i watch the clock tick to 2 milliseconds past 1900 hours and i remember how, at 2 milliseconds past 1400 hours, just 5 hours earlier, i was cradling you in bed
it was warm and we were interlocked and you looked heavenly
the glow of the sunshine a halo around a face full of sleep and too beautiful even for poetry.
i try to verbalise you, try to write you down to make your existence more fathomable –
i cannot.
there are no words for a heart that beats honey through soft-skinned veins,  that swirls around your mouth like saliva and you taste so **** sweet.
i told my doctor i have a sweet tooth, what i meant was i am addicted to you; what i meant was i can’t stop waking up in the middle of the night to fix the cravings i have when you aren’t there.
what i meant was, sometimes i sleep walk, find myself at
platform number 5 of the same station i left you at hours before hoping that some sweet fragrance of you still lingers.
i watched the clock tick to 2 milliseconds past 1900 hours and i watched the train move away in slow motion.
i watched your face until i couldn’t see it anymore and i have never felt longing like it. suddenly i felt like a lost kid at the supermarket trying to find their parent and i wanted to scream for you to come back because although this train moved in slow motion i swear 2 milliseconds passed and you were gone.
i tried not to blink because i didn’t want to miss a single moment.
i sent you “i love you” through a screen that is too familiar to me now and felt the itch of my craving against my spine –
i will wait for you.
i replay the last kiss in my head; it was probably our seventieth goodbye kiss because each one didn’t encompass all the love we needed to express before the train departed and i taste honey.
i cannot make your existence more fathomable because that would mean to understand you and in all your complexity, i never want to stop learning –
so please,
allow me to explore your mind in every neurotransmitter, in every dopamine dosage, in every fight or flight reaction; allow me to explore what it is to be you and let me write you into every poem i ever produce, let me hallucinate you into every city street, cast your reflection in every shop window, replace every tin of beans with jars of honey and settle like dust on my lips –
i will wait for you.
every day, i wait for you.

i wake up,
drenched in lucid dreaming
trying to hallucinate you in my room
holding buttercups under my chin
to resemble the gold in your eyes
and i’m reminiscent
of a time when peach meant
holding hands in your living room
and the specks of dust would
encircle us as though everything
was trying to show us happiness
and its various forms and so i
held your hand and we danced and
the peach curtains lit up the room.
it was your favourite in the whole
house and i remember how happy
you would get when the sunlight
poured in like flash floods.
i am drenched in lucid dreaming
reminiscent of a time when you took
my hand to hold it;
not to say goodbye.

i feel the wind whistle
through my hollow bones
as they crack gently beneath
the weight of a single shudder -
i am a bird
manifesting free-flight
to find a one-way ticket out
of this brick-box.
i should be grateful
i wake up in sleepy sheets
every morning but all i
can smell is the scent of
another bad night’s sleep -
i tell my soul “i’m sorry”
because it inhabits a body
unsure how to appreciate it
to its fullest, a body content on
harvesting thoughts dark enough
to make life’s flowers wilt.
there’s no sunlight here.
this hollow flesh breeds
hollow veins, keeps a heartbeat
rattling back and forth in
this hollow chest.
tell me how to make a song out of
something that sounds like death -
teach me how to see free-flight as
more than something you do off
the top of a building, or a bridge,
or on to railway tracks when
gravity insists on keeping you down.

i tell myself “i’m sorry,” kiss the
bruises behind my eyes goodnight
hoping i’ll wake up and one day,
they won’t be so heavy.

i tell myself
i do not need
to live in the
wild,
as a butterfly
or a wasp
or as a bird.
i tell myself
i do not need
to cascade the
skies, because
to fly around
your ribcage
feels like the
only freedom i
ever need.
i thought that
maybe i would
come back as a
sparrow one day
to show the world
i was joyful and i
was not afraid.
i tell myself
that my sandpaper
heart finally
met something
soft around the
edges, to teach me
that love heals,
helps tend to the
wounds i tried
to lick clean when
my tongue was
laced in acid and
i tell myself,
i must have done
something worthy
along my timeline
to be blessed with
arms coated in baby
powder and blankets
to shield me from
the rain, i tell myself
i do not need to
live in the wild to
be free, for your
ribcage is the freest
a bluebird can be.

TW: suicide / cancer / brutal imagery

july isn't a good month for me
it is a collection of all the things
i have had taken away. it is a
bitter winter chill through a
summer i do not get to enjoy.
july is lonely.
it breaks apart all the other months
like a pack of werewolves; it is
their alpha and i have six months
before everyday is a full moon
and my legs are tired of running
from it. i have six months to
enjoy the fresh scent of crisp air,
to feel the iciness of snow without
shivering through my skin. i try
to break out of this body, try to
knit myself a new one out of
preloved sweaters hoping their
stories will become my own so that
i may have a july worth talking about.
suicide happens all year round but
your suicide happened in july and
has happened every month in my
mind since. i have lost count of the
way i try to contact you to say
i'm sorry.
maybe my spiritual journey wasn't
my own; i convince myself the
universe will show me your face again
one day and i hope it is not in july.
people suffer from cancer throughout
everyday of the year but you suffered
in july. i watched the sunset through
hospital windows, smelt more chemicals
than fresh flowers, held back more
tears than my throat knew how to
swallow. has anyone ever drowned
without being submerged in water?
i have.
i imagined cracking my skull off the
glass confining you to this ward, to
this smell of microwave meals and
this buzzing of machines echoing
like an emergency and my heart is
on standby, i imagined it would give
the ward some colour because i am
so sick of seeing white.
and this july
this july,
i hold your hand as your treatment
continues. i do not feel the sun on
my face because you cannot feel it
on yours. i watch the sunset through
windows. carry the bodybag of my
soul around in "i'm fine" and "i'm okay."
i don't think my voice could drip
with any more sadness as i envision the
words cascading down glass panels
hoping if i spell it out for the world
to see, someone will stop and ask me
why i hate july, or at least,
if i'm okay.

it was raining outside
i tasted cherry in each kiss
ate you up like candyfloss and
you disappeared just as quick.
tasted lightening as it jolted
from your skin, blinded me
with what i thought was love,
disguised thunderstorms as
butterflies in my stomach;
i was not prepared for this
downpour.
tasted cinnamon as our story
blossomed and you kissed me
under archways, told me it was
romantic and you had never
been here before, never felt
this way before, never connected
with someone's electricity so
spectacularly it created firework
displays you can see from
galaxies away.
tasted your poison disguised
as promises dripping in the
richest honey, tasted the tip of
your fingers as they infected my
skin, left me with a constant
internal itch.
tasted the roots of the trees of
your mind and buried myself
beneath them. i wear my
gravestone as a badge of honour
because i died when you left
but i got to love you once.
i am a ghost circling the same
graveyard looking for archways
to fall asleep in, chasing the scent
of cherry like it is holding a
loaded gun and i am running
towards it with my arms wide
open begging it to **** me again.
i die over and over everyday
because there are reminders of
you everywhere and i am but a
ghost and i hope you think of me,
when your door creaks for no
reason in the middle of the night,
when you feel eyes on you and
your palms begin to sweat and
suddenly your room is deathly cold.
i hope you remember me.

