maggots feasting on a butterfly’s corpse
    One time a boy kissed me

the ruined back post-bullet
    He spun me in his strong arms

wasp nest humming in a yellowed skull
    Said he loved me with fierceness

shrapnel lodged in a spine somewhere
    Told me he would never let me go

blood and water mixing in the sink
    But he did. He did

body on the beach, pale and bloated
    In my nightmares I see him walking away

wild dogs with intestines in their jaws
    I see glimpses of another life

the slow swing of a fist
    In those, he holds me in his strong arms

bruised blue cheek, uglier for its healing
    In those, he does not lie to me

one tear caught on a trembling eyelash*
    In those, I am survived by my softness

I gravitate around you
Like a cold moon to a blazing Sun
You are my tether
And still I cannot be too close
For you dazzle the many
And we, as puppets, burn

Eyes like lush forests
Green as the tinge of spring
And distant like tall branches
In the sun they are clear oceans
stretching beyond my vision
I have drowned in those eyes many times

Strong arms. I could snap
Not that you would, kind boy
But I know you are strong enough
To break my heart. You did it once
Using other puppets and faraway moons
Did you not know I shone for you?

Changeling, you call yourself
Hurt has matured you, grown you
But I still see early spring in those eyes
I still see that brilliant sunshine glow
You could have the universe in your palm
With but a smile and wink, they love you.

To love the sun and burn silently?
Lingering close and smelting my skin?
Or simply circling and knowing
As you dance lightly with other moons
That once, in another lifetime, another world
you, burned for *me

He'll tell me he loves me
Because he knows I'll say it back
And I say that I love him
Because I want him to still pretend
He'll break my heart one day
I'll never leave him first
We lie together, for now at least
The game will end one day
I already know who'll lose

This dead weight
on my feeble shoulders
is getting lighter
gradually, day by day
the pain is easing up
I know it will never
be entirely gone
but its a nice thought
that less than a year ago
I was the titan Atlas
Holding up the weight
of the sky, of the world
and now, someone has come along
and shared my burden
and slowly, very slowly
we are lifting it
lifting my burden
up and away from me
My burden is lighter
my eyes are lighter
my heart is lighter
the pain is going
At last.

.
you tell yourself they love you
                         but they tie you to a pyre
                                               and they set you
                                                             ­        *ablaze

I only write well
When the sorrow
Filling my body
Swarms to my
Fingertips
And seeps out
Onto this page
Or gripping a razor.
There are thousands
Of ways
To feel pain
But I know only two
On how to
Deal with it.

I've got thoughts so dark
I bet even the devil
Would weep

Death is everywhere
It surrounds us like a cloak
And engulfs humanity more often
Than the darkness envelopes the moon
You can see it in the trees
Bare branched and broken
You can see it in the news
Another tragedy hitting the screens
You can see it in your own eyes
As you scratch at half healed scars
I don't know why people fear death,
After all, it seems to be the only thing
That makes sense in this world
From the moment we are born
We begin to die
And if that isn't poetic,
How could life ever be?

I am neither here nor there;
I am the dust forming
in the darkest parts of you
buried deep in the back of your mind
I am the rust covering
your broken heart
that once beat so eloquently  
I am the ship that never sailed;
left in the harbor to rot
because I was not as beautiful
or as elegant as the other boats
I am the lonely flower that is left
when all my bright and colourful friends
have been picked, and i am left
all alone, unwanted, and untouched
I am the broken grave in the church garden
that used to say 'gone but never forgotten'
Now I just read
**'forgotten'

The words taste like metal on my tongue, rusted and grating across my teeth in the hopes it can force itself back down my throat where I will not have to speak again. The tears have dried on my cheeks and chin but the flowing doesn't stop, and I am creating waterfalls that cascade from my eyes and will sink through my skin and fill my until I drown within myself. My head staring at the floor  because I cannot look you in the eye anymore, not after what you have done time and time again, manipulating me more and more every time I foolishly let you back in my bloodstream, where you inject your poison into me and I am eaten away from the inside. Betrayal. Such an ugly word, yet the only one that comes to mind when I hear your name now, I used to think of things like wonderful, love, euphoria, but now there is only a fractured wishbone digging into my brain trying to bring me back to life whilst I pray for things to change, and go back to how they were before I loved you. But I have loved you and now I have learnt not to, cause and effect, ripples spreading out and out until they shimmer and sink.  You hurt me again and made my mother look at me with sad eyes and there is nothing more heartbreaking that her seeing me as a stranger, but things are okay now and I have pieced back together the fragments of what you so cruelly destroyed at my feet. I will not trust you again, I will not love you, I will not even breathe your name, lest some part of your essence nestles into my lungs as I try to exhale you. I will remove you with my tablets and the kind words of my loved ones and the warm embraces given to me, that are so much more temporary than yours. May the tide of your sorrow take you safely to a shoreline far away, and I pray that if our paths should cross again, I do not remember you and you do not remember me.

