i still
do not know
the poem i've been trying to write
and maybe
that's because
i haven't been
writing one at all
or maybe it's because
the poem i've been trying to write
is not ready for paper
and maybe
i'm the paper
that's not ready for it

If there comes a time
that you might lose me
Find me in my poetry

My favourite book has lost its words
So have you, my favourite place
Which is hard to ask where you are

sometimes silence
is the best
reply,
answer,
company.

rural or urban
urban or rural
no matter who says it
it always sounds turrible

It came out all wrong
when joe biden tried it
tonight watching the news
our newscaster fried it

two little words
that everyone knows
say them together
your mouth sounds all froze

city or country
nor urban or rural
they both mean the same
But the second pair sounds turrible

The first girl I ever apologised to
created craters in my veins and filled them with love and she didn’t even know
how beautiful she was, lying next to me face-to-face with nothing but TV reflections and an orchestra of words spoken in silence
I wanted to tell her I love her over and over again but my eyes stole any sentence I could form in my head from my mouth and did nothing but stare
They say a person’s face gets more attractive the more you look at it but I feel this is a lie; if I had only got to glance at her face for a second, she would still be the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen
and we fit together like tetris blocks, building a foundation to plant the root of forever
and I want to grow beside her, watching her blossom from a caterpillar into a butterfly, from a star into the sun
and I want to be the steady trees that stand beside her, humble and proud, showing her that I meant it when I said I would never leave because I am rooted deep into our soil of forever
and I couldn’t even if I wanted to and I kept my heart chained to my ribs before I met her but she waltzed in, handed me the keys and I haven’t been the same since.
I felt her come crashing into my life like an asteroid; I am sure I was wiped out and taken to a universe where only good things happen because I can no longer see bad, only flowers where bullets should be
I can no longer only see red, but violet and magenta and mahogany too and she has opened up a world where everything does happen for a reason because it has led me to her
like a sleepwalker looking for home only to find something much better than that
like a sleepwalker waking up to find themselves immersed in golden sands and out of touch with reality but rife with the knowledge that she’s real
and her touch is there to remind me of this,
the world’s biggest mystery gracing the palm of my hand with their own fingertips, two DNA connected and the vibrations of my love for her bouncing back to whatever God introduced me to her to say thank you
and I remember the first time I held her hand. We sat in silence as I traced my fingers over hers and back again, like a visual of tentative attraction on loop.
I didn’t believe in anything until I heard my name on her lips and suddenly angels existed and
Sometimes I feel like I’m hallucinating but I don’t mind when her presence in front of me is tripled and I can see not just one of her but three and each one outstretches their hand as they morph back into one person, as if to show me that in all her various forms, I am safe
and I have never been safer
I can no longer only see red, but hues of cyan and aqua and agate blue and they merge together to form eyes I dive into searching for the very depths of her ocean and I never gasp for air
because I am safe. They merge together to form irises that look at me like I’ve never been seen before, like a rare breed of an extinct animal discovered again; irises that look at me like they could stop time with their intensity
and I want to stop time with her
I want to contort it to wrap around her and I and protect us in the promise of eternity
because the stars will set the sky on fire and everything will melt in embers and ash without her
the planets will misalign
the soil will sink the trees at their roots
and the ocean will swallow the earth it once harmonised with
and I will, simply,
cease to exist.

i want a love that consumes me
fills me up until i'm a punching bag of scattered thoughts
and i keep spluttering and spilling my love in wine glasses
and they're overflowing and i can't stop vomiting your name
i want love to devour me
like the leftover pizza you bought at 4am last night, drunk and lonely and alone
how sad it has become to be drunk and lonely and alone with you
i will become pieces within you because i cannot stop shedding my layers
i want a love that engulfs me
that chews me up like that second stick of bubblegum
and spits me out like mouthwash on an alcoholics tongue, acidic and burning and foreign
your mouth is a gun and my eyes are bloodshot from its metaphors
i have run out of armour
i have run out of armour
i am told love isn't meant to be beautiful and it is romanticised
but all i know is i want to romanticise all night long with you under my bed covers because you are beautiful
i would say i love you but how mundane
how throw-away those words have became
i am told love isn't meant to be beautiful and i have run out of armour
how can something that isn't meant to be beautiful look so good?
like a train wreck decorated in fresh flowers; roses and chrysanthemums
a car crash on the side of the road, nobody wants to see but everybody looks
i said i want a love that consumes me
i said i want it to devour me, engulf me whole and then spit me out
i said i'm running out of armour
and maybe if i convince myself it's what i asked for maybe then maybe it starts to look beautiful
drunk and lonely and alone
and i was atop the hill we sat at the first night you ever told me you love me (how throw-away those words have became)
you were brighter than every night light combined, i thought
"love isn't meant to be beautiful," everyone said
"but how? how is sitting here with you and seeing the silhouette of trees across a skyline, a concrete ocean dotted with street lamp stars and the last hours of a wakened society not ******* beautiful?"
drunk and lonely and alone i got it
i am pouring my thoughts into wine glasses and they're overflowing and i keep vomiting
i keep vomiting
i'm not sure if it was the pizza at 4am or you who made me sick
i am waiting for you to spit me out

