you give me fifteen
minutes a day to be myself.
and so for fifteen minutes a day i
paint myself into being,

weaving a tapestry of emotions with
just black and white.
i leave my body and strip
myself down to my bones.

my soul sings; i lose being lost
something alcohol can never do
and my fingers fly over black and white.

but at the end of that fifteen
minutes my shirt is soaked with sweat;
my wrists ache and my muscles shiver with
what can be called anticipation but what

i've come to know as dread. and
then i wrap myself up in my pretences
again, shaking with the
effort of being someone i am not.

on some days i don't have that fifteen.
some days are harder to bear than others.

you're okay, love.
you're okay.
take deep breaths, shoulders shaking;
grip the edge of the sink like
there's no tomorrow,
feel the cool porcelain beneath your palms.

turn on the tap.
watch the water gush out;
tilt your head back, watch
the broken lightbulb on the ceiling
buzzing.

deep breaths, love.
scoop the ice-cold water with both
your palms, marvelling
at the subtle roughness of your
fingertips, and the rest of your
hands covered in small imperfections.

splash the water on your face,
wipe away the tear tracks,
wash away the smudged mascara.

you'll be okay, love.
this has happened so many times.
shoudn't you be used to it by now?
square your shoulders, look me
in the eye. whisper to me,
almost as if you mean it,
"i'm strong. i'll be fine.
i am fine."

push the bathroom door open;
go out there, face the world.
you're okay, love.
you're okay.

find what you love
(and let it **** you)

you know how it is.
your heart, that stupid muscle
somehow lays her hands on a jump-rope
and skip-skip-skips her way
closer to breaking
every time you think of him.

you should be used to this by now.
after all, he's only the latest in a long
string of boys who somehow
gave your heart that godforsaken jump-rope.

it's so predictable that you nearly roll your eyes
at yourself - or at least you do mentally -
but still you can't help it
you always were a romantic at heart.

today i listened to a song
that you once called "our song"
and it reminded me of you
and all that you stand for

alone at home,
i lay on the cold tiled living room floor
shut my eyes
and listened.

i will admit that i cried a few tears for you;
i looked at a picture of us from months ago
and sighed because it seemed like just yesterday to me.

i remembered you
i remembered us
it hurt for a while,
but i admitted to myself that i did miss you
and then i reached out
and let you go.

this feeling will fade in time, i know
and i told myself to be strong.

i think it worked.

the song ended,
i took my earphones from my ears,
and i stood up.

i must have left the part of me that loves you
on the ground behind me,
because i think i'm finally over you.

heard you moved on;
from your own lips.
don't really know what to say.
don't really know what to feel.
too tired.

did you expect me to be any different?
cry, maybe?
tell you to remember me?
no.
what's the point?
you're gone.

it hit me with an air of finality.
you; her.
me; myself.
would i want it any different?
maybe. perhaps.

but perhaps not.
loving you got too hard.

for your inability
to hide a single thing you feel -
for your quiet willingness
to listen to me talk about the world;
about the beauty of being alive,
about warmth on cold days
and perspectives you never imagined
you would someday hear ;

for your unashamedness
to tell me all the things
you don't like about yourself
but for your determination to be
the best version of you
you know how to be ;

for how different you are from
every single person i have ever known -
for your never ending reassurance
that i am worth so much more than i know
that my emotions and problems
are worth giving a voice to ;

for your silence
and for your laughter
for your tears
and for your wisdom
for your pride
and for your insecurities

thank you for showing me someone
so much like me yet so different
so stable yet so unsure
someone i have known my whole life yet -
someone i have yet to know.

do our hearts really break?
or are they just bent into a new shape,
ready to fit into a new person's?

if i could tell you i would let you know.

who are we, really?
behind the laughter, the tears
behind the people we pretend to be
what are we made of?

if i could tell you i would let you know.

do we stay the same
our whole lives
or do we shed our past selves,
evolving into a new version
of us, free of the shadows
that used to haunt our hearts?

if i could tell you i would let you know.

why do we change for people?
why do we pretend to be people we're not
just to mold ourselves
into a warped version of the people
we used to be?

who are we, really?