I speak in the heat of the moment; I forgot to tie my mind’s shoelaces and now I’m spluttering in ways I recognise from falling over as a kid. My words fumble over themselves the same way my hands did the first time they tried to find yours. Reaching for something familiar should have come so natural and maybe that’s why I was so shaky, because I had surrounded myself with unfamiliarity and it became all I knew, but then you.

          But then I had seen the walls of your bedroom before.

I had felt your palm.

                                         I had tasted your skin.

I knew your scent, or maybe it just smelt so much like an unspoken promise we made a lifetime ago that it lingered in my mind. I do not know if I was real before I met you. Directionless has never been pretty but I am a wanderer and I have opened fields within myself to plant daffodils in your honour.

I forgot to tie my mind’s shoelaces and now here I am, staggering upon syllables hoping it bows together to form something less loose; something for you to chew on, something to fill you up. I have tasted dirt plenty of times. I sank my teeth into it those times I used to fall over as a kid but I fell for you and all I can taste is honey. I have been pollenated with seeds and I cannot stop blossoming visions of you and our future and they pour out of me on to blank pages and create something worth reading.

I am still directionless, but it can only ever be beautiful with you by my side.

I speak in the heat of the moment and I am ensorcelled by your mind and I try to speak less to listen but you create floods within my throat and it cascades out of me in spoken promises and too many “I love you”’s for someone who agreed to only tell you twice a day – I cannot. I love you, and my heart resides within you.

we call them
glory days
scraped elbows and
too much energy
we were waiting for
someone to crack
the can open and
release us.
drank too much
pop, jumped in
too many muddy
puddles and got
our clothes too *****
to look like anything
but carefree and
happy. we call them
glory days, rope
swings and crushes
that last four days
until we see someone
new who traded us
a pokemon card and
we played back-to-base
and that was our
first experience of
chasing something we
feel we can’t have.
we call them glory
days, as we scribble
hearts on our school
books and make
acrostics out of our
names and imagine
what their surname will
sound like and that
first peck makes you
feel like you’re growing
up but you welcome it
until it happens
but then i met you
and you became my
glory day and suddenly
i was 8 again, seeing
how high i can go
on the swing and
leaning back to let
the wind turn my
stomach
upside
down
you are my glory
day; all the sweetness
of summer; all the
energy i release in
the form of love only
happened because you
cracked me open and
planted flowers within
all my dark spots, all
the hollow crevices,
all the monsters within
me afraid of the light
you shone a torch at
and i have never felt
brighter. you are my
glory day and i
am doodling love hearts
on all my body parts
in all my notebooks
because you are the
freest i have ever felt.

of one thing
i am sure
and that is
that i am
unsure of
myself
and it’s funny
how i can’t
sleep but my
chest closes its
eyes and hums
with a heartbeat
that is unsure of
itself, too.
i try to morph
into a body
i don’t feel
belongs to me
just so i can
fit somewhere
fit in somewhere
and i tell so
many stories
about the
universe, it
forever feels
like i am trying
to remain lost.
i am unsure
of myself;
connecting the
moles on my
skin as if they
will spell out
something bigger
so i can feel
like i matter,
at least for
a little while.
i sleep beside
myself, stare at
a reflection
so unfamiliar
i couldn’t even
identify it in
a crowd of
strangers, but
i am trying.
and one day
i’m sure i’ll
be sure
of myself but
until then,
i’ll morph into
someone i can
be proud of
and hope that
the universe
sends me back
to myself.

sunflower,
i love the way your
body dances with mine
the way your tongue
whispers “i love you”
like it is the world’s
best kept secret but
you’re sharing it with
me under blankets
under stars
a room dimly lit by
candles we forget to
blow out before we
fall lazily asleep,
your hand still holding
mine but so limp
it mimics vulnerability
and here i am
dreaming of you,
sunflower
we wake to the candles
still burning
we wake to the scent
of last nights
confessions, we wake
on a planet we have
built in our minds for
us two and we dance.
you hold the heart
of my heart in the palm
of your hand limply,
i am swallowing my
vulnerability and
feeling it glide through
my body as i breathe
out promise instead -
i love you but i do not
need to say it aloud
because it is there in
the way i smile
when you enter
the room;
it is there in the way
i try to string
words together
to create a poem
worthy enough of
always being yours.
my future doesn’t
exist without you
and i feel that in this
parallel universe
the sun follows the
sunflower instead,
because you hold
the heart of my heart
in the palm of your
hand and i will follow
you wherever you go;
to dance,
to light candles and
see the flame flicker
upon your face in
a room full of secrets,
knowing “i love you”
is ours.

my chest ripples whilst my eyes bleed ocean waves
and i cannot make you stay
        i cannot make you stay
i have padlocked my heartbeat and your smile together
please save me
            save me

her parcel heart was the best gift i had ever received, it was like gold in a world dripping in silver.

sometimes i lose direction and end up in a different dimension,
it is one where cats dance the ballet and riots erupt in the form of kaleidoscopes and all glaciers turn to glitter and dust;
it is one where lasers burn happiness into our skyline and it cascades down as rainfall and we can never be sad;
and it is one where she still loves me.

i remember when our energy fields collided and we become a force greater than gravity itself. we were floating.

and now all i want is simplicity: her rawest form, bare and naked in my bed in this dimension, so we can get lost together.

the sun exposes its smile for you every morning. it breaks through the gaps in your curtains, it breaks through the gaps in the trees and it rises above every building to find you, to show you light will follow you everywhere you go as long as you let it in.