you are white musk smoky rose
burning embers of a forest fire emanating sweet smoke
you are a fresh white wash of paint
bright and vibrant and you make everything else look tasteful and inviting
you are dewy lips and sunken-in eyes
heart shaped cupid’s bow and crystal iris’
you are winter when everybody wants summer
you catch icicles in the palms of your hands
and the bitter cold runs through your fingers
and i never did like the heat
you are a mirrored maze of thoughts bouncing back and forth and straight through
and sometimes when you get lost i am the echo that pulls you back to real life
that pulls you back to consciousness and dusty television stands full of 2D fiction
i am the echo that tells you it’s okay to be just as lost in reality as you are in the mirrored maze of your meandering mind

you are black musk misty rose
burning forest fires to ash and decay
destruction and disarray
you are a mysterious black wash of paint
dominant and demanding and you show others how to be bright beside you
you are hollow cheeks and lack of sleep
sheepish glow and bloodshot tunnel vision
you are winter and nobody wants summer anymore
they want to be feel icicles melt in the palms of their hands
they want to feel the bitter cold run through their fingers
they don’t like the heat anymore
you are a glass maze of treasured thoughts and i see straight through
i am the echo that pulls you back to real life
that pulls you back to consciousness and overused vinyl players
and they want to listen to your music but they don’t want to take a walk around your glass maze yet i have completed it hundreds of times
i will always be the echo that tells you it’s okay to be just as lost in reality as you still are even when the maze is made of glass because it is still as fragile

you are red musk desirable rose
burning embers of a forest fire to ash and decay and destruction and disarray and making it look so ******* beautiful
you are a scarlet red wash of paint
lustful and deliriously enticing and you show others how to love that which should not be loved
you are sun kissed freckles and unkempt hair
loved by that which should not be able to love and imperfectly perfected
you are winter and summer, you are autumn and spring
i still want to feel icicles melt in the palms of my hands like my heart did in yours when i first kissed you
i want to feel the bitter cold warm up on contact with my skin and transform something solid into liquid – a chemical reaction similar to the one that happened inside my head because of you
i love the cold
i love the heat
your mirrored, glassy mind will always be a maze but i am patient and i will always be your echo
you are white musk smoky rose
you are black musk misty rose
and you are red musk desirable rose
and i love every shade to you
every mood
every scent
always

I loved the walls I told my story to every night, they were so very, very white. They ended up with holes and cracks in them but they taught me how to love, they taught me French was a language of passion, and they showed me your reflection in five years, they showed me your foreboding fears and drug laced tears.

It didn't look too good for you.

I wrote my poems along the cracks, I tried to fill the cracks in with pieces of my heart but it wasn't big enough to fill them and we all knew it from the start.
Now my chest is empty and I'm growing a new one and watering it with things that don't try to **** me.

I'd rather shoot myself in the head and end up dead than end up with a hollow soul again.

The paper I sleep on has leaks from where my chest and my mind try to meet up in between and I just end up throwing up black ink at 3 a.m.

I would rather drink bleach than end up back in this town after I've been released.
There are footprints all over this little cage from everyone we used to hate and all the people you wanted to date and now I just lie awake and awake and awake and it's all fake.

The rhythm from the rhyme is satisfying when you remember why we tried to rhyme, how we taught ourselves to survive off of empty pens and shredded paper, and I remember how many times I told my mom I wanted to die that night.

The walls know my secrets, I tore them down, my heart leaked out like the tears from my sieve-eyes on all of those tragedy filled nights, my best kept secrets are long gone now and I'm sure I'll get asked once or twice about those secrets that float through the shadows of past, but I look at them as more than sand in an hour glass, something like the sand on the shore that the sea eats when it gets sore.

The welcome sign has our names on the back of it but you can cross mine out or cover it up with someone new because my heart isn't here and my heart isn't through and I'm feeding it a hopeful story about a girl that once knew you.

I forgive, I forgive, and you'll probably never forgive me for how easy I can forget.