They call your name and everyone cheers
For the amazing two years for which you’ve stayed here
It seems like minutes ago when I first saw your smile
But looking back at it now, it’s been quite a while

The girl in front of me has her camera out
Snapping hundreds of moments to remember about
Me, I capture with my eyes, it’s sweeter that way
Memorizing every piece of you for when you’re away

I had to hold myself back from calling after you
Or at least leaving a note and giving a clue
Would it make you come back if I let you know?
Or would you refuse to think twice and immediately go?

I know what you’d say, that I’d get over you
That sooner or later, I’ll find someone new
But even if I do, and the chances are few
I’d still fondly and lovingly think about you

I’ve got them in my arms: your deep voice, your stance
Your dark hair, your eyes – almost grey at first glance
And now you walk off the stage, so flawless and fine
That’s the last memory of you I’ll have on my mind

You text me,
Wishing me happy birthday,
Asking me how I’ve been,
And all kinds of other cloying ****.
And when I see you,
You smile and talk sweetly,
Your words like saccharine,
Artificial and with a bitter aftertaste.
As if nothing ever happened,
Or as if you don’t remember.
I smile sweetly back,
A sugary glaze that I paint my lips with,
But I’m murdering you inside,
Your blood and tears like sticky candy canes,
Because honey, I remember
Everything.

In this flower field, in the life of spring
The flowers bloom and the birds do sing
But over the horizon, an evil waits
A dead wasteland holding our fragile fates  

The early sunrise is a mighty sight
What a beautiful world, made of glorious light
But then I remember the darkness there
Made by our own hands to taunt and scare

A king sits upon his shameful throne
Built from hundreds of innocents’ bones
His army is marching, coming soon
To trample the flowers that has just bloomed

It’s hard to believe, just standing here
Breathing in the scent of dewdrop tears
But if I listen enough or strain to see
It’s clear they’re not too far from me

What a beautiful world, of life and light
Of wind and song and starlit nights
And over the horizon is our impending doom
But for now I’ll watch the flowers bloom

We’re close enough to home
To castles made of cards
Built in our backyards
Crowns of coloured paper
Our world could last forever
A kingdom in which we ruled
A group of friends we fooled
And when the rain lashed down
The cards fell to the ground
We rushed inside for tea
You’d cuddle on the couch with me
We’d dream of a sunny tomorrow
In a land where there’s no sorrow
Our futures we planned out
There seemed to be no doubt
That anything would ever change
We had everything arranged

But when the time finally came
We realised life is not a game
Not a fairy tale storybook
With hardships we could overlook
No more magic or castle cards
Everything seemed to be so hard
Is this what we had dreamed?
Much more hellish than it all seemed

But here we are right now
On the outskirts of our town
To the world of our backyards
To the kingdom of castle cards
And we’ll never reach that place
But I can almost see it from where I stand
Of fairies and giggling gnomes
Yes, we’re close enough to home

For my mother, I put on
My perfect ladylike costume
So she’ll go on thinking
That I’m the perfect daughter
And she’ll keep believing that
I want to live like her.

For my father, I put on
The good girl doing her part
Never wanting a brand new start
Sticking to one plan only
For my whole entire life

For my friends, I put on
My best smiling face
And I always laugh along
Pretending nothing is ever wrong
They’re so easy to deceive

For my enemies, I gloss over
The quarrels with my friends
Or my sense of loneliness
I put on my flawless perfect life
Hoping they’ll go away

For strangers, I put on
My most expensive clothes
I walk a different way
It’s funny how I won’t
Ever even see them again

I often wonder now
Who I really am, or was
Before this poison
Swallowed me.

This is the cruelty of love
Which gives generously
Only to take it away
Half a second later.

This is the flaw of love
Time, which could not be grasped
Always chasing, thinking you have forever
But forever is over so soon.

This is the ugliness of love
When you feel as if you’ve been emptied
Stripped bare, but nobody cares
That you’ve lost everything.

This is the falseness of love
That to love eternally,
Is to have them in flesh until
The end of both your days

This is love,
That gut-wrenching pain
That confusion and anger and denial
And wishing you were dead because
Christ, what have you got to live for now?

Can you believe this is love? This is love.
When the storm of memories fill up your lungs
And you can’t breathe but you welcome death
But death does not come – it does not work that way
That to have a loved one die is to die yourself.

This is love,
What men have pondered over
Turning in their hands, trying to define,
To mould, to shape into something permanent
But love is strung on the thin thread of time,
And I laugh! Because what a joke!

I’m staring into vacant eyes
And I realise
There’s no more time.
No time. No time. No ******* time.
I’d gladly give you some of mine.
But I’d be in shortage, and you’d be in heartbreak
Help us, God, we have no time

Do we choose the life we’re given?
Is it a deal made from before?
Perhaps made with the devil
His lures are hard to ignore

Yes, I made deals with the devil
Before I reached this foul Earth
But I’m not so good with making deals
So I’ve lacked lighter skin since birth

Some others have better fates than me
They are given such beauty and grace
But what right do we have to determine
Of which one is the fairest face?

