I often feel ashamed
Of my weakness
Of how easily I fall in love
I let other people decide my fate
Their hand on the trigger
Their gun to my head
And I let them
I allow those I love
To choose what I feel
To destroy me if they will
And I forgive them
Because this is on me
My weakness
And it makes me angry
That I am jealous
Because I fell in love
Again
I wish I could live for myself
But I don’t
I wish I didn’t love
But I do
And I am so angry
At myself
Because I allowed another man
To take the reigns
Of my life
And then was surprised
That I lost control

It may seem a little silly
To write about you
And I promise I don’t love you
But I just can’t forget your smile
And I can’t forget your laugh
You infect me
And happiness is my disease
It’s our disease now
When you sit next to me
I wish I could pause the world
And remember how I feel
I’ll never forget what I feel
Right now
Because I am so happy
Because of you
My cheeks ache
From smiling at you
Sometimes I wonder
How you know me so well
Better than I know myself
You never judge me
But always understand
When I don’t understand
What I feel
So stay with me
Please
Because I miss the sunshine
When you’re gone
And I would promise
I don’t love you
But I do

I’d like to write about beautiful things
For once
I’d like to portray beauty
To make you truly feel it
I want these words to come alive
To flow from the page like a river
And wrap you up inside
I am so practiced in dark verses
I know a thousand words for pain
A thousand metaphors for sadness
To show how broken I felt
But that isn’t all I feel
I could draw tears from you
Make you truly weep
But what about a smile?
Could I warm you heart
Give love rather than sadness
Rather than sharing my pain
Can I make you feel something different
Could I be the verse you mutter
Under your breath
To yourself
So you hide your grin
Could I write a lullaby
To send you to sleep
To have peaceful dreams
And yet all I’ve seen is pain
All the words I’ve written are blue
And now I want to give something else
I want to give a smile to you

Am I the broken girl
That I thought I was
That I became because
I have suffered for so long
Do I have a strong heart
And a stable mind
Could I be different
Now the pain is gone
Am I the smiling face
That many know me as
Or am I the blood that pours
Deep red from my veins
Am I the source of happiness
To anyone
Or am I just a ghost
Am I the same person now
Or have I grown
Into something new
And is this better
I don’t know what I have become
If I am the same at heart
Or if I became what I was
The only thing I knew for so long
Am I just a broken girl
Did I lose everything else
Or did I change
Into something better
Something that can survive
The wasteland of this life
Someone that breathes the toxic fumes
And the smoke from this fire
Raging inside me
Burning weakness
What remains of me?

I was scared once
Because I couldn’t remember who I was
What I was before all this pain
Before the world threw everything at me
Every conceivable suffering
And the rubble filled the air
The shrieking filled my mind
And I couldn’t remember what was there
Before all this
And now that the dust has settled
I dragged my broken body
From the ruins of my mind
I took a cloth
Soaked in tears
And I wiped away the blood
And then I began to recognise myself
Under all this destruction
I was scared
Because I couldn’t remember who I was
Before I was suffering
But now it is clear
Now that I am free
I remember
I was happy

I sat in dark rooms
My knees towards my chest
Gripping my own hand
Just to feel something
Other than pain
The tears falling won’t stop
They sting my cheeks
So raw
But I feel nothing
How many days I spent praying
For anything
Dreaming of heroes
And imaginary people
I could make believe that someone
Anyone could help me
But no one did
I would cry
Until there was nothing left
But no one saw
No one came
So I listened to the dull thud
Coming deep within my heart
It never stops
Even when I begged it to
When the tears stopped falling
I would close my eyes
Breathe deep
Conceal my shattered parts
Because what else was I to do?

We sit around the table
With our puppet strings
Smiles pull at our lips
Like fish hooks through our skin
Bile builds in my throat
Tears swim in my eyes
But the smile won’t fade
It is not the puppeteers will
Liquid poured down my throat
And I welcome the burn
Hoping to feel something
Taste anything other than bitterness
Looking around at my loved ones
At their porcelain masks
Their puppet strings
And their moth eaten facade
My jaw aches from being tensed
From being clenched
To prevent me saying something
I know better than to deviate
From the twisted script that is set
I look across the table
At the other guests
The other prisoners
As their strings are pulled
What a dark play we perform
In our tea party called family