You are the heavy rain,
I am the grassland
plagued with drought.
Love me, cover me,
help me heal myself.

I am all sorts of dark and deadly
I light the stake at which i burn
Bend the water trying to drown me
Drink the river as it churns
Change the skin that I'm trapped in
grow it feathers, claws and beak
Black as plague and death and dying
Fissures crack with every shriek
The mold of the world is breaking
Glue it with mortar made from bone
Gods and monsters feel it quaking
Ravens laugh in gleeful tone
I fly from the smouldering ashes,
The river and its drought
Cawing madly at the masses
Expire, dead, die out

The snow settles on rooftops
The quiet of the town echoing
And thundering
In the confines of these walls
Nothing but the pitter patter
Of rain and hail on windows
Trying to break through
And be bullets to my skin
The clouds are like shadows to me
My every movement, followed
And you are the rain
A torrential downpour on my shoulders
No rest and no sleep and no luxuries
Only the rain and the clouds and you
You are January 3rd
When it snowed and snowed
Until the cold was a second skin
Trying to rip through the walls
Of my love and my heart
And the fire is dying
And our love is dying
And the rain pours on and on

i dont want to die tonight
dont let me
dont let me dont let me
i dont want to go
there are beautiful things here
i dont want to die
but i do
oh how i do
to escape the inevitable before my time
we all die in the end
let me die
let me die let me die
no no no no  no
dont let me die
i dont want that
what will my mother say?
is there even a heaven?
i dont think so
i used to believe in God
until he stopped believing in me.

I take my coffee black because it tastes like your kisses and I sleep in the middle of my bed now so that the empty space where you used to lay doesn't feel so wide and you don't feel so far away. I miss you and your stupid laugh and the way you would stare at me when I smiled. God I miss all of you and its only now I realise that this coffee is useless because nothing on this earth could possibly compare to you.
Come back.

i miss being little
i miss my mum thinking
that every scribble i drew
was a masterpiece
I miss eating as much as i could
well... because I could
i miss coming home from school
with ***** hands from finger painting
I miss being able to talk to anyone
because i had confidence
(or was it naivety?)
i miss not being weighed down
by invisible chains that slowly drag me
towards an uncontrollable sadness
I miss being young
I miss being carefree
I miss being happy.

Nothing changes
The people still fight
over wars lost long ago
the teenagers still walk
with limps in their step
and scars on their wrists
the hopeful still talk
about euphoria long gone
Hearts still break and bleed
just the same as they did
when a human heart could first feel
the dogs still fight with cats
and dig up bones
they had buried in the past
nothing changes
the girl still weeps
about a life she's lost control of
the boy still chases
a girl who tastes like cigarettes
we still die
we still mourn the same lost things
nothing changes
*nothing changes.

**** them fake ******* that ditch you first chance
i never caused any unnecessary drama in a friend group that was all about friend hate and backstabbing, i was a ******* peace keeper in a garden full of snakes and forreal, what do i got to show for it?? diddly ******* squat. fml. I tried to be there for everyone i could at all times, tryna make sure everyone was happy, so WHY THE FUCCKK is it that im the one left alone? IM the one with no one left thats my friend. everyone's got their own little friend groups and ive got ******* no one. hows that ok? sick of this man, i like my own company but just got 4 years of friendship thrown back in my face. nah man. **** that.

