enter this mansion,
the place where love is given out
in little clear bottles
so you can put them on your shelves
back to back with knowledge carriers
bound so tight in leather
the ideas flow out as you take a peek.

these beautiful bottles have
but one thing in common:
the memories you can glimpse in them
happened entirely by a fireplace
in a house, my house,
far away from here,
where the walls are so thick
that you can't hear the tears
but i know that should i choose to
i would open this door
and find comfort in my mother's love.

people have walked past it
thousands and thousands of times
and never noticed anyting odd
but i swear, on my father's kindness,
the front door leads to another world.

step into the witch's lair
all your prejudice wiped away
completely free of exterior negativity,
she might teach you a thing or two,
or maybe, make some tea.

bubble, bubble, toil and trouble;
something wicked this way comes.

i'm back to my wheel of misfortune
the creepy man in the black suit is pointing at
    voyage.

all i ever wanted to do is leave
and it's not even romantic at this point
i hate it here and there's nothing holding me back
empty words that weigh as little as paper

not anymore
why am i always pretending?
i can't stand up in this tiny box of a house

the stars shone
twice in her eyes
and once in my nostrils

• to stop giving away the very things that i need

if my agonizing stomach is empty
i should be putting food in it
instead of baking cupcakes for      
                               everyone else.
i am hungry for something
i haven't witnessed anyone give away,
throw away,
erase my pain.

are an entire army on their own.

depending on which side of the mirror you look at us from,
we are beautiful in an ethereal way
and dangerous like the steel that won't be bent
         to fit
         your
         stupid
         box.

i am stuck here,
stuck in a metal door.
my feelings are numb and have been for quite a long time;
but i can see hers in the unruliness of her curls.
the madness in her eyes shines a light on the darkness in her mind.
she recoils
into herself
a ball of self-pity,
self-hatred
and explosions
of current emotions.

i am stuck here,
stuck in a metal door.
my feelings are numb and have been for quite a long time;
but i can guess his because he boasts about them.
he is staring into the patient's padded cell and claiming that he sleeps in one, too.
his hair is short, so i can't tell if it's messy, if he's lying,
yet i know that someone looking from the outside in has already escaped, he's already flying.


unlike me,
i'm simply trapped in a metal door.

that's what they said.

immediately,
my mind closed the hatch
that i use
to peek, from time to time,
at the world around me.

silence followed
and my thoughts screamed loudly,
deafening in the stock-still void:
"but what if the only thing my voice is telling me to do is shut up?"

old carcasses showed me the way
they envisioned the world.

have you heard the tales?
the stories that speak of
the end of the world.

a flat world, that is;
the edge were monsters congregated
and prepared themselves for the prey.


that world is trapped inside a bauble,
hanging on my overdue christmas tree.

solitude is like having a hole in your boat
no matter how much you repair it
the imprint of that stupid hole will be forever burnt onto your retinas;
forever stuck between giving up and chucking buckets of water over my shoulder,
i am
        meaningless.

two strangers
stared
at each other

the light
seemed to focus
on everyone else
but somehow
their cat eyes met each other
in the dark

one stranger
stared at
two heartbeats
and sighed

your look of contempt pierced me.
made me feel like i was screaming at a tsunami,
for a split second i believed it wouldn't engulf me completely.

but it did and i'm tumbling
rolling on the ocean floor
disturbing all kinds of creatures
films have warned me about

i'm worried a giant squid
might wake up
and drag me down,
and i'll suffocate for the fifth time this week.

it came unexpectedly,
it always does.


my father, head bowed in submission,
the heavy weight of survivor's guilt seemed to be ageing him;
pulling him towards the very end she was consumed by,
before my very eyes.

i could've sworn he looked like a black angel.
death himself would have stopped and recognised a fellow spirit,
specially when he bent down and kissed her on the forehead.

as his face flickered, all i felt was doubt.
one of his faces stared me down, challenging.
who is this man?
unrecognizable brethren, kin made out of corrosive copper.
double-faced, double-timed, double-edge razor sharp blade.

his wings parted slightly, metaphorically.
they couldn't fit in the room so they expanded until we were floating in the abyss:
him, her, me (a witness) plus dozens of mute worshippers.

in the end, we left her behind.
said our goodbyes, and visited her again but she was gone....
materialistic prices reduced to ashes, just like her.
nothing more than a memory.
nothing less for those of us who remember what her carnal facade held.


now we sit, because in reality we didn't even move in the first place.
i guess i should've seen it coming, the warnings were there...
my first funeral.


as we exited the church,
my hand hadn't even left the wooden wormhole when she whispered

                      "there will be another."

headlights cutting through fog like i cut all my ties and toes 'cause i wanted to be free
turns out, all i did was tangle myself up with the rejects

dawn refracts on this blanket of fog astoundingly different as it does on broken mirrors
punch them until they break
make something poetic out of them

after months of silence,
a heartfelt laugh sounded like a gunshot.

loud, obnoxious, almost psychotic
when i let it out.
loud, obnoxious, almost psychotic
when the silence that came after weighed me down like it always has done

silence
             can be
                          deafening
                                              too

i imagine me writing
as i imagine a gardener who plants seeds but does not know if they will become
the most beautiful flower
or the prickiest of herbs

