I am like a firefly in a jar
Never feel that I am getting far
My light burning out, flickering
My screams turn to shouts, slowly, bickering.

I am like a firefly with heavy wings
Around my eyes lay dark rings
I can't lift off, my light is fading
My skin will forever be your shading.

I am stuck in a jar, gravity killing any chances of flight
And lately I have noticed that I never get things right
I am destructive to myself and to you
A deadbeat firefly with nothing to do.

I set up this jar with my own mind
You look for me but will never find
I'm sorry I don't fly for you
I want you to know that this love is true
But you deserve better than a firefly stuck in a jar.

I thought you had mended my wings
But now I see the broken things
No one can change
I don't want to lose you
and everything you do
but you deserve better than this firefly stuck in a jar.

It's not that you aren't good enough
It's that my cracked skin is too tough
Like a second firefly stuck in the same jar
I hold you back when you can go far.

I want you to know that you are the best thing that has happened
But my light will always be blackened
Nothing unjust has given me this
My thoughts lead me spiralling into an abyss

It's not fair that you have to look after this firefly stuck in a jar
After all, I am not going far
You don't have to be stuck with this firefly in a jar.

"I will tie balloons to my arms, legs and neck, and they would lift me above all the houses until I reached the stars. Then I will sit on the moon and wave to everyone down below, but they won't be able to see me" she answered.
"Now that's just silly Grace, how do you expect that balloons would be enough to lift you off the ground?" her teacher replied.
"Well there would be LOTS of them."
"And how do you plan to sit on the moon? Gravity wouldn't allow it"
"Well I would tell gravity that he isn't being very nice and that best friends don't 'not allow' each other to do things and I promise to be best friends if he lets me sit on the moon".
"Gravity doesn't work like that"
"Well he should"

After 85 years of tying balloons to herself, Grace was finally lifted above the houses until she reached the stars. She became best friends with Gravity. He wasn't so bad after all, and he did allow her to sit on the moon and wave down to everyone below, but they couldn't see her.

I know it's hard, but I wish you could admit it.
I did. You should.
I wish for you to live your life how you should,
but to do that, you need to admit to your problems,
otherwise we can not help.
I know what you have, I can see it, I have been there before.

I have been there, at the deepest spot, and now, looking down I can see you there,
frantically trying to piece things together, knowing you don't have a real "self",
knowing that you are only ever what your OCD makes you
But I knew something which you do not, I knew I had it
And I asked for help

I wish for you that you will listen
I don't know how it must feel for you,
to be the woman that once was looked up to hear her own daughter
tell her that she is depressed,
but please, I wish for you to once again be the one I look up to, by admitting your problem
Of course, I would look up to you, I would not lose any respect.

I wish for you to live your life without this
I could barely survive sixteen years with this, yet you have  survived forty-seven.
I wish you won't have to be upset when your own husband tells you.
I wish you knew we are trying to help.
You say that all your relationships are falling apart, but I know that it is not you speaking.
I wish you could see. Please.

Once I tore a piece from the back of the Sunday paper.
The piece told a story of an old lady who was being kicked out of her knitting class because she insisted on bringing her cat each time.
I didn't necessarily like the story, but I heard my father, upon glancing at the title ("One cat that won't have knits"), proclaim questionably "who is going to read this crap!?".
I decided then that I would read it. I kept the story in the back pocket of my worn jeans.
I felt bad for that lady- maybe she didn't have any friends at her knitting class?
But mostly, I felt bad because I knew that no one was going to read her story.

I probably won't have a story of my own in the paper any day, and If I did, I wouldn't want it to be about bringing my cat to knitting classes. But even if that is what it was about, I would want someone to read it. I'd want someone to gasp over it, or laugh, or rip it out and keep it in their faded blue jeans. I won't have an article, but I will have a story. I just don't want to have a story that a middle aged man, sitting in his dressing gown and slippers, drinking hot coffee would scoff over, and ask "who is going to read this!?".

What does it mean
to be accepted
when my sense of self
is intercepted?

