my mother told me she'd never been hurt by a man as much as i had been hurt by you
never been treated as horrifically as you treated me
she asked me what that kind of pain felt like because she couldn't understand
and as she watched my own child break in front of her eyes
i replied "mum, it's the kind of pain that you only feel every so often, when all the air has been taken from your lungs and you feel as if nothing is real. and you feel as if you are a ghost among the living, barely existing. and the worst thing is, it always comes from the opposite direction that the winds are to blow, the storm comes from nowhere."
she asked me how i knew what this pain was to remind her how i got here, and i told her, i loved someone more than i had ever, and then one day, they decide to play their cards against your odds and the memories still haunt you at 3 am when you're alone and all you can think of is how they used to make you feel and you make up excuses to still be with them, in any way you can, until it physically makes you ill and you unconsciously start to **** yourself from the pain. and eventually, the feeling becomes so natural, that you forget what it's like to feel normal and you call the pain love and let it live on.

i owe many of my firsts to you
my first sense of love
my first heartbreak
my first falling again for an old flame
my first feeling as if someone's entire world affects you in a way you didn't know was humanly possible
my first intimacies
my first feeling of loving someone more than you had ever loved anyone before
but of all the first
i owe my worst first to you
the first encounter with realising that the person you love more than anything else, is the person who has caused the most pain and broken your heart the most times
you were the first person i ever loved, and the first person i ever chose to leave because i loved them
and for that i am eternally grateful, i'll be getting on without you

you never know
      you'd never understand
            you haven't gone through
the mind game . . . . . destruction more like
            of convincing yourself that
you are not in love any longer  
                       with the boy who lays right next to you
as he is looking directly at you
       and as you are looking at him, at all the little things you fell in love with
              actively trying to disassociate them from the rush of love to the heart and infatuation to the brain
                                    while trying to block out all the memories that flood back of when you were truly happy
and the realisation that you know him better now than you did then and your heart has access to more things to love
                      but it cannot, you have convinced it that it cannot
                      because while his mother still calls you a couple, you promised that you would never be again, a sacrifice made for his benefit

he walked in with an effortless grace
made his presence known to me
the room was undisturbed all other patrons unbeknownst to the mystery of he
i was cloaked in a chill that cascaded over me like a sheet of ice
he didn’t look *** i expected him to
he was clean cut with eyes of icy blue, he could have easily been mistaken for love
but i knew after gazing into the icy blue
that i had met the death of me
the death of me is you.

flash a smile
act like everything’s just fine
hide lies in plain sight
create an oscar worthy performance

count to ten
close your eyes
focus on the darkness that lies behind close eyelids
try to remember something of a pleasant time
open
notice the nail marks imprinted on pale palms

open pandora’s box
you know where it leads
is that my blood? i didn’t feel anything.

how did i end up here again?

a brief encounter
hand slid up silk
a hurried kiss and glance around
onlookers would ruin the show
a secret shared between lips
pupils dilate at the sight
the desire for you still reins true
craving a brief encounter once more
the odds are against the occurrence

i miss the way fingertips felt against my cold skin
the soft touch that only a lover can provide
the kind of touch that can melt icebergs and start wildfires
i miss the sweet sound of whispered words that could start a revolution and the goosebumps that came with each mumbled "i love you"
i miss the feeling of drifting off in a pair of arms that transformed an embrace into a home and made a safety net around me as if protection could only exist within this space between fingertips and other ligaments
i miss the feeling that you provided
i miss the feeling of being wanted
i miss loving something, someone
i feel as if i have lost all sense of direction