you fell in love with someone alive
now all your words are soft and sweet
and full of dreary domesticity,
so daringly delicate, like you forgot
how to write death as a love letter

my empty heart can’t empathise

your love i love, but myself i despise
for feeling robbed of your sadness,
the way its stanzas stole my breath.
what a thing to miss your loneliness
for the fear of being lonely in mine

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

i write about you
but you do not exist
or maybe you do;
maybe you do and i'm just talking to myself

maybe you're just another part of me that i hate so much
i have to talk to you,
i have to
punish you
because i know i shouldn't like the way it feels-
and i don't; but i keep coming back for more anyway

i amend: i know i shouldn't be addicted to this hatred
you tear me open and pull at my frayed edges
so that i split apart and lose my functionality - and i let you
then i let you thread me back together once more

you build my body with thicker wool each time, hoping that
one day
i'll be warmer, and harder to unravel
and you sew my edges with fragile promises of a better future
as breakable as the metal pin that bends between your crafty fingers

the materials started off so colourful at first, like rainbows
maybe that's why i'm so queer
though over time you started toning down my personality.
as my depression embroidered me, my sexuality dulled
purple and black and white and grey

you manipulate my patterns.
some nights i sleep through, others i don't sleep at all
and some nights my strings are stretched so taut across the nightmares
that one small pull will undo me

i am ripped apart then made into patchwork;
there are white seams over my arms
you call me a work in progress, damaged goods
to be fixed, to be mended:
you can't afford replacements

that doesn't stop you from looking
wishing you could upgrade me into something more,
something better
and every time i fall apart again
i'm left itching with apologies

but never to you; i never say sorry for hurting you
my only regrets are to those who become collateral damage.
i do not apologise to you
because you are me, and i am you
you are a part of me
and i hate you as much as i hate myself.

clear water glass windows
bordered pure white
framing a distant horizon
softest shades of honey, fire, daffodil
and a sprinkling of translucent sky

one tree roots itself atop that small mound of
rolling green hill, its grass dying out
but it's still beautiful
i think they told me a person's image of paradise
is a place they feel most at peace

your ghostly voice whispers close and near
but i can't feel your breath against my ear

white noise, bad reception, it's all gone
outside, the sky is ash
but there's no fire or warmth to be found
as rain hails down and fights to break its way in through my window
i can see people running

they're all under hoods and umbrellas
scuttling around like the faster they move, the drier they'll be
but they're already soaked through
and i think of you, so different
how you'd throw your head back and laugh
open your mouth
catch the drops on your tongue, eyes squeezed shut
clenched in delight

you'd have stripped all your garments if you could
so full of life, so full of energy

the static bleeds into my awareness again
white noise, bad reception, it's all gone
you're a ghost of early winter past
and here it's mid-October

your anniversary is upcoming
i wish i could say it was you instead

i wish i could say that you aren't dead

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

day and night melt into each other, and with them my muse
time becomes senseless, sense timeless, an endless scene,
sadness burns away, a wisp of smoke curling like the old telephone wire of my childhood home
but there's no connection: it disappears. and yet, it is still here
though intangible to me now, and thus i've lost my grip on things i thought i knew
nobody told me what i'd be losing once sadness loosened her hold,

my weakened clasp on creativity is a noose around my throat
i believed them when they said that art was born of pain,
i just didn't know how much of my own designs were intricately weaved
with misery, sprinkled with distress and agony
and it's not as though they left me, but they rolled to the far side of the bed
there's a gap i can't bridge, where something should be but instead nothing is

the realisation of your own dependency on despondency
is almost as gutting as the feeling in the first place.
depression's numb spells are a relief, until you start to notice what's missing.

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.

my mother calls it being rude,
tends to yell at me for it
as if deluding herself into believing
that i won't yell back. i'm not a *****;
i won't take it
lying down.
i might be her son, but
being the teenager doesn't make me wrong,
and her being the adult doesn't make her right.
she doesn't get that,
doesn't see my side.

my friends call it sassy,
and encourage it,
and laugh, and it's nice
to just snark with them, back and forth
like a steady stream of sarcasm,
cutting quips from sharp tongues,
scathing remarks. it's all
playful, in the end,
like children who squabble over toys
then hug after mere minutes of cool down.

my mother used to call me "mouthpiece"
as a kid. it's funny how
she takes me so seriously when i'm only joking,
then laughs and degrades me
whenever i take something personally,
as if the verbal abuse slipping from her lips
is nothing more than teasing.
she's a hypocrite.
she calls me rude, an "ungrateful little ****",
wishes hell upon me, slaps me round the head
and gets in my face like a threat,
teeth bared like blades

but mother, i'm not scared of bleeding―
got that beaten out of me
so very long ago.
if you could just stop now, shut up,
quit being a mouthpiece, as you call it,
then this will all blow over,
and we can go back to pretending
that each of us doesn't exist to the other
for a couple nights.
we're sort of volatile, you and i
sometimes your words hurt more
than daddy's gripping hands or neglect ever could.

