my phone was on silent,
and i missed his call.
“i called you by accident,”
he said, when i rang back,
“i have nothing to say.”

nineteen minutes later,
his sweet sound of nothing
was still on the line,
untangling his day.

i dreamt about us —
a forbidden touch,
where hands met,
souls intertwined,
shirts unbuttoned,
drunk on wine.

i dreamt of the slowest burn —
sparks from your lips
merging with fuel from mine
tilting my entire world
upside down.

‘did you sleep well?’ you ask,
stirring your morning coffee.
i smile, face flushed with heat.
‘i had such an angelic dream.’

the things i could tell you—
they’re almost criminal.
but i only find your lips,
soft with ache for me,
in the quiet dark of dreams.
i carry you
like a wound that scabs
but never bleeds.

and if you were here,
really here,
i think i’d take the risk.
let my life fold in half,
see if you’d catch me
as i come apart
under your touch.

but i know you wouldn’t.
so i’ll hold onto
this fantasy for now,
praying that your flickers
eventually burn out.

my cat is crying,
crying still, and always loud.
his mouth is grief incarnate.
what name could hold you,
you feathered fury,
you opera of complaint.

i told my friend,
it wasn’t like that.
we said — agreed —
this still wasn’t a date.

then you sat down
with a coffee,
making me forget
every careful phrase,
every non-confession
i’d whispered to my mind.

we wandered the city
until sundown,
as if we didn’t know
every corner of it.
and when the night
started to settle,
i offered you an out —
you had plans.
you just smiled,
waving them away.

neither of us knew
what we then began.

because i told my friend
it wasn’t like that.
but now i’m not sure
what i was trying to defend.

(on the ten-year anniversary of leaving home)

without looking back,
she boarded a flight,
concealing that piercing anxiety.
to soothe the ache,
packed her language as a guide,
weeping quietly for her country.

recognition came in tears,
stretched paper-thin—
that her home couldn’t yet grasp
that love begins within.

the early years, under flickering lights,
were spent seeking solace.
with inner voices softly humming—
inhaling cheap wine,
books as her compass—
enough to outweigh not belonging.

some nights,
she danced until her heels
worn the skin away,
bleeding her truth into tile,
whilst friends, thick as thieves,
melted into laughter, and gin.

she loved badly,
lit candles to soften the silence
that screamed louder at 3 a.m.,
scribbled poetry
on the walls of her soul—
long forgotten, left forsaken.

her twenties were a strange gift,
she never thought to ask for,
memories scattered down the hallway,
like spilled drinks, laced with honesty.
sometimes the weight is still sore,
and yet she’s walking,
barefoot,
unfolding.

she’s standing next to me
the riffs crawl slowly
under her skin,
tunes reaching
something long buried
within.

the sky thickens
with sentient air —
as if we’re sitting
in a drive-through
watching us on the screen.

even the town
is under her spell,
its nightlife dimmed,
and out of the way.

she smells like
imponderable winter air.
with a glance,
she lifts me up
and breaks me
in one breath.

her eyes —
the sea after storm.
my gaze drifts
to her mouth.
her words linger,
honey-crumbed,
after a bite.

a phone chimes —
mine.
i know
i have to go.

‘find your way back to me,’
i think.
i hope.

my heart aches,
she feels it, too.
i’m not ready
to say goodbye.

but i do.

help me smother
these chaotic sparks
you’ve fed, fuelled
and let grow
whilst gasping for air,
my bleeding heart
submits quietly
to your soul.

i had to touch you.
no reason —
just the pull of knowing
twenty-six days
is all we have left.

i plan
to press my memory
into your skin
every day,
so you can carry
the echo of us
through the ache
of my touch,
even after you vanish
and leave me behind
with no one
to guard my heart.

i'm a lost soul,
ash for pieces,
stranded
with failures
that pray
in quiet memories,
to be remembered.

i had a set of rules once,
i don’t know if they still apply —
especially after breaking
a quite significant one tonight:
thing is, on the first date
you shouldn’t kiss anyone.

i don’t know why i’m bothered by it
when we specifically agreed
it wasn’t going to be one.

for years, i turned a blind eye.
sweeping caps beneath the rug,
until first light cracked,
then by morning,
it still wasn’t enough.

i drank, after greeting the day,
sometimes with coffee,
often just straight,
took a taxi to work,
then drank more on my break.
customers adored me,
or who they thought i was —
my second self
with blurred edges,
slightly louder than the dark.