*if i could tell you i would let you know.

have you ever felt
the exhaustion?
it's not just physical; it's
mental, emotional, draining
in all the ways you could think of.
it runs in your blood and
seeps into your bones
and you sit there wondering when
it'll all be over.

have you ever felt
the heartache?
it numbs you, chokes you, and
makes you feel like your heart
is a little shriveled up raisin
because you can't imagining it opening
up to anyone else ever again.
it hurts in the worst ways;
a hollow ache that never subsides.

have you ever seen
me cry?
it's not the kind of quiet tears you
see in movies.
it's the heart-wrenching sobs;
screams of pain, loss and apprehension.
it isn't beautiful, there's nothing
poetic about it. it's raw, malignant
grief.

have you ever known me?
or were you just a figment
of my imagination,
too many lines between what i
know and and what i used
to love.

"because, you know, before you help others, you have to help yourself.
before you fix others, you have to fix yourself.
before you love others, baby girl, you have to love yourself."*

someday, things will be perfect
someday, the pain will be gone
maybe it's wrong to hold on too tight because
it will all be gone anyway.

someday, we'll find a home in the sky
someday, the tears will be worth it
one day, things will be better.

look yourself in the mirror, now
and tell yourself it will be okay.
believe it, hope it, pray it,
don't let go.

when you wake up tomorrow
i will be gone. my space in the
bed will be empty, but i'll fold
the sheets on my side back neatly,
it'll be as though i was never there.

don't panic. the key is
under the mat, the same
place we always put it,
even though i've told you a
thousand times that there are
a million better hiding places for it.

there's a bowl of fruits on the table, i
bought them this afternoon while
you were away at work. i should
have put them in the fridge, but
i thought you'd like to see how
pretty the apples are before you
cut them apart.

my gray toyota will be gone from
the garage, but that's the only thing
i'm taking with me, i promise, aside
from the clothes on my back. i'll sit
in that car, eighty an hour and the
radio loud, trying not to think about
leaving you behind without a goodbye.

i see your face in my mind
as i drive away, your forehead
crinkled the way it always is when
you don't understand something. you'll
read this note and wonder why i left,
but please, don't look for me.

some say love is holding on,
some say it's letting go,
and all i know as i turn the key in the ignition
is that some journeys have to be made alone.
i know you're probably hurt, lost and afraid,
but so am i. i don't know why i know
within myself that this is the right thing to do,

but don't wait up for me.

what am i chasing,
really?

behind the smoke and the empty bottles,
behind the tears and the dried-up coughs
behind the life i know is leading me to ruin.

is it you?

or is it what you stand for,
the laughter on windy days,
the split-second hugs and the
sadness in my eyes you say you
feel sorry for.

and then there's the broken glass.
from last week on my bedroom floor.
after i threw an empty jack daniels bottle
at the wall in frustration.
and maybe a little pain.

metaphorical? perhaps.
tangible? perhaps.

but each time i reach out to
it all that answers me is
a bottle of pearls.

a lot of times, it's the little things
things that **** me off,
things that make me smile,
things that make me for a
second
forget who i am.

because what difference
does it make,
whether i laugh or cry
or punch a wall with
my fist?

as long as you get what
you want;
an emotional response,
you'll be satisfied.

and in that way, the little things
don't really matter at all,
because why should we care
why we laugh, or why we cry?
(or even why
we punch a wall?)
for as long as we know
we have not lost the ability
to feel,
to be,
to exist,

we are living.
and that is the most important of all.

"round and around and around
and around we go."

she hurt you and you
hurt me and i
probably am hurting him too,
but that's life for you.

you call me at 3am,
every day, like clockwork.
the routine's the same; i slide
out of bed, change, and meet you
and the diner down the street.

you say the same things; how
you can't sleep now that she's gone
and how instead of wanting her back
you just want a second chance to
get things right.

i sit there, etch an expression
of sympathy onto my face, reach out,
and hold your hand. but all i'm thinking
is how my heart aches when yours does, how
i wish i could be the one to piece you
back together again.

suddenly i hate her,
the girl who did this to you,
because she had it all, *your love,
and she threw it away.