sometimes you make alcoholism tempting,
and wouldn't that be a fine symphony,
"like father, like son"
ringing hollowly in the empty space
between my ribs and my lungs
forgetting how to breathe
without breathing too much.
somebody once called my panic attacks
"attention seeking", but they were so wrong.
i've never wanted to be more invisible
than when i've found myself vulnerable
over a ******* memory, a ******* ghost of all the--

do you know how strange it is
to feel your heart hammering against your bones
with the too-fast flow of blood making your head spin,
when you've been so certain
that you've never had a heart at all?

this heart never got broken, depressingly enough.
it's kind of tragic to want something to hurt bad enough
to make you feel normal, human
but i've kind of been conditioned for disappointment
and solitude, and anger.
i've been so fine-tuned to drum beats
and cold voices,
it's no wonder i'm so closed off and detached.
but hey, at least it saved me some trauma,
no betrayals here, no questions,
no "i thought you loved me". hell,
i'm not even bitter that i never got a chance at a proper family

does that make me lucky?

ah, such a mouthpiece,
always spitting venom, dark humour at my own expense,
warding off any meaningful company
laughing about those times i tried to **** myself
like they're nothing

did you expect any less? how could you expect more?
your worthless son
is as cold and dead on the inside as his daddy.

that bitter symphony,
"like father, like son".

lately all my illnesses have me feeling backed into corners,
i feel so trapped, weighed down by debt and regret
i have no escape; this is the way my life is doomed to play out
and oh how i wish this were all just some silly game gone too far because at least then it'd find its eventual end
but no mother is about to tell the children when enough is enough
to apologise
say "sorry"
for locking me in the closet,
for making me want to stay in bed and waste the days away,
for making me hate myself so much that i'm convinced my disorders are more sane than i am.

these children know no boundaries
and worst of all is that they're my own; i am incapable of disciplining them, of taking control—
there's a reason i never wanted kids in the first place,
their ***** little fingers plucking at my brain and soiling my house.

Depression is the oldest—i had him before i even realised he was mine
Anxiety was next, and suddenly i knew why people used the phrase "terrible two"
i found myself juggling twins without really knowing where they came from: Suicidalthoughts and Eatingdisorder
once, i nearly gave them all up
as well as hope, and dreams, and life in general—
being a single father is hard.

i managed to put one or two of them in time-out for a while but there's only so long you can leave a child alone before it becomes
abusive
i tried my best at sharing the responsibility once
let myself fall in love only to find that it's not just children that can be abused—adults can, too
when i left her, my children's behaviour became so severe i almost felt like they were the ones that were heartbroken
that girl made everything so much worse

sometimes i wonder if i'd have opted for abortion, had i known i was going to parent such savage diseases.

she sits propped up against the wall,
sleek curves and long necked
elegant and beautiful,
and she's my first love,
and I'll love her 'til I die
of this I'm certain,
because she's the sparkle in my eye
I cradle her in my arms,
let my fingers coax her sounds
music to my ears, love songs
and nostalgia of the years
she's my first love,
and I'll love her 'til I die
of this I'm certain
because she's the sparkle in my eye
I cradle her in my arms,
and I've never loved another more
I'll always hold her close to me,
my angel, my guitar

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.

bathing in the light of the sun,
surrounded by the beauty of the world
by night i'm gazing at the stars
awash in the glow of the moon
and i love my little galaxy
this universe, created from fantasies,
existing solely for me
what god exists that made you all my reality
my sun, my world, my moon and stars
and the planets between, unique and
alive, so alive despite no signs
of yet loving life
if i were a god i'd make it so
that you all fell in love
with life and love and happiness
and they fell for you, too

i want to love you
the way
i believe
that you should be loved.

but i can't.

beliefs and abilities:
often polar opposites,
rarely do they come hand in hand;
even the most devout Catholic
will sometimes miss
Sunday mass

but i do remember that Sunday,
so long ago now,
that you made me question
the possibility of soulmates

and i remember thinking
about how you bring me
closer
to religion than i've ever been,
your name
falling
(i'm not falling. i'm not
falling. please don't make me.
i hate that)
from my lips, like a heartfelt
prayer amidst our sin.

but that's the point, i suppose:
i don't believe in God.
i believe He is a possibility, but
i can't commit to Him.
won't.
can't commit to anybody—not even
myself.

so maybe i love you;
maybe that's true.

it doesn't change the fact
that i'll never be steady enough
for you.

it doesn't change the fact
that religion can't save me,
that the closest to the Bible i'll ever be
is a representation of
the Devil.

