You were my first 'real' boyfriend
And it went well, for a time
But you pushed me beyond my limits
Made me do things I cannot forget
A small innocence lost
And trust impaired

You whispered such sweet things
Into my hungry ears
That craved a love I thought we shared
You whispered the same things
Into many ears
You were the angel I gew to hate

I buried myself
In every crevice of your being
And let you steal pieces of me
For 9 cruel months
In return for the 'love' you gave
We are both alone now
And no less sad

You are perfect
In every atom and fibre
But you came into my life
At a time where I lack  trust and compassion
We are both broken things
And by trying to put out our fires
We do fuel them
I want to love you

the pain comes and goes. It is an ocean of emotions and it draws back, folding in on itself, and just when I think i am free of it, a tidal wave of torment smothers me and drags me beneath it's depths. I am suffocating beneath the waves of my self-torture, drowning amidst an ocean of others feeling the same, yet still somehow, terribly, terrifyingly, alone. The darkness almost swallows me and I cannot breathe, I cannot see, I can only move my arms frantically and hope I am swimming towards the surface. Surrounded by the debris that is my life as the tidal surge covers all i hold dear and drags it into open water. And just as I think that the crushing weight is leaving me and I am finally free of all life's misery, the ocean spits me onto its surface like I am a pebble it cannot swallow, but the relief only lasts a few brief minutes before the tsunami of guilt and terror flood the canals of my veins and scatter my bones throughout its abyss. Thus the process repeats and i succumb to the flood once more. all the while wishing it would just end. Wishing I could sink and become part of the sea bed, where I will gently move with the ebb and flow of the tide, rather than try to fight it and be overwhelmed with the force of its devastation. And in the words of a song that my water-filled lungs cry out to;
Do i sink, or swim, or simply disappear?

I can feel the barbs and the thorns
protruding from my skin
as i sit hunched and quiet
dont touch me dont touch meE don t tou ch me
every fingertip feels like knives
and your kisses are a cruel poison.
i am my own armour
because in this story,
the pinpricked princess
saves herself.

If i wrote a story, it would be a tragedy. But it would not be about the blood that flows from my legs at night when my mother thinks im sleeping. It would not be about the days wasted crying because no one could hear me when i broke. It would not include the story of two 3 year olds who lost a loving father they barely had enough time to know, or a loving wife who had the light of her life taken by the forces of death. It would not be about the darkness that engulfed my friend, who then became the darkness, and bled away into the shadows to join the ghosts that called so softly to him, he could not resist. It would not be a story of the girl who took over 100 tablets in 3 days because of a boy she loved who told her to do it, and the pressures weighing on her shoulders were pushing her into an early grave. It would not be the tragedy of her survival and the continuous pain and shame that she endures to this day. No. my story would be about the futility of life's arrangement and how the world around us is crumbling to dust and we are doing nothing. It would be about the thousands who are starving and crying who no one seems to give a **** about because they're the 'minorities'. It would be about life's cycle with death, and how so many are ripped from loving families before their time because the universe works in cruel ways, and -if there is a god- he or she is moving chess pieces across their board and watching them crumble. My story would be about the skilled children and poets that no one has heard of because, as everyone knows "its not cool to write poetry" . My tragedy would be about the injustice of law and how those in love are denied being bound to one another because they are of the same ***. It would be about the millions lost to wars that history repeats again and again and again over new, yet just as trivial things. This is not my tragedy. This is everyone's.

And I'll cut my wrists
Straight down to the bone
And carve flowers
Into the body
You've wilted.

I will not always love myself
I do not, and cannot
In a world like this
With a body like mine
That dips and rises like a mountain range
With its too-dark veins
A stark and unflattering contrast
To my moonrise skin
The rivers and tributaries that swim
It is not always as beautiful
As an awakening earth
This hair like mud
Eyes like mud
Barren soil that cannot always
Yield great harvest
I will not always bear fruit
This body, small and easily crushed underfoot
Do we always love the bug?
That breaks beneath our heel?
Body of mine that does not sing for me
Voice of mine that cracks and breaks
I will not always crave to hear the echo
But ...
But.
I know that though I will weep
On mornings where I do not glow inside the sun
In all the ways I am so desperate to
On mornings where his palm on my stomach
Is the soft tether that keeps me dreaming
On mornings where his kisses
Are the only warmth I want to bask in
I know that he loves me
That he loves this body
Moreso the battlefield beneath
And sometimes, mostly, always,
That is enough.

