I guess that Paula, my counsellor,
had decided that I had been trapped in her fishnet tights for too long.
I had outgrown the Doc Marten boots and exercise colouring books.
And when I peered through the window,
i saw her sitting across from a girl around my own age.
They were doing a colouring exercise and I wondered,
did I pass the disease down onto her?
Is that how it works, am I cured?

Morning crept up on me
but my mind was still asleep.
I used to be wild
then i lost a few teeth along
the way to another sleep.
My little anorexic arms
reimagined what morning
used to be like
before morning was mundane.

We get lost in what we can’t undo.
She came in day after day
but you can’t mend a broken body.
Sure, there was joy
you see the ones that you love
and you can’t turn away.
But you can’t mend a broken body.
I am only telling, I didn’t see.
She was nine years old,
now she is a woman
and so I see her resilience,
a most beautiful strength that
I once thought of having
but we can’t all be as strong.
She didn’t take her first job,
it was too little.
There was a bigger voice
to be heard, to be loved, to be sang
and she embodies that.
Her face is not to be touched,
her skin is not to be labelled.
Don’t get that get lost in this,
let it be heard.

Faraway echos and the hum of flies
are like distant lullabies
of a childhood I had almost forgotten.
A childhood written by Charlotte
on an icy blue morning like this one.
How very special is it
to start holding the earth in her eyes
in mine like sapphire raindrops
that dream and cry as humans do.
My breath dances in the fog
as if it was weaving a wordy web
and I smile in my silent ease, it's a
moonlight I remember from years ago.
A charm I still can't fathom
but I want it to stay for the rest of my life.

Cherries blowing up like dark red balloons
and bursting with confetti at house parties.
Sweet sixteenth's and eager eighteens,
underage girls dressed up as barbies.
You see, it's all about numbers.
Like the amount of calories in a cheeseburger
or how many nappies for the baby, soon to outnumber.
Lies and excuses for short term friends
when family know how it's destined to end.
But isn't that the latest trend?
The cost of the newest labels to gain some popularity,
girls these days just need some clarity.
Chasing boys for love, though it's just a quick blow,
see those lips pucker up for a lifeless photo.

I wish you were chlorine faced
and force fed the ocean
the way I was given your slander.
To feel the oxygen inside of you
rupture like kicked in teeth
and centuries of creating a family name
sinking to the seabed all because
I looked at you the wrong way.
On a moody day like today
we should be happy to be alive together.
But we're too messed up and
can't confess it.

Chocolate ponds melted into her face,
puppy dog eyes that I'm sure she's used
but I trust myself stepping into them.
It's a new path to follow,
I see the softness of her skin underneath
her pomegranate checked shirts
and a fragility she likes to hide.
Skin that feels safe,
skin that blends into me as the evening
winds become dark apricot fire
and as we ride the angry roads,
our smiles become country lanes.
Everything is raspberry swigs
and running as the days drain out
into relief, forever.

Your world is so confusing.
I'm ambushed with colour
going insane with some longing
that I'll never be able to explain.
As long as you keep standing there
composing a cadence in my heart
I'll keep journeying through it,
milking your clairvoyant eyes.

I see so many addictions,
special labels.
These clean surfaces
are getting old,
I want to be white dust
but I fall away
and you can clean me up
but I’ll still clutter
in my own little way.
The day is like a dream
except I don’t sleep.

Tonight she compelled me -
i could no longer run.
Those said features of delicacy
hit me, punched me, killed me.
So violent that it was perfect
and i just stood still
because she was perfect too.

Shiny red apples are cuddled tightly by the leaves,  
Tag you're it and hide and seek went on for days.
Secrets told and wishes unleashed
On a rusty swing set stained with memories.

Chaos and noise consume the house,
Mud dripping from our dainty size one shoes
As she fills up the jug with water
And sprinkles it like sugar over the daffodils.

Plant pots are kept outside in the garden,
They look up and smile with their little green faces.
Perhaps they are her other grandchildren,
Although they can't remember the stories she always told.

Silver silk slips through my fingers like fairy dust,
The pink duvet is a sugarcoated blanket of safeness
In a world so full of witches casting evil spells
And creating vigorous snow storms.

Exquisite jewellery glittering from the bedside table,
Her makeup and perfumes excite ten year old me
As I sit at her mirror, pretending to be like her.
A woman with inspiring dreams and a heart of wonder.

Wilted, dead roses.
Red velvet turned into dust.
Fake poses, filtered for comfort.
A life filled with lust.