And what would we puppet fools sacrifice
For a finite time of beauty?
Not the bloodshed of human race,
We wouldn’t be that selfish, oh surely!

Yet I watch millions die from something
As simple as the colour of their skin
Who is the real underlying winner here?
Who are they to escape from this sin?

I know the answer every day
Is it something you’re afraid to know?
That if you could, you’d do it again
For the devil who’s enjoying this show

Now if I could, I’d like to go back
To just before I cross the gates of life
To tell myself that it all shouldn’t matter
That how I look like shouldn’t bring me such strife

Did, or would you, make deals with the devil?
Don’t worry, all we humans are flawed
And ignorant enough to so much as believe
That such a devil could perhaps be a god.

My soul is a frozen land of ice
In which sooner or later I’ll face its demise
Inevitable for all souls, unstoppable by any means
The wise one will not shy away but embrace the unseen

I am not fearful; there are far worse things than death
But I’ll try to live fully with each and every breath
What is beyond the galaxies? I haven’t got a clue
It wouldn’t be a mystery, would it, if somebody knew

Men have wasted away their lives trying to figure it out
As humans we dislike to live in constant doubt
Most people are afraid, and that’s why they want to know
But what can you do about death? We’ll all eventually go

I trust in the afterlife, no matter the uncertainty
And I won’t shy away, but face it all bravely
I trust that it will relight my poor frozen soul
And fix the broken parts to again make it whole

Why should I be afraid? My time here caused me this
I doubt there are many things that I will dearly miss
There is nothing I have to lose, whatever may follow me
Oblivion or darkness, but I’ll be surely free

I smile
I laugh
I play around
I make all things
Seem like a joke
It’s a mask I wear
So you don’t see
The sadness that has been
Choking me.

I almost look forward
To that unimaginable place
Where no one has lived
To tell the whole story.
But for the meantime, I’m here
In a world I wish to leave,
Trying to make time for all
The ‘useless’ things I wish to achieve  

And I still smile  
I joke around
So no one knows
I’m about to drown
The truth is there
If you wish to see
The desolation that is
Killing me.

Eyes out the silk-curtained window.
Slender fingers around the stem of a crystal wine glass.
The starry night glistened as it sang to her –

Die, mondaine.
Die, with your diamonds choked around your neck.
Your husband is out with a lowly demimonde.
She’s higher than you tonight,
Or every night, smoking her diamorphine.
What is the worth of your life?
One pearl necklace, paired with an earring
One diamond ring, paired with an anklet
The bottle is your outlet.
You’re just as ruined as that mundane
Other woman. Not so diametrical now,
Are you?

Die, Little Lady Mondaine,
Thirty-eight and with such an ugly fate –
How quickly her beauty waned.
How many tears would it be until
He prayed for her love again?
Her heels brushed the Persian rug
Mascara ran down her porcelain face.
What an ugly fate.

And die, mondaine, they chanted
On a plain and mundane night.
Your furs and heels won’t save you.
Your children, they betray you.

Die, pretty mondaine.
She listened to the mondegreen in her ears,
Sang to her by the moon. The stars.
A prayer.

Closing her eyes, her blood spilled into the wine glass.
The galaxy drank it and wept.
What a diamond, she was,
Lady Ayn.

They stare at her, the crowds, the throngs
She keeps her head down as the cart bumps along
To the front, where her bane creeps closer still
If she doesn’t take a step, the blade surely will
She swallows down the useless tears
She was but a lady of thirty-seven years
Her life begins flashing before her sky-blue eyes
She visits each place one more time before she dies
Lovely music in the theatres of Austria
Living in the splendour of a grand palace in Vienna
A hall of mirrors, a planned wedding day
On the sixteenth of the merry month of May
Warm summers in the Schönbrunn gardens -
She steps on the executioner’s foot and begs her pardon
Some were silent; some called her ****** names
They were still shouting when the time finally came
She hoped for a world much better than this
The blade sliced her neck like a goodbye kiss.

She’s wind and rain
And fear and pain
She’s twists and spins
She’s the blade of all sins

She’s bone and dust
She’s beauty and lust
She’s ash and fire
The core of men’s desires

She’s the darkest nightmare
And the sweetest dream
She’s all you imagined
But not what she seems

She wins all games
Of death and thrones
She’s queen of flames
She’s skin and bone

And she’s in the shadows
Tearing worlds apart
Then putting them back together
She’s Fireheart.