Bukowski said what matters most
Is how well you walk through fire
But I've been wandering hell for months
And I dont think anyone has even noticed
Maybe it is I who doesnt matter
Maybe the burns are only skin deep

The anger fills the room in terse silence
With clenched fists and ground teeth
No words are spoken
But a fire starts somewhere
And another
And another
Until the spitting and crackling
Devours the silent stern faces
Of the violent hearts gathered here

If I hold this mug of tea tight enough, it mimics your touch and the feel of your warm skin against mine. When I press it to my lips and drink it deep I can remember me breathing in the kisses and lies you poured down my throat and I'll not sip gently I will gulp it all down in the hopes that it could somehow keep you in my mouth. But I hold onto this mug that is warm like you, and I hold on for too long and find it burns my skin and my throat and tongue. It blisters my fingers and boils my lips when I try to touch it, when I try to love it. Just like you did.

'Please don't talk to me again'

I said those words
and a weight lifted from my shoulders
I felt lighter, more free
And yet
When the weight lifted
It was replaced with a sorrow
That gut-aching knowledge
That you have just broken something
You loved

She's got an old soul
older than mountains,
older than the rain
It was probably there when
the rivers first ran free
Older than the earth, maybe
One of the first stars
The brightest supernova
she dove in, beautifully, on a crystal comet
straight out of the Universe

she's seemed like starlight ever since

I am a part of the 90's generation. Born to the world in the midst of heartaches and solitude. We dwell in shadows to hide our eyes from the brutal sunlight and we shy away from the darkness that corrupts and destroys. Through the fog that clouds our judgement we see ourselves and collapse any reflective surface that shows the satin devils in our iris. We break mirrors and hearts along our way and indulge ourselves in life's only certainty:
Self hate rules all.

It always starts and ends like this
You with your small death
And my killing kiss
The inertia of planets and gravity’s sway
I orbit around you
And you dance away
My nightmare, my haunting
My trespassing ghost
I beg for your touch
Like a too-willing host
The stars fall to Earth
Like knives to the flesh
My meteorite king
Know that I loved you best

Once upon a time, when the world was a feeble and wild drop in the ocean of space, a small crack was opened in the universe. Through that crack fell a great Bear, and she was magnificent, fur mottled blue with the constellations trapped in her skin. Her steps shook the earth as she traveled, seeking a place of great peace, upon this speckled planet that was scarcely bigger than herself. Laying down beside a mountain, with thunder in her voice, she birthed three cubs, bright as comets. To her first cub, Rainin, she said 'you, my son, shall inherit the sky, bring it sunlight and storms and lay blankets of snow upon this land, you will be vast and endless for all time'. To her second son, Seuro, she spoke 'and you child, will inherit the sea, from an island peak you shall rule the roiling waves, bring tides and calm to the waters, you will herald the first age of all things'. And lastly, to her daughter, who was sun-bright and borne of stars, she told her 'Maidah, you will inherit the Great Plains and the green grasses of this earth, break the mold of it and shake it, but also bring rise to mountains that reach your brother in his clouded domain, and tear in two the plates of the sea from beneath your brother's feet. With your breath you will bring life from soil to seed, and you will be queen to all that walks and breathes upon the ground. This, to you, is my last gift'. And the great bear who passed through a rift in the universe, having gifted her children, sunk deep beneath the mountain into endless sleep. Still, she slumbers, and her children shake and shape what she has given, until they join her in morpheus' domain when their world is dust and the well of creation has dried. They will sleep peaceful under mountains, their great paw prints everlasting as they let that which they have shaped greet its own sleep, its own death, yet the stars will remember them,
and this too, is a gift.

There is a constant storm in my mind
a heavy rainfall, drowning every thought
that could break the blanket of clouds
I haven't seen the sun in months
I'm forgetting what it feels like
all i know is the rain
and grey skies
and grey thoughts
and a grey self
the whole world is muted
and the thunder crashes at night
when I can't sleep
and there is so much lightning
I'm blinded and terrified
more rain, more hail
more damnable
stormy
self

I know that there are Gods inside me
Because I have seen them
at 13 when I tried to let Wrath out through my wrists,
15, an attempt to drown Calamity with prescription pills
and Famine, too, looking down my empty throat
After my stomach was hollow, with only Grief inside of it
I have seen Lust in the way I ache for more sunlight
at 17 in the summer where I regrew Joy,
fed her small scraps until she could devour
the whole world, and me
the Pantheon inside of myself 19
All of us a maelstrom in my blood
but Pride, forefront
King of kings on my tongue
He says look at the shrine you have made yourself
Holy, and still growing.

