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

"um... is he okay?"
"who knows? just leave him be"

"what a ****"
"he's alright"
"not really"

"what's his problem?"
"he thinks the world is out to get him"

do they think i cannot hear them?
whispering about me so blatantly

it's as if they've forgotten i have ears
or maybe they just don't care anymore.

if so, we're more alike than they'd care to admit
for i too have long since lost the ability to give a ****.

some family.

this is an open letter
for me to be able to say
i just don't think i can do this
anymore, because...
i just can't do this anymore

if i'm pulling away,
it's because i think i ****** up
or it's because you did
but i'm too self-loathing
to think i deserve an apology

you think you're so cool,
because you support
all the good causes
but your self-declared integrity
and morality, and importance--

it's all meaningless;
you are a ******* bully,
whether you realise it
or not,
the kind of kid that says
"i hate hypocrites,"

as you preach about trust
whilst lying
through your razor-sharp teeth;
you tear through others
like slabs of meat,
a ruthless carnivore
indulging on others' self-esteem

i can't do this anymore,
can't pretend your words
are water off my back,
**** it
if i wanted a shower
i'd go to the bathroom,

i don't need a shower
i'm already clean,
but you?
you're filthy, you disgust me
but i love you anyway
and that's why i can't do this

i'm sick of loving what makes me ill
so i'm not gonna talk,
not gonna listen,
not gonna offer myself up
for you to dig your knife and fork in.
i'm done with this.

We don't talk much anymore;
It's like a rift grew between us
Not overly large, but significant
Enough to make me feel cautious
About trying to bridge the gap.

Last time, you were angry with me
For trying to speak to you after so long
And I guess you made me nervous;
Every time I try to lay a brick,
I fall off the foundations of a bridge
Too weak to support all this anxiety

But how was I supposed to talk to you again
Without starting up a conversation?

That's why we're here, now―or maybe
It's all in my head. Who knows?
I don't know; I just feel it, this abyss
You're on the other side and I'm torn
Between looking to you and looking down

So maybe we're still best friends
Or maybe you think I'm a total ****
And honestly, I really was just busy
And sometimes just too depressed
And sometimes just too exhausted
But it's not like you made an effort either

I know we're still friends;
Maybe I'm projecting, maybe I'm paranoid
But I feel like you're angry with me
Or disappointed―not sure which'd be worse.

I still love you even if now you only like me.
Tell me I'm wrong; tell me I'm an idiot
Tell me we're as tight as we were two months ago
Or is it three now? You know I'm **** with time

Tell me I'm wrong.
It'll be the first time in my life where admitting it would be beautiful.

i can't explain the way this makes me feel
i don't believe; you told me it wouldn't hurt me if i didn't
it still hurts me
so i let go, i let it leave
still it does me harm

and all those preachers
with their talk of gods and spirits
i only believe in one kind of ghost
the echo of existence
and demons of history
mine, yours, theirs

let it go, let it leave
but there's still movement in the mirrors
so drink my coffee like it's morphine
and numb the pain with sleeplessness
god forbid a nightmare come to life
stay awake
they'll do no harm

i dream of him in shades of blue
yellow, purple and green
and knuckles dusters do their job,
sweeping dirt away with a single touch
because i
am a filthy stain on your best gown.
he was being thoughtful, cleaning up a mess

it's all my fault, really
i inspire rage and discomfort
and i try to let go, but
i'm the one that needs to be left behind
and if you let me go, if you let me leave
i can't do you harm

don't believe in me,
believe in your ghosts
exorcise me, please, and maybe i'll sleep
no more morphine, no more bloodshot eyes
just a place to lay my demons to rest
bury them with my body
almost, i'd find myself blessed

i have watched my friend tripping over honey traps,
leaving little pieces of himself stuck to every sticky step
as he continues forth into cobweb arms
where a venomous spider awaits, chelicerae poised to snap and bite.

my friend is smart and good and if there are gods in the sky
i will pray for the first time in years
that they lead him AWAY from that seductive silk
and into safer satin.

if there's on thing i know, it is this: he does not deserve
to fall victim to YOU and your lies, you and your wicked smile.
you've woven so many whoppers, your web is bigger than the internet
that you use to draw him in.
stop drawing him in.
he is the artist; not you.

i wish i could say that my friend is like a wasp, that he could
sting and escape and fly away to fairer flowers
instead of you: wilting rose, thorny and brittle and grown from ****.
but my friend is instead more akin to a bee,

helpful and soft, endangered; he would suffer more harm
if i could tell him why he needs to sting you
and i will not be known as the man who aided the death
of such a beautiful being
with such a bright and buzzing brain.

