Concept: There is a soft smile that warms me even when my bones have turned to ice. It is eternally summer in his embrace.

Love.
That tempting *****
At once giving and snatching away
All that is known
And all that could be had
She laughs at my pleas
I want it all and she knows this
Mocking and unyielding
She gives me a fleeting taste
Of the joy I have craved for so long
Before again receeding her gift
Like the drawback of a tsunami tide
I am then sinking and breaking
Under the weight of her
And all that she encompasses
And all that she ever could
Our mistress, maiden, mother, crone,
Cruel as the devil
And twice as pretty

Angry knots in the joints of my hands
My fists clenching and unclenching
I am not comfortable in this skin
Everything is so loud, so harsh to me,
The creak of the table, the chewing of gum
The tap tap tap of drumming fingers
I can feel lightning in my veins
Crackling and snapping, it is violent
I want to block everything out
I want it to blur at the edges of myself
And disappear somewhere quiet
Somewhere my skin isn't a cage
And my mind isn't an enemy
I need the lull of the sea on a hot day
And the embrace of the waves
As I sink.

Most nights I don't know who I am
I lay awake and in the darkest hours
I either feel everything at once
Or nothing at all
I do not know which is worse

A faceless figure holds my hand
Talking of love in an implacable voice
The grip tightens and tightens
Until I am screaming, pulling at them
They are laughing and I am hurting

I am grinning and spinning
Dizzying myself in circles of joy
Faster - until everything blurs together
People, places, memories, blending
Eventually I stop spinning. I am blind.

I am standing on a tall, tall building
Looking down at the ants of my town
The breeze edges me closer to the drop
I jump, expecting to fly, expecting freedom
I plummet, and before death, I find regret.

Concept: the moon and her light seeps through that starry blanket, and I am enveloped in the feeling that, maybe, I belong.

I arrived at the edges of myself
And here, at the end of all things
Admist the darkness and the drowning
Where the souls of my loved ones
Wept for the light they could not see
I leapt into the deep abyss
And surrendered myself to the shadow
That consumes all things
Like a rock into water, I sank
And the cold eclipsing emptiness
Unmade me, and rebirthed me
The weaves of time and space
Spinning me into a creature
That resented the chasm of dark
Yet could not escape it.

Lilted notes upon rising tides
Drums of crashing waters shore
Water rippling and ocean sighs
A crescendo of a tempests roar

The screech of gulls taking flight
Melodious wind in water caves
Marvel here at the ocean's might
With the orchestra of the waves

See here the figures, singing loud
Harmony salty, sweet, and strong
Ocean creatures awed and cowed
At the hurricane of the siren's song

Most days, i don't know who the victim is
me, for swallowing lies like salt water?
gulping and gasping and choking
but still adamant in my belief of him, of us
was i wrong to overlook his angry love?
probably.
but him, with his blue eyes filled with pain,
could i ever truly blame him
knowing that the promises i made him
were sticky and sweet and un-keepable?
was he wrong for clipping my wings
even when i was happy to be earthbound?
probably.

who is the true victim in this circumstance?
who feels the most shame?
the crippled bird, unable to remember who she was
or the boy who broke her, and in doing so, broke himself.

Concept: i live in an undiscovered forest and I co-exist. The trees, the wind, and the animals love me. I never feel alone.

Concept: my body is a chrysalis, and someday I will emerge. Into the sun, vibrant, bright. And I will be beautiful

The hyenas cackled maniacally , gasping and choking and she lunges at them, jaws snapping, eyes glittering gold. Throats were torn and yet the laughing continued, wheezing and guttural, shakey with their final breathes. Life leaves them and she roars to her enemies; She was sunlight, she was stardust, she was the warrior queen.

the
                                                                ­ whole
               world
                                          shrieked
        ­                and
                                                              roiled
                                                          ­                       and
                     the
                                              pain
                                                       ­                              didn't
          
                                                          lessen.

Concept: I have spent two days laying in bed, in the dark, I awaken today and decide to leave the confines of my room. The sun is shining. Everything is warm.

She was pounding on the place above her breastbone where the heavy thrum thrum thunk of her heartbeat could be heard through a rattling ribcage.
"there's nothing there!" she cried, "just this ticking inside me to remind me that I'm broken"
The darkness could be seen clinging to her like a shadow, and sunlight skittered around her at even the peak of summer. The clocks changed twice that year and yet the thunk of her heart sputtered on; in winter she beat on her chest with tears in her eyes and let the shadow control the whirrs and clicks of her soul.

Concept: me, filled with light. People gravitate around it like moths but instead of death they find comfort. My joy creates joy and it is all beautiful.

I looked inside myself hoping to find in blood what liquid desires ran and created me, and found the tributaries of myself hollow and shrivelled and smelling like rust and iron. The arteries and capillaries which once carried sunlight now only hold the memories of who I used to be before the dark settled in, stank and putrid and petrifying my once course, swift bloostream. My inner rivers used to sing and now I lie halted and lame and the ocean is inside me but the riptides have died and the currents are stone. I am empty I am empty and the sun is eclipsed by my brokeness.