I am 10 and the things said to me
again and again are like bullets
in my gut, and punches to my head
they tell me 'its your fault your dad died'
but my friend still turns to me and says
'god, you're so perfect'
I am 12 and these things are still being said
but now by different people, infact,
they are being said by the boy I used to care for
funny that, i thought he cared too

I am 13 and my eyes are bloodshot
and the ****** tissues on my bed
from the state of my wrists
lay scattered in pieces, much like my life
and the next day my friend asks
'why are you so perfect Georgia?'
but she hasn't seen my wrists yet
and she doesn't know about how many tablets
i've taken in one night
just to escape this so-called "perfection"

Now I am 14 and while my friends are out
having a laugh and making memories
I am sitting at home with an elastic band
tied around my wrist, so i keep pinging it
because people started to comment on the state
of my wrists, and legs, and stomach
and I couldn't bear any more mockery
But I'm on pills now, every morning
to control these urges to rid myself
My friend, naive is she, still messages me
saying 'I want to be as perfect as you'
No darling, you do not want this
whatever this may be,
it is not perfection
what sort of perfection
kills you from the inside?

Everything moved and nothing changed
Stepped three ways to the right
Clung to the monkey bars of my childhood primary school
Looked out through new eyes into the same world
From frightening unhinged angles
Shadows were still shadows
The sun still beat behind eyes that looked recklessly into it
The shape of you against the ground that was now the sky
And how well you fit there
Looking like you owned the dawn

I learnt today
that if you were to traverse
the depths of the ocean
the building pressure
would push all breath from your lungs
and your blood would burst
with the heaviness of it all
oh but for you, darling
for the azure currents in your eyes
i would sink

There is a certain absence that echoes when it rains
I can feel it, in the storm of my life
And I can feel your absence as much as the rains'
You, today, I knew you were looking for me
When the bus pulled up and our eyes met
And it was like this chasm between us
Was closing and reopening in turbulent uncertainty
And we smiled at each other but with such sorrow, too
We spoke and laughed and I could almost forget
How terribly imperfect things between us are
I forgive the you that I know no longer lingers
I ask you forgive yourself, achieve inner peace
If we could escape to other lives and exist together
recreating ourselves far from judging eyes, I would
I would ignore the scolding of my mother
And the wrath of my friends
They don't know you like I do, don't love you like I did
I don't know if I still love you, or if it is just twin souls
Connecting again in joyous reunion
But I was looking for you, too

You were the story I would never write
the dog-eared pages in my favourite books
and the highlighted words in the best poems i knew
you were my 6am coffee and my midday sun
and the twilight that illuminated the walls of this old house
you were the sunset that hid behind the ocean
before arising again as the moon, from the earth
my heaven, my universe and all of my stars
I let you become a god and you eventually turned to myth
we wrote legends about you, ballads and tragedies,
and i saw the sunlight leak from your eyes
and spill onto this concrete over months of aching
golden ichor that seeped into the cracks of the soil
you made flowers grow where you bled, and there were stars,
stars instead of tears when you cried
When i cried with you, and we built a new universe
one entirely our own, no demons, no monsters,
no angels and gods and cruel humans can find us here
we fly together
we die together
you and I until the end

people need to stop
with this whole
'real women have curves -
real women have stretch marks -
real women have cellulite -'
etcetera freaking etcetera
this mentality is killing us
i have rolls and wrinkles
and skin dimples
and i am real as the dawn
and my best friend has none
she is slim and lithe
and unmarred by flesh like mine
and she is real
and she is beautiful
and i am beautiful
bodies are bodies
stop it.

This time last year I was writing letters
Apologising for the way I feel
And the way I have always felt
Trying to shift blame onto my own selfish consciousness
And the methods to drown it out
Methods that left more than just physical scars
This year I am no longer writing letters
But every breath is like swallowing glass
My heart beats languid and slow
Every cell of me is fatigued
I sleep all the time and I never feel awake
Fully consumed in the guilt of who I am
And how it must hurt people to love me
So no, I am no longer writing letters
But I am still revising the words.

