Sunflower Susan, you're a ray of kindness.
You help everyone, but your petals are wilting;
your yellow glow is fading and your stem is leaning.
Your campaign to help is now halting.

Sunflower Susan, grandmother, sister, aunt, mother,
you're falling apart now and it's hard for us all.

I feel angry. Saddened. Shocked.
Could this be history repeating itself? Cancer
rearing its ugly head to take another?
Sunflower Susan, you will keep growing.
You will keep strong, your stem never breaking.
Sunflower Susan, I have hope and faith that you
will survive. Sunflower Susan, please survive.

i picked up so many of your pieces,
i made a house from the ruins of your life.
like a lava lamp, we blazed and bubbled;
we rose to the top, just bubbles in a jar.

oceans drift in her eyes, twinkling stars
swimming in the waves and
freckled constellations on her face.
she holds the moon in her hands and
i am the wolf, howling harshly.
she tells me she adores me, lips soft  
and i repeat her adorations, entrapped.
vines are wrapped around my heart,
tightening and holding me close.
she says, 'i love you' and sets me on fire,
flames consuming me and my veins;
combusted, busted and broken my
heart beats only for her, ardour.

These butterflies in my stomach feel like razor blades,
Cutting me up inside and leaving me for dead.
You’re breaking into my heart like police in house raids,
You’re like a book I’ve never read,

But I’m a book to you and you tore out the pages,
Taking them as your own and rewriting the words.
Bleeding, you make the world seem like it’s full of cages.
But, unbeknownst to you, I’m not likes birds
And I will not be caged.

“I love you,” you say, then you break my heart
Love? Love isn’t equated to the feelings you put into my stomach,
The anxiety I get; when once a text from you ignited fires it now
Starts a tornado of worry and nerves. You’re dragging me into the storm,
Leading me away from safety and into the danger zone that we call relationships.

“I love you” I say, biting back the nerves that spill over my tongue
Because once we were friends and now we’re much more, now the apple
Is a lemon and it’s sour and distasteful, the love feels like an apple falling from the tree and,
Like an apple,  I bruise so easily and I can’t stop the marks that appear on the surface.

Your words are a sledgehammer and I’m a wall that needs knocking down,
Our love is a construction site and we’re rebuilding what once was and,
I’ve never told you this, but I’m afraid of change and my heart’s no longer in the new build.
Still, “I love you” the words roll so easily from my tongue, your ears devouring every syllable
as though the things I say are candy. Sweet, oh so sweet,
but didn’t anyone tell you? Sugar is bad for you.
And so am I, my sweet lemon.

The apple that sent snow white sleeping, the spindle that caused aurora to fall into slumber,
The poison that you sink into my heart with every word you say.
I’m falling off a cliff, going deeper and deeper and deeper until I crash!
Babe, “I love you”, but you’re killing me.

like stairs,
it's up or down.
i teeter on the middle,
hand on the rail,
one foot in the air.
the stone steps
are
steep and they go high;
my legs ache and i can't
see the top.
letting go,
do i climb or do i
go down?

on the bus ride home, watching houses blur,
you turn to me and say, "it's going to be okay."
i nod, earphones in and hood up. not okay.
the day didn't go as planned, we got lost
and we spent the day finding ourselves.
summer has just started, but my hands are cold
and my complexion pale, i'm skeletal and rigid;
dark eyes and thin, boney arms. i'm decaying.

the sun casts light onto the window, lighting up
the raindrops like stars on a summers day.
they lead the way home, asteroids going down.
the music plays loudly, cutting all ties from outside.
you can't hear, but the music is sad and i'm trying not to cry.
i smile when you turn to me, nodding quietly.
you can't see, but i'm decaying inside.

the sun rises every morning,
blessing the earth with another day.
the moon shines at night,
watching over us as we lay at rest.

the stars give us our dreams,
despite being millions of miles away.
they shoot, we wish upon them
and they smile down at us.

heaven is above us,
but hell's fire is what fuels us.
we run on sleepless slumber and we
keep fighting with broken swords.

we breathe until we no longer can,
our lungs heaving with the hope that we will
survive another day because we're human
and we were crafted to survive.

from sunrise to sunset,
we dance between each regret.
tired eyes and loveless gleams,
our love was once a flowing stream;
now it's dried up, cold and bare
the love we had is no longer there.

the type of happiness that you don't feel,
so hopeful, content and full of dreams,
i know it cannot be real.

heartbreak.
bitter sharp pains in my heart with every breath;
every second we spend apart.
alone. i'm all alone, now, and it hurts more than i thought it would.

i sit in my blue corner, adorned with blankets
and comfort and yet, still, i feel only the cold you left.
you stole all my warmth, my sun.
you stole all my heart, my stars.
you stole my happiness, my moon.

you were everything and yet, babe, here i am.
broken, alone and shivering.
writing poetry that no one will read,
grieving a loss that will never leave
why did you steal from me?

