We are critical.

We find flaws in
everything we see
because nobody
wants to write
about perfection,
even though sometimes
we wish we could just stay
staring into that
unblemished surface.

2. We are never satisfied.

We live our lives upon
mountains of
scrunched up
bits of refill and
ideas we gave up
trying to
express.

3. We never forget.

We write words about
eye contact made
three months ago
that we replay over
and over in our minds
even though it
stopped
being relevant.

4. We are fickle.**

Our emotions flash
from one
to the other
like strobe lighting that
disorientates us
until we feel as if
the world
will never be still.

5. We are exposed.

We don't know how
to keep our feelings
to ourselves so
we'll write them
down for
you to find
'accidentally'.

6. We are vulnerable.

We wear our
hearts on our sleeves
and won't lift a
muscle to fight back
if somebody tries
to break it
because we thrive
from the pain.

7. We will never stop.

We will never stop
feeling and
we will never stop
hurting,
we will never stop
breaking and
bleeding and
loving
even though the cycle
is endless
and we know what's
coming next.


We are addicted
to agony,
but we agonise
for the art.

I want you to
pick something.
It can be anything:
integrity,
last Thursday,
your grandmother's
socks.
I don't care what it is
but I want you to
pick that something
out of all the
other somethings
and I want you to
believe in it,
I want you to
scrunch your eyes
up tight and
slow your breathing and
put all your energy
into that singular
belief.
And while you are
busy believing in that
something
I will believe
in you.

I fell in love
with the back of you.
That's because
I wasn't special enough
to be facing:
Your eyes
were never on me
to begin with.

But once they were
I fell in love with those
too.
I fell in love
with your
everything.

Problem is,
now I'm falling
out of love
with the back of you.

Because you are
always
walking away.

You are always walking away
because you're
too scared
to be loved by me
and you're too scared
to break my heart
to my face.

Just know this.
I am here and
I am looking at you,
whether it's
your front
or your back
it doesn't matter.

Because I know
your back
like other people know
the palm of
their own hand.

Every indentation,
every flaw,
you tell me you have
bacne
but I don't care:
It makes me love you
all the more.

You are
always
walking
away.

Just let me know
if we'll ever be facing
again.

Love kills my
                        brain cells,

but also,

               **ignorance is bliss

Light up our backs,
bonfire,
burn,
burn us down
until we float
to the ground
as ashes,
ashen dust,
till death do we
ignite
the lives of those around
us
like city lights
or stars that
don't go out.
Outline.
Framed.
Posture
picture
perfect
Hanging
in this moment,
immortalised,
ageless,
free
like the flames
which lick
the velvet skin of
night,
engulfing our
shadows
as we stand
with our backs to the
stories
they told

- children
of the fire.

I packed my past-lovers
into a box and
put it on the
top shelf of
things been and gone,
leaving it to
gather dust
like a heart
gathers apathy.

I can see myself
destroying
my own dignity,
popping it like
bubble-wrap
and watching as it
deflates
under my
forcible
fingertips.

Moonwalking on a
tightrope
Let the fire
burn
our safety net
If we fall the
ashes
shall catch us

Catch me if you can:
falling souls
and falling hearts.

But yours slips through
my fingers
yet again.

Maybe it was too small and
fell through the gaps.
Maybe it was too big and
I couldn't keep it up.

Or maybe I was
just too scared to
break it.

All the lights
have gone out
in my eyes
and you've hidden
the matches.

Didn't I tell you
I was afraid of
the dark?

I was so willing to
fight for you
but you took away
my armour and
stabbed me
in the back.

We were floating like
dirigibles
But now we're *******
miserable
Thought we were happy
Pretentious and sappy
Wanting to be seven months
older than we were.
Trying not to *****
like trying to stay inside
our own minds when they
told us not to judge
- not to ***** -
That's what you're doing
now.
You want to fly but
sickness brings you down
like the memories
they gave you
that you didn't want.

But apparently
you're just
taking a ****.