I am in constant torment
Preaching self-love and self-joy
and not needing someone to validate me
But I will throw myself under buses
into gutters and rain
for people who don't appreciate my stars
and give me dirt in return
I will let myself burn under fires
of 'yes's instead of 'no's
and repeating I love you
when I've never felt more alone

My heart beats, its steady
and rhythmic drum
But it does not beat
for me.

I don't belong to anyone
I belong to the earth and the skies
And leap year's missing days
I belong to storms and thunders growl
To the stars and the moon
And broken birds' still beating hearts
I am a child of light and shadow
I belong to nothing and no one
I will never belong to them
I will never belong at all

I am a mix
of miss-matched words
and unfinished poems
I do not flow rationally
I am a mess
I shroud myself in books
and hope they will transport me
A creature like me,
not blessed with any grace
yet in love with yours
I see the stars flicker
and the universe turn
hoping you see me
even just fleetingly
my heart is an ugly thing
but it could be all yours.

I think about all the nights
The moon has held me in her mother’s glow
Sent whispered reliefs to me on the wind
And let me hear but for a moment, the gentle lull of the sea
I think about all the days
The sun has kissed away my sorrows with his warmth
Has burnt out everything dark within me and left no scars
I have felt his golden lips on my brow and knew it gilded a blessing into my skin
I know that the rocking of the world does not equate
To the slow circle I made inside of his arms
But if he is away courting the stars that fall to earth for him
Then I will at least allow myself this embrace
And hope that with the turning of the sky above me
So too will my heart fall away from his gravity
If it means I am a comet blazing eternal through space
So be it
At least when I burn
It will light the way only for me

I dont want to get better i just want to have courage

Almost 600 poems
Almost 16 thousand words
I feel I’ve given empty pages
Said nothing of any worth

How do I take the tar
Clogging my body
Thread it through my veins
Into my waiting palms
Where I can shape it
Disperse it,
Press an inky handprint to paper
And have it create something
And not destroy
It is always the way of the ink
To mark, blemish, to claim
A spot of the world for itself
And here I am, succumbed
Full of a seeping dark that,
Here, when the ink
Is fed by the grinning night
I am nothing but the mark
The blemish
The stain
And still I press myself to the world
Handprints that grasp for a way out
And create nothing
Nothing of any worth, at least

I still believe
After the entire storm we were
All the fights
The tears
The late night calls
I do think he loved me

And that hurts more
Than if he never had

Bee was humming to herself in the garden
Aching for the sweetness
Of the most brilliant bloom
When she spotted Rose
Who sat red and waiting and wonderful,
A single drop of blood
In a firmament of white
Landing lightly on Rose’s crimson body,
just as it was Rose’s nature to give
So it was Bee’s nature to take
But no sweetness could tempt Bee
To steal a kiss from Rose’s lips

The months grappled with each other
Spring yielding to summer’s glare
With bee and rose beneath them
Delighting in each other’s beauty
And made alive with buzzing conversation
And still Bee had stolen nothing
To spin to honey, though she knew
It would be a nectar to make gods jealous
Bee would not take, and Rose
Who was red as the dawn
Could not bring herself to give
If it meant Bee would move onwards
To other beacons of light in the garden

And so it went

•

Rose knew she was dying
Could feel the cold wind creeping
And killing her sisters around her
So she said to Bee
“Take all I have left to give you,
Make something decadent of me”
Bee’s small heart broke within her chest
But she could not stand before winter
And demand it pass over a single rose
And in the hush of November
Bee spun pollen into poetry
Adorned it with a single beating grief
And from the sweetest, reddest rose
Came the bitterest of tastes

Hearts are dangerous things
and thats why our ribs
are cages

I don't want to be here anymore
In this skin, in this body,
in this house that doesn't feel like a home,
in this useless world that makes me hate myself
in this system that reduces living to working
I don't want to be here anymore
I want to be where the stars are,
where the rain will never reach me
and the light burns bright and golden
thats where I want to be
but I don't know if I could bear to go.