some i crossed paths with
tried so hard to help —
to drag the demons out.
but the deeper they dug,
the harder i pulled away,
instead.

i’d sketch pretending on my skin
with ink from an earthy red.
dressed up for therapy,
clouds trailing like a veil —
midnight fantasy
chased with violet gin.
i called it survival,
but it tasted like sin.

spelled my sorrows on the carpet —
each drop a false reprieve.
and whilst they dripped
like honeyed mercy,
no one asked about the burn.
now bare, without prayers,
i’m an offering at your altar
after swearing i’d never return.

say something.
i’d love to hear
how your voice might break
the ice that’s formed between.

say something.
say it out loud.
let it quiet the war
raging beneath my doubt.

say something.
say you carry my scent home,
etched into your skin,
weathering the rain and storm.

say something.
say you see the hurt —
that this wandering heart of mine
is heavier than any witch-cast curse.

say something.
say nothing will change,
and i can follow you blindly
to where love is a leap of faith.

say something.
say this is enough for you.
that my pure-hearted longing
was only borrowed, not owed.

say something.
say that when the years have passed,
you’ll be no more than a forgotten weight,
and i won’t ache for you again.

i wear his shirt,
long-sleeve, pale grey,
too wide at the wrist.
it still smells like him.
like oak, sleep, fresh rain
and the breath before the kiss.

i'm terrified.
that my own scent
will settle, and claim
what history stitched.

i'm holding onto it,
as if this is the last embrace
he'll ever give me.
maybe it is.

it’s your birthday.
once, i swore i’d never forget —
yet, it just appeared on my feed,
when it used to linger
quietly in my head.

you have a family, children, a wife.
time ran off, and left no trace —
am i allowed to wonder at your life?

those strolls under the moonlight,
the midnight dates –
it’s now her looking at the sky
as the stars cascade.

your memory rests where it used to burn —
quiet, soft, asking no return.

we hated each other
until we didn’t.
our mutual spite
drifted into respect,
two stubborn selves
forced to intersect.

we took solace
in drinking,
our souls poured
with the wine.
your promise
was irresistible —
so were the signs.

i was nothing
but a mixtape
you played on repeat,
and named me —
claimed me —
as your greatest mistake.

once you stopped the tape,
stripped it to its core,
spilled the ribbon of me
right outside your door.
you forgot my name
quick enough to hurt,
but i still remember
the flames —

and how ferociously
they burned.

you called me
the cure
without
ever reading
the fine print.

now you call me
a curse,
despite my explaining
that healing
comes with a burn.

in the future,
call me
however you like,
just don't come back
when you miss the high.

sometimes i’m asked
about my siblings.
i don’t mention you.
at all.

in that moment,
i’m already lying —
not naming you
with those still living
because the memory
will always sting raw.

it feels like erasing you.
but you don’t exist.
not in the world
they know.
i don’t speak your name
or what i hold back,
in those unsaid words.

i don’t need their sorrys,
their tilted heads,
want to unwrap
the sudden,
the young,
the different.

i do have siblings.
i have a few.

it’s easier this way.

i could talk about you,
attila.
but you’re stitched
into the past,
like an old photo
that the living
don’t get to touch.

it's easier this way.

to carry your presence,
in the sleeve of my heart,
so you never fade.

we got drunk on pálinka,
that tasted like cheap nail polish
as the day drifted into sleep,
watching mismatched friends
in their twenties
dancing in a garden,
barefoot, and dizzy,
writing silly poems
in each other's hoodies.

i kept thinking about that
horse we brought to life
the whole bus ride home.
wondering
if i really had been on the bus,
or taken a long walk.

i recognised our house,
but the way upstairs was tricky.
thinking it was mine,
i crashed into my housemate's door -
maybe not accidentally.
the more the blur fades,
the more it becomes clear,
i just thought he was cute.

so i folded myself into sleep
before the truth arrived
and made it all too real.

we played like children
on borrowed time—
fingers flying across foosball handles,
ping-pong bouncing between
your laughter and mine.

after supper,
we’d sneak into the library,
to the back, past the board games,
where a dinosaur waited
to beat me, again.
the librarian smiled.
we smiled back—
but we were never that innocent.

between the shelves,
you’d look at me
like hunger dressed in human skin.
your hand found mine,
and the air cracked.

i thought of kissing you,
of not stopping.
but my ribs still ached
with someone else’s name.
and so—
i stayed still.
i stayed safe.

