I know alcohol is the downfall. I know he doesn't love me. And I'm unhealthy and relationships are toxic but oh god, I'm lonely, and I'm tired of having no one to hold.

Yes, my father is a bad man but when I look in the mirror all i see is his face
And I have spent too too long hating him.

My heart has been broken by people who never even asked for my middle name, and every day I face the world alone my lungs blacken. It is hard for me to smile.

Every kiss I have ever been given has been tainted. I have never been kissed with love.

I do not want to let you down, but it is in my nature. And I can't get it out.

My lipstick is too bright? But I want the men to think about the things my lips could do if only we were alone. I'm sorry.

I never intended for you to waste so many nights holding me whilst i was bleeding.

I starve myself because I want to be beautiful.

When you come home from 12 hour shifts and your eyes are tired and your legs waver, I go to my room and cry because I want to make life better.
But i am ill.

one: dieing was the least of my worries.
two: living requires all my concentration.
three: i have not cried for three days because god made me without tear ducts.
and a half: I think he did it for my own good.
four: i can't sleep because he shouts at me when i dream.
five: i have been buying self help books and feminist poetry
and a half: i want to be stronger.
six: i think i got more of my fathers genes than my mothers.
seven: i am jealous of the other planets because I would like to be alone also.
eight: my loneliness is sweet, sweet, sweet.
nine: ive never felt the kiss of anyone who loved me. Not even from my dad.
ten: i listen to sad music because i understand sad music.
and a half: happy music has never spoken to me.
eleven: my aunties get on there knees and cry and pray for my health, whilst I drink eleven shots and fall to my knees for other reasons.
twelve: i want to believe.
thirteen: i want to be naïve.
fourteen: i would like to be less selfish, but I still find myself avoiding newspapers because my life is hard enough without the weight of the world on my shoulders also.
fifteen: i am weary of treading too ******* dirt because i know it will be my home one day.
sixteen: i remember how hard it was to imagine myself living past seventeen.
seventeen: as flames flicker I feel them burning my flesh. as they will.
eighteen: who would've thought my lungs would still support me to this age.

Everytime he hit my mother I swear my skin would be bruised for days.

I'm ugly so I do ugly things.
2. I'm terrified of commitment, so when you asked me out I burst into tears.
3. You are scared of loving someone so scarred.
4. I flinched when you touched me
5. I find poetry in the way the sun hits my walls, you don't even like the way the birds sing.
6. You love ***.
- I am not ***.
7. Your mum turned up her face when she saw me.
8. You believe in me too much.
9. You laugh at the immigrants, as if the name on my uncles passport doesn't hiss with illegality.
10. I couldn't stop thinking about all the other girls who had heard your soft moan.
11. I was both clingy and nonchalant at the same time.
12. I am tired!
13. You stared into my black eyes and told me about the oceans in the face of the last girl you had slept with.
14. When you found me crying over poetry, you told me to cheer up.
15. You made my heart bleed.
16. You were already thinking about marriage and children and stability.
- I'm just trying to get myself out of bed in the morning.
17. You told me I was beautiful and went to sleep when all I wanted was your arms wrapped around me cradling my ugly.
18. You punched me like a father.
19. Mum told you a story and you yawned as if her magic bored you?!?
20. You sighed in reply to everything I said.
21. You called me when drunk and whispered obscene things you would do to me whilst I cried on the other end of the line.
22. 4am tasted like you and ****. And people aren't supposed to taste like guilt.
23 You were obsessed with naked pictures, I was obsessed with hating my body.
24. You chose to ignore the blood.

Her back arched with insecurities
hips full of eve's sin.
Carved into her ******* are all the planets she has slept with: three.
Flesh purple
Lips puckered.
She was taught about the things that rotate solely around her,
About her power
About holding her mothers feet in her lap and listening to stories about home.
A home she knows only from yellowing photographs and broken proverbs and tales of freedom.
She has spent too long dancing with the heavy absence of hands on her waist;
With the bitter taste of men sitting on her tongue.
With the eyes that follow her like moths to light.
Every word she speaks is fire from her teeth,
Lighting her face
Burning the men who get so close she can smell the eager sweat from their backs.
She was taught to howl when the men tell her she is beautiful,
She is better than poor adjectives
She is endearing, dazzling, fulgurous.
but
she is not her mother,
no matter how hard she tries to be.
She is her father; dark, and cold, and drunk, drunk, drunk.

I'm crazy, but I love you. And that is important.

I was born on a hot july night but I have always found solace in the rain,
I am a snowflake rather than a hot summer breeze,
which makes me sad.
I feel beautiful over summer, and disgusting during winter,
But there is something creative hidden in the grey skies and thunderstorms,
That I miss greatly as soon as June comes around.
I can not write or paint when I feel beautiful,
I am too busy, dancing, flirting, singing.
I can not be angry when the stranger smiles at me on the bus,
Or when the man tells me I'm the prettiest sight he has seen this year,
I can only write angry poems,
about the raindrops, and lightning and the warmth of a bed, when I feel sad.
I blossom in winter.
And wilt and die as my birthday arrives.