I want to tell him
that I’m scared,
that I’ve been here before.
And that the last time I felt potential like this it imploded;
I imploded.
But I don’t want to taint it,
You see I’m still hopeful
That maybe this time
Won’t end up laced with maybes,
Or what ifs,
Or open wounds pouring blood onto paper.
That maybe this time,
just won’t end.

I’ve not quite worked out whether I think it’s beautiful,
Or stupid -
The human capacity,
And pliancy,
And longing,
For love.

I loved you strong, with all the recklessness I possessed,
Yearned to share with you all I had to confess.
Believed it would be palliated in your pristine hands,
Watched it slip through your fingers like worthless sands.
Enamoured and imprudent, I jumped right in,
Unaware your depths were too shallow to swim.
Naïveté; my judgement had faltered,
All of my worth lay bare, and you resigned, unaltered.
Gave everything I knew with nothing left in reserve
Long forgotten it was me I should serve.

It was a hope laced channel for all the healing I desired
but you were inept at radiating the compassion required.
No understanding for this fragile task in proposition,
A rare gift to be cherished that you gave no recognition.
And there was too much exposed for you to forsake,
Too much that wasn’t earned; my calamitous mistake.
For these blood stained bones you lacked the tools to unearth,
You were never the answer to my rebirth.
Gravely inexperienced for this feat,
Your heart was too sheltered
and your mind too weak.

I gave you completely this intimate token,
But you failed to see how I was broken.

My child,

As you watch your worlds get torn apart
With a malevolence you can’t comprehend,
Please do not throw yourself into the crossfire,
This is a war you cannot mend.

Their anger is too deep-rooted,
Their hurt is much too strong,
They will insist on going down fighting,
And refuse to see where they are wrong.

Find shelter from this constant storm,
Please close your eyes and ears.
They won’t listen to your pleading,
They choose not to see your tears.

Your screams won’t penetrate their spiteful resolve,
Your little voice will go unheard,
You have no choice but to be strong now;
A responsibility so undeserved.

My child, you cannot help them
As they stand firm on this battle site.
You must know this will be one of many,
There is too much wrong to put right.

If they could see how their bellowing makes you recoil,
See you cowering on your knees,
They might take heed of the damage they’re wreaking,
Reconsider this incessant, vindictive reprise.

But this road is far from ending,
So don’t exhaust your resilience here,
You must protect yourself from the barrage,
For they have not the strength to shield your fears.

It will be another long and tiresome night
As you are again dragged through this mess,
Processing all of their vicious accusations
For all that they refuse to confess.

So as you watch the two people you revere the most
Spit venom at volumes you can’t stand,
I beg you not to let it make you hateful -
This is not what they had planned.

I know how you long to fix it,
Desperate to appease their pain,
But my child, too much has already been broken,
Just please know you are not to blame.

I wish I could offer an escape route,
Tell you everything will be OK,
But there is no choice except to ride out this bitterness,
Await the dawn of a new day.

And on that day you’ll find a way to forgive them,
For destroying everything you knew as home,
For their selfishness stealing all innocence
And turning safe places into war-zones.

Go ahead
Sit with your ignorant comfort blanket
Of expected
Respected
And protected
Male privilege,
And try to tell me we are weak.
Try to tell me that the women who climb mountains of misogyny,
Beaten down repeatedly,
And still stand to scream 'we shall not be silenced'
Have not earnt the right to speak.

You have no idea,
Just what it means to be a woman.

I know.
I know it feels like your body is disintegrating,
How it aches in places you didn't even know existed;
That you want nothing more than to rid yourself of this skin that burns with loss in every fragile movement.
Your heart and mind are betraying you.
Bones incapable of carrying around this
Palpable heartbreak.
The infrastructure
Of everything you had carefully built
Shattered beneath your feet.
I know it seems like the walls are closing in,
Cornering you,
Suffocating every airway
Until you cannot see tomorrow through the darkness.

Darling
Be patient,
I promise you'll find seeds of recovery amongst the rubble -
Your stems of self worth were never rooted
in anyone's actions but your own,
Your flowers never fed by anything but love for yourself.
Your crushed spirit will break through
These confines of hopelessness
To blossom, once more.
Nurture your growth
And protect it like a diamond;
Cover it in gold.
For you will never own anything more precious than this existence.
You have all the minerals you have ever needed
right there inside of you,
Blood flowing like lava,
Fire burning through your veins since the day that you were born,
Strength emanating from your core.