it doesn't change the fact
that i'll never be good enough
for you.

i want to love you
the way
i believe
you should be loved.

i just can't.

time to say goodbye, they say
ten years and counting—
eleven after May

you never get over the loved ones you lose
the pain just fades a little,
like the bump leaving the bruise

you're a scar on my broken heart,
permanent and painful
but i love you like art

time to say goodbye, they said
nearly eleven years
nana, why'd you have to be dead?

they told me to move on so gouge out my eyes,
I'm tired of being subjected
to seeing a world where you're not alive

i'm at that point
where death is an embrace
and i crave that cold love,
but the birds are singing
their beautiful song
and it's nearly five am.

i wanna go outside
and be with them,
listen more closely
in the chill of early morning
as i pretend
it never crossed my mind:
one hundred ways to die.

they pause
and i frown against tears

please sing for me again
because i,
i don't know how to live
and your song keeps me
dreaming, of freedom
and escape
from Death's cold embrace

don't let me
stop to think
of how warm cold love might be;
do not let me
wonder about the way
Death loves me

i'm at that point
where death is an embrace
and i crave that cold love,
but the birds stopped singing
their beautiful song
and it's nearly five am.

my loved ones' dependency
is the only thing left
for me to cling on

my life: a responsibility.
good thing i'm responsible.

04:59
i'm waiting for number five

...

05:00

i am not yours to pursue,
nobody's to claim, to obsess over
you do not have the right to ignore my declination
nor to see my rejection as a challenge;
i am not a game or a puzzle
if you think my "no" is a jigsaw piece fitted in the wrong place
there for you to move and arrange
again and again
until you finally hear "yes"
then you are too much a child for my liking
too much about the conquest and not enough about the person.
my "no" will not be manipulated into a "yes",
you cannot play me into your hands

i am not a gamer, i am an artist
i will sketch thicker lines, make my "no" bolder
NO
i will add more tone, make it sterner
add more shade, allow my anger to cast shadows over your reputation
and it will not be hard to outline your true colours:
you've already revealed so many.
i don't need to paint you as a villain; you have done that much yourself
you too are an artist, in your own right...
you've smudged your lines so much, you've crossed boundaries.
your so-called love is not delicate pink―it is blood red and sticky.
your so-called affections leech the grey from my palette
and leave me seeing you in black and white.
oh, there's not much white, not much innocence
you are an all-consuming black; your desire to swallow me whole is abyssal

i will not be the reference of your portraits,
you cannot draw me in
your kind of passion disgusts me; you are not a true artist.
there'll be no soft brushes between us,
only sharp edges of craft knives
as i carve into your determination and soften that hardened clay
into something i can mould and shape,
something i can twist away from me.
six years is a long time for something to be set in stone
but i have a sledgehammer will and i refuse to feel backed into the corners
of your lustful foundations.
i do not wish to be a masterpiece in your eyes any longer.
i never asked you to admire me.
i will not be hung on your wall.

i was happier a few months ago.
sadder, too, more depressed; but happier
with myself,
with my face,

with my body
(even if i didn't realise it;
"you never know what you have
until it's gone"
is true.
scrawny, underweight body,
sharp cut cheekbones,
jaw practically pushing out of my skin—i miss you guys)

my mornings were dedicated
to porridge
and being on time for college,
and coffee so dark, my friends asked:
"what's the point of using milk?"

the point, my friends, is that
even though i am dark
and bitter,
with a temper so hot
i have to spit it out
(in insults, in graphic descriptions of premeditated ******)
lest it scald my tongue—

there is still some good within me.
not much,
but there it is:
just enough to taste it
if you close off other senses and
focus. really focus.

i think it is about time
i sought out my self-destructive
methods of
happiness
once again.

i am tired
of feeling like my own enemy
when
i am already certain

that the world is out to get me.

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

she asked me what the ocean felt like,
and i talked about elegant waves,
crystal clear water and
holding star fish
in the palms of my hands

if she asked me again, i think
i would've talked about
the disappointment
that comes from being surrounded by water
but never drowning

the suicidal swimmer longs
for his lungs to soak up the ocean

apollo kissed his wings
and forgot to mention
how everything he touches turns to dust

how prettily he cries when he falls,
how beautiful he looks
being ****** up by the sea
maybe this was always his destiny,
to fall twice over and drown

i wish i would've caught you
such a useless sentiment
if wishes were horses, beggars would ride

apollo b u r n s, burns so brightly
burns like the hot sun
but his eyes are blue, cold like dying stars;
he fries his retinas, anyway

never cared too much for his own safety
when he could gaze upon
love upon
worship upon the sun

sunburned and scarred,
would you envelope him in warmth
those last few seconds
before he succumbed to the freezing ocean?