later, by the bricks,
you found the space between my thighs,
and i followed you
through a rusted fence
into the school yard
where we looked up
at the stars,
and said nothing.

you leaned in.
i leaned back.

because no matter
how loudly
my pulse begged
for your lips,
my heart was still
a house in ruins.

we met in a bar —
by accident —
i was with a friend.
we matched on tinder
a while ago.
yet, word by word,
you quoted my bio
back to me.
as if you didn’t care.
so casually.

we talked bad dates,
cats, the types we were into,
living sitch in oxford,
housemate gossip,
then silently judged some people.

my friend left, eventually.
we decided to head home.
you were parked at the station,
and i lived off botley road.

you didn’t mind the company.
i didn’t know you.
but i knew of you.
barely.
a friend of a friend.

then i found myself accepting
the lift you offered.

we were almost by my house
when you asked about my plans.

maybe i’d finish
a half-drunk bottle, i said,
with nothing else in mind.

you glanced over,
said you had one at home
you were dying to open.
extremely cheap.
probably vile.
saved for special occasions,
and improvised nights.

the spark was effortless.
as we got to my driveway,
you turned us around.

the ridiculous treasure
you had saved
was worse than we feared,
yet we drank it
until we forgot the taste.

the selfies you made us take
were the silliest kind:
posing with fake glasses,
bandanas,
and that cursed, stick-on moustache.

yours (bandana, not moustache),
wrapped around my neck,
pulled me close.
then you kissed me.

it caught me off guard —
the difference.
you didn’t need me to stay.
i didn’t hear you beg.
with the bottle between us,
we settled in your bed,
discussed programming,
reflection,
the act of meditation —
such an unexpected night to have.

as you drove me home,
you put cheesy pop songs on,
belting out taylor swift.
i noticed the comic strips
glued on the interior —
it was harley quinn.

i still remember all of it.

mostly the goodbye kiss
you carefully asked for
as i opened the door.
and the way our lips brushed
was almost like a dream,
because it was the first time
a kiss,
exchanged with a stranger,
didn’t feel cheap.

we weren’t really strangers
by the end of the night.

(at least not as much
as we currently are.)

i tidied the corners,
stories simmered in the chilli,
scattered petals on the grass —
rose-red, next to a single lily.

i’d chosen the music with care,
but laughter co-wrote the score,
each chorus pulling us closer
to something warmer than before.

we bathed in rain, clouds, and sun,
each one carrying a moment,
where secrets come undone,
and quiet truths are spoken.

the fairy lights lit up,
as the world flipped slowly —
a circle of soft goodbyes
turning intimate into holy.

as the solstice faded,
and it struck twelve once more,
a day like this feels sacred,
as the season shifts the shore.

this night won't conclude us,
though the dusk will surely dim.
we are only at the beginning,
on the edge where stories swim.

i tear myself open
like a letter
never meant to be read,
until my hands tremble
and each line
bleeds into the next.

i’m the sum of everything
i swore i’d never be —
the cut, the salt,
the silent weight
of an empty glass.

the shell i’m left with
isn’t worth taking up space.
i became my own enemy,
when i ran out of people to blame.

i find it unnerving,
hearing my voice out loud,
after being branded, growing up
the quiet one, who’s a bit too shy.
small talk is pointless.
the weather is the same—
too sunny, too windy,
everyone’s always
baffled by rain.

we exchange ‘y’alrights’
to seem polite
when no one really cares.
but where i come from,
we ask, dig deep,
we share.

talking is personal.
intimate and sacred.
we ask how your day’s been
with space designated
for your words.
we don’t pretend
sharing doesn’t hurt.

it does.
standing on a stage
fearing becoming
too repetitive, too boring,
running out of stories
to share.
i focus on the words in front,
not on the people who stare.

but it still wrecks me—
and my voice does tremble.
i’m not used to strangers
in moments so tender,
it fills me with dread.
but instead of rotting away,
i’m finding i shed.

i shed the heaviness from inside,
and beneath the words,
i’m fuelled by fire
outweighing the hurt
rubbed reeling.

i’m using it in lanterns
on my journey of healing—
however long it takes.
it is my becoming,
it’s never been a phase.

sometimes it gets dark,
but do witness every line,
observe every spark.
i’ll be here standing—
voice trembling or not.

i haven’t had therapy in weeks.
he’s been on holiday,
i’ve been working.
too much.

the days stack up like
empty dishes by the sink.
sometimes it’s so bad,
i have to dig my nails
into my own skin
to stop myself
from walking away.

but then i think of you —
how you are the only thing
that gets me through the day.
i could not turn my back.
your name is the rope
i wrap around my wrist,
and stay.

i say my name
out loud
to an unfamiliar room.

i can’t contain
my worn-out lies
burning through the truth.

they don’t flinch,
they’ve heard
this script before.

