Sometimes I hear the news and I just want to go someplace else.
Where hate is non-existent.
Just... imagine.
No conflict, just empty skies, devoid of missiles and polluted air, away from the oceans of plastic waste
And tears for the loved,
Lost in the consequences of other people's arguments.
A place on this planet where everyone just gets on and loves more-
Because every war is a civil war if you zoom out far enough.
We've been told a thousand times, you and I,
Countless names repeating to us what we know inside.
So... are we neglectful, or are we just blind?
How about
"Love does not discriminate between The sinners and the saints"
If this is the truth
Then why the hate, why the war, why not just realise
We don't have to fight anymore?
Because these ****** battles have to end sometime right?
And you can't declare war if nobody fights.
Don't you see?
It leads to bad things this relentless fighting.
Like a storm leads to thunder, and thunder to lightning, and it rains like tears mourning the spilled blood, making landslides of sadness from toxic mud.
I just wanted to press restart.
Breathe.
Try again.
I'd...let the sun come out.
Be with my friends.
And I'd spend a little more time to love.
I'd wash out the darkness, the tears, and the blood.
But I'm no longer happy to smile and watch the news.
Watching kids in war zones with bloodied feet and no shoes.
It's time we said enough is enough.
To those so-called leaders who trade lives for money-
Do you think a bomb is a joke?
Because that's really not funny.
In a world where more guns mean more guns, how are we supposed to trust our leaders?
The people who represent us?
As a city?
A state?
A country?
The human race?
I can't.
I can't think of a solution.
No answers.
I can't remember the last time I saw an honest face on a politician.
And right now?
It's all I need.
For idealism to start becoming the solution.
So get on and love more.
For the sake of Human nature.
Peace is not wrong.
All we need is love.
But we've known that all along.

I could barely work up the courage to hold her hand.
So we'd wander round the courtyard arm in arm instead,
Proud, yet sheepish.
Looking back I don't know why I ended it.
I was afraid I suppose.
I still am.
Bold and bright, colours flying from her full lips and dark eyes.
Bubblegum hair and festival freckles.
Laughter ringing in my ears, glistening in her eyes, and tugging,
gently, as the tide tugs the sand, at the corners of my lips.
She'd often share earphones, popping one into my ear and describing exactly how the music made her feel, before pressing play.
Like a ritual, each time.
Instead of smearing ash beneath your eyes, and burning a lock, for all the memory held in those dark strands.
She had so much to say, and it threatened to drown me.
It would have been so easy.
To let her pull me under, into her arms and hold me.
She was everything i loved, and everything i wasn't.
Beautiful, bold, vibrant and so full of life, she was the ocean.
She was a forest.
The curve of a cheek caught in evening honey sunlight.
Pollen haze drifting through a field.
Laughter and straw bails and electric lemonade freckled sunshine.
And she'd stood opposite me that day and grinned sheepishly.
And dear Apollo that smile tugged so hard at my ribcage.
I couldn't help but smile back, cheeks stained pink in admiration.
But I was so painfully, painfully shy.
I couldn't even bring myself to reach out and grasp her soft hands.
I could never bring myself to tell her.
And it ended so soon there wasn't even time to light a spark.
So soon, too soon, for me to say the things I held in my throat.
Watching her strum gently on her ukulele, always humming,
and me, distant and as still as rainwater.
No tides tugging her to my chest.
And I still regret leaving.
I threw away my yellow, because I was afraid.
I do hope I'll see you again, my dear, though it meant little to you. Thank you,
You beautiful fool

Those afternoons where we'd felt like nothing could touch us again.
Sumner haze and throwing mown grass at each other, faces chubby and pink and elated.
And we'd sit, giggling, wind in our sales and hair.
Watching each other out of the corners of our eyes and catching ourselves with a snort of laughter.
We learned every lyric to Bohemian Rhapsody that afternoon, do you remember?
Singin' mama at the top of your lungs and putting me on the top of the world.
Ready to show every person in our little corner just what we could do.
And you told me about your dreams that day,
While I practiced my air guitar solos. Running my hands through my newly cropped hair.
Those afternoons gave us a new sense of freedom.
Last day of school, fresh out of year 7, and we knew we'd be going places. We were rockstars. We were astronauts. Time travellers. Gangsters. Pirates. Whatever beautiful, fantastical whim took our fancies.
The world was in our hands that day.
Any way the wind blows.
I'd ask you what your favourite words were and you'd laugh at me, but I'd only poke you back. It was dessimate of course. We only ever spoke in references no one else would understand.
Our lives had just begun and there was no way we'd thow away our shots.
I'd leave it all behind in a heartbeat, to be back there with you. To see you laugh like that again. And be able to just be. For one moment.
To be innocent. Naive and vulnerable and happy. To have faith. In myself. To be so sure again. Back when nothing really mattered.
And though they did grow there, we never actually sat under those willow trees.

She held me to her chest like I was the child she had just lost
As if I was cold and vacant and lifeless as a broken puppet
She held me as if she'd live to see me buried six feet out of her arms reach
As If she'd have to pick music for me one last time
And knowing it would fall cold on deaf ears.
She held me like she had everything to lose
She held me like an apology
Like the ruby lining on my wrists
And cried for all the memory held in salt cuts
And I remember
I shook and I shook and I shook
Like a fragile bird nearly crushed by the weight of
Some unknown Force
Too late
Much too soon
And it wouldn't stop throbbing
I wasn't drowning anymore
Not cold but alive and breathing and burning and
Dear heavens, feeling.
Feeling her hands cup the nape of my neck and hold my head to hers
Feeling her shake and mouth endless apologies of love to my ear
Feeling her face ***** up in agony at the sight of what I'd done to myself
Ripped my flesh to ribbons
And it felt like I was home
She held me like it would be her last

You know the Five Stages Of Grief?

