My mother unravels her ball of yarn.
Her fingers; wrinkled and sallow
tug between the threads of negativity
until she finds a strand thick enough
to weave me into.
She is familiar with how it feels to hold me,
so it takes mere seconds.
And she begins to knit.
A web of negative thoughts,
spiralled patterns of negative action.
I'm trapped behind a blanket of unpleasantries that you knitted for me
and it's heavy
and it hurts to hold
and it's beginning to suffocate.
Who'd have known it would be my mother's own handiwork
that collapsed my lungs.
Her craft knots itself around me
and I'm shackled.
The heart she gave me begins to slow.
The organs she grew for me are failing.
The breaths that she waited nine months for are weakening.
I shrivel, like a newborn again.
Like HER newborn again.
Maybe, like this, she will want me once more.

Being with you encapsulates that feeling
of trying to walk with pins and needles in your feet,
knowing that it's utterly preposterous to think
that you could fall,
but your legs stumbling aimlessly suggest otherwise.

I hate what I'm writing
what if my brain is ******* me over
what if finally it's learnt from the others and packed it'd bags on me
what if my brain joins with the forces much greater than us
that I talk about
and together they plot their treason.
My thoughts are loaded gunpowder and my body
comprised of brick and cement
is the parliament building.
Maybe this poem is me
catching the rebels redhanded.
Maybe it's too late.
What if this is it,
the demise of my inner government,
the seats given to the opposition,
the monarchy going up in flames
(it certainly feels like burning)
I beg,
have me hung drawn and quartered
and feed my limbs to the birds.
And then,
from deep within the innards of a birds *****,
my last request is to
at the very least
make my severed head look pretty

I birth a litter of verse
and you're the runt of my
gritty, ****** poems,
and for that deed alone, I'm sorry

i truly hope that your skeleton festers beside mine
and our dirt clogged fingertips mould together
even after we lose the ability to grip.
wouldn't it be nice to rot with you.

To the two boys who think I owe them something.
My heart doesn't belong to either of you,
and your spindly fingers clenching it
don't look enough like ribbon
to fool me into thinking that
my love is a gift to you.
To the two of you,
so willing to give me
your monthly allowances of text messages
yet not your loyalty.
For thinking that an "honest" apology
fixes me having to question why
just me was never good enough
for either of you.
You were both greedy,
you always wanted more.
Now run free and fill your stomach with all the flavours that will burn your taste buds and scorch your tongue.
To both of you for being willing enough to open my box with a key that I never gave you,
rifle through my thoughts and feelings,
and not even open your ears to them,
leaving the lid off
and the contents strewn across your floor.
For offering to help me pick them back up again,
but only because my "small, little arms" are not strong enough to carry my own weight that I've carried for
fifteen years on my own.
Here's to both of you for putting me down about being small.
That is NOT my fault.
I have a mighty big cathedral for a heart and a generous brain
and that's all within 5"2.
It doesn't make you any bigger than me
(metaphorically).
Your few feet advantage doesn't give you
the power above me,
even if you can see the roots of my hair in more detail
than you would ever care to observe
the fault lines of my cracked smile.
Boys are being taught that
to love me
is to fix me,
that I am some kind of messy enigma,
a project, a goal.
I'm just a girl with a family, a girl with a head, with a spiders web of veins and a lifetime of lessons that I'm opening my arms and my heart to.
You mistake yourself for a lesson,
when I'm fully qualified to teach myself.

You diagnose yourselves
as "depressed".
Mental illness is not an accessory,
nor a quirk to make you seem more vulnerable to me.
Don't brandish it in the air,
it is not a weapon against me.
It doesn't make you adorable,
or some kind of cuddly bear boy.
Everything that's
"killing you"
is just as toxic to me.
You set my skin into blue flames
because I won't give myself to you.
No,
no,
no.
I'm tangled in my rejection,
and it thickens.
I can't be with you out of pity.
My guilt, raging deep within my bowels,
marching violently through my organs,
exploding into a supernova of
thinking that love and guilt are almost the same thing.
"I'll do anything",
I don't want anything from you.
"I'll write you a poem because I know how much you love that."
I also love being respected but neither of you ever gave me that.
My craft is not a tool of trickery,
and your words not a trance.
"I'm not like him".
But you still act like my skin is a carpet to your home,
and you walk across it with muddy boots.

You think you're a blanket to keep me warm,
but you ended up suffocating me.
To the boys who think I owe you them something,
go home.

I promised myself that was the last poem about you.
But,
I've always been one of those people who
plays the same song on repeat
until it syncs with my heartbeat
and rattles my bones to dust.
or who
re-reads the same books until
the lines become my holy scripture,
the plot become my genesis and
my body becomes a canvas for a script I know by heart.
My head is filled with drafts for poems I've never written,
and hands I've never held.
I should blame it on courage but I blame it on you instead.
Maybe I'm just one of those people who
gives everything to one boy, forever.
Maybe he's just my routine,
like in the military.
Bright and early awake then straight to the battle field.
My body is adorned with marbled bruises
and crimson gunshot wounds
and when I rest for the night,
I'm shackled to a mattress of stone,
stained in the thick wine that pulses through my veins,
until the next morning,
when I must do it again.
The sunrise is my enemy.
She tugs at my eyelids
with raw fingernails each new day,
and I still fall asleep with
you as the only thing on my mind.