Is it still the same
do you still belong
If they all like you
but it all feels wrong?

Identity is
being individual
but what’s the point
if it’s all for their vigil?

Isn’t it ironic
to feel secure
we try to belong
to someone else’s couture?

In conclusion I’d say
if identity you forfeit
you’re hiding yourself,
you’re wearing a corset.

Dear Body;
I know it is stupid to see photoshopped girls and want to be like them. I know it is not possible to have flawless skin and a waist that tiny. I know I am supposed to be the one that preaches "love yourself" but honestly, it is unfeasible to not want to be perfect.  It's not just the models or the celebrities who are fed a carrot a day and pumped with botox, but my friends are pretty, too. I wish you were skinnier, smoother, rounder, taller, clearer, more radiant and just generally less disgusting.
I wish I could wear clothes like everyone else and feel comfortable. I wish you didn't make me feel so crap all the time. I wish I was not so ungrateful. I wish I didn't have to feel guilty every time I eat bacon. I wish chocolate was good for you. I wish you would not become damaged in elements. If you could just, I don't know, change?

Sincerely, your  disappointed owner.

"Do you think I'm pretty?" she asked him in the park.
"I do" he replied as they built a castle out of sticks.
They were both pretty young, and hadn't a clue.

"Do you think I'm pretty?" she asked him on her way to school.
"I think you're nice" he replied as they climbed over the gate.
They were both just kids, and didn't have a clue.

"Do you think I'm pretty?" she asked him on the way to calculus class.
"I think you're pretty...
ugly,
fat and
slutty" he replied as his friends sniggered.
They were both growing up.

"Do you think I'm pretty?" she asked the ***** mirror in the girl's bathroom that same day.
"I think you're pretty worthless" her reflection replied as she short herself in the head.

With the click of a button you shut me up and shut me out.
I was explaining, telling you my side of things, the story I had been too afraid to mention to you before
and right in the middle of it, you clicked that button.

Months before, with a different "you"
I told him I loved him.
He confused me, and got scared, like they all do.
And he stopped clicking buttons that had anything to do with me.

After him but before you,
I was convinced it was time to try.
I was getting over the before you "you" ignoring me now.
I asked a new "him" and he accused me of clicking buttons that annoyed him.

But then there was you.
You didn't stop clicking buttons that had to do with me,
you didn't click buttons to accuse.
You just clicked a button that meant you never had to hear my story.
You clicked a button that removed it all, everything.
That click of that button reassured me that I would never have gotten to tell you my whole story,
because you are always too busy clicking buttons.

I remember the last time I went surfing.
I loved every second of it. I loved running out into the icy water, the chill taking a second to hit the vulnerable skin under my wetsuit. Those fleeting seconds of running ankle deep in the water before realizing how cold it is, and the moments following where I just kept running anyway, my body and board becoming dispersed in sea froth. I loved feeling my feet sink into the grainy sand as I gradually reach a depth that touches above my waist, then, bracing myself for the numbing cold, diving onto my board, immersing my top half in the crisp temperature the water holds. After the piercing cold is absorbed by my skin, and I am lying flat on smooth fiberglass, I see a wave forming in the distance. In a hurry, paddling madly, grazing my hands on the fiberglass sides of the board, desperate to get deep enough to catch the wave. I turn the board around and feel the wave coming behind me. This is the moment. The moment that feels like waiting for your plane to take off, or waiting for a raffle to be drawn, hoping desperately to hear your name called out. I feel the swell behind me, and continue paddling, facing the shore this time. I can feel it as a powerful but consistent surge brings the nose of my board up, and I hurry to lift myself up. I am crouching. My hands nervously let go of the sides. I am bent over. I am straightening. I am standing. My palms are flailing madly, but feel free in the warmer air. Within seconds, I lose my balance and the rush pulls me under. I fall off the board and take a mouthful of seawater. I emerge, laughing, trying to stabilize my focus and figure out whereabouts on the beach I am. As I drag the board back to shore, the salty sea water is already drying in my hair, fingernails and skin. I feel the familiar crunch of dry sand, and collapse, laughing, into the soft grains. I could do this again.