2. you sip hot chocolate on a park bench and look outwards. you are a tiny dot in the vast space sea and yet you are the whole sea at the same time. you are important.

3. you realise life is made up of moments, and each moment is entirely in your control. you are the tour guide of your own life and you always have the potential to make it one worth viewing.

4. these moments string together to create your journey, and your journey is as grand as space itself, because your entire body is thriving with atoms and molecules that all came from a big bang and you are carrying that energy within you.

5. you came from the stars and they are what made you and you keep them alive just by being here.

6. you have an entire universe within you.

7. you are an entire universe; how you choose to perceive it is entirely up to you.

8. the past and the future are neit
nor there, they are as illusionary as the time we schedule our lives by. all, all that is ever important, is now.

9. and now, i hope you are happy.

i am grateful for solitude
i am grateful for every person who says thank you when i'm driving and i let them pass
i am grateful for every opportunity i have been given in my life, although i may not have taken advantage of them;
i am on my own path
i am here to create my own route
and i am not in a hurry
time is fleeting but i have paused all the clocks on the supermarket shelves
i do not rush
i can taste moments
i inhale them like the smell of fresh bed sheets
i am grateful for my body
it is articulate, it is flawless by design; it is bespoke
i learned to love myself when i stopped expecting other people to love me,
and i am grateful for all those who didn't
because now, i am grateful for me
and i travel like a lone wolf so freely under moonlight
my howl is there to invite you,
to show you that you, too, are worthy of loving you

i have never watched a single sunset with you in mind
lie
i have watched one;
the clouds that belonged to the sky had been kissed by the sun itself and they had melted into gold dust, spreading lemon chiffon, papaya whip and apricot; a sunset so beautiful you could taste it
and as vermilion started to seep through, there was all the fire but there was no smoke;
the sky was aflame, enriched and doused in dripping watercolour; i loved it
i loved seeing something so ferociously enticing be so innocent and composed, i questioned
how can this, this that evokes such burning emotion make me feel so at ease?
i stood and i watched the sun set;
there was nothing conceited about the way it moved, slowly;
knowing you'd come back the next day to watch it all over again.
and i did.
but i didn't think of you.

i have one hundred pocket pieces, they are parts of a jigsaw i never had the patience to put together and i carry them with me. i walk around like i'm on a tightrope from where i am right now to where you are. i try to make it in one piece, but i drop pieces. i can't lose too many because they are the only things that fit together and they resemble our hands.
i remember,
the last time our fingertips touched (do you?) you let go of my hand and i captured how it felt to be held by you, a vision i replay like a memory tape stuck on repeat; do you think our hands were jigsaw pieces? (i do)
you let go and you got on a train and i emptied my pockets for you, a trail so you could find your way back to me but i am still walking a tightrope.
is this a circus act?
is this an act?
can we cut to the scene where my legs buckle underneath me and i freefall through bottomless clouds (i'd probably still be searching for your eyes, or your hands) and all of a sudden i land on my feet and you are beside me just like you have been the entire time and i feel those fingertips again lace their way down my palm and you smile and tell me you've been expecting me?
i've watched too many romance movies, this is what you told me. you told me real life doesn't happen like that, so why am i still leaving trails?
am i losing my mind?
it kind of feels like i'm too far away from home to know where i am but yet it's so familiar and i am so at ease because i am walking this tightrope to get closer to you,
just follow my trail,
please.

come back to me.

pulchritudinous rolls off my tongue and on to the pebbles beneath her feet; i bend down to pick it back up, to pass it to her, to be like "here, hey, i got this for you, this is what you are to me" and she smiles.
it's a smile that never falters, it's an introverted "my mind is an alice in wonderland casket" smile. it is a pseudo smile and her persona speaks in the same tone.
i don't understand her language which is why i keep throwing words at her feet - i swear i'm trying not to but she has these eyes and i swear i've died and relived my entire life in parallel universes within them.
i tell her "here, hey, i don't know much, but i know that pulchritudinous was probably invented when someone saw you up close for the first time and didn't know how to speak and hey i know this pseudo smile hides so much but please note: i would let pulchritudinous roll off my tongue and pick it back up a million times over just to see it again and again,"
she smiles.

she smiles.

To whom it may concern,

I am fragile. I will pretend I'm okay when really my shoulders are collapsing under the weight of the heavy universe I do not feel a part of.

To whom it may concern,

I am tired. I have been running from things I dare not face since monsters began appearing under my bed and now all I'm left with are mirrors. I would rather join the monsters under my bed.

To whom it may concern,

I guess you could say I'm running from myself. Maybe I am. All I know is that the reason I hear my heartbeat so clearly is because my chest is hollow and I push people away for fun, like they're the dinner table I'm sat at and now I'm full.

To whom it may concern,

My name is Victoria, the meaning of Victoria is victory but the only thing I've been victorious at is ripping my own soul until it bleeds black. I've been trying to dye it red from the blood of others but colour fades and I'm tired.

To whom it may concern,

I am made up of layers, some are impenetrable by choice and some are just hanging under my fingernails. I can't seem to get them clean.

To whom it may concern,

I am a riddle, to some, I am a muse. For me, I am trying.

it's a melancholy sadness and it grips hold of my joints with steel chains and i am bolted
bound to internal torment like a sadist playing sadist tricks oh i am bemused
wrap me in cotton wool and sing to me
nursery rhymes or tragic blackened symphonies
melancholy melodies / mad and misused
play the piano on my ribcage and sing your sadist tunes
this little rib went crack crack crack
everything in the room faded to black, black, black
what a bitter hymn oh and there is nothing holy about this
beetroot is red because you beat the root of me dead so tell me
where is your god?
i think i set him on fire with the acid in my chest
my blood is scathing / possessed
i drew a cross on his forehead with what i had left
monsters are manufactured; a product, you see
a deformed social escapee
non-conformist unmoral idiosyncrasies

laboratory rats

setting the world on fire with gasoline and dynamite
study the ill mind of a structureless parasite
understand that monsters are manufactured,
and they were once
just like you

i'd cut my own heart open and bleed without a sound as you lay next to me to show you that tiny vessels string together within me to spell your name and i would bleed it all out to prove that to you i would cut my lungs out of my body to prove to you i breathe because of you i inhale and exhale for you and i want to cut my tongue out of my mouth to stop myself from talking because it splutters out of me like clouds of baby powder and it's so foggy i can't see light anymore

