your neck is concrete
where once it was limber;
but your hair was pulled once
too vigorously
and now all you can do is nod.

and it’s not that you forgot how to say
no.
it’s that you simply cannot say
no;
no, I don’t want to hook up with you
no, this isn’t giving me any pleasure
no, you treat me like a
sub-human fleshlight.

but you still go ahead with it;
a fantastical distraction.
but that’s all it ever is
in it’s many forms;
a distraction.

i want to curl up with you;
rainy Sunday afternoon
watching old Hepburn films
and you stroke my hair
and i stare at you.

i want to read to you;
candle-lit room
scented with mangos -
and you rest your legs on mine
and i smile at you.

i want to get high with you;
flowers in bloom
you smell ashy
and we listen to Syd Barrett
and I cry with you.

i want to ride with you
sunlit bedroom -
sweaty expressions
and palma violets gush from my depths
and i die with you.

when i got home that night

- three-hundred and sixty-five days

prior to writing this,
i’d spent exactly

- forty-five minutes

drinking.
i’d left the house at

- eight-thirty pm

and planned to spend about

- three and a half-hours

shooting the **** with old friends
while pretending i was okay.
instead, i downed

- three double-shots of ***** and lemonade
- three double-shots of malibu and coke
- 2 shots of amaretto and coke
- and one pint of beer.

and after those forty five minutes,
my friend spent about

- twenty minutes

dragging me home.
it took

- two-and-a-half minutes

to explain to her that i’d been ill.
very ill.
and that really, i still was
very ill.
and it took

- two-point-five seconds

for her to ignore me.
when I got home that night

- three-hundred and sixty-five days

prior to writing this,
i spent about

- one hour

throwing up through my mouth.
and through my nose.

- two eyes
- one t-shirt
- one toilet bowl
- one bedsheet

soaked in tears, mascara and *****

i bathe in milk
an alkaline to bleach
the acidic stench of stress
out of my poor pores

i lie in a rose garden
the hummingbird flying over me
to cleanse the noise
of the distant city

sitting pretty
with cucumbers over my eyelids
while a lady caresses my nailbeds
with a file

it seems menial;
that this is supposed to make me
feel better on the outside
when inside i’m in denial

self care is not just
an instagrammable bath bomb
exploding in the consumer’s face
like the feeling exploding in the feeler

it’s realer.
i washed today,
brushed my teeth today
got dressed today

i’m impressed today.
today i am a phenomenal woman.
today i am a higher being;
i am maya

sitting in her mansion
sipping on her sweet tea
smiling sweetly;
reminiscing on her millions.

words cut deep;
you were my anaesthesia.

then, you wore off;
i died under the knife.

i called them
my life goggles -
drowning in thin air
unaware that i could
move volcanoes with my
mind.
minding my own business
being stuck in my own business
feeling
trapped
in my own business.
life goggles fogged over
clogging up
and blocking my tears from view.

he holds the sun.
i know this because
he emits a piece of it’s shine
towards me every day.
it’s in his smile
when he hasn’t seen me in a while;
it’s in the warmth of his skin,
holding me from within -
i look up to him
-blinding-
always shining
although occasionally clouded
from view;
he is my one constant.
the grandest star in the sky.

she carries the sun
with her bare
inexperienced hands.
she smatters the sky
with stars for you and I
and the birdsong
in the early hour
and the berries
flowering on the mulberry bush
in this hush, serene scene
that she was responsible for.

she has lived on this Earth
but two decades
though the daisies in her hair
imply longer;
and the babies in the field
in her prenatal dreams
explore a learnéd
old soul to be reckoned with.

the child is her saviour
though she is but a child herself

it is almost impossible
to love someone
and feel stability
simultaneously;
to be able to feel
rich waves of honey
climaxing in your heart
(climaxing in your bed)
cannot be one of sanity.
i don’t feel in neutrality -
i never have

half-bitten nails
and ten-year pipe dreams
of saving the world
and making my mark
and doing some good.

how can i be a phenomenal woman
when i can’t even wash myself
phenomenally,
when my brain is on sabbatical
and all that matters is
chilled ben and jerry’s
heated in the microwave

sometimes i awake from slumber
and forget to install my cerebral cells;
the world around me seems fuzzy
and i’m too busy to notice.
always busy
busy
busy
until noticing becomes a foreign concept

my brain failed me completely once
and i stayed locked inside
a princess tower;
letting down my hair
for Prince Rational-Thought
but he never came.