Do you always speak in poetry?
...
Steamy breath swirls in the
Stagnant air, my hair hangs
Dusty smudges itching
Under paper skin
...
No, I breathed
...
Eyes shut, eyes open
The words dance, I hear their
Ethereal whispers, muffled
By masks and heavy cloaks
...
I miss you.

His eyes cloudy grey
Storms clouds once, tired now
Breathes like sand bags
Heavy and damp
Slowly holding in a flood
Ragdoll in the wind
He falls, limp and lost
I hold- til sleep

Aren't we all hourglasses?
Sand constantly pouring
Thousands of tiny golden grains
Growing giant in their masses
A plunge pools depth filling
As the dry waterfalls escape
We are always forgetting
How easy it is to suffocate
We run on quick sand
Legs moving as we sink
Pounding, wheezing, aching
We can't ever stop and think
Let the tap run empty
Now, we lie completely still
Unable to move, unable to pour
Our life stolen against our will
In misery we have to wait
To let the glass flip over
Until the sand starts to drip
At first we let it run slower
But so fast we drain out rivers
So we drown, again.

Everytime I'm fooled
Your beauty, always fleeing
Disposable love

You were white paper
I smiled, flames licked you up 
Innocence is ash
....
Poetry to me
Is all the unspoken words
Written on paper
....
Anything is sweet
In a voice spun of sugar
Made you candyfloss
....
I never minded
That it wasn't fairy tales
I still felt magic
....
Mummy held my hand
The pictures sighed so sadly
The other was empty

We camped by the turquoise sea
Tangled little limbs lulled to sleep
By the rhythmic reassuring waves and
The tears of the skies as they weeped
Raindrops scattered like pocket wishes
Into our sandy dreams they softly seeped

Her eyes were the oceans
So very wild, so untamed
I let them drown me

I'll paint my ceiling lilac
Make it twinkle with flashlight stars
I'll build a cardboard spaceship
We can fly to our orange peel mars
You'll call me your astronaut
As I pull you up to the swirling sky
Explore every marshmallow whirl
As I fall for your acorn eyes
Our bodies will be constellations
Limbs and breaths intertwined
Our souls are dot-to-dots connected
Heartbeats rhymth aligned
I painted this dream for us
Used a palette made for you and I
Every brushstroke will be worth it
You're my favourite lullaby

Dark powdery ash
Smears lonely on my stone mask
I fight my own war.

I feel full with empty guilt
Every second I waste is a dagger
It stabs me so I'll spill crimson
Sparkles shiny, watches me stagger
I start to stumble and I'll fall
Let the blood dry black
Then I'll nurse my silver blade
Slam it down and feel my bones crack

I'm bitter lemons
I beg, drown me in sugar
Make me lemonade

It’s cement that covers her grey lips
They crumble as his name dusts them
Crimson tears do so slowly drip
Every spoken word another traitor

Cracking, the shadows scream
Light scorches the darkness
Brutally rips the violet seams
A rotting tongue speaks out loud

You were willow trees and
Ice lollies on sunny days
You were yellow shorts and
Grinning at nothing

Now you're blurry memories and
Feeling full of regret
Now you're wooden masks and
Smuged charcoal pictures

The seasoned changed and
Rain washed the rose tint away
I was left with cold truths and
Sunshine didn't taste so good

Anymore.

What if?
The question plagues my mind
Wrapping ropes around me
Behind my back my hands bind

Maybe
It was the way
Your neon eyes
Lit up in mine
And the world
Glowed a
Kaleidoscope of
Rainbow colours

Maybe
It was being
Wrapped in your
Bronze arms
And feeling so
Very safe
So warm
Next to you

Maybe
It was grey tears
Comforted by your
Soothing voice
That cheers me on
Rubbing out the dull
Rendering me
Sunshine yellow

Maybe
It was being
Called beautiful
Because I was like
Poetry and sunsets
Great towering mountains
Pretty just
Didn't do justice

Maybe
It was our
Midnight phone calls
And feeling like
I could scrape the
Deep blue canvas sky
And twirl amoung
The blinking stars

Maybe
It was all of it
Mixed like
Paint on an
Artists palette
Pinks, reds, oranges,
Spelling out a lone word
Love.

Fear
So complete and so overwhelming;
Nothing else can be felt.

The room that surrounds me is too small
The white washed walls closing in
It is a cave from which I cannot see the mouth.
The darkness is engulfing me fast
The light is disappearing fast
It is a whirlwind of shadows and fading voices
The reality is blurring, in its place
A distorted nightmare stitches itself
Like black, thick treacle it slowly slides into my ear drum
A wild hyena laugh
It’s here.