“the lower i sink,
the further i stray,
the harder i hit the floor.”

but they’re all ears,
offering silent company,
unravelling their past.

survivors of guilt,
hurt and poetry,
society’s outcasts.

our stories stay,
still shining bright
in sheltered wounds,

as i say my name
out loud
to a familiar room.

the space in my mind
is occupied by your entity,
merging with mine.
you pose as a false god,
painting me the enemy –
demanding a sacrifice
each time i resist
your quiet reign.

i enabled it.
let you have your fun.
called it inspiration,
called it love.
called it anything
but what it was.
of all my failures,
you were the most toxic one.

i gave you everything –
piece by piece.
you’d cover my mouth
to silence the plea
whenever i sought shelter,
with hands, trembling,
still tied to a bottle
you call the cure.

you smother what’s left of me –
dressed in ebriety,
hiding the abuse.

and i need to say goodbye.
not because i want to.
but because I’ve had enough.
of you hurting me,
of you driving me
to hurt myself.
you’re costing me everything,
and the loss is exorbitant.

i’m not just saying goodbye to you.
you’re exiled.
your velvet threats,
your sugar-coated grip –
banished.
it hurts me more
than you think.
but this time, it’s final.
because i’m not ready
to see the aftermath
if it isn’t.

we play two rounds of pool.
he beats me twice.
now the air between us
is nothing but teeth and heat—
and in my head
he’s already got me
on the table,
thirsty for every part of me.

he grins, asks
exactly what i’m thinking,
and god,
he’s right—
it is too fast.
a week in,
we’re breathing
nothing but each other.

so i settle into his lap
just to rest my head,
to counteract—
this.
us.

but his mouth
finds mine,
and the world
tilts open.

a ring of embers—
with my heart
gently dancing around it.
my face is flushed,
damp with tears,
as if they’ve started
boiling in the mist.
i miss you—
but you know that
already.

in my mind,
i’m still running
through the churchyard,
over stone paths,
stepping on yellowed leaves
that gave up weeks ago.
inside me:
homesickness, awe,
anger, grief—
a hundred hands,
all pulling.

you’re a morsel of bread,
bird-snatched, half-left—
carried home in my satchel,
like a labourer
at the day’s end.
you are what you say you are.
and more.
a frame around my soul
i can’t keep building.

i cannot call you mine.
i have a homeland.
you gave the exile shelter—
but she, the other,
birthed me, shields me,
and one day
will cover me with earth.
i cannot betray her.

for what you made
and left behind,
i owe you still.
i’ll bury your legacy
like treasure
in the quietest parts.
it’s mine to guard.

and maybe one day,
when time has vanished,
i can return to you—
shed a tear for us
on a rainy evening,
wipe you clean
like an old photograph,
and place you gently
back into
a quiet corner
of the past.

sleep-heavy eyes, my hand reaches for you
then flinches – you’re nowhere in view.
the imagined shape only a breath ago
fled like a bandit
into dawn’s dissolving glow.
now my waking mind falters,
disappointment finds the door
through which you chose to leave –
once more.

sometimes
i need to remind myself
you’re my therapist,
not my buddy.
but man,
i wish i could text you.

i’m breaking
to pieces,
tearing
at the seams —

could you please
clear your calendar
for me?

i was sick of being
put in a box
labelled, ready to send.

i looked up holidays,
knowing if i didn’t stop,
i’d drop dead.

but even the thought
of going felt too much.

still, i clicked complete.
seats reserved
on the eurostar.

anything else
than being the other woman —
the one people fall for
when their hearts
should be sealed,
not crossed.

i need to reclaim
some of my old self
i’ve lost along the way.
maybe that’s a start.

it’s got to be enough.

my brother the other day,
as if he didn't know,
asked me my age.

i was puzzled,
but fair –
he’d lead me somewhere.

