I think
as artists
we owe a lot to pain.

Put on
a robe of thorns
and write

about the nice weather outside
and that delicious burger
you had today.

Write about happiness
when you're in pain-
beauty.

you were a pickpocket lover
who searched under my *******
and through my hair
to find my demons to ****

little did you know
i expected a man like you
and hid them away because
someday,
someone,
will love them.

there are butterflies
in your hair and
they flutter down to your toes
and rest on your hip bones
i feel them in your eyes
as you look at me
i feel them in my stomach
so much that i taste them
when i talk and sing and
i believe that they fly
only for us

"She was an
unusual dresser.
Every night,
she wore bruises
on her heart,
love on her lips,
pain in her eyes,
and ink on her fingers.
They called her poetry."

It took me seven years
to realise
the words in my mind
were too deep for
my mouth to dig up
I thought it was easier
to open my skin
and let the truth
pour down my arms

It took me seven years
to realise
nobody should be allowed
to touch parts
of your home
or hold pieces  
of your heart
that you don't yet understand

It took me seven years
to realise
I will wear these scars
forever
I'll carry them
through every smile
every kiss
every concerned gaze
I'll carry them
to my grave

It took me seven years
to realise
the pain carved
into the walls
of my castle
etchings of
attempting to disappear
are not a story of weakness
but a tale of
how I survived

summer is so hot and lonely
and sometimes i wonder
if the skin i am in
betrays me to the world.

i forget without forgiving,
i remember without wanting to
and yet
i want to remember
deep breaths,
georgia,
driving with the top down while
going eighty miles per hour
on a no-name/
dead end
road.

please.
remind me:
why can’t i just fly into the sun
and
feel the heat melt away my flesh
until i am no longer a body?
until i am just soul?
until i am freed?

the starlight/sunlight/pale light
keeping me alive has the power
to tear the life away from me.
do you believe it?

wherever god is,
i think she is crying,
but she’s laughing as well.
she’s laughing at pain, she’s
crying for love, and
somewhere there’s a sun shower.
children are playing and dancing in it,
and a mother tells her son
that “the devil is
beating his wife.”
a son tells his mother,
“this feels
too much like love
to be an act of violence”

and so it goes.

yes, you.
you with your stupid big brown eyes
that see everything, even though
you're sensitive enough not to say a word.

you with your stupid hair
that i never thought i'd be writing about
because i always tell you how unattractive it is.
i guess my heart decided to run to you just the same.

you with your constant concern,
your ability to see right through me,
even when my walls are built so high
that no one else bothers to try
you're still there chipping away at it,
gently trying to get me to open up.

you told me once that you fall for character,
not for looks. that was before all this.
before you and i started long talks,
before i started to feel i could talk to you about anything,
before, before, before.
when i was still guarded, when i could still breathe.

but i know this won't change anything.
despite my sudden realization that
perhaps, just perhaps, you wormed your way
into my heart after all, i know you're
not going to stay. why would you?

my heart belongs to you,
but your heart belongs to her.

i think i love you, i can't be sure.
but if i didn't my heart wouldn't hurt this much,
so i guess i do after all.

it was your stupid pretty brown eyes,
that's what it was.