If you’re not the heart catcher, then please put this down
And don’t ever mention this little secret you’ve found
Though was this something you found or was it something you stole?
Don’t worry, you can trust me, I won’t tell a single soul…
Never mind! Never mind! Yes, I am going mad!
Searching the world for the heart I once had
But I still don’t know if he’s far or around
The heart catcher is clever; he does not want to be found

He’s somewhere in the mountains or over the sea
How he caught my heart in the first place, it is beyond me!
I had only seen him once or maybe it was twice
An innocent glance, and he had me enticed!
What is of my heart now, I don’t want to think of it
He probably has already sliced it all to little bits
But I’ll keep searching and searching, no I won’t give in
Though the real reason why, it is a dark sin
Because you see, when one catches your heart
He has complete power over it, all the edges and parts
The heart calls to its owner, but when it’s finally found
The owner is killed and thrown to the ground

And if you are the heart catcher, and you are reading this
I know asking for my heart is like waiting for a kiss –
Beautiful at first, so then I close my eyes
But you take that opportunity to **** and watch me die

Please, just please, can I have it back?
Oh never mind, it was stupid to even ask you that
It was also stupid of me to write this silly letter
You’ll either never read it, or read and never answer
I know you won’t care no matter what I do
You’ll destroy it anyway won’t you, oh won’t you?
So I have nothing more to say, I won’t waste your precious time
Or tire you with another of my unflattering rhymes

All 47 of my selected poems from this year.
https://www.wattpad.com/story/55356007-for-the-heart-catcher-2015

Forget about London, forget about LA
Or some sunny exotic island you visited last May
And flashback to that winter of young hopeful romance
Of our days strolling around the cobbled streets of France
Key into the Seine, our love sealed by the locks
Feeding bread crumbs to pigeons as they come by the flock
Lourdes's faith and divinity approves of our entwined hearts
Cannes opens its arms for our new united start

But London sticks to your mind
And now you live in LA
Surfing and lying in the open sun
The sunlight is your summer sleigh
Concrete streets and tall palm trees
There's no more chilly winter breeze

And back in France dies our last chance
Didn't you hear? They're removing the locks
They weigh down the bridge, puts people in danger
I guess love can't always last forever
Sometimes the burden becomes too much
And you burn everything that you touch
The time has come to extinguish the flames
And that's the end of our little French game

I could play this ******* game
For the rest of my life,
Lose every single ******* time
And still believe I’d win

I’ll put it down on paper now
While the memory is still fresh in my mind
Here it goes.

It was three pm on a September day
Bright and sunny as life in May
I trudge up the stairs to the library
And spot you there looking over me
We didn’t speak, just exchanged a glance
I might not get another chance
But I’m much too proud, or much too shy
And you don’t care enough to just say ‘hi’
So I sat down alone on a table there
Fished out my books and fixed my hair
You came by later to the printer behind
And I try to pretend that I don’t really mind
But then you said my name, soft but clear
It seemed as if it’s been fifty years
You joked and said that I’ve been ignoring you
We both kind of knew that’s not really true
You smiled and asked how it’s been for me
I say ‘just fine’, and it’s the truth, you see
It’s a surprise to know it’s not a lie
To cover up any pain shown in my eyes
I can’t remember when I started accepting it
Everything developed a little bit by bit
And when you left with a nod and smile
I know we won’t be talking again in a good long while
But it doesn’t hurt as much as it did before
Not even bleeding, just barely sore
And just now, I turned my head to see reality
For the last time to make sure that I am free
And there you stood, laughing with her
It’s what you deserve - your happily ever after
I’m not going to be selfish and drag you down
I’m not going to cry for the joy you’ve found
Healed at last, I still don’t know how
But finally – finally - I’m my own person now.

It’s an hour later; I’m packing my stuff
This is still a moment I’ll see in my dreams,
But I won’t wake up crying anymore.

I do my hair at night
Play dress up in the dark
Why do I show the best
The prettiest parts of me
In shadows and closed rooms
Where no one else can see?

In the morning, I don’t brush
My dark unruly hair
I don’t powder up my face
To hide my imperfections
Is it the real or ugly side
I’m showing by these actions?

But can’t they all be
One and the same thing?
To be ugly and beautiful
And at once so completely real
It was the way we were made
We changed it to fit our ideals

And I smile behind closed doors
The only real smile I can muster
I laugh at nothing at all
When there’s nobody else around
If I do this out there, I’m crazy
So out there, I make no sound

Why is beauty only found
Behind all these closed doors?
In shadows and hidden corners?
They’re the only real places we are allowed
To be free of ruthless players

I think I know why now.