Trampled on roses,
breaking at the touch.
Love loses every time,
shaking with fear and a blush.

Clouds drift against scarred wrists,
Lines and lines of never ending twists.
Paper people holding hands,
Sitting quietly in a plastic land.

Fingers brushing past
but never interlocking.
Their stems too scared to stand,
ignorant minds throbbing.

This town is garden
of weak petals.
Their creases dripping with blood,
people drowning in the mud.

We are living in a crumpled
up piece of paper.
Eyes thundering with vicious jealousy,
up to no good.

What we manifest
is something so dishonest
and i hate to say it
but i stopped loving you.
All of the birthdays
have faded to dispersive
greying clouds and unsaid
words but never hate.
Just dead sympathy for
the kind things you didn't say
while you were still alive.
See, I finally got the words out.
And they will still want me
to be upset. I'm not but I am.
I'm still. Just still.

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.

I sent you my daydreams
we travelled the world.  
I took your cold hands
exchanged them for lights.
Talked into divinity,
I let myself be open again.
Reconciled with loving.
Then you left me.
It’s how it always goes.

What it would be like to live in the sea -
Endless nothingness.

My spine tingled as i thought
of echoes from far away,
never close enough to harm me.

I’m the richest in rock bottom,
penny gold, the orange attraction.

I’m not afraid to be a silver dame,
alone with my scales flaking away.
Isn’t the ocean my sanctuary?

happy girlfriend day
to beige coloured pages,
kept smooth and delicate;
like fingers turning light switches
so nobody else can see your elegance.

happy girlfriend day
to pale, bruising knees in the sun,
noticing how the symmetric lines
are the only ones who smile
when we are in silence and the romance is done.

happy girlfriend day
to the ones who can't hold a tune
but sweet talk their way through a poem on stage.
hugging our final goodbyes at the end of June,
dedicate your first book to me, think of us in every page.

happy girlfriend day
to twenty eight years of loving;
only tracing the skin that shines,
not the part of that is secretly longing,
I’ll never get to call you mine.

The essence of her
in the early moonlight
swayed like a blow flower
in my hindsight.
When she was there,
my artwork became real.
The air was gentle,
her name was Christine.

She ******* her boat
and left it by the south pier.
I undid the rope -
sunlight filtered out here.
Her hand was my lifeguard,
though when I awoke,
within a distant star
came the morning smoke.

A homesick hydrangea,
sapphire as a bluebird,
navy like a day
that turns into a sourly sea.
Who I used to be is in another timeline
way across the tides,
indigo and conscientious
of what I left behind.

In Sylvia Plath,
I find a similarity in our solitude
There's rainy weather opposing
misty blue violet glooms
and all of the landscapes
no longer bloom for me.
They contradict the hope
growing upon the seaside.

I even astound myself
with my clear disinterest.
With each iris eye,
I forget the ones I hold dearest.
Even in sleep, my perceptions are
a skewed crescent
of a story untold,
kept in myself so close
yet so distant.

My legs shouldn't stop shaking
going haywire on their own,
a person shouldn't be alone.
I lay on a single bed,
trying to be as quiet as a mouse.
It's been thousands of years
and still nobody hears me.

It's not that there's anything wrong,
when autumnal turns to white
there's something to be felt.
You lean back in your bath
to establish a bond between
familiar waves and your wet skin
uncurling itself in them.

When the snowstorm arrives,
listen to it's hymnal,
it's cry to see you as you are.
I had to learn the hard way,
see the shame in it's bleakest day,
faced it with bared teeth,
then gave it patience.

When I squeeze out the contents like I'm a citrus reamer
Are the heavy notions of death meant to be?
According to the book I cut my apples into eights
Will someone tell me how long my death will take?

I wait to be transparently flat like the morning sun.
Is it meant to be when I'm still as fat as an out of date plum?
My life was meant to be pulled away a long time ago
But the hoover broke and so never cleansed me of kilos.

Is it meant to be that I will forever breathe the air of my house?
The sickening fumes often feel like family when starvation has clout.
It's common knowledge that a girl leads you, tells you how.
The only thing I have is a pen and a useless body now.

They think I’m not like cellophane,
as much as I try to point it out.
I want them to find me,
when I’m coiled up on the floor,
something having seeped
from the paleness
wishing it was the unwrapping,
absolved of the hurt
but it’s just spit from my mouth
gifted to the watchful air.
See, why are your eyes elsewhere?
I put myself on show for you
and you walk away
as if nothing happened.