The first girl I ever apologised to
created craters in my veins and filled them with love and she didn’t even know
how beautiful she was, lying next to me face-to-face with nothing but TV reflections and an orchestra of words spoken in silence
I wanted to tell her I love her over and over again but my eyes stole any sentence I could form in my head from my mouth and did nothing but stare
They say a person’s face gets more attractive the more you look at it but I feel this is a lie; if I had only got to glance at her face for a second, she would still be the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen
and we fit together like tetris blocks, building a foundation to plant the root of forever
and I want to grow beside her, watching her blossom from a caterpillar into a butterfly, from a star into the sun
and I want to be the steady trees that stand beside her, humble and proud, showing her that I meant it when I said I would never leave because I am rooted deep into our soil of forever
and I couldn’t even if I wanted to and I kept my heart chained to my ribs before I met her but she waltzed in, handed me the keys and I haven’t been the same since.
I felt her come crashing into my life like an asteroid; I am sure I was wiped out and taken to a universe where only good things happen because I can no longer see bad, only flowers where bullets should be
I can no longer only see red, but violet and magenta and mahogany too and she has opened up a world where everything does happen for a reason because it has led me to her
like a sleepwalker looking for home only to find something much better than that
like a sleepwalker waking up to find themselves immersed in golden sands and out of touch with reality but rife with the knowledge that she’s real
and her touch is there to remind me of this,
the world’s biggest mystery gracing the palm of my hand with their own fingertips, two DNA connected and the vibrations of my love for her bouncing back to whatever God introduced me to her to say thank you
and I remember the first time I held her hand. We sat in silence as I traced my fingers over hers and back again, like a visual of tentative attraction on loop.
I didn’t believe in anything until I heard my name on her lips and suddenly angels existed and
Sometimes I feel like I’m hallucinating but I don’t mind when her presence in front of me is tripled and I can see not just one of her but three and each one outstretches their hand as they morph back into one person, as if to show me that in all her various forms, I am safe
and I have never been safer
I can no longer only see red, but hues of cyan and aqua and agate blue and they merge together to form eyes I dive into searching for the very depths of her ocean and I never gasp for air
because I am safe. They merge together to form irises that look at me like I’ve never been seen before, like a rare breed of an extinct animal discovered again; irises that look at me like they could stop time with their intensity
and I want to stop time with her
I want to contort it to wrap around her and I and protect us in the promise of eternity
because the stars will set the sky on fire and everything will melt in embers and ash without her
the planets will misalign
the soil will sink the trees at their roots
and the ocean will swallow the earth it once harmonised with
and I will, simply,
cease to exist.

monsters don't live inside my head
or in my heart, or under my bed
they walk amongst me-- in day,
and at night
they whisper honeycomb sweetness
in my abundant ears whilst
blinding me with pale sunlight.
monsters don't live inside my head
they mask themselves in a façade of
overgrown riverbeds--
deep-rooting themselves within my
oesophagus and i am choking, choking
oh but i cannot get enough of this.
monsters live
in bone marrow
in hair follicles
in overgrown fingernails
burrowed like a perpetual parasite
until they become a part of my DNA;
a mutation, the cancer that causes
paranoia and maybe a little psychosis, psychosis.
i am not crazy
i am not crazy
there are just monsters
there are just monsters.
they grip my hand as i walk down the street
intertwine their fingers into the cracks in
my bones and i do not fight back--
i am tirelessly tired of tiresome tug-of-war.

there are many things that keep me up at night, like the evolution of life and the existence of time and the meaning behind said existence and whether there’s existence beyond the only existence we are familiar with. and then there’s you. i spend approximately an hour thinking about that other stuff and approximately three, maybe four, maybe less, maybe more (usually more) thinking about you. i wonder if the abyss i feel on a daily basis is because i’m trying to grasp an existence i can find no other meaning for than you. maybe that’s what you’re so intangible, maybe that’s why you’re so far away. it is the universe’s idea of getting me to realise that i will never grasp it and i will never understand it and with this realisation comes heavy weight, like a gnawing on my joints, splintering in case i forget there’s something missing.

with this realisation comes many more realisations: i will never grasp you, i will never understand you and you are intangible because you are a universe to me and all i want to do is hold your black holes in the palms of my hands and crush them with the heavy weight i surround myself with and all i want to do is dot-to-dot the constellations of your mind so i can feel connected to you in some way.

there are particles of your skin in my bedsheets and the breath that clouds out of your mouth as your bewildering mind speaks has entered my own at some point and i am told it takes seven years to get rid of and i’m not sure how true it is but all i know is i have seven years to find you so that i do not lose the best pieces of me. seven years is a long time, but i’ve spent approximately two just daydreaming of the lines under your eyes and the colour of your lips and i am still no closer to you.

when i realised you were a universe, i was sat in a café on a city street we passed many times and i couldn’t stop drawing pictures of your hands and the way they cupped and caressed like no other and suddenly you were cupping the world and there were stars and supernovas and darling, i swear, it all made so much sense. the wind blew that piece of paper away and maybe that should have made sense, too, but it didn’t and i tried to draw your hands again but they didn’t cup the same way and i guess the universe has always been presenting signs but i have been blinded by the stars you hold.

i am sorry i wasn’t good enough to melt the icicles that formed on your heart after she left you. i have been bathing my wounds from your tongue for a while and the saltwater sting mocks me every time. it is not the only reminder i have of you, there is a long list and i’m sure one day i will write it on a scroll for you and for once you will crumble into the dust that i held buried in my collarbones waiting for your lips. for once you will understand what rubble feels like beneath your feet as everything around you perishes under your own fingertips and it will weigh even heavier on your shoulders than when she left you.

i said that i had seven years to find you so that i did not lose the best parts of myself but since you’ve been gone i have been trying to become my own universe. the planets do not align yet but there are more stars than black holes now and if i had to thank you for one thing, it would be that. i longed to be your epiphany but now i cannot stop fulfilling epiphanies of my own. if i was to be anything i would have been your shadow, with you wherever you went; now, i am sure i would be the light that casts such shadow and you will wince at how bright i shine.

i have spent two years daydreaming about the way your lips curve and the movement of your hips on the dancefloor and how you brush your hair behind your ears and i have come to loathe them. your lips do not curve, they fold. they fold syllables and words into tiny shards of glass and pierce the skin of those who love you. i am still tending to my wounds but i heal the same way a phoenix raises from ashes. you brush your hair behind your ears when you want something because you know how intimidating your beauty is but darling, your hair is growing thin now and intimidation is a natural response to things people don’t understand and how mediocre it is to understand you. don’t get me wrong, you are still a universe but if you always believe you are centre, the gravitational field that holds those orbiting you close will weaken and your universe will annihilate itself the way forest fires burn what they find beautiful.

in seven years i will wash away the parts of myself that have been touched by you and not a trace of you will exist in my veins anymore. i cannot wait to finally feel like i can breathe and not choke on your name every time i try to exhale you.

you may be a universe but honey, so am i and how blissful it is to have nothing keeping me up at night.