If I weren’t afraid, I would scream your name
And tell you the truth, like I’ve never done
If I weren’t afraid, I’d kiss you right now
Shame and regret, no, I would feel none

If I weren’t afraid, I’d smile like I knew
What I was doing, but I really don’t
I would tell you I loved the colour of your eyes
I stopped myself before, but this time I won’t

If I weren’t afraid, I’d pull you in close
To whisper those three precious words in your ear
I wouldn’t hesitate, not even for a second
Cause I would no longer have anything to fear

If I weren’t afraid, I’d tell you right now
This poem was for you, the light of my soul
But if you weren’t afraid, you would tell me too
All the things that you’ve always been able to control

It could be anything, if you love me or hate me
If you want me to stay away, then just tell me that
Or it could be something small, that’d be okay too
It’s better than silence and pretentious little chats

All the things that I’d do if I weren’t afraid
Why am I afraid? What do we have to lose?
I just hope that one day I could maybe be brave
Enough to at least whisper you the truth

I found meaning in a shrivelled note
Scratches of pen to form a long-forgotten quote
It fell out of a lady’s bag, she didn’t even see
She wouldn’t notice when she gets home
And drinks her expensive tea

I found meaning in a one-night-stand
With a handsome face and strong callused hands
I can’t remember the exact shade of eyes
But I can still taste his warm lips, and feel
His fingers spreading my shaking thighs

I found meaning in a war history book
It wasn’t that I loved it, or that it had me quite hooked
It was rather the proof of existence, the triggers,
The consequences and aftermath  
That left me there to wonder.

I often wonder
When I’m at my lowest
When I shake and squeeze my eyes shut
At the thought of the phantoms
Chasing me,
If phantoms have a memory.
And if they do,
They, who murdered my naivety
And planted this living demon in me…
Can they even remember
What they’ve done?
Do they know the mark they left?
And if not, I think
About how great it must be
To sit yourself down, build a throne
In someone else’s land,
**** all its inhabitants; flood the streets with blood,
Get bored, and then decide
All in one small moment, that
You could just stand up
And leave.

I think maybe
I write poetry
To not feel so alone.

I think maybe
I write poetry
To figure out my feelings

I think maybe
I write poetry
To feel that I still can

I think maybe
I write because
I want the reassurance
That I was here

I wonder about the most peculiar things
Impossibilities and ludicrousness
Like, what if hell was good and heaven was bad?
And how the world would be so ugly
If no one was just a little bit mad.

I fall in love with peculiar people –
In books and in movies, but in real life too
Like the mad character, Bellatrix Lestrange
I find it beautiful how she is
So completely deranged.

But nobody sees me as peculiar
It makes me wonder how much we hide.
Hence, the way others think of you is not who you are
There is so much they don’t know
They’re only judging from afar.

Where evil lives, goodness thrives
If there’s no dead, there’s none alive
Angels come because demons ****
Peace exists because blood was spilled
If there’s no hate, then there’s no love
If there’s no hell, there’s no heaven above
The same pattern seen repeated here
Do you get it yet? It’s all so clear
That if there’s no you, then there’s no me
So stay, don’t go, for this I plea
Take one step, and I’ll be no more –
Don’t come back, you were so sure
And don’t regret, cause you chose this
You’re not someone I’m going to miss
Oh, that’s a lie, but I don’t care
It was just a silly love affair
But if there’s no pain, then there’s no gain
I’ve walked all year through the pouring rain
Finally now, I see the sun
Back then I lost, but now I’ve won

I often dream of a magical land
Where the beaches rolled with sparkling sand
The waters a calm clear diamond blue
The sky always filled with magnificent hues
The forests are thick with dancing trees
Enchanted creatures roam wild and free
When dark, the faerie lights come from the thickets
Illuminating the night’s peace and quiet
Occasionally the feared predator comes
Searching for prey, not one but some
They all would run to scatter and hide
Waiting for the time to pass aside
By morning the light creeps in again
And one by one, they’d leave their dens
To sing the bird’s early morning song
The days seem short even when they’re long
For there, in the land of dreams where dreams come true
It’s there that the old seem bright and new

But I wake up in the reality of morning here
In the world of sorrow and acid tears
Where the waters flow with filth and dirt
And every day more innocents get wrongly hurt
All the flowers are dead, deprived of sun
No living colours left, not even one
The streets are filled with frightened ghosts
Shadows slumped against burnt-out lampposts
I trudge along through the lifeless parades
Cowering in the safety of my shade
Walking home alone to lie in bed
Wondering what it would be like to be there instead
And there, in the land of fantastical dreams
Where the waters and skies all magically gleam
There, even though it’s not the truth
At least I can live in merry youth

Love makes us selfish
Love makes us brave
Love makes us reckless
Wild and misbehaved

Love makes us kind
Love makes us good
Love makes us see
The world as it should

Love makes us thoughtless
Love makes us blind
To anything else
But the one on our minds

Love makes us careful
Love makes us scared
About things which we wouldn't
Have previously cared

Love makes us malleable
Love makes us weak
Love makes us sacrifice
Whatever it seeks

Love makes us dangerous
Love makes us strong
Love makes us realize
What is right and wrong

Love makes us answer
The knock on the door
Love makes our lives
Worth living for

This rule, this law,
This way to walk
This right, this wrong
This way to talk
The unspoken agreements
Written across the sky,
On the surface of the Earth
Yet we never question why.

