Lately
I don’t feel close
to poetry.

It feels elusive.
Unfamiliar.
Once it spoke to me.
But now it’s mute.

It sits back
and doesn’t look
at me.

If I call out
it doesn’t hear.

Lately poetry is
like that demon
I used to want
to reappear.

he tasted like all the memories of us that would never go away, etched in the crevices of every cavity and every bleeding gum, memories you crave the way you want candy or that chocolate bar, memories working their way to the nerve so they can hit you and leave you numb

i miss you softly, like the way you used to gently touch me with hesitance hoping that wherever you held onto was the right place, the way you used to breathe into my ear for affirmation, the way you used to want to hold my hand despite it being as cold as the winters i had to weather after getting my heart broken

i miss you tenderly, like the way i held on to you after i realised i could really learn to love you, like the way we held hands and fell asleep that last night because young love and new love and gentle love doesn't know just *******, it knows feelings

i miss you eagerly, like the way i waited for you to message for two and a half weeks telling me something was off, like the way your message sunk into my chest when you told me we had to talk

i miss you the way i missed myself when i was with him, the way i constantly searched for a me behind the bars of a relationship that only knew how to push me farther into the cell

i miss you / i miss you / i miss you

// she falls in love the same way that she falls apart; quickly and all at once.

tumbling into his outstretched palms with a startling intensity, his fists clench and she cries.

she wants him to hurt her, leave smouldering bruises around her neck. Force your fingers down her throat and make her beg. maybe this love; choking sounds and blood.

it’s almost funny, the fact that she still hasn’t learned yet; make him your everything and you will be left with nothing.

and it feels like hell, almost romantic.

her lips part in the dimly lit room, gasping for air.

that’s the thing, there is nothing he could do to her that she wouldn’t do to herself. hold a knife to her neck and watch her soul drip from her mouth

one rib at a time you snapped them all like twigs and complained that she made too much noise. too much,

too loud.

lungs swimming in fluid yet she breathes out flowers, because that’s what pretty girls do; that’s what you wanted isn’t it babe? beauty. perfection.

don’t let him inside your head, keep him between your thighs or else everything around you will become white noise; fading into the background.

go on, romanticise it. i dare you.

force its unwilling bones into a metaphor or a simile.

pretend that we fall apart into beautiful, tragic spectacles and simply glue the broken fragments back together

she sat in the dark with a cup of tea between her shaking hands, resisting the urge to split her veins over the white walls and string her organs from the ceiling like fairy lights.

wanting to die in the most violent of ways is a lot less convenient than it seems; an unholy addiction of the rawest degree.

darling, i’m sorry he made you feel like you are hard to love,

because loving you is the easiest thing in the world //

I would have poured gasoline on myself and asked for your lighter while you lit your cigarette just to prove how much I loved you and it still wouldn’t have phased you as much as the nicotine would // now I laugh while you light your cigarette and when you ask me why I just tell you sunshine burns bright enough just fine without you anyway

Wherever you are out there
Living your life so mindless
Of my inner agony
I hope you never find this

I hope you never see my lament
At how I dropped the ball
I hope you never see my confession
That I was the one
Who blew it all
Who threw it all away

I hope this bottle cast out to sea
Never finds you
Never floats up on your shore
Never reminds you
Of what our future held in store

Cause if it did
I would wallow in pity
I would wither in shame
I would shrivel from regret
I'd relive it the same

All over again

The pain
Would come flooding back
My heart under attack
The loneliness
Would overcome me again
As it did back then
I'd be paralyzed once more

All because you found this note
These words I wrote
With no intent to send
All my bottled up feelings
Released to the wind

I know deep down
You'll never see
This will never find you
As it floats across the sea


But -
Confession time -
I lied

Though it would destroy me
My hope rests in serendipity
And that one in a million chance
This message
Through its ocean dance
Somehow finds its way to you

And maybe even someday soon

Across this gulf
Beneath this moon

This prayer sent out o'er seven seas
Gently calls you back to me

Here’s to the feelings that flow
through my veins,

here’s to the love whose trip
was a lot of pain,

here’s to the days
where I am in vain,

and here’s to your heart
that I cant seem to obtain.

When we hold hands I always keep a tight grip
With in the back of my mind thinking you might dip
I know you wouldn't leave me but that keeps me trying
I love you and I'd be lying
If I said anything else
My love for you is never on a shelf
I take a chapter a day with you and write it down
Our story to be told
Not if but when we're old
And I mean together
And my together is forever
I hope yours is too
I can assume but never speak for you
Except when we have to decide on food
Something about that question you seem to elude
But that's okay my dear there's nothing to fear
So long as you're here
With me
I'll always know what WE want to eat