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.

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?

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?

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.

i'm always
a chore
never
a pleasure

there is one truth of which i'm incandescently certain and that's that nobody can take away a truth as it darkens, a galaxy in a glass; and the truth is that i'd be the only ***** donor in a charity just for you because signals and signs have showed me your soul and you're grander than celestial poles

if i didn't know any better i'd suggest you're the sun and i'm the solar system and i orbit around you and i'm not too sure about humans having wings but imagine:

a snowy cabin some place away from civilisation, you and i and wholehearted communication, you and i and books and fictional integration, you and i and mind blowing realisations, you and i and wings outstretched souring across nations

you are the sun and i am the solar system and although i orbit you i'm never allowed to brush the surface, i'm guessing it's for a purpose so i admire from afar, a gaze stretched over constellations and the sound of your voice bouncing off stars into my hemisphere of tangled webs and ripened tears, the echoing trailing behind merely a souvenir

there is one truth of which i'm incandescently certain and that's this:

the only reason my brain hasn't stopped my heart from beating is because the thoughts of you are giving it meaning and it's hard to breathe with these overwhelming feelings but i'm coping because the broken glass holding my galaxy is healing

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 remember that
game of dominoes
we played at your
grandma’s house
and your grandad
made us tea and
we ate your favourite
biscuits and all i
can recall is the way
you whispered
“i’m so glad you’re here”
over the table and
we were supposed to
be that couple who
were eighty playing
dominoes with our
grandson and his
new girlfriend he’d
brought home and
they’d drink tea and
she’d eat his favourite
biscuits and their
love would be like
déjà vu and his
whispers would bounce
to her over the table

is there a secret
to making a love
as strong as i believed
ours was, last?

maybe i should have
asked your grandparents

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.

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.

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

4:04am:
the scent of your skin lingers on my bed sheets and i never want you to leave

carry me on your shoulders and we'll build our own village beside the sea

we'll submerge ourselves in everything we love (i'll submerge myself in you) and i want your chest to open up and engulf me because burying myself in you isn't enough when i can still breathe; you're an abyss and i want to succumb to you, be enthralled by you and dance with rainbows pouring out of my fists on your heart

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.

it doesn't hurt to be in love with you anymore; i am merely numb
i've hidden fragments of you in separate stores in my mind
and they jump out like grasshoppers
sometimes one at a time
sometimes all at once
and i receive this unbearable desire to smoke the traces of you into every other ***** so they can experience what it's like to constantly want to jump out of my skin to get rid of you

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

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

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

your love makes me want to eat my own flesh because i can't wash your fingerprints off my skin

i would've done anything for you
and i was like that jacket i bought for you
that you hung up and never wore again

you can't create a graveyard in my memories and not expect the biggest, boldest headstone and i'd rather chisel my eyes out than see your crooked teeth glaring at me and you know what? i'd wrap them in exquisite packaging and address it to you sincerely with a note attached that read "enclosed are all the visions i ever had of you and i"

i'd be like vincent van gogh
he had the right idea

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

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

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.

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.

i want to make you melt in my memories so i can rebuild you out of wax and keep you because if you leave i don't think i'll be able to cope

i'd be a river running dry as the sun's soaked up every last drop of me and the mountain that allows my mind to remain in the clouds will collapse and an anchor will attach itself to my limbs dragging me down to a bed of self-pity and hopelessness and your medusa heart will turn everything i love into stone (including mine) because it'll no longer belong to me

all i want is for you to be as happy as you make me and if i can do that everything i was put on this earth for will have been fulfilled and i want to see you smile like your lips are gonna split open if you stretch them any further and i want your laugh to bellow out of you like you're choking up your sense of humour and i want those starry eyes to glisten like they're the only universe i want to get lost in

because i hadn't witnessed beauty before i looked at you and now i can't stop

i want to take your hand and lead you to the place i went to when i first realised i was falling in love because it's a waterfall and with every gush of water my veins burst into song and they were singing your name over and over again and i didn't have butterflies in my stomach i had wasps and scorpions that injected me with the image of your face so it's all my brain could project

all i can do is imagine a world with you where silhouettes of all the people surrounding us graze the sidewalks as a reminder that we aren't alone but alone with you i am and you're all i can focus on and i've never been happier