I see you through fogged glass in a small café, you are sipping apple juice and reading a newspaper even though you get updates to your phone every time a new news story is published. I assume you do it because you’re nervous and your blonde hair looks beautifully unkempt and I smile, inwardly. I stand just long enough to see you take another sip of your apple juice and fumble with your hands slightly before I notice I too am fumbling with my own. We always had a habit of saying and doing things at the same time, as if our subconscious was connected on a level our conscious couldn’t keep up with. I open the café door and the bell chimes, suddenly there is no one else in the room except us and I feel the open air grow thick with excitement and nervous tension.

I would say I could feel your gaze burning the pores of my skin open, but your eyes are too blue that I could do nothing but dive into them, swallowing mouthfuls of unspoken love and all the words you’ve never needed to say as they fill my lungs and I expand. I think this is why I no longer have an appetite; this is why falling in love is so fulfilling because there is too much to chew and so much to swallow and I cannot stop feasting on the thoughts that whirlpool around in your mind. Every day is a three course meal and I am stacking up plates upon plates trying to build something long enough to stretch to the ends of you. I cannot swim but I still continue to dive, filled with mouthfuls of unspoken memories, the parts of you you’re too afraid to give away yet but I was blessed with patience. I am candlelight and you are the flame that allows me to glow, flickering in draughty bedrooms as we sway to a playlist I made especially for us entitled “beginnings” because I believe we will always feel like this. I have been strung out to dry on life’s washing line since I was a child and it wasn’t until you became home that I felt the warmth of candlelight and we become what we love.

I sit down opposite you in a small café, you say “I’ve missed you” and I tell you that I have never stopped missing you. The waitress asks what I’d like to drink and you reply “water” and I smile, inwardly. I stopped fumbling with my hands when they found yours and you persisted I try your apple juice but I was adamant it just wasn’t for me and you smiled, outwardly. I had always been inward but you had taught me that it is okay to be outward and I complimented your smile for what seemed like the hundredth time hoping it would cause you to smile and it did and I told you that you had a face even artists could not create. I told you that there are universes within me and in every single one I have created galleries for you so that no matter where I am, I can always feel like I’m home.

To drown is considered a tragedy but I would anchor myself to the very depths of you and float within the atoms that enable you to be and I would merge myself into the darkness and find comfort within the unknown because part of it resides within me and I would die to be close to you. We become what we love and all I am is a paperback of romantic poetry with brushstrokes underlining the parts that are most important and one day I will whittle to ash in the flame that burns for you in the belly of my stomach and my paperback poetry will shrivel in your whirlpool and the pen will smudge and the writing will smear, but it is ok. Because I am diving into eyes, drowning myself in mouthfuls of the poetry I never sent and choking it back to you with my own eyes so you can see all that I am and all that I ever will be and decide if my candlelight is worth keeping aflame.

heavy heart,
swollen lungs,
lifeless limbs;
my pulse has sung
"oh bury me
in red
in black
bury me
amongst trees
and rats"
and is still
singing:
"heaven's tide
sweep me in,
caress me in
soft baby skin"
lifeless limbs
pulse still,
pulse stopped.
oh happy to be
amongst treetops.
happy to be
sailing free,
soaring high;
above clouds
above blue skies.

happy to be happy.

*"oh bury me
in clouds,
or at sea
reborn into
the world
happy."

you could start fires with the charcoal under my eyes
and i am so tired of telling people i’m tired
i’m exhausted
i barely get 3 hours of sleep
my mind is tangled with cobwebs that only seem to need dusting at night

i lay awake listening to the creaks of old aged furniture
and i sympathise
i know how that feels, buddy
my joints creak and they’re crisp as autumn leaves
i am surprised i haven’t broken any

alarm sounds at either 8 or 9
day starts an hour later
day continues
day persists until evening lets it rest
evening continues until their shift is over and
night falls
i’m so tired that my body has grown accustomed to it
i watch the time change and the clock tick;
i am so accustomed to it my heart has started following the same rhythm

night fell
a boulder on sunken shoulders
it is still falling and i am trying to carry such heavy weight
i think this is why our backs begin to curve as we grow older
we are crushed and crippled

does the sun still rise even if i don’t see it?
because all i ever seem to see is the darkness of night fall;
i wonder
who can love a clockwork heart?
tick, tock.
who can love a cobwebbed mind?

time to go and dust again.

in a city of shifting faces
we become forgetful about life in different places
succumbed to a world within a world.
construction and history
poverty and misogyny;
the city is lost within me and i am lost within the city

we all suffer the internal blackholes of everyday life

in a city of anonymous faces,
we take no notice
succumbed to a world within a world where only our world matters
and we wonder what's for lunch whilst thousands live homeless and the irony of wondering why so many go hungry
in a city of greed

consumers consumed by consumerist propaganda

all the shifting faces we walk past on a daily basis
bigots, fascists, racists
and we are wrapped up
too engulfed by our own lives to care about others
but selflessness is only selfless if not done for self, but i was told
"no good deed goes unpunished"
but we should do good anyway
because in a city of shifting faces
be the face-shifter who stops turning pages and pauses --
take in the scenery
and be alive for every moment;
it is okay to be a passer-by in a city of nameless strangers
but never in your own life

a milky vessel
an open wound on a timeline of unspoken truths
a memory
distant yet so **** close i can feel it and i can feel you
an entity
do you pass by this life into parallel universes looking for pieces to put us together again (i would)
are you real or just my perception
perplexed by such embodiment of perfection in one human being
definitely an entity; entwined with milky vessels cascading back and forth to me
passing by through a wormhole
i catch glimpses
saccadic masking, too much blinking
i might miss it i might miss you i miss you
if you put the pieces together again perceive me
i'll appear all around you like a deity
matter and energy
the milky vessels of your veins run from your body through mine, keeping my heart beating
stay
stay in this reality and we will rebuild our pieces
and that's the beauty of energy, my darling
they were never truly lost

