To my friends, I’m sorry I’m not always around anymore.
Apparently growing up means struggling to get out of the door.
It means laying awake all night and struggling to get up in the mornings.
It means wishing you hadn’t said that,
And feeling your head full of forewarnings.
Stop playing with your hair,
Stop being so intense,
Stop crying over nothing,
Stop trying to make sense of everything and just let it be. But that’s harder than it seems.

To my friends, I’m sorry I second guess everything you say.
Apparently growing up means leading yourself astray.
It means wishing you’d stayed in when you’d gone out.
It means filling your head with constant feelings of doubt.
Do I look fat in this outfit?
Do they even want me around?
Do I annoy you all the time?
Do they hate every sound that I make? Because that’s always how it feels.

To my friends, I’m sorry I keep contacting you to make sure you’re okay.
Apparently growing up means having thoughts of constant dismay.
It means you feel like everyone you love doesn’t want you there.
And dealing with a constant ache in your heart much like despair.
I’m not good enough.
I’ll never succeed.
I’m always so unhappy.
And so these thoughts bleed into my everyday life. I just can’t stop them.

To my friends I’m sorry if I seem selfish all the time.
I’m sorry I’m mostly self destructive.
And I’m sorry I can only express my feelings in rhyme.

Because I’m scared you won’t listen to me otherwise.

If you are not an addict it’s difficult to understand.
How one minute you’re pouring water, the next there’s whisky in your hand.
I drive home from work and stop in a coffee shop, pick up a coffee and make my way off.
He drives home from work and stops in a pub, picks up a pint and forgets how to love.
He comes home wide-eyed and restless in nature,
And I know the man getting into my bed is a stranger.
Someone who, up until recently I knew,
But then he re-filled his blood stream replacing it with toxicity.
And although he makes it home to me,
I still share a complicity.
I try not to be anguished and it take it so personally.
After all when I close my eyes he’s still the only one I see.
I just wish I could cure him but I’m starting to think I’m incapable,
That no amount of loving someone can make an addiction escapable.

At night and when you are sleeping,
I can see you bare in all of your skin and all the flaws that make you human.
I trace circles of flesh and rainbows in bruises;
Every scar and scratch,
Every flourishing freckle,
Everything that makes you, you.

There’s a kaleidoscope of veins that cascade colourful fractions of your heart into mine.
Every boorish blue and radiant red,
Every drop of your waterfall of thoughts from inside your head,
Everything that makes me love you like I do.

And yet part of me wants to fully engulf you, so you’re not simply just naked but so you, like I become truly infatuated.
I want to smooth out that frown like a crumpled piece of paper.
Every heavy sigh and weighty wonder,
Every restriction that dampens your day,
Everything that reduces that part of you who,
Takes that light bulb moment and creates a projection of the most beautiful smile in all of creation;
And proposes a sentiment of love for my eyes to lap up, and up until our demise.

When you no longer love me I think I will know it,

And it won't be because I've betrayed you.

It will be signs in things that once made you sing,

Instead now they abstain or repulse you.

When I no longer tickle your fancy but instead I tickle your last nerve.

When I no longer ignite your pulse but instead I extinguish it.

When I no longer sing through your skin but instead I pierce it.

I know you you will no longer love me.

When I’m no longer the breath that fills both your lungs, instead I take needles and puncture them.

When I’m no longer the stream that carries your dreams, instead I capsize you and drown them.

When I’m no longer the fuel that feeds each of your bones, instead I withhold it and starve you.

I know you will no longer love me.

It won’t be because my smile’s gone stale; it won’t be because you dislike me.

It won’t be because my affections set sail; it won’t be because you’ve lost me.

When you no longer love me I think I will know it,

And it won’t be because I’ve betrayed you.

It will be because you simply forgot,

Each part of me that once amazed you.

