You want to be tough.
So you wear heartbreak like a medal and laugh at how you used to cry yourself to sleep.
You smoke ten cigarettes a day and out drink every guy at the parties you go to.
You don't cry or so much as flinch when let down
And you meet every promise made to you with a frown

You want to be brave.
So you kiss strangers and go walking alone at night.
You get in cars with no idea where you're going and no concern if you'll be back.
You get on a plane to a place where the only soul you know is your own and all the faces are unknown.

You want to be fearless.
So you never say no unless yes makes you second guess your self worth because to hell with their opinion of you, right?

You laugh at everything,
Even when you're crying, you're laughing at your tears because after all these years being broken,
You finally speak before you're spoken to.

You wanted to be loved and cared for and held at the hips.
You wanted romance and roses,
True love's tender kiss.
You wanted someone to caress your scars for once and not be the one putting someone else's broken pieces together.
Only for them to thank you
And be on their way.

You loved and you lost,
Then settled for liquor and lust
Those boys drove you insane
But you drop them off, grip the steering wheel,
And try find your way back home.

Too many times we've woken up in the same bed
Every single time in over our heads
I tried to make sunshine out of Pluto
I tried to make an ocean out of mud and tap water.
You gave me roses
And pointed out their thorns
I said I didn't mind a little blood,
It's all red anyway.
That's when you couldn't look at me;
Let alone for me
I said I would give you my heart
If you didn't mind barbed wire.
I said maybe we could save each other
You said just save me tonight
I said tell me your favourite colour
Tell me why you hate your father
Tell me who you are when no one is looking
You said no ones ever looking
I didn't say I always am.
You said a lot of things
And nothing at all
The way you squeezed my hand and held on to me in your sleep.
We spoke non-stop for hours
And then never again.

and I’m tired. I just want to go home.

-no, not to my parents that’s not home anymore and no not to my apartment building that isn’t home either. Too many things were taken from me there. Too many fragile moments just kept slipping through my fingers and smashing to the ground into a million little fragile pieces. And I’ve cleaned up an entire bedroom floor full of broken heart bits. Blood and all. I wiped the walls clean and scrubbed the sheets till the scent of detergent suffocated me. So every moment dropped to the floor was swept up and sent to the landfill. Hurt is not welcome to the party anymore. But it’s so difficult to say no when she’s best friends with all the other guests and you, you loved her so much you brought her with you in your pocket along with your drinks and your lies and I know I would’ve never said no to you. I would’ve never said no to you even though you kept telling me to.

I woke up alone the next morning to a room beautifully painted the most exquisite shade of heartbreak. So carefully and meticulously done that I didn’t notice it at first.

But I didn’t go to bed alone that night. Hurt wrapped her icy arms around me, right where you left her.

Your words stumble out of your mouth, awkward and careful. Your smile is nervous and your eyes glow with a mixture of uncertainty and hope and you just can't manage to look me in the eyes. When you told me I was beautiful it was the first time someone said that to me and I took it to be true and not with a shaking head and arms waving in disagreement. Because, for the first time I actually believed I was beautiful before you said so. But it was remarkable nonetheless to hear it come from your lips and when I saw your smile mirroring mine I knew you were made for me to keep and not just to hold for the night. You laugh uncontrollably at your own lame jokes and it felt a little less like a random party and a lot more like just you and me. And people told me after you left that we were in our own world together and that made me both smile and flinch at the same time because I've never been good at keeping concentration but sitting next to you it's like we're the only living beings for miles and everything else is quiet noise. The first time you kissed me it was messy and misplaced and it tasted like cream soda and *****. We were laughing a bit too loudly under the full moon in my best friends garden and it was in that moment that I believed that any tangles of the heart can always be untangled by unapologetic laughter and some drunken honesty. I also realized that I wasn't waiting for you to come and save me but you were waiting for me to save myself before you so gracefully came into the picture. The second time you kissed me, it was slow and meaningful. We had the previous nights memories replaying in our minds and we kissed like we would never run out of time. I sincerely hope we never do. You see, I think I want you in all the ways a person can want someone they've known for two days. And that's incredible, because you're easy to love and I love easily. But I know I don't need you or anyone else anymore to complete my soul. I think that's what they call an epiphany; a great realization where everything that was murky and blurred suddenly becomes crystal clear. And it was in that half an hour ride in the back of a cab where I was holding your hand and we both couldn't stop smiling that I knew I was ready for this, simply because I had learned to love myself and you didn't have a choice but to follow in my footsteps.

If home is where the heart is then so help me god, I’m going to need a map and a fast car cause I think my heart fell out my chest at a gas station at midnight
or in my hometown park,
possibly above the clocktower on New Years eve and almost certainly one of the countless nights when I danced with fairies and ghosts.
I promise the music will be incredible
and i won't stop driving unless I'm beside the ocean.
I won't start crying unless the sun is rising.

the waves and the sky break every day with no apologies or shame.
I will finally realize why broken hearts are the most beautiful of them all.