breathing is hard,
lungs heave the weight of wonders
wondering if you'll come back,
if you're good for me or if you're the poison in my lungs
you make me sick, homesick

i'm heartbroken, young and fractured
too naive to know and too fragile to care
i loved you, i love you and i'm full of tears
no more happy days, no more sunshine
is it safe to cry?

my veins are the cobwebs of my soul,
intertwining and winding around my thick bones;
i'm like scaffolding, tall, and rigid, and ready to come down.
thick ducktape binds my seams together.
my eyes are the keyholes to my soul, they stare out and wonder:
what happened to the bright blue skies and thick, green trees?

my fingernails have rusted, cracked and sharpened at the pain.
long years of clawing my way down a winding road have led
me here, sewn together by dreams once wished upon a star.
my ribs have caged my hope for so long, bared iron,
protecting my heart and all that's left of what once was.
i hold my breath, and i'm ready to come down.

sunken eyes like the grave of my mother,
dark, rough and duller than cake at a funeral. i hold my breath.
living is like drowning, the anchors of my dreams anchoring
me down into the void. i scream out. i kick out. i claw out.
i come down, shaking and aching and ready to break.
cobwebs cover me, dust coats my lungs in pain.

i'm ready to come down.

the curtains come up, lights blaring; audience watches as you spit your lines to the world. composed of those we know, the rows of seats are full of people who judge and deceit and it's more of a trial than a show. it's a script, each word careful to convey emotions that aren't real. you're not real. we're not real. this isn't real. you're acting, tears hidden behind a mask crafted through years and years of work, you don't want to give to give in yet. by act two you're tired, exhausted and ready to pack in. you stray from your lines, the director staring at you from backstage. you're not supposed to do that. you're supposed to spew the words from the page and bite back arguments. you're a puppet. feelings? not real. teardrops fall on your script, but they could be drops of liquor because you're drunk in the thought that you can escape. you can't. you're trapped. love holds you down, nails your heart to the stage. crucifixion before your very peers and they don't know your pain because it's just an act and you are an actor, acting out the things you've been told to say. the directions you are forced to follow. it's not real and neither are you, you repeat that as you fall asleep and it's on your tongue when you wake up. you wash your fash, using water to splash away the memories of what once was and what will never be again. when your teacher asks if you're religious you bite your tongue, holding back curses that god left us. we're alone and we're gone and we're sheep being hurled into a pen that was designed for convicts. we're criminals against mother nature, poisoning and polluting and killing life's lungs with our dreams that should have died long ago. when she asks, "are you happy?" i smile and i grit my teeth, forcing out words from a script i revised in my head. i'm happy and i'm fine and i'm real. the blood in my veins pumps faster and faster, emotions rising and falling with the beat of death's drums. are we alone? we're abandoned, a ship sailing the seas of uncertainty. we craft swords out of lies, anger, and betrayal and in the end, we plunge it through our own hearts. the curtain closes, end scene.

from sunsets to morning hazes,
we text from dawn to dusk and
set fire to time. we're lonely together.

it's three am and we're watching movies,
we talk more than anything and we laugh;
'baby, give me your heart ( aches ) '

high heels in my hands and smoke in the air,
we stumble through broken memories and
we set a flame the broken shards of hearts.

sunbathing on the pavement, bare skin
and hearts open wide. blue eyes on you,
you're my summertime sadness

what a ******* waste,
everything today just lacks taste.
when i'm alone, at night
raging that internal fight,
i think about all things right
and i wish that i could take flight.
i want to travel the world, oceans
and get rid of those negative emotions.
i'm full of sadness, pain and negativity
i'm a human in captivity!
what a ******* waste,
i wish something had taste

life isn't a poem;
you don't choose to
stop
or start or
pick up where you left.
we do not hold the remote
or the pen
or the rope.
we hold on and we travel
with the wind.

Wasting time, hours spent doing nothing.
She once thought she could hold the world in her hands,
stand on mountains and face the gods.
Now she's stuck. Lost, trapped and out of time.

She worries about time, watching clocks tick by;
her hours are spent trembling, anxious of the rising sun.
The moon holds her gaze, gleaming down from her kitchen window.
"Why did you leave me?" she calls out, eyes sorrowful.

The moon just stares, fixated on the girl in the window.
Time keeps ticking by, the moon turning into the sun.
As the rising dawn arrives, setting fire to the cold sky,
she holds her head high and whispers,

"The sun will always rise." The sun smiles back,
radiating warmth that keeps her from turning to stone.
Smashing the clock, shattering glass on stone floors.
The girl breaths a sigh, the clock's ticking stopping.

But the walls inside your brain won’t offer you isolation, nor hope, they offer you an empty cave and you’re the only inhabitant. You’re alone, you’re so alone in this dark existence and even when someone’s there, you’re still alone up there.
Your heart works over time, more than your brain, and with every minute it cracks open and the feelings flood out. Your emotions are blood, your heart is you and the world is the heart monitor that beeps and screams, and shouts that you’re alive.
But then it stops. Your heart stops, but your blood keeps pumping and then the shock of existence starts you up again and you get better, you wait in a hospital bed and you recover. Each day you get better.
You get better.
And then life happens, and we’re forced into a loop that we cannot break from because we’re trapped. We’re trapped in this cold, dark existence and it’s so empty. It’s so apocalyptic and we’re not alone, we’re just isolated, cold and so ******* tired. We’re all so tired.

