Your gift to me
Was a wilted flower
In spring
When the new buds were growing
Stronger and more beautiful
Every day.
Your gift to me
Was salty tears
Hot and fast
Falling down my cheeks
Like an avalanche.
For you, I learnt
How to appear nonchalant
When my heart was breaking,
My brave face cracking
Like plaster on a wall.
You gifted yourself regret
Learning that green grass
Surely wilts and browns in winter
But sand and sea remain
A constant in the ever changing.
I will turn my tears
Into salt water
Powerful waves
That will carry and support me.
I will not drown you, my love
But I will no longer be your life raft
As you are only a boy
Not a puppet master.

The world is new
Stained with swirls
Of sky blue and pink
and lit up
By thousands of
Glowing stars.
I am its spectator
Eternal and unafraid
Reassured
As it is familiar to me
Like a daydream
And it welcomes me
Like an old friend
Holding my hand
In the darkness.
Arriving as quickly
As a thought
And dissipating as quickly
As a thought forgotten.

Expectations
Are the mistakes of the hopeful
Expecting an ocean
and turning up to a puddle
Shallow and murky.
Expectations
Are the mistakes of the dreamers
Seeing a world of
Magic and comfort
But opening their eyes to
Loneliness and an old pop CD on repeat.
Expectations
Are the cause of
Trying to stop crying
At 3 in the morning
In your new dress
Mascara running down your cheeks.
Expectations
Teach you that
You will never be good enough
You learn the hard way.
Expectations
Are a burned out star
A crater, a broken heart, bloodshot eyes.
Expectations
Are time and time again
As a hopeful dreamer
Never learns.

Dear you,
The mysterious stranger
My old friend
The one with stars in his eyes
To you,
The boy who has
Captured my heart
And broken it at the
Same time
As if you thought
As silly as it was
I was something
Precious and fragile
Like glass.
You,
The mysterious stranger,
My oldest companion
Who has the answers
And yet
Is still somehow
Ignorant to the world
Lost boy,
Explorer and conqueror
Afraid of the dark
And failure.
Am I forgotten?
Scorned like rain
Or broken
Like  a promise.
For you,
My dreamer, 
The world awaits.

At times
I feel like
An artist
With a blunt pencil.
A writer
With a pen and no ink.
At times
I feel like
A musician
But my instruments
Have no strings.
How do I share
The thoughts inside
My mind
When my tongue is
Twisted
And my words
Are bulky
And do not flow
Like a stream
Or a river
In spring.
Perhaps, I shall create
A masterpiece
From broken tools
And call it abstract.
An abstract of the human mind.

Welcome to the
Wasteland.
You've been here
For a while,
But the stars
Let you think
You were somewhere
Else
And for that,
I am sorry.

What I hate most about being grown
Is in your life, you're all alone
When you're sad, and down and blue
There is no one there to comfort you
And when the world seems big and wild
You have to face it, you're not a child
No ducking behind the covers, scared
You're an adult. Why aren't you prepared?
When bad dreams strike in the dead of night
Who is there to ease your fright?
Is there a manual that I've mislaid
Because all I am is a little afraid
This adult life is not for me
I've had it with responsibility
I think I'll build a blanket fort
Stay hidden inside, never caught short
Come fetch me later, when I'm ready
to live adult life without my teddy.