I know those eyes, that look,
He would swallow the world whole if it meant he felt less empty.

I can hear my bones talking to God, they ask him why he hates us and he says he wrote the fracture lines in our skin with perfect precision, he did not create us with the knowledge to heal.
And yet.

I dont know what im holding on for anymore.
The stars that once were ablaze in my eyes have burnt out and left only ash and cinders as any memory of happiness.

The ocean floor is littered with whale bones
Ivory dreams that sink forgotten amongst silt
The fish swim in between ribs like birds flitter through mine
Asphalst graveyards lined with tiny carcasses
Where once survivalists and now just carrion
I saw a signpost for a crematorium and thought of
The way your hand burns against my cheek
Everything on heaven and earth is eaten by sunlight and decay
In the distance there are trees being felled
I hear nothing and so pretend they have not died
But I can feel their groaning bodies, I can feel the axe swing
In my sharp exhale when you put your palm to my knee
If I close my eyes I see the temples that used to stand here
Where once we prayed to Gods and now buy coffee
The prayer on our lips much softer now
But I still feel like a sacrifice when you kiss me
A pyre dream, quick as flame and soft as smoke
Who's dreams do I carry with me in this life?
Who's aching heart do i remember when the wolf howls?
I witnessed birds die midflight and fall by the hundreds
My atoms rocked into memory of their first journey
Spread across a thousand stars that crashed into yours
Became then the fish that was born between whale ribs
How many lives do I carry inside of me?
What histories lie beneath my feet?
Who's bones am I standing on right now?
Who's deaths will fall like ash atop mine?

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

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.

Its the dead
they walk and they walk
and they don't stop to talk
the dead won't hold your hand
they eat sorrow and hope
then leave you to choke
on the remnants of a life ******
The cold that they breathe
and the hearts that they bleed
keep their bones warm for a while
but it won't last long
its a short sad song
when the dead walk past and smile
you won't see a sign
it won't be 'your time'
when the dead pull you out to sea
they'll take you to drown
and you'll say with a frown
*why me? why me? why me?

She looked like the heavens
But she felt like hell
Her love was pure
But empty as well

She was broken and hurting,
Tied together with thread
But she had a passion within her
A flame, bright and red

She was lovely and lonely
An angel on earth
But the devil had kissed her
And she knew not her worth

The passion is dying
Her flame burning dim
The thread is unveiling
Freeing her devil within,

The angel has fallen
The flame is but ash
The heavens have ruptured
She has faded at last.

I whisper your name into the darkness
And the tender light of dawn weaves it back to me
In a sunbeam that eclipses my eyes
I awake gasping with the taste of you burning my throat
You should not have followed me into the light here
All my memories of you are red rooms and bedsheets
Music with a heavy bass and the moon catching
On the sweat of our skin
I was always cold around you
Our heady breaths misting the air
You the tundra I travelled through
Crawled along the ice sheet of your body
Cut myself and crept bleeding
Hypothermia was quick gasps and a long exhale
Toes curling and frostbitten
I think the kisses you blew on my neck killed me
Or at least, I do not remember spring
Only your outline on the bed frosted over
I alone in a dark room with every star hidden
They say in an avalanche you can’t remember which way is up
And victims dig deeper trying to free themselves
In this, I do not know if I am the stiff fingers in the snow
Or simply the weight of a thousand lifetimes that were not for us
But I know intimately the unearthed corpse found 6 months later
Finally thawed enough to scream again
Moan a name that was not yours into a darkness
One that you had never touched
Even so, I wake up sometimes with numb lips
Icicles dripping from my doorframe
And your name melting on my stomach
I told you once I’d love you when hell freezes over
You told me ice was the great scalding of the world
I don’t think that’s true but sometimes
My tongue remembers

It is in these dark nights
That I look behind me
And see the carnage i have wrought
And the people I have laid to waste
I am a falsehood, an accidental lie
I proffess love and compassion
And display a heartlessness
Without thought of consequence
I mean not to hurt or harm
Those who make me smile
But I cannot stop, it so seems
I am a tornado
A hurricane
I will tear down your cities
I will flood your lungs
And I will be sorry for it;
Do not forgive, do not forgive

