i feel like there is so much love left
when people leave us
and we have no idea what to do with them
so we keep them in boxes,
we store them in drawers
and sometimes,
we wear them on cold nights
when no one is watching.

all around us we make sure
we live in a place
with no trace of what has been
yet every closet is filled with the bones
of a dead love
and every corner is a reminder
of where we got lost

we hide the things they left behind,
we create mausoleums out of our rooms
and call it “moving on”

even my room is haunted
with his hasty departure
his old sweatshirt,
his silk necktie,
and the ocean blue summer dress he gave me
gather dust as a relic of a past
i have exhibited in the walls
of my broken heart

i buy cigarettes
and try to remember the taste of
his nicotine mouth
i study my face in the mirror
and try to remember the look of the girl
he fell in love with
i stay in the nights longer
i skip all the cracks in the pavement
i keep wishing he come back

one day i woke up
in a cold bathroom floor
filled with my tears and *****
that’s when I knew
where all the leftover love goes
it seeds hatred
then grows into despair
and finally bears the fruit of grief

there is no reasoning with a broken heart
only grief

and grief is the greatest leftover love there is
it spills all over
and seals your chest tight
until you feel no fight
and no other

so i waited and wasted away
until my ribs cracked
under the pressure of all the grief flowing out

and one day
i realized
i left one of his jackets
in my old apartment abroad
i couldn’t bring it any longer
my luggage is filled with so many new things
and his was a heavy garment
i just couldn’t carry anymore.

I am finally here

I finally watched the series you promised to watch with me—alone
I finally had the courage to talk about you with my sister and laugh
I finally talked to someone and not see your shadow in his steps
So many small finally’s
To trample the used to be’s
So this is how
it finally feels
to finally get over you.

There are no more vines in my chest
No more tangled mess
between loving you and letting you go
It took a long while to sort myself back
but I can finally feel my lungs again
No more choking when your name pops up in conversations
No more sadness when I walk the same sidewalks I used to walk with you
The wound has turned to scar
The scar took shelter on my skin.
Everything heals the moment you decide you want to heal
The wanting is always the beginning of the becoming
The world moves, and so do you
If you believe it to

And in my heart, there will always be space for you
And in that same space, I’ve rebuilt a home again
This time knowing
I can never unlove you
but only love you in a different way

And I will.

It took a long while to sort myself back
But I am here.
I am finally here to say
Thank you.
Thank you for stopping by.

So here you are again
at the footsteps of the walls
I’ve rebuilt over
and over again
asking me to let you in.

I know
this is not the first time
that you’ve returned from your
wars with the world.
You are wounded and weary
Your eyes look so dead
I can see the graveyard behind them

You've lost so much, my love.
including yourself.

and you know,
if you would just let me
I would tuck all those bombs away,
Throw them to the skies
and let them light up our lives
instead of them
burning and bruising our bodies

but you won't give up arms

yes, you're reaching out
but you won't let me hold your hand

So we both know
this wouldn’t end well
my bones are still shaking
from all the trauma you’ve caused

my love, please understand
my heart is not a church.
You cannot just return when you feel like it
and pray for me to forgive your sins.
I am not a god.
I am only human.
And there is a limit to how much hurt I can take.

Do you think your “sorry’s” are enough
to sew these spaces you’ve sown in my soul?
Don't you know how hard it is to keep living
when all you've been doing
is leaving me behind?

I still love you.
I think I always will.
But please don’t think
I can keep on breaking myself
just to keep you whole.

I find you in the margins of old school books,
in the cupboard where I keep my old notepads,
in the stories I’ve forgotten I’ve written.
It’s all scraps of myself in rounded letters,
uncanny because it looks like me,
sounds like me,
but it’s you and it is you
but it’s like me too.

I’m opening you (and me) back up and I hate you.
I hate you, but here we are,
in the mirror maze,
all these mes and yous
in the endless tunnel of mirrors,
back to back, side to side,
caught in ourselves at every angle.
We’re all the same: We’re all so different.
None of us are good.

I hate you.

I hate you at every age,

Then reality splays, sprawls flat out in front of me, exams, money, work, decisions, tight nooses that bind me to life. Get your head out of the clouds, girl  *(2012)

at every stage,

Big smiles, A stars, clever girl, the anomaly, dry compliments, sand paper against my skin. Locked in, not a word, just a mind gone grey, a growing mass of dust that swallows the light and only allows for glasses poured half empty* (2014)

at every moment,

I don’t fit in, never have done, never will. I’m always one step ahead or one step behind. I’m never quite there. But no one understands. They say they do but they don’t. I’m different and I don’t like it but I don’t want to change because this is who I am and whatever happens, I have to put up with it (2012)

all your hatred, you happiness, your ignorance and your sadness

The scab peels and leaks. Too soon to heal, too late to undo the fall. Tomorrow, you’ll trip again and your skin will bleed but this time you’ll know where to find the first aid kit. (2013)

You make me sick.

The world was blue today, a metaphorical wish wash of tears and a meagre ocean. Ice cream dripped in depression, picnic blankets snagged on pebbles and the kite committed suicide on the telephone lines. (2013)

I hate the scraps you’ve left behind

I put bits of you in the bin. I put you out for recycling.
I donate you to charity shops and so you live on and I can’t get rid of you.
There’s no way out of this mirror maze,
no way to avoid the mirrors at angles,
no way for me to escape you or for you to escape me.

There are so many of you and I literally want to beat you all to death.
Oh, I hate you. I hate you.
I don’t think I’ve ever hated anything more than I hate you.
I hate the tone of your words,
I hate your stupid sadness.
I hate your happiness.
I hate your hope.
I hate the memories of your laughter.
I hate the memories of your fun.
I hate you for all the things you’ve done and
never had time to feel bad for.
I hate you in the photographs,
in the words, in the schoolbooks,
in the poems that I’ve shared,
I hate, I hate, I hate.

I wish I could smash up this maze of mirrors and you,
but then I’d only be left with myself
and I hate her too.

You walk into the mirror box and it’s like walking
into the imagery of one of your own poems.
You’re caught in the mirror maze, searching for yourself
in the mirrors at angles but all you can see is yourself,
back to back in the mirror tunnel, yourself again and again
until you can’t recognise her anymore.
Is it me? you ask and it is, but you’re still not convinced.
Is it just me in the mirror box, legs up to my chest, eyes closed
because I am horrible, you quote, but you’re standing up.
You’re standing up in too many of your own poems, in this permanence
of your fleeting reflection which proves you are real but has become
so metaphorical that being in the mirror box makes you question
the possibility of yourself as this person who is being reflected.
But this isn’t a poem, I tell myself. I don’t live in the second person.
She tries to cast aside the metaphors for a moment to try on the clothes
but you’re stuck in the mirror box, in the nightmares of my own poetry.

You left me tainted
With pain and tears
So i tried to bleach
To remove every stain
I scrubbed so hard
But i got wounded
So i bleed again
And starts to hurt again
The stains are now scars
And now i will be forever reminded
Of how i tried to remove you
Yet i got marked instead

I wanted to scream
at the top of my lungs
and tell you that if you're ever
looking for me
you know where to find me
and i'll always be here
waiting
but at this point i knew
i was just yelling
with lungs filled with water
and you would never hear me
but i will always be here
waiting

When did my smile,
Seem to lose all its meaning?
To me, not the world.