They say that you can't quit the army.
The cowards way out of a few wounds.
"Stay and it'll be a lifetime of glory".
And that's what he promises me.

I don't need a daisy
to tell me
he doesn't love me,
each sharp pick of a petal
of my skin
gives me a new answer
as he throws the ripped white
rubble of my body
over his shoulder
until I am nothing but a yellow core
full of the recipe for the
sweetest honey
you'll ever taste

I'm going to cover your heart in bubble wrap,
shout to the universe to never dare to drop it again,
and carry it in my arms
so tight to my chest
that your heart may just merge into one with mine
and we can just beat together.
we'll share a duvet of bubble wrap
and I'll let you pull the whole thing
so it covers you,
and I'll still be warm
from the closeness of our
intertwining arteries
and the silkiest blood we pass between them.
I'll be lathered in your crimson fuel
and call it the race of our love.
I don't think you need to be shielded,
and I know you don't need me to shield you,
but just one layer of bubble wrap
won't hurt anyone,
right?

teach me to light up a room
douse the floor in my spirit
and
watch
it
burn

our first kiss was in the rain.
it was gentle and it was scared.
we were like two rabbits in the headlights,
holding each other for dear life,
bracing ourselves to be hit.
rain has never been the same.
for a while it was sweetness,
and soaked lovers under a canopy of leaves,
now when the rain intrudes the sky,
every droplet that falls
holds the memory of one of our million kisses.
it's just cleaning the electricity of your hands
from under my skin,
and washing your smell from my clothes.
but
for you, it's just the rain,
and I think that's always been the difference between us.

you were never an artist.
I tied your hands behind your back,
placed a paintbrush between your teeth
and forced you to paint us a picture perfect dream.
the colour was never rich enough
and the sun never cast gold beams
in the direction we wanted them,
or as bright as they could have
if I just learnt to paint on my own.

I will fill a jar with the first bundle of air to fill your lungs
each morning
and call it my own.

the silence in my head is stifled
by the deafening tick of the clock.
in the past month of my life,
I've had to grow up too fast.
the trigger of the starting gun was pulled,
and I was shoved onto the racetrack.
it's like trying to keep grip on honey,
running through my fingers,
coating them in sickly gold.

first, I learnt that love and lies
have a more faithful relationship
than we ever did.
they stroll around a paradise island,
away from the world and the truths,
hand in hand.
they drink the untouched juice of coconuts
and feed from the flesh of mangoes.
I hope that one day,
they become separable and learn to thrive on their own.
for now, I observe love and lies
in awe and jealousy
and let them wild.
they have my blessing.

the second thing that I have learnt
is to believe in ghosts.
for, there was a ghost beside me
confined in the four walls of my room.
a crumpled, lifeless body,
her hand limp in mine,
her head too heavy for her shoulders.
she tells me between tears and short, rasped breaths,
that life isn't for her.
I watched her leave my house,
and step into the air, floating away.
she's a balloon,
desperate to join the clouds in the sky,
but I hold the string,
keeping her at arms reach for just a little while longer.

Third, I learnt that friendship is a flower that grows in the dark.
it's beautiful too, and strong,
with a thick sturdy stem holding delicate petals.
the most beautiful flowers have the sharpest thorns
and I've been pricked too many times.
it's watered by the salts of our tears
and feeds from our raw laughter.
within me is a greenhouse of wilted flowers.

lastly, I learnt love is everywhere.
in the air that we breathe,
in the hollow cry of a guitar,
in the incandescence of a flame.
in the juice of coconuts and the flesh of mangoes,
in the eyes of a ghost,
in the roots of a flower.
in the shove to push me onto the racetrack.
love is a constant even when time is fleeting.
the deafening tick of the clock is what reminds us to be alive.

I will force every ounce of my energy
into changing my heavy lump of skin and bone
into a flickering shadow,
warmed by the sun's affectionate kiss,
for then I can follow every step you take on this
albeit,
messy journey
so that you are never alone.

I had my first dream last night that you weren't in.
not even a minor character,
your ****** name wasn't even in the credits,
let alone plastered across the sky in flashing lights
like you want it to be.
my first reality that you didn't belong in,
and it was the most blissful peace that I can remember since we bathed in pools of cloud.

I heard the first song that didn't make me think of you yesterday.
the lyrics, for once, were just lyrics,
not an embodiment of you and the things you do.
guess what?
it was coldplay.
you always hated coldplay.

this morning, I basked in the sun and didn't picture you coated in gold light beside me.
I didn't look at the leaves adorning the trees and picture your face laughing beneath it.

