Lesbian.

From being a young child,
It’s been a word you don’t utter in public.
It’s a taboo.
A word that defines you as different.

So when i figured out I liked girls

(and only girls)

I called myself anything but

that

word.

Gay, lesbean, wlw, girls who like girls

Anything but that ***** word that no one said.

But in actual fact, I am growing to love it.
The women of history using it as an act of rebellion,
To show their difference from the rest.

The L in LGBT+
That’s me.

Every time I see
The sky light up
In those seven colours,
I am reminded of
My pride. Of who I am.

Six hours behind.
If we were in the same time zone
I wouldn’t have to spend all my day
Waiting for you to wake up
And missing you like crazy,
And I wouldn’t **** up my sleep pattern
Just so I can talk to you.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Want to know a secret?
I’ll give you a clue.

The grass is green,
My cheeks are pink,
I’ve spent weeks of my life,
Spilling this ink.

This cat is grey
And the sun is yellow,
The thirty poems I wrote about you
Are not all too mellow.

Violets are blue
And roses are red,
When you left me
I wished I was dead.

There was a girl who felt lost
And trapped at the same time.
She looked out from her tower window
At the birds moving across the skyline
And into the trees.
Is it a stereotype of a princess to
Be locked in a cage and look at the birds
And wish to fly like them?

As much as I want to feel loved,
I don’t think I am lovable.
I fall too fast and always, always end up
Laying on the concrete with
Blood in my hair.
I have flaws, everyone does, but I’m always
Afraid that you won’t love me, not the way
I need you to. I’m terrified, like a cat in a
Thunderstorm, that someone will
Put up with me for a while
Then leave.
And I’ll be left to wash the rust out of my
Hair and wipe the black and grey from under
My eyes.

You are so like her it scares me.
That’s why I’m finding this so hard.

Witch? *****, who are you?
Locked on an island, alone.
Roasting pork, witch. *****.

Come with me to a land
We’ve never been,
Of sparkling waters and golden sands
And sirens and pirates and
Adventure. Whisk me away from this
Grey place where my heart is heavy
And I cry as much as it rains.

Run away from here and start
Again. Learn the language, live in a ******
Apartment, just you and me.
Let’s go, pack a bag and let’s
Run away from Time and his harpys
Called responsibility and growing up.

Please, take my hand.
It’s time to leave all this behind.

Easy, simple, traditional.
What you always start out with
Before becoming more adventurous.
After trying other things, you may find yourself
Not wanting to go back to the
So called

‘Boring’

Flavour. But I don’t think it’s boring at all.
It’s simple, something you can find
Comfort
(and pleasure)
In.
There’s no shame in not wanting to experiment,
As some nasty people would have you believe,
Nothing to be mocked at all.
You can have whatever flavour of ice cream
You want. It’s your choice, my loves.

I hate that I shouldn’t flirt with you anymore.
I like telling you how much I want you,
I love when you flirt back and make me
Flustered and
Hot and

ugh

“Look at the state of you.”

Mum joins me in the bathroom,
Lays down next to me
And holds my hand.

I cry,
Unable to move.
My insides clenching,
churning,
cramping,
eating away at itself.
Blood dripping down my leg,
The sign of womanhood
Apparently.


Would it be too big headed
To compare my
Monthly pain with the state
Of the planet
Or the governments
Of various countries?
I could be so egotistical
That I say that we’re all
Laying next to a screaming
Figure, laying on a bathroom floor.

I won’t be a ***** about it,
So I’ll just imply it.

Found

I met you and I thought I had found it,
The thing I had been looking for since
I was a little girl.
Someone who knew me better than I knew
Myself, someone who would love me
And keep loving me
Despite all the dark and twisted corners of
My mind.


Lost

But then you left. And I lost it.
I lost the person I thought I needed
And couldn’t live without and
I cried. I wept and screamed and pleaded
With every deity and universe that
You’d come back and find me.
But it was futile, we were both
Lost.

I have pictured kissing you
In my head
So many times.
At the airport, laying in bed, tangling my fingers
In your hair.
Loving, soft, gentle,
Heated, passionate, frantic,
Kissing you like my life depends on it.

I’m trying to get over you,
I really am.
But i know that when i see you
I might not be able to control myself.