you were born on the cusp of spring,
a breath of warm sunlight
coaxing bright life back into
dark husks of wilted stems
and barren souls in need of bloom.

i died the day i came to life.
a beginning amidst the beginning
of the end. four days of stuttering heartbeats later,
i was hurried home under a heavy sky
of god’s tears and thick cloud

your eyes are sick with grief in winter;
i think your chest aches to heal
the fragile, frosted frills of flowers
that suffered and struggled
and surrendered to the cold

you are burdened by empathy
for the crumpled caskets lining the flowerbeds,
impatient for a fresh start
so you can refresh these corpses
into new life. new roots
and petals flourishing in the image of your beauty

you are a god i could worship.
you are a god i could believe in.
you are a creator of life, and colour, and new starts
you created happiness within me,
so i can only hope to do the same for you

i, dead the day i came to life,
belated winter baby with blue lips, blue veins
am alive for perhaps the first time in years
sleepy, but still awake—breathing, blooming
as if spring came early just to kiss the feeling back into my fingertips



a fistful of sunflowers clenched tight,
and with you by my side
my chest is set alight
with a sun’s ray of hopefulness
that the day will eradicate the night.

remembered my meds;
didn't clear my head.
still thinking of you,
tempted by the blue
overdose by one or two
hundred, something to do.
maybe the pink;
she'll make me think
of nothing at all,
be as blank as a wall,
still as a statue and twice as calm
as i used to feel tracing hurt on my arm.

i don't know when i started putting everybody else before myself
it was probably back when she called me obnoxious, or when he started ******* behind my back
or when you told me i was too absorbed in my problems, that i needed to "get my **** sorted"

i thought i was, in all honesty

i didn't realise it was such a crime to be open about therapy,
that talking about my problems was selfish of me,
that's what they tell you to do in therapy:
talk, think, open up, discuss
was it wrong for me to practice honesty about what's haunting me in your company?
maybe you just didn't want to know about that side of me
and maybe that said more about you than it did about me
but by the time i'd come to realise that much
it was already too late, and the doors had been shut

i have this one friend - she worries about me
she knows how many stories i listen to, how many walls i'm breaking through
she tells me that my health is important
i know this
but it's like it doesn't matter
not when it's me
i tell everyone that they need to look after themselves but i don't really care about my own well-being
maybe those rules just don't apply to me
maybe i'm a hypocrite, or perhaps self-loathing is a good excuse

i just want to help those who come to me
my self-employment doesn't make me any money
perhaps i'm the one paying the price
but it's okay because i know i've saved lives
that's not to say it doesn't wear down on me
my career is short-lived compared to those who practice this professionally
but i can no longer remember what it was like before i started offering arms and shoulders and pieces of my heart
without taking the time to replace the parts

i get thank you's every once in a while
i tell them, "honestly, it's never a problem"
"never" is a lie
but i wouldn't admit that, no, really, it's fine
i don't mind offering my support and advice
my insomnia means sleep is a rare gift and it comes at indecent times
but if you call me at four AM, even if i was asleep i'll stay on the line
sleep might be a gift but i'd rather preserve the gift of life

sometimes i ask myself how many times i'll have to talk down a loved one from suicide
my heart, with abandon, beats a hopeful rhythm of "never", and my mind whispers "that's a lie"
i recall to mind being thirteen, maybe fourteen years old,
curled into the bed post, night light shining
tears blinding, stinging my eyes
an arm-full of red and a yearning inside
that murmured "one more time and everything will be fine"

i swallow down the acid, even though it burns,
and force my leaden tongue to form assurances and love letters that speak of better days
so many of them have no idea how close i came
they don't need to know about that trigger
just another loaded gun
i'd rather them point it at me than have them aiming for themselves

i just want to help, make them know they're not alone
let my voice ring in their ears, "you will never be on your own"
have my friendship swimming in their veins so they no longer need to bleed
all those demons flooding their arteries will make no match for me
and when it all gets too much, i'll scream into some empty void
let them pour their sadness into me while i'm spewing out my own
i'm strong enough to bleed and carry on being what they need - they can spill their tears all over me, i promise it won't finish me

i'll ignore the salt in my wounds that shakes me to the bone
let them bury themselves inside these broken ribs and find a place to call home.

