I hate dreaming about her,
Her hands immediate and cold,
Peeling back my shirt,
I lay down with my arms over my face and say:
'you shouldn't be allowed,'
In the time between night and day,
The puddle blue sky towers over me,
Pokes me back into sleep,
Where she might be.
How dare she!
Kind and gentle, her voice lullabying me into ease,
My mouth rising with a smile at the edges only to remember and feel double crushed,
Pressed into the bed by her shoe,
And worse,
Sometimes reality plays out and I have to relive it,
Like having my arm broken twice to reset the bone,
Crunch crunch,
I feel violated because my brain is for me and she shouldn't be allowed into the soft parts without my permission.
I wake and start the day with the stone in my throat and swallow and swallow and it does go away.

Swaying,
Heat pressing into my skin,
The same winged creature circling my face and then landing on the very tip of my nose,
Air thick like a milkshake.
When the rain comes,
Landing with a thud,
Like a bag of sand dropping from the roof of a house,
The animals can breathe,
I can breathe,
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh,
Even the crickets let out a sigh,
Pounding like a drum,
Pounding like the same dream every ******* night,
The capybaras and wooly monkeys with their hunched shoulders and squinting eyes,
Let the branches and leaves heave around them,
Verdant,
And flashing,
A globe of bubblegum,
The rain always comes.

I can hear the sea bed,
I sometimes think I can hear whales and eels,
And pain escaping my body,
I feel so much all the time,
I sometimes think you feel very little and watching you succeed makes me feel worse and isn't that awful?
Eels are covered with a slimy mucus  that allows them to slither around without getting scratched,
I keep dropping myself into water,
For a second of relief,
Healing isn't linear,
And did you know eels can swim backwards and forwards.

I love romance,
Soppy songs about broken hearts and longing and holding hands
Have always made me spin and swoon,
American films where lovers meet on a bridge and
They're so happy at the end they cry and so do I,
I love flowers
And poems
And benches with declarations,
I feel romantic about lots of things,
But mostly my friends,
Who hold me like the string of a kite when I flail wildly,
I sit in the raft of their safety and we take turns to row,
To be in love so deeply,
My friends smell so nice and have kind hands and open hearts,
I'm quite broken,
Or so it feels,
But those I feel romantic for quietly hold my pieces until I ask for them back,
The moon shines like a silver coin and its beauty makes me feel worse,
I feel romantic about the moon
and flint walls
and empty bodies of water
and my friends who whisper shhhhhhhhh as I fade into sleep,
Makes me believe I am loved and lovable.

Blankets of verdant emerald over fallen limbs,
Crooken arms,
Enclosing up and over and under,
Walk, sting, stop, puddle,
Ankle deep in laughter and brown, murky water,
Joy spread across our faces,
Mud smeared up our arms, legs, hands and hats,
Indestructible powerhouses with totally vulnerable feet,
Like ducks and foxes and rabbits.
The spongy bark or mighty trees fills me with hope,
That my wounds will heal.

The warmth and earthy scent of the forest floor is gone and instead,
It's ashtrays and sore eye lids I don't
Know how to dislodge the small, grey stone in my throat sometimes
The stone chokes me I wish
I could peel back my skin like a spring onion,
And reveal and fresh new me,
As if the broken, beige bit never existed I love
The sound of washing machines going round and round,
And round and round and round and round I think
About the tree trunks and buttercups and melted ice creams and as the air warms like this I feel sick and
Foolish,
And I can't look at things through my eyes I want
You to be happy and I'll try
And be like a spring onion,
All shiny, and green and white.

Falling back through time,
Like closing my eyes and leaning face first into a pool,
Gives me a jolt sometimes,
Takes a while to focus,
Clear the edges into fine lines,
But when I do,
It's me and my brothers and our flat basketball,
Laughing and shoving each other,
Before we were jaded,
A pastel version of ourselves,
Throwing water balloons from their bedroom window.

Now we're grown and darker shades,
I want us to smile and breathe like we did together then,
I want us to play basketball,
I want us to warm ourselves on the comfort of each other,
I want us all to live vehemently,
I want us all to live vehemently.