but then i look at her face and i realize
it's not her fault, it never was.
the problem with paper hearts
is that it's never a clean break,
just a messy tear.

all the words i speak will never be enough
to heal the hole in your heart
because those words come from my heart,
not from hers.

you know what it is.
the shapeless shadows of a dying youth,

the hollow longing to hear
a voice you know you'll never hear again,
to feel a touch you know
you'll never feel again,
to see a familiar smile except this time
you know it's not because of you.

it's bottles and bottles of empty faces
swaying past you one after another all trying
to fill the gap he left, all trying
to know you as he did
but their arms feel different,
tattered flags on skeletal rods -
their voices sound different,
the cries of vultures circling the air.

you made me lonely,
but lonely for you.
and no matter how many places i see
or how many people i meet i will never
ever stop loving you.

hey, how're you doing?
it's been two months since i saw you
and i'd tell you i miss you but
i can't find the words.

hey, how's it going?*
it's been two weeks since we spoke
and i'd tell you i love you but
the words, they die in my throat.

all i know is this:
i love you every minute of every day,
but one day you decided it was enough for you,
and you walked out with neither a goodbye
nor a look back,

and suddenly, all the love songs were about you.

i'm screaming.
can you hear me?
i'm screaming.
but i'm screaming calmly.

there's a ringing in my head,
maybe from last week's hangover.
my cheeks seem to be perpetually tear-
stained with ink.

i like to look in the mirror.
my nose seems flatter than usual today;
i guess pinocchio was just a fairytale.

built a home in a basement;
never thought that i'd need the light

days fall away, one after
another, and i smoke five cigarettes
before the pack burns out.

it can outrun me, you know.

i step out
and i'm surrounded,
like i've already lost the fight.
the wind flies in my face,
whispering your name in my ear.

i pull my scarf up,
past my nose, past my ears ;
i just want to forget
your **** voice.

it's autumn, red and orange
leaves glide down silently,
a few brush my shoulders
as though mocking me;
a ghost of last year.

i pull my jacket tighter
around my small body ;
i just want to forget
your **** touch.

it's a long walk to
the bridge i saw you last,
my dark eyes melting into
your honey ones.

eventually i look over into the black water,
and instead of seeing my reflection
it's your face staring back at me.

i can't forget.

i am briar-rose's castle;
my heart is the sleeping beauty within
under the curse of a hundred years
and only eighteen have passed so
God help the prince who tries to cut
his way through the thorns
because these vines are dark magic
just like the rest of me - under
a spell that will not break.

"be bold, be brave, be strong."*

reaching out,
my fingers come into contact
with the smooth hard surface
of a cold stone wall.

where have you gone?

you are a sliver of beauty tonight.
i see you from inside
this well. i can hear the sound
of my own breathing, slow
and steady against the silence.

am i safe or am i trapped?
nothing from the outside can get in,
but i cannot escape.

oh, moon, silver moon,
where did you go?

we don't get to choose
when and where we fall in love,
or who we fall in love with.
we place our hearts on the line,
flip the pages one by one
and just like that
our story is written.

sometimes pain is inevitable.
sometimes he's your romeo
but you're not his juliet.
sometimes you still feel his ghost
two years after it's ended
and you close your eyes
and wish the pain away.

but this is love,
raw and real, a sharp physical pain
in your chest when you least
expect it. i still see myself
in the places where you are
dreaming of what could have been,
or what could be.

love is out of our control.

but darling, all i ask
is that you open your heart
to everything love is,
let yourself feel the passion, the pain
embrace wholly everything
it can show you, and beyond everything
never be afraid to fall
because it teaches us things
we would never otherwise have known.

"but i know
we need a little heart hope"*

there's not much left to say.
just the same things; same
problems, same me.

don't go, please.
i've seen so many people
walk out that i'm not sure who
stays anymore.

i'm so tired that i can't
find it in me to fight anymore.