moon, mon lune
and i the ocean,
with darkness
and storming waves;
but you guide me,
pull me back to shore
as you spill your light
across my murky depths

draw the tide in, love
i am home
i am home
with you, mon lune.
when you wane,
i watch you:
despairing eyes,
tidal waves of misery

when you wax,
i am calm.
there you are,
returning from shadows
and back to me,
and i love you
so, so much
whether i can see you
or not

i froth onto sand
dry land soaks and
***** me in.
i lose myself
on the beach
but am never lost
with my enigmatic, magnetic
cratered centre of
gravity; pull me in,

draw the tide in, love
i am home
i am home
with you, mon lune.

it's a little too cold,
the spaces between us,
ice sinks like truth
deep in my bones

I know I said I love you
I know you know I meant it,
dream of tangling fingers
as I pull away

friends that call me turtle
for the funny faces I make
but now I'm edging back into my shell
thinking they just know me

a little too well
and it's a little too close
for comfort—what's comfort?
hell, I'm just kidding myself

help me, I'm breaking down
no, leave me,
can't save me now
just know: I hate myself for this

these lips pushed and pulled
forming shapes
to imagine your kiss,
a kiss I'll never get to taste

please let me drift.
more space between us;
let the ice sink like truth
deep in our bones

sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry
and I love you and I'm
leaving, gotta leave here
don't wanna be replaced

forty, for three kinds of pain
swell into sixty, they suggested;
the idea of dependency and
docile, smiley dazes
too much, like a bruised sprain
tiptoeing on the edge
of a complete break

i don’t need to be happy all the time
i just need to be happy more

it's been a crazy few years and sometimes i just can't ******* believe i've made it this far. after two almost-cut-throat endings and too many nights watching red swill down the plug hole, i'm surprised i'm still standing now. honestly, i used to be in love with the idea of life even when i wanted to end mine but now it's just another motion. well hey, at least i'm still moving. nobody standing still or lying frozen gets the chance to land somewhere new; if i'd have frozen, i wouldn't have met you.
  you that's changed my life in ways that make me simultaneously wish i'd never met you and wish i'd met you sooner. i never used to cry over people but i also never knew what love was supposed to feel like either. maybe i should hate you for tearing down such dedicated defenses or maybe i should love you for making me live, not just exist. maybe i should feel both ways at the same time; maybe i do.
  you asked me what my favourite part of my daily routine is and i told you about how i like to watch the city pass me by through the bus window on my way to college: a filler moment that's always wonderfully long and regretfully not long enough, earphones in, music loud. it's the quiet solitude of the moment that draws me in. i always rush in the mornings, and even free periods at college leave no room for peace. the simplicity of sitting quietly, alone amidst strangers that pay me as little attention as i pay them.
  i kind of want to sit in silence with you, enjoy that quiet solitude with you by my side. i'm always alone but loneliness can defeat even the unbeaten warrior. so let's be alone together. be my shield. protect me from that fatal blow; i don't want my gravestone to read "George Vs. Loneliness: K.O."
  sometimes you make me angrier than i ever thought i could be. i shake and shiver, my teeth attack each other. your love is such a pretty shade of purple when things are good―i want to drown canvases in it. but my anger is a violent red, and when you trigger me the colours switch: i'm seeing red when i look at you, my knuckles are purple-bruised.
  but when it's all over, somehow, you're still the one i want to lie with. and maybe i should get more help. maybe i should tell them how explosive i am, how i worry that one day you'll be too close when i go off and you'll look me in the eyes with my shrapnel in your chest and tell me "we're done". i think five years of therapy has only taught me one thing: i am incapable of being fixed. but it's alright. it's okay to be broken. you're the one that taught me that. and it seems like our broken pieces fit together well enough together to create art. messy, chaotic, but emotive and beautiful in its own right. paint me as a villain, if you wish. i'll still paint you my anti-hero.

i had an epiphany;
you are ethereal,
an ephemeral epoch
within my existence.

in love, yes
with people, no

more inclined, i think
to fall for experiences

and animals and trees
and the taste of coffee in the morning

and the feel of accomplishment
after a long night spent writing

in love, i am
with maybe some people

no one personal,
two idols at most

in love, yes
with people, no

more inclined, i think
to fall for the sunset

and a relieving gust of breeze
on a humid day

and the art hung
on the walls of rustic cafes

in love, yes
with no one in particular

in love with life
even on days spent wishing for its end

a toxic sort of love, perhaps
perfectly suited for the likes of me

chemically imbalanced,
in brain and body

at most, i'm sleeping my demons away
or so i say at three AM
another night spent awake

