i wish i could take the art off the walls,
and the moon from the sky,
and brew it like tea.

add boiling water and simmer the world down
so it is just sweetness.

i wish i could take a sip of it,
early in the morning,
before the chaos begins to rise with the sun.

a sip at lunch
a reminder of the world's beauty.

and a sip at dinner, just before bed
to wash away the day.

(it would taste like freedom)
(it would taste like peace)

i'll never escape it.

the redness of his blood
the eyes that stare back at me in the mirror.

i still bleed the same as him,
still write with his pen,
i am still his daughter,

despite trying so hard not to be.

he talks of the weather
and i secretly hope that he speaks of anything else.

not because i am not interested
in the way the trees will sway
on a certain day,
or the amount of rain that
will come our way.

but because i am much more interested
in who he is.

i want to know why the weather fascinates him,
how the world makes him feel,
i want to know his favourite movie or book
(please let him be a reader)
and the way he takes his coffee in the morning,
and i want to hear about who inspires him the most.

i want to memorise all the smaller
more vulnerable things.
in hopes that one day we will run out of things to talk about,
and then we might turn and say,
“the weather is meant to be nice today.”

bells echoing into the mist.
i must dig and dig and dig.
a life trapped in a small wooden box,
will soon and surely, forever be lost.

the bells ring, someone breathing alive again
grave diggers throwing soil
right over old and sore shoulders.
down and down and down they must go.

the bells ring again,
alive in my head,
memories buried, now suffocating,
i must unpack, all of the rot.

i pull the string,
and here the dull and quiet ring,
quick breathes, light descends
and I let death take me again.

you were a flower still blooming
plucked from the garden

stolen from soil

long before your time,
long before full bloom.

what a devastating way to end a life,
ripping roots
while it was still searching for light.

it’s summer here,
and my seasonal depression
slips away with the waves at the beach.
my eyes brighten with the sun,
and at last, i feel my heart warming,

the leaves are falling from the oak outside of my window.
autumn. lets old loves go with the seasons,
stripping itself of the sun damage from summer.
shaking itself clean of scars.
(i’m healing old wounds)

in winter, i slip.
fall along with the temperature.
stiffen along with almost everything
that meets the cold,
why am i so cold?

i sprout a little in spring.
defrost from the frozen winters.
wait for the new.
i see the oaks' new leaves.
i see the flowers in me bloom.

it’s summer here,
and i begin to feel like myself again.
letting my heart thaw
and my limbs stretch.
(the cold can’t bite me here).

i burn myself,
cover limbs in dirt

wrap my shoulders in cloth
and bury the dead.

bury the aching.
and the singe.

suffocate myself
by closing the coffin lid.

hope it will smother
the scent of my burning flesh.

i'm tearing hot flesh from warmed bones,
this is not living.

i do not know how
to extinguish the flame of you.

i would rather burn
then drown in the guilt of letting you go.

my mother deserves more than the hurricane she was given.
i am certain that i am not what she signed up for.

she deserves flowers and fine art
and i am nothing but thorns and cut-throat.

so i buy her flowers,
constantly,
hoping it will make up for my rot.

hoping the scent of them will make her forget
the damage of last nights fury.