The sun streams through the patio doors and
I watch a spider building its web outside the window above the sink,
I heard birdsong, I count three different ones
(I’m no david attenborough, I don’t know what they are).

A shadow cuts across the light as a bird flies to settle on the roof and the man painting our hallway
Leaves,

“You’ll have some peace this afternoon.”
He says halfway out the door.
I smile. Yes, peace.
Thinking everything and nothing at the same time,
But not feeling the heavy weight of sadness that
Nestles in my chest more days than not.
Peace.
I guess my mum was right,
I do feel better when it’s sunny.
Must be the vitamin d.

I think about you all the time.
You’re the first thing I think of
When I wake up, and the last
Before I go to sleep.
And I’ve started dreaming of you
More and more; you’re never not
In my head
And it’s suffocating.
But in a good way.

Plato believed that we used to have four arms and four legs
But we were too powerful so the gods split us in
Half.
And we spend our lives searching for our other part.
The red string of fate leads us along the path to the one we’re meant to be with.
We focus on finding that one person we’re meant to be with,
The atoms and energy we were close to when the universe emerged.

I said I didn’t want to be completed by anyone,
That I wanted to be enough on my own,
To be my own person.

You said

“you’ll be enough once you think you’re enough”

And that hit me.

Because I don’t feel like I’m enough.

You make me think about things
In ways I never have before,
Overwhelm me with feelings about myself and
You.

Maybe I don’t feel like I am enough right now,
I know I need to find myself
As cliche as that sounds.
I hope one day I will feel like I am enough,
Not necessarily for you,
For me.

I love train stations.
Unironically, I hasten to add.
I get excited when I get to explore
A new one, even though I have a
Habit of getting lost easily and
Ending up on the wrong platform.
I’ve never missed my train though,
To everyone’s surprise.
Getting lost in the easiest of places
Is my speciality, but the usual anxiety
Doesn’t course through my body
In stations, the liminality is
Almost comforting. It’s an in between platform,
Not the start and not the end, always
Somewhere else to go afterwards.
I like that.

I know you don’t want to talk about it,
But please,

p l e a s e ,

Just let me know you’re okay. I love you too much.

This one's for the girls who are considered
Mean, who don’t smile at strange men or
Move out of their path just because it’s expected.
The girl who, after playing with the boys,
Was accused of being ‘different’ for not letting
Someone copy her maths work.
The girl who gets angry and
The girls who only know how to ugly cry
And the girls who are told they are unlovable.
You are not unlikable,
People are intimidated by you, but don’t change.
Don’t you dare change who you are for anyone,
You are worth so much more than them.

You won’t reply to any message i send
So i guess there’s nothing more to do.

Sometimes I think about what it would take for you to reply,
Whether i should do something really stupid
To see if you care.
But then i remember that
Doing that is awful and manipulative and

******* messed up.

I miss your presence in my life,
Reading posts on social media
Isn’t the same.
You do seem to be doing better,
Without me.

Maybe i am a toxic person after all.
Why else would you have cut me out of your life?

I feel like a part of me is dying.
You won’t reply to my messages.
You seem better without me.
I’m worthless and toxic and I’m sorry.

I forgive you.
I still love you.
I can’t stay mad at you.

You’re so cute in the mornings
When you’ve just woken up.
Seeing you on the screen is almost as good as
Lying next to you.

Almost.

I can’t reach out and tangle my fingers in your hair
Or stroke your cheek
From four thousand miles away,
But I want to,

God I want to.

I’m so sorry I can’t be there
To hold you until you feel okay again,
I hate being this far away and
Helpless.

I know you distance yourself,
And I guess that’s okay,
But I just want to know if you’re alright.
Maybe that’s selfish
But that’s just me.
It’s only because I love you
With all my heart.

I wish I didn’t fall in love so quickly.
It would make things so much easier
If we were just friends.

Sigh.

But here we are.
Hopelessly in love with
A girl across the world.