I was so excited to finally have my own surfboard. Brand new, I just hadn't had the chance to take it out yet. My brother asked to borrow it one day, and I couldn't see why not. He helped me attach the fins and leg rope, and I watched him walk away with my latest investment.

I was going into the garage to find something when I saw it there, in half, the fiberglass peeled towards the nose, the insides stuffed with sand, lying in a pile. The next day, my brother came home to find me waiting for him outside his room. "I have good and bad news! The bad news is, I broke your surfboard, the good news is, you now have two boogie boards!". I am sitting.

The day the calves arrived was my favourite. We put them in our shed full of straw. They were skinny and looked unbalanced on top of their long, bony legs. They smelt like a dry room in winter, of vanilla cake and damp straw and droppings. The other kids retched, but I didn't mind.

I came in early every morning to feed the calves. I measured them and mixed water into powdered milk. They fought fiestily over the feeder, nudging each other crudely to secure the last few drops of milk. I put my hands out to calm them, and they latched onto my fingers with their mouthes, thrusting with their tongues, desperate for the milk I had spilt on my hands. The other kids retched, but I didn't mind.

I groomed them and let them drag me around the oval when I took them for a run.
Although I could barely keep up with their childlike bounding, I felt exhilarated and could not stop laughing. At the end of the day I'd lead them back to the shed and play with them. I took a pitch fork and scooped up the soiled straw for the compost and replaced it with clean straw. Of course, the smell wasn't pretty. The other kids retched, but I didn't mind.

On the weekend we met outside the sheds in our overalls and boots. It was cold and early, and the teacher was late. The other kids moaned about having to be there just to get "a stupid grade".  I didn't care about the grades. I would have loved to have slept in, but I didn't mind.

The teacher finally arrived and put on her suit. She unlocked the shed and we were engulfed with the warmth and soft yellow light, the air scented by the sweet vanilla-like aroma from the powdered milk. I walked over to bid the calves good morning. One was nuzzling at the face of the other.

She was dead.

Natural causes apparently. I retched, but the other kids didn't mind.

When you feel like you are walking on broken glass,
and your eyes are always tired.

When you feel like you are walking on splintered wood,
and your eyes are almost closed.

When you feel like you are walking on ice so cold it burns,
when your skin is being pierced and your eyes are crying,
when your feet are swollen and there's a lump in your throat
and complete emptiness inside;


                                                                                If only I could carry you.

If only I could get
a breath of fresh air
A telescope through the sand
Sifting through grains of unwanted thought and unwanted feelings
To the cool, clean, crisp air.

Air would be so nice right now.

You lifted me up so high, then pushed me off.
You watched me fall, too busy with real things to care.
You were my best friend, but when you noticed I wasn't there for the same reasons, you left me, when I needed you most.
You have upset me so much, hurt me so bad.
You have made me cry and scream and throw things.
Now I know not to trust people,
like you said I could trust you.
But you know what, after all this, I'd still fall for it, for you, even.
Why? Because any fragment of hope of you coming back into my life makes me forgive you.

It is that empty feeling inside you feel when you have been crying for hours, but without shedding a single tear. There is usually very little crying involved, because sweet depression takes away all your feeling. You want to express that sadness through releasing tears, but they never come.

When you are happy, there is always that reminder in the back of your brain that you will come down from this, and you will probably come down fast. But when you are up, you are so high, your mind is shouting to yourself with a tone of saccharine promise "I won't be sad again! I have nothing to be sad about! I am lucky to be alive, now I am going to live my life and be HAPPY!". It is almost like being drunk, being happy. It is temporary madness that leaves you with interesting memories and confusion to why you were like that in the first place.

It is sickeningly comforting, knowing that depression will always be there for you.
At the end of a long day, after a party, in a few months time...
depression will be there. But it won't greet you with open arms, no, that's not it's style.
It will great you with the gradual disintegration of your mind, a sadistic smile and some cellophane to watch the rest of the world through.

