I asked you how you test was,
You never replied.
I hope you failed.

I washed my hair for you,
I grew it long.
Now I’ll cut it all off.

To be so
uncomfortable
In your body,
The skin feels itchy

To choose a duvet
Over a dres,
out of fear it will
Display all that
Is wrong.

they call it dysmorphia

I once heard someone call second place in a competition,
First loser.
So if I’m his second best,
Does that mean that I’m
First heartbreak?

I’m convinced that the most enchanting music,
is that without lyrics.
you’re free to invent the tale
that it so beautifully tells.
you’re free to tear
at the emotion the melody commands.
no requirements,
merely messages entirely
manifested by your mind.

I check to see if people care,
By ignoring them all day.

It seems perverse,
I know.

But if they notice,
And call me to inquire,
I know they think about me.
I know that I’m not forgotten.

I’ve decided to accept I’m lonely.
Perhaps I’ll learn to be happy alone.

In time, I’ll pick the duets at karaoke night,
I’ll sign up for a couples massage,
Watching the notebook will become an activity for one.

Is it possible that solitude is a blessing?
Independence is a virtue.
Your rejection is my growth.

Am I all too optimistic,
Is it manifesting to delusion.

I suppose I wouldn’t know,
The thing about delusion,
Is that it takes someone close to point it out.
And being alone,
Means I don’t have that someone.

It hurts,
When I’m trying to tell you something important to me,
Something that isn’t easy to talk about,
And all you’re doing,
Is searching for the punch line.

When will you see that my hurt isn’t a joke.

Feeling like a fraud is so tiresome
Because no matter what I achieve,
I’ll always believe I’ve cheated,
scammed my way to success.

As though I don’t trust myself to be great?

A victory, forgotten.
A loss, engraved.

Anxiety is like a soft whisper,
that tells lies
to all elements of
your being,
And convinces you they’re true.

I’m not sure,
When the words
‘You’re not enough’
became so familiar.
But these days,
They’re all I see

Passion isn’t a fire fuelling,
But rather an itch that cannot be scratched,
Until what you must do,
Is done.

I fill in the gaps,
With my imagination.

Dont tell me where you are,
And I will assume the trenches.
Don’t tell me how you feel,
And I will assume distraught.
Don’t tell me what you mean,
And I will assume war.

Perhaps I don’t fill in the gaps,
But turn them to
Gaping wounds.

Whoever said emotions weren’t physical?

Can you not feel the weakness in your limbs as another days is overcome by sad?
Can you not feel the surrender of your bowls to the anxious?
Can you not feel the dimming of your mind as you overwhelm?

I assume that they had never heard of death by a broken heart.

Its awfully funny how
The feeling of an approaching
panic attack and faint
Are so similar.


That way I don’t know if I’m going to stop
Standing,
Or breathing.

I’m tired of forgiving.
I’m tired of seeing from their perspective.
I’m tired of letting it go.
I’m tired of telling them it’s ok when it’s not.
I’m tired of having to remember everything I’ve allowed them to do.
I’m tired of being the kind, supportive friend.

I’m so **** tired, I’m becoming
Angry.

After repeating the same word
over and over,
Notice how it becomes
Foreign,
Deformed,
Meaningless.

And it’s because of this
phenomenon,
this truth,
that I refuse to come
Back to you.

If only they had continued forcing us to write stories about holidays and adventure,
Maybe we’d have learned to accept the diversity of thoughts.

If only we had never stopped our exploration of acrostics and metaphor,
Maybe our generation would have
more to say than
‘Cancelled’.

A mother cares,
feeds,
nurtures.

She sacrifices hair,
surrenders skin.

She faces I hate you and
Goodbye.

A mother is a tragic heroine.

For the days she succeeds,
The day her children have fully grown,
She has also lost.

Thank you,
For telling me you appreciate me.

It watered my drought,
It sprouted my hope,
It blossomed my love.
It made me know,

That despite everything,
It’s still worth it.

I was the little girl,
In the pink frilly dress,
Who felt
Hideous.
Because no one
ever told her
she was
Beautiful.

Please don’t ask me how I am.
I don’t want to
Lie
Today.

I wish I could help myself
The way that I help others.

Maybe it’s because,
I love them more than
I love myself.
Maybe it’s because
I see the beauty of tragedy.
Maybe it’s because,
If I don’t have the sad
I have nothing.

Theres this part of me that I
Hate.
Some foreign girl who visits occasionally.
She’s jealous,
Unkind,
and competitive.
She rages when she is not the
Best.
I tell her to go away
But I cannot dissociate.

I pray no one ever meets
that girl.

I didn’t go through all of this,
Just to not
Be given the
T shirt.

It’s exhausting.  
To have laboured,
To have fought,
To have clawed your way
With hands and feet
out of ‘that’ place.

Just to fall back
to where you started.

I’m terrified of myself.
Of what I don’t understand,
Of the darker voice getting too loud.
I don’t know what she’ll do,
I don’t know if I’m strong enough to
Stop her.

We have this image of what mental illness looks like.
A girl with sunken eyes and dull skin.
So when it creeps up on you,
It can take forever,
To refocus your eyes,
And see that the girl
Lives within you.

I can’t tell if I’d like to
Shout, or scream, or cry.