And that way, that rule
That societal law,
That good, that bad
That old mortal flaw
A prison we created
A cage of our manufacture
What savages we’ve become
From fighting our ‘savage’ nature

That beauty, that ugliness
That worthy, that not
That clever, that foolish –
Each a lie we’ve all bought
Where the hell did they come from?
Who the hell made these rules
If not for ourselves?
We don’t see it – we’re fools.

And there are no profiteers
We’re all just losers here
To not believe it, or to think like them
Is to let yourself be tricked by the system.

She never knew being different could make you feel so alone
But she didn’t think she could help it even if she had known
They all say, “Be yourself, because there is no one better!”
But they knock her down every time she’s different from the others

Wherever she is, there’ll always be someone
Even when she became older, they’re never quite gone
Their words seem to get to her, eating on her bones
Refusing to give her back the pride that she once used to own

And her friends, they seemed like friends
But all the while it was just pretend
They left her because she was too much of a misfit
They’d rather be with someone from whom they can benefit

Now she miserably sits alone in her room by herself
How funny it is that they all say, “Be yourself!”
When she was herself, the world screamed at her
So what is the point anyway? It didn’t seem to matter

She left a goodbye note the night that she went
The next morning they found her, face down on the cement
Almost right after, they began their hypocritical lies
Saying how much they had loved her, “Oh such a shame she died!”

But don’t forget, reader, that they had been the reason
A beautiful girl had to go, throw away the life she’d been given
All because she couldn’t bear to spend another day
Living in this terrible world, and so she went away

Don’t call her selfish for not bearing it out
She’s been living too long in this merciless drought
She’s probably better off now, anywhere but here
Rest in peace my darling; you have nothing more to fear

I’m missing you like the drought misses rain
A drug that keeps feeding me this bittersweet pain
It lives in my soul, draining me of joy
What once was beautiful has now been destroyed

I’m missing you like the snow misses sun
Where light had once flourished, now there’s just none
A darkness that drowns me in melancholy and sorrow
I was such a fool for giving you my heart to borrow

I’m missing you like the night misses day
But no matter what happens, it’ll always find a way
The world will keep turning; the sun will shine again
A cycle for a billion years, I’ll miss you even then

But this has all been a daydream of strayed and mindless thoughts
I’m reminiscing like a fool, while you’ve probably forgot
Do you even miss me? Do I even want to know?
It wouldn’t be as painful as having to see you go  

And I’ll still be missing you like a beautiful sin
With the guilt inside of me where my heart had once been
You never returned it, don’t know where it might be now
Perhaps destroyed or buried, I’ll love you anyhow

My greatest fear is that one day
You’ll believe those words they always say
Those terrible stories they like to tell
In which thirsty vultures, they like to dwell

To try and find out which bits are true
The shards that speak of me and you
Of our secrets, but most of them are lies
They’ll never find out despite their tries

My greatest fear is that you’ll wake up to see my flaws
And realise I’m not as great as you thought I was
You’ll leave like everyone else does in the end
The difference is this time my heart won’t mend

You’ll find somebody else you think
Is worthier than I’ll ever be
And you’ll wonder how it was
That you were ever in love with me

My greatest fear is you alone
Cause you’re the only one I know
Who has the power to break my heart
Fix it and then tear it back apart

But you’re worth the risk and all those foes
Love is about a trust that always grows
The shards don’t pierce if we don’t want them to
And I’ll be strong as long as I’m with you

For him, I wouldn’t write
About his handsome face
Or the fluent way he walks
With that swift unfailing grace
‘Cause those little simple things
He shows to everyone
I’d love to write about all that
Which he has shown to none
Like the way he tilts his head
And frowns into the distant sky
When he either smelled or thought about
Something particularly vile
Or how he sometimes murmurs
When he’s dreaming and asleep
And brings me closer to his chest
When vivid nightmares make me weep
Then there’s also the way he smiles
In that amused way when I get mad
Or how he scowls when he sees
Anyone wearing yellow plaid
And when we’re all alone
He’d sing some ****** songs
In the shower, in the kitchen
Once, wearing crimson thongs
So no, I wouldn’t write
About all those others could see
I would rather write about the things
He shows to only me.

Osculate.
To kiss.
An innocent brush
Of two lovers’ lips

A glance into
The other’s wide eyes
A sharp intake of breath
Soft fingers on cheeks

The first taste is always
The purest of all
A gasp against mouth
The tugging of hair

There will never be enough
Not even after you’re out
Of precious breaths
For the best kinds of love and passion,
Steals the air out of your lungs

Yet it will be easy,
As simple as breathing
Just with a new kind of oxygen
The best one we know

Obliterate.
Destroying all
That is innocent
Two sinful souls
Uniting into one

Heavy breaths and
Pleasured gasps
Fingers sliding
Against smooth skin

And the time comes
It’s a giant explosion
The strongest of all
Known human emotions

Osculate.
A simple kiss.
A promising brush
Of two lovers’ lips.