Once upon a time,
there was a girl who drank the moon
gurgled and guzzled until it filled her,
moonlight shimmering through her skin
and stardust lingering in her veins
she was waxing and waning
and the tides followed her small feet,
every month she shrunk into herself
before being born anew
glorious and whole and bright
bright enough to rival the sun
and how the sun loved her so,
his gaze warmed her back every day of her life
kissing her softly as she grew into the silver
that was her skin, her hair, her eyes
and how the night welcomed her
she could hear stars whispering
see adoration in every glimmer
the girl grew and grew, and the silver shone
and she longed for her sun, his warmth
and for the stars, her friends
every night she would shine
she could light up the world with that shine
white and silver and brilliant
she was love incarnate
and so
was loved in return

I still get the urge to burn the house down with me in it
If only to destroy what destroys me
I still run my fingers over my scars
And think about the blood I’ve had to watch circle the drain
I still feel the moths in my stomach
And the tar black tightening of hands
Around my wrists, and my throat
What I mean to say is I still feel my sadness like a second skin
But loving him is like breathing clean air
Like washing the gasoline off my body before I drop the match
Loving him is locking the drawers that hold the sharp things
It is taking everything jagged and ruined from my body and making mosaic
Loving him is not saving me, I know
I am a woman of wounds
But it is holding my bruises up to the light
Seeing the colours and not the swelling
Looking at all the poorer parts of me through his eyes
And finding there are still some things left to save

He makes flowers grow in the tar filled parts of my lungs and they bloom ever more beautifully with every word that flows from his perfect lips. His heart is larger than his fists and it is so much more delicate, and every time it beats I feel myself smiling, he speaks such pretty words and his gospel voice calls out to me when I find myself slipping into places that scare me, he pulls me right back and keeps my feet on the ground without ever becoming a weight on my shoulders. I could stare into his eyes until the sun sets and if I could I would hold him until he doesn't feel so empty. A thousand words have passed since I met him and each is a small stitch that is repairing me, he has the power to unravel me but I don't think he will, no I don't think he would. Others will say he stole my heart like a thief but I know better, he reached into my ribcage and brought me back to life and only then did I let him take it. Treat it well, oh darling treat it well.

Legacy girl writes hollow poems
In the petal-pressed pages of her notebook
Breadcrumbs of who she is
And who she longs to be
There is an ocean between the two
Starlight dreamer gazes up at the moon
They weep together about all the many ways
The world can scar a person
The moon looks at her nightchild from a high heaven away
And sings of her craters and how she overcame every one
Forest nymph sits on the shoulders of her favourite tree
Tells him about her day and of the flowers she smells but does not pick
The leaves are whispering gossip to each other
Birds are bringing her shining things
And she tells the birds a story of Icarus
She says ‘you do not have to fear the sun’
She is the sun, and she would not harm them
Not them or a single growing thing under her warm gaze
Legacy girl jumps down from the tree
Crosses the hill and three fields to the ocean shore
There are whales waving from the horizon
And beyond that, in the sweeping red hue of the moment
The girls are close enough to touch

Her hand makes ripples of her reflection

When I first looked into darkness as an infant
I was swallowed by it
All my days since have been twilight haze
Every memory coated in summer-sunset film
Beating with the soft glow of nostalgia
I have always been the night walker but never the night owl
I do not come alive in the darkness
but am rather
Rocked gently against, and into it
My shadows have shadows and they are all kind
All of them a comfort and a friend
I will step into a void and its yawning mouth will smile at me
I have always been smiling back

Bullet-hole chest
Me, a girl with parts missing
You, a smile with a smoking gun
caught in a war zone of I still love you
Refugee to the emotions that still hold me sway
Gentle as you killed me,
Kind at the slaughter
I died with tears drying on my face
And lips still shaped to kiss you
I never even saw the knife

I am cynical
I am lost
I tie anchors to my feet
and complain when I drown
I am clingy, corrupt
I need so many people
yet I push them away
when they get too close
I am broken
I am scarred
I build my walls
and I tear them down
I'm lonely, tired, sad
I am a mess.
Make sense of me?

She is far far away
In a place I cannot reach
My darling sister
Grown, and more beautiful
Than the turquoise seas
And the floral meadows.

