Age is no big deal,
but eight years contains a lot -
well love, so do I.

So,
even though you pushed me,
even though you charmed me,
with your words,
your smile,
it's my fault
and I'm apologising,
for doing what you told me to.
But I'm not sorry at all.

If I am as cold,
as empty,
as lonely as I think I am right now,
how much colder,
emptier
and lonelier will I really get if I truly
be myself?
Winter doesn't last forever.
The ice will melt.
I can put on a jumper,
wrap round a scarf.
And maybe,
just maybe,
I'll actually get a little warmer.
Maybe,
just maybe,
I'll see the sun.

Oh how I long
to fall asleep soundly.
Turn off the light,
flick the switch
and dream.
I dream alright.
My dreams are so far from reality
I can't bare it.
I know alcohol
can make you weepy,
but the willow with it's reaching branches,
that droops so sadly,
is teetotal.
My pillow
is my confidant.
I silently sob into it's
soggy material,
stuffing corners of duvet in to my mouth
to stifle,
s t i f l e,
the sound.
The taste of salt runs down the creases of my cheeks
and in to my mouth,
taking me back to days at the seaside,
fish and chips.
I finally tumble in to a fitful sleep
thinking of the ocean.
But it swallows me whole.
And I'm drowning.

I think
moss is growing,
webs are forming,
poison ivy is creeping,
weeds are sprouting,
willows are weeping,
inside my chest.
I can hear the echo
of a tiny,
wavering voice,
calling down the
wishing well cavern
inside my rib cage.
"Help me..."
"Don't forget me..."
My shriveled,
weary heart
thumps
and
drums
feebly against my flesh,
crying out for attention,
creating tremors,
earthquakes,
in my overgrown,
suffocating,
internal garden.
The ripples,
in the pools resting on my chest,
tell me
"You're still there."

"Don't give up."

How strange.
The dragon,
which I'd trained so valiantly for,
expected to breathe fire and
spit flames,
turned out to be more like
a cowering puppy.
Hiding behind his hair,
eyes rarely meeting mine,
I could put the sword back in it's case.
I felt more of a beast than you.

How strange.
The struggle I'd imagined,
the whirlwind battle,
where I defeated my demons,
and the dragon,
turned out to be nothing but a mere
pillow fight.
I entered the lair,
to find nobody there.

How strange.
The dragon I thought I'd
fall in love with,
failed to flame the spark.
My heart remained
irritatingly unscorched,
nothing more than the odd
plume of smoke
wafting around us.
And that was mainly your cigarettes.

How strange.
The 'dragon',
with his timid tone
and reserved demeanor,
roared
"F R I E N D."
This knight in
not so shining armour
needs a dragon
who can grip her heart with their claw,
and turn it white hot with desire.
You,
my little 'dragon',
are not that.
But you will make a great
friend
anyway.

"How was your night?"

Drinking,
as usual,
to numb the constant,
dull hum,
of emptiness,
crying by myself,
at the back of the club,
watching my beautiful friends,
with the perfect faces,
find somebody to hold
and love for the night.
Going home by myself,
staring out the smudgy window of the taxi,
wondering if I'll ever make the journey with somebody next to me,
a hand to hold.
Getting into bed as dawn breaks,
just as my heart does the same.

"Fine."

I finally did it.
With a deep breath,
and a little help from my friend Mr Alcohol,
I conquered the dragon.
But now,
despite the heroic gesture,
the sword held high in the air,
it seems the real battle has only just begun.
The day we have decided on
looms
like an execution date.
How do I pretend
that I'm confident?
How will I manage to,
dare I even say it,
flirt?
I feel the raw sensation of panic
creeping up my throat,
a lump that tells me I'll have to choke out my words
to even communicate with you.
I'll be so red you won't be able to tell if I'm embarrassed or sunburnt,
I might shake so that I spill my drink,
it's likely that I won't be able to look you in the eye,
I'll probably keep making frequent toilets breaks,
but if,
if,
you can like me,
even through all that shield I hold up,
I promise you,
I'll wear a suit of armor so strong,
hold a sword so surely,
that no one,
especially me,
will ever hurt you.
I'll slay your dragons.

You've closed in on yourself,
like a butterfly that's gone back in to it's cocoon.
Like somebody whose seen the sickness in the world,
and wants to shut the door.
You've spent the past few weeks scrambling on your hands and knees,
picking up the pieces of your heart that she destroyed.
You've bound them back together with masking tape,
tight as you can with your now
weak
hands.
It's fragile.
You felt it's foundations tremble as I walked through your closed door,
and into your life.

I'm not going to hurt you.