When you think it is over
there’s a gushing light
and then it’s blue.
I can make out my clothes,
my covers in the shadow
but it’s dark and I
I just want it to be over.

I feel the blow to the chest
the psychosomatic burn
of the candles they’ll light
sending me off, their last goodbyes.
The resuscitation,
getting me through limbo,
back into life and out once more.
It’s all starry now
and I’m glad I stayed out.

I’m just a droplet
in a whole pool of deteriorating
coldness and boldness
that I never asked to be put in.
So please pay no mind,
i swear i never feel this way
when i’m with you.
I step into solace ground,
you, incredible girl,
help me push it away.
I’m learning,
I will be for a while.
But we’re never too old
to start loving
like we always could.
And listen,

we will.

Hold me in your eyes,
glassy and predictable
The way that you feel
it’s lamentable.

It escapes you
in the rainfall of your mouth
that says many things
but nothing really comes out.

You know what you want
but there’s pain
and you’re not the kind
to take someone’s life away.

Except your own.

Lonely like Lazuli,
i haven't been
how i used to be.
Not been inspired
like i should be.
Not been loving
like you want me to be.

Lonely like Lazuli,
i lay in a pool of sapphires,
and i know i could
be much better.
I am something more
than sad eyes
and poetic suicide.

Melodramatic.

Melodramatic,

Just because I’m in pretty lights doesn’t mean I have a pretty mind,

just imagine if I was socially better, imagine if I died,

melodramatic.

Melodramatic,

I stand on the stage but I live beneath the storm.

I am counteractive when I give my all,

melodramatic.

Melodramatic,

If I didn’t moan I would be bright but I didn’t ask him to bite,

it’s the nice “girls’” tactic,

melodramatic.

Melodramatic,

I’m losing my hair to a monster in a pink disguise

I’ve been dipping it in drink and ****** thighs,

melodramatic.

Melodramatic,

Sorry I’m not intelligent; sorry I’m not a woman

sorry I’m not quiet; sorry I’m not a man.

Melodramatic.

My dear, dear Karen,
only selfishly appreciated
and gorgeously barren.
This is my ode to you,
the angel i awaited
in the daydream we live in
with dahlia hearts
and the everlasting blue.

I used to love my house and the welcome smell
it seems I fell head first into a cosy well.
The wine drunk hello’s to anecdotes
we’d tell
when I told you I fell, I fell onto the shells.

I’d forgotten I was living with strangers
a musician, a dancer, a model and a painter.
The one who kept plants, I really liked her
until her sun crisp face got fainter and fainter.

If we’d met somewhere else we would’ve been friends
It was too soon to share my rainy split ends.
The walls were venus traps, days began to blend
my pretending was too strong to ever make amends.

If I had to live without you
there would only be blue light
crowding my space
where you should be like
downcast stars
and manifesting scars.
only a way out for us would be
my salvation.

I wrote a poem about my body,
it's everseeking refuge in me.
No harm has come to pass,
there was a time i ached for that
and in a way I still do.
I'm always thinking of you.

Once I killed a butterfly.
It was white like lace I could
see through every line
of the hand I trapped it in.
And to here, I sit and wonder
if that is the movement
that made my life so unsolvable.
So little, so monstrous
and not like lace myself at all.

With red raw eyes,
i’m not crying
in some pretty orange
hue that i look
baby in.
I’m figuring out
how to hide my wrists
and how i can resist
joining you
again.

My phantom mother
isn’t scary at all.
She lessens the fight,
bewitches light.
There’s so many things
I wish I could say
as we lay in our hurt
and every time she leaves
this earth
I hold myself
pretending that it’s her.

Phosephenes in daylight
confuse me to the point of no return,
I don't know what it takes
to love another person.
My friend got an invite to a party
but the doppelgängers didn't let me in.
Forget the effleurage,
from now on I'll look after myself.
They're sending out carnations,
I felt a pinch from the other side.
The leaving me mantra begins,
would I still be a burden if I died?
Selcouth childhood,
I don't want to be a bother.
I've been keeping secrets,
even from my chosen mother.
I'm on the usual night shift,
black shadows elevate and I'm gone.
An actress with a new role,
I stand there while they poke their fun.
Rage stays hidden,
various unhealthy patterns
invade my bloodstream.
Then bats and devils part their ways
to aggravate my self esteem.

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.