Light, dancing wildly
Spectrums of colour, of creation
I look at my reflection
Against the cool glass
my breath staining it like frost
Sometimes I am transparent
like this mirror, like this cold air
and still, I look into myself
the crushing weight of the world
making the glass pulse
and my pulse, shatter
My emotions bleed out onto a wood frame
seeping through and taking shape
Turbulent, uncertain, blazing, brilliant
Is this me?
My inner turmoil made flesh
inside this glass tomb

I am, as I have always been,
On the wrong side of the mirror.

The winter winds blew in
Carrying salt from the sea
And ice from the north
It whipped and raged
Like a monster thrashing
At his invisible chains

And we brace ourselves
With layers and fire and coal
Dousing the monster
Dampening his roars
With our crackling embers
And hot cocoa hands

But you and I
With your eyes like arctic frost
And mine aglow with summer's
Forest fires and charred woods
We leave behind the warmth
To dance gentle in the chill

From spitting flame to air,
Air that burns like fire in this cold
And still we hear the roaring.
Us two, pale as fresh snow
Soulful as the cinder sun
We distmantle and destroy

Monster! Monster! With eyes,
Eyes like storms and sky
And lungs of triumph and freedom
We three, treading blizzard winds
Spirits dancing gentle, and joy!
Joy boundless, as the winter roars

6 chapters into the story of myself
I realised the happy ending had been and gone
And it would have been safer to stop reading
Before the tradegy set in,
You can't see it yet, but it sits like smoke
Upon the ink, and sometimes you can hear it
In a page turning, a soft shrieking
That could be mistaken for wind, if you weren't listening
But I was listening, and so steeled myself
For the building sorrow of the book

10 chapters in, all writing stops
Halfway through a word
And the agony hits like a car crash
Played on repeat in my head
And the tradegy rolls like waves in storm
And the shrieking becomes deafening
And the book closes
And in a whispered breath of a broken reader
You can hear the small sigh of relief

The thought
of her name
on your lips
and your hands
on her hips
sends goosebumps
to beneath my skin
I tremble
from a non-existent cold
my lungs stutter
and will give out
along with my heart
which will shatter
into a million pointed shards
that stab and cut me
when I think back to us
and my name
on your lips
your hands
on my hips
I suppose
I was not
enough.

I want to be swallowed up
By shooting star's blazing tails
And the universe's
Infinitely expanding space
Black holes and black planets
White dwarfs that supernova
I want to be caught in the debris
Of the chemical dust and gas
Floating on the light
Of a thousand dying suns
We become giants
And we become supergiants
I will exist in the empty space
As air and grit and starlight
I will become dark matter
I will let the dark matter

Maybe one day
in the far off future
I'll see you in the street
and you'll tell me about
your new life, your new family
and i'll smile and say
'I'm glad it all worked out'
but it will be a facade
to mask the bitter pain
of knowing that despite everything
you moved on,
you loved again
whilst I, well...
I look for you in everyone.

I know you and all your little antics, I know how you hesitate every time you go to say my name because the memories and guilt and feelings will roll off your tongue like the tide, and you are too crowded to let anyone else drown in the sweet sound of your voice. I know how you lie awake at night trying to piece together every shard from that mirror you broke when you were 9, and how nothing quite fits anymore, you have lost parts of your old self and your clumsy hands will break an imminent future because you know not what needs fixing and what just cannot be helped. I live in your every bated breath and am often reminded why it is such a wasteland, I know how your heart can turn colder than the cloud of air exhaled when you sigh and shake your head at the world around you. Do not think for one second I do not know you, because in the three years I have loved you we have shared secrets, stories, memories and love, yes, for a time, we shared love. But that is a time long since passed and now I reside in the marks on your skin where your father hit you, I inhale the smoke from your lungs caused by people blowing their blackened words down your throat and making you feel less like the crimson sunset you are and more like the rainy days. You are beautiful and I wish you could see that from my perspective, I wish you could see how your eyes reflect the colours of the ocean and I wish to be lost at sea, I wish you could know that I think your heart is a galaxy, not a black hole, so you need not worry about all my rusted parts chipping at you because your strong arms will bring these dead eyes back to life, like they have so often. I want you to know that you are perfect in my eyes, flawed, yes, but no less perfect. I want you to know I love you.