you're not your hair:
you can cut it dye it curl it straighten it shave it bend it twist it;

you're not your face:
you can hide it under layers of make-up you can put on lenses you can change your face in a matter of minutes;

you're not your skin:
you can cut it draw on it bite it tear it;

you're not your body:
you can lose weight gain weight;

you're not your clothes:
strip them off;

never reduce
yourself
to
a colour
a number
an adjective
a noun

never reduce
yourself
to a simple
word

you are
the thoughts you have at 3 a.m.
the lame jokes you tell your friends
the art you create
the books you read
the pages you have dog-eared
the quotes you have highlighted
the coffee you never finished drinking
the movie you watch after midnight, wrapped in a blanket
the chocolate cake you ate that night with that girl
the slice of pizza you could've eaten but you gave to your best friend
the kiss that still burns on your lips
the cigarettes that sting in your lungs long after you smoked them
the dreams you dream
the worlds you build in your mind
the song that's stuck in your head
the moments you're in the shower
the iloveyous
the ikindaguessilikeyous
the icareforyous
the seeyoulaters
the words you say
the smiles you smile
the laughs you laugh
the loves you love
the hates you hate

you are
an entire universe:
you're stars
and planets
and galaxies
and asteroids
and comets

you are a cosmos
trapped in
a shell.

you are
a gazillion worlds
locked in
a human cage.

never think
of yourself
as of
anything
less.

i used to cradle her bleach-cracked hands in mine
and decode the stardust resting within her fingerprints
     up until the day that i lost touch with the art of reading braille
     and she stopped slinging tall-tales for me to fetch
and rest the plot-twist at her feet

often in the post-script
i'd find my train of thought highjacked by the sunlight illuminating the rainbow of earth-tones ablaze
in her frizz-ridden curls
as if she'd been washing her hair with the damaged case of beer
she'd gotten for half-price at liqour depot
     she never did quit drinking
          but neither did i

at least we tried

though sometimes
in the middle of the night when nothing was alright
and we'd barely survived another fight
her face would catch my glance
cast aglow by a flood of lava-lamp light
    
     the sea of freckles resting at the crest of her cheeks
     rose lips perma-pursed in half tilt
     her resting heart-rate so high that i could almost see it
          pirouetting within her chest

it was then that i'd love her best
     amidst the ruins of who we were
     just moments before

I lay in bed at night and try to ignore the typewriter in my head tap tap tapping the same three letters, tapping your name, tapping that syllable that has been stuck in my head for weeks

You, gave me infinity within a numbered amount of days and taught me new tongues of love that I didn't get the chance to learn yet, you...were far too good for me

I've often asked myself how long is forever and discovered that sometimes it's just one second...and even now I find the need to walk down memory lane just because I know I'll meet you there because I don't want our forever to be over yet. I haven't learned how to look at somebody I love and tell myself it's time to walk away but forget me not; you are worth everything, you deserve everything and you meant everything to me but...I don't have a pinwheel heart, the kind that goes crazy at the lightest touch, that never fears the love it's given and deserves every bit of it.

I wish I needed you, that you weren't just a desire my heart thought it wanted. I wish you didn't already feel like a memory, that every time I said your name it didn't already sound like goodbye.

Scream - Shout - Cry - Kick
Throw your worst temper tantrum
Tell me, about every fairytale you've heard as a child, explain how the princess fell in love with prince charming and lived happily ever after. I, will tell you that maybe some day you will find a princess who will fall head over heels in love with you with that dizzy pin wheel heart, she, will have lips sewn with naivety where her only bad experience will be the monsters under her bed but, monsters aren't real to her yet, she will trust you to no end and believe every word that escapes your lips because she thinks lying does not exist, she, will be the complete opposite of me and will never realize that sometimes the one you want isn't always the one you need

I know you will remember me when I'm not there to love you, I know when you're pounding all your frustrations and insecurities into the girl underneath you you'll remember what passion felt like and how my skin isn't accessible to your fingertips anymore, I know that when you use Mary Jane as a substitute for my lips and blow out your problems and feel them start to fade away you will remember what being cared about felt like. I hope you regret it...I hope she helps you forget...I hope you fall in love with her and she makes your heart go pinwheel crazy

Run your fingers through my soul and feel exactly what I feel and just once, understand what I'm going through...understand that you're taking up too much room, not in my heart but in my brain, and that's a place that I never wanted you to end up

Sometimes I wish your
Heart stopped every time
I touched you and that
The only way for you to
Restart was to fold
Your eyelashes around mine
Like origami birds
Fluttering in the wind
And softly dig your fingernails
Into my waist like a shovel
Much overdue for the aching earth
Because then I could at least
Pretend that I am the
Only thing in this world
You need to stay unfrozen.

You,


I need you to come back and rock me to sleep so that the demons don’t show up tonight. I need you to pretend that you still love me.

With you I had endless dreams of falling through the rabbit hole, the psychedelic rays of the earth would tickle my feet and I would lean in closer to you, knowing that I was safe. Without you the red queen swallows me whole and the rabbit runs away leaving me in a darkness so cold and empty, just like the mug of coffee that still sits on your bedside table.

I need you to come back and rock me to sleep while you stargaze upon the constellation of freckles scattered across my spine. Allow my mind to connect with yours so that I can get drunk off the colours of the sky and giggle at the sound of my own breath.

I need you to come back and rock me to sleep because I cannot close my eyes without seeing flashbacks of you in my memories. It plays over and over like a record stuck on repeat. Your song feels like daggers in my ears. My stomach aches because without you the butterflies are replaced with wasps stinging me as each second passes.

I need you to come back and rock me to sleep while you whisper in my ear the excuses as to why you left me in the first place. I need you to hold me so close that I am overwhelmed with the need to question my existence. I need you to rip apart my chest and force your way back into my bleeding heart, even though we both know you never left to begin with.

I need you to come back and rock me to sleep.




Me.

He was born on Bastille day.
Very fitting, really.
The rag tag rebel with a thousand causes
worn down by hard life,
filled with an eternal fount of passion
that somehow renewed itself
after every failure and defeat
(and they were many).
Courageous heart, leathered and layered by scar tissue.
You'd storm every Bastille within your reach
If you thought there was even a sliver of injustice in it,
you'd even invent your own cause,
charge the windmills with a rusted sword,
screaming battle cries you once screamed over true battlefields.