For seventeen birthdays,
fake tears in the bedroom.
Soaked pillows covered by
Scented candles in the living room.
Emotional piano over sounds
little girls shouldn’t have to hear.

For seventeen birthdays,
secret crying showers.
Leftover cake, feeling sorry.
bathroom blood, guilty of a crime.
writing slam poems about mum,
right under her nose.

For seventeen birthdays,
Sweet money. Lies to keep quiet.
Cracks in gulps of *****,
wall punches, hospital trips.
Homeless over a holding hand.
Hopeless. Looking for a mother.

Did you hear it?
That soft whisper.
A brush through of hair,
Hands on your shoulder.

Did you see it?
Those deep grey eyes,
Searching for you.
Lonely, desperate,
And they seem to be lost.

Did you find it?
Your English book,
These words are more important
Than the ones I try to say.
My breath shortens.

Did you realise it?
That I am here, I exist.
Probably not.
So I guess I’ll just go.

Disney Films and Nickelodeon were always on the television.
Millions of cushions laid upon,
Watching high school musical and dreaming of love.
Wishing that I could be Thumbelina
While the boy I liked was Prince Cornelius.

The cat was my only friend,
Though he still dug his sharp claws into my skin
And I couldn't blame my special teddy for hating me
As I left him all spit-covered and stinky.
But where were you when the chocolate milkshake started tasting bitter?
Where were you when I covered my pain with animal stickers?
Where were you to heal the cat's scratches with plasters?
Where were you when I wrote my goodbye letters?

While my cousins played outside climbing trees,
I sat by myself on the grass picking daisies,
Hoping to God that soon it would be time to leave
Because you were acting up and everyone could see.
Was alcohol more important than me?
Sleepovers where we would eat sugar dough
And throw squeaky toys for the dog.
Making friends with kids on club penguin,
Trading Pokémon cards and talking throughout the night,
Trying on false nails for the first time -
They all became hard to bear
As all we could do was stare at you
Giving your drink yet another stir,
Now insert the awkward slurs.

You didn't see when the blisters on my ankles swelled up
And in school I was doing well but to you, I was never quite good enough.
Poetry and songs were written to escape
from those who gave me ***** looks
But when I showed you, you just didn't give a ****.
Girls would laugh at me because I wasn't like them
And boys sniggered when I walked past because I had no *** appeal.
All I wanted was to find my Prince Charming
But I didn't want to dress up like a Barbie.
I admit that a Wotsits and spaghetti diet is unhealthy
But ***** for dinner every night, really?
You ignored my cries for help so I stopped caring about myself.
Is that how it's supposed to be?
Is alcohol more important than me?

I never told you that I actually like girls too
Because I knew you wouldn't care
Or you'd never look at me in the same way again.
Where were you to play with my hair like other mum's do?
Where were you to teach me the basics
Like one add one equals two?
Even though I was your only child,
It felt like nothing was mine.
And in this house, one add one equals two.
But where were you to hold me when I would cry?
To say that this place is a home would be the biggest lie ever told.
I relied on other people to protect me against you; The Cold.
And now you are the one to fold up my clothes.
Will you be there to love me now that I am gone?

Bejewelled in time and space, surrounded by stars
That have sprinkled the sky with questions and reasoning.

Sitting on the moon trying to remember things
And recollect memories that have dissolved into alien dust.

Eyes as wide as the universe and ears as open as the sea
But if we have a conversation, I'm sorry if I don't take it in.

And if the words fly over my head like meteors,
don’t tell me my corrupted spaceship is too lost in your wavelength.

The aqua lines are troubling, burning lasers that zap my
entire kingdom to tiny particles. It’s a supernova of forgetfulness, don’t you remember?

Wandering aimlessly across the core of the earth,
I feel like a drunken chemical gas,
Spinning around on gravity drugs,
Joining hands with life from another dimension.

Floating around, I'm the human form of Pluto.
A planet too small and insignificant to be seen or heard of.

me and you; we were built like a house.
not perfectly built but could still
withstand all of these blazing tempests
that came uninvited in the intense
darkness that we shared.

we buried ourselves in a crypt;
ethereal to the public eye,
masks were the soil for us to smother
fond flames towards ghouls.
To exhale with you was the best
kind of rarity to divine.

midnight prowls to your attic,
untold by ripped pages of desire;
we soon reached our extremity.
time made us hostages to echolalia
and i wrote a list of everything
you've burnt.

They're everywhere.
Girls on television with Hepburn bodies to fit into the margins of magazines, page 3.
Miasmic necks like giraffes to chase scenes as if they're paparazzi with their wine
and ritzy bones.

Suffocated in lip fillers,
It's a surprise no one has burst their silicone bodies,
zeppelins pop, emits poses for a new slattern orbit.

They're articulate;
put thought into every word,
sentences like lines of crystal virtue on lavish vinyls,
another dumb blonde for the
headlines - head space of naive youth.

Hand jobs to antagonise,
i agonise over crimson nails
liberating ***** with cuts of scarlet joy in rapture -
welcome to our modern culture.

They're infatuated with;
lucent screens set eyes aglow
to highlighted cheeks disguised as moons, an unearthly cult called, "mystic aliens of media control".

No. romance is dead,
it only exists in movies that star
******* Angelina Jolie.
Being adored is prone to vanity;
role models get to giggle,
play chaste to be bijou in the arms of Zeus,
while i act as chimera.

Slow dance with me through the apocalypse of space,
in which our words are mercurial.
toxicity is fed to my lungs
by your homemade oxygen,
as if my face of candere
is truly reaching out it’s hands
to find serenity in
swirls of mahogany tables.
and you are just looking for
a lost fluidity of soul.
transform yourself into calico;
so i can create a lucid dream
just. once. more.

let’s fuse up like aurora Borealis,
expand our cryptic galaxies
so all eyes can be on us.
radiate with acidic moon rays
when the incense rises;
already set for retrograde.
"Let’s explore satori".
you said. "but what if
your oxygen is cataclysmic?"
i whispered in a hushed tone.
being the antagonist
was bizarre to me at first.
but then i replied,
"i guess somewhere
is better than nowhere.
because i found you
when i couldn’t find myself".