fresh breeze in my lash extensions
The night and I juxtapose each other
Like two parts of myself I could mention
225 · Mar 2024
I miss my Dad
Birdie Mar 2024
I was born just like you,
Reckless and free.
Strong and steady like mum,
I’ve grown up to be.
When I was young, you were fun.
You were silly and loud.
And everything I did,
Would made you proud.
We were thick as thieves then,
Partners in crime.
If I called you’d come running,
You made everything fine.
Then you changed,
You grew colder and older and sad.
The start of the rotting,
Of the closeness we had.
Now I still love you,
Like I did when I was three.
But these days I just feel like,
You don’t love me.
Once soft carpets I ran on,
Now eggshells of dread.
I no longer know with you,
Where’s safe to tread.
I still care enormously,
But I can’t take the bad.
At the centre of it all,
I just miss my Dad.
225 · Apr 2024
Shrink in the wash
Birdie Apr 2024
My trousers shrunk in the wash
The water was too hot
I wish I could put on a load
Filled with all the things they did
Everything that hurts me
The knives that twist in my gut
Day in
Day out
I wish I could shrink them too
So that they fit
The basket is overflowing
With items too large to wear
It’s all too big for me now
Birdie Jan 2024
One first date (it was all it took)
Two bonfires (maybe three)
Three break ups (so far)
Four bad ideas (or were they all?)
Five hot tub dips (sounds about right)
Six lawnmower rides (that was new)
Seven heartbreaks (a day)
Eight other girls (probably)
Nine sleepless nights (a week)
Ten months…
…no..more…
Seventeen months
(But I never was good at counting).
219 · Jun 2020
You’re too intense
Birdie Jun 2020
I probably deserve it,
Being ripped apart by a lonely heart,
For all the men I’ve made lonely,
For all the ones who’ve wanted to love me,
But I wouldn’t let them.
For them I suppose I deserve it,
To fall in love with beautiful strangers,
Who want me just to use me,
To be broken once again.
Its a strange affliction to constantly be
Underwhelmed by kind men,
Only to be charmed by the...
‘You’re too intense’
‘You’re a nice girl’
‘I’m just busy’
...from a blue eyed devil.
Maybe my heart is back to front.
217 · Apr 2020
Miss you
Birdie Apr 2020
He said does it always rain when you cry?
I said yeah I think so.
213 · Jun 2024
Reminiscing
Birdie Jun 2024
What a strange irony
To miss a past so intensely
That in the present was hell
But I knew it so well
In retrospect I was taught
To be strong with the fraught
And learn to appreciate
What once felt desolate
A strange irony indeed
To suddenly need
The things I was wasting
Flavours of pain I miss tasting
211 · Feb 2024
I miss me
Birdie Feb 2024
I miss the versions of myself,
That I've since packed away.
I miss the little girl,
Who played in her mind all day.
I miss the teenage rebel,
Who had no clue who to be.
I miss the young woman,
Who paved the way for me.
I miss the strength I had,
To face danger with a smile.
I miss the girl who used to run,
And appreciate each mile.
I miss the girl who loved herself,
When she had wider thighs.
The girl who without needles,
Looked fine in her own eyes.
I miss the me who made believe,
The me with endless hope.
I miss the me who slept and loved,
Inside my childhood home.
I miss myself but maybe
It’s all part of growing up.
Changing and transforming
Into me’s for me to love.
209 · Apr 2024
Freedom to me
Birdie Apr 2024
Messy hair
Windswept
Sea salt skin
Tired eyes
An outfit that doesn’t match
A morning swim
That’s how I want to be
That’s freedom to me
209 · May 2024
The worst day of my life
Birdie May 2024
It must be nice if the
Worst day of your life
Is really just one day
Mine looks through my windows
It knows my email address
It feeds on my fear
And sleeps in my stress
The worst day of my life
Is eighteen months long
So far, and I don’t know
If I can go on
In this sleepless nightmare
Each day is the same
Many more months of worst days
And I’ll go insane
208 · Apr 2024
The fear
Birdie Apr 2024
You say you’ll never fall in love
And that’s okay
As long as I’m your favourite nothing
I will always stay
It’s enough for me to live my life
Floating in your peripherals
As long as you don’t find a better
Way to spend your intervals
I live in fear that one day you might
Meet a girl and change your mind
Then I won’t be your favourite
You’ll have no reason to be kind
Nothing won’t mean anything to you
Not like it was
I fear that one day you won’t need me
Because you will be in love
206 · Feb 2024
Sailor
Birdie Feb 2024
Ocean, sea, water I love,
Hold up his head,
Keep him above
Your swell, your waves, your deepest
Depths,
Sail him on back to within
My bredth.
Make it go fast,
But keep it slow,
Slow enough that he stays far
From below.
Water I love, ocean, sea
Bring my sailor back to me.
A little poem about someone I care for who is sailing away for a little while
205 · May 2020
Guilty kisses
Birdie May 2020
What’s the point
Nobody is ever going to be you
And I don’t want anyone else
I just distract myself
With kisses
And hands on my skin
So I can pretend they’re yours
And stop feeling so empty
Just for a moment
199 · Jun 2023
Happy little lie
Birdie Jun 2023
Picture me stood on my favourite rock
Picture me in the sun
Picture me with drink in hand
When I'm dead and gone
Tell me that I'm beautiful and always get it right
Tell me I am wise, then lie and
Tell me I can fight
Keep me in your thoughts as something real and something pure
Keep me as a secret and
Keep me lonely yours
I want to be alive and real and tangible by your side.
But really I'm a dream, a thought, a happy little lie.
199 · Jul 2024
By my own hand
Birdie Jul 2024
The world didn’t end,
When I was fifteen.
I woke the next day,
As I’d always been.
I didn’t quit life,
When I was twenty five.
I put them all first,
Now I’m here, still alive.
Though it may sound like
A strange thing to say.
I can’t imagine me leaving
In any other way.
I still feel it so
Deeply inside.
That by my own hand,
Is the way I will die.
198 · Sep 2024
Pictures on the wall
Birdie Sep 2024
Life just feels like losing.
Like every love I have is
Dying, or choosing to go.
Life just feels confusing.
And I don’t want to think about
The next good thing I’ll have to leave alone.
It seems as though,
Every soul I pour my heart into
Just leaves.
Like loving is just waiting to be
Stolen by deaths thieves.
Till one day everyone in those
Pictures on the wall is dead,
And only I am left,
Bereft.
Half the people and animals in the pictures on my wall are gone now and it feels like too much
197 · Aug 2024
The death of freedom
Birdie Aug 2024
There once lived a boy called freedom,
And his twin brother loneliness too.
Quite the same in face and body and mind,
But the townspeople saw them as two.