You’re right. This is hurting me.
But losing you would hurt more.

my heart hurts.
anxiety rushes through my veins,
hot and sharp like tiny daggers sticking
in my chest.
why does love make me like this?
unsure of everything, you and myself.
what if what if what if.
it hurts so much that you’re so far away,
that we can’t make things work,
that you can’t hold me and make everything okay.

please be okay please be okay please be okay
I couldn’t live with myself if you’re not okay and I
Wasn’t there when you needed me.
please be okay please be okay please be okay

The amount of **** you’ve put me through ******* hurts and yet I still care about you.
I wish I didn’t care about you, it would make me stop thinking you’ll actually come back. I know you won’t but there’s a part of me that hopes that I mean enough to you to make you want to ever talk to me again, but I know that’s not the case.
This is the worst I’ve ever felt and it’s worse because you meant so much to me. I told you stuff I’ve never told anyone, you made me feel safe and listened to and that things were going to be okay but it was all for nothing. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to ever think you were different and actually gave a ****.

I wouldn’t call us a party.
It was at the beginning,
But not any more.
You don’t acknowledge my
Existence any more,
But never mind.
There’s always another party,
Always an excuse to dance.

so things are unbearably awkward.
exactly like my fights with her
two years ago.

I didn’t ever want to feel like this again
and yet here I am.
two years later
I’m back in this place.
I don’t know what to do,
I don’t want to lose you
but things are hard and weird
and I hate this.

please don’t leave me.

I miss you
I hate you
I miss you
I love you
I can’t be mad at you but I am.
I want to go back to the way we were
But once you’ve lied,
I second guess everything you say.
If you’ve lied about something
I don’t believe anything you say.

Should I swallow my pride and message you?
Or is that going to backfire because you are
Exactly like her.
And she’s hurt me more times than I can count
And I still come crawling back.
I feel myself having the same feelings for you
As I did two years ago.
Despite everything,
I still want a hug.

Hold me in your arms and
Tell me it’ll be okay.
I think I’ll feel safe in your arms.

It doesn’t matter if I like you
As a friend or more than that,
I just want a hug.

It breaks my heart to be this far
away and not be able to hold you when
you’re hurting, and to not be held when i am.

It breaks my heart that i can’t reach through
My screen and squeeze your hand to reassure myself that
You’re real.

It breaks my heart to not be able to curl up with you when
I can’t sleep. It breaks my heart that we can’t spend the mornings
tangled in bed together. It breaks my heart that i don’t feel complete
And i know i won’t until i’m in your arms.

I wish I could reach through the screen and
Run my fingers through her hair.
When she tucks that side of her hair behind her ear, I swear my heart
Skips a beat.
I wonder what shampoo she uses, what her hair smells like,
God,
I want to bury my nose in that blue mess.
Let me tangle my fingers in her hair,
I can’t keep my mind off her
And her bright blue mop.

Looks like this is it then.

I still ******* care about you.
Trying to find an excuse to message you,
Even though I know you won’t reply.
My friends are getting sick of me
Crying over this,
I’m sick of it too to be honest.
I just don’t know what’s best,
Yknow?
Maybe we just can’t ever talk again,
There’s a part of me that wants to go back in time
And never message you that first time.
But I did.
And here we are.

How long ago does something have
To be, to be considered
Nostalgia worthy?

I miss friends I have lost contact with,
Relationships that fizzled out.
But if they were only weeks ago,
Do they count?

Or is nostalgia reserved for events
Of years gone by?
Being homesick for something
Long left behind.

Wistful, yearning, sentimental.
Seeing something through
Rose tinted glasses.
Only seeing the good,
And not the reason you left it behind.

/Those hardest to love need it most/

You said you were hard to love,
But i fell anyway. We started out just fine,
Becoming close
But as friends and only friends -
We gave each other *** advice for god’s sake -
But then i started to fall.
I told you what was happening
Because you were the one i told everything to,
I tried to forget about it
but

/And I've been in this place before
Fine as we are but we want more/

I remember telling you about my last relationship
That started like this,
I fell for you soon after that.
What I feel, all the time,
For you
Scares me like nothing else does.
I’ve only felt this ache for one other
Girl and that didn’t end
The way I wanted to. You’re so like her
And I can’t bear to think of us ending the way we did.
I’m scared that I going to fall for you and keep falling until I
Crumple on the pavement
Completely broken and alone.

/What if we ruin it all, and we love like fools?
And all we have we lose?/

I know that i love you too much
To live without you,
So i don’t care what happens,
I just want you in my life. As friends or more than that.

