I watch a pebble make ripples in the water, before it sinks, and it’s painful to know
that at times, I have also wanted to drown

surrounded by the rippling conscious of my life
my past exploding and corroding

I do not want to drown every day,
some days I see the beauty of the lake
its shimmering blue surface, the rugged rocks wrapping around its body

but some days…

some days the past is like a knife of flames plunged into my heart,
and only the deepest depths of water
will extinguish it

I sit on a beach
on a freezing December night,
the sun has gone down
pinks and purples and golds,
the waves are vicious
I pray that they consume me
to wrap their foam around my waist
and pull me under -
I run my fingers through golden sand
as silky as your hair, and I am transported
back to that last night together,
the hatred in your eyes when
you told me to leave, burns in my memory
every time I close my eyes,
and I didn’t question or argue
I didn’t plead or beg,
because I have known from an age
where I should simply have been
playing with dolls,
that I am difficult
that I am different
that I ultimately
impossible to love

We were the graveyard girls
gorging on lost souls and bones

But our highest prize….

…we wanted to taste Death.

To bite into his flesh, and hallucinate his prey,
to let his blood trickle on our tongues, red as a brilliant, untouched ruby

We wanted to see if it would -
by some twist of supernatural law - make us immortal

(or infamous)

I long
to be folded
in paragraphs
and wrapped tight
in sentences

words that are both
a balm and a blaze

for a vowel to be the spark
that sets of a fire
that reduces everything to ashes

(past, present, future…)

is all I dare hope for

I am like fire,
burning through the
memory of you

every moment will
be ashes, the ashes
soon dust

you will not destroy me,
for I hold the flame that
burns as bright as star -
light, that annihilates
trauma and pain

do you think for a second,
that I will think of you? When
I am picking stardust out
of my hair

do you think you will matter
to me? When my memory
of you, is merely smoke
in the air

I am out
throwing breadcrumbs
to help me find
my way back
to you

you are out
with torches
burning down
the trees that line
the pathways

home

You see scars
instead of stories,
histories weaved and stitched
half healed, still tingling with shame,

fragile ribbons tied together by my teeth,
pulled tight against the darkest night,
when midnight was a threat, and sunrise
an aching promise that I might forget,

so, see scars if that’s all
you can see,
but I now honour the stories
within me