******* hell,
i've had one too many bottles of jack
but it can't take away the pain anymore;
it can't take you away anymore.

i miss you.

it's staring your reflection in the eye,
dripping wet and naked after a shower,
realizing with a sort of cruel stiff detachment that
your eyes are so dark you can see another version of yourself reflected in them

it's crying till you hyperventilate because of the sharp
hurt in your
chest on some days
and not being able to shed a single tear despite the ache on others

it's being terrified of yourself because you
can't
decide which is worse - being dead or dying.

it's watching your hands shake as you try to explain
how you feel without simultaneously dissolving into the very
shards of glass you're trying to put back together

it's slamming the doors of your heart shut
to every single good-intentioned well-meaning soul
who's ever had the misfortune of attempting to make you open up
because kindness be ******, you know deep within yourself
that you are beyond saving

it isn't always plain to see but
you can feel it every single waking moment
and you can't even remember what it was like to not have it
creeping in your life, ******* the air out of your lungs,
draining away your joy

it's the despair you feel on dark days when
the realization that it will be with you for your whole
life hits you and god, you just wish you could end it right there.

but you don't.

you crawl into bed with eyes blurry from tears and a nose so blocked you can't even breathe and you
wake up the next morning and you do it all over again
but somehow you hang on to the hope that one day,
one day things could be different and even though you know
it's more likely that you'll be in despair your whole life
you let that small shred of hope tide you through because
without it you would be dead
and you accept that this is your life now,

and it will be for a long time to come.

who i used to be
and who i'll be tomorrow.*

i'm not sure who i am anymore.
chasing the ideals of someone i'm not
reaching for the goals of someone
i don't really know myself to be
i got lost, tangled up in dreams
that disappear as soon as they touch my fingertips.

the person in the mirror doesn't even
look like me anymore. those
dark circles under her eyes from many
sleepless nights, the chapped lips
and the dry knotted hair. that isn't me,
that can't be me.

yet within myself i know that she and i,
we're one and the same.

who am i?

do you ever feel the way i feel?

do you ever stand six feet deep
in the messes you've created
wondering how the hell you're going to get out?

i sift through my past once a week,
flip the pages back ten at a time,
trying to pinpoint where exactly
i went wrong.

but that one page i seek
is strangely elusive. all i can tell,
magnifying glass gripped tightly in one hand
and a bottle of jack clasped in the other
is that i've ridden this downward spiral for too long now.

reaching out, i switch on the radio;
and that one song, it goes on and on.

it's funny how things changed;
how we went from best friends
to strangers,
how we went from promising
we'd always be there for each other
to apologizing for the inevitable goodbye.

and i think now,
that "sorry" i blurted
was never enough,
for a last text

your pushing your last gift into my hands
and me avoiding your eyes,
whispering "thanks"
was never enough
for a last encounter

and i wish with all my heart it didn't have to be like this.
i wish i could look at you when i pass you
at the bus stop, in the corridors,
and smile, even if i didn't have anything to say;
i wish i could murmur a greeting to you
instead of saying hello to your girlfriend,
looking through you as though there was
nothing beside her but air

but i know there is no going back.
we made our choices,
(or did they make
us?)
and we'll stay strangers
until we leave this place.

it isn't true ; don't
believe them.

drinking and smoking and black
eyeliner to hide eyes puffy
from crying isn't
attractive.

it's messy, it's wild, it's
broken, in a
haphazard sort of
way.

i present you with a different
face each day;
green eyes flecked with gold.

those remain the same.

but beyond that, oh
beyond that
there's the pain.

and oh god,
the pain, it
could **** you.

i suggest you leave.
i am a hazard to myself.

no, you fool.
pain isn't just crying yourself to sleep at
3am like how they pretend it is on tv.
it's retreating to your piano
in the corner of the hall
and playing until your shirt is soaked with sweat
and the anguish bleeds out of your
fingers and onto the white and black keys.
it's crying and seeing your tears fall onto the
glossy wooden finish of your guitar,
it's staring absently at the blood streaming
from your fingers and staining the guitar a
deep shade of red.

no, you fool.
you don't understand.
pain is going to the things you love
and using them to express yourself
and you feel your soul painting itself
into the words you could never speak.