i have mastered the art of being alone
now i am not quite sure how to be, together

turning tides and sickening waves
it comes in bouts
sea sickness in slow motion
an uncontrollable desire to scratch at my skin

it comes in bouts
the thoughts, the fear, the feeling;
an anchor of uncontrollable palpitations and irrational thought

for some people, home is where the heart is
my heart is a home
it knocks in my chest and one day i am sure it's going to knock itself down

home is where the heart is,
reminders of where my heart is come in bouts
dizziness and exhaustion
brown paper bags and air thick with lack of oxygen...
how close are you to passing ou-

home is where the heart is,
some people have buried their homes within me
and i cannot take care of my own heart - let alone yours
and i keep trying to stop the world from turning so i don't drown in these turning tides and sickening waves so maybe we can spend longer together but these waves come crashing in fast; like my heart beat, like that unforgiving train as it takes you further and further away from me

i have never felt so close and yet so far from you

some people have buried their homes within me
i am more derelict building; abandoned farmhouse; isolated corner shop than i ever could be home

there is graffiti all over my walls and it masks irrational thought with shadowed wisdom and make-believe positivity

i was not built
i was misconstructed;
the site that gets knocked down before the real construction begins

and no one is safe to live within me;
for as homely as my heart may seem, it is overpowered by turning tides and sickening waves.

not every touch is there to scar you,

some are there to hold you

and you cannot shield yourself away out of fear that every touch is going to leave you crawling in your own skin from the itching and itching and burning and burning

because then, then you miss out on the really ******* good touches

the touches that ignite a fire inside of you that you hope keeps burning and burning and ******* burning

because it doesn't itch, somehow it soothes. it burns and it soothes and you've never felt anything like it and there are no scars, just a house on fire and every time a window smashes the exhilaration and adrenaline and exhilaration and adrenaline pours out of you and into you all at the same time.

fireworks do not compare to the explosion of endorphins, ramshackled and rummaging through you.

not every touch is there to scar you,

some are there to hold you.

you are white musk smoky rose
burning embers of a forest fire emanating sweet smoke
you are a fresh white wash of paint
bright and vibrant and you make everything else look tasteful and inviting
you are dewy lips and sunken-in eyes
heart shaped cupid’s bow and crystal iris’
you are winter when everybody wants summer
you catch icicles in the palms of your hands
and the bitter cold runs through your fingers
and i never did like the heat
you are a mirrored maze of thoughts bouncing back and forth and straight through
and sometimes when you get lost i am the echo that pulls you back to real life
that pulls you back to consciousness and dusty television stands full of 2D fiction
i am the echo that tells you it’s okay to be just as lost in reality as you are in the mirrored maze of your meandering mind

you are black musk misty rose
burning forest fires to ash and decay
destruction and disarray
you are a mysterious black wash of paint
dominant and demanding and you show others how to be bright beside you
you are hollow cheeks and lack of sleep
sheepish glow and bloodshot tunnel vision
you are winter and nobody wants summer anymore
they want to be feel icicles melt in the palms of their hands
they want to feel the bitter cold run through their fingers
they don’t like the heat anymore
you are a glass maze of treasured thoughts and i see straight through
i am the echo that pulls you back to real life
that pulls you back to consciousness and overused vinyl players
and they want to listen to your music but they don’t want to take a walk around your glass maze yet i have completed it hundreds of times
i will always be the echo that tells you it’s okay to be just as lost in reality as you still are even when the maze is made of glass because it is still as fragile

you are red musk desirable rose
burning embers of a forest fire to ash and decay and destruction and disarray and making it look so ******* beautiful
you are a scarlet red wash of paint
lustful and deliriously enticing and you show others how to love that which should not be loved
you are sun kissed freckles and unkempt hair
loved by that which should not be able to love and imperfectly perfected
you are winter and summer, you are autumn and spring
i still want to feel icicles melt in the palms of my hands like my heart did in yours when i first kissed you
i want to feel the bitter cold warm up on contact with my skin and transform something solid into liquid – a chemical reaction similar to the one that happened inside my head because of you
i love the cold
i love the heat
your mirrored, glassy mind will always be a maze but i am patient and i will always be your echo
you are white musk smoky rose
you are black musk misty rose
and you are red musk desirable rose
and i love every shade to you
every mood
every scent
always

so i've been thinking a lot about death and what happens when we die, not in the sense of what happens to us because i'm pretty convinced my own thesis is what happens just like religious people are convinced of an afterlife (i guess we're both the same that way - we both think we're right) but in the sense of what happens to those around us. what'd happen at my funeral, who would be there, who i'd expect to be there but who wouldn't be, if the people who claim to truly care would follow through with that notion when i was gone and i don't know i'm just finding it difficult to trust.

i want to better myself as a person, i want to be good and do good and be honest and pure but i don't think living a life like that is living truthfully. you gotta do bad and be bad at some point to realise what good is and how to be good and you have to tell a lie in order to understand the beauty of honesty.

i have so many demons in my closet that i'm sure would probably be more than happy to see me when i die.

i'm not planning on dying any time soon but i can't seem to stop thinking about what will happen when i do and if i'll have lived a life i'm proud of, if i'll have been successful in my own mind in everything i wanted to achieve.

if you think about it on a grand scheme, we are born as nothing. we are no one when we are born and who we grow up to become is shaped by family, friends, environment and surroundings and personal growth. we haven't come to realise the structure of society, we haven't yet come to realise that we're little more than a piece of paper and a tax code and when we die we become two pieces of paper - one to say we were born and the other to reconcile our death. but see, no one ever knows what happens during that period between life and death. even babies have things happen to them, some have their first taste of food, their first smile.

one day all of it is gonna be gone and so i wonder what it truly is that we're all living for and as a species so advanced and so knowledgeable, why are we so stupid? it's simple. peace is simple. yet it's the very things that are infused into us when we're born that we grow up with that shape who we become and i wonder who i may have been or how i may have turned out differently with a different upbringing in a different location with a different atmosphere and environment. we're nothing when we're born and we grow up to shape our own future and that's scary. we never, ever stop learning throughout our entire lives and yet we are expected to create a future for ourselves without ever being fully, completely educated.

