when I was a little girl
my mother always said
"a boy is only mean when he likes you"

after all these years
maybe that is why
I cut and burn and bruise

I am loving myself
the only way I know how
in the way my mother taught

Your love for me was like glass
Born of fire, moulded by a strangers hand,
Fragile;
Your loving words twinkled to the floor like so many stars
But all sharp edges and broken incompleteness;
And you left me to pick up the pieces,
Fingers bleeding,
And I saw my face reflected in the mess that you'd made;
Fragmented,
Damaged,
Broken,
I still haven't put myself back together.

My body is painted with your scent,
Each bruise guarded by lipstick kisses;
The weight of your body still drags me
down,
My body just a thing that someone misses.

I always smile for a little too long,
a little too strong, so that when
the fleeting happiness is gone, I am still
left with the corners of my mouth turned up, and
warmth in my eyes - I realise,
and the smile drops off, smashes at my feet
and the warmth slowly depletes
from my eyes, so I am
once again
cold.

I saw a plastic bag caught in a tree, and as it shook in the wind
it made a sound like birds' wings;
much in the same way that your words, dropping from your lips like rose petals,
sounded like love.

The road is dark, the wind is cold with frost,
I know just where I am, yet I am lost;
I cannot ask for help, although I try,
And so I look to you in the night sky;
Your light is there, so soft, and yet so strong,
My stars, whom I have loved for oh, so long;
And as I cry to you, my mother stars,
Blurred by my tears, stretch out your loving arms
And call to me 'Sweet child, you're not alone,
My child, look up, you'll never be alone'

If the right thing
is often the hardest to do
then why was it so easy
leaving you?