well i guess i'll never be lonely
shoulders perfect perches
for perilous shadows

oh hold thy holy rosary
beads between bitten fingers;
abandoned God forever ago

but sometimes religion
clings like a second skin
and it's nice to talk to the silence

on my knees
for sin or saints, to please or plead
i'm a fifty:fifty on morality

church pews and statues,
but if i don't believe, they can't hurt me
the devil can't do me harm

i abandoned confessionals
when it became clear to me
that apologies mean nothing when you

repeat and repeat,
unrepentant, really
'least i can do is be honest

and say to you
whoever's listening
i'm not sorry for existing

it’s been a long time, old pal
does the pen grab your hands with fright?
i used to read your poems and songs
like they were lullabies and holidays,
soothing me to sleep and escaping the days,

have you forgotten how to put pen to paper?
how to make fingers type?
is this what it’s like for all the poets whose words weren’t borne of pain?
thinking too ******* what to write, what to say
if they’re not tears, they don’t flow naturally
these words are hard to create

you’re all out of practice
nothing to compose that feels genuine or profound
are you a liar to yourself? have you lost who you once were?
are you not ready to give up what’s already gone?

maybe you’re not a writer anymore
working 6 for 7 in a bar, big boss boy now
happy but frustrated, making money you have no time to spend
but it gets spent anyway
with no quality time to show for it
and you, lying there, awake

staring at a blank page hoping the words will write themselves

wondering if you’re a failure for moving onto something else

do you even want to write anymore?
or do you just miss the freedom?

tell the ones who put you here how you've had enough
scream it to the skies, 'til your lungs burn and tears sting your eyes
in case the one they call goodness and love is real enough to listen
hold your heart up in both hands like it's your mission
you don't have to be mormon to spread your word like it's gospel
you've just gotta have faith in your method of communication
when you open up your mouth and a storm comes out
i hope the clouds churn and the rain falls and they feel the pain you've been dealt

we can put all hope to bed but hope has a funny habit of waking up again
and i can honestly say my life would lose so much quality
if you were to go to sleep and never open your eyes again
and quality of life is a measurement of longevity, a question:
is it worth it? can i survive this? can i live when the sun burns away the darkness?
you are the sun, my sun, you just don't see it yet
because who can get close enough to the sun without being blinded?
who could hold a mirror to the sun and let it see itself before the mirror melted?
you are the sun, my sun, even if you never see it, try to believe it

i like the idea of bathing in a sunset
on the hills of Park Hall, overlooking landscapes and cities

being so far away from civilization
that my own breath echoes in my ears.

i would lie there, still, in the grass,
cool and warm at the same time,
thinking about how the shade of orange sunlight
softens city edges and makes them glow.

everything is always gentler in the sunset,
calm and still
to the point where even capitalism seems tranquil

except for me―forever rough around the edges,
rougher still inside, with bitter blackness
twisting its way through my veins,
anger cooking up a storm inside of me,
ready to boil over and scald--

those sunbeams, let them bathe me;
they'll not change me.
everything around me will soak up the light
and look beautiful doing so,

and i would be a silhouette against the ethereal bright,
faceless and
alone.

******* it, you left a heart at the end of your message and i felt my own lurch in my chest
i don't love you
i won't love you
but just for a second,
one precious, fleeting moment
you flirted with the fragility of my mind by showing me you cared
and, for a moment,
it felt like maybe i could;
maybe i could love you
but i don't

and i won't

just two silhouettes walking
never intersect, done all their talking

parallel lines, this road’s been taken
the path is set with no equation
he did the math—no explanation
no words to describe this excavation

the broken bones, the muddied holes
tried to force the pieces, guess he’s got soul

tried so hard to wash them clean,
but the truth whispers behind the sheen.
pressure wash, sludge swirled the drain
from pressure: bruises, exposed the pain

rinse away the dirt, the cracks remain
prevents infection, still poisons the brain

got any guilt for me, or still just the same?
soap suds and lies can’t erase the shame.

fingers curl into loose fists,
grasping softly at the frigid air in hopes of
feeling the temperature change.

january, i adore you.

a fresh start, a blank slate: one entire year
of endless possibility.
january, you are freezing;
but with you comes change.

i love you, i do. but please excuse
the way my hands hold out
to grasp at March’s warmer breaths

i, too, wish to breathe a new life
warm and
full of sunshine

sick and tired of being painted as a criminal;
it's tainting my edges black, filling my body with blue
i think i might just wash it all away, rinse the colours off my skin
and stop myself from ever feeling anything, including you

i swear you lit up skies
with the way you could talk about the things you love.

