You’ve sailed the deepest seas,
And have seen
the most exotic islands,
However,
The most violent waves
Have left you a shipwreck

A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
I wanted to say,
lock yourself in a room,
scream until you have
a poem and no voice.
Open your veins and bleed
until you know that your bones
are pure words and sorrow.
Act as if you slit your own throat
and all you can bleed
are your own regrets
and all of the darkness
you boxed up for inspiration.
Write your mom a letter,
tell her you're leaving
and you won't be back for awhile
Because being a writer is traveling
through all seven layers of Hell
and denying anything is wrong.
Forget loving yourself
when all you have is a pen and paper
fused to your wrist
and Jesus is tapping at your skull
saying turn back now.
Warn the neighbors that if they smell burning
It's just your soul
clawing at the front door trying to get in.
Learn how to be alone.
Learn how to lose everything you have
in order to feel release,
learn how to only feel deceased
from now on.
A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
All I said was
don't

As women we are conditioned to love what breaks us
Because unconditional love isn’t a skill to be cultivated,
It’s an expectation we so painfully fill.

As women we are told that there is meaning in our silence.
That our beauty lies within what stays untold,
That our voices limit our inherent value.

As women we must mold ourselves
Into one of a hundred cookie cutter
Versions of the same person that
We deem an acceptable form of femininity.
They tell us that this is our identity
When really it’s a way to make ourselves
Palatable.

As women we must apologize for conformity
And we must apologize for breaking away.
The female population lacks the luxury
Of confidence without judgement
Because we fear it won’t make us as simple.

As women we are tailored to please the world.
The burden we carry aches with all of the moments
We wish we could have done something different and didn’t.
I am tired of the rules.
I am tired of the chains.

My mum tells me to be careful as I close the front door
Every footstep the tick of a bomb about to go off
And I know that she will worry until she hears me return
That maybe this time I wasn’t careful enough
But I know Careful
Careful is a woman who walks in our skin when the door shuts behind us
Faceless and watchful
With keys jammed between each finger
And her honey voice is flowing through a perpetual conversation with the home screen of her phone
Her gait wide and her hood up,
hair down but tucked away
She never looks up
only shifts her eyes from left to right on a pendulum trajectory determined to read the cadence of the shadows
Like they are palms or tea leaves or a CCTV in operation sign on the front of a shop window
On the walk home
She is always moving
A waterfall rushing down the steepest drop to get back home with all her foundations in tact
Careful is always waiting for the other shoe to fall
She is texting texting texting details of her plans
Where she has been
where she is going
what is the license of the taxi she is in
Are the doors locked as soon as she shuts them?
How salty is too salty for a margarita or a tequila or a glass of water
Can anyone vouch for the milliseconds that her drink was out of her sight?
She has a  pair of earphones attached to nothing jutting from her ears
and her key clawed hands wrapped tightly around a can of pepper spray
And her car is parked right outside the building
Careful is always a woman living in a war zone
where the enemies can be the ones that she has trusted most
Or strangers that cast long shadows
She is a landmine that is always in danger of being stepped on
She is made into a three star salad that the jury reject because she was underdressed
Overexposed like the photos that Careful should never have sent
Because even she knows that she cannot exist
A woman is always careful
But never careful enough.

Excuse me while I scream
your name
Swallowing syllables the wrong way.
Choking.

Excuse me while I bite my lip and
bruise ******.
Nip my tongue.
Break my wrist.
Fighting with soft fists,
fleeing.

Excuse me while I stop, drop,
sit and wait.
Lie low. Ladylike.

The fire's lost sometimes,
deep within my ribs.
Excuse me, it's difficult to dig there.

You looked much prettier with long hair.
Don’t - give me that, show me a smile
it’s better to be natural oh!
look your arms are so hairy, hairier than mine.

Not rowdy or older than myself but definitely
confident and intelligent and maybe even
‘quirky’ as long as she’s thin
and kind. Because I don’t like fat girls

how to find your dream woma
where to find dream woman online free

I think I’m still in love with Grace but
she ignores and blanks and shuns me even
after I shared so much yet
she doesn’t even seem to care

hey
I’m verrru drunk
I see u
the little green dot next to your name haha
night then iguess

I think I just hate women and that
stupid insipid conceited *****
couldn’t tell a good guy if
he cuffed her clean
across the cheekbone
and spat in both her eyes