I think my lips are chapped because I've kissed so many boys who don't love me.
You ask me 'what do you taste like?' I don't think its very **** to say regret and sadness.
You say 'when can I taste you' My taste has been passed around so many tongues there is nothing left for you.

He tells me 'I'm here for you, I'll always be here for you' as he kisses my neck. The next week the bite mark on my belly is fading and I can barely remember the colour of your eyes.

My sister says 'you will change your mind' she says, 'all woman want to be mothers'.
I have stumbled in at 4am with the taste of strangers in my throat to see my mother sitting upright waiting for me, I think of the night I spent crying on my mothers lap in a&e;, certain I couldn't make it through the day, the way my brother scowls at my mother, my sister telling her that 'you could've done more, you could've walked away.' I. Dont. Want. Children.

My mum tells me she is old, she is tired. She desperately needs a man to hold doors open for her and carry her shopping. I am trying to remember that needing someone does not mean you are weak.

My grandmother gave me waist beads to encourage fertility. She says 'god gave you those hips to birth children'. Ive never told her that i lost my faith in god the year i lost my virginity.  And if there is a god, i don't want his ******* fertility. I want to break these beads and let drugs engulf me to prove my grandmothers blind faith wrong.
I laugh and pray before our meal and kiss her forehead, 'god bless'.

He tells me 'i know youre *****, its natural'. I laugh and play along for his delight. 'women are just like toys, television, easy puzzles'. I think of my father beating my mother, my fathers face all the men ive walked past in the street. My mothers face is my own.

'if you don't want boys to touch you you shouldn't wear tight clothes'. I think of all the boys who have run their fingers over my back when i was dressed in clothes from neck to ankle. I wonder if god is a sexist man. I wonder if there's any men who aren't implicitly sexist.

He tells me, 'I'll spend hours on you, I'll make you believe in god again'. There is nothing I can do but laugh. I ask him, 'does your mother know you speak to girls like this?'
He ***** his teeth, 'do you always have to be so difficult?'  
I kiss him but I think of his mother, foreign and lonely, 2 sons and no husband.

He says 'you need a real man' I think of all the other boys who have told me that before leaving me.
He wants to know why I'm in hospital so much, 'how are we going love each other when you can't tell me what's wrong with you' I don't want to tell him that I've cut my arms so badly I can see god in my blood, and sometimes the voice in my head screams so loud I black out. I kiss his chest. He doesn't ask again. I resent him for that.

I've been ignoring my fathers phone calls for two weeks because his voice sounds like absence and I don't want to hear another 'I love you' from a man who doesn't know my secrets.

My daughters are bleeding
over men who mirror their father.
My sons come home
drenched in the smell of illegality,
I wash the blood off of their jeans
weeping love into the red until the stains lift.

My husband’s face is scarred,
it wrinkles like brown tough dates
whilst he reels off stories from home,
he tells his own sons about touching sleeping women.
I wake up on the bathroom floor, stick ******* down my throat
until I can rid myself of his touch.

My country is so far away
and I came here for refuge
but this country does not feed us
and my children are starving.
I worked 52 hours this week
and I should’ve never left home.

My father-in-law blew his brains out,
my mother’s cancer has rotted her from her inside.
My children are growing up and forgetting me,
my small house has grown large without the voices of my children
and I am far from home.
I should’ve never left home.

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.

-the raindrops remind me of waking up on 4th of July feeling lonely.
-my sheets whisper your name everytime i dare to move. i ache.
-my last text from you was 8.12.13
-You are beautiful. and i am sad. We will never work out.
-sometimes i wear red lipstick to see my psychiatrist. I just want to feel strong.
-i sleep for 14 hours and wake up tired.
-the ghosts in my room tug on my curls. they remind me of You.
-i feel tainted.
-oh god, oh god, oh god.
-whilst i sleep the waves rush over my head. i feel peace.
-there have been bugs in my veins since the last time we slept together.
-i am nothing, i am nothing, i am nothing.
-i have been using clever words so You will think i still have a brain.
-i sit in the bath until it turns grey to remind myself that i am dirt.
-i can not be a self love poem.
-You left me drunk and naked everytime.
-i am the beginning of a long, cold winter.
-i am a snowflake amongst sunflowers and children playing.
-Pain. Pain. Pain.
-the ringing in my ears has gotten louder since You said You missed me.
-i will never be Sylvia Plath.
-these walls scream out my secrets.
-i would like to be naked Polaroids and cocktails
but i am £2.31 white wine and ugly obscenities.
-i am an increase of prozac.
-You always mentioned your hate for winter.
-i will crave you for eternity.
-the earth will tremble like my voice. hands. eyes.
-this rain will last forever.