All I ever got
out of loving you
was a snog and a
fuckload
of poetry.

Tangled up
in broken lines of
communication,
seeking out a
melody
that was never there.

Discordant sounds,
blocking them out like a
dam of
sticks and stones.

But your words, your
honest
unchosen
words
will never
break my bones.

For they are frail,
crumbling away when I
catch them in my
fingers
if even there at all.

Hanging for a moment
in the flushing heat
between us
before
dropping
like orbs of clouded glass
and shattering at my
feet.

Worthless now.
Fragments.

All the cuts on my
fingers
from trying to
pick up the pieces,
put them together,
nurse them
tenderly.
Seeking some meaning
hidden in
fractured light.

But you didn't
think of that:
do not realise
what I am
looking for.

But I am here.
I am here and I am
listening -
listening to endless
nothing.

For you make
pitiful words
priceless

because they are
yours.

I am surrounded by
glass walls,
covered in smudges from
where I tried to wipe
my fingerprints
away

Your hands fit
perfectly into my
skinny spaces
as if the
primary-school outline
of your palm
was drawn
just for me.

If I were ever
to damage
myself
it would only be
so that I
could bleed
poetry.

I had to look up
the word
'dating'
on Urban Dictionary
because I didn't know
what we were,
what we are.

And it said things like
'a socially acceptable
form of prostitution' and
'feelings of
puppy love that usually
dissolve
in a few weeks'.

But this is
not
puppy love.
This is not going to
dissolve or
fizzle out or
whatever,
you're not a
fizzle
you're a *******
fireworks display.

And you turn
everything in my head
into this
multi-coloured
turbulence and
I can't keep up with
how much I
adore you.

But the thing is
I don't know
if your view
is as good as mine.
What if you're
looking at something
a little less
beautiful.

What if I'm your
fizzle.

What if I'm as
temporary
as the flame you use
to light the
cigarettes
you find more
addictive
than my touch.

If that's the case
I'd rather
I left you
craving.

Because
if I'm your flame
you're my
forest fire
and you're burning
it all down until
the only thing left
standing is
you.

And I'll walk for
miles across this
carpet of ashes
just to feel the
softness of your skin
against mine.

And I'll cough
and I'll splutter
on toxic smoke
but you'll just
breathe it in because
you never realised anything
was even
lost.

You don't see me
crawl
you just know that
I'm here,
I'm here
I made it
I'm yours
I'll always be yours
because there's
nothing else
left.

And maybe
I can be
content with that
if only
you will see
that
you could burn down
everything
and I still
wouldn't put you
out.

I like to think
I'm too big
to be broken,
I'm so high
above
all of that
- but you're the one
who brings me
back to Earth
and says
that I'm only
five foot
tall.

You've ripped
me off my
hinges:
Please
build me
a new frame and
paint it
pretty colours
or I'll have no
doors left to
open

Love is like
a cigarette:
temporary,
but worthless
if kept
unlit.

When was it
that I stopped
making you feel
a little less
lonely?

Look at me.
I'm peeling back my skin
for you,
can't you see my heart
all black and bruised and
covered in burn marks
from the cigarettes I
never told you I smoked?
You turn away because
it's kind of gross but
here I am,
exposed,
tearing myself open
because I don't know
how to keep things inside.

And I spent so long
trying to tell myself
that I am strong,
that you cannot
break me
- but I'm already
breaking.
I'm fragile and
I'm weak because
I took my backbone and
built it up at your feet
like a Jenga tower which
you dismantle so recklessly,
never guessing it might
fall.

I will fall because you
built me up so tall,
tall enough to get a grip
on the expectations I
set for you
- left hanging there -
feet kicking helplessly
through thin air
when the
hands that lifted me
so high
move away to
see some
better sights.

I am not afraid of heights
I'm just afraid of
not being able to get
back down.
But you've already
taken what was
left of the
solid ground.

And you let it
rain down on me,
all those sticks and
stones which
pierce my soul,
you let it shatter me
like the bathroom mirror
in which I never saw
beauty.
You let it break me,
and I will let myself
be broken
because I've already given
that power to you.