Your skin that's so damp from all the crying,
is the opposite of my thirsty,
yearning body.
Your heart that is so delicate,
balancing on the precipice of
broken
and
fixed,
would fit perfectly inside my own
strong and
empty
one.
I want to show you how I can be your Superwoman,
how I'm ready and waiting to dash into the phone box,
and put on the cape.
I want you to remember how sweet life was when you first left the cocoon.
I'll fix your torn wings.
Step off the edge
and take the leap.
If you fall,
I'm there with my cape to catch you.
Let yourself love again.

These ears are full to the brim,
overflowing,
with words of hatred,
complaints,
moans,
heartache.

I'm scared they're going to get into my blood stream
and poison my heart.
Why do I have to be the good listener?
Why do I have nothing to say?

I would do almost anything
to feel the crippling,
rib cracking,
pain of heartbreak radiating through my chest.
There's nothing I want more
than to be able to cry
huge,
salty tears each night,
one for each time he held my hand,
warmed my lips.
I want to feel the itchy,
sodium stains on my cheeks,
the dampness of my pillow.
I want to be able to hear songs,
watch movies,
that take me back to vivid memories,
that chisel away a little bit more of my
soul
eachtime.

Because what's that old saying?
"It's better to have had and lost love,
than to have never loved at all."
It circles through my mind,
screaming like a banshee.
This empty ache in my rib cage,
this dullness in my veins,
is something I want rid of.

I'd take the sweetness of the sugar,
followed by the sour of the lemon,
over this bland gruel anyday.

Make me feel.

I wish I could be brave.
The dragon leers it's angry head,
throwing flames so hot they peel paint,
scorch my heart,
and yet instead of donning my helmet and vanquishing the beast,
I clamber at it,
clumsily,
my armor too big,
my sword a child's toy.
Can it really be as hard,
as my quivering knees tell me it is?
In the movies,
the beast is defeated effortlessly by the lockers in school corridors.
"Hey, I've seen you around, fancy doing something sometime?"
But this is not the movies.
I ask the question
"What's the worst that can happen?"
but the visual replies that flicker through my mind are so unbearable,
I shut them off.
Instead, I stay mute.
I live a thousand lives,
a thousand moments,
with all the different dragons I encounter,
but the coldness I feel when the dragon and his flames have gone,
tell me I've missed my chance again.
I have a voice.
I can speak.
So why do the words elude me?
Just as I go to stutter something out,
my tongue a diving board of could be's,
the dragon roars
and warms my cheeks red,
my hands clammy.
Perhaps I first need to
love myself
before I can offer my being,
and my love,
to another.
But then again,
don't these sick,
twisted dragons enjoy
a girl with insecurities?
Instead,
I best stay silent.
Instead,
I best first conquer the beast within me.

To the boy I saw at work today,
the one so beautiful,
my heart
stopped,
what happened to our fairy tale ending,
the part where you give me your number and sweep me away?
Maybe I was just so
blinded
by your watercolour eyes,
of blueish grey,
your large, steady hands that brushed against my own pleading two
when you payed for your drink,
that brushed against my bare back,
against my stomach,
against my cheek
in the very same moment,
that I saw the stars that you didn't.
I was sure I saw something buried in the creases of your smile,
something that said
"I'm yours."
All
mine.
But something told me otherwise when you walked away,
blessed the rest of the room with those watercolour eyes
and gave them all the same promise.
To you I was just a
faceless vending machine,
to me you were
everything I've been longing for.
My pathetic
pictures
I paint with people like you,
like the boy at the bus stop,
like the boy in the cafe,
like every boy who ever took my breath away,
are as realistic and accurate
as the finest Dali or Picasso.
But to me,
you are all more real,
more beautiful,
than any work of art.
More even than my own
pathetic
paintings.

I feel just about ready to
burst
with all the love
and kind words
and stroking of the cheek I have ready to offer.
But nobody wants it.
So should I just burst,
splatter all over a canvas and create a sick sort of work of art,
leaving me a let down balloon, a broken shell?
Or should I leave it to decay,
to slowly eat my insides and eventually fester out of my
ears,
nose,
mouth,
into something bitter and spoiled.
Or should I just keep growing
and hope I find you?

Halloween.
Where have the days gone where I dressed as a witch and went from door to door?
Too old for that now.
If a zombie,
vampire,
or any form of ghoul,
decided to visit me tonight
I
wouldn't
even
flinch.
Because now phantoms come in the form of
finance pamphlets,
skeletons visit me disguised as
university prospectuses.
I quiver at the whispers of
"career choices" and
"moving out" and,
the ever looming,
satanic big one,
"The Future."
I use my duvet as a shield as if I was a child again,
shaking,
pleading,
"No, no, no",
only to be told
"Get out of bed, take some responsibility, grow up!"
Grow up.
I'd rather take on a werewolf.
I check for the monsters under the bed, only to find
they're my parents,
my tutor,
myself.
Please let me be that little witch again?