“i’m twenty-three.”

his reply like a slap:
“aren’t you ashamed?”

for a second,
i wondered
if he knew something
i didn’t.
guilt bloomed in my veins.

then he repeated,
“twenty-three.
and you still haven’t
finished your book.”

ten years on,
he’ll find a parcel
on his doorstep.
with a note, tucked
inside the page:

“i'm sorry
it took so long.
some stories need
a decade in the dark
before they finally
find their shape.”

it rests in a box — unworn, untouched.
a pink medallion on a thread,
carefully guarded, like a best-kept secret.
the tale of a flame sparks a sudden wonder—
pillows, scents, a shy, sweet blunder.
i’m haunted again by a senseless memory
of wine-soaked evenings—pleasant, temporary.
we were never anything at all.
no debts to pay, no love to call.
and still, your trace remains in my mind.
a bond of secrets, the silent kind.
i could throw it into the river, set it free,
so i no longer feel its weight on me.
but part of me still leans into the ache.

there’s a necklace in my pocket.

you lifted me in a dream,
like it was nothing—
like the years hadn’t passed
like storms
through our bodies.

we spun until dizzy,
grinning like we used to:
in a world filled
with lollipops,
doorway dates,
and curfews.

you never kissed me
the way stories end.
you only loved me
in the narrow space
between your name
and your friend’s.

you told me
i should be with someone good,
someone who could hold
all my stories.
but never said,
someone like you.

you held my heart
when it spilled,
drunk, full of ache,
and my hand on a bench
before life swelled
and whisked us away.

no fallout.
no fight.
just the silence.

(a tribute to richard walters)

under the soft stage light
richard walters performed
a song called awards night
he’d written about elliott smith.
my heart ached quietly
for the ghost his voice carried.

sofar fairy –
as i call her in my head –
said i looked like
i was in the clouds,
living in the memory
of someone else.

his energy followed me
into the next morning at work.
half-stunned, half-joking,
they’d insinuate
my joy must have come
from someone’s warm embrace.

how could i explain to them,
that music and words
can whisper through your ribs,
settle in your chest,
and lift you higher
than any touch permits?

richard’s voice just lingered
like the aftertaste of honey,
like rain caught in leaves.
i carried him home in my pulse,
where elliott still lives,
softly whispering between
the notes of his guitar strings.

i write of heartache.
it's all i've ever known.
so if you want a poem,
you'll have to break my soul.

over the snowy mountain peaks
a star is gliding through space
as i’m strolling, embracing the breeze
on saint anne’s frozen lake.

icicles have crept up on the trees,
all the living have run away.
sorrow lingers in the silent eve,
dimming prayers at winter’s gate.

the cold flurry of air penetrates the bone,
reeds wince with the chill.
a flock of birds pass by like ghosts,
their shapes trembling in fear.

oscillating wings carve the way.
as they fade away in the sky,
a new thought is born i can’t shake:
this is my home. i’ve arrived.

been wearing the truth
up my sleeve
for ten whole years,
yet people who've known me
for half that time
stumble
when it gets revealed.

inside and out,
time has sealed
those battles fought in vain.
we're like family now—
truth and i.
but when they flinch
at the unconcealed,
i still don’t know
what to say.

i’ve put you out of my mind.
pages, chapters were turned.
we’ve carried on with new lives.
but seeing you stirred
something in me
i can’t quite comprehend.

we were so good for a while.
overwhelming,
and grossly fun.
i remember the shivers
that ran down my spine
whilst you opened up my heart.
why you stopped,
i’ll never understand.

you were taken aback
by the chemistry,
the almost-could-have-beens.
you called me the enigma,
full of mystery —
a work of wonder
left feeling cheap.
words off your mouth
like ambrosia i drank.

and now i’m having dreams about you
when i’ve filed you away.
i would have been yours,
if you’d asked me to.
i’m sorry you realised too late
that you ****** it up
right at the start.

you are
a burden
i carry
in every breath —
a firestorm
destroying all
ahead.

you are
a monster
waiting for me
to sleep —
an anchor
knotted at my neck,
pulling me
to the deep.

you are
an echo
of my voice
caught in a fight —
the lurking dark
that smothers
all the light.

you are
a void
consuming
the best self i had,
leaving nothing
but the throbbing
in my chest.

and yet,
you are
the question
i can’t answer:
why do i still hold you dear?
that remains a mystery —
even to me.

i fall in love,
like it’s a dare.
no helmet, no warning,
like being in the middle of nowhere,
when it starts pouring.

my hollow heart, unprotected,
waits to be washed away
with echoes of the silence,
that grow too heavy,
until they strain.

the flood begins within,
soaking through skin, through veins,
tainted by you, to my core,
with a weight
i was never built to bear.

the water rises, inch by inch,
but i don’t gasp.
i’m prepared.