as you close your eyes tonight
just think
about what we could have had, if only
you'd have talked about me that way
when i was there to listen;

all your romance was spilled in solitary rooms
almost as dark as my insides felt,
as if you believed
that shouting "i love you" into the void
would ever reach me

but i know you've never had much faith,
that you can't even believe in yourself
let alone anyone
or anything else.
so you were just scared, you were
scared of so many things
and i could never figure out how or

why
why would you be scared of me?
no, i think you were scared of yourself.

if you knew enough about me to
love me
then you would have known that
for all my anger, my violence,
for all my strength

i am more vulnerable than you.

were you scared that admitting your love
would be my undoing?
maybe you didn't know me so well
after all
it was your love that could have saved me
and now?

now i'm back to the way i was before,
lying in dark rooms at four in the afternoon like
the world outside doesn't exist
and
neither do i

my hands are always shaking
but never when i play my guitar,
fingers always trembling
unless they're tapping frets and bars

always have the shivers
'cept when my baby's on my knee.
i've always been unstable;
she's the only love that makes me steady

i just wanted you to know
that i just want you to breathe
i want to have the same effect as prozac,
make it easier for you to feel at ease
and if you haven't noticed
it's impossible for me to let you go
i gave up
i'm not fighting anymore

I was so worried,
so ******* scared
because I opened myself up to you,
felt how it burned to take you in,
indulged in how good it was
to be naked, torn open and vulnerable—
at risk,
going ahead despite the little voice in my head
that told me the entire time
"this could ruin your life".
I was awestruck,
how at odds it was to find pleasure in terror.

Well I had contingency plans in place,
pills and alcohol and bruises
just in case you exploded inside me
and ripped me apart.
Even if you did, I knew you'd still be there
to fix the problems
just to cause them all over again,
bursting and mending, erupting and clearing up the mess
over and over and over;
maybe that's why I went ahead and did it.

By God, I've never felt so sick to my stomach
than I did when you looked me in the eyes
and I realised I couldn't stop,
couldn't run away like I usually would.
And yet I wasn't hurting,
wasn't splitting apart at the seams—****
wasn't that scary.
5 AM and standing over the sink,
staring into my own tired eyes
and observing the abuse left by insomnia's hands:
sunken shadows bruising sleepless eyelids.
I smiled because, darling,
never before has it felt so good to bleed.

just this
this is all i need
just this

orchestral symphony
my quiet solitude
cup of coffee

just this
none of that
just this

i don't
need you or
anyone else

just this
this is all i need
​​​​​​​just this

drawing, soft grey lines against off-white paper
scultping his face with delicate arcs,
the stroke that tells a story: an artist
that fell in love with their subject

that was the plan.

twelve of the longest minutes of my life
tipped half upside down,
face pressed into metal bars—no, not a metaphor
actual metal bars.

left arm wedged between body and bed,
heartbeat hammering in my throat
echoing in my head, pulse jumping
in my neck. stop

playing hop scotch at the hinge of my jaw

i remember the shape of your teeth,
passionate, possessive,
marking me as yours.
but here's the truth

as reality faded around me
save for the thrum of my existence
and the caress of piano notes,
i was alone. my own.

i've never belonged to myself more
than just there, half on my bedroom floor
dissociating from everything but
my scattered thoughts and

proof of the life in my veins
pumping and beautiful but
also ... pain, so much of it
acknowledging life and its fleetingness

swift and soft, that's how i want to go.
i lost myself to my own head for an hour
wondering if life is as grey and removable
as the carbon collected on off-white papers

huddled together between a fold of black leather,
a universe with a beginning and an end,
both are black and definite as each other
are we linear or rounded? are we exploding

every billionth year, a billion billion billion suns
burning so far away we have to call them stars—
maybe that's why you're my star light
and i'm the darkness you keep bright

and hopeful, maybe

this wasn't supposed to be a love poem
but it feels like one anyway
who are you? i don't know who i'm writing to
i just remembered

see, i dissociated again; i don't mean to forget you

"you can't think while you're faded"?
i'm telling you i can
can't move, can't live, but think?
i sure as hell can, sure as hell do, sure as hell

it's hell sometimes
though not tonight.
i didn't feel quite so turbulent,
listening to my bloodstream and

okay, there is a limit, i'll give you that
i admit i lost some time
i wish i'd lost myself in sketching but
i lost myself in my mind

i only knew it'd been an hour
by the time stamp on my timeline
who says social media is useless? not i
i know how many minutes slipped into the void

oh how i envy them,
thoughtless and forgotten and empty of feeling.
i'd take my brushes and paint me into the sky
if i thought it might take me to heaven

artist i am, fell in love with my muse
but my mind's a two timer,
slipping off to spend time with darkness
even as my heart screams in my chest