Real and raw, I'm angry at you.
There's a future we've built with stolen bricks,
foundations we cemented through texts and skype calls.
There's a distance between us, a million miles separating
our hearts and our souls. We're connected through the web,
a spider knitting us together like a handmade sweater.
I'm so hung up on you, biting back words behind fists.
I tell myself, this is it. This is it. I'm done, we're breaking.
Then you text and a weight is gone, the dependence back in place.
I can't be angry at you. I can't be upset. I'm nothing but happy.

Flowers grow in the carcass of what you left,
Camellias bloom in my lungs with each breath I take;
desperately heaving, weeping, I'm a victim of theft.

Roses rise from the hole in my chest,
their prickly stems stab me, blood mixing with tears...
though, in your heart, I'm just a guest

Too young to feel this dead inside, Amaranthus flowers
still sprout within my soul, will these dark clouds
ever leave? You built me up in into glass towers.

It's the hemlock that dives in my blood.
My mind mirrors the smashed pieces of glass on the ground,
I'd love you if only it would,
fix the broken parts of your world.

in the light of life,
we hold hands
and we
close our eyes
and we
feel the blade
of the reaper ;
and we
say
"goodbye."

my eyes aren't my own, they're my mothers.
my hair is flat, tired and unkept. it's lifeless.
skin soaked with thoughts of what were,
bruised with memories that will never leave.
scars little each road of the epidermis, burned
deep and stained.
they don't make me ugly. no.
my emotions make me ugly. my sick, twisted mind
and the thoughts i shouldn't have. the thoughts i have.
tired, tired, tired bones that creak with each step into normality.
i've built a home inside my rib cage, carved out a prison.
internalized my thoughts. kicked people out.
just me. it's just me and my heart, as it shouts and screams.
my brain keeps me company at night, whispering its dreams and its desires. it tells me who i am, what i want.
but it never lets me sleep. not really.
i wake up so tired, so old and tired.
my heart is restless through the day, calling out for your ears.
it talks to you, talks about you. i'm poisoned. love's sweet kiss.
the kiss of death. ugly to the bones, i'm so ugly.

it's wanting the storm to end,
while watching it through your kitchen window
and hoping that it keeps raining
because the world stops for a few seconds
when you see the lightning shine through the glass
and you hear the thunder above your head.
the gray clouds seem to light up,
the sky is much prettier
than when it's blue but then
it goes back to what it was before;
just water and a dark sky

glued together with bonds of failing marriages,
engagements don't survive and the kids are leaving home.
tied down and trying to escape with death's carriage.
my family isn't much, but it's better than being alone.
university is soon, but i'm full of such disparage
i don't want to be me, i just want to roam.

my poetry is barely audible, hitting the wall and falling
flat against listening ears. is this all i'll amount to?
writing alone - at 3 am - always missing my calling?
life's gambling, i realise, i can't help but feel blue

what does it mean to be content?
is it biting your tongue and promising to repent?
they say god frowns upon it;
if i am, then i just won't fit
in and out of society. crying at night,
trying to figure out if what i feel is right.
the love i harbor is being called a sin,
my family telling me to throw love in the bin.
the heart is just an *****, right? we can be programmed
and trained to be or not to be, pre-planned
to not be who we want to be.  
i don't want to be me.

why is it so hard to be happy?
we look at the ashes of our triumphs
and then smell the gasoline on our hands
and realise we were the ones with the matches
and we were the ones that tied
cinder blocks to our legs
and decided to go swimming.
why do we have to look at the cemetery,
read each name on the stones,
just to realise we're holding shovels.
no matter how warm it gets,
the nights are always the coldest-
we're sunshine by day and the moon by night,
hiding our tears behind the dark veil of fabricated facades.

i'd like to pretend that the stars
had something to do with us;
that we were born from sparks,
written in stone, or
whispered amongst by angels.
and perhaps we were, but
our love will always be by our
own design,
we built our walls and then we
carved our names into trees.

days get longer, even though the sun light grows short
there's a tension in the air, christmas joy doesn't seem so joyful.
even though days drag, weeks fly by before you know it
and it's been months of the constant battle.
good and bad. light and dark. it's not black and white,
it's crying at three am because no one can hear.
it's fake sleeping when they come to check on you.
it's easting more fruit and spending days sleeping alone
because you can't fight the feeling that the world's ending,
but the earth keeps spinning and the sun keeps shining.
you're too young to understand, too young to feel this way.
tie your hair up, straighten your shirt and face the world.
fight your battles with tear stained eyes, your room messy
and your brain even worse. fight the battle because of your sister.
fight because you can't bear to lose. you can be better!
"this is just a phase you're gonna outgrow"

what's on the other side?
like a mirror,
i look and i see my world.
what's between the glass?
can i go through?
can i leave?
for a day,
a second,
a minute?
can i pick up,
walk away
and never look back.