one last night with the fallen,
apollo's fingers graze the gentle curve of his spine
dip into the nooks of his hipbones
and he sings even as he singes

one last night with a beautiful, falling boy
destined to plummet
yet always aiming high

never once did he let fate provide limitations
regret? not a thing
that boy knew how to *f l y

with the weight of the world on my shoulders,
hands scrabbling at my back,
i wonder when i stopped being icarus
and took on the role of atlas
and if it was foolish of me to wear wings of wax
and expect them not to melt

i miss that flying freedom.
feeling on top of the world, soaring through a blue sky
with you, my apollo, a guiding light;
an enveloping warmth,
it felt like nothing could touch me
even on the coldest nights

i knew enough of science and mythology
to know i'd fall hard,
that candles drip and melt
and when they melt, your skin burns;
i knew that looking into the sun
would surely make me blind

it didn't feel like such a hazard at the time
i've never had 20:20 eyesight.
the blindest man is the one that refuses to see
and why see when i could feel?
throw caution to the wind, take flight...
i flew and i fell and i loved so i drowned

I dreamt—oh,
how I dreamt

that you were carrying
my child.

I do not remember who you were,
nor do I remember who I was
in this particular dream.
Perhaps a favourite character of mine
from a TV show I love.

But my body was not my body,
nor was your body yours.

In spirit, I knew you
and I knew myself,
and that's all that really mattered.

I still don't remember who you were, though,
my dream lover...

my subconscious desire?

We fell under peril and
ran
from some villain. Things
went wrong,
as things in my life are wont to do.

This villain, threatening
our child, our happiness,
was—of course—still less of a
monster
than me.

I do not recall how it ended.
But
I kissed you.
Soft, and sweet, and loving;
your lips were so warm
and your body, your hands—
they felt like
home.

That kiss...
it was perhaps
the gentlest thing I've ever done,

and so that is how I came to wake up:
because I knew it wasn't real.

I am not gentle. I do not love.

I know that there is a table
in a Catholic high school in my local town
with an etch of the letter "G"
next to boredom-inspired vandal,
jagged lines, circles,
perhaps a few ******* shapes
as silly high school boys
are prone to draw.

An Advanced Maths textbook sits on a shelf
with a little doodle
of a peace sign next to an emo smiley
from a time where I was caught
between two phases,
tight black jeans and a flowing turquoise shirt.

Tobacco stains smeared
over the wood of a sealed off door
just outside my bedroom,
evidence of the first time
I tried a cigarette, seven years old,
and then panicked and tried to
flush it down the toilet,
only to have to fish it out and stuff it
in a little crevice, to be hidden and
remain there for seven years.

We leave all these little marks
and stains
in places we've been.
Spilled food, spilled ink, spilled drink,
tobacco stains and pools of blood.
"The marks humans leave are
too often scars."

I have scars.
Left forearm. Right calf. Right wrist bone. Both kneecaps.

A scar across my ribs and chest I was
so desperate to be rid of,
I bathed myself in oils and it was
the first scab I
never picked at; but a couple of weeks ago
I dreamt it was there again, fresh.
It tore open in front of everyone, bled out,
and I woke up gasping, drowning in my fear,
agonised, clutching at a wound that'd long since faded
convinced I could feel it splitting me apart again.

I have evidence all over my body
and more buried deep within the recesses of my mind,
scars so jagged they put knives to shame,
shining, pale, like diamonds in moonlight
not half as precious
but still invaluable.
Evidence of the marks humans leave behind.

I'm not innocent.
I don't pretend like I am.
I know there is a man out there
who gained another scar to add to his collection
when he was fourteen years old.
I know my hands carved it into his skin.
I know I used to use my fists
when others used their words to hurt me.

When I die, I know that I will leave
pieces of myself
everywhere
I've ever been. Whether people know it
or not, whether they
remember me
or not. There are ink stains
and coffee spills. My blood
is still on the floor of his house.
The high school cafeteria
has a circle of red
from a nosebleed I didn't realise I was having.
There are parks wearing my graffiti
and children donning my old clothes, and people overseas
still alive because of me

(or that's what they'll tell me, but
all I did was talk.
Give yourself the credit you guys deserve,
you're the ones who chose to listen.
You're the ones who had the strength to
pick your head up and carry on)

There are exes who still think of me
and friends who will one day
come across some article of clothing
or a piece of technology
I left behind after a sleepover.
Teachers who will remember
that smart, sarcastic student
who had panic attacks in their classrooms
and drank coffee in the mentoring hub with Mrs. Hume
whilst buttering bagels and functioning on no sleep.

Maybe our place in the universe is
insignificant. Or maybe it's the
most significant thing
of all.
Maybe the Buddhists are right.
Maybe we are the universe, together
as one. I sure think it makes sense.

Streams of consciousness
and spirits that need healing.
We work the sun
without even realising we're doing it.
We destroy it, too,
which is perhaps why we
are so self destructive in turn.