My neighbours have a half empty bottle of ***** sitting on their windowsill
If I close my eyes hard enough, I swear I can smell you.
I can taste the names of the pretty girls you kissed when you were high and I was alone,

And sometimes the voice in my head repeats your name over and over until it is nothing more than an unrecognisable sound. That's how I like it. Unrecognisable.

I have been very lonely since you told me she was pregnant
sometimes I can't sleep cos my mattress feels cold,
and I stay up all night talking to the men who live under my bed. They comfort me.

I text you the same message 18 times "please don't leave me. I will die."
("Leave me alone. There is nothing more for me to say to you" )

Mum tells me that all men will leave you when you need them most.
I think you left me long after I became dependant on you.
It is hard for me to breathe under all this soil

My room smells of unrequited love and stale promises.

You are still kissing other girls when you are high.
There are still bite marks on my thigh.

You told me I was too too unhealthy to ever learn to love, I was sick. I needed help.
You said, "maybe, in the future our paths will cross".
Do you not understand there is no future for me? I want to walk on your path.

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.

I don't cut my skin for 24 hours, then 48
Then a week
Then two.
Practise abstinence in all forms
No drink, no drugs.
I don't stop my body from jittering and convulsing.
I let myself cry in the shower
Shave my legs without thinking off bleeding
Rest my nose between my mothers worried eyebrows
Kiss her scarred palms
Rub ointment into her feet
And go to bed smelling of lavender and love.
I wake up early, walk round the greenery. I don't open my mouth for 5 hours,
Plant seeds in my mamas garden and meditate where they'll bloom.
I refrain from eating meat. I drink a glass of milk when I wake
A glass before sleep.
I listen to Beyoncé. I watch French films without the subtitles.
Plan holidays.
I whisper prayers into my sleeping boyfriends neck
I go a whole day without thinking about our dead baby.
Walk to the train station and read the newspaper and never once think about jumping in front
Of my oncoming train.

My estranged father posts a status on Facebook, a joke, about choking dominant woman.
I wake up drunk, my arm sticking to a puddle of dried blood.
Cut chunks of flesh out of my forearm and leave a trail from the liquor store to my fathers gambling shop.
The next day I have a sore head, a sore arm. I starve myself for three days and let myself throw up watery bile into the toilet.

I start again.
I don't pick the scabs from my arm. I let red circular scarred skin form
Draw badly designed tattoos and make empty plans to cover them.
I call my friends, tell them how much I adore them, how beautiful and special they are,
How I never want to live a day without them
They call me cheesy. We laugh and make plans but we're all so busy. We hang up.
I practise excessiveness. Make my boyfriend ******. Laugh loudly. Put on too much makeup and spend £50 to eat out alone.
I call my aunties in Guyana. Let them speak for hours about a 'home' I've never been too.
Listen to stories about my mother, and her mother.
They ask me hushed voices if I'm still ill, tell me my mother has spent hours crying to them over me.
I tell them my plans.
Tell them I have a boyfriend.
I am studying. I am working, and loving and laughing.
They sound glad. They put me on to my dying grandmother and she prays for me
Tells me in strong accent that her children show her pictures of me on the computer
She tells me I am beautiful, so beautiful, she tells me I look just like my father.
We pause.
Her voice cracks and she praises Jesus for my health.
We say goodbyes. I promise to make more of an effort. Tell her I will visit her soon. Send my love to everyone and hang up.
I start reading two chapters of a book before bed.
Revisit old poetry. Write new words.
Dream in colour again, sing in the shower again.
I drink a glass of wine with my sisters and fall asleep being held by them.
I mute my father on Facebook.
Now we can start again.

