Welcome to the ten step guide on how to fool everyone into thinking you're okay

Step One: Smile. Smile your biggest brightest smile to ward off the people who don't know you well enough to realize that it's fake, let your pearly whites be the shield you hide behind so your secret stays a secret

Step Two: Even if the clouds have opened and poured down all the tears you're holding in dress up in your nicest dress so you get more compliments on how pretty you look than questions about how puffy your eyes are

Step Three: When confronted; say I'm just tired, push the fib through your teeth and hope your nose doesn't grow to the size of your lie and make sure you maintain eye contact so they don't catch onto how nervous you are that they might find out

Step Four: Cover up the jawbreakers decorating your skin by wearing a long sleeve shirt even though it's summertime

Step Five: Break out your inner actress, especially when he's around because while he's using your headboard as a punching bag he'll expect you to like it

Step Six: Every time you wanna say hate replace it with love...I love feeling helpless every day, I love being your human doll, I love being camouflaged with purples blacks and greens...I love you...

Step Seven: Fasten your dog collar onto the next notch because he wants you to remember how his hand feels around your throat, he wants you to remember what being scared feels like, he wants you to realize he owns you

Step Eight: Think about what you can do to make things better because as he tells you it's all your fault and he only hits you because he loves you and you're lucky that a guy like him sticks around with a girl like you because you're worthless and you believe it

Step Nine: Let it all out, scream into your pillow and shower off every fibre of him like it's a poison setting into your skin and then cry yourself to sleep to prepare for

Step Ten: Repeat

*******
It sounds so bitter coming from a mothers mouth

If I have a daughter I will only tell her sweet nothings about how wonderful she is, how beautiful she is and I will never spew the profanities that you've shouted at me because I want her confidence to be as high as the skyscrapers that just skim the clouds so she knows that nothing is the limit

Darling, I will tell her, if someone thinks you're too big for them then they obviously don't have the equipment for the job anyway instead of tagging along on a shopping spree where the only thing I tell her is how that top brings out her belly rolls and how that skirt shows her love handles, I will handle her with all the love I have

I will promise her that I will never say I told you so especially when her first love cheats on her and she comes to me in tears wanting nothing but a hug, I will supply the chocolates, the rom-coms and teach her that the only men you need in life are Ben & Jerry

If I have a daughter, I will never compare her to her brother, I will never brag about only one of them to people I meet on the street, I will never tell her that she should be more like him because he's perfect at everything she's not without even trying...I will tell her she's good at everything I will say she's the best at having the worst coordination, like her mother, I will tell her she's the best at being who she is, I will tell her she is the best at stealing my heart away every time I look at her

So thank you Mom...for teaching me what not to do, for showing me how to break down your daughters confidence, thank you for teaching me what a hypocrite is, thank you for all the 'I told you sos' and thank you...for teaching me how to be a mother

I lay in bed at night and try to ignore the typewriter in my head tap tap tapping the same three letters, tapping your name, tapping that syllable that has been stuck in my head for weeks

You, gave me infinity within a numbered amount of days and taught me new tongues of love that I didn't get the chance to learn yet, you...were far too good for me

I've often asked myself how long is forever and discovered that sometimes it's just one second...and even now I find the need to walk down memory lane just because I know I'll meet you there because I don't want our forever to be over yet. I haven't learned how to look at somebody I love and tell myself it's time to walk away but forget me not; you are worth everything, you deserve everything and you meant everything to me but...I don't have a pinwheel heart, the kind that goes crazy at the lightest touch, that never fears the love it's given and deserves every bit of it.

I wish I needed you, that you weren't just a desire my heart thought it wanted. I wish you didn't already feel like a memory, that every time I said your name it didn't already sound like goodbye.

Scream - Shout - Cry - Kick
Throw your worst temper tantrum
Tell me, about every fairytale you've heard as a child, explain how the princess fell in love with prince charming and lived happily ever after. I, will tell you that maybe some day you will find a princess who will fall head over heels in love with you with that dizzy pin wheel heart, she, will have lips sewn with naivety where her only bad experience will be the monsters under her bed but, monsters aren't real to her yet, she will trust you to no end and believe every word that escapes your lips because she thinks lying does not exist, she, will be the complete opposite of me and will never realize that sometimes the one you want isn't always the one you need

I know you will remember me when I'm not there to love you, I know when you're pounding all your frustrations and insecurities into the girl underneath you you'll remember what passion felt like and how my skin isn't accessible to your fingertips anymore, I know that when you use Mary Jane as a substitute for my lips and blow out your problems and feel them start to fade away you will remember what being cared about felt like. I hope you regret it...I hope she helps you forget...I hope you fall in love with her and she makes your heart go pinwheel crazy

Run your fingers through my soul and feel exactly what I feel and just once, understand what I'm going through...understand that you're taking up too much room, not in my heart but in my brain, and that's a place that I never wanted you to end up

That little bird
In the corner
It flies toward the sun.

It flies and flies
And never looks back
Not until it is reached.

For I am that bird
And the light, my life
And I intend to get it.

I remember when life was all about
    soft edges and incandescence

        ( subtle timbres that echo )
         (                                          )
           (                                      )

until that stillness shattered with the
      blunt force of
            thirty thousand wandering souls
                              scurrying back to safety in their
                              respective books

if i could see your soul,
i would tell it to look upon itself in the reflection of a lake,
the kind that shimmers clandestine blue
from the tears of the waterfall and the love-lost.

if i could sense your soul,
i would feel it in the light that bounces off;
the rainbows bounce off the water
as they come into contact with both the light and the wet,
the way the sun and the sea kiss every dawn and dusk.

if i could speak to your soul,
i would tell it not that it is beautiful, even though it is.
for god knows how overused that word is, how many lips has ushered its accent.
i would tell it, that it is
rich.
the wealth of owning
layers upon layers of
shimmers and shines
of tangibles and tangibles,
of the flavours i taste,
and the textures i touch.

if i could taste your soul,
it wouldn't taste salty from tears,
or sweet from tainted melancholy and forgotten memories.
it would taste clear,
fresh;
freshwater that starts from the back of the throat
whose healing touch leaks,
leaving flowers to bloom in all the places
it has traced, and in all the nooks
it has graced.
the cave just under your collarbone,
the crook of your neck,
the curve of your hip;
treasures.

if i could touch your soul,
it would feel
warm, like a fire glowing
in its hearth.

if i could smell your soul,
it would smell like you,
like
home.

my fellow islands:
i've learned
& am learning that
each of us, we are
a many voiced but endless song of
existence
menageries of life

each and every one of our trees
their very leaves,
  heavy with rain
pointing
toward the ground

each of them can tell
more stories than
there are stars in the sky

each of us we are running over -
boundless narratives heaving from every
spring
from under every rock

sometimes

you call upon me
to visit my island

and usually
i'm not even
in a place to answer

maybe i’m
too disoriented by these
careless,
     prevailing winds

or possibly
a bit too forlorn

just not fit for
taking on
such marvelous company

upon your ship
the lantern shines
with a certain brilliance i've
never witnessed before

the beds here are
uncomfortably moist with tears
so i've
abandoned them
for the floor