I didn't trace the plate lines of my palm and imagine the earthquake we used to create when yours collided with mine.

I didn't eat new food that I wanted you to try and I didn't want to share the smallest details of my day with you.

you may have won this poem, loverboy,
but don't be too triumphant.
your victory won't last long.
it's the era of my new beginnings without you and I'm going to be just fine.

one day the crack of your voice during a whisper is going to make
the each of the stars melt,
molten honey,
dripping from the sky.
I will catch it in my raw hands
and coat our hearts in it
so that we will become part of the night sky
like we always said we would.
maybe we could float away
or belong there
because if I know one thing for certain
it's that our feet do not belong
on this earth.
you can harness the stars,
without so much as the parting of your lips
and a gentle exhale,
and I hope one day you realise that.

in my dreams I danced with
one of those little wooden mannequin men
and guess what?
his touch was more
delicate
than yours.

when you clawed at my skin
and tore apart my flesh like
an animal,
like your eyes had never manifested in the pores before
you tattooed my skin with a wound.
the truth is
my body is a canvas for the art of the wounds you create
and it's not the blood that scares me
it's the ***** of the needle
to sew me together
again.

there is nothing more euphoric
than the sky tearing open,
and rain erupting,
pouring out,
bursting from the seams
never ending
a symphony with the grumbling of the sky's stomach
a desperate hunger that challenges even our strongest trees.

the thing that weighed my muscles down
till my face couldn't carry a smile anymore,
what mentally induced me to a
restless sleep each and every night,
was that I don't think he fought for me at all.
- the moment I learnt to fight for myself

everything happens for a reason,
right?
but the treacle in my heart,
that means treason
do I fight it, do I light it, do I straight up
ignite it
do I dig it out
of my skin
ignore the hunger from within
and lighten my body
so it floats in the air
do I hold liquorice treacle
in the palms of my hands
and let the stench make me forget
that it's there?

do I engulf your every waking breath
like you do     for me?
you're a salted
     crashing     wave
so quickly filling
  my hollow body,
drowning my bones
with your ocean blue   spit.
cocooning inside my body
  is the foam,
the remnants of
the rage of your wave,
it was so       colossal
my ship was wrecked
and left
delipidated
& crushed,
  rusted
   & sunken,
      moulded
        & worthless
under the force of
the sand.

she vomits
flowers
blossoms
petals
rough crystals
that scratch the interior
of her crooked throat
thorns that pierce
but that doesn't matter
because the
immense
beauty
of the roses
they bear
is irreplaceable
and the stems wilt
and her mouth is heavy
from the weight of the garden
she projects
but it's too beautiful
not to.

he vomits
thick
black tar
deceiving honey,
her feet
are stuck
and entangled
with the petals
strewn across the floor
the tar defeats
her rich
chrome spectrum of flowers
and drowns each
and every last
drop of her beauty
and self devotion
until she is nothing
but a mound of
thick
black tar
and a
bloodied
bruised
heart
rolling in his
deceiving honey.

you summon tears
from the bowls of my pain
in unexpected places
at unexpected times
because it's your face
it  h a u n t s  me

my jawbone snaps
the fault line drawn
by a toddler with a crayon.
the halves drift through
the veins of my face
and I am disfigured.
a picasso
in technicolor,
I am not used to this much laughter
so my bones squirm and wriggle
pleading me to stop
but my lungs disagree
and my body rattles in its
confused shell
I can't stop
when it feels so good
but so palpably painful.

my skin is burning
my skin is burning
you said                                         you'd always be by my side
you said you'd                   douse me
where are you
where are you
I need you more than I    ever    have
and more than
I    ever    will again
I float on the
surface of the          lava,
undisturbed
and the                                            flames
   caress    my skin
and     lick     my pores
until I can't feel them
anymore
and the  fires
of hell
feel normal
under the   salted
taste of your tongue
my skin is          burning
I'm        burning
where are you
where are you now

the benevolence
of your heart
is condolence
for the parts of me
that burn

s p r a w l e d
across the grass
my hands helplessly grasp the roots of the  buzzed  green carpet
   like it's the only thing that'll
hold me down

his hands
sculpted from stone,
hold my thumping,
writhing heart.
he clenches,
it envelopes.
my heart
rattles in its
blood drenched
shell.
empty.

she is a doll of supple clay.
              with ample cheeks,
opened fresh like roses from their  dewy  buds,
f r e c k l e d  with the soil that fed them.
her eyes,
dormant
behind the   glossy sheen.
they are            blue pools      of
           motionless gin.
  parted slightly,
her lips are
full & ripe
with the   silence   that her beauty awards.
for all,
a doll cannot speak
   until the words are forced in her mouth.
she cannot live,
yet she is the                           centre                            of their attention.
the breaths her lungs release are cold kisses.
her body is an
                      empty vessel,
coated in lust and desire,
                                                                                                         after all,
that's what she was made for.
created to be played with.
a toy in high demand.
               a doll of supple clay.