*"what about your star light? what about your life?"

she's a beautiful one;
he's enthralling.
i'm playing loves me, loves me not
with hand grenades,
metal pins between my teeth

biting the bullet almost literally.

this too-big heart of mine
is gonna get me killed
someday.

this confused little soul of mine
is gonna break hearts
again.

i hope that when these bombs go off
there'll be nothing left of me
but entrails to be swept away;
clean me up
like the nuisance dirt i've always been,
finally rid the earth
of the stain my existence left
on its bright white shirt

and do not cry for me
please
just realise
how much better off you are
without me.

what a thing
to fall in love with life
anywhere
except the city of your birth

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

it's been a wild ride, one of those roller coasters that make you sick every time
but the thrill is worth the nights spent shivering over buckets at the edge of your bed
and you've given me more downward plunges than anyone has, anyone since her
but the crawl to the top was so slow that i thought i loved the drop more
i've always lived fast, too reckless, too uncaring of my own worth
and staring down into oblivion as it steamed and smoked was its own kind of drug;

as a kid i was scared of darkness but that ride made me feel alive
i just had to close my eyes when it got dark, but eventually i got so used to darkness
i didn't have to close my eyes at all, and it took me too long to realise
your drug was not a medicine, there were no doctors writing you down on a prescription
i picked you up from slumming with the wrong crowd and injected you into my veins
just like you tempted me to do so, and now i'm feeling low from living high

the cost of euphoria is way too much, and now i know i'm dying inside
it's in the unhealthy coping mechanisms and the days spent wasting away in bed,
the bruises under my eyes and the way i chew through half the fridge
then spend three days eating nothing but the grounds left at the bottom of a coffee mug
don't get me wrong, there were times where you and i were so, so good but the cost of
living high is a debt i'll be paying for the next twenty years of my life - if i survive that long

paper thin skin
the artist’s eye is drawn
moth to a flame
but darling, paper burns

fragile, the softest ashes
they say “it always ends like this”
porcelain quivers
artist’s eyes, closed lids

flicker, just minutes more
please, just one last kiss
tears wet the cracks
and salt your drying lips

this loss, feel it endlessly
let me taste you one last time
something to savour,
to agonise the mind

the best of men,
I know he is not.
the worst of men?
not that, either
somewhere in between
a little closer to
good
than bad
no matter how many times
he might
toe the line

you've met me.
you know me.
you've seen firsthand
how wrong
I can be.
not in sense,
not in academics,
nor even in instinct
but in morality.
you know that
he is just
a darker shade
of me.

I know that he
self-destructs and
everyone around him
is the collateral damage.
I don't think that you know this.
I know him
better than you do.
your world is
more black and white
than mine;
I see in shades of grey
and colours
a childhood of red and
purple, and
he did too.

what you see as
malice
I know to be
self-hatred.
I understand him
in a way that you cannot.
our hand grenades
are glued
to our palms;
it doesn't take much
to set them off.
do you know what it's like
to be a ticking time bomb?
I do, he does.

I don't excuse him.
please don't think me
blind,
I see perfectly well
when it comes to
matters of the
heart
and the mind.
but for now,
just for now,
when I'm with him
I am living.
he makes me feel alive.
so for now
just for now
I'd like to live one last time.

and so they tell me,
"you don't deserve nice things"
well perhaps I'd be
inclined to agree
but here's the deal:
when **** gets real,
I don't give a **** what you think of me

and you're over the sea
so why should your opinion bother me?
I've dedicated far too much time
to two-faced, self-serving
insert profanity that rhymes;
if you don't love me,
that's fine
I'm over wanting people to be mine

"oh, read this, George thinks he's so cool"
no, not really
I'm just refusing to be some tool
that you think you can use.
oh, you miss me?
***** you, you ******* liar
I'm no ******* fool

grades aside, papers don't matter:
even if I'd failed school
I'd still have more brains than you,
so spin your lies
and think you're clever
but I've seen through them all
and I'm so much better
than you realise,
ah, your blind eyes

egotistical? maybe sometimes
just a little,
but at least I don't con the people I call friends
and when I say I have their backs
I have them 'til the very end.
see here's the ******* truth:
I'm always ******* honest,
so to stick to my word,
here's something I want heard:

I'm not gonna miss you, your stupid ways, or your empty words

don't tell me to stop while you're asking for more
i don't know how to say no to you
please stop crying over me, i'm sick of being the bad guy
i don't know what's right and what's wrong
'cause i'm feeling both every time we're close

when we're so intimately intertwined and
it's like every breath you breathe is mine
your heart thumps like a bass drum and my veins shiver;
every arch of your spine
is a momentary ascent
that reminds me just how much closer you are to heaven than i am

i could never be good enough for you no matter how hard i try and
i've been feeling guilty for not being enough
every single day since i met you

mind, taste sleep one last time
bitter chest and burning ribs
break your fingers tearing yourself open
one last time: let them drown you
bitter chest find bright wonder

tough years, broken people,
wrong friends with hate in their hands;
love them harder than you loathe yourself
remember what it felt like
the beautiful things left behind

eyes, look your last
time will show you the sickbed
where warm love points to the sky
asking for gods as her hands
lie clasped, cold and hardening

a good mind turned dark,
these chapped lips purse
and you kiss his body one last time
and when it rains, you swear
it rains blood—no more better days

heart once locked inside breaks free
seek out the white light
mind, taste sleep one last time
eyes, look your last
the beautiful things left behind

you show me yours, i'll show you mine
feels like we travelled back in time
but these private parts, just journal lines
and far more delicate than our young minds

what is this unspoken play
does speaking make it fade away?
are we spilling secrets, will you stay
or am i projecting, hoping you feel the same?

did i read this wrong
or was i right all along?
maybe i'm coming on too strong,
as desperate as the day is long

if i love you and you love me too
then what could telling each other do?
i promise i don't want anything from you
nothing but the honest truth

the birds are whistling
twittering their tranquil
morning song,

it's 4 AM and i am imagining us
sitting on the forest floor of Trentham
with sunbeams bathing us
from between the trees

i feel at peace when i
hold a piece of you inside my mind;

nature's soundtrack lulls me
and my only wish
is that you'd be here
to listen with me.

darling, you're so beautiful
like the sunrise
creeping through the leaves

the light that brings an end to
the darkness, and
fights off the cold
with its gentle warmth,

and you give me life
the way water nourishes plants;
i feel like i can blossom when i'm with you

you're so incredible,
so genuinely unforgettable
just holding your hand

would mend broken pieces of my soul.
beautiful being
how'd you get so lost?

i'll give everything i've got
to lead you back home.
you're not alone.

minutes shy of eleven,
       the sharp blur of too many streetlights
   aiding the throb of caffeine

we lay in the road under a starless sky
            and flirted with death
    for the sake of adrenaline

        cold, wind burning my lungs
              long route back, avoiding trouble
         but my smiles were real


                                               and so were you

sky as grey as my dreams
it's spring but winter clings
my hands are always cold,
my arms goose pimpled
and I sit in a t-shirt
doing nothing about it,
this chill that lingers
on my skin, in my bones

don't touch me with your
warm hands
I don't deserve the heat,
let me freeze over into ice
and push me under sea,
sky as grey as my dreams
it's spring but winter clings
I'll soak up the salt water
drown myself to peace

lately, the anxiety keeps settling in my teeth,
setting them on edge:
an unwelcome guest spitting scornful jest
to cause my brain to second guess
every thought i thought wasn't a mess,
exposing my mind -- a train wreck

i scruff my tongue against them
in the hopes of forcing the enamel clean
but this apprehension's made of harder stuff
that even molars couldn't crush;
the muscles of my jaw clench
their unhappiness, an endless throb
of raw numbness, itching to be expelled
through sound or sick or movement

excuses to flee, suddenly,
enunciated by the bitter desperation
to expel what words fail to express;
there's no sudden obligation,
no needs to address. i'm just trying
hard to outrun the foam of fruitless frets
fizzing into overflow, stomach acid upset

as if he knew
the peculiar pictures
behind my eyelids,
sleepless in sleep, ******* bruises
so bittersweet
to dream of you still
i hate you so much
and not at all, all at once

never trust him again
and he... he still misses me
he trusted me—he TRUSTS me
he trusts my steady quiet and
my shaking hands and
this and that of me
i missed him, i think
maybe, distractedly
but not really

only in a lie
and a liar isn’t me but
he makes me speak them so
since my honesty would hurt him
earnest and afraid, my admission:
i do not want to touch
his emotions
and so to curb the awkward truth
i missed him
and none the wiser

When the wounds whistled me
into weary sleep, I dreamt
I had a cozy little corner of the universe
all to myself. The tune of your lips
puckered against the sky; I watched
as you kissed supernovas into life.