But what you
don't understand
is that
I have a fuckload
of superglue.

And I will stick myself
back together.
It doesn't end
here.
This is just another
scar
on my already
blemished surface.

And each scar will
line itself up,
branching from each
other like the
wrinkles on the palm
of my hand.

And each one will be a
reminder that I
survived.
I am still here even after
being broken
time and
time
again.

You were not the end
of me.
This was not a loss,
but a victory.

You dropped me
like loose change into
a homeless man's
Burger King
cup.

I would have preferred
to be thrown,
to be
smashed
into a hundred
thousand shards of
broken cardiac muscle
- because at least
that would mean you had
made an
effort.

I wanted you to
push me away with
all of your strength,
leaving me to trip
and fall
right out of
love with you.

But you merely
nudged me aside
- too weak to break the
chewing-gum strands
which stretched
between my lips
and yours.

I was
stuck and
I was
craving,
maybe out of habit
rather than desire.

Too short to reach
the emergency exit
I was left
wishing you had made me
feel a little
taller.
There were twelve inches
worth of difference
between us,
everything that you
were and I
was not.

But I guess I got it
wrong.

You are not
six feet
two inches
of man
You are
six feet
two inches
of cowardice  
and your
extra large
t-shirts correspond
to your
extra large
apathy.

Because you didn't
care.

You didn't care about
my five foot
inferiority complex
or the five feet
of reassurance
it would have taken
to make me
feel worth
something.

But I will not be
confined
to the gap between
your height
and mine.

I have the strength
to pull myself away
and snap
those chewing-gum
strands
I don't need you
to make the effort
I'll make it
myself.

And if you still feel
inclined
to drop me
like loose change,
that's a **** lucky
homeless man.

Covered in
hickeys
and cigarette smoke
- art is
interpretation
and I
am a masterpiece

******* for
turning out to be
nothing more than
two wasted months of
maybes.

We were
on fire while
skating on ice

melting

where we stood.

It has started
occurring to me
that I rely
too much on my
muses
to give me worth.

We are
too young
and I am
too small
to start giving
bits of myself away
to be stretched and
expanded upon
by others.

I cannot
be restricted
to dependency
or limit myself
to the dead-end
streets
paved by
people with names
I forgot.

I can walk
in whichever direction
I choose
and write words
that I will not
dedicate
to you.

Walking on
shattered dreams like
broken glass;
piercing the soles of
my feet like the
soul of my
heart.

Untied my laces and
slipped off
my shoes;
it's hard to
let go when you've
nothing to
lose.

Feed me the world on
the end of your spoon:
I won't ask any questions
and maybe this hunger will
stop.

There are some things
I don't think I'll
ever tell you:
like how I
shook
on the bus ride here
and planned my outfit
five days in
advance.
I won't ever
tell you because
you won't ever
need to know.
You see,
once we were actually
face to face
everything just
clicked
for the first time in
far too long.

I didn't get an
opportunity
to consider falling
for you,
it just happened
like missing
a step in the dark.
And I didn't get a
say
in the matter
but if I had I
don't think I'd have
fallen
any less hard.

I've never believed
in forevers
but I'm ok
with the possibility:
I'm ok with
just this one sunset
out of all the
millions
gone and
yet to come,
just this one sunset
with you
next to me
singing out of tune and
everything
surrounded by
water.

Get lost with me.
Let's forget about
time,
I like it best when
none of that matters.
You say we've got
all these hours
to **** but
let's not waste them
because it's
one more hour
with you
and I don't know when
I'll get another.

I am hanging on the
ends of the words
you don't speak,
searching for something
in our eye contact that
may or may not
be there.
Because
like I said
I don't believe in
forevers
but I sure as hell
believe
in the chance.

We always make sure
to part on a
good note
but this time
it was slightly
off-key.

You rip me apart
like the ladders in my
stockings
which I try to climb but
never take me
anywhere
other than closer to
you