A misunderstanding, and that was all it took
For everything to end like an unfinished book
Not the ending I hoped for, but things never end
In the way we wish to, hope, or intend

You were screaming and saying that it was all my own fault
I was crying and thinking that I know that’s not true
Both of us or none of us was to blame for this mess
So before it even ended, I already forgave you

But you were so angry and I was too upset
To fix or stop anything we’d later regret
You slammed the door in my face and then headed down,
Out of the house and to a far enough town

I thought that was the last time I’d see you again
But a few weeks later you showed up at my door
We were both dishevelled from two weeks of crying
If this is what love is like, I don’t want it anymore

You told me you still loved me, and in my heart I did too
You said nothing could change that, no matter what I’ll do
But I couldn’t take you back, whatever you were going to say
We both know if we continued, it’ll end anyway

Nothing is going to last forever, so why pretend that it will?
You were a beautiful chapter in my book, but a tragedy still
It’s time to move on now and find another path to take
A brand new chapter to relieve the previous one’s heartache

But when I see you walking on the street unexpectedly,
I can’t help the wave of memories that comes rushing over me
Reminding me of our beautiful beginning and the bittersweet end
An echo in both the hearts that are still yet to mend

The sky is tinted crimson red
Like the blood of our lost men
One was shot walking down the road
Another was killed for slipping codes
Every night at half past ten

The fragile buildings are crumbling
Like the bones of our lost men
One was blasted into the air like breaths of ash
Another was flattened as the houses crash
The blame is on dutiful artillerymen

The air is choking, hopeless and dead
Like the eyes of our lost men
One fell with a scream on his lips
Another drowned with a sinking ship
Never to see light again

The bombs are loud, and they go fast
Like the hearts of our remaining men
One is trapped under heaps of rubble
Another is injured, and clumsily stumbles
“Lord God, save our souls, amen.”

It’s a person sitting next to me
A shadow lingering close by
Following me around

It’s a soul I know by heart
Every inch, but somehow I still don’t
Know a single thing

It’s a thorn I found, or made
Amongst other people’s roses
I never bothered to touch it

It mocks me sometimes,
When it gets tired of my sadness
When I feel alone in a crowd

It has now become a friend
I’ve learned and grown to like it
I embrace its cold comforting arms

And somehow, this peculiar soul
It has taught me to love
Solitariness, and myself.

Please help me
Don’t turn me away
Please tell me
I am welcome to stay

I have no one, no home
I have nothing at all
Shivering in the night
With clothes that are too small

I risked so much
Fleeing from the horror
Everything I left behind
Was for a better life and future

I almost froze to death
Almost drowned in the sea
Made it all the way here
Just for you to demonize me

Am I not an equal?
Am I not human too?
Please take a moment
To imagine yourself in my shoes

I’m silly, that’s impossible
I am barefoot and helpless
Please just help me, stranger
I’ll be forever grateful for your kindness

There are so many people I thought that I could trust
But they all tell my secrets like it’s the daily news
As if their life depended on it, as if they really must
Don’t any of them have anything remotely better to do?

I write to let out my feelings, all of them at once
Since nobody wants to listen, nobody even cares
Everywhere I go I’m met with thick unfriendly silence
But once people find out, it’s the latest sick affair

And they talk about me like I’m a bad disease
All I wanted was some solace and the impossible peace
In my small little mind, because that doesn’t exist out here
I want to feel free, but I have so much that I fear

If someone else finds out, it’s another juicy story
I can’t cope with this, although the world is temporary
It will be over soon, but how long will it take?
For people to accept me and the choices that I make?

But what is worst of all is that I don’t know which one
Of these liars had started this never-ending war
They always seem to be in need of my thin ceasing blood
Waiting like hungry dogs for a possible taste of more

I try to be patient and I try to at least be kind
Try to soothe myself and earn a peace of mind
It’s not like they deserve it, but I’m better than my foes
I don’t pretend and smile for the sake of petty shows

My rule is that if you’re nice to me, then I’ll be nice to you
It’s not that complicated, but people don’t even try
And if you want to start over, then I’d be happy to
But real friends don’t backstab or tell each other lies

We live in the dreams
Of someone else’s sleep
Where we are no more than
Mindless marionettes.
Although the dreamers, they do let
A lucky few to be more than
Someone drowning in the deep,
Most of us, it seems
Cannot escape this twisted reality

And reality, what it is,
Is a simple fabrication –
A small spark of thought!
A wander of the mind,
One of the realest kind.
Though one really ought
To save humankind from this illusion,
It is what it is.
There are few who’ll want to change it.

When I press myself to something
I can feel my lonely heart beating
A steady rhythm in my chest
A knock-knock-knock against my breast

Am I going to open up
Like a treasure chest of gold?
For all its glamour, I’d be fine
But I’d be too **** easily sold

Or shall I cautiously crack
Open the door of my being?
To peer out first and assess the person,
But is it truth I’ll be seeing?