"When can we learn about Dragons?"
Not now, we are studying the formula.
"When can we dance in the rain?"
Not now, we must do our chores.
"When can we be pirates?"
Not now, we don't have a ship.
"When can we go on an adventure?"
Do we have swords or sticks? Do we have bravery and noble steeds? No.
"Can we imagine?"*
There's no time for that.

It was nice to be invited, but now I regret agreeing to this.

The light in here is too artificial; the vibrant pink almost strangles the dark blue before transforming into an eerie green. It is strobing, spinning, scanning, pointing, observing the rapid decline of morality around the room. It's not even comforting like light should be, it is assaulting the senses and coaxing for trouble.

The floor is sticky, lined with a layer of spilt drinks and the trash the bottom of shoes bring in; cigarette butts, chewed gum, ***** and hopelessness. The walls are plush but I don't want to touch them- I don't understand why they are sticky too...perhaps one too many drinks thrown at ****** guys?

The roof is low, caving in on everyone inside. The room has about 400 more people than it can hold, and I am being smothered by un asked for touches and nudges, pulls and pushes. I can feel someone thrusting into the back of me while the couple in front (who don't know each other) almost fall on top of me in a desperate attempt to show the room that they have no cares- they will have *** right in front of you if they have to.

The music is way too loud. And not the fun sort of too loud that's often cranked up at parties or in the car, but shatteringly loud, drowning out any attempt of speech. Why should these people care? They don't care who they let under their clothes, or what their name might be. And why am I not like that? Why am I the only one in this God forsaken night club not throwing my body at someone. I mustn't be normal.

The girls in the bathroom are smoking **** and swallowing pills- they aren't even trying to be secretive about it- the sink is filled with all types of substances. I can't find a corner to go and just be until it is time to leave.

I don't understand why I am the only one like this. I tried my best to look pretty tonight. I poured hot wax on my skin, layering paper on top to latch onto my hair and rip it out. I used expensive products, layer after layer just to cover my spots. Even though I am allergic to it, I took a pencil to my eye lids and pulled my lashes with a mascara brush. I didn't eat so as to not smudge my lipstick. I squeezed myself into the only dress I own, the one I can't breathe out in. I forced myself to wear shoes with sticks supporting them. I can't walk in heels, but if I don't I am ridiculed and stand a head shorter than the rest of the room.

And now I'm here, and do you think anyone gives a ****** **** how long it took me to get ready? Do you think anyone cares that the wire of this bra is cutting into my flesh? No. I know why, too, because I am not wearing anything like everyone else. I am the only one who's dress gathers at my knees, and as far as I can tell, the only one wearing a bra. I don't care if other people want to dress like that, good for them, but it'd be nice to know that people actually want to know you for other reasons than *** with a blind face to brag about later.

I am watching girls do anything, no matter how uncomfortable they feel, to please their companions. If this is what I have to look forward to as being a young adult, I don't like it. At all.

I feel like happiness is combusting inside my heart,
burning from the inside out.
It's not painful, I don't need to extinguish these flames, I like them.
They are comforting.
I want to share my combusting heart with the world,
with all those who have been left charred from their combustion.
For those who are full of ashes, smoke and debris,
I want to share my flames of happiness.
It feels wrong to feel so great when others can not re light their hearts.
But I can't help it.
I am so happy,
the happiness you have given me is combusting,
combusting inside my heart.

I'll walk quietly around you
I'll whisper my songs
I'll hold your head together, sweet

I'll tiptoe, dainty as a faerie
I'll make you a chain of paper things
I'll draw your thoughts away so they can't hurt you, sweet

Although I am not graceful
And I stomp and stalk around
I'll change all this, I'd change everything
If it means you'd have me around,

And although I am loud and brutal
And I'm clumsy with my feet
You know that under this elephant
There's something soft and gentle, sweet

If I put a flower in my hair, will you think I am pretty?
If I drink with you, will you think I'm fun?
I have loved you for so long, I'd do anything to be that for you.

If I read you my books, will you think I am smart?
If I sing you my songs, will you think I am talented?
I have loved you for so long, I'd read you my prose and teach you my lyrics.