The air is painfully thin.
Every withering gasp becomes shallower
My lungs are shrinking
They are red balloons
Punctured by sharp, shining needles
Deflating, they push out the oxygen
Drawing in the black charcoal
My chest feels so heavy
The smoke suddenly solidifying
I can’t breathe.

I am trapped.
Isolated and alone
My body a steel prison
I lie helplessly on its foreign, metallic floor
The cold cuts into me
My bones freezing over slowly,
I can’t move.

The ice is a barrier between me and the outside
Carving the figures into unfamiliar shapes
I do not know this place
I am a child lost in a funfair.
The world clumsily stumbles in front of me
A million joyous colours and noises bleeding together
Forming one screaming siren
It yells “PANIC, PANIC, PANIC”
A rhythmic repeating chant
Blaring and bright
I’m drowning in its wails.

My body jitters like an old wood coaster
Jerking, swaying under a heavy weight
I try to stop it but it is out of my control now
The cart has left the station

The hyena laugh again trickles into my ears
Growing louder and louder
It morphs into a crazed clowns cackle
Howling at my failed attempts
My palms start to shake,
They cling to my arms as I rock back and forth
Trying desperately to make it stop
Why won’t it stop?
Why won’t it end?

My heart starts to speed
Beating so fast, it hammers against my glass ribs
It is deafening.
Like footsteps pounding the pavement
Running crazily to try escape
Terrified of the monster cowering over its shoulder
Painted face, disguised, its screeches surround me.
I trip and fall, knees grazing and legs shaking
I cry like a little girl to her mother
“Make it stop”, I whimper.
The monster towers over me.

From aside me, an arm leans into my cave.
It whips off the monsters mask.
Nothing is there.

Little one, I thank the world you were found
Without you here I was so lost
My feet never belonged so firmly on the ground
You always knew that little one

The monochrome world wears black
They mourn you there
Sigh sadly, wipe tears and look back
They grieve for you little one

You colour in my dreams
You are wishing on birthday candles
The world isn't always as it seems
So you make it bigger little one

I always see you in the sky
In strokes of orange and swirls of pink
You are the passion burning in their eyes
Don't let them forget you little one.

"What are you most scared of?"
She asked, eyes wandering to mine
I turned away, as if fearful of the question

Hidden beneath a waterfall of dusty hair
Protected by a forest of oak soldiers
A glint of hazel scurried to meet her

"Growing up", I murmered so quietly
She could only just hear the words before
The breeze flew them away

I am no longer a child
Not the innocent, little girl I used to be
She is now but a memory
Replaced by a new face
It is unfamiliar and out of place
It's eyes so distant, they are alien
Coloured in with grey pencil
A complete contrast
To the rainbows that once filled them
They are gone now.

I miss her:the little girl
She was bright and she was bold
And I miss her
She used to wear sunshine coloured hoodies
With a smile that matched
Her happiness burned like a bonfire
Lighting up all around
She danced with no music
Sang with no song
Laughed with no reason

Her imagination ran riots
Stories flooded out of her
Tales of all kinds
Bejewelled with wild ideas
She dreamed up a new universe everyday
Explored her mind as though it was a jungle
She swung around on emerald vines
Excitedly breathing in
Every scent, every colour, every shape
Getting drunk on endless possibilities

The girl that fills the mirror smiles sadly
Her dull eyes overflowing with invisible tears
I do not know how to comfort her
She is stranger looking out at me
I choose to be blind to her mind
A war of conflict rages on in me
I am angry, red hot
Knowing she took away the sunshine
Though I feel pity, too, for the blue salt trails
That form crystals on her fading cheeks
Pity for colour she is rendered.

I miss you
Your welcoming embrace
The way the words used to flow so effortlessly
Your smile brightening my face

I used to see you so often
Everyday we would meet
We laughed, we loved
Every word we shared was sweet

Now you seem so distant
I can't express my thoughts to you
Once familiar, now a stranger
You're not the person I once knew

You made the bad beautiful
Transformed it all into art
With you I shared all my secrets
Poured out all of my heart

I wish in every star
For you to come home
Poetry, I miss you dearly
You're love I've never known

Maybe it was the very first time
But it haunts me as though
It has happened a million before
From when we are young it sews
Itself into the very fabric of who we are told to be

I took a hit.
Laughter trickled round my ears
Jeers and shouts stalking me
As I walked away, fear building
As I held myself back from retreat.

Behind my eyes flashed up
A drunken stranger making me feel small
I was only 10 years old
But after me they yelled out catcalls
I rushed away, trying anything to forget

Now I am older,
Nothing has changed
Except now I know not to walk alone
And keep off evening trains
If I want to remain innocent and unbothered

I am not alone in this
We exchange these familiar tales
Softly speaking out what we hide
We fast learn it comes with being female
We stay silent to keep our pride.

