i was given a succulent in the 2nd week of uni.
it was small, green, young like me.
it was already flourishing unlike me.
i overwatered it in the beginning, too flushed,
too eager to take care of someone else.
my first month living alone.
i knocked it over 1 night.
half of its leaves came off after a careless nudge.
it was exam season.
now i stare at it, thinking.
does it embody me? the rot inside me?
half the leaves missing, a fifth growing a sick green?
is that my portrait of dorian gray?
i dare not water it. i dare not touch it.
my own portrait shut away.
it is now 1 day from semester 2.
will i survive?

a swindler, sneaky yet gentle,
disguised as an island in the Mediterranean,
i think i may have left my heart there
in the pale limestone and the hissing
accents and the sun oozing into my skin

i wonder if there grows a garden of hearts,
from tourists wandering stumbling
onto late night buses on the coastlines
whose hearts have found a second home
under the limestone ribs

a botanical garden of our blood pumping organs,
what would it say on my description?
a gentle harvest, grown with 5 days
and mitski's pink in the night
and the waitress's soft smile
on the lantern lit streets of valletta

now i'm home, heartless, and yet
sickeningly longing for you,
a thief, a monster, to steal it again

i'm in a life of sharks
scared of bleeding, even a trickle of red
they'll eat me the second i grimace, stumble, swear, eat
the moment i act like a human

its a life of pedestals and i won first place
but the pedestals unsteady and my only prize is not being listened to

i’m seven years old, waiting to get old.
i can’t wait to make my own decisions:
eat sweets before lunchtime, buy every
barbie out there, run outside when i
want to.
i can’t wait to be old.

i’m fourteen years old, waiting to get old.
i cannot wait to be myself finally: be
independent without my parents,
wear what i want, go to every place i
want to, say every curse word i want to.
i can’t wait to be old.

i’m seventeen years old, scared of getting old.
i’m scared of becoming eighteen years old:
to go to university by myself, having to move
out by myself, to pay all the bills i don’t even
know how to, to be adult which seems so tiring and stressful.
i don’t want to get old.

i’m eighteen years old, trying to enjoy my youth while it’s here.
i’m taking the most while i can: taking spontaneous trips to
my grandma, going to the cinema at 10 in the evening,
listening to all the mellow albums i can, dancing in the grass,
wearing all the dresses i have.
i’m trying to be young.

i’m all the years to come, trying not get old.
i’m a little scared of death and a little scared of
getting old: of being unfunny, of not smiling anymore at
beautiful sunsets, of not enjoying myself anymore, of not understanding children anymore, of not being myself anymore.
i’m young and old and everything in between.
i'm accepting being that.

fervour stings at my tongue,
only ephemeral, with
the bite of a shattered snake.

the serpent rears its head
with a grandeur of an old soul,
thwarting the strife inside
me erecting from ashes and rotten
blossoms.

your fingers strut athwart
the unholy scars of my memoirs. and
you murmur with blood in your words
and lips, i see black.

| |