A risk to take – I go for the latter
There’s nobody on the other side
Just a mirror, showing me all of myself
A reflection I cannot shy away from or hide

And this mirror, it’s brutally honest
I see all my parts – the dark and the light
Do I slam the door back on myself?
It’s a beautifully terrible sight

Would I sell myself, this real version of me?
This stripped and complete one nobody will see?
I press myself to the mirror of my reflection
And hear my heart beat against my own confession.

I could live a thousand lives
Off of the deaths I’ve wished
I could spread hatred like a deadly plague
Off of the thousands I’ve mindlessly kissed

I could save a hundred men
If I hadn’t saved myself
I could heal a hundred broken hearts
If I hadn’t selfishly left

I could’ve helped an entire country
Off of all the books I’ve read
I could’ve built a world of trust
Off of all the lies I planted in people’s heads

I could’ve done so much for the world
If I hadn’t done so much for myself
Yet despite all I did, I regret nothing
Because you live for no one but yourself

A different skin tone
A different tongue
What does it matter?
We’re all born young –
Innocent and naïve
Until the world infects
Our minds and makes us harm
The world we should protect

A different belief
A different home
But what is the difference
Between “Hi” and “Shalom”?
Or “As-Salamu Alaykum”
And “Peace be with you”
In the end we’re all humans
Christian or Muslim or Jew

And it’s all rather silly
If you care to think it through
How we need to differentiate
And separate me and you
Just because we were born
In a slightly different place
Into a different religion
Into a different race

‘Cause we’re humans and we bleed
The same colour of red
We need the same things
To be loved and fed
Even if I lived a world away
It matters not in the end
We’re all in this together
You and me, my friend

“Why do you like to read?”
They ask me, their unseeing eyes curious, undoubtedly dubious, unable to comprehend.
Well, you see…
I sigh, look each of them back in the eye, trying to compress and quantify all that I feel into a single reason without having to choke out a lie.
Well, um, you see…
It is quite a difficult question to answer.
To people like you, perhaps, it becomes an unfunny and sarcastic, maybe basic kind of joke
To me, I read to feel my heart bleed at the twisting melodies of poetry and prose.  
And to say that I simply like it does not quite fit and is merely a cheap counterfeit of all that it has done for me.
It is not only the thrill, the way all the world is at a standstill when my eyes both hungrily ***** and gently caress whole symphonies on a page.
Sometimes they’re ballads or serenades, played in a wide array of conflicting emotions.
In a story, one is always a turn of a page away from a broken heart or halfway to being okay
The end of the world or a brand new start, the rare flare of hope or the stare of death.
Does all that do nothing for your mind, or do you kind of see but wish to stay blind?
People ask why I’m always with a ******* book; well, look,
Let’s just say I’ve had my fair share of backstabbing friends and loneliness is more of a tendency.
And after all that, I no longer wish to blend or pretend to be someone I’m obviously not.
You might have always been lucky in the friend department and that’s grand for you,
But characters were my only ones for quite a time, back before I started writing all these vomited words with the same used-up rhymes.  
And who in their right mind would choose false friends and be fine with a fragile line for a life?
I’d rather be alone, solitary but not all that lonely, because I’ll have a friend within the pages.
Are you starting to get me or have I just been babbling badly?
I think I’d live in a fantasy all day if I could, the silver and gold melody carrying me away
To places where even the broken, the outcasts, the fallen, and the downcast,
They can experience love.

There is no single reason why
I shouldn’t be allowed to cry
To weep or mourn or simply grieve
It’s only human, I believe
I know on the outside it might seem
I have it all; I’m living the dream
But there are some holes and cracks in me
Filling up with sadness so rapidly

And you might roll your eyes and say,
“You’ll learn what struggle is one day!
“You’re still so young; you have no right
“To call such ease a strenuous plight.”
Others will sneer and shout at me,
“You’ve lived your life ungratefully!
“You’re given all you want and need
“Why do you still live in evil greed?”

But neither you nor they will know
How much I’m stifled by my own woes
There are some things I cannot buy
Or get no matter how hard I try
For joy and peace, they matter not
Anymore in a world that wrongly taught
Its people that money is worth far more
Than choosing the life that’s rightfully yours

They took my life away from me
I know I can’t escape or flee
So I just nod and accept my fate
To do anything is far too late
Now you know that when I weep
It’s for the life I failed to keep  
And death I know is the only way to touch
The freedom and peace I crave so much

Let’s stop
Time for a moment
Why always rush?
Reality is a torment
Listen to the hush
Of complete silence
If you listen closely
There is always a difference
In the way something sounds
The way the air feels
There is so much that
The outside world conceals

Why must we be
Always keen to go
To the next place, why don’t we
Ever take things slow?
Why don’t we
Take time off the frets
Savour the little moments
We’d otherwise forget?  

And have you
Just skimmed through these words?
No time to read aloud
You don’t want to be heard
Isn’t it just
A part of your mind?
A system forbidding you
To slow or rewind

You’ll always skip through
Let the words blur your sight
And you would continue
To read it all quickly
No matter
How detached
Are these
Words
That
I
Write.