/I want you more than I've wanted anyone
Isn't that dangerous?/

It’s true that
I’ve never loved anyone like this before, but
Maybe i’m kidding myself
Thinking anything can happen.
Even though we’re just friends

/The anticipation before the kiss
Mirrored in my shaking lips
Oh God I feel so unprepared/

But I have pictured kissing you
In my head
So many times.
At the airport, laying in bed, tangling my fingers
In your hair.
Loving, soft, gentle,
Heated, passionate, frantic,
Kissing you like my life depends on it.

/Tell me what we choose/

As much as i don’t want to
Feel like this,
To love someone that i can’t be with,
I do. I am hopelessly in love with one of my closest
Friends.
What am i meant to do? Please tell me.

/Tell me what we choose/

It’s no wonder that this song reminds me of you is it?

You are made of crumbled stardust,
Modelled and reshaped over and over
Into different people until now when
That stardust is you.
Millions upon millions of people have
Looked up at the moon, the same moon
That Shakespeare and Cleopatra and
The dinosaurs all saw, even though they
Are dead and gone you are here. Maybe
Your stardust came from one of them.
The universe is expanding and yet it is still
A constant.
The night sky has baffled any and all who gaze upon it,
(we just have the means to discover and name the
things that reside there now)
And it is every bit as beautiful as when Van Gogh painted
A starry night.

Your body is a temple, a vessel to worship,
Pray and make offerings to.
But temples soon become ruins
When people neglect them
And move on.

My body isn’t a temple,
I don’t like that metaphor,
but if it was it would be a ruin
With scars and broken bones and stretch marks and blemishes.
I tend to neglect her, I don’t worship her often enough.
My body isn’t quite like a haunted house, but she does echo with
the touches of past loves and current interests.
She isn’t cursed, even though I have cursed at her for growing too much
or not enough.
She is a friend, most of the time.

I think we actually said it the way we meant it this time.

I hope you’re right, when our hands touch for the
First time we’ll be able to just be us.
Able to figure it all out,
How to make the four thousand mile distance
Not matter as much as it does now.

I’ve never loved anyone this much.

I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

We’re back to normal now,
I think we are anyway.
We should probably talk things through.
But for now,
I’m enjoying being us again.

You say you feel the same way I do,
Falling for each other in a way we haven’t before.
Hearts beating faster when the other smiles and
wishing I was there holding your hand.

Yet,
And yet,

You’re dating other people, four thousand miles
Across the world.

I know we said we were just going to be friends,
Everything platonic, cuddles included.

(we both know we don’t mean that, judging from what you send me when you’re drunk…)

But it still hurts
That I’m not the only one.

“I’ve never felt like this about anyone.”

Whatever.

You told me that
If I was dating your best friend
You’d betray them and **** me anyway.

And yet.

You don’t want to be with me?
Or do you?
I don’t ******* know.

Oh and you said my type
Is girls who are

emotionally unavailable,

Which is sort of true I suppose.

I love being played around, don’t you?

How have we ended up here again?
I wish we could make it work
But I think it’s too hard.
It’s killing me
That I’m not allowed to love you like I want to
And every time we have this conversation I swear
My heart breaks a little more.

Hearing your voice puts me at ease.
I can talk to you about anything,
Struggles dreams wants needs.
I’m quiet when I’m okay,
I like listening to you talk about anything,
Whatever’s on your mind
Or that's happened during the time
I’m asleep and you’re awake.
I like listening to you, and I like watching you
As you talk about something you’re passionate about,
gestures and everything.

My favourite time is when we’re both sleepy,
Closing our eyes and opening them to just smile at each other.
Yknow cats blink at humans to show their love?

(apparently anyway)

I’ve noticed that I do that to you.
Who knows what it means.

I wish you were here
Hold my hand and talk to me
Until I fall asleep

Who’d have thought I could go from loving
To hating you within a day.
I don’t even hate you
I’m hurt.
And you hurt me.
The person I trusted most in the world.
I thought this time it would be different but
It looks like I pick the same sort of girls
Doesn’t it?
Lies hurt, I don’t care why you lied,
To protect my feelings or whatever ******* excuse you can come up with,
It ******* hurts.