Everybody loved the boy freedom,
But loneliness was hated it’s true.
With love for one and hate for the other,
They grew apart like most differences do.

As the men grew older, free lived like a king,
But lonely, he rotted and withered within.
One of lonely’s enemies, Naivety by name,
Plotted all night and came up with a game.

To Naivety the only way to be free,
Was to end this man loneliness for all to see.
So he packed up his case with all manner of terror,
To set about making lonely a horror.

On the day of his reckoning, loneliness sat,
Wearing an old gift from his brother, a ******* hat.
Whilst freedom, about in town was adorned
In a red shirt that once loneliness had worn.

So when naivety set out to do the deed,
He crept up to lonely’s house and what did he see?
But freedom standing there in a ******* hat.
‘Hello freedom’ said he and that was that.

He strode on into town and caught sight of some red,
‘I know who owns that red shirt’ naivety said.
With a swish of his knife and a click of his gun,
Naivety believed that his deed had been done.

When loneliness learned that his twin had been slain,
He cried for the fact that his face was the same.
‘If only they knew’ wept lonely in pain,
‘Then freedom and me might have been brothers again’.
194 · Apr 2024
My devil, my darling
Birdie Apr 2024
And god I’d rather love,
This devil that I know
Than meet another man?
Oh no, I’d rather be alone.
Imagine if I met someone
Who measured up to you.
Hilarious, ridiculous,
A dream that can’t come true.
Stop my heart if he won’t have it,
Breathe for me, make it a habit.
Darling my souls yours to grab,
My devil, darling you.
189 · Nov 2022
25
Birdie Nov 2022
25
Turned 25
Disappointed to find
That I’m still the same girl
The one who can’t hide
From needing validation
Love self deprecation
And never on her own side