10,20,30 tablets
down, down my throat
Alice falling down the hole
row, row your boat
way into the darkness
where heaven may reside
40 crying people
that i left behind
mourners everywhere dressed in black
a coffin just for me
sobs thunder, lightning cracks
who knew that they would grieve
family is torn apart
brothers and mothers now frail
those who loved you, broken hearts
can you hear your friends wail?
an angel now, looking down
seeing what chaos you've brought
14 years old in a flower crown
you're an angel, but you're distraught
5 years later, your mother still cries
and your friends still blame themselves
you want to scream 'it was I who died!
i swear you couldn't have helped'
but they can't hear you, you're a ghost
a phantom weeping with them
but one thing you regret the most
you're the one who let this happen
14 years old, flower crown
Heavens' not that great
you don't smile, you just frown
at a choice you can't erase.

People shouldn't be sad on their birthday

I hate how things ended between us
I hate that things ended.
I'm much too selfish
to say that I hope you find someone
who you deserve
I only wish I was,
or could have been
someone worthy
of your love.

I have been running in circles
in my own mind,
chasing my tail, trying to grip
onto a reality that is slipping away
I do not know if what I am feeling
is anything other than an illusion.
Is this love? lust? or just another friendship
I stare too deeply into, in the small hopes
that it will give my life some meaning.
alas, whatever it is, i cannot let it grow,
for my words are a poison that will infect
even the strongest of people, should they choose
to expose even the smallest scar to me
It is a curse i must bear alone
I cannot let them in.

Sorrow sits at the head of the table
eyes downcast and mouth pinched
Strife is to her left, seething
fork clutched like a dagger
Agony remains at the right
silent as a heartbreak
Greed and Grief, the twins
parallel and smirking over their plates
Triumph faces Sorrow
sinking into her chair, wretched and low
Peace is in their centre
bleeding all over the cloth
apple in her broken mouth
They are having lamb for dinner

YOU TORE MY HEART OUT WITH YOUR BARE HANDS AND WHILE I CRIED YOU LAUGHED. I SPAT OUT BLOOD WHEN YOU KISSED ME YOURE NO FRIEND OF MINE YOU'RE A ******* DISEASE. I SEE YOU IN MY NIGHTMARES YOU ******, DO YOU SEE ME IN YOURS?

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.

I am kindling
And you are a wildfire
I should have known this
Would end in ash

I am making bargains with the universe
I say a silent prayer to nothing and no one
I say, please, take their pain away
I will carry all their burdens if only they don't have to
please, universe, there is so much sorrow
we are surrounded by gravestones of those
that were crushed under the weight of self conflict
fighting against the sadness to be happy
please, let me take their pain
I am used to pain, I have room for more
just let them be happy
I cannot bear for another friend lost
I cannot bear another gravestone.

he loves me,
he loves me not,
he loves me,
he loves me not.
petals fall
as do my tears
I know he does not love me
so why am i still
destroying flowers?

I will, with thunderous voice
Shout love love love
Even if only
Just to hear the echo

There are dogs barking next door, they've been at it for at least an hour and for some reason, it is making me Incredibly anxious
and all at once I am remembering every wound I ever inflicted or received
as though I were both the blade and the parting flesh, and I feel as though
I have always been this moment, this suspended breath
Slowly circling around a clenched fist until the time of my expiry
I am the snapping of a dogs jaws and the spit that hits the ground
and I am still, too, the ground that shivers in disgust at such violence,
anyway, its probably just the anxiety talking, probably just me stumbling again
over words and truth in my haste to release whatever air I keep trapped in my lungs
whatever wound inside me is currently yawning open and closed, quick as the caught birds' breast
hey, i think the dogs have stopped barking

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?

Words will not roll from my tongue
Like waves against the shore
They will tumble and collapse
Breaking, like rocks on a cliff
And I will shut my eyes
Before anyone sees them fill
With the tides of a thousand seasons
I will hold back the flood water
And I will smile like the sun smiles
Down to the flowers below
And they smile back
Waving and swaying in the breeze
Laughing and giddy at their freedom
And these tides will stay
Encased behind my eyes
And no one
Not the sun, the flowers, not even
The moon
Will know what I have done
To keep these storms at bay.

There is a pause
Just after midnight
Where the whole world
Falls still and silent.  
I will wait in that moment
For you.

And if the soul were to bleed away now, tell me, what would be the words to die on your lips?
Who's hand would you be holding?
Who's heart would be breaking?
Tell me, who would shriek at the stars
Begging for you not to go
And who would rage and riot with God,
Demand he send you home?

