the moment you asked me to change, i knew that i couldn't.
i can't change the way i fiddle with my hair constantly or the way i bite the inside of my lip when i'm concentrating. i can't change the way i speak far too much and also too little. i can't change the way my clothes cling to the parts of my body that they shouldn't. i can't change the way i over analyse everything or the way i laugh. i can't change the way i fall for people who spin a tale with adjectives and a happily ever after. i can't change the way i'm constantly nervous and jumpy and always wondering whether you notice me. i can't change the way i read other people's words like they're going out of style. i can't change the way i have too many questions and not nearly enough answers. i can't change the way i don't sleep because i'm too busy pondering the great workings of the universe.
i can't change me any more than i can change the direction of gale force winds simply by blowing into the air. i can't change the way i loved you and i can't change the way that all of that wasn't enough.

Pain is inevetable.
Suffering optionable.

I will lay my mouth upon
This band-aid and whisper

A kiss of comfort into it.
*It only hurts if you pull

The poet off slowly.

Everybody is falling in love
                 and I'm just falling further
                 into the depths of some
                 monstrous black hole I dug in
                 the back wall of my closet.

Everybody is falling in love
                 and I'm just falling asleep
                 under some mysterious concoction
                 you injected into me when I got caught up
                 in your faulty promises, but I should have known
                 that you were nothing but an awful distraction

Everybody is falling in love
                 and I can't help but remind myself that these clouds above me
                 will only remain grey until some external force sweeps me off my feet
                 and carries me towards the highest mountains with a stunning view,
                 and he'll set me on the ground and I'll make a run for the edge
                 only to think twice before jumping off because

                 you ruined me in all the right places  
                 just to make sure everything felt so wrong after you left.

Everybody is falling in love**
                 and I can't help but notice that the weather seems to be looking up
                 and I can't help but hope for it to come crashing down;
                 for the sea to break through the cracks in the concrete
                 so I'll never have to see your face again
                 and you'll never get to see hers either.

gd

Lately my dreams have been working 12 hour shifts
and you seem to disappear at the 13th
But around hour 15 I start to draw your eyes on the tv screen
and taste your lips on my knife
and
then
I start to bleed because I think your name just cut into my lip a bit

and you're gone

At hour 19 i swear I hear your voice on the other line of whoever my dad is talking to and I can't breathe anymore
and
then
Hour 22 is the roughest
but only because my hands are a lot softer than yours and I can't quite get them to do that thing you did
and

It's hour 24
and I think this blanket was stitched from your body

Over 200 schoolgirls,
what difference does it make?
If there were only one ten or eight,
they were never yours to take

Hadija, Febi, Chioma,
should be in all of our heads,
but are instead
in a filthy man's bed.

We are the hands
that need to hold their mothers
or wipe away the tears
of their broken baby brothers

One found schoolgirl

the difference that would make
to be held in her fathers arms

they were never yours to take

Sometimes you have to be alone to escape the loneliness*~ Amitav