If I sat down next to you, would you want my company?
If we watched a movie, would you like my choice?
I have loved you for so long, I'd sit next to you through a movie with no plot line.

If I told you a joke, would you think I am funny?
If I told you a story, would it make you cry?
I have loved you for so long, I laugh and cry about how I feel 'us'.

Dear friend
As tacked on plastic stars lazily glow on my ceiling
and I listen to your mixtape
I'm reminded once again of how irreplaceably broken I am,
but his time, I am truly alone
and no amount of fermented fruit or ***** fumes is going to let me forget.

Dear friend
Out of everyone on this corrupt earth
I never thought it'd be you
We held our tongues in the back of class
Now I hold my tongue when I see your face
They've done this to me before, so that does not surprise me
But this time it's so much worse, because I've clearly lost you

Dear friend
I don't know why you changed, or what I did wrong
and when I asked you didn't seem to know either
But I've heard that you don't really care any more
but your drawing smiles at me from my witnessing walls
I don't know whether I should take it away or leave it.

Dear friend
My eyes ran until it hurt to shed more tears
and my cheeks became salty streams
drops, like splatters of blood, littered my dark dress
It seemed that I cried
Until the whole of me was drenched
The sorrow soaking through my soul
Absorbed by my skin
Dripping from every single hair.

Dear friend
The fact that you have left me hurts more than any of my wounds
Even when the boys put me back on the shelf, broken, I'd half expected it
But you? Never. I'm glad I didn't see this coming though, because then I probably would've given in a long time ago.

Dear friend
Each time I see your photos, my skin forms new bruises, purple and swirled like your painting of the galaxy.
And when you avert your gaze, I feel pinches in my skin
The idea of no longer holding your respect physically pains me, sickens me.
I didn't get out of bed. I was going to end it all, but I promised myself that whatever was happening wasn't
But it is

Dear friend
I sound like I've come out of a bad break up- a ****** ex or clingy soul
But the truth is, I valued your friendship more than anything, and it is the loss of it that continues to be the broken glass beneath my bare, swollen feet.
If you read this and laugh, or show it to the others
If you say I'm overreacting, or attention seeking
If you don't believe a word I've written
Then let me give up on this friendship without further torment.

You are the numbers and I am the words.
I was never any good at mathematics,
You could never find a story.

You made us equal equations,
I made us a plot line.

Numbers are what keep us apart- roughly 194
Words are what divide us- road names and suburbs.

But numbers and words thread us closer
Your numbers and my words,
Our numbers and our words
May 3, July 13, 2015
forever, always, stay, sun, moon

So numbers and words are all that we can have until we grow up,
which neither of us want to do,
we will grow old, but we will never grow up.
And then and until then we have these numbers and words
13, I love you,<3, forever, 18, always, 12.00am, eternal

You are my numbers, can I be your words?

You know
how I feel
when my hands
won't let go

You know
what I see
when my eyes
move so slow

You know
I grow weak
when you say
all those things

and you know
how I cried
when you gave her
that ring

My dad said he loved me
but it felt like a lie
“why can’t you be normal?”
he’d yell while I’d cry

“your face is too miserable,
your opinions do bore,
your hobbies are useless
you’re more of a chore

you never  say thanks
and you’re ridden with lies
and God knows I’m reasonable,
I’m a pretty nice guy”

forgive me for thinking
your respect insincere
and for being the only one
who’s wrath I no longer fear

I could fill a blank page
with the song of my heart
but I’ve forgotten the words
*I don’t know my part

my words aren’t going to make you love me
and neither is my face
what makes me any different
from the entire human race?

Here I go again-
I'm always falling for Y.O.U

Why do I keep doing this? Oh I'll never know! You pull me in, and push me out, a friend suddenly a foe.

Why can I not hate you? Oh I can't even resent! You lead me on and I'm still trailing until all my effort is spent.

Here I go again, I'm always falling for Y.O.U
Why are you so perfect? Oh, so desperately out of reach! You!