I know.
I know you're struggling to find the light
But in this darkness you begin your healing.
Remember all that you are
And all that you have been through.
You are loved in ways you can't even imagine
And will grow to love, once more.

Darling
Be patient,
For you are as tenacious as the sun,
And every sun will rise again.

A man I looked up to
Once told me to be careful,
That maybe I could be too much.
Too bold
Too strong
That men may not feel comfortable.
But you see
Women in my world have never been gentle,
Always burnt with too much fervour
To care that you might melt.
You think it is an insult,
That you can coerce me into being more submissive
By the threat of offending men.
Like somehow I am nothing
With the absence of a man's desire.
Like everything about me
Should be channelled into impressing a man
I am yet to meet.
But you don't know that inside I am smiling.
Inside a fire in me burns brighter at hearing
That sometimes my strength makes them uncomfortable.
I am not here so men who tell me I'm prettier when I have less voice,
So men who think it's okay to intimidate me
Whenever they see fit,
In whatever form they wish,
Can feel less unsettled by this supposed threat to their masculinity.
I hope my mind,
My bones and my blood,
Make your safety net
Of a society that breeds and feeds male egotism
A little less secure.
I am not here for your comfort.
I am not here to feed the monster of misogyny inside of you.

Do not tell me to douse my fire
And extinguish these flames
Just because you,
Men like you,
Cannot handle the heat.

Your death was an easy escape.
You drank the depths of your despair
And drowned.
Not brave enough to be called suicide,
Doubt you even intended to die.
I care little.
Though so did you it seemed -
Not only for yourself
But for the lives in your hands
Of strangers and your own creations.
Depressed they said,
drugged up;
My sympathies
Have boundaries.

You latched onto innocent bystanders,
Tied ropes to their legs and locked them to yours.
A lead weight,
As you drifted to your demise.
Your lungs went dry and your eyes went blind,
Never to face
The consequence
Of all you left behind.
You did not watch as they struggled to stay afloat,
But I,
With my pure and petrified eyes,
I watched as they almost drowned.
Pulled down with your worthless body,
Helpless to set them free.
My hands were too tiny to untie ropes that you burned into skin.

The hate runs deep in the water,
and the ripples are forever carved in cement,
So how can you be granted forgiveness
When you’re not even here to repent?
What you did was ******.
You stole lives,
And left lives,
Now forever tied
To the weight of your careless mistakes.

What stands there,
in front of thee?
There is not much left to see.
A mere fragment of vulnerable humanity -
This is not who you are
Or were meant to be.

Tying knots with my tongue in soft seductive prose,
A lying distraction as you tear off my clothes.
Stained body and heart that have long been closed,
Remains all in your hands, naked, exposed.

Trace my scars with your fingertips,
Lace the curves of my spine with your unsullied lips.
Drink from my darkness in slow, soothing sips.
I’ll sink my nails into your skin ‘til your innocence rips.
Hypnotise you with the rhythm in my hips,
Disguise my poison with lust lined trips.

Legs locked around your waist hold like ecstasy,
Shock your mind into a state of dependency.
And undetected I’ll tighten the noose around your neck,
Infected, you’ll idolise this exquisite wreck.
And hold my wretched heart against your beautiful chest,
It’s cold, all emotions have been repossessed.

Confused and feeble you’ll emerge from your stupor,
Bemused as to why my passionate grasp became looser.
You’ll stare down at your feet and watch the blood drip,
Now aware I no longer need this tangible grip,
You see this touch is venom, to penetrate your weak flesh,
Subdue another prisoner into my nefarious mess.

Grave fear; you’ll beg and you’ll beg to be free,
Yet crave incessantly to still taste me.
I’ll behold and admire the damage I've done,
Mould your heart into a trophy that reminds me I've won.

I warned you not to get too close,
I spawn destruction with every lethal dose.

You roll your eyes
Tut at me
Like I've somehow forgotten my place
Suddenly too big for these lines you drew around me
And now I am a threat  
Words like razor blades
Of truth and equality
Too sharp for you to swallow.

But it was you.
It was you who forgot your place long ago
When a woman's right to defend herself
Was deemed less important than your ego.

I will always burst out the seams
Of these stitches that spell compliance
You thread into my female skin.

