I am always
perched
on the edge of the
seat
because you
take up too much
space
- yet it's
somehow
still better
than
standing.

I had all these little
perfections
hung across my life
like fairy lights
but now they're gone
and it will take my
eyes a while
to adjust
to the dark.

Poetry
stops
the brain
and starts
the heart.

Porcelain angels
are delicate things
and darling,
you broke
your own wings.

It's all coming down.
That which I built up over the years,
brick by brick
with bleeding hands.

I realise now
what it all meant,
those unthought actions and
unacted thoughts.

And I see it all before me
like the sad endings of the movies
you don't want to watch.
Your face in the mirror just like
you wish it wasn't.
Secrets in a drawer and
you regret having looked.

Each story they tell you is like
another dash
- on the canvas that shouldn't be
painted.

Maybe there's a reason for it all
and one day you'll be given a diploma
you don't really need.
Because they're telling us
you'll learn.

But what do you do when you
haven't learnt yet
and the mistakes are still
being made?

And that which you are hiding from
is chasing you
like the sea at your ankles and
it's too cold
so you're running
and you're scared
because this wave is bigger
than the one before.

Suddenly you're drowning
down and down
until you feel your palms press
flat
against the bricks from all that time
before.

You open your eyes for just the
slightest second
to see them stained red
and you know where that's from.

But they're in your way,
why won't they budge?
And you feel yourself
slipping away from under
whatever it was you used
to shield yourself.

It's all fading
and the bricks are
rebuilding themselves
but only in your mind because
that is what happens at
the end.

And you're wishing you had smiled
at the boy on the swing who
didn't yet know the world
and the girl running out of the
school gates on her last day
and the old couple who
kept on bickering.

You wish you had smiled
before it was too late.

Stretched out my
sight line
like a tripwire trying
to catch someone
off-guard
and you
wandered into it,

stumbled slightly,

yet still
I was the one
who fell.

I wonder if you
ever wore your
heart on the
sleeve
of the shirt
I stole.

Regardless,
I'm sure
that there's space
for mine.

I never said goodbye.
Instead I let you fall,
further and further
until you left the hope
that was my
peripheral vision.

I could not have you.
I could not keep you.
I could not keep the
simple pleasures
that are met alongside the
empty-handed.
I was forced to leave without
a whisper in your ear
to say that
you are beautiful.

And if I had said it
what would we be?
What would you have done
had you known?

But I cannot wonder
on answers I lack.
Questions that will remain
static
but only in my past.

Do not forget me.
Do not forget the things
I never said.
The reason for the
smiles
I didn't show.

We are the past:
The distant memories,
hazy slur of another time.
Soon your face will
lose its features
somewhere in my mind,
the sound of your voice
will be
silenced.

But remember my name.
Hold on,
keep it in a drawer
by your bed,
check to see if it is still there
every night before the
sleep of dreams
void of my face and the way
we danced.

Pray,
do not forget.

Pointy shoulder blade
- yours - digging into my cheek
Comfortable pain.

Now you hold my hand
Fingers threaded between mine
Hold it forever.

Interlocking limbs
You draw me in closer still:
Don't ever let go.

Fingertips tracing
(Please excuse my sweaty back)
Painting words on skin.

Your lips against mine
Tongues searching for an answer
How it came to this.

Though we won't complain
Laugh it off in the morning -
Just please don't forget.

This will fade
like a stick and poke tattoo
but the heart is
a sensitive place
and right now,
it hurts.

Snipping the
stitches
sewn into
my heart
and letting
it all
fall apart

Teach me to
swim
in the
sound-waves
of your voice.

It's hard to stop
loving
the things that
hurt you,
especially when
they're hurting
too.

They say to
write what you know
but I'm just so
sick of
tragedies

My mind is
restless
at some number of minutes
past midnight and
I am high
on poetry:
an unnamed
addiction
- drugs -
I wish I had
some of those right now
(not that I'd
know what to do
with them).
I want to be
where the wind speaks
and everything
is directed
at the
moon.
I am an
animal
and I crave
wild nights and
the thrill
of desire
or I will have no choice
but to

howl.

We are the
inextinguishable souls.
Our hearts
beat
regardless.
We fight in
a referee's world
- maybe that's why we haven't
yet won
or given up
or something.
Maybe
life is a war
not meant for
victory.

What did I tell you about
breaking the rules?
Breaking rules is
breaking walls
- leave them there and
all they do is
stop you.

You fix
the broken edges
of my
fractured
dreams.

You're a
tacky,
imported
kind of
pretentious.
You found
your perfection
on the bottom shelf
and bought it
at a discounted
price,
hoping it would
make do
and ripping off
the price tag.

Teardrops dripping off
my tongue
- catch them if you can -
let them
freeze
between your
meticulous and
calculating
fingertips

I watch the world
and it watches me.
All these
limitations,
rules,
wonders
and I just
skip them by like they're
crazy
crazy
crazy.
I'm crazy too and
it makes me
aware,
like I'm
equal to your
beauty
and your pain.
And sometimes
I wish I was
beautiful
and you would read
this back and
pause
and consider all the
newly
opened
doors.
Can I maybe
be different
unborn?
Are all the possibilities
newly born?
Can we
breathe
under these limitations
of reality?
The air we breathe
is the same air
that never breathes,
never changes.
Let us transform.
Let us embrace
the opportunities
they presented to us.
Let us be real.
Let us be free.
Let us live.

One moment
I was in your life
- in every single
nook
and cranny,
trying to
smooth out
your broken edges
the same way
you smoothed out
mine.
But that was only
for a moment,
and the next
I was gone.

You cleared me out,
got a paint job and
fresh wallpaper,
stripping me of
mine
and leaving me
naked and
alone and
bare.

Don't you care?
Don't you care that
I had made a happy
home
in your heart
even though I'd
only just moved in
and the previous
resident had
left their mark?

I don't know what to
say other than
god ******,
I've got space for you,
the keys in the lock and
you don't even need to knock
because
I'll be waiting.

So please,
please make room for me
because I've never felt
so beautiful as when
you took the word and
translated it into
a hundred thousand
gestures and
expressions
and precious memories.

My wallpaper's
torn right through
but I can stick it back
together
if only you give me the
permission.

You don't have to
keep on living in
broken homes.

So just let me
try and fix the
one we made.

I make up
conversations
in my head
constructed from the
words you never
say.

I still can't decide
if silence
would be preferable.

Bathe me as you did
in your forgiveness
but do not
for it is not what I need.

I cannot say
Hold me like before,
before was never.

I cannot crave the past
because it was never the present -
it was, but not with you.

Digging up the doubts I buried,
always there and waiting
for open air to uncover dishonesties.

Turning my head the other way
- out the window -
locked in by ignorance.

Pretty skies and sparkling waters,
goosebumps on my arms,
pretending your reflection was pure.

Back turned on reality,
choosing to see graceful things,
picking false ideals.

You.
My ideal.
My imperfection.
Fatal flaw, Achilles heel.

They say ignorance is bliss and
I understand,
for bliss it was with you in your
unlabelled silence.
But who knew silence could make
such noise in my head?

Maybe the echo of some
humble truth.