How many masterpieces
does it take
to make a poet?

Wonder's got me counting.

The way you’re talking,
I feel like I’m going bankrupt.

What does it mean to
'Fit in'?
Where is this 'in'?
What are we fitting to?
Is there a mould 
I wasn’t told
about.

Why do you want me to ‘fit in’?
Am I not special enough?
Or, is that I’m too special?
Must I wash myself with simplicity?

And what if I don’t.
‘Fit in’.
What will you do to me then?
Axe me from society?
Label me different?

What if I told you,
I didn’t care?
What if I told you,
In a perfect ‘fit’,
I murdered the version of me,
That was desperate to
Fit in.

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.

I’ll send you love letters,
Every once and a while,
Just so that you know you’re loved.
And so that on your darkest days,
You can read it,
And have a reason to stay.

The sound of wind startles me when I’m crying.
Earth’s footsteps,
Too quick to approach.

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.

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.

3-5 working days,
an estimate,
processing.

In blurred sight,
I see your faces in the light,
and we're looking at each other
in -3.

I’m so tired of hating myself.

If you were mine,
I would own you.
Control you. 

You couldn’t hurt or heckle me,
I wouldn’t allow it.
You would only love me.
Endless, unwavering love.

So you must not be mine.

The urge to run away to a
green, open field,
Is always stronger on Sundays.

What if I said that my image of life is a marathon,  
But that I've always struggled with stamina.

What if I told you I feel out of breath,
Stitch in my side,
Thirst, begging for a rest.

What if I told you I hated running.
That it hurt my knees,
Made my ankles ache.

It feels like life is running and running,
Changing lanes,
Cutting me off,
And I can’t keep up in this
Marathon.

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?

Itchy with the feelings I
can't express.
A 'burst' would be more
Elegant than this
Silent implosion.

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

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.

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.

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’.

I feel socially awkward.
Everything I say checked twice
Then once again.
Was that weird?
Am I boring?
Was that rude?
Have I told this story ?

I feel uncomfortable,
Unable to be myself.
Myself is mediocre,
I am incompetent,
Me, a joke.
I’m beginning to choke
On words
I lack the confidence to deliver.

I feel helpless,
I’m searching for compassion or mercy.
I tried to impress,
I tried to be flirty.
It didn’t work, obviously,
Or I wouldn’t be here in this state of worry.
I wouldn’t be here.

Right now,
I wish I wasn’t here.

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.

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.

In these moments we called fate,
Well, stars aligned and
We found ourselves on
Opposite sides.

Border, bridge,
My fair lady.

When you look in the mirror and don't like what you
See. They tell you that everyone's beautiful in their own
Way. But I don't want to pretty in my
Way. I want to be pretty in the way that
He likes. That they all like.
I want them to like me.
No one likes me.

I am but a kicking body
In a body of swimmers

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

Falling out of sync with you body is
Fatal.

Heatwaves
appear
before you words,
Sometimes Scolding.
Always Distorting.

Shrill phone calls.
Never knew nothings
could be so loud

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.

One hand on my voice box,
The other smothering my mouth.
Your expectation is deafening,
Can’t seem to get my thoughts out.

A twisted love story,
I thought that you would save me.
But instead, you poisoned me with
Your confidence and bravery.

If jokes are meant for laughter,
Why does their delivery feel amiss.
Why does it feel as though,
I’ve been lured into the role of accomplice.

The victim, my integrity.
The perpetrator my ‘try hard’ smiles.
Next to you it feels as though
My character is constantly on trial.

It may very well be my fault,
A result of insecurity?
Is it that your character’s so perfect,
That I’m reduced to complete inferiority.

Im bleeding white
Porous ache
Poisoned.
Tell me you’re defending
Tell me  I’m barbaric
Tell me to stand by your side
Tell me that’s the only the way that’s right
Tell me to grieve your loss
Tell me that mine’s not real
Tell me I deserve it
Suffocate me.
Conceal.
I’m immobile.
I can’t feel.

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.

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.

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.

Have you ever seen the look
someone gives you
when the get a peek of your darkness.
My Darkness is kept, deep,
this doesn't happen often.
But when it does,
it's enough to make me afraid of
Myself.

I told myself I was inhumaine for my thoughts.
For the way in which I wanted to tear you apart and inform you of all the ways in which you ‘****’.
Because, let’s face it, you ******.
But I realised, in a moment of pure philosophy,
That my questioning of my humanity and my recognition of my animosity,
is, what makes me
Human.

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 ?

I have so much love to give.
I thought a boyfriend might be the answer.
Silly of me, not to see,
That the person that needed my love most,
Was me.

I guess I would call it hazy.
This unholy congregation of ‘I feel’s and ‘I think’s.

Well, I feel like I’ve become unfeeling
And I think that there’s no room for thinking.
And I feel like I’m overthinking
And I think that I’m tired of these feelings.

And I don’t remember the factual,
No ‘I am’s or ‘this is’.
There are only feels and thinks
And I feel like I think this
Is hazy.

These fabrics,
Unforgiving, Unkind.
I want to tear what does not fit me.
Scream "Why do I not fit?"
not even a little bit.
Why do these mirrors shine light on my ugly?
"Why am I ugly".

You placed her under a flame.
That warm, infamously eternal, kiss.
The pressure ignited,
Sparks erupted,
You cheered for the light show
And mimicked its dance.

But you’re taken aback,
When she suggests
That maybe, She's
Burnt out.

When I’m feeling lonely
I rewatch old movies
So that at least
I’m in the company,
Of the memory, of
My younger self.

I checked your Spotify to see if you’ve listened to heartbreak songs.
Maybe you even created a playlist of your own.
Is it titled with my name,
Or are you too ashamed to admit
I hurt you.

I guess I just need to know you’re hurting
like I am.

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.

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.

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.

I want to exist in coffee shops.
In riveting conversations of the world and self.
In piano concertos, melancholy music lyrics and brush strokes.
In days spent lying under the sun
then evenings strolling down a seaside pavement
and nights spent dancing without a care.

I just want to exist in lines of romantic, perfected poetry.