Concept: people come and go, their presence is a fond memory and their absence is not sharp and raw. We all have our paths.

Concept: me, no longer burdened with the notion that I am alone and incapable of understanding. I am surrounded by love. It flows in and out of me.

Concept: I stop quieting the bird in my heart. She is singing with joy and as she spreads her wings they unfurl from my back. We fly away together. We are both free.

From birth, you were a blank slate
the Big Bang of yourself
blossoming gloriously
with the first look at your mother's face
and every star, a thought,
every system, a laugh
every galaxy, a memory
you have billions of small worlds
in your head
you create;
destroy
you are a god;
you are God.
of your universe
of yourself.

Concept: I am laying in bed in my smog-smothered town but it is okay because the rain hits my face it's pitter patter rhythm lulls me into dreams of rivers and faraway valleys.

Concept: It is dark out and I can see all of the stars. One by one they fall to Earth, into my room, and light up all the dark parts of myself.

I had a dream I was falling
through blue sky and stars
falling, falling, falling,
crash   jolt,   wake up
And find I am still falling
through this bedframe
and the floorboards
down to the molten earth
falling, falling, falling
crash   jolt,   darkness.

Concept: There is so much noise around but I am in my own small world and it is blissfully quiet. No one's words can touch me here.

Is it still poetry if I put my hands to paper and words spill out?
Cascading like rivers with no due course
Is it still poetry if I don't know what I'm saying?
Only that the words forming in front of me are mine alone
Is it still poetry if I cry while I'm writing it?
Tears falling into the page and blooming new phrases, like spring flowers

Is it still poetry if the whole world sees me from the inside, out?
Is it still poetry if I lose myself writing it?
Is it still poetry if they cannot find me?

I have always preferred the ancient, crippled and malformed ruins of places. The backbones of civilisation laid bare upon the ribs of the earth, I see more beauty in this destruction than angel's houses that stand tall and golden, shimmering in the light of the sun and preserved as if God's own hand had molded them. They are wrong.
See here the gloat of man! How we scream for attention and praise using the shining foundations of an unknown God to control the known masses and make them believe we are bigger than we are; bigger than the dirt that molded us and the humble springs that nutured us. We are not infallible nor unbreakable as those golden houses would tell. We are as fleeting and finite as the ages of man passed in bare rememberence.
We build our homes amongst ruins and return to them despite any prayers, temples, or carved angels, we are born from dust and we return to it, with no divide to say what man served what god or what coin filled who's purse.
The dark takes everything and does not hold favourites.

looking through old poems
seeing how I would throw the word 'love'
so carelessly, knowing nothing of it
mere infatuations, brief and fleeting
I know better now
love is hard to obtain
It takes time
I have not found it
I won't for a while yet.

Concept: I whisper to the moon that I cannot sleep and she sends me dreams of ocean waves and whale songs

Concept: I am in the wind and it carries me to undiscovered lands, the air is clean and the trees are tall. I decide to stay.

Concept: I am a hermit crab leaving its shell for the first time. The ocean is vast and I am unafraid.

I don't write well
I write crookedly and
disjointedly
and
my words do not always
make sense to any but me
but I write
and the pain in me
spills and becomes something real
some constructive
and unlike that terrible reality
of blood in the bathtub
I create I create I create
I don't write well
but I am writing something
at least.

His kisses taste like cigarettes
And when he's drunk
He'll call me his girl
And I'll smile into the phone
While he mumbles at me

He holds me by the waist
And I feel grounded but light
Like he tethers me
Without anchoring me
He doesn't know this

We sat in my kitchen
And drank tea and talked
It felt real in that moment
Like the future was now
And it was so tranquil

His kisses taste like cigarettes
And with every smile
And every time I see him
Staring at me with ocean eyes
I am understanding
His addiction.

The shooting star
I saw at 6am
Was the perfect reminder
That night does not
Have to mean darkness
And that even dying things
Can go on a journey

I will blaze and soar
My wish
Was to be that star

Make my heart cold
Make it icy
I don't want to be so red
So ****** and beaten
Every time I fall too hard
And every time I bleed out
Emotion emotion emotion

It is my greatest strength
And my fatal weakness

a concept: the sky is so blue, there is an ocean in the sky. I reach up and my hand comes away wet, there is stardust on my fingers.

a concept: There are eyes looking at me, the colour changes, but not the love. Never the love.

a concept: I can stare at the sun for hours with no pain, the sunlight is leaking into my body. I am glowing golden.

a concept: I cannot see the sky for the trees stretch ever onwards, I can feel the hum of the earth and mother nature blows me kisses in the wind.

a concept: My fingers are clasped around another's hands, they trace circles on my palm. My heart beats and I am finally happy about that.