i just know that when i die, i don't want hundreds of people to feel my death. i would rather be wholeheartedly remembered by few than briefly remembered by many. all i know is i want to live a wholesome life and this is something i keep coming back to. i may not know all there is to know but i want to use what i do know and put it to good use. i might have been a different person had circumstances been different but i am who i am and if i'm not proud of that fact, who else is gonna be?

i'm just so sick and tired of this whole system making human beings put themselves down and always making them feel inadequate so much so that even those who are supposed to care begin doing it to each other. i guess i'm a dreamer and a massive one at that, because i dream of a time where the human race as a whole lives collectively, in harmony and tranquil peace and everyone's death makes an impact no matter who they are - homeless, black, african, gay, caucasian, transgender, muslim, christian, jew, atheist. i don't know.

i would love to be a spectator at my own funeral and come back in a hundred thousand years to see how the world develops and i find it a bit melancholy that i won't be so maybe i'll add it to my list of books to write and keep going.

i am a prisoner to your fingertips and i am recidivating and falling in love with a jail cell is not glamorous but i’m not sure how to stop
i have scraped my fingernails with barbed wire trying to get rid of you, why won’t you leave?
there are gaps between our teeth so the breath between you and i can keep us alive during the times we binge on kisses
is this what it feels like to be an addict?
i cannot rest until your lungs have swallowed my consciousness and for a heart to keep beating there must be a reason and this is why people die of heartbreak because ******* it, there is no reason without you
my heart hasn’t stopped beating; i think it is just as hopeful
teeth don’t always have to bite so why do you use them as weapons?
not only am i a prisoner to your fingertips but to your mind, to the gaps between your teeth even when you can’t bear to kiss me, to the idea that one day i’ll receive a get-out-jail-free card and you’ll be waiting at the iron gates for me
i don’t have a release date but i expect i’ll be serving a lifelong sentence
i am barricaded in and all i can hear is your voice all i can see is your face all i can do is clutch on to the voice i lost a long time ago but i would scream if i could and do you know how lonely it is being a prisoner in an abandoned jail?
i am a prisoner to your body and every time you demand my touch, i am there and every time you throw me away, locked up and silenced for days, i am not plotting my escape
i am famished and starved and famished and starved, i think it’s because you keep swallowing my consciousness and no amount of food will fill me; i have grown accustomed to being empty
i am a prisoner to your fingertips and i have fallen in love with this jail cell home

i want a love that consumes me
fills me up until i'm a punching bag of scattered thoughts
and i keep spluttering and spilling my love in wine glasses
and they're overflowing and i can't stop vomiting your name
i want love to devour me
like the leftover pizza you bought at 4am last night, drunk and lonely and alone
how sad it has become to be drunk and lonely and alone with you
i will become pieces within you because i cannot stop shedding my layers
i want a love that engulfs me
that chews me up like that second stick of bubblegum
and spits me out like mouthwash on an alcoholics tongue, acidic and burning and foreign
your mouth is a gun and my eyes are bloodshot from its metaphors
i have run out of armour
i have run out of armour
i am told love isn't meant to be beautiful and it is romanticised
but all i know is i want to romanticise all night long with you under my bed covers because you are beautiful
i would say i love you but how mundane
how throw-away those words have became
i am told love isn't meant to be beautiful and i have run out of armour
how can something that isn't meant to be beautiful look so good?
like a train wreck decorated in fresh flowers; roses and chrysanthemums
a car crash on the side of the road, nobody wants to see but everybody looks
i said i want a love that consumes me
i said i want it to devour me, engulf me whole and then spit me out
i said i'm running out of armour
and maybe if i convince myself it's what i asked for maybe then maybe it starts to look beautiful
drunk and lonely and alone
and i was atop the hill we sat at the first night you ever told me you love me (how throw-away those words have became)
you were brighter than every night light combined, i thought
"love isn't meant to be beautiful," everyone said
"but how? how is sitting here with you and seeing the silhouette of trees across a skyline, a concrete ocean dotted with street lamp stars and the last hours of a wakened society not ******* beautiful?"
drunk and lonely and alone i got it
i am pouring my thoughts into wine glasses and they're overflowing and i keep vomiting
i keep vomiting
i'm not sure if it was the pizza at 4am or you who made me sick
i am waiting for you to spit me out

the mid-afternoon breeze caresses her bare skin and goose bumps form as a greeting; she smiles, at nothing and at no one but the oxygen surrounding her.

the blind draped elegantly either side of her window bellows back and forth and she traces her fingertips along the hairs on her arms and she smiles, at nothing and at no one but the sheer fact she’s alive.

it’s enough to make her want to cry, to hear her heart pumping in her ears and feel it in her neck and her wrist and her chest and every pulse chanting a rhythm of approximately 115,200 heartbeats per day and as the breeze gusts in, her eyes flicker to the table beside her and therein a photograph lies your face and her fingertips stop and she swears for a second her heart does, too.

she loses a heartbeat every time she sees your smile.

she remembers the day vividly, you wore that blue checked shirt because she asked you to and you smelled of morning dew and winter fog; she searches for it in every perfume shop she enters but you’re never there.

sometimes she swears you’re sleeping beside her at night, she’d bet her beating heart that you were but she can never tear the difference between reality and fantasy without you.

see, she doesn’t think she’s dreaming but when she wakes up, you aren’t there, but she swears with her beating heart you were right beside her and she raises goose bumps on her arms every morning because you would have caressed them with your own fingertips and she’s not sure if she could almost cry because she’s alive or if she could almost cry because you’re the reason she is.

she wonders, often, too often, if you look out of your window and know she’s staring at the same moon you are and she hopes the shine reminds you of her the way it reminds her of you.

she writes you letters sometimes because for the duration she can hear your voice replying inside her head and you’re right beside her, she swears you’re right beside her but she drops the pen and you’re never there.

sometimes, when she lights candles, she wonders if it’s the fire you caused inside her that lights it and she wonders if you know she’s slowly being burned alive. she wonders if you are, too, if maybe when you’ve both whittled to ashes the breeze that she welcomes every morning will help her to find you again.

and I would give everything I have to see your eyes light up like streetlamps and you know that time in summer where the steady glow from daylight merges into night time and the breeze dances along the leaves of trees too tall like ballerinas; so gentle if you blink you’ll miss the sway of them? that’s what you remind me of.

you are a glow, an indian sunset and I long to be the sea your sun shine kisses and when your glow transcends into moonlight I long to be the stars who are accompanied by your effervescent light night after night and you know to me you will always be a ******* sunset when you should be rainfall: you pour down on everything I love and leave puddles;  you cause unapologetic floods in the crevices of my collarbones and attach your saltwater to the follicles of my hair and you warp the words on the pages of love letters I never sent and when you fall down my cheeks my teardrops and your raindrops will merge and for a moment we will become one and that’s all I’ve ever wanted. to be one with you. to be a ******* indian sunset in your illuminous eyes.