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

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.

He tells me, "i think you are sad."
But i don't know him well enough to whisper my secrets to him, about the waves that crash in my skull for hours on end. And that sometimes i cry because my mothers country is so far away, and i don't feel like home here, but i don't feel home there either and I'm very lost. And maybe that's why i always look confused and hurt. Because my own country does not feed me. And my mother works 52 hours a week and i hear her bones creak from my bedroom but there's only so much i can do with her feet in my lap. So i ignore it and think about my bruises instead.
I could tell him that I'm so so in love with about 7 people at any given time and if you ask me to name them all and tell you their 2am habits i could, but my own secrets are secrets even to myself.
I said 'my skin is so horribly pale im worried people will see how brittle my bones are.' and he looked confused so i left it.
I wanted to write about my father but apparently having 'daddy issues' is a new trend and i don't want to be part of anything that glamourises my mothers scars.
I am both fascinated and terrified of the sea and i think that's why I'm bound to drown one day, because sometimes i truly believe i am a mermaid and its ironic because my swimming is horrendus. But im also interested in knowing what it feels like for my lungs to fill with something other than smoke for once. So i guess im excited about that.
I think when i die they'll say 'she had good intentions'. And leave me to decompose, which i think is the saddest way to go because 'at least she tried' is almost as bad as 'she was pointless'.  And i dont think i want them to say either. I think i want them to be quiet.
I think about the word pointless a lot because its the word that comes to mind when im asked to describe anything.
Mondays are pointless.
Sundays are also pointless.
Saturdays hold so much hope though which I think is why i survived this week.

-31st to the 4th

this was emptiness. coldness I was unsure about. coldness that hadn't touched me for months.
this was me. fallen. in. love.
for the first time.
this was half naked pictures and beautiful promises I clung to.
(a week ago I was clung to you.)
this was the consequences of the lectures I missed so I could stay in your bed.
this was angry emails.
this was empty poems. like this one.

-5th
this was me working hard to be beautiful.
this was you ignoring me. me clinging to others.
this was my need for love and attention.
this was absence.

-6th
more sadness. more emptiness.
more flirty messages from numbers that aren't yours.

-8th to the 9th
this was me being stupid. this was another boys jealously. another boys eyes and hands.

-4:30am - 9am
this was my number 2. this was someone new.
this was intimacy at 6am. raw intimacy.
this was us, face to face, smiles like the old romantic movies i hate.
this was him telling me I am 'daunting'. 'unreadable'.
this was honesty.
this was my secrets hung out in the cold air like wet clothes. all of my secrets.
most of my secrets.
this was body heat.
this was what they mean when they talk about intimacy without ***.
this was his hand on my cheek. in my hair. on my thigh.

this is the price of my loneliness.

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.

Your god injected poison into me,
Beat my mother to the floor
Spat venom on her whilst she lay shaking and bleeding.

Your god beat the backs of my knees until I was constantly bowing to men who uttered '****', '*****', as if a '*****' had not birthed them.
My legs were bent for so long I didn't even realise my pain until I pulled myself back up again.

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.

They don't tell you about the truly tragic parts of these disorders.
About how I haven't showered for 4 days because my life has lost its meaning.
Or how I have been wearing this shirt for 2 weeks now
because I see no point in changing.
They tell you about pretty symmetrical cuts and tears that flow like rain,
But not about the rock you get in your throat because you can no longer cry,
or how your arms are so burnt and cut up that you can no longer sleep because the pain is so excruciating.
They tell you about how near and beautiful recovery is,
but there is no recovery. There is only here and now. And here and now hurts.
They don't tell you about the amount of men you have *** with just to replace the love you've lost,
yet you end up emptier.
They tell you about poetic sadness, but not about the numbness. Where sadness has festered for so long, it has moulded and lost its taste.
They don't tell you about the 2 year waiting lists just to be rejected,
or about the 3am visits to A+E, because life has gotten so painful that you feel like your chest will explode.
They don't tell you about the physical strains of these illnesses; the jitters in your legs, the shortness of breath, the constant nausea...
They don't tell you about the disappointment your family feels.
They don't tell you how weak you feel, because you can't get out of bed for the 7th day running, and the fainting because you haven't drank for 4 days because keeping yourself alive is more effort than its worth.
They will never tell you about the intrusive thoughts, about ******, ****, babies (I just want them to stop)
They don't tell you about the racist, sexist, critical man that lives in your head.
Or about how when your psychiatrist asks you ''how do you feel?'' You can't answer,
Because you do not feel.
And have not felt for 2 and a half years now.
They don't tell you how difficult it is to find help in a society where self harm is artistic and psychosis is tragically beautiful, and we are all expected to be our own hero.
To ''Save yourself''.
I need help because living like this is not beautiful, it is deblilating and sad. I need help because I am ill, and I can not be my own hero.