Maybe we're
smaller than specs of dust
but that's okay.
You don't have anything
without the particles required
to make things up.
Everything is a collection of atoms:
the tiniest things of all
yet they're the centre of everything,
the beginning of everything.

So when the end comes and
we burst back into the sky,
stardust and souls and
blinking little lights,
we'll have left our marks on the earth
regardless of who remembers
and we'll still be there, twinkling,
a collection of atoms that came from a supernova
essential to the makeup of galaxies
and life itself.
What could be more beautiful than that?

cool. lightly scented. i sit alone in the reception of a spa. tranquil tones soothe the atmosphere. i lean against the wall, and wait. a fear of physical contact roots me to the spot; they will not touch me. impatiently. silently. i wait.

grey, cloud-tinted sunlight blankets the day. it was blistering heat earlier. i think of the way sweat pooled in the hollow of my chest as your tongue dipped over my collarbone. my back in damp grass. hoodies abandoned. who cares about a little mud when the things we do to each other go beyond *****? somebody might see was a quiet worry drowned out by rough breaths and guilty little whimpers.

now, i am thousands of miles away from you. six hours of time difference. phone vibrations. my unshakable conviction that you might leave me be if i ignore you, even as i miss your touch. sitting alone in a spa reception, too uncomfortable with the idea of hands on my skin. but i miss the pads of your fingertips digging into my sides. palms clamping my wrists either side of my head. pinned in place by ocean eyes that drown me.

we will leave for the secret garden soon. coffee will be placed between my palms. maybe hot. i'm feeling a chill in my bones that wants to be chased away. my mind's eyes conjures an image. memory. you sit across from me on four hours of sleep. your body vibrates on caffiene overload. you are like me sometimes. but my poison is bitter, coffee beans; your poison is an attack of fizzing sugar on your cardiovascular system.

maybe. maybe that's the answer. why you're sweet. why you escape confined spaces (read: relationships. you are like me sometimes.) like bubbles leaping from a can. maybe it's why i'm dark. with an aftertaste almost everybody is determined to chase away.

something tangy hangs on the air despite the spa's best attempts to provide aroma therapy. my mind pines for your natural scent. light washing powder. a little musky, like faint sweat. not the sweetest, but real and warm. i can find it. i reach for it, fingers finding warm skin. we press chest to chest and this hardly feels real. motorbikes and scooters rumble by. your voice is a ghost in my ear. too quiet to be present.

eyes open. receptionists wander. you are far away. my eyes glaze over anyway. sleepless nights and busy days. i slump into scenery: green grass, wrangled trees, a brick wall decorated with poison berries and stinging nettles, a blue sky with white clouds. your body above me.

00:31 and it's been about an hour since i saw you'd removed the word "happiness" from your caption
and ever since then it's been all i can do to
overthink; it's all i can ever do
wondering if, maybe, just maybe, you'd finally seen what i see
how i am not good enough for you

i lose myself inside these thoughts at night when loneliness is my only company
and darkness is my only right hand man, doing me no wrong
i think about the times i've held your hand and then suddenly
he hugs me tighter than anybody ever has, darkness, that old friend of
mine - something which you are yet to be... hopefully
i'd be yours, too, if you'd have me

but i'm overthinking again, just always overthinking
you said you needed time before we could begin now i'm starting to think we never will
i get the need for space, i really do
i'm just so insecure i feel like i'll be replaced by you

baby

you give me panic attacks

and i think about you, your smile, your laugh
how you removed "happiness" from your caption on that photo of us
and now i'm wondering if i was the one that did it somehow, thinking maybe i ****** up already
how is it that we're not even together and i can already feel myself rattling
my nerves responding to a break-up that hasn't even happened
i guess that's just part of how broken i really am

i closed my eyes and let my head hit the pillow three hours ago
how is it that i'm more wide awake now than i was then?
all i want to do is sleep yet here i am
my mind a merciless prison - i tell you: thinking murders me
i'm begging you to figure yourself out before my paranoid anxiety does it for you
please

i'm such an impatient man
patience is a virtue, they say, and i guess i have neither
patience nor virtue
just another of the many ways that
i'm not good enough
for you.

it's 23:53 and if i were to swear that this would be the last poem i write about you

i'd be lying

pain is a far more sustainable fuel than happiness;
it keeps the poet's engine whirring

and darling

all you've ever done is hurt me

00:01
i spent six minutes contemplating how much damage you caused,
the way you ran me off the road, swerving down dark paths i'd never known existed before

i didn't receive compensation for the emotional whiplash you left me with

the words "i love you" make my nerves twinge

paper boy.
write the words you want to read on my surface
turn me into the novel you want to lose yourself in
write your prayers in cursive and have me wearing my praise for you,
wearing my faith in you,
my heart on my envelope sleeve.
my absolute trust
that you will not rip me into pieces and scatter me on a parting wind;
if you burn me, please remember to ******* out.