"i hate the beach
but i stand in California
with my toes in the sand."*

i reach a leg out, dip my toes
in the slowly lapping waves.
looking out, i see the ocean,
stretching for what seems to be
forever and ever and ever.

just like what you promised.
"forever and always," you said.
and i believed you, like the stupid
lovesick fool i was. i should have
known ; forever never lasts
when i'm with you.

people are a lot like the ocean,
i realized. turbulent but calm,
docile and quiet when unprovoked
but with the tendency to roar when angry.
that was you. but i suppose

that was also me, because stripped
down to the bareness of our souls
you and i are one and the same.

we are the ocean,
beautiful but treacherous,
stretching as far as the eye can see,
forever and ever and ever.

does it really matter, actually?
that i'm bitter?

does it really matter,
how i feel? what i
think? i think not.

i'm just a speck of dust
on your horizon.
do i exist?
not really.
maybe.
perhaps.

i don't understand
how you can put me back together
and tear me apart again
in just one day

i don't know why
you give me hope
you make me smile
if you're just going to take it all away

you make me laugh
and you make me cry

and i wonder if you're worth it at all sometimes.

to stare death in the face
and say yes, it was i
who was ready for you, not the other way round
to know what it is to hold both
apprehension and eagerness for each day
in the palm of each hand

to have heard the sound of waves on the sand
at an early age and never
quite forget the sound of the ocean's voice
to be able to know in the depths of one's soul
that life has been lived breathing the sea-salt
air that fills a pelican's lungs

is to be ready when death knocks, cold-faced
and stone-hearted as usual
and to live with the knowledge that life
has been breathed to its fullest -
to let the tides carry you home -
to belong eternally with the song of the sea.

when they're gone
look for me.
when you've got nothing left to hold on to
lean on me.
when there's nothing left in your heart
but sorrow and ache and loneliness
find me.
when you realize what pain is
talk to me.

but until then
when your life is perfect
and you cannot fathom why i feel
the way i do
and why i lie
the way i do
and why i cry
the way i do

i will love you from a distance

because it is hard to understand something
you yourself do not know.

i know
i drink
too ******* ******* much.

it's not good for me,
i know, but what in this
life is? wouldn't it be better
to lose myself,
in order to find myself?

or would you rather me be
sober, alone,
fighting in the four walls of my
head that seem to be closing in on me
even as i struggle to breathe?

and then you ask me,
why my clothes smell of smoke.
i remind you,
on a night not too long ago,
you held me in your arms,
regardless of smoke, or not.

or perhaps the stench wasn't so strong then.

because you see,
when you lose half of you,
the things you turn to
to save yourself
might very well **** you.

because the truth is -

i still wear your favorite perfume every single ******* day;
it reminds me of you
i still take hour-long bus rides home on double-
decker buses, sit at the back and cry
when our song comes on shuffle.
i still flinch every time i hear your name,
still tear up every time i see you smile because i know
it's no longer because of me.

i still feel what's left of my heart crack and burn
when i see pictures of you and her because oh,
that used to be me.
i still lie in bed at night wondering if things
could be different if i hadn't let you go, if i had fought
for the things i loved, for the person i loved.

i still struggle to put into words
how much i loved you, how much i love you, how much
i will continue to love you because the truth remains
that my stupid, stupid heart can never let you go.

i know what you think.
i can read it on your face,
it oozes out through your pores
drips from your eyes
like salt-filled tears at a funeral.

i know what you think.
i can read the silent judgement,
i can see that ******* pity
cloaking your whole being
like a snake right before it squeezes
the life out of you or me or both of us.

and i hate it.
i hate that you feel obligated to help me,
but you don't know how.
i hate that you think i deserve better,
because i know i do not.
i hate that the only thing you can offer
is a pathetic "stay strong",
because those words have been repeated so many times
over that they cease to have any meaning at all.
i hate that you want to help me,
because i don't want your help, *******,
i just wanted you to listen without the slightest shred
of commitment or concern.

let's turn back time a little.

back to right after you asked me if i was okay
and i said i was
and you saw the walls reflected in my face
and you knew.

but you didn't push it.
and that's for the best, because i am
a whirling storm of lightning and rain and thunder
and clouds almost as black as my eyes.

don't force me to have to save you
from the person i know i have become
if i can't even save myself
from me.