Youre lying next to a pretty boy
And you think
"wow, i don't even remember what loneliness feels like"
And the sun is kissing your skin
And you think
"have i ever felt cold before?"

And then winter comes and youre in bed alone
and you think
"what does the heat of the sun feel like? What does the heat of another body feel like?"

I haven't been kissed for so long that every mouth I see screams 'possibility'.

By the end of the night my mascara leaves black smudges under my eyes because I spend so much time looking down.
I think there is some poetry to be found in the blackness that stains my face, but I have become too tired to find beauty in the ugly moments.

There is no beauty in the bugs that travel frantically around my veins,
Or the *** stained memories of drunken kisses,
The darkness hiding behind the pedophiles that live under my bed is raw ugliness.    
         It is not beautiful that I think so much
about *******.

And my desperate need to be desired is vile; it is not poetry.

I will never be able to write poetry...

I have been up for 2 days worrying about infinity and I am
ugly.
I have spent all of my life worrying about an invisible father,
rhyming words and built up anger.

this is it.

I will only believe in the beautiful things now,
Like my mothers face.
and a kiss on the shoulder at midnight,
I have spent far too long in the dark, to put my faith into unseeable light.

You must tell him that you are miserable,
That your addictions and your fists drove your family away
You must tell him that you haven't been touched for years
That whenever you look down at your hands all you can hear are the cries of the only woman who cared for you.
Tell him about the loneliness that eats away at your flesh daily
That without a woman your wounds are gaping more each day. You are ******.
You must teach him to cradle his woman, so she will cradle him back.
The touch of a woman who loves you is the most important thing in the world.
So, you must tell him to love his mother.
You never loved her, and look at you now.
You must tell him that you go weeks without opening your mouth, and the silence in your house is stale and bitter.
You must tell him that, you are stale. And bitter.

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

Sometimes I scream because I have no one to touch, and my fingertips have been aching to feel the warm skin of someone other than myself.

If only I believed in a god as much as I believe in my mother.

On Wednesday I cried for so long
that I lost my voice afterwards,
With my throat on fire
and my chest sore,
I swallowed 3 pills, a litre of water, then slept for 14 hours and woke up a mess of sweat, clothes and ****.
I don’t know why everything I do is so excessive.
I cancelled 2 job interviews,
Took my cv off of indeed and text my boyfriend:
I’m moving to Madrid, I’ll see you when I see you.
Turned my phone off and found my way back to my cold wet bed.

My dad strangled the **** out of me in my dream,
Chased me down a never ending flight of stairs with a rake
Until I was so tired
I sat on the bannister and put my arm out:
Hit me man I can’t be bothered.

His face went red,
He started pulling out his hair,
His nose grew bulbous
He screeched like foxes
And ripped off his face to reveal a clown mask.
He started doing tricks
I became a baby and clapped my fat sticky hands together:
More more more!
He performed for hours
He grew tired and started vomiting
Rainbows of bile escaping his mouth.
I grew taller and danced
I whooped and sang and tapped my feet in the puddles
Looked down and noticed I was dancing on a lifeless clown body;
And I danced harder.

I woke up in a panic
The clothes on my chair looked like my fathers fat body
In the dark I swear I could hear him screeching.