Your bones creak like old,
abandoned houses and it has
always been my first instinct
to explore them. My mother
always said that I was never
good at making the right
choices, but she doesn’t
realize that this isn’t a forked
path; it’s a convergent one.
Everything seems to lead to
you, and I’m sure if I’m
obsessed or just a mess.

You should know better than to
trust a girl who tries to find a
home in haunted houses. When
the furniture has been removed
and the paint begins to peel,
that’s when you’ll find me. When
the sky grows dark and the
shadows grow long, that’s when
you’ll find me. In the darkest
hour of the morning, following
the hallway to the leaking tap,
that’s when you’ll find me.

I’ve always been drawn to
devastation and decay.
Abandoned houses are a life
sized self-portrait. I will re-paint
the chipping walls. I will dust the
shelves and sweep the floors. I
will move in my own furniture
and leave the lights switched on
at night. I will fill the house with
music and laughter and love
once again. I will not let your
bones grow cold. I will not let
myself grow cold.

When you wake up and find
me sitting in the spaces where
your rib cage doesn’t
completely cover, I hope to God
that you’ll find it hard to
breathe.

She is like winter, her emotionless eyes pale blue
and her skin translucent,
the colour of a flower vase people tend to shatter carelessly
every so often.
Every line on her skin is weaved
into an intricate pattern of snowflakes,
held tightly together
not to protect her from the outside,
but to hold her insides together.
People do not understand that when cut open,
her sadness, sparkling like snow in the sun, tends to spill out.
Every once in a while, it chokes her.

Please
do not cut me open.
Do not break me just to fix me.
Because pieces will scatter to the ends of the universe
And you will leave me
Before I can find enough of myself to put back together.

It’s easy to fall in love with parts, but I will try my best to love you whole.
I will love you on angry nights,
empty mornings,
and when your words hang in the air as the aftermath of some 4 a.m. drinks.
Do not be afraid of yourself.
I will love you in your tenderest,
and you will love yourself too.

I have fallen for the concept that is beauty.
I see it in the vintage light that masks photos.
Photos that I force myself to look at, overwhelming my delicate senses.
I don’t know what it is about beauty. It extends its long tendrils
Thorny, loving tendrils that capture you in a hug
And beckon you closer, closer.
And I stare at her ever-changing face;
Shifting from my talented senior to my classmate
To my older sister and my worst enemy.
They are beautiful.
And I am not. And will never be.

But Beauty releases me
Clutching, in her hand, an elixir of envy
And I begin to stir, and see
Why our – why my – perception of beauty has skewed so much.
Who sees the blemishes the photos hide?
Who sees the clothes that have been locked away in a drawer in the corner of the room?
Who sees the menace of the words the smiling lips have spat?
Who sees the ugliness masked by beauty?
Who wants to see the ugliness?

Beauty is a concept of age and tradition
And unspoken desire of human nature
Hushed on the lips of mothers preparing their daughters to be presented
Hushed on the lips of tightened corsets
Hushed on the lips of wistful glances through transparent boutique windows
History has shown how greedy, selfish, deceitful us beings can be
And beauty is not a topic that will change that.

I have fallen for the concept that is beauty,
And to me she extends that elixir.

Without thinking, I gratefully swallow.

as i lie awake
i think about how stupid it is
that the only things that connect me to you
are inanimate

handheld devices can only bring me so far
i want to lie beside you and
touch the creases on your face
as you tell me about how you regret
taking up a habit of smoking

i want to fill your mouth with my breath
and wash away your intoxication
and the heaviness that comes with drinking

i want to put my fingers between yours
and fill you with kinder words
than you could ever find for yourself
and tell you that regret is an ocean
and it will swallow you
if you aren’t careful

.

.

.

but phones can only bring me so far
i find myself staring at a dress
i once wore
and how you said i had looked beautiful
even though you couldn’t see for yourself

and i find myself
reciting my day
like my voice could reach across the ocean
and pull you home

sometimes, i think it’s nostalgia
other times it might be regret

two years is
a pretty long time
and i long to be beside you
to make you feel loved
in case you can’t remember it yourself

but i will have to make do
with conversations at six in the morning
knowing that you will stay awake
throughout the night
and i will stare at the black screen pleading that
with every silent passing moment
your heart will still be beating

i can’t even bear
to see what has become of
the girl outside me

so what makes me think
that the girl inside this skin
won’t be any worse?

the mirror shows me
the ugly face of nature
mother and human

please

let me drown myself
in powder and false hope of
a better morning

perhaps tomorrow
i will stir awake, prettier
or as good as dead