Sleep evades me
The mind torments,
Replaying all the moments I should never have given to you
All the moments you never deserved.
This self-loathing makes me weary.

How could I have been this careless
Heart not survived such heavy rains
To throw itself recklessly
Into hurricanes
To throw caution to the wind
Despite everything I knew,
Reject all fears and trepidations
For you.

Sleep evades
And the mind torments
With how I let you see so much of me
The walls I reinforced with such conviction
Fell like they were built on sand,
Because I didn't see you coming
Because you seemed like a soft breeze
But the storm isn't any less ferocious
Just because it begins more gently
And you became everything you said you weren't
And everything I feared you'd be.

What happened to the promise last time
That this time
I'd save more me for me.
I hate that I battled this long and hard
To surrender to something
So unworthy.

A young girl,
Face pressed against the glass
‘You’re too young to go in there.
You’re not allowed past.
You must wait outside and do no more than look in.’
But the glass is shattered,
it impedes my vision
And the shards tear through my skin.

The picture is too broken to see what went on,
Smeared blood obscuring where the damage came from.
I can see a clock on the wall,
Time is frozen
But the big hand points to you -
I can just make out you’re all there.

I scream
I bang
I cry for you.
I wound myself further in the confusion,
And when you finally look up from the confines you’re in
There is no movement.
Just a distant sign for me that says
‘stay strong’
I don’t understand what’s going on,
Strong for what, for who?
Why can’t I come in there with you?
Please someone tell me what’s happening.

I’m bleeding; you’re all bleeding,
But still I don’t know why.
Old enough to know the colours,
but too young for where they came from.
Close enough to hear the screaming,
too far from the cries.
Too young,
Too young.
Not young enough.

You were all on the hour and I am frozen at six,
the little hand
Behind that pain spattered pane that splintered my heart.

All of your blood was spilt too,
Just on the inside of the glass
By the clock in that room where you all were together,
That I was allowed to see,
but not to touch.
I wanted in,
but there was no choice,
My blood had to stay on the outside with the dust.

So struggle weary, I had forgotten how to fight
But now I smile as a stand above this battle site.
Because it was not me, sweetheart, it was you
And I have been rediscovered by someone new.

Love,
Lust,
Lies.

Still yet to decide
Which one defines
Everything we left behind.

Then again,
Perhaps it goes a little something like this;

Love?
Lust lies.

Who’s there -
Remember me?
You silly, scared little boy.
Are you proud now
That you ran away?
I remember it all like it was yesterday.
When you promised you’d be there
No matter what,
A feeble lie
You quickly forgot.

Remember that day
I came out of theatre
with nothing but tears and sickness?
And blood,
there was so much blood.
I was broken,
I was empty,
I needed you to be there.
You promised you would
No matter what,
A feeble lie
You quickly forgot.

I remember most
The last time I saw your face,
When you turned
And said to me,
‘But I haven’t had a night out with the boys in ages’
Like it somehow justified
Those words,
Your decision,
Etched onto my heart with icy precision.
It’s almost funny now, isn’t it?
I’d crack a smile
If I weren’t so ashamed
I once considered you
as worthy.

I remember when you promised you’d be there
No matter what,
A feeble lie
You quickly forgot.

Maybe I’ll laugh one day.
After all,
You turned out to be nothing more
Than one big joke.

I begged you to stay
Pleaded on my knees
Became a person I didn't know
One so heartbreakingly weak.
Still cheap doors shut on me
As I waited on the cold floor
There were long corridors
A mile to the train station
So many associations you had to pass
But there was no looking back.
I faded into darkness
As you fought your way back
To a world so far
You couldn't even see me
Never once had to hear my screaming.

I get shivers down my spine now
When I think about that day
I want to go back and tell that girl
To get up.
Get up
It's not worth it
It's better this way
You won't ever need a man
That wasn't man enough to stay.
But I think that's what's fitting now
In a pitiful kind of way.

Though I'm sure you wouldn't admit
I think you somehow knew
If you didn't leave me at my weakest -
The only moment I wasn't stronger than you -
If you didn't get up
And leave me then
You'd never have been able to.

The way you left
Was more than I ever needed to know.
Ammunition enough to baracade myself from you
For eternity
And more.
So why does my heart still act like a bird
I've locked in a cage,
Stolen from its home.
Relentlessly whispering
That one day it will escape,
Find it's way back to you.