I keep running through the hallways of my mind and your voice is bouncing off the walls and echoing straight through my chest and there’s a thudding that gets louder and louder, like bongo drums, every time and I’m pretty sure my heart is now a gallery of us, open for public consumption and they can walk along the hallways and appreciate the beauty of our profound love like you never could.

one day you will find someone who melts your heart into your veins until it feels like the oxygen around your body is trapped and screaming for you to try to breathe, try to breathe harder and you’ll scream for them and they’ll stop returning your calls and there’ll be no texts and everything you once had will sink – almost in slow motion, almost as intangible as the idea that I loved you harder than anyone ever could – a ship where you’re the only person aboard and you’ll be watching an indian sunset like you watched their fingertips trace the curvature of your hips for the last time and you’ll realise in that moment that they were your indian sunset and man, don’t you just wish for some rainfall?

woe is catching the last droplets of champagne in a wine glass on a friday night because getting drunk by yourself is what you call a celebration of freedom and independence but that's a smoke screen for the loneliness and i mean, you'd rather not get drunk at all but it's easier to blur your thoughts than conquer them when you're running out of armour and ambition

woe is seeing the person you would've done anything for holding hands with someone new and you pass in slow motion and smile and it's bittersweet and both of you are nothing but strangers now

woe is sleeping within her sheets and feeling like the temperature is minus degrees because you aren't the way you were when you first met and nostalgia hits hard at 3am

woe is watching the sun set because the transition reminds you of her eyes as she fell asleep and the phases of the moon encapsulate her shaggy hair and crooked smile and you're sure you catch a glimpse of it every time and you need it, you need it to hold on to because falling out of love is hard when your heart refuses to let go

you remember the first time she smiled at you over dinner and you couldn't contain all the butterflies spelling her name profusely in your stomach and you felt nauseated from excitement and nervousness and you can't recall for the life of you what she was talking about because there were too many times that getting lost in thoughts of her was more than welcoming

woe is not you and you are not woe
woe is collapsing memories and fading effigies
woe is incarcerations of the mind projecting hallucinations intermittently and protecting the fallacy of a world existing in your galaxy
woe is that galaxy belonging to her
woe is that galaxy being named after her
woe is that galaxy existing because of her
woe is not you and you are not woe
woe is you and her

i am ambidextrous – i can count how many times you’ve hurt me on both hands and i am ambivalent, i love you but i hate you

there is a certain ambience i recall in flashbacks and unspoken memories, however it fades as quickly as my smile when your name is mentioned

there is so much ambiguity in your eyes when you gaze at me – i stopped marvelling over you and your thoughts and instead marvelled over myself

who am i, without you? what am i, without you?

i am a life of ambition
you are a life of indifference

there’s a lullaby the wind chimes used to hum as i sat outside my house. i observed synodic epiphanies in the sky until all i could do was make a dot-to-dot of your face out of the stars that were almost as intangible as you are and as you always were.

i always found myself searching for traces of you everywhere. the sound of your voice as a symphonic ultrasound echoing from the wind chime to me, just for me. your effervescent hazel eyes (you always insisted they were brown but i’d studied them as a psychologist studies mental health) but you never came.

and trust me, i waited --
i waited for so much as a murmur or a rustled blade of grass when the world stood still and i waited in the morning, the afternoon and i waited all night.

i waited all **** night in nothing but a pair of leggings (you told me i looked “pretty sweet” in them once) and your jumper, the jumper you left at my house on may 16th. hummingbirds were the highlight of your morning and the highlight of my morning was always you.

you made scrambled eggs with milk and only a dash of pepper because too much gave you an itchy throat and then you took my hand and we slow danced along to the sound of the microwave; it was like a heavy duty drill begging to explode but we didn’t care.

i wore your jumper then the way i’m wearing it now, except i’ve tucked my hands into my sleeves because yours aren’t there to hold anymore.

i always found myself not only searching for traces of you everywhere but also searching for you in everybody i've ever met (and probably everybody i ever will meet). where’s that succulent sense of humour? where’s that desirable distaste for all humans besides me? you were intangible but somehow tangible to me and i mused over your ability to turn me from a servant into a queen but my gratitude overwhelmed me too much to question it, or you.

your name is euphonious;
i swirl it around my mouth like expensive champagne.
my stomach can tolerate neither.

I'm not an artist but I've opened up galleries with your name painted all over the walls

they're a souvenir encoded in brush strokes of downward spirals and rose tinted tunnel vision

the lights are blaring and my sight is blurred by tears and the street lamp flickers, almost sympathetically

a street lamp can understand, so why can't you?

being alone isn't always lonely and being happy doesn't always mean with you. sometimes the thudding of my heart is more comforting than your voice and sometimes you never find the other half to make you whole.

there are edges and lines, curves and lies, too intricate the detail that only a master could weave it with the articulation of shakespeare.

my favourite things were moulding themselves around you and if life stopped i'd never press play, with you.

thoughts come in bucket loads and the river is over flowing and my mind can't contain it all anymore.

i said i love you and i know they're only three words but it's three more than i've said to anybody else.

i hold a pen like i hold your hands, tightly, until it hurts. you hold my heart the same way.

i went into an abandoned house once and imagined living there with you and suddenly the smell of death and lingering atmosphere subsided and although the windows were smashed and the drops from the ceiling felt like the whole place was crying, i was comforted. i guess you made every place feel like home.

if the world was upside down in the universe and gravity one day failed us, i'd descend into the stars happy to have known you existed.

but you didn't exist how i wanted.

did you know that fighting isn't always violent? sometimes it's metaphorical. sometimes you should fight, for me.

there are words more beautiful than people and that's why there are no words for you.

if i leave, when i leave, don't follow. my next journey is an adventure for myself and who knows? maybe i'll find my way back, but you'll be skipping along the savannah holding hands with someone much more graceful than me.

take care, and don't leave her empty like our abandoned house.