This.

This is decorating my living room, and only my living room,
With every available piece of holiday cheer.
This is sitting by the fireside, drinking apple cider and listening to the woman who can recite Twas the Night Before Christmas by heart.
This is shortbread cookies.
You may ask if you can have one.
You may, but not the one who looks like a man.
His legs have been broken and icinged back on. He is special. .
This is not enough wrapping paper.
Too much wrapping paper.
My dad will never learn how to use wrapping paper.
This is managing not to fight with my sisters on the darkest days in winter.
This.
This is skating on black ice in winter boots,
Using icicles as lollipops,
This is mittens, hat, scarf, forgotten on the snow man.
This is the fort you couldn't knock over,
This is making lists.
Breaking lists.
Writing and rewriting.
This is advent calenders.
This is candycane addictions.
This is pleasant smiles from the grumpiest holiday shoppers.
This is the  reason I love Christmas time more than Christmas day.
And this,
This is not a miracle.
This is a tradition that is older than I am.
This is the family I can always count on.
This, is home.

Some nights, I dream about our perfect day.
Painting our fingernails, the sky our most cherished shade of grey, the change of seasons in the air,
And the closest thing to a bad omen anywhere near enough to reach us,
is you reading me your favorite poem.
I should have known then; angels don't paint their wings black for fun.

Despite it, I clung to you every day. Every hour. For every second,
you were my everything, and I was your something.
The reason I wrote and your desire to listen.
More than that, you were the cheerful post-it note I'd find in my locker, and I was the
healer who could spin stories of ugly ducklings into beautiful swans.
We needed no one but each other to lean on.

And every time your feathers fell I'd braid them back into your bones, I told you that your past made you strong enough to face these things on your own.
I didn't mean without me.
You never told me you could fly.
I don't know how I missed that,
But the second I realized, I wanted to teach you how to land.
Said, "Everyone has to come home again sometimes.
He will. I'm not ready for him to go."

But you were. While I was off fighting battles, you were writing Dear John letters on those post-it notes.
I've never been one to hate the change of seasons until now that I realised
migration is just something you can't avoid.
'I get that you have mistakes to make and risks to take.
But I'll bet those promises you broke still cross your mind.

I mean, hopefully. Maybe you think this is something I should just be over by now.
That I shouldn't want.
But, I want you to tell me you miss me. I want to say it back.
Hissing "I hate you" feels like they must be someone else's words in my mouth so I spit them at you.
I love you claws at the back of my throat, caged by clenched jaws when I see you.
And for every useless metaphor, a poet could think of,
I still can't find the right words to tell you I'm sorry,
"I'm sorry."
I still need to hear it from you.
"I'm sorry"
A cover up for our communication issues.
I'm sorry they chipped away at our friendship. But like the nail polish on your fingers,
I thought we could just paint over the problem.
But our hands were never steady enough for that.

I watch you wash it off. Pick a new colour. Maybe something that doesn't remind you of the fall.
You still want to be the simple boy with no problems, a bright smile, skirts and short hair.
But I know you better than that. No matter what you think, I still know you better than that.
You haven't changed.
You're just, gone.

So,
"Leave no black plume as a token of that lie they soul hath spoken. Leave my loneliness unbroken.
Quit the bust above my door. Take thy beak from out my heart."

Please, try to understand.
I can't speak to ravens anymore.

Someday.
Somewhere.
Somebody
will write my biography.
I will never read it.
It won’t be about me.
It’ll be called, '1001 Days That Shaped the World'.
(Volume II)
There will be a bright eyed,
bushy tailed girl
mentioned on every page,

Because they told me I could do anything,
Someday.

But back then,
My hands were too small.
My plans were too big.
My climbing trees were too tall.

Anything, seemed so unlikely.
So overwhelming.
Sobriety told me to hide under my covers.
To stargaze at the impossible but only from the safest places,

Last night I discovered that if you keep your eyes open through the dark,
you could watch your dreams come alive while the sun rises.
You can leave your mark in history when they least expect it.
You can protect your memory long after the last person you knew is gone.

And today,
For the first time in too long,
anything finally feels
Real.
And present.
And possible.

Hello there,
Let me introduce myself.
My name is