Plagued by the slightest sounds,
Every sight I resent.
My mere existence in this place is hostile,
Yet this persistent voice torments.
‘You have to try, you have to’ it says,
I drag my body from the floor.
‘One step at a time, and I promise you things will heal,
You just have to open the door’.

But the sun burns through my skin;
The wind ****** my neck like needles.
All of the elements conspiring to destroy what is left of me,
Even the air feels heavy.
My fragile body paper thin,
Ready to tear at any moment.
‘I can’t go outside, I can’t, don’t make me’
With shame I turn away.
I am defenceless,
I am defeated
I just want to be free.

This battle has been too destructive,
And the road to return is too long.
This crippled soul won’t carry,
Stunned silence;
I had awaited strong.
But my wasted heart and weary eyes are closing,
I want to sleep now
Please,
I just want to sleep; everything is sore.
Just let me lie here.
Let me die here.
I have no fight left in me anymore.

All of those things that we would say
In those enraptured, early days.

‘I’m crazy about you baby.’
‘You make me crazy.’
‘I’m so crazy in love with you.’

But the ending had other intentions.

Although
I guess it all turned out to be some kind of true,
Just words
with different dimensions.

So I guess it seems that my foresight
Had been accurate all along.
But darling, there's no sweetness in being right
When I longed so much to be wrong.

This swimming against
The tide of my mind
Is exhausting.
Desperately fighting
To remind myself daily
Of the impossibility
Of us.
I can't find what's not in your heart.

The silk was spun,
Finely woven
With threads of DNA and bonds of love.
Or so we thought -
These webs always intend survival.
To weather any storm come rain or shine,
To nurture the life that live upon it.
Intricately delicate, yet strong.
Or so we thought.
Not this one.
Not this time.
This web was a trap.
Pretty from a distance,
Even looked steady and secure for a while.
But you lost control of its construction,
And instead it was us that got tangled.
Our web became a lie,
Spun into a noose around your neck
and yours
and hers
and mine.
This was not silk
But ******* barbed wire,
And it slit all of our throats
and left us to die.

We loved hard and fast,
Grasping always and never quite getting enough,
Hands clawing at each other
Like they constantly needed more.
These days like ****** highs,
Injected right into the veins and possessing all existence.
Bodies entwined.
Hearts tangled and mangled.

Most days,
I still feel like I'm in rehab.

Your face was in my dream again last night.
I'm not sure when I can expect this to stop happening.
This subconscious need is becoming habitual,
Almost as frequently as the conscious one,
Like all the times your name appears in my search history.
Not that I can see anything,
Not that anything I can imagine
Is an active representation of who you are now,
But because somewhere, despite all my exhausted efforts
My heart is still playing out our story.
My heart still fights with the endings,
So it makes up new ones,
Spins images into happier realities.

Under the stars that knew no judgement
We danced on sands
We had forever been taught
Would burn our curious feet,
Dipped our toes into banned oceans.
Born again
Into a world without restrictions
Lifted veils on new dimensions
We had forever been taught
We were not supposed to see.

My love,
I've never felt more brave nor more proud
Swimming in these waters with you
When everything we'd ever known
Forbid all but steady ground.

In the currency of our current world
I have been taught for as long as I can remember
That my value as a woman
Exists only
In how worthy I am deemed by men.

'Remember, no one wants someone that everyone's had'
Was a favourite of my elders.
A line reiterated to me
Since I was old enough
To be made conscious of being sexualised
To be considered one day by men
Disregarding any of my own desires.
Letting me know
My exchange value
Is worth nothing more
Than how much they might want my body
Or by this we mean
How little they may want it
Once they might not have been the first
Or somewhere thereabouts.

I am no one's virginal prize  
No one's to define or demonise.
I am too much ******* woman
To be reduced to such confines
To be fit into a category
Fit for only men to use
To determine what it is I am good for.

I can be the Madonna and the *****,
Whatever I choose
And every bit of brilliance in between.
But make no mistake
Not one bit of our womanhood
Is here for your judgement
Make no mistake
Not one bit of my existence
Is woven into how worthy you find me.

Teeth ripping skin from bone
I tear away at the flesh you dissolved yourself in
Searching for a piece of myself that does not burn
But layer after layer
I find your name
Etched deep into the marrow that makes me.