On the other side of the world
Where times and seasons are different
Our conversations are choppy
Sometimes not speaking for weeks
Sometimes talking for hours

Blood of my blood
Keeper of secrets large and small
Most trusted friend
Dearest companion
Far away is she
Far from her little sister
Far, so far
From me.

Thank you for your patience
with my little fragile heart
I promise I'll be strong soon,
just strong enough to part
I want to know what you ache for
what courses through your bones
I hope, to you, love is more
than a temporary home,
I belong to leap years
and forests as far as sky,
though I still retain my little fears
my fragile heart soon shall fly

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

Such fury in her old bones
Ancient anger, generations deep
Like the roots of trees
Sunken and embedded into earth
wild woman

Forest nymph
She who thrives on sunlight
And grows ever upwards
With the flowers of her home
wild woman

The Moon's child and silver sun
Ebbs and flows with the waves
Riding currents and rips in sea
Under the nightly tide
wild woman

We are the bones of the earth
We are the stem that reaches sky
We are the strongest currents
*We are wild women

I haven't posted in a while because I've been so focused on my happiness and I've been smiling and happy but its one of those nights where the world crushes me and I realise that I'm not fooling anyone, least of all myself, I need to be tall and slim and confident with quiet opinions and a laugh that doesn't sound like thunder. I need to be everything and more for those I love, I must be strong for people who cannot carry themselves and I must be smart enough to make my mother proud because there is no joy like hers. But sunlight if often hidden by clouds and we had a storm today and in the rain I heard your heartbeat and I recalled how you hurt me and the wounds you left re-opened, and with my exposed flesh and a bitter taste on my tongue I collapsed like the stars and the cosmos will collapse one day. One day when there is no one left to remember me and no one left to remember that once upon a century I was alive and I had shakey breath and friends that shone like the sun that will soon burn out and no one will remember that I lived and no one will know that I died with a rock in my heart where I put it to stop the blood flowing and I hate it I hate it I hate it. I hope heaven is nice but I'm not going there yet.

I am always
The punching bag
the shoulder to cry on
the comforter
the listener
the talker
the 'here to make things better'er
the one to poke fun at
just to make yourself feel big
I'm here to talk you out of suicide
to make sure you wake up tomorrow
to ensure your happiness
even if i must sacrifice my own
I'm here to clear the darkness
from behind your eyes
but its my light that now fills you
I have been depleted of something more
I am something to go to
when you need someone
or need to feel
I'm not considered a person anymore.

The thought of you two
Crying and fighting
Over a small town boy
Is enough to make my stomach
Tremble and my heart ache
I have told you countless times
That four years of friendship
Is a more solid foundation
Than a crumbling shack of a boy
You have both known less
Than a full moon cycle
Friendship is not about always
Doing what the other wishes
It is not about predicting
The outcome of your choices
It is about looking at each other
And being able to confess in truth
'You have flaws, and I still love you'
My head is pounding from the stress
Of worrying if you will ever stop
Fighting and clashing and hurting
My angels I love you dearly
Love one another as I do you
Let not one boy be the echoing shout
That moves mountains of your friendship
And destroys the hearts of you both.

We are always in motion
Never stopping,
Not for a second.
Racing towards finality
Waltzing through life
Our hands bound,
Unable to reach for the other
A dance of writing poems
And speaking no words
Shielding eyes when a gaze lingers
Scared of what we will find
Should we see the eyes of the other
There is rage and sorrow
And painful regret
Of that dance that now instructs us
You are the sun
And I the moon
Never touching
Only seeing from a distance
And somehow gravitating
Around and towards each other.
I know if we get too close
You will burn me away
Or I will eclipse your light
So we dance, endlessly
And we write poems
And speak no words.

I decided to stop following
The sparse and sorrowed rains
I will become my own storm
Cure the drought that binds me
These tears will feed my roots
And I will grow and grow and grow
In this savannah, where beast
Kills beast over scraps
I have become my own god
I have saved and salvaged myself

I didn't mean to
I didn't want any new scars
what have i done?
I thought i had finished the days
where i would harm my skin
putting blade to flesh
in a frantic attempt to feel
but i was getting better
i was good, happy
why did i do it?
i let them down
i let him down
i promised
i... i'm so sorry
im so sorry

I have been a dream
I have been a tempest
And a flood
And a raging fire
I have been the creeping dark
The terrible sun
I have been the ghost that knocks my plants over
I have been the spilled soil, too
The branch that taps against my window
I have been a car crash
And a mirror
And a stunted cry in the night
I have been a brilliant sunrise
A bloated ocean
The ghost of my father
I have been the cracked rib of my mother
The snakes’ yawning mouth
Eve herself
I have been a leaking tap
A righteous man
A little sin
The blade and the wound
I have been the wolf and the howl
A bulbous moon
I have been a dream.