- I'm going home

(111) I like your character more than I like you
(112) You are too kind hearted to be this selfish
(113) in the movie about us you care a lot more
(114) I'm not as mean as I pretend to be
(115) your head is so far up in the clouds nothing can ever reach you
(116) you made me feel like I was up there with you
(117) I think I love things that are bad for me
(118) you have an obsession with controlling your emotions
(119) my favorite pass-time is setting myself on fire
(120) my name sounds at home in your mouth
(121) I'm certain there's a universe that only exists when we're together
(122) I love how much you hurt me
(123) I'm relieved when you make me hate you.
(124) my greatest fear is that I love you
(125) I am concerned you don't know what love is
(126) there's a chance you could still be a figment of my imagination
(127) this surface level **** is too vapid for ***** sakes
(128) I often imagine reaching into your chest to find what went wrong with your heart
(129) you notice everything and say very little.
(130) I burn for the both of us
(131) you hurt me over again carefully and with love
(132) we are my most elaborate display of self-harm.

I don’t know when I taught myself that a man’s skin on your skin can only mean love or danger.
I’ve only recently learnt that danger looks a lot like love and
you knew just how to whisper dangerous words in my ear
and my brittle heart knew just how to turn them into love songs
I won’t lie and say I loved you.
I might have loved the you I made up in my dreams and I most definitely loved how much you didn’t love me at all.
You didn’t do anything spectacular and we didn’t talk about anything other than trivial matters so I guess that left room for my imagination to make a bed for you. And a future for us.

You were background music at the dinner table of my life and I only turned up the volume when I was full and drunk. I don’t remember any of the lyrics to your songs I just know I didn’t stop dancing we didn’t stop dancing. I don’t remember any promises made and all moments shared with you was never soft nor tender. You were the longest car ride with no destination in mind. Speed limits don’t exist for you, I don’t think I do either. We’re going so fast but we’re not going anywhere the music is too loud I can’t hear myself think and you don’t look at me unless you’ve had a drink and we’re always so ******* drunk

I’m dancing with my favourite devil again
Didn’t think that he was for me again

You only like it when I’m ****** up
Think you using me to **** up
But for once don’t mistake
That my kisses are fake
You’re too scared to call me when you’re sober
But I’m too afraid to admit this is over
No more lies no more tears I said
I’ve got your back but don’t forget you stabbed mine
You thought I did you wrong
Was this your way of reacting?
Didn’t you think of picking up the phone,
Asking me to be honest?
I know you’re alone, I know you’ve got fears
But why was I the only one who ended up in tears
You’ve got pretty eyes - disappear when you smile
You’ve got prettier lies - always there no surprise
But you always make me laugh I’ll give you that
Even when you broke my heart
I laughed at you through the tears
Now it’s been over a year can you ******* believe it
Since we’ve been playing cat and mouse
With our drinks and our feelings
I never gave up on you, nursed hope in my heart
I knew that you would miss me.
I ******* knew it.
Yes you waited too long, yes patience is an art
I learnt for you
But don’t ever doubt it I’ll always choose me over you
You’re a little too late I’m a little too drunk
Let’s just keep kissing and never tell each other how we really feel.

As much as it might feel like it sometimes, your life is not a romantic film and I know you get really caught up in your imagination and sometimes you really believe that he's just like a character in a John Green novel and this is your story of how you fall in love. But movies end and every book has a final page. But we keep going and we keep living and the thing about stories is that they only tell about the the in-betweens of you and I. The moments in rose filters with The 1975 playing in the background. You and I, we have a music-video love that cannot exist in the quietness of 7am or the mundaneness of lunch on a Tuesday. When I think of you, I only see lights and dancing and I only hear music and laughter. I don't know much about your mind or your family or how you sleep in your bed at night. But I know exactly when you're lying cause you can't help smiling and I know how you dance when you're tipsy and how you fall when you're a little too drunk. I know you try to never be sad and you've become so good at it you've even tricked yourself into believing you're emotionless. We are identical shards of the same broken heart. We exist in our story together, and live completely separate other lives. We keep following the White Rabbit down the hole and leaving the world behind. Leaving our worlds behind. They tell me you're running fast and they warn me that chasing only leads to falling and breaking. But I've been playing cat and mouse with my heart for months on end and I'm in just as a hurry as you are.