The upbeat tune backs a million journies
It comes from a battered piano and
The fingers of an old eccentric man
Who's smile lights the biggest room

Passersby share this magic with him
Their business paused for just a moment
They let the rhythm dance inside of them
Lit up from the happy notes

Tonight they will share folk tales
Of the smiling silver wonder
Tommorow he will return
To again colour the keys of the piano

We swim only in shallow waters
Breakable limbs scrapping the surface
Of the thousand mile deep oceans
The bottom layers are wordless
You never cared enough to explore

Sunlight shines so scarely
Only illuminating what we want to see
Somehow we keep up it's illusion
It's all we've ever tried to believe
You never dared enough to explore

Waves roll over the turquoise surface
Their familiar motion puts a mind at ease
Big ones crash down, calm is disturbed
This is when we choose to leave
You never loved enough to endure.

Twinkling specks of silver surround us
On this bitter, January night
Our docs battle through powdered snow
As we swim across the sea of white

Fire burns warm in Tess' eyes
As a smile catches across her lips
The magical flames fliker bright
At the touch of her fingertips

We applaud as it performs for us
It's a dancing red lady
Teasing the twigs and sparkling sticks
It's allure drives the forest crazy

As time cartwheels fast ahead
Our beloved crimson mistress dies
Though this little evening adventure
Has made us feel, so very alive.

The ghost of joyous bells ring out
Celebrating the turn of the millenium
Billions of absent voices shout
Into the skeleton of a past society

Dreams lie shattered
In the derelict, guilty future
Memories lie scattered
In piles of grey powder ash

Pools of radioactive water gather
In the stillness of great craters
Here once stood amazing things but after
Only gaping black pits in the shadows

Specks of dust are hunted down
By the relentless shine of the burning sun
They helplessly drown in the sticky air
Of the quietly infinite emptiness

This is the graveyard
Dug by the mightiness of human greed
The earth will be forever scarred and
We have only ourselves to blame.

I run so fast I feel the dust form
In clouds behind the blood stained feet
I pound down on the brown earth
Constantly running, I seek comfort
A million miles travelled to try reach
That golden place I feel good enough
For the world to love me

My eyes sting, blinded in their quest
They have forget the world in clear
The reality is blurred beyond repair
Distorted  by the fear I hold
Of the mocking jingle of disappointment
That echos faintly in my ear
Every year long night

Once in a while I trip and fall
Knees grazing and legs shaking
Crying like a child to her mother
As the thread web I wove begins breaking
In front of my black hole eyes
The only way I know how to stop
Is to get up and run again.

It's perfect in it's own way
Rosy cheeks and a smile that grows
With every sweetened word you say
Cute little giggles woven into
Either end of an hour long phone call
Faces bright with joyous eyes
As all the small things
Come together in you.

We sat
Me and him
A table between us
Its funny how we weren't
Even next to one another yet
I felt closer than I ever
Had before

We shared
A million memories
Childhood's present and past
Danced vividly, alive in his and my
Nostalgically saturated eyes
I thoughtlessly giggled
Carelessly happy

He spoke
Out words the
Colour of a beautiful rainbow
I'd never saw in him before
He smiled and for the
First time in years
I felt safe.

The metronome of doom hurries you fast along,
Don't want to be nobody in a crowd of  millions,
Carving out a fastfowarded masterpiece,
Made of hurried brilliance,
All you've ever wanted was to make a footprint.

I think I am like fairy lights
With 10m of soul but only 1 that shines bright
Deciding carefully which parts of me
Make the up the world's display
I like to think the light I shine
Is all earned perfection and dainty smiles
As if the world would hate me
For letting go every once in a while
But really I am not naive enough
To believe the image I dream, is the image I show and
Honestly, I think it's better for the world to know
That the lights I emit flicker from time to time
So maybe I'll aspire to be seen as a human being
Break out from my hiding place of rythem and rhyme
And let the other 9m glow,
Even if only every once a while

The warm taste of toasty cinnamon
Sticks to my pinky lips
And memories of simpler days
Are set off by the tarte granny smiths
This steaming bowl
Reminds me so much of home
The comforting feeling of
Of what it is to truly belong

"Why does he hit us?"
Her quiet voice murmured
Into the absolute black
Silently I lay back
"I don't know Rose"
I dared to breathe

Later that night
We played make believe
Of a magical fairy land
Where we galloped free as
My eyelids slipped, I wished
So hard for it to come true

Instead I awoke
Tangled in salty sheets
Clinging tight to my baby sister
Who lay still, happy
In our dreams
Maybe it was best not to wake her