Bruised knuckles and shaking fingers,
These will always remind me of him,
Of a boy that I can no longer claim to know.

Bruised knuckles and shaking fingers,
I always hated the fact that his hands
looked looked how I felt.

Bruised knuckles and shaking fingers,
the sign that I hadn't got there in time,
I hadn't stepped between him and the wall,
the wall that he so desperately want to crash against.

Bruised knuckles and shaking fingers,
it always ended this way;
the feeling still lingers.

Like slides across a projector,
Unwanted memories sweep into my mind.
I wish I could go back to before,
Sat cross-legged with my pigtails swinging, listening to the grown ups lessons.
That was all before self-hatred tugged at my heartstrings,
And unworldly voices hissed in my ear that I wasn’t enough,
That I never would be.

The flashbacks are blinding me, they distort the image,
Twisting the reality.
How can a friend do that in the first place?
He was supposed to be my rock, my shelter from the storms inside my head.
I had built myself up knowing that he would be there to keep me strong,
Placing brick by brick around my heart, I deigned to think I was unbreakable.

They said not to throw rocks at greenhouses,
What do we do when the rocks begin hurling themselves at our fragile walls?

I want to grasp at the shards,
Holding my broken pieces so hard my palms drip with blood,
And cut down those who hurt me.
To fight back despite the tears streaming down my face.
I want to use the shards to rip the skin from my bones,
Destroy to create; erase myself to rebuild myself?
I will become stronger, I will never be so vulnerable.

Most of all, I want to rise from the rubble standing tall,
And learn to never again lay my foundations in shakey grounds.
Maybe then, I will have finally understood what the grown ups had taught me all those years before.

Caught in this space between (life) and death,
Trying to muster the (will) go on,
To (get) back the joy in my hollow eyes.
I wish I were (better), stronger, enough
For (my) loved ones, who anchor me when I drift away,
They call out, “(Darling), come back to us”.

if i continue along this road
will i become ragged and damaged?
will i have to drag my wearsome feet
until i cannot go on

crawling back from that point
was the hardest thing i have done.
i’m not sure that my broken, sullied fingers
would be able to claw at the dirt track
back towards my old self.

i cannot get hurt again,
even if that means picking myself up from the dust,
screaming at the top of my lungs,
that i need to be free;
i need to be able to breathe.

can i trust you to meet me,
smile on your face,
to pull me into your arms?
my rock amongst my crumbling thoughts.

n.b.

I wish, I wish, I wish,
That I could love the skin that I’m in,
And I wish, I wish, I wish,
That I didn’t have to plaster on my grin.

I dream, I dream, I dream,
Of another life, or another time,
And I dream, I dream, I dream,
Of a world where you are mine.

I hope, I hope, I hope,
That I’m not to broken to try,
And I hope, I hope, I hope,
That I’ll live before I die.

n.b.

Your chest feels like a cage without (love).
You are left without the (and) between your names.
The (warmth) is gone, an emptiness in your heart
destroys your (will) to live and will
(ignite) a frenzy of hatred, a soul-blackening sadness
(in) your mind,
thinking in terms of (your) and not you’re
and **** the colour from your (life).

It will devour the wish to (give) before you receive,
and (it) will feed on the the sad sentiment that is driving you to destruction,
it’s a (time) bomb, and we must do something.

n.b.

I ache to return to my dreams,
The place where we remain.
Only there am I still yours;
Such a bittersweet land it is.

I cannot let myself give in,
I know the alternative;
A world where the demons have free range.
They tread on my heart,
And tear up my soul - leaving only
A shell of what was there before.

Stuck between states,
My purgatorial space.

n.b.