i drown quietly, without struggle,
as if this ache has earned its place.
the tide carves out my ruins,
leaving nothing, but empty space.

and maybe that’s the mercy —
not the saving, but the cease.
when the water stills inside me,
there’s a moment of release.

this poem, honey, is all you’ll get –
not out of cruelty,
but fear.
every time i opened the door,
you’d flinch,
step back,
and leave me
with unsaid words,
and cruel bitterness.

in between downward dogs,
my phone buzzes —
again.
and again.

for fifteen whole minutes,
i leave you unread.

you’re drunk, smitten,
with someone i know,
someone you spotted
at a gig.

you send a live-feed
of your spiralling heart,
ask what to say,
if the moment does come.

i tell you to try.
say hi for me.
talk about music,
the crowd, the energy,
the way the incandescence,
blurry but kind,
makes them look soft
in that lavender light.

and you do.
of course you do.
you take a leap of faith,
while i sit here
in silence,
finding a hundred ways
to rehearse what my heart would
but my mouth will never say.

i was still there,
choking on my bitterness,
twenty minutes
after our session ended.

i felt awful. anxious.
he had a client outside,
waiting —
maybe also collapsing
under their own weight
they couldn't carry.

“look at the clock,”
i said. “let’s wrap this up.”
guilt eating away at me.

so he stood up,
reached for it,
and reset the time.

like it meant nothing.
like he knew healing
cannot be rushed,
because the minutes
are ticking.

she calls me by my name,
and i answer without words—
only an offering:
a silent prayer,
bare skin,
a breath held,
a promise kept sacred,
to worship her.

she calls,
and i answer with stillness.
like dusk slipping
into the night—
utterly, completely—
pulling me apart
under the tears
of moonlight.

she calls
even as i soak
in her waves,
as they kiss my collarbone,
make heaven blush
when i fall to my knees,
laced around her soul.

her intention to claim me
was there from the start.
written in her whispers
******* my thoughts.
she never asked
what broke me.
only reached with rippled hands
to take my weight,
press it into the riverbed
like something malevolent,
already forgiven.

i can't seem to wash you off my skin.
yours accidentally touched mine.
as shadows fall onto the eclipse,
my heart turns into a landmine.

exhausted it lays, beating faster,
whenever you're on my mind.
breaths, drawn in sharper,
i can't seem to shut you out.

it's ridiculous, i say to myself,
the power you have on me.
thoughts of you send splinters
throughout every inch of my body.

your presence itself feels like a sin.
you're all i think about.
my wishes, never leaving my lips,
could cause the stars to burn out.

it all weighs heavy on my chest,
like ruins no one came to save.
so i leave it there—forgotten, rotting—
just wishful thinking
digging its own grave.

these days, my soul feels heavy,
bursting with a secret still untold.
bearing it, it scorches steady,
but you broke our dream i’d hold.

your cruelty lived in me, raging.
i long craved what you’d denied.
it took an age to stop the blaming —
i, too, had darkness inside.

and yet, to this day, i’d circle back,
turn the bitter wheel of time,
re-play our teenage soundtrack
with a sip or two of wine.

knowing everything, i’d hit rewind,
see where our road leads to,
appreciate you, with a mature mind,
and undo all of your wounds.

maybe we’d stay ‘in the zone’,
maybe we’d claim the world —
wander every corner of our home,
or england’s cold and grim shores.

we wouldn’t be so far away,
pretending, frigid strangers.
i’d know all of life’s mistakes,
all your whispered prayers.

defiant thing, the past.
it offers less than what it stole.
my heart still pulls toward
a time when yours was whole.

i’d know you’re not tormented by
neither the past, nor the present.
i’d know you healed with time,
and wish our sorrow never happened.

but if one day, you still look back,
know, my heart is pure.
as you turn back, breathe for me —
then don’t look back at all.

asking myself to stop
loving him
is like asking someone
to stop breathing.

love shouldn’t land
like a ton of bricks.

no matter how hard
i try to focus
on someone else –
anyone –
i keep reaching
back for him.

my walls
aren’t strong enough
to withhold the blow
and defend me
against this.

i'm drinking a lot.
forgot why i started.
one excuse, it seems like
became a hundred.

it hushes the demons
for a moment or two,
but the silence feels borrowed,
and it never comes through.

i'm smoking a lot.
unsure of the whys.
trying to gather
the parts i call mine.

they used to help,
but keep dragging me down,
just like we do each other,
deep underground.