when i look at myself in the mirror
i see something blue, something dead-eyed.
she looks at me and sees something more,
something brighter, worth loving

i look at her and i think of the ocean
eternally beautiful, endless depth
sometimes i think i'll drown but
she keeps me afloat, makes me swim

we could spend hours talking
or not speak for a whole day;
no matter the number of words exchanged
not a minute goes by that she isn't on my brain

being with her feels like promise,
like an apology from life
it says, "here, this is your happiness"
i know i don't deserve her but i'll never take her heart for granted

it's been five months
but i already have our one year marked on my calendar
and i can count the days passed
by the number of smiles she gives me

emotion was never my thing
'til an angel dressed in humanity showed me
what feeling could be like,
what love could be like without pain

the clouds are mostly grey in england,
the sky muted by dreary weather
but these days i find myself looking at the flowers instead
and she is sunshine lighting my every step

you're enthralling, the way you captivate me
less than half a year but already
you've changed so many things
you are my most extraordinary experience

you're the constellations in my night sky
and the petals blooming brightly in a once barren garden
you make me see more; you're the pastels lightening my art
there's a spark in me and now i know warmth

if you could only see yourself the way i see you,
life is no longer just grey and blue
i need you to know that i love you
thank you for bringing colour to my world

i am sorry
for the bruises under your eyes
i'd say i wish they were mine
but we wear the same sleepless wounds
pretending all is fine;
there's blood in your mouth,
your tongue tastes like copper
it's like kissing pennies
but far, far softer.

i am sorry
this is not the life you were promised,
baby eyes wide with wonder
as your mother's words tried for honest;
i wonder if she knew
what the world would bring unto you,
the things your father would do,
the ways his friend would ruin you
all the wasted love
and all the terrible tears
looking at the sky above,
empty bottles counting the years

is this what heartbreak feels like?
i can't remember
if i've ever felt it before

my chest feels like
something knotted
too tight, too much,
unable to be undone

it's under my ribs,
sitting soundly beneath the sternum;
it's in my throat,
like a lump i can't throw up

it's the pincers squeezing
at the back of my eyes
trying their best, though still failing,
to make me cry

it's supposed to be a good thing
that we moved on,
that you rid me from your system

i thought i rid you too
but the confirmation of your fresh start
has made me feel
like i'm getting nowhere fast,
nowhere soon

i've no right to be so undone,
lost the right to hurt for us
a long time ago, but

i guess heartbreak doesn't give a ****
about time or circumstance
it shatters you when it pleases,
and you don't know
if you can fix together the pieces

i asked her, does it look the same?
she gave me that funny look she gets
whenever i say or do something a little dim
it's a mirror image for a reason she said

in the mirror i see muscles, and strength
hips a little too wide and fleshy
but still muscular,
strength all the way down

but when i reflect on myself,
no mirror necessary
it is never the same

i don't feel as strong as i could
don't look as sharp and sturdy as i could
those fleshy sides, too soft
for a battle-hardened brain
and turbulent thoughts

i need angles, i need straight lines
but there's nothing straight about me
and that's half the problem

and the other half
is that i hate the softness that lingers
but everybody else loves it
and i don't want to be warm and
able to be cuddled

i want hard edges
and nimble, spindly fingers;
when i play my chords
i want my bones to tap the strings

and when sadness sheathes itself within me
i want eyes as dry
as my eczema-bitten hands

it burns like hell
and damnation feels familiar,
there's intimacy in the mistakes we made
and love in our failures
and i wish it was easy to stop caring
****, it used to be,
it sure as **** used to be
but here we are

so you can call him all the pretty names
that used to belong to me
and you can shower her with affection
the way you used to do with me

it takes two to tango, or
so the saying goes
so perhaps it's time to start
moving, revising my steps
and i can improvise into my solo

it burns like hell
but that's something i'm used to,
and there's intimacy in all the ways
you've lied and lied and hurt me;
love in our failures
that lingers like a determined scar
so, yes, you can replace me
i can replace you, too
turn that scar into another tattoo so
maybe i can come to love
the pain you left behind

for the sun shining through your hair
and stubborn, indignant passion

for smiles with dimpled cheeks
and the twinkle in your eyes

because the ocean calls you
and the tides pull me in

you saved me from feeling like i'm drowning,
my head's above the water now

and so, now i'm breathing
honey, i'm all in

upon waking, i could feel glass in my lungs
small, sharp shards prickling the breaths from my chest and
stealing them away from me—
like some stolen innocence i remember once was mine;
but that was years ago, now
i've been ruined for a long time

i don't sleep very well, and i don't-
don't really wake up very well, either
particularly as we accelerate towards winter
and the only thing i can associate the cold and the dark with
is childhood and threat,
and my school teachers called it Seasonal Depression
but my therapist knows i'm always depressed
Depression is a long-time cuddle buddy;
she's kept me company through trauma.

my therapist tells me that
the cold and dark, they're incentive to flashbacks
too many nights, only single digits in age, forced
to sit in the frost-bitten shadows of an alcoholic's living room
with the AM hours throwing bloodied ***
and violence, through a TV screen
and i still remember the crippling ache of empathy,
watching that little robot boy's family abandon him:
lost in the woods, found only to be beaten.

i breathed through the glass in my lungs,
and never could quite let go of the memory,
nor the popping eyes and crashing cars
or the bleeding walls and possessed children;
wondered, briefly, if maybe some strength could one day possess me
and make my father see i was worth more
than a black-blue shadow in his home, and an accessory in his favourite bars