Turned 25
And was sad to find out
That I still don’t love love
That I’m better without
Despite being desperate
To feel something affectionate
And never really knowing why

Never grew up
I still love finding seashells
And feathers on the beach
Fathers to meet
Despite all my history
I think no one would miss me
If I vanished and changed my name

Never grew up
Collecting sparkles and gift cards
And losing my pills
I can never sit still
Despite diagnosis
And not of psychosis
I feel like I’m losing my mind
185 · Sep 2023
Al fresco
Birdie Sep 2023
I hide my limp as well as I can,
Whilst my Lacoste trainers bite at my heels.
I try to look like I know what I’m doing,
Striding along central London streets,
A hidden google map at my side.
The sun is too hot to wear makeup…
Or socks as it happens which is why I have blisters.
Dodging past women in laboutins and men in suits,
I think to myself,
It’s lunchtime for the rich.
All of the restaurants are too expensive for me,
And they’d all want to eat me alive.
So I find some shade on the grass at Finsbury circus gardens.
I release my stinging feet from their white leather prisons,
And ground myself.
Whilst eating an egg sandwich out of a tinfoil wrapper,
I breathe a sigh of relief.
Exhaling my earlier fear,
I lived another day.
180 · Oct 2023
Familial gratitude
Birdie Oct 2023
I’m overwhelmed with gratitude
I am loved  
I love
I care and am cared for
I help and I am helped
This love is all the love I will ever need
I am they
And they are me
172 · Oct 2023
Grey
Birdie Oct 2023
I love the colour grey
In an October sky
In the evening sea
In a clouded, misted moonlight
I love to wear grey
I love it’s simplicity
It’s like a cool embrace
After a dip in cold water
I love the colour grey
I love how it warms my soul
Birdie Sep 2023
If I ever die at the side of the eastern road,
Where the broken bumpers and crisp packets collect,
Where the snow is shovelled into grey slush streams,
Please don’t buy the garish posie from the petrol station,
Don’t buy my memory a card factory teddy bear,
Leave the cards’ platitudes and poems on the shelves at Clinton’s,
Leave the lamp posts and road signs alone,
Pack up your sympathy, take it all home to your mums house.
Remember me as the girl that made you laugh,
Unpack your tears if you have them and give them to your pillow,
Give them to Facebook if you must, or give them to your friends.
I promise I’d do the same for you,
Unless you’d rather be remembered by straggling tinsel clinging to a lamp post by one piece of damp, desperate sellotape.
By wilting white roses dropping sad brown petals onto chewing gum tainted tarmac.
Unless you’d like to be known as the man whose name is scrawled in biro inside of a cheap card blutacked onto the sign for the Havant bypass.
In which case I’ll drag my sympathy to Clinton’s, to card factory and my closest petrol station.
I’ll say goodbye to the tune of sirens and rattling sainsburys lorries.
Then cry alone each time I drive past your withering memorial and try to remember to clean it up next week.
170 · Jan 2024
Awake till 2
Birdie Jan 2024
I lie in bed
awake till 2,
Every night
To honour you.
I wrap myself in
Tears and wine,
To take away all my
Spare time.
I tell myself that
I’m okay,
Listen to Muna
Stayaway.
But I can’t breathe without
Your breath,
Without your depths I have
No depth.
I’m hollow and I’m filled
With pain,
Couldn’t bare to
Love again.  
I lie in bed
Awake till 2,
That’s all that I know
How to do.
Is it a break up if you were never together?
170 · May 2024
Oh
Birdie May 2024
Oh
Oh it can all be so perfect
To be one with myself
And so two with any of you
Only my voice is song
Only my hands are healers
Seeing for myself is my only sight
Oh it can all be so wonderful
Living for myself
And not at all for you
170 · Oct 2023
Dopamine
Birdie Oct 2023
You’re the drug no one  forced me to take,
Warming my brain,
Numbing my pain.
Your sweet, soft remedy used to last weeks,
Now my hours are long,
And I’m singing our song.
These days I can’t feel if it isn’t with you,
Catching my breath,
Sad little death.
My pleasure was short lived but now it is gone,
With truth I broke trust,
Now it’s over for us.
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