I swear
I will bathe in acid
And burn these bones right into the ground
If erasing your memory from my body
Means erasing all trace of me.

I do not know how to live this existence.

You became my worst habit;
Nicotine firmly in my blood, and I could not quit.
I breathed you,
Through and through.

Yet again
I try to make some sense of this
heartache
Spin the rejection into something poetic
Searching for melancholy romance in all the missing.
But it isn't romantic
And there isn't always sense to be found.
Sometimes it's just broken promises
And question marks
And heavy emptiness.
And these useless metaphors aren't enough -
They don't fill.
Sometimes nothing fills
The gaps and empty spaces left
When it all comes crashing down
When people disappoint
And people always disappoint.
These words don't know how to soothe
The anger I feel
At them
And at myself.
Sometimes there's nothing you can say
Or write
When your body aches with longing
And your mind tortures you
With all the wishing
For it to have been another way.
These pretty words
And this glorified hurt  
Don't make it any of it less true
I think I've always fought accepting
The tragedies I can't undo.

I watch you leave
And I am done with seeing backs.
Tired of handing my heart
To the hands of fragile spines
Who colour their lives within the confines of cowardice;
I watch you leave for the last time.

Reluctantly,
I exhale the part of me that became entwined with you.
I am worth more than anything that isn't sure
I am worth staying.

We left pieces of ourselves inside the pit
We had no choice but to leave behind,
It was die there together
Or barely find our way out alive.

We emerged,
Found ourselves still breathing.
But bruised, battered, broken.
And worst of all,
Without each other.

I arrived earth shattering
Nails in my heels
Ready to crack concrete
Unwilling to be moved
Feet firmly on the ground
With a stubborn dignified silence
Or a speech I'd rehearsed
For the past three years
Unsure of which I might need.
He sits down in front of me
Gaze avoiding
Looking as if he can already sense the bitterness
Already feel the heat
Of all the space between.
He orders something unfamiliar  
And I wonder if it tastes like regret
Finally drinking down the consequence
He poured for us both
All those years ago.
In his face I sense a shame
And I think I'm supposed to be smug
That this is supposed to be the retribution
I craved for so long
This meet -
Him, with his cup of bitter
Me, dealt a dose of sweet.
I'd always envisioned this was the time
I'd finally taste some vegence
But all that's here is bittersweet
Saturating the space around us
Like there's no way to divide.
He musters some courage to look at me
Green eyes pierce
Just as fiercely now as they did back then
Stare right through the pupils
To the insides of the girl
Who's heart he ripped from it's chest.
I can't even fight it
It so immediately burns through
All the pain
All this strength and all this healing
Every scrutinised thing
I'd spent the last three years dealing with
The never ending proverbial glue
I'd used to forge myself whole
Suddenly becomes redundant
These cracks shining through.
My feet are no longer steady
I've forgotten all that made me reborn
I was supposed to find my voice  
Salvage this final rise
With an opportunity to bask in integrity
And finally leave it behind.
Instead I am 22 again
Mesmorised
Stomach churning
He always did have the ability to melt the ice
I built myself on
Like no one else I've ever met.
I hold his gaze a little longer than I should
He reads my eyes like a familiar book
And I know this game
And how it ends
But my heart is thumping his name against my chest
So loudly
It drowns out all the memories and words
I've sat with every day since he left.

I purposefully forget to remind myself
That he's the worst idea I ever had
Because I'm staring at his lips
And all I can think about
Is how much I want them on mine.

His mouth always did taste like hope.

I collapsed into this little girl fantasy
I didn't even realise I knew
Missing from me even when I was a little girl
And yet all of a sudden I was lost
In fairytales
Dreams of happily ever after
Foreseeing your name next to mine
And other names
Fit for tiny feet
Envisioned a future
All green eyes and curly hair.
But it wasn't just my mind
It seems our bodies did too
Kind of funny now isn't it
How everything envisioned it but you.

I once read
That if you still love someone
You don’t leave
I guess that’s why I end up here
Every time
Always so desperate
To keep a fire burning
That I’ll set myself alight.

I’m learning the hard way
That it isn’t always right
Love isn’t a vessel
Within which everything else can survive
Sometimes it’s too much
The trauma
The pain
The fight
Sometimes a surrender
Is the only way out alive
And our broken parts were too heavy
For us to ever learn how to fly
I’m sorry that I couldn’t save us
God knows
I tried.