We don't need to say anything, we just lie here and stare at each other.
Sometimes we listen to music, and we both drum our hands to the beat.
I think the lyrics for you, but I am not sure if you do the same for me.

We have known each other for such a long time, yet we still learn more everyday.
We learn things we thought we would've known by now.
I have so much I want to tell you, but I am not sure if you have things you want to tell me.

We stay quiet, but speak by joining our hands.
When the heads are turned, or under sheets, our hands are together like we could be.
I know I want to hold yours, and I think I am sure you want to hold mine.

Not another love poem

It's 1am and I'm drinking,
Sitting here trying to convince myself that I should not write another love poem.
When things go sour, those love poems remain etched into my journal, my messages, my novels, my tabletops, my online profile and my soul.

They lie around like satirically ironic reminders of what once was, and either make me feel so stupid for ever writing them or so sick that someone will no longer be reading them because I wasn't ready for it to end.

All those love poems are like the ring I received from my first boyfriend- too precious to throw out, but too taunting to keep.

If I wrote one for you right now, I'd feel like Romeo who I, for one, think was as pretentious as bottled water. Was no one else doubtful of his love confessions to Juliet when just a few scenes prior he had said the very same things about Rosaline? All I could think of his words was that they were nothing more than recycled material he was using because he didn't know any better.

If I wrote you a poem right now, would you merely join the many Rosalines I have written for in the past? Of course I had no intentions of acting like Romeo, but each time I fall I feel I've fallen deeper and I don't even know if I have experienced true love yet.

I could write thousands about your eyes, your voice, your arms around me
But it'd just be another love poem
And I am too scared to let you join the many I've written for people that soon left my life.

Ugh, I just did it again, didn't I?


I wrote another love poem.

Once it hits me it is going to hit hard
How could you do this to me again?
You know how fragile I am
You were the one who offered to put my broken pieces back into place

And it was working
Did you get bored?
Is that why you smashed me down again to break into even more pieces

Do you like to see how much you can break me down because you know that I let the faintest glimmer of hope manifest into forgiveness and love?
Am I your loyal puppy that always comes begging back?
Am I waiting by the door for you to notice me and take me on an adventure
Lead in mouth
And butterflies in my stomach
Always waiting
For whenever you're ready
For when you need me
For when you want me
For long enough to help you move on and do better

Am I your guinea pig?
Your test dummy?
Your practice doll?
Sometimes you were there when I needed you which makes this all so much worse

Because I'm dependant on you, you see
While you're looking at her and I'm cursing my reflection
Does she know you like I do?
Do I even know you that well, or was it all an act? I'm supposed to be the actress, but your performance is oscar worthy.

I once knew this boy I loved
We'd talk and laugh and cry
I could see the rain cloud above his head
And somehow, he knew of mine

Like an unspoken promise we didn't ask
But we sought comfort in each other still
Never using labels or names,
I thought we could reign unspoken until

Our castle walls fell and all our men left
And the horses they ran away
The boy that I loved was quick to move on
But I waited for another day

And it seemed like years
In that castle I waited
For any kind of saviour
But the boy that I loved forgot about me
And in came a friend for a favour

After so much waiting,
I decided it was of no use to hope
So I let this new prince
put me on his horse
And hoped that somehow I'd cope

We did for a while and the prince would be sweet
And I could be distracted
But at a ball we did again meet
And I had to monitor the way that I acted

The boy that I loved was alone again
And I couldn't help but wonder why
While I tried to suppress my feelings
And told him of this new guy

Then a month to the day I realised the truth
About this new prince and his wishes
So after much pain and deliberation
Our relationship lies with the fishes

The boy I once knew I loved was waiting for me
And I told him I was confused
He said he was too and he didn't want to risk it
We both had too much to lose

But in the shadows he holds my hand
And we drink until late
I don't know if he knew my plan
But I was hoping the alcohol would determine our fate

My prince hugged me back
But that was all
Then he was on his way
And the boy that I loved still roams past
Each and every day

With no definitions and predispositions
I don't know what we've got
But the boy that I loved is the boy that I love
Whether he knows it or not.