If you had found the perfect man for you. The one who held your troubles in his hands, smiled like the sky breaking and knew exactly what you needed when you said you’re tired or cold or sad - you would never have kept him. You will never keep him because look at how you run towards the boys who spill their liquored lust all over your heartbreak like it doesn’t exist so for a moment you can believe it really isn’t there. Do not blame them for not loving you, love was never what you were bringing to the table. Do not blame them for leaving you. Yes you welcomed them with open arms but you always left the back door unlocked so you could slip away in the middle of the night if they ever tried to stay. Men are not the heroes the movies made them out to be and if it’s loving that you want baby girl, it’s gotta be loving that you give. Nobody’s gonna save you but yourself

Find me at 10 in the morning, coffee and cigarette in my hand
Find me in the middle of a street filled with people
Find me on a bridge at sunset
Or the beach at sunrise
Find me at a park in summer
Or the corner bookstore in winter
Find me when I'm sitting alone at a restaurant or surrounded by friends on a night out
Find me when I'm brushing my teeth or wrapped in bed sheets, drifting to sleep,
Looking for you in my dreams

(That's the only place you don't lose me)

Find me
Cause I've been looking for you
Find me
Cause I can't find you

we said we didn't care,
laughed at our losses to soften the sting of unrequited love
and then swore we weren't insane
(i don't know if the reason i can't breathe
is the cigarettes or the heartache)
lately everyone feels as empty as their absence
-and i am grateful for the friends and the flowers
i just don't know why the good things can't be enough for me

they all taught us to sit in the corner and stand in the kitchen, kneel in the bedroom and be afraid to say no. they taught us to wear lipstick on our lips like glue, to keep our opinions to ourselves, we learned to fear the men in the street because they don't ever ask - only take. we are taught to be pretty, precious, pure and believed them when they called out our names like lost puppies. we are slowly learning to unlearn. the feminine energy and spirit is healing and we are angry.

I didn't mean
To make promises for you
To me about us
I didn't mean to notice the fire burning in your eyes and turn your heart into a rescue mission
I didn't mean to turn your love into a game that I couldn't bear to lose
And all you do is chase and refuse
Only solution you have is a drink
I'm starting to think you're not real
I'm starting to think I've forgotten how to feel
You give me the largest sum of nothing
I think it's all you have
I gave the ghost of you the little I have left.
With admiration in your eyes and holding both of my hands you said,
'I feel nothing for you'
But I didn't hear what you said I just noticed how your voice dripped with longing and your fingers melted into mine.
They always told me actions speak louder than words, so I went with what I felt.

But I woke up alone the next morning hating you. Too drunk to remember how we got home and how you left.
I woke up alone the next morning hating you
Not knowing why.

Nobody except you will know what you did that night.
Nobody but me will bear the consequence.

he moves in fast forward and
talks in rewind and I like the way
he always seems to be on his way somewhere better then the place he left you
he knows exactly what he's doing although when he speaks it might as well be another language

he will always be wild,
you can see it in his eyes if you catch contact before he buries his head in his lap,
and sometimes your chest -
in these moments he's as tame as a newborn puppy,
fragile as the glass cups
he throws to the ground,
laughing.

he will do the same with your heart

wild things can be loved,
but they can never stay.

Oh how we criticized their hearts
And inspected their love
Looking for poison,
Always finding it
Always keeping it
Never realizing how close we held it to our hearts, letting them infiltrate and infect every corner.

Your heart isn't broken anymore. But your head hasn't forgotten the day you cried an ocean and flooded the entire street.
Your heart is strong again. But your head still replays memories of the summer you spent seven days straight in bed too sad to move.
Heart doesn't sink to your shoes anymore when you see him.
But Head keeps remembering how long she stayed there and how he begged her to beat again when you swallowed too many sleeping pills.
Heart is an addict fresh out of rehab and Head keeps locking your emotions up just like your mother used to do with the liquor cabinet.

Head says: Remember how you drank a that entire bitter bottle of wine as though it was water? Remember how you blacked out every night just to get away from me? Let me remind you of the day you kissed every single boy at the party and still went home crying into his voicemail.

Heart says: I want to feel warm again, it's been so cold and so dark for so long. I want forehead kisses and coffee kisses and salty kisses and sunset kisses. I want skin on skin with no kisses at all. I want honey words whispered over the phone at midnight so sweet my tooth aches.

Head says: I think I've got to go. I think you're losing me. I think I've forgotten to remember.

Heart says: don't forget I love you

flowers wilt and bedsheets get stripped clean with bleach bitter like my words my eyelashes held together with tears you laugh not at me but as if you’re amused at the idea of anyone ever loving you I can see your eyes lack understanding and you should be glad that you don’t know the look of heartbreak and I don’t hate you no matter how much I know I should I think I might never speak to you again though but don’t forget the day you first saw me and you told your friends all about the way we didn’t stop smiling on the dance floor the end of an era the beginning of a mess who would’ve known you would look at me 12 months later and see someone you claim to love but fail to ever show it don’t forget the night you came to my dorm room too afraid to say a word and now cause you know me you say too much let’s stop pretending that you didn’t spend hours lying next to me in a tent made out of the night sky holding hands and talking **** and I know what everyone sees in us - something pointless and never-ending but don’t think I’ve forgotten what you said and don’t think when you smile at me like everything’s fine that I ever believe it and we should sit down sometime and talk about nothing I guess that’s my way of saying I hate what you did, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you.