I don't understand -
It was just raunchy pictures.
Now when I send them

you say "nice *** lol"
and ask my opinion on
EU politics.

Porcelain.
They get more pretend,
every one of them. More ridiculous,
film star, rich kid,
sometimes I don't even meet them.

Trophies. Little silver spoons,
rugby players, Tories, DJs.
They come from faraway places,
I make myself sound amazing,
make believe that it means something.

My little heart has been diced up
like the rats in the labs that I slice up.
Running the same experiments,
it gets boring after a while.
I can't stick at it for too long.

Time to move on.
Playing games in the lives of real people,
I want to be a story at parties,
a tale to regale for a suited man
in an interview.
I'll make you seem interesting.

I want to be shiny and pretty and new
for a week or two.
Don't take me for granted,
don't forget me but don't hang around.
I have lives to live, things to do.

A few floors up.
The doors slid closed
and stayed shut.

We could have ascended forever,
or seconds. You were so pretty.
Looked at me from under your lashes,

smiled and I was transfixed.
We stopped at every floor.
You could have got off

but you lingered. The smell of you
filled the small space
and we kept climbing.

The higher we went
the harder it was
to say anything.

Too afraid to speak. Too vulnerable.
Strung up by thoughts of other people.
Then the bell rang and you got off.

Goodbye then, I should have
asked you to stay but you would
have gone anyway.

Your name has a bitter
taste, like cologne. A muggy
sweet scent that deceived me so easily.
I always tried
to spit it out, but the spray
stuck fast
to the roof of my mouth.
Made me heady,
heavy. Sleepy. I started nodding,
going. Wake me up later,
give me a month or two.
Shake me when the sight of the back
of you won't phase me.
Shout when your eyes and your smile don't nauseate me.
Please let me sleep off the feeling
of losing again. Of everything slipping
into the ocean, of my life
crumbling and cracking open like old brick walls and peeling front doors
and old wardrobes.
I thought you could be
that breath of fresh air I needed so badly,
to come rushing in when the bell jar
cracked open.
But you weren't,
you weren't anything special,
you were an Oxfam shop
bottle of cheap perfume.

Trying to fill
a gap. Those moments
we had were all meaningless.
You don't miss me, you don't ever
try and see me,
it's insulting. You know,
I have boys that never stop calling,
fall
all over me. Ones I don't love,
just love their company.
Like to tell them eat their dindins,
worry for them when they say
they've been two days
without eating and that they
owe two
grand tick to the white man.
Laugh at their jokes, we're
best friends,
they tell me I'm cool and I know
it's true, boosts my ego,
makes me sad,
hold my hand it's the same
way you crack me in two.

It consumes me, the guilt for just living,
existing isn't easy, I try not
to do bad things, but I'm human.
They catch me. I'm a sinner, and I don't
deserve to be happy. Self
destruction is essential,
a gruesome necessity.
I used to stick pins through my skin.

Now it's pills, smoke and gin,
it's beautiful boys that I won't see again.
Living for the thrill of the chase,
the dragon, I need to keep running
away from my daemons,
keep up the pace, catch the
old feeling of knowing my place
in the world.
It's three PM and I'm still in bed.
Maybe soon I'll get dressed.
Maybe soon I'll go eat,
"you look sick" they said,
it's all in my head.
It's all in my head.

When the light crept in over me,
my breath stopped up in a half gasp,
choked on my fear, was it just a weird dream?
The fact we had no clothes on
says otherwise.

Oh my.
What a messed up, war inducing **** up.
Sleeping with you was not an option,
until fifteen drinks in your hand was on my leg.

Shivering, bent over the bed and screaming,
doing bad things we shouldn't have been doing,
if anyone found out we'd be in big,
big trouble. I can't even tell if it was worth risking.

You kind of repulse me,
getting off on how ****** it would be,
and it's scary how the guilt wouldn't stop me
from letting you touch me again.