I saw the devil once,
His eyes changed colour
Greens and blues and golds,
He also had a warm smile
And a loud laugh,
And he told me
He loved me.

Ah my, old loves, new loves,
Old loves born anew.
First loves, last loves
loves you gave yourself to
Empty loves, whole loves
Loves not quite complete
Tragic loves, daring loves
Ah you sweep me off my feet
My loves, my love
The only one I've known
True love, brief love
**My love you are my home

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.

We danced in a darkened room,
love spilling around us
like ribbons and silk
and I swear I saw the universe
in those winter blue eyes
I could get lost in you
And I did, I did
and you became lost in black holes
that crept in your arms
and caused rifts between us
when we danced.
I dance alone now
under a winter blue sky,
no ribbons, no silk.
They say the good die young
but why do the good
have to die at all?

Thus begins the summer month
But my body still feels cold
I see in shades of ashen grey
Where others see bright and bold
The lemon taste within the breeze
Is acidic in my throat
Refreshing water does nothing for
A girl with little hope
Thus begins the summer month
Where many are at play
And here I lie beneath the sun
Where I shall slowly fall away

When Eve plucked golden apple
From supple branch
Her lip curled in sly smile
As Adam looked on, fearful
Teeth rending forbidden fruit
Tasting like wrath and every secret God had ever kept
When those juices dribbled from her chin
Turning to blood beneath her forked tongue
She knew she could set Eden to blaze
Leave smouldering ash where beauty once dwelt
Snake winding up her thigh
Tongue slipping to taste hellfire
Every story ends with her
With woman
With a smile that torches the world

I have always been a honeybee girl
Full of buzzing anger
Turning it into sweet gold
My honeycomb kisses and little sting
A war of creation and destruction
I die with every battle I have ever fought
And return again come the golden dawn
Humming softly and sitting delicate
Perched on colour
Hoping some of it could leak
Into the grey of my nightly ruin
How do I take all this sound
In my throat, these charged words
Of fury and weave them into glory
How do I bestow a sugared kiss
And not the killing sting
Yellow and black and frightful
The colours of warning,
War paint on my cheeks
Come no closer to my heart,
I’m busy

often I think i can force the words from my throat
push past the floodgates and fix this drought
but they stick behind my teeth
breathed out - rearranged, changed - back in.
the hollow of my throat holds a thousand tragedies,
a thousand miracles, it births thoughts like colliding stars
and yet they will crawl around my mouth, humming,
a lungful of bees that sting and sting and sting
my thesaurus brain cannot find the right mixture
of vowels and consonants and breaks in sentences
to give justice to what blossoms within me
they say silence speaks volumes
and I have been shouting mutedly all my life.

do you really care or is this just another fabrication in a half dream that my mind has created to trick me into thinking there is something worth holding on to? Will you still be here in a month's time like you promised, or will you find an excuse to rid yourself of me and all my bruised parts? Are there stars in your eyes or are those the shimmering reflection of the sun in the water filling them? Will you hold me when i am frail or will you drop me when i weaken us both? You have been my best friend for quite some time now and my adoration for you runs deeper than these cuts and scars, the same ones you helped me overcome and prevent. It is also true that you have been the cause of some, on the nights where tension built and we sent hateful words to each other in a desperate attempt to rid ourselves of the hate and bitter hellfire in our hollow bodies. I do not yet know if this friendship will be my destruction or salvation, all that i can do is trust you as much as i can and hope that i have poured enough of myself into you, that you know the pain you would be causing if i am betrayed again. Maybe when i see you i should smile, but things are complicated and i cannot bring myself to even make my eyes look happy. I hope you understand this. I hope you know me and every atom of my self. I hope you like what you see.

Let your ribs be the iron cage
That winged hearts of men fear
Let your eyes hold such depth
All who gaze be lost there, always
Let your arms be lovely yet strong
May you contest with Atlas
As you both hold up the world
Let tears be not weakness
But rivers that cut their path
Through the stone mountains of your cheeks
Let lips hold words of faith and courage
May you speak truthfully
May you be harsh when called for
Let your voice shake the earth
You are nature herself
You bleed the Golden Ichor of Gods
And where it falls, flowers grow
Let your heart be the strong Oak
And your capillaries, roots
The sky will bend for you
The birds will sing for you
The world will love you
But love yourself, first.