A sad fever takes a hold of me.
I know I can't be sad forever
but i'm a survivor and if it means
wrecking myself then so be it.
I don't want to be tough
but my fists are deep azure
and star bound as they punch down
every wall I created.
It's been a hostile few years and
what you don't understand
is that I can't be my vibrant self anymore.
Not for you or anyone.
I just want to be left alone.
I don't want to be alone.

I’m pulling away
like a ripple in the sea
slowly disperses.
I’m missing so much,
there’s not much of a future here
except for with her.
The deadlines are heavy
but so is my heart
and I need to sail away.

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.

Life is being ****** out of me.
I can feel it as my lungs become
too heavy for me to hold and
my heart gets slower and slower.
My mouth turns to a dry cave,
A desolate place which my stomach hates.
No warmth can coax my fingers
To curl around any little mug.
They’ve lost all hope of ever
being so cosy again as I keep
Walking down this endless street.
Though my steps are getting
Slower and slower and slower.
Every largening crack in my spine
Tingle when I lay on a hard surface.
I wonder why I do this to myself.
Then I remember and force a
smile so ****** convincing that I
unknowingly manipulate myself.
I breathe in as to stop the dizzy spell,
the light goes dimmed, i stumble.
"Are you okay?" They seem to ask.
I will be okay. I’m always okay.
But the seconds it takes to get back
on my feet are getting slower
and slower and slower.

I was butter in his mouth
but I felt like cement.
Lady, there's a dog in your house
and it's teeth are bent.

There was a hand
it used to be golden
but then it met hers
everything became tainted
like the ground she laid in

Anything, she said
I will draw the smoke
you will draw the big round eyes
she was in awe
the other just had to say the word

Let us be a little less dark
I’ll treat you kindly
I think you’re a depiction
of something i could love
when we get some warmer light

There is a hand
it used to be golden
but it paddled in blood
everything became tainted
like the ground she lays in.

To lower myself to their watch
with their black eyes,
knowing eyes,
would be bad on their part.
There's no love poems,
just eyes and lifeless bodies,
non feeling, not levitating
like you would think.
I moulded myself out of nothing,
they might use me
but I am their muse.
Their Medusa.

You were an unlocated island
Inhabited within palm trees aligned
To cast the hazy dreams I see today
When I think about when I didn't know you.
The travellers who sailed across the roseate desert
Never thought to discover what was glowing
Like tangerine torches to lead me back into the light.
When I was given the map,
The luminosity was so defying
to how I wanted to love you,
That I wrapped myself in lurid shadows
As if they were velvety serapes
Because I was so fond of the midnight dusk.

You longed for a taste of another species
While I clung to the jungle vines that replicate my own.
Euphoric lava bottled up inside of me,
I couldn't tell you how your twisted words
Made my brain fizz like it was filled with lemonade.
As if the romantic poetry was seaweed
That you tied around every corner of the boat
I needed to pull me towards the shore
Like peonies groping their arms across my land
To steal whatever skin I had left to give.
I longed for you to unwrap the reef
And touch each and every fruit I grew for you.
But you'd already destroyed our rainforest
When your lips got tangled in someone else's mouth.
Though, I still want to go to the island.

I dig myself deeper
every ambient night.
I'm unaware,
disguised as summer light.
This sweet meadow,
It lost its charm when i
Conjured evening shadows,
my sadness in flight.

Lines are drawn across pitted skin,
She pulls her claws in, tying ribbon.
Mouth sewn tight so I can't speak,
I slide my wrists upon the sink.
My feelings are transparent;
This pain endured is like heaven.
She tells me that I deserve it,
And so I make another slit.

I’m sorry that I don’t come across
as being as lovable as you are.
My days consisted of hesitation,
building me a wall between
what I used to feel so heavily
and what I push away to the point
where it’s hurting me.
I see the breaths of silence dancing
on the screens that part us.
You might feel it blowing through,
I hope that it’s not hurting you
because it would make me wonder too.

I myself am vacant.
He is in it for the violence,
she is lazulite sea,
I still see his bullet wounds.
You know it’s sultry,
me finding my red refuge,
skin in blood satin
like live people will notice.
I plead to join them,
for the ripples of my dress
to be like the winds
killing jewels and men.
For I myself am vacant.

He only wanted to talk once
you were held captive by the dark.
When midnight struck, he had you.
His smoke circle eyes scanned
your red and blue body as if
it was a police interrogation.
You were young and in love.
What could possibly be wrong?

He only wanted to apologise once
morning escaped from it's chains.
When the scars become visible,
it was red roses and dinner dates.
Purple bruises, another excuse,
accident prone yet still in love.
The stars came out to watch
as you took off your clothes again.