You were born near the warm ocean,
grew up around there,
With your clear acrylic smile
and sun-kissed blonde hair

I, the winter cold
More north than I can remember,
We met that day you visited,
a brisk chill, that December

We drank and danced,
while the years passed over
Argued and grew apart,
our greatest fears, now sober

My memories of you, once treasured
Now, faded
as sun deprived lands complain,
Forever, jaded

I'm done with living in the dark
I'm done with all these razor blade scars
No more depression pills
It's time to turn this life around
Yeah I'm homeward bound
Time to lift up and change my sound
I'm done with depressing lyrics
I'm done with being the victim
When I'm the one who put myself in that position
Yeah memories can stay in the past
Right where they belong
I'm singing a brand new song
Hope you're all willing to come along

©2017 Written By Benji James

I whisper lines in dark nights
Hoping one will stick on my tongue
So I can give you another shot
Every word another cc
Every syllable another mg
I want you to choke on them
I want foam to line your mouth
You don't know what you did to me
Forced my hand
Said love was an irrelevance
No place for me in an empty castle
That I wanted to call home
But homeless was what you left me
Now I'll leave you an addict
Waiting on every word
Hoping the next one you'll overdose on
Guess some stories aren't meant to be written
Even though I tried to write ours
Every ending was seen a mile away
All because I wasn't the drug you needed
But a distraction...

Beast howling in the night,
depriving me of sleep.
Oh, come and lick my wounds,
the rest is yours to keep.

I've fought you all my life,
but here you are again.
Beast howling in the night,
my life is yours to drain.

Corruption swarms my brain,
yet scared I am no more,
a monster you may be,
the beast that I adore...

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because the last time I opened up to someone artistically they told me it was pretty dark and I should keep it to myself.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because I was raised in a culture that was anti love and pro meaningless ***. I saw endless commercials about movies that glamorize a lifestyle in which your body is fulfilled but your heart is ignored and at that impressionable age I learned my heart came second but my allure came first and the less I cared that happier I would be and I carried that belief around with me the way I used to carry around a Bible as a child.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because of the time that I opened my father’s phone to reveal a family secret I would hold to this day against my own moral instincts unraveling miles of insecurities wondering if I’m not a good enough daughter or if he stopped loving my mother or if true love was never real and although I had been taught marriage was my purpose, it was what I believed would make me happy, maybe rings aren’t enough to stay in love and maybe people’s feelings change and maybe no one actually has a “one true love” and that this purpose I had been taught was really an endless wild goose chase that only lead to broken families and lost souls.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because sometimes I still wonder why I fell into an abyss of toxicity at such a young age. And when I say wonder I don’t mean a trivial ponder, I mean I contemplate every possible reason why the person who I once believed held the universe in her eyes would lie to my face, why she never kissed me in public and our love was always a secret, why she valued girls with blue hair but my blonde hair was not good enough, why I had to hide bruises from my family when I was still in high school or more importantly, why at the time, I thought I deserved them. These thoughts, this lingering paranoia that I am undeserving of healthy love, they muddy my interpretations of real life and distort reality and effect my relationships. My doctor would call these intrusive thoughts, my best friend would tell me they’re symptoms of PTSD, but I have come to realize that I’ve been burned and I am damaged and I hope to god I can recover.

But you,
Oh god, you
You can write this poem. You can be my safety net while I’m free falling in love. You can be the one to listen to my mental tilt-a-whirls, you can be the one that introduces my body and my heart, you can be the one that calms the storms in my mind when I’m questioning the love I’m deserving of. You are the one who makes sure I fall asleep in my bed after drunk nights, you are the one that still sees my value after acknowledging my flaws.
You can write this poem.

I never cared for blue eyes.
a simple, dull tone of boring pens  
and pale skys and puddles.                    
a common colour among a million eyes.

until yours.       
then pools of shining ink spreading across plain pages,
filling chapters of my life.
a bright summer horizon expanding before me,
everywhere eyes can see.            
an huge, infinite ocean of sparkling blue,                      
blue thats fills my eyes and mind and lungs,              
voluntarily drowning in your colour.

i'm in love every inch of you,

the stretches of pale skin along your arms that are severed with cuts and scars,
the white canvas of your back speckled with flickers of freckles,
silk-like skin of your fingers sliding across my own.

brown curls licking my fingers and face as you hold me and stubble tickling the secret corners of my neck,
every tiny fleck of grey splattered in the magnetic blue of your eyes that reflect into mine.

every gentle touch of you on my own skin,  
every inch your eyes don't see and the inches you cannot feel beneath your fingertips.
every length of whisper slipping in my ear
and soft lips kissing my own hurt.