This just isn't fair.
Not right.
I would rather have stayed alone, untouched, locked away,
than this.
Last night I thought a change had come.
I finally felt the heavens open and a beam of light settle on my face, as warming as the sun,
as warming as your hands on me.
But now it's cold.
My body that had gotten into a routine of no emotion, no feeling,
felt alive.
Electricity ran down my veins into my fingertips, my stomach filled with stars and
my lips
burnt.
I've been left scorched.
A burns victim with acid thrown in their face.
I've been scooped out like a pumpkin and left hollow.
I've been resuscitated and the plug pulled again.
Whatever sadness I felt before was
nothing
like this.

I was happy being unhappy.

I wish I could have stayed with you,
and felt how it is to be touched again.

Last night is blurry in my sleep fogged mind,
through my smudgy black eyes.
But I can feel the ghost
of the awkward,
stumbling,
kisses we shared,
the faint tickle of your hot breath
that whispered down my neck.

Did it really happen?

Dad.
I will always remember when I was thirteen and you came into the living room and said
"We have nothing in common anymore. Nothing to talk about."
That broke me.
At the time I didn't understand what you meant. But now I've grown,
and the years have gone by,
and I think it's finally clear what you meant that day you made me cry myself to sleep.

I have always been a Daddy's girl.
My first word was "Da Da."
You taught me how to walk, ***** trained me, took me to the doctors when I was ill.
I used to lie on your belly and watch football with you, even though I had no interest in sports
and would rather curl up with a book instead.
But I tried.
Because thinking even your gender is a disappointment to your own father is a pain so sharp, so unfair that I was willing to try anything.
I remember when you bought me a jumper, bag, trainers, t-shirt with your, our, favourite team on them.
I proudly wore them to school, only to be pounced on by the older boys.
"Haha, they're *****."
They kicked my bag and stomped on my trainers.
But I didn't care.
It wasn't only football.
I remember us sitting on the sofa watching Laurel and Hardy videos, stuffing ourselves with pizza,
you beaming down at me as I laughed and laughed at the silly man and his angry friend.
That made you happy.
There were lots of things that made you unhappy.
If I spilled a glass of milk, or drew on my hands, or forgot to wear my coat to school,
you'd transform into the 'other' Dad.
A man I didn't know,
still don't know,
spitting and screaming at me, your wild eyes vacant of the real you.
The shifts made you tired, and I crept around when you were in bed,
and even when you were awake, afraid to bring out your Mr Hyde.
Being ill didn't help. You clung even more desperately to life,
Mr Hyde coming out when anything went wrong.
It wasn't your fault,
but try telling that to the ten year old me.
All I knew was my Daddy might die.
I was scared.
You were scared.

I'm still scared now, at nineteen years of age.
I finally understand what you said that day.
We are like a ghost of our former selves.
When we sit on our separate sofas, I can hear the faint laughter of our times watching Laurel and Hardy.
When we greet each other on a morning, a grunt from me, a grunt from you, I remember our embraces.
Now it hurts to touch.

How can I love somebody so much who scares me so much.

Sometimes,
usually when I've had a drink,
(or two),
I try to remember what it feels like to be kissed,
the hot, wet, desperate pressing of lips.
This is what it must be like for somebody with Alzheimer's disease.
Pretty much impossible.
I creak open my own crumbling, forgotten lips, lined with cobwebs, filled with bats.
I think of Miss Havisham.
"Can I get another?"

It's the night times that are the hardest.
The image of that cute couple in the coffee shop from earlier flickers through my mind.
I look up at the TV for a distraction, only to see a tender embrace, loves first kiss.
I search for the remote on the side of my bed where a body should be,
brush a hand across the cold fabric.
I put on some music.
"And all I could do was cry"
Crying, Etta, is futile.
Each tear hammers down on my hollow emptiness like a drum,
a-lone, a-lone, a-lone.
Alone.
The alarm clock on my bedside table ticks and ticks,
waiting
and waiting,
ticking
and waiting.
What are you waiting for?

Time to go to sleep.

In adverts for chocolate and sweet companies,
the thin pretty girl seductively
consumes
a bar of chocolate,
or the hunky male model
gets the girl
with a Mars Bar in his perfectly carved hand.

What you don't see,
is the tear stained faces of the chubby guys and girls,
the ones with an endless cavern of hunger that no amount of
consumption
can ever fill,
the painfully skinny guys and girls, skinnier even than the
pretty faces in the adverts,
desperately turning their mouths into an abyss of thick
sickly brown,
before forcing it out of them again, like a perverse sort of
waterfall.
The endless sadness,
and need,
and starvation,
and greed,
that leaves them even more hollow and engorged with shame and pain,
than whatever they seem on the outside.

The adverts are just a candy wrapper.

The same thing
every day,
every,
day.

Tomorrow
the same thing,
every day,
every,
day.

Today
is yesterday,
tomorrow
and the same.