I think I might be drowning?
Drowning?
Frowning and crowning myself a queen, because that's what I'm told I am.
I am by all intents and purposes; human in the flesh.
I've seen love and labour lost too many times,
I've seen cost and favour tossed to one side.
I'm a lean, mean regurgitating machine.
I give out party favours like I'm frightened to bite the hand that feeds.
I'm a photocopy of my own originality,
With the PERSONALITY of tracing paper.
I look in the mirror and marvel at myself growing thicker,
My imagination getting thinner,
My appreciation depreciating at the very thought of my dinner.
What can I eat but calories on a stick?
Thick,
                         thick...
                                          thick.
Each mouthful a new trick conjured by someone trying to tease me, Ease me into a wobbling lump,
A frump,
A place where they can dump their new ideas and findings,
Their light bulb moments so blinding they lead people like me to their deaths.
Because what do I need but another mouth to feed?
The mouth in my brain that's desperate for instruction,
Construction,
DESTRUCTION of its cells.
Each thought more macabre than the last as I dissect the absolute FARCE that has become my identity.
I am by all intents and purposes human in the flesh.
A sack full of bones and DNA,
Of which, so they say, differ from body to body.
And yet I'm a clone of everyone I've known because everyone's left Their imprint on me.
I may not have wanted it but I had no choice,
No voice,
No ability to say no.
Because I couldn't find the right words to dictate what I wanted to say.
My tongue wouldn't move in an articulate way,
So I forgot how to speak.
And now I find myself silenced; a mute of imagination,
A lack of creation,
Practically a crustacean- I'm a mere shell of what I once was.
Which brings me back to drowning.
Drowning?
In waters so harsh but land is so sparse how do I get back?
Because creativity is the building blocks of humanity without we are Lost out to sea.

I remember being sixteen and being in love.
My heart raced at the mere anticipation of him.
I  honestly believed that he was perfect.
But he never truly loved me for me; not in retrospect.

After that I went searching for a new love.
One that would love me for who I am.
I searched for years but I didn’t find it.
Just constant disappointments and an inability to commit.

Then I decided I would love no more.
I’d never give myself over again unless it was inescapable.
I promised myself, my mother and all my friends.
But a matter of months later I fell in love all over again.

I couldn’t fathom my own weakness- it felt like giving in.
Until I realised the love I’d found had to be real;
Because, yes he loved me true,
But most importantly; he helped me love my own skin too.

I don't know what it is about you that makes me blush.
A colour of crimson so full of passion,
A prickling heat wave that submerges me.

I don't know why when I think of you my heart starts to rush.
A humming cricket's symphony becomes  a wild cacophony,
A tambourine drumming to an eternal beat.

I don't know what it is about you that scares me the most.
The fact that I love you already.
Or the fact that it shows.

I'm spontaneously combusting,
It ends before it starts.
I've a fear of being too trusting,
I tip toe over hearts.
I can't take a compliment,
That much is true.
It's formed from lack of confidence,
And one encounter with you.
You told me I was beautiful,
Admittedly I'd heard it before.
You made me feel invincible,
I sailed through life with you as my oar.
It was as if you used a defibrillator,
And shocked my heart into loving.
But everyday I needed a pacemaker,
To remind me you weren't bluffing.
But nothing hit me more,
Than the slamming of the door,
When you told me I was flawed,
And I dissolved into the floor.
You made me feel invincible,
It was beautiful at the start,
But eventually I became invisible,
When you chose another heart.

You weren't there when I needed you the most.
You who seemed to understand me the best.
You who matched the heart in my chest.

You weren't there when I needed you the most.

On the days that I felt like I couldn't breathe.
On the days that I cried myself to sleep.

You weren't there for me when I needed you the most.

Because you died.
And I'm sorry I was mad.

It's an infectious intimacy only you can provide.
It's a wondrous worry- constantly on my mind.
I've a fickle fear I can't get rid of,
A taunting temper that I brandish on my skin.
A wilting wound born out of a sin.

Its a vexatious vase of hope that I repair,
Picking pieces of ceramic out of the air,
I crassly clutch at the glue,
Sparingly spreading it over every space.
Filling the cracks with pictures of your face.

We are like a jar of fireflies,
Unable to be set free.
We look up at the stars and wonder,
Why can't that be me?

We bounce off the walls of our glass confinement.
We hope one day we'll squeeze through,
Through the cracks in our agendas
So our imagination can soar high too.

Round and round in circles we go,
Tracing every inch of our little world.
Not caring for what's down below,
It's the skies where secrets are unfurled.

Each day we rest and nurse our dreams,
Encouraging them to light.
We continue through mundane routine
Until our wings take flight.