paper boy, paper boy.
i'm not strong enough to last for very long
you can see all of my creases, my ripped edges, my stains;
but i can keep your secrets folded into myself
and i promise you, your words will remain
just try to keep my dry
my inky blackness tends to spill when my eyes are leaking

paper boy.
if you want to upgrade to something with a metal spine
more hard drive, durability
i'll understand
you only have to write your breakup songs upon my chest
and i'll take those lyrics to the grave with me
when you lay my tattered shreds to rest

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.

hands raised to the sky as he runs,
young and wild, curious, carefree;
sunlight bleeds through his fingers
not enough,
he wants to touch the sun.
you mustn't get too close, Daedalus warns him
and then Apollo smiles;

it feels like soaring,
being on the receiving end of
something so bright.
full of youth, seduction is easy
i think your mouth would taste like summer
he surrenders
slave to a burning star
forgive me, father

when he flies,
the taste of freedom
is sweet and heavy on his tongue
but you're not really free
sunbeams envelope him
his skin is golden; Apollo's touch is fire
he's never felt so warm
loved

i could destroy you
he's always been reckless
you won't
throws himself into the flames with abandon
it burns; it's violent; it consumes him
this isn't love
defiant, he smiles even as he screams
it's love to me

Apollo watches as he plummets
falling, falling, collapsing, wings singed and broken
gods shouldn't feel this helpless
it was love to me too
the slap of skin,
the crunch of bones breaking in the waves.
nothing could convince him to keep looking
as Daedalus screams
and holds his fallen son

gods bleed ichor,
gold like Apollo's light;
Apollo has eyes like a clear blue sea,
that's what Icarus once told him;
now Icarus paints the ocean,
bleeds scarlet into Poseidon's waters
and the sun god watches.
how fitting that you'd taint the ocean like you tainted me
Apollo's eyes are red from crying

was it worth it?
in the afterlife, he wears scars
where he used to wear wings
i'd fall a thousand times over just to kiss your lips
immortal now, his soul is sun-stroked
they'll write odes to you,
the boy who flew too close to the sun
even in death, his spirit is bright with innocent joy
he laughs
it sounds like Cupid's lyre

let them, he beams. at least i flew.

prove yourself to me
and i swear i'll treat you better

i've proved myself to you
now it's time for you to return the favour

prove yourself to me
and i swear i'll learn to love

i've proved myself to you
i need you to show me that love is enough

prove yourself to me
remember everything i said

i've proved myself to you
and i remember everything you did

prove yourself to him
she comes first in my life

i've proved myself to you
i won't put anybody else above him

prove yourself to her
i've given love a second chance but he's my soulmate

i've proved myself to you
sometimes i believe i do deserve more

prove yourself to him
show her you're worthy of trust

i need to prove myself to her
because i feel like i failed him in being myself

i need to prove myself to him
i know she's tired and he's only looking out for me

i need to prove myself to her
i don't blame him if she's angry at me

prove yourself to him
i don't blame her for being angry at you

prove yourself to me
i'm angry at you, too

what you see:
me, quiet and deadly still in a way that
i never am
staring into empty space or
at a blank wall. maybe i'm
counting cracks or cataloging creases.
you see me zone out—
such an airhead, that George is
i wonder what he's imagining

what i see:
ivory skin and hair as orange as
sunset, and she is as beautiful...
on the outside;
but on the inside, she is a
black hole.
she ****** me in
and i thought she was the light
at the end of the tunnel.
i must have been a traveller
stranded and thirsty in the desert
crawling towards mirages.
now i am helpless.

i am watching her line her legs with ink
as she tells me to make sure that she
doesn't line her legs
with blood.
meanwhile, i scratch deep
at an itch that isn't there
and call it catharsis.
i am seeing white tiles and
a translucent shower curtain and
a sink and soaps and everything is
normal—except the girl
sitting in a bathtub
naked without water
and bare skin has never made me feel more
ill.

what you hear:
ambient sounds.
my breathing, perhaps.

what i hear:
she hums like a Disney villain
brewing potions
and calling it tea. she looks
like a princess
but her words are witch's curses
and i'm hexed
under her spell,
hanging by a thread
to every word she's ever said
and somehow not noticing
the noose she looped around my neck.
darling, choke me
'til I can only breathe as well as your drowning lungs
as you gasp into your oxygen mask

what you see:
i'm having a panic attack.

what you hear:
i'm hyperventilating.

real love is boring
in the best way.

real love is excitement
to do all the boring,
adulthood stuff with you.

real love is frustration
that will not outweigh our happiness.

real love is coffee
coffee mate, 1 sugar, ready
as soon as the sun meets our eyes.

real love is family
with four fuzz butts at our sides.

real love is happiness
in all the small, day to day things
we do together day by day.

real love is lust
just from stroking your side.

real love is morning breath kisses;
i scrunch my nose
then come back for more.

real love is choosing you
every single time, no matter who asks.

real love is fighting
and just wanting to stop,
cuddle regardless of who was right.

real love is working together,
balancing duty and quality time.

real love is security
and feeling safe with you
no matter where we are.

real love is us.
in any time or universe, i want us to be us.