It's like that.

Stage one, Bargaining.
I told him I'd do anything, absolutely anything to keep him in my life.
I pleaded, I begged. I was ready to drop anything and everything for him.
Just for him.
All for him.

Always.

for.

him.

He was worth my entire life.
At the drop of a hat.

Or a noose.

Then came the Grief. I was... Incomparably sad.
My life fell apart, I felt nothing but pain.
Felt like my guts were being torn out, and spilled at his feet.

Choking on tar

my mind was never quiet.
It was all my fault, If I'd been better I'd still be his.
It hurt.
So much.
  So
       So
            Much.

Then Anger.
It was his loss, I was SICK AND ******* TIRED OF BEING ******* OVER BY HIM! I deserved BETTER than that ******* and whatever PITIFUL MEANINGLESS FLING our two years HAD BEEN.
I'd burn every precious **** thing he'd given me.
He'd filled my life with bits of him... Art, poetry, clothes. Built me palaces of paragraphs.
I'd tear it all out of me as if it was a tumour.
A desise.
Discusted by the thought I'd ever affiliated myself with his filth.. Inch by toxic inch I'd tear him away. Dig in my nails and press hard Hard HARD with the point of my razor.

Then I crashed.
The fourth stage, Depression kicked in.

Nothing had meaning,

my anger had evaporated, without it I was the shell of the person I used to be.
Empty
Cold.
Dull.
His City lay,
all burned out,
no longer aflame,
my highway overpasses crumbling and scarred with decay.

My dark glassy eyes now dry, no more rain soaked asphalt.

No more laughter or dancing.

No more cheap laminate countertops.
and he was gone.

And he was gone.
And
     He
            Was      
                        G O N E.

Like watercolour dripping off a canvas.

Nothing i could do. I had no purpose anymore.
My life was cold and grey without him lighting it up, painting cave walls with his love.
My perfect, perfect boy.
He'd gone forever.
I slept and slept and slept. To try and stave off the emptiness. The hollowness he'd left inside of me.
To pass the seconds ticking by without him. It didn't hurt, I was just... in my heart there was emptiness. Grey and blank and hard as cold concrete. All the bright chalk mandalas washed away.
Now the last step.
Acceptance.
Acceptance.
Acceptance.
I'm working on it.
I can live without him. He's not my one and only perfect thing. I wasn't blinded by love. I was idealistic. Hopeful and nieve, praying and begging to anything that could mean hope, that he wouldn't leave.
Now I realise You are, Tom. Toby and and Emma are.
Pippa and Frankie and Willow and Jack and Chris.
Molly and Emily and... Me.

Every beautiful person in my life.

I know none of you would leave me.

Not like he did.

The song. Our song.


Honeybee

It feels like acceptance to me too.
I know it's dumb, it's just a song, but it came on shuffle last night and I think it triggered this.
I'm far from okay,
but I'm closer than I've been before. ****, I've got trust issues, I feel like I can't ever let anyone that close again.

I'm terrified of vulnerability.
But that's what you're here for.
You guys are gonna help me out the other side.



Thank you so much for that.



"Hello Goodbye, Twas nice to know you
How I find myself without you
That I'll never know
I let myself go
Hello Goodbye, I'm rather crazy
And I never thought I was crazy
But what do I know?
Now you have to go"

You set me free.










I
Forgive
You.


Even if you hate me.
Even if it should be the other way round, and you can't. Won't.
I loved us.
And I'm sorry.
🖤

Dear gender queer kid,
I know this is difficult.
I know that you're struggling.
I know that you're perpetually discusted by the shape of your body, the mismatch... The... distortion,
Dear queer kid, I know it isn't right.
I know it isn't fair.
The fact that you have to live with being ridiculed and invalidated for living your truth.
I know you're confused, clumsily attempting to tick all the right boxes for a society seemingly hellbent on making you pick one... Or the other.
Are you a sister or a brother?
Will you be a father or a mother?
Going whole days dehydrated because you don't want to be in the wrong bathroom.
And yes- it's okay not to use the disabled toilet.
Your gender is not a disability.
It should not be treated as a liability.
Your gender is FREAKING BEAUTIFUL!!!
So dear queer kids-
Have hope, have pride!
You are bold and bright, you don't need to hide
...who YOU are!
This letter is to Ash and Kai,
Jay and Ty,
To Sam and Rebel,
To Atlas and Rowan.
All the they's and them's
The zi's zir's and zim's
The fluids, and neo pronoun users... Stay strong.
And know that I am with you.
Every grueling step of the way.
All the ones who spend every day
Enduring abuse from ignorant strangers, who wouldn't think twice about actually trying to understand, accept, or even just know you.
All the "*****" the "benders" and "trannys".
The "perverts" the "toasters" (yes that is actually a thing.)
And "*****".
All the "drag shows" and "freaks"-
Turn every cutting word into another stitch on your flag! Not your skin, Or your soul.
And remember -
It will get better!
You'll move out!
Meet people who love you, just for being YOU.
They'll use the right pronouns and name.
So fly your flag high, and never forget or underestimate OUR power.
Strength in numbers, and your **** well not alone!
We WILL be loud and fight tirelessly against those who try to strip us of our rights to simply exist.
We are proud!
WE ARE US!
and we're not ever going to be anything else.
So here's to the days yet to come.
Here's to them.
Here's to us!
And here's to pride.

Signed with love,
Scotty. ***