The rain got in the house, somehow. It was leaking from the ceiling, pouring like autumn showers and the thunder was so loud it made my ears ring. I was screaming above the storm we need to get out of the rain and I received blank stares and empty faces. My family, listen to me, can you not see the lightning?
Faces fall away and I am in a dark room with only that forked electricity to light my way. Booming and crashing and the crackling static.
Hands on my head I can't get the sound out its so loud its too LOUD. THERE IS SO MUCH NOISE. THERE IS ONLY **THUNDER THUNDER THUNDER.

Something has changed,
shattered,
this gentle thing we had,
fragile as it was
has met its inevitable death
and we have plunged into dark
grasping at fragments of light
you have found someone
more stable than I,
better suited,
more loved
I forgive you
because I knew from the start
that this joyous thing
was doomed to die
as they only let you be happy
if they're preparing
to take it from you

nonetheless
I will grasp at the light
I am not the meek and feeble bird
that flew into a spider's web
I am a lioness
ready to fight for my joy
We will see the sun again
and it will be, as it always was,
*dazzling

You are not the dust in the clothes never worn
You are the giggle in your mothers smile
You are not the rain in the autumn
You are the light in your best friends eyes
You are not the unfixable toy thrown to the trash
You are the soldier
Fighting demons within yourself
Darling do not think you are anything less than perfect
One day I hope you wake up
And realise you are so much more
Than background noise

I am good as I am,
do not take that from me
do not presume to know me
at my best, or my worst
it is enough to know
that my tears will water the earth
and my blood will paint the sky
until it is red and angry;
you will know my wrath
should you tell me how I am
should you say that I could be more
or that I am somehow, less,
be it enough that the stars hold me
be it enough that the moon moves me
be it enough that I can love me
                      
                                                                  
                                                                                                    I am good as I am

look at the world around you
look at the way the birds of the morning
sing the same sweet melody every day
look at how the wind can bend the trees
but never do they bow to it
breathe in the atmosphere and the air
polluted it may be, it holds everything you need
marvel at how easily breathing comes to you
even when you feel you cannot
look at the way the sun never fails to rise
and the stars appear in different places each night
be awed by the constant rotation of Earth
and the way we do not notice how it turns
look at the animals, the fox that creeps into your garden
and the deer that runs from the wolves in the forest
feel the rain pounding against your skin
every drop lasting only a mere few seconds
before it's short life is over and purpose is gone
but the storms never stop being beautiful
and the rain both cleanses and creates
new life is being formed every second
all the atoms are working together
in perfect unison
Look at this world, really look.
Isn't it remarkable?

its a daily struggle
you don't wake up one day
and the pain is gone
you have to fight it away
every single time you breathe
and whilst doing that,
you also have to smile
because you can't let people know
just how helpless you are
you can't let people realize
that you're weak
because they'll use it against you
they always do
so you put on a brave face
and mock your own pain
in the hopes that it will throw them off
the scent of your bleeding body
and the truth is, in all honesty,
you need so much more help
that you let people understand.
you're taking painkillers
when your body doesn't hurt
which is ironic, because i suppose this means
you're sicker than you thought.

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.

I counted
10 planes
Go past my window
In the last
6 minutes
I wish I was
Headed somewhere
Too.

I am dancing on light
I am floating in a sea of colour
It is brilliant but also subtle
The colours rock me like waves
I could lie on this ocean forever
There is nothing but me and the light
I am at peace
I am at peace

I am not congruent
If you open me up
You will find mismatched bones
And the disjointedness of me

Every jungle has a snake
I am in the garden of Eden
And my peers feel like
They are the conspirators

I am loved, often
He holds me and I sleep
But nothing is perfect
Nothing can stay, not even him

I am brittle and fragile
My bones break on a nightly basis
My mother fears I'll crumble
We all turn to ash, one day