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

there are rainbows and trenches
deep under ground; circles and
triangles and cacophonous sounds
there are stars and supernovas
and lovers at night, there's an
opaque barrier of which deflects
your misguided light. there are
satellites and sea turtles and
caterpillars in their cocoons, there
are butterflies and melodies sung
melancholy and out-of-tune
there are eyes and collarbones,
the arch of your back, too, there
are daffodils in your garden and
untied shoes. there are wishes
and wonders and a sea as grand
as the sky, there are gallivanting
fish whilst eagles dance mid-flight.
there's me there's you there's 7
billion others; there's a world
hellbent on destroying one another
there's war and destruction and
death uncomfortably close and
sometimes among it all, we forget
we're a rock mid-float. there's
life and there's breath and two
lips in sync, there's romance with
love letters written in ink; what's
important in life is living it
marvellously, take a second to
smile at the people you see,
a moment to give to the less
fortunate, generously. one life
to live and one heart to maintain,
a kindness to give and a world
to sustain. if we weren't so busy
breeding hate, we'd walk hand
in hand towards the horizon, and
create our own tumultuous fate.

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 never did listen to the first words you ever said to me, i was just fixated on your lips and i wish i could remember. i keep wracking my brain because maybe if i remember them we can start all over again and it wouldn’t be the way it is now. maybe if i remember our story retells and i can relive the last 2 years 3 months of my life with an embrace tighter than the moon’s gravitational pull of the tide.

i swear things were never meant to be this way, see, i went to a fortune teller and she said that i’d meet someone who dances with two left feet and you dance with two left feet and a walking stick; you’re not good, at all, but you tried for me and the fortune teller said that it was supposed to last so i’m not sure why i’m sat here in a pool of your love letters trying to find hints of what went wrong. i’m looking for grazes, cuts, scratches, molehills.

i always got told you weren’t good for me anyway and it’s probably better that it happened like this and we’re only young and there’s so many more people in the world i’ve yet to meet but i don’t want to meet people if every trait they possess isn’t yours and i don’t want to meet people if their hair doesn’t fall the same way and i don’t want to meet people whose front tooth doesn’t cower in slightly and i don’t want to meet people if their favourite food is noodles when you hated noodles.

you were good for me because you made me think and i thought about construction and how things are built and how a fire can burn it to the ground because nothing is more powerful than nature itself. i think maybe we were a house but i keep hoping we’re fire and i’ll set fire to the thorns stabbing my heart and it’ll all be on fire everything will be on fire and it’ll be dangerous and exciting, like you and it most likely won’t be good for me but at least it’ll be ******* pretty. i want to hold your hand as my heart bolts out of my chest and melts into a drain outside your house.

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

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."

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.

write when your heart is on fire and your lungs can no longer contain the breath they inhale

write until your wrist, palms and fingertips are bleeding and your mouth is numb with thirst

write because there's so much for your soul to say and you're trying to cram it all into one lifetime

write for me, for yourself, for a lover, for a friend

just always continue to write

imagine if our eyes
reversed our lives
in slow motion;
endless sea sickness
drowning in your succulent ocean,
hoping for the potion
to lead this
sickeningly twisted
endless devotion
into an eternity of
relentless corrosion

imagine if clocks were non-existent
time was an abyss, limited yet distant;
home is where the heart is -
i'm homeless
and suffocating in
your ****** fluoresce

wallowing and distressed
hallucinating and possessed
homicide and loneliness

i feel vandalised
like a building, derelict
abandoned with flowers
growing faces like they're parodists
i blink and free fall;
i'm standing, five thousand trees tall
you're crawling, can barely muster a squall
and i'm soaring;
ten thousand trees tall

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.

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.

kiss me goodnight
for i want to hold your hand like gravity holds my feet on the gr
i want to worship your body like i've been waiting a thousand years just to be in the same bed as you
i promise
i'll sew my lips shut so i can't confess my love for the hundreth time
but i'll say it ninety nine times whilst i still can
i love you
they say perfection doesn't exist, but they haven't met you

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.