Falling out of sync with you body is
Fatal.

Poetry is a curious thing.

It’s a code far greater than the enigma.
For I can be a feline, a flower or a breeze.
And no one would know.

It’s about straying as far from sane
As possible.
Learning to understand  yourself whilst leaving others baffled.

The cheapest therapy I’ve found.

A poet is a mad man, a romantic, a philosopher.
I am all,
And none.

What I’ve finally come to understand,
Is that the beauty of poetry,
Is that it cannot,
be understood.

May I teach a course,
So people can learn to love like I do.
Perhaps they will understand how to support.
To feel deeply,
To know
Without explanation.
I’m left in a state of narcissism
Because I have yet to find someone,
Who feels as I do.
I’m Left longing to duplicate myself,
For I long to be understood,
known
supported.
I need it more than you.

You have not known pain,
Until you’re looking into the eyes of someone
You want to love
But only feel hate.

I cannot understand
Why, with but a second’s notice,  
My stomach turns to clay.
Available to whoever wishes to mold it.
Guilt races worry,
Sorrow faces rage.

In the end, my clay is left mangled and alone.
For when guilt, sorrow and rage are bored
They leave, perhaps for a return on a new day.
Yet the clay remains deformed.

I splashed in a puddle
And I drowned.
The mud tainted me and the droplets wouldn’t dry.
The damage so heavy I shrunk in size.

The puddle grew,
Till I was swimming in a Pool
Of tears sourced from innocent eyes.

Before I could believe,
I was floating in a sea
with gusts of wind, I felt I could no longer breathe.

The waves multiplied,
So great I thought Noah was nearby,
Yet he didn’t respond to my shouts or my cries,

And so the whirlpool got me,
pulling till I let go
and drowned.

And as you may predict,
Today I still swim,
Yet I have seem to have left the tricks of the puddle,  
And joined the River Styx.

Some days it feels like I’m only living so I don’t hurt the ones I love,
So I really need you to tell me that you
Love me.

Today was the day
I told him I appreciated him.
After years of scorn
And ‘I don’t love you’
I showed him my truth.
That I feel more pity for him
Than for anyone else.
That I admire his strength
Because I have begun to walk in his shoes
And have already sought the end.
His shoes are worn
And yet he continues to walk.
So I told him that I appreciate his
Blisters and bruises
Because my blisters are growing too.

I’m learning to love,
Not the boys in the movies,
Not the men on the shows,
I’m learning to love, not lust.

Love for myself.
Love for every tear I cry,
I’m learning to tell myself I’m accepted,
I’m human.

I’m allowed to be sad.
I’m allowed to want to scream.
I’m allowed to ruin your day with my truth  
Like you have ruined mine.

I am allowed to take
Because I give too much
To have enough to
Love myself.

And I have to love myself.

A life of extremes would be great if I were only ever happy
For when I smile I soar.
But the days I cry,
I unleash
dams
rivers
storms
lakes
oceans
and depths of
pain.


I don’t feel,
I become.

I miss the days when I was flat.
When I was simple and lacked complexity,
When my friends knew all of my secrets,
And I had nothing to hide.
When the greatest worry was a playground romance,
When I could clear my mind at a disco dance,
But now I have become solid.
With layers and layers of pain.
And I can’t hand over the tools to peel
Without excepting I’m not ok.
And I can’t express what I’m feeling,
Because I know that it’s not familiar.

So I’ll look for others,
Who share my tears and cries.
In desperation I seek a friend to whom I do not have to lie.
But I’m left with those who are broken.
Who take and demand my remaining light,
Who pull on the rope that hangs thinner by the day, in jealousy and spite.
So if I should not find someone broken and cannot live with the complete
Am I doomed to an existence of alone and emotional defeat ?

The day you dilly dallied by the ponds and the fields,
Did you wonder what conditions dared to give yield,
To the daisy. Rouge yet worn.
Did you wonder her past, did you question her scorn?
Or did you stop at her face.
Ignoring her history of disgrace.
Then did you embrace the rain,
and foster her pain?
And did you relish in the days of sun.
The days she grew and prospered in calm.

And if you discovered
She was both water and sun
Would you stay and nurture her,
or would you quit and run.
And if you could stay,
Would you abandon the root,
Forget of the seed,
Pluck out the daisy,
Ane let her be freed.

The sun shines in black and white,
Birds sing despite the broke song,
Suffering prolonged.
The river flows to flood the town,
Melodies can’t swim, so they drown,
A day of down.

And since you have been gone,
Everything feels wrong,
And Nature. Seems dead.
The sweetest chocolate, bitter,
The warmest day, a shiver.
I beg to right the wrong.

The wind blows in turgid air,
Emotions, all withered but despair
Our tragic affair.
The paints dry and spoil in colour.
Artist cease to prosper and inspire.
And I am stuck, infinitely,
In an existence devoid of happy.

And since you have been gone,
Everything feels, off.
And nature,
Is, dead.

There are many things
I wish to tell
But I don’t know where to begin.
I dont know if there ’s a shallow end I can tip toe into
I think my only option is to jump.
A splash,
Then the aftershock.
The ripples that never seem to settle.
The heavy words that drown me
Requiring strength I do not have.

But I need to splash,
so I can finally dry off.