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

i asked you;
you lied.

i wondered,
"don't you trust me?"

i looked at you:
transparent, always a bad liar,

to the point where
it becomes enraging;

your lies mounting―
blatant, obvious

i looked at your sullen face,
felt myself grow bitter

i wondered,
"didn't our love once taste sweeter?"

i asked again;
you lied again.

i wondered,
"when did you regress?"

i wondered,
"when did we regress?"

it felt like
twelve steps forward, thirteen back.

maybe we're just meant to be
unlucky.

after some time
and some distance
it's safe to say that
i love you
like a best friend,
and i can't describe
the relief that brings me.

my heartbeat
doesn't feel so painful,
not anymore,
and i breathe
so much easier
now that i know
i'll never have to write
another heartbroken word about you
ever again.

god, i love you still,
i really, really do;
but it's so much easier now,
not struggling to swim
through raging waves
under the weight of
expectations and assumptions,
hesitation and guilt

it's so much easier
to be in love with you
with almost none of the romance
that went with it before,
and i really hope that
you're okay with that,
because you promised me:

"you're enough", you said.
and it took every ounce of courage
dredged up
from the marrow of these aching bones
to trust you,
to believe you,
to dare to allow that someone―
that you―
could love me
unconditionally.

i had a kind face, and the kind of smile
only a brother could love
and read beyond the teeth,
biting back bitter amusements
of a broken, brooding boy

you were mine; not in blood but in love,
and we were too small and too young
with too much and not enough
of everything.

brother.
“brother”
bromance.
the lie of the year,
and we had many.

i had chronic denial and you had chronic rejection.
if we said we saw ourselves as siblings,
it would all go away.
my brother from another mother
not a brother at all, but a lie
the hidden gay.

i had a kind face, but you were kind
and i wanted to be that
for you, a light against the shadowy history
the trajectory from ruin to wholeheartedness

you were already wholehearted,
and wholeheartedly in.
brother, i ruined you by calling you brother
with my fear of our friendship: the trajectory from friends to more

now everything between us is gone
and it still feels rather sore
even though i don’t love you anymore

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

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,

battle call, don't you hear them scream?
i pledge allegiance to the left wing
devout my life so much so that i started training my left hand years ago

and i think there's something to be said
for the right wing bible belt battering freedom out of men
and that is
the religion you preach with your right hand of the father
is neither love nor hope nor reverence

right wing, right hands, alt-right
preach omnipotence in the name of benevolence
and show no compassion to anyone

so you'll excuse me if i tune out your preaching
in favour of that sacrilegious singing
how dare those lyrics write free love into the veins of children
am i right, or am i right?

no, i'm left

i’ve been letting the duloxetine
melt on my tongue
in the hopes of speeding up the process
of tricking my brain into quiet

like maybe the bitter taste
will let the thoughts evaporate

sad eyes with the sad smiles
sad songs and tired lies
sad boy with the broken heart
you and sorrow never to part

you said you liked the way i made you feel,
said you've never felt happier than when you're with me

i said i liked the idea of you being home,
i said you could be the one that might make me fall

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.

bless nighttime's slinking shadows
i look to you when i feel alone
you scare me and you keep me up
but at least you make me feel at home

you plagued me when i was thirteen
a schizophrenic possibility
puncture wounds and pale incisions
once a week at therapy

don't leave me now, can't you see
the way i wear you like eyeshadow
i've donned the bruises you leave on me
with pride and trembling fingers

five am in july brings yellow cloud
pale blue morning skies
i lie here on my dented ribs
with nightime's shadows under my eyes

I am aware
of all things present,
the pinch behind my eyes
the pressure in my nose
my deep, soft,
too loud–heavy–quiet breathing
(How?)
Give me back my bones
Give me back my sleep,
my dreams.
Too close, too much, not enough:
I am endlessly ending

Cry

Please let me sleep–end–cry–
somethinganythingplease

the silence is never silent;
there's always that ringing
in your ears
that forces you to just
pause
and listen
to nothing.