See I bloom so easily, sometimes.
Just purples and blues, maybe green
and some yellow if the star bursts
just right. Often, I have to sleep off
the black holes that rip through me.
Fizzling, I shoot across and fall

Into blessed bliss of ignorance.
Asleep, I see you there. We got ourselves
a nice little place in the stars,
where knuckle dusters cease to exist—
so it’s just space dust, quite magical.
You could make billions
of anything out of this. Eternal. Ethereal.
People spend souls for escapism.

Could you refund mine, actually?
It’s kind of cold up here, now I’ve
stopped dreaming. I kind of
miss feeling the breath fill my lungs.
I sort of want to go home again.
You drifted from my orbit. I think
I miss you.

i can't describe this feeling

it's like i want to cry for no reason
(though i know i have plenty of them)

and it's 03:29 AM as i write this line,
wondering why i'm so obsessed with time;
but that's what insomnia does, i suppose

counting down the minutes,
like the more i acknowledge time slipping by, the faster it'll go

03:30 AM and i'm wondering
just how many of my poems have late night morning hours in them
and if anyone else finds the nauseating rhythm of
tick-tock's
as tedious as i do.

03:33 AM

sometimes it's not just my insomnia;
sometimes it's me, too

i can't help the way anxiety cripples my bones and
churns my stomach,
the idea of "lost time" haunting me

as if spending hours fretting over it
is somehow less of a loss than sleeping through those hours, blissfully ignorant
to the fear of missing something.

it's a fear that blankets me every other night, making the simple task of
closing my eyes
an impossible mission,
even though i know

i'm missing nothing.

00:36

i think i kinda like you
just a little too much.

i'm not gonna tell you about this
little infatuation

but i feel warm when
you smile because of me,

and my cheeks ache with grinning
when you laugh at something i do.

i told myself i never would,
know all the reasons why i

never should fall for you;
we're just not made like that.

this is... don't read into it
preferably? don't read it at all

this is something i've
considered for a long while

i'll laugh it off, call you my-
well, that'd be obvious

ruining us is the last thing
on my mind; but you

are the first thing on my mind
most days

god, i hate this. i'm so sorry.
i didn't mean to

i didn't mean to get confused about us
i didn't mean to wonder

mostly, i don't know how i feel
maybe i'm confusing friendship with romance

but i do know this:
your lips are ones i'd like to kiss

sometimes i want
to sing along
to a new song

i want
opposites, and new tricks
something more than this

i want new
and beautifully charged,
a zeal for life that's been unmarred

i want change.

we made makeshift settlements in old, crumbling ruins
and we weren't homeless but we sure weren't home
so we sought out places as broken as we felt
with digital camera clicks and rough clearings of throat
(that hint of asbestos and ground-to-dust brickwork)
laying out soft blankets and forgetting they were too thin:
gravel digging into hunger-knobbled spines as we slipped under cosmic spells,
spying constellations in burnt out stars and speaking wax poetic
with slender fingers intertwined and your soft palm hissing softly as my callouses grated your skin

and when you told me you loved me, i really believed it
it was clear as the jewels that glittered on that midnight dressing gown the first half of the earth slipped on whenever the sun slid away to her lover's second side
obvious and inevitable and woman i loved you too
how impossible a thing it would be, to melt into each other's souls like wax on burning candles
without solidifying and finding a permanent fixture once the heat cooled off
through every wind and motion, all the weathers, where you'd go—there i'd be
but like candles, our wicks were time stamped and endangered
we faded out in a curl of dark smoke, and maybe that's when i turned to the nicotine

these ribs creak
like old stairs,
wooden floorboards splintered;
tread carefully
so no one knows
you're there

the ladder of my ribs
has been climbed
one too many times,
I only wish
they were as
sturdy as metal

careful, now, darling
you're pushing too hard.
a collapse could
be fatal
and I've got
too much pain
in my heart
to bleed out into the world.

there's cracks
in the concrete
and they look like
the x-ray
I had when
I was thirteen. I think
this pavement took more pressure

than my ribs
ever did.
hush, now, I know
you're scared.
so am I.
tread carefully, don't
push too hard
and maybe
you'll slip between the cracks

without causing
further damage.
I'll carve a space
for you
between my lungs;
I'll tuck you inside
and you can
call me home.

please
don't shatter
the slats.
this room looks
better in the dark
where shadows
can hide the scars.
blanket this
vulnerability, dear.
I'm not ready to
fall apart
again,