I hold a photograph, black and white
Up in front of me, and connect the lines
The structure of the buildings, the trees, and the pavement
The bridge and its railings, the shop window and canopy
And the scene in front of me, the one I’m living in
It’s beautiful and lively, full of real colour and light
With tourists looking down at maps, taking their photographs
Children running around with cones of ice cream in their hands
Cars rolling by, going off to a tall glass building somewhere
Advertisements on the street show the next thing we should buy

But the photograph I hold in my hand, it tells a different story
Of a crippled economy and time when life was a horror movie
The buildings were mere shadows, lurking like dark prisons
Soldiers marched through streets, gripping their separate guns
They shoot when they see fit, when they see the enemy
How do we know he’s an enemy? Well, he’s from a different country
And their blood stains the pavement; the clouds roll black in the skies
The fires of bombs illuminate the cities like swarms of fireflies
And from this picture I hold, it all looks black and white
But you and I both know this happened in perfect colour
People lived and died through it, the horror and the bloodshed
The terror of concentration camps, and blackouts every night

Just because it’s finished, and more than half a century has passed
Just because they rebuilt everything, and buried the dead bodies
Just because it’s now black and white, a history subject at school
It does not mean it didn’t happen to real people in real places
And while we divert our eyes and try to forget
Let’s just take a minute to remember.

There once was a man
In a far away land
His preferences seen
As something unclean

There once was a woman
Was she really a human?
Treated differently ‘cause
That’s the way everything was

There once was a boy
He sought to destroy
He then changed his mind
But was still seen as unkind

There once was a girl
She had all the pearls,
The diamonds and gold
That she eventually sold

We pass all these people
On the streets every day
Never looking twice
As we go our separate ways

We want the world to change
But we are yet to start
Never bothering to do anything else
Than play our own parts

I love people
Who I can be silent with.
Who lets the air be filled with unspoken syllables.
Who lets silence be silence,
Doesn’t push it away, unwanted and ugly.
Who makes it beautiful,
Not just empty and bland.
Who makes it thoughtful -  
Lets me see the marathon in their eyes.  
Who doesn’t puncture the air with filler words,
But rather morphs them into something
That when spoken,
Riles up my emotions. Makes me think. Makes me laugh.
Who lets the buzzing in the air,
The sound of breaths escaping us,
And the heartbeats in our chests
Sing in our broken ears.
Who doesn’t tone them down,
But emphasizes them.
Who looks around, then back at me,
And when the tranquility is finally fractured,
It is replaced by something  
Meaningful.

It’s not funny, you know
It’s not a joke
You laugh at me
Until you choke
I wish you did,
I’d gladly watch
You swallow your words
Like you swallow your Scotch

It’s not something
That you can use
For people to like you
It’s verbal abuse
You’re mocking me
My everything
How would you like it if
I did the same thing?

But I wouldn’t dare
Because I know how it feels
I’ll patiently wait
Life is a rolling wheel
Maybe one day soon
You’ll be treated the same
I’ll be long gone by then
You’re the only one to blame.

You can be more
Or you can be less
But you can never be perfectly whole

I knew it before
But it fails to hurt less
To learn it from the depths of my soul

There was this boy I once loved, one of the last ones.
When he walked, a trail of poetry followed him,
Words that came from Poe, Whitman, and Eliot.
His friends were overrated minimalists compared to him.
He wasn’t a lover of literature, although his face read like one
Of those old library books with the yellowed pages and the feel of
Somebody having loved the words before you, running their fingers along the lines
Passing it on and now it’s your turn, but remember, you can’t have it forever.
Oh no, he wasn’t a lover of literature.
His friends told him stories though, and they were ugly ones.
One day he said, “Hey, are you writing stories about me?”

I pause and think about what lies I should spill next

Because although I want to say, “Well, yes, I write you
“Like the ink was spilling and slipping uncontrollably from my grasp,
“Staining my fingers like you’ve stained my heart.
“I write you because your smile is like the world’s currency
“The one thing we die for, bleed for, dream for, steal for
“Slyly taking and unitedly fall when it’s breaking,
“The one thing everyone sees themselves in, reflected so clearly
“Although we couldn’t be more different, you and me.
“I see myself in you, the poetry, the words overtaking life, the beauty,
“You come onto the pages in a storm of passion and dreams, like a fantasy, you see?
“Like something out of Lewis or Tolkien, like the final empire or a savage song
“Or a wrath and a rose, or a castle made of glass, or the dawn when it comes.
“You look like the stories I love so dearly. You are the words that made me dream
“And have hope when I’m alone.”

Well, of course I don’t say those things because Christ, who does, right?
No matter how cathartic, we never say the words in our head, the words that cry to be let out.
We all think in poetry, but say things that slander the works of Plath and Poe.
So I do that, and I cast my exploding mind so far aside, I swear I heard my bones break.

I said, “No. That’s a lie.
“I don’t write.”