I am fragile.
I can shatter.
I disguise myself as steel.
Cold, hard, shiny steel.
Steel is strong, reliable, unbreakable.
But as much as I try to convince myself, I will always be glass.
I paint myself every morning, wrap myself in a cloak of strength.
I zip on a suit of trustworthy mother-ness.
I protect my people, I listen to their troubles.
I shelter them from harm, but the dome of protection I offer only looks like steel.
Truly? It is glass.
It chips with every tear shed by another.
It cracks with every problem unloaded.
It splits with every oblivious blind eye turned.
If only people asked whether I was okay, for once.
If only people cared enough to ask if I had any problems.
Even so, I often don’t know what is wrong.
Sometimes, my glass self shatters, and it wasn’t caused by anything.
When I do break, I gather the shards before they hit the ground.
I quickly slot them back and cover the cracks before anyone notices.
It is an old habit.
I hide any of my own problems, so as to help others deal with theirs.
But I am not steel.
I am glass.
I can shatter.
I am fragile.

To the people who don’t or won’t support me,
I don’t live in your solitary reality.
I see the world in an equal and just perspective,
It’s affective, connected, receptive, near-perfected.
So I’m not going to heed your advice,
I knew as soon as I saw her, what I think is right,
I’m going to do what I was put here to do,
I refuse to listen to you and your out-dated views.
You say you will go to the city in the sky,
Way up high in the clouds, after you die,
And you say people like me will go to H-E-L-L,
Then I’m glad I’m not near you and your homophobic smell.
Plus, sending me back to my warm, homely home,
Your cult will crumble like the Colosseum of Rome.
You see, Satan is known for destruction and death,
So if you decide to oppose me, you just took your last breath.
I would kiss her right now, make you feel icky and horrible,
I would hold her hand; remind her she is adorable.
I would mess up her short, dark hedgehog hair,
I would gently hold her face in two hands and stare.
We would poke our tongues out at you, and then grin evilly,
Then skip away, holding hands, eyes twinkling gleefully.
Me and her, we don’t give a flying hoot what you think,
You’re small, insignificant to us, gone in a blink.
Me and her, we don’t want or care for your opinion,
You’re just doing what you’ve been told, like a good lil’ minion.
You go do your thing, and we’ll go do ours,
We will look up and follow the brightly glowing stars.

Everyone loves to make heartbreak sound poetic.
As if it’s a sleek, long, even agony, with sharp edges and perfect lines.
They lie.
Heartbreak is chaotic, like a blunt knife dragged unevenly across the skin.
There is blood everywhere,
Pooling in the jagged void left in your chest.
Your love-soaked heart does not just disappear one day,
It all builds up.
You can feel it pulling at the strands holding it to your body.
With each passing day,
More and more strands tear away,
Until there aren’t enough left to tie it in place.
Then it wrenches away and all that is left is tattered remains.
You are left behind in a state of confusion and disarray,
You must help yourself up because there is no one to do it for you.
It appears when you least expect it.
Walking down the street,
You collapse under a tsunami of memories.
Lying in bed late at night,
You drown in the tears
Suddenly shed over the feeling that you are craving something that you can’t have.
It appears out of nowhere,
Crippling and painful.
The dread that you will one day forget how their lips taste.
The realisation that you can never look at them the same way ever again.
As the days go on,
The strands that once held something so cherished slowly grow over the hole that is left behind.
The sun continues to rise every morning,
The birds still sing, louder than the fractured, dismal thoughts in your head.
You heal,
In time, you heal.
You walk around, internally shattering,
But eventually you don’t have to hide it any longer.
You don’t have to force your smile,
Because it comes naturally.
But you never forget that feeling, the messy, brokenness of it all.
The fear of it happening again is always looming.
And it will, happen again.
And you will be left in a torn, bleeding mess.
And you will hurt, so badly that you sob until there are no tears,
And your body is just heaving,
And your lips are trembling,
And you sit there, shuddering.
But then,
The sun rises.
The birds serenade.
The days go on.
And so,
Do you.

I am so ******* sick of people telling me I’m skinny.
If I tell you that I think I’m fat, it’s not for attention.
It is because, although I’m “skinny” now, I have been skinnier.
I may have a thigh gap now, but it used to be bigger.
I may have a flat stomach, but it used to cave slightly inward.
So if you are about to say to me
“You are lucky to be so skinny!”
“Look at other people!”
Etc.
Don’t you ******* dare.
I am not insecure about being fat, I am insecure about being skinny.
Next time someone you consider to be “skinny” says they are “fat”
Don’t tell them to be grateful.
Don’t tell them that other people have it worse.
Remind them that their weight, whatever it is, does not determine who they are.
In the words of a close friend of mine who understands:
My dear, you’re neither fat nor skinny,
you are yourself and comparing that self to others is a crime.