but i think i needed this
not-silence, anyway.
i've been listening to music so constantly,
i think i might have
melted my mind
into further chaos,
i cannot

think
about anything other than
how nice the static solitude is,
to lie down
on this well-worn mattress
and just
stop

hush, child
it's alright now.
i wish somebody would've told me that
when i were a little boy.
hush, child, shh
you'll be okay.
maybe it wouldn't have
turned into a lie
if it had just been said
in the first place

it's funny how
the silence and
the loneliness
used to **** me slowly, painfully
but now it's all i'm used to
and i need doses of it
every
single
day

i just wanna sleep
but all my dreams are dead.
maybe i could find a way
to wake them up instead,
‘cause all i am is tired bones
longing for my bed;
every minute standing is
a blur of pain in my head

shut my lids, count to five
nightmares flicker behind my eyes
darkness creeps, i’m alive
and time keeps slipping by

my ex wants me back.
i don't want her.
there she is, once again,
waiting, whispering
working her way into my cracks
winding me up and worsening my wounds,
whittling me into weaker wood

she makes me feel like i can't live without her
and the irony isn't lost on me.
she cradles me at stupid, sleepless hours
and serenades me with sweet, sweet symphonies
of everlasting silence,
songs of sempiternal slumber

i know my insomnia gets the better of me but
i don't want to sleep that badly
or maybe i do sometimes
but i think my mother would want me to wake up
maybe my friends, too
and no, she would never let me
she'd want to keep me, you see

my ex likes me in her bed,
it's her favourite place to have me
some call that vanilla but they don't know the things she does to me
when her lips brush my wrists
and that one time they teased my neck
******* it, she drives me crazy
has me ******* the sheets and sobbing into the pillows
my screams so loud, i choke
and lose my voice

sometimes my veins start pulsing with need
and she makes it so tempting,
slender fingers slipping over my skin,
sliding over my spine
"do it", she says
i want to submit to her, show her how much of a hold she has on me- no
i don't, i don't, i can't, i won't

my ex wants me back
but i don't want her.
i let her have her way with me
under the covers,
my sweet, sadistic lover
and then i turn my back on her
and sleep until the sun comes up to remind me
lightness still remains even if the darkness lasts longer.

i feel it, it's returned
the desire i swore i'd never have again
falling into bed with her once more,
and though she hasn't kissed my wrists
i can feel the phantom throbbing;
she pulses her way through my veins, keeps me weak
has me sobbing

my sweet, sadistic lover
"did you really think it was over?"
i hoped, i dreamed
but it fell apart in my hands and now i'm down to my knees
she curls around my back, murmurs melancholy melodies 'til my head hurts and my ears ring
"i told you you'd never live without me"
perfect, twisted irony

her fingertips are scorching; i can feel the scars forming
but i'm so cold it's paralysing
the ice is deafening—i can't hear reason
her touch is the allure that leaves me reeling
i wish i had the courage to end this, but i'm a coward, scared and weak and collapsing
like lungs, and i can't breathe for screaming

i said she'd never win but losing feels so tempting

i never wanted to kiss her lips,
just hold her hand
maybe kiss her cheeks because she suited a gentler kind of treatment
something softer and more delicate, quiet;
quieter than the constant raging storms inside my stomach,
inside my mind
(never my heart)

those plump lips
she bit them raw when nervous, and they swelled
blossomed ruby as she looked at me
like she knew this wouldn't last
her eyes remained doughy and mellow
when i met her gaze.

my smile stung as it stretched the lines left by winter's bite
and split them open once more.
she brushed the blood beads away with her fingertips
with a touch so reverent that, for a moment, i thought
maybe she felt as though she were touching rosary beads instead,
and i held my breath to stop myself from chasing her
touch, and pressing her down into the mattress

unholy, chasing pleasure.
both agnostic, but she was much more pure than i;
chivalries always in mind, i wanted to preserve that.
there's always been something inside me
that presses down the animalistic urges with
a conscience caught on consideration and something akin to courtly love-
i wanted to woo her before i pursued her

but i never got further than pressing my lips to her forehead,
wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
i laced my fingers with hers but avoided tying any knots.
i am not a man to be bound,
too free-spirit, too restless, too claustrophobic;
a few months in and i was choking on the ghost of a future;
she kissed me first and i suffocated on the phantom of her hopes for us:
a future that didn't yet exist,
and i didn't want it to.
i never kissed her; i never let her kiss me again.

we tangled fingers over the duvet
the television a background noise to our unsteady breaths,
shallower
than my love for her
i enjoyed her quiet affection like one might enjoy curling into a blanket when cold and ill.
i wanted her smiles, i wanted to fill her memories with goodness
so that she never need feel hopeless, like all men are the same
so that she had something to smile about when she looked back on us;
once the bitterness of our breakup had left her mouth-
whenever that eventual end would be-
she could savour the taste of our sweet, slow-burn, love affair
and be reminded that not all love is true love, but nor is all love heart breaking

i broke her heart anyway.

nobody ever taught me how cruel kindness could be.