without my secrets I am *****
the exposition would feel strange
but I am not my secrets

they are a fragile sheath
I prefer to keep tucked underneath
but they are not me

every piece of art
is defined differently
to each living being
a multitude of meanings

just like the eye
is our all-telling piece
in this gallery it speaks
a multitude of stories

You loved the stars
so the stars grew to love you
and the stars said 'stay away'
but you felt entitled to them
they said 'don't come too close'
but you persisted, you resisted
and you reached out
to take what was yours
-
you hurt yourself in your delusion
yet you blamed the stars
for scorching your heart;
you wrote your own tragedy
and the stars, the stars,
they will always burn
for you

colourblind
to traffic lights
but I know how they're
supposed to look

I walk along
a thinning kerb
frequently falling
stumbling along

nothing stops me
I stay on the edge
this line between safety
and imminent death

the fog is slowly clearing up
and spring is colouring the hills
I'm not chaining daisies anymore
I'm kissing yellow daffodils

divided,
undecided,
trying to hide it;
struggling.

the composer, the symphony
the poet, the poetry
the artist, the masterpiece

the poet
is no poetry.
the artist
is no masterpiece.

the instrument,
until played,
carries no melody.

these conflicting qualities
could never meet.

~

quiet, stolen brightness
oh, it doesn't belong to me
but this sky is your black ceiling,
I'm just trying to be seen
and I see you-
I see you-
I see you shying away, yes
every few days, there's less,
every month the same cycle,
over and over again
and you don't know
how much is too much
and you don't know
when you'll be enough
and you're stuck
cutting those pieces
and you struggle
to bring them back
back to largeness,
back to circular-
insecurity,
phases of the moon,

and the Sun does smirk
in the morning blue.

big smile for the crowd,
yes, you smile for them now,
those eyes aren't allowed,
green eyes, they're so loud,
bitterly sweet, green,
laughing at me,
I'm spiralling now,
yes, I'm spiralling down
a staircase with ends
that could never meet,
and she's pretty, so pretty,
it seems meant to be,
it seems you could never
be meant for me, green.

You followed me home, winking,
grinning with your yellow teeth.

I know you like your loneliness
but don't leave me here alone;
I'm in love with your melancholy,
your crevices, my home.

When our problems look smaller,
the good becomes greater,
the sky fails to fall at our feet.

Drink up the horizon,
pink stripes heading East,
the sky stays upright while it's sweet.

My conscience
carries your voice,
it wears your face;
I'm talking to you
when I think to myself.

My heart, it beats
under influence of caffeine
and sugar pulls my smile up,
and I wonder if this is suicide
but I take my coffee with sugar,
and smile and smile and smile.

So many words
of wisdom and worth
they crowd in my head
never breaching the surface
and I tire of calling them forth;
I tire of it.

So I pull my smile down
and I sit in my silence
overcome with the exhaustion
of forcing an utterance;
I am never who I seem,
and words do not come easy to me.

I can hear you,
the beat in your chest,
it rings in my head;
a wordless lullaby.

I wish
sometimes
that you
could be mine.

But we both know creation
in the cage of my mind,
can only exist
behind my closed eyes.

The fields go sliding down this sky
and my mind goes racing after them.

Maybe we're making ourselves upset,
sitting in cubes of air
conditioned to make us feel sick,
racing back and forth
in our poisonous bugs,
and I'm thinking

One day you'll find me sitting
in a green field on a busy motorway,
singing the blues and talking to clouds, looping dead daises into a chain,  
thinking about gypsies
in their little world of colour,
trapping their secrets inside caravans,
laughing at the rest of you who
race to the end of the world, daily,
eyes to your cars and the concrete.
I'm thinking

One day I'll be standing
in the middle of that field again,
under skies black, void of mercy,
wondering why everyone left so soon,
taking in gulps of poisonous air,
flashbacks to the pieces of history
I'll have to keep to myself.

*Maybe we're making ourselves upset.

The stars don't know that they're shining and they don't like how we stare at their bodies and it makes me wonder if we're any different and maybe the sky is a mirror reflecting us all and we're flipping a coin with night and day, and the stars will all fall when we destroy ourselves tomorrow.

People burn
brighter than the sun
and I've got complicated feelings
for every different flame.

I love fire,
and I'm terrified.

Who's going to understand
how I hate taking showers because
I love taking showers?

How my speech is as shallow
as my mind is intense?

Tell them not
that the shower feels so good,
you fear the time it will end.

Tell them not
about that fear controlling
your will to shower *ever again.

Tell them not
that you hate what you think,
but you *love what you pen.

Hipster queen,
younger than youth, hardly 16
sipping her Tapal Green Tea
Wondering what everything means,
creating art, making up dreams.

With a glint in your eyes,
and a lazy-cat smile, I'm guessing
you've always, always been
an effortless, ridiculous
masterpiece.

I'll tell you this,
I questioned it too,
how two people could get
so caught up in each other
they forget themselves.

Let me tell you,
your heart will never again
feel so light
but the ache is definetely
worth the ride.

Let me tell you this,
you won't understand
why people fall
until you experience
*the flight.

I was feeling so much,
I could hardly speak
and I was missing your hugs,
I could barely breath
in the absence of
Jasmine deodorant
you never sprayed
on the pages
of the scrapbook
you gave me
and it took me since April
to realise
we were a whirlwind,
romantic, one of a kind
type of scene
and it's always been
harder for me
to replay the part where
you tell me never again,
to you, to speak.

At a typewriter, he types.

*God, it eats me inside
but it helps a tree of life
to blossom inside of
this bottomless pit
with no nutrients to give
and now this sadness within
finally looks like a gift.

You can't see it, but I can.
You're growing so fast and it hurts to see the shine leave your eyes.
She used to talk about the strangest things, and now she doesn't talk.
I'll bet you fear the world now, when you used to dream of coming out here.
I'll bet she's losing hope.
I see them smiling less, I see them giving less, I see sadness everywhere.
Nobody talks anymore.
I'll never talk again.

Some pieces stay unfixed
but we learn to pretend they're fine.

Some pieces fall away inside moments
and some pieces fall back in time.

But darling, realise this;

Some pieces you're searching for
will never exist.

We kept each other
tucked safely in our pockets.
We forgot to take care of ourselves.

So uninspired,
wasting my time
listening to the same songs
I've been listening to for years.

So tired
of the way our world is changing.
Can somebody guide me
to some open minds?

Because even the walls
are easier to talk to.
Don't tell me
everything seems fine.

The overwhelming stench
Of body odour and sweat
will only smell like home
once you've chosen to accept
that a smell is to a person
as a leaf is to a type of tree
choose your scent, for I choose me,
in solitude I choose to breath.