"no one needs me"
i realised and therefore screamed

i know the people closest to me heard it.
after all they were standing mere inches away from me,
hiding behind a green screen.

just like that they ignored
me

and turned around;
set their gazes on their screen and continued living their lives as if i hadn't thrown a bottle,
with a message,
at their heads.

the beginning of the new me came,
shape-shifting curiosity that not only killed my cat
but also my best friend.

he was a boy,
i was a drunk girl that texted him "i love you" whilst lying in a bathtub with
another girl

and i swear we weren't kissing
we didn't even hold hands
but that night i slept next to her and i knew

the fire that resides in the pit of my stomach had only burned like that
for a millisecond
whilst i was kissing him
and holding her.

it didn't end perfectly for us, but i was her first girl and she was mine
even though love decided to pass our door that morning, we still had lust
yet it wasn't enough

and i haven't forgotten
the way strands of her hair felt tangled up
with my *****-ridden tongue

i have yet to discover
if knowing that everything i do will surely be surpassed by others
reliefs me, in a way, like the ant finds comfort in its colony
or depresses me because i might never be good enough

he stood on his empty,
cheap soap box
and proclaimed, proudly:
"poetry is for the writers, not for the readers"

sorry, but i disagree.
see the way that you have
connected with me
through nine simple words
and provoked enough thoughts to fill entire encyclopedias with the eternal dilemma of the human soul.

no, i don't agree;
for i write for myself
but i also write for thee.

if you really cared
about me
about anyone
at all

if you really care
about my well being
about anything that isn't yours

all you have to do
is read my poetry.
me;
because i have shared it with you
but it flew right past.
you;
as if it didn't matter at all

as a piece fell out and almost made me choke on it
another one clicked into place

where does all this resentment come from
and why can't it just leave me
alone
          like everyone else did

my break has officially broken me

i though i needed to spit it all out
to say everything
to satisfy the tiny man sitting on my shoulder

alas, i was wrong

i put something behind me.

or at least i thought i did;
because when i turned around,
with the intention of sticking my finger out,
i suddenly realized
that my throwing needed more practice
and that all i was putting behind me was
weighing down my back.

as i slowly exhale, they fall in front of me, ready to be picked up again.

they told me they could see the sky reflected in my eyes
but they forgot that i always carry a mirror for contemplation
and i could see it, clearly,

you can see the reflection in my eyes
but their words made me think of beautiful sunsets or shimmering dawn

in my eyes, the sky looked like sulfur

i am drunk

and as i unlocked the ability to see double
i saw your face reflected on my drink

inhale;
bite back on your thoughts.
swallow back the words
that taste vile.

exhale;
and suddenly, the flow does too.
and i forgot all my training.
two years of acting classes
down
the
drain.

we are merely humanoid paper dolls.

counterparts straddling each other's hips;
while our breaths intertwined
and formed a beautiful canopy above where we slept that night.

i have not yet found a book that called it something other than cutting ties;

but in my head it is simply removing the paper band aids that connect me to other people, what i do best.

the city lights blink at me with the intensity of one looking to the person that abandoned them
in the face of these people, all I'm able to do is bow my head
and
surrender.

the numbing feeling of the bath water gone cold
is reaching my brain,
slowly but surely,
taking over my thoughts
preparing them for the holidays
and freezing them over with the pretext of pain.

her huffs and puffs are reminiscent
of the effort i gave away;
not realizing i would need it,
not realizing i couldn't wait.

did i start losing myself when i started writing?

or did i start writing when i lost myself?

does it comfort or exasperate you
that every single thought you come across
has already popped up in an other person's head?



your life
         has already
         been lived
before

rumpelstilskin
has nothing on me

whilst he may be able to spin straw into gold,
i've been able to spin a web of deception
that has wrecked countless innocent souls

self-destruction as the human brain's only hobby

my poems are getting messy
but at least i cleaned out my room
of used pillows and blankets and people and trinkets that i no longer needed
bare minimums, start over, again
like you've done a thousand times before

does the soul age with every person it consumes?
do we stay forever in this place if we preserve ourselves, by keeping around people from which we feed?
- parasites.

why am i so young
my brain has murdered
thousands
of
innocents
and washed the blood on my hands with liquid gold that solidified and made the never-leaving stains invisible to the human eye

beauty is in the eye of the beholder
so move on, nothing to see here

i am relentlessly
failing

my hair falls
in front of my
face

i cannot see whilst i write whilst i walk

turns out writing is easier than breathing, and cheaper too

this is the way my poems end
"not with a bang, but with a whimper"

twice as short as
anyone expected
unable to commit
unable to persevere

i cut ties and proclaim myself free as i'm tying the next bow around my neck


next time;
tighter, please

today i am angry
drawing strengh from courageous role models that I've never resembled

not
      one
              bit

even in my anger i am able to look around
and see other people's second eyes
staring
right back at me with the same fiery hate

i am
astounded
as to how we can all be so unhappy
and not be able to find the solution
as to why we secretly
hate
(each other)

each freckle on her face reminds me of a different heartthrob;

the first him, i broke
the first her, i numbed
the other him, i begged to stay
the other her, i let go before it was too late


the familiar her, whom i am close to losing
the otherwordly him, who doesn't even know me
the exasperating her, whom i can't seem to fit into my own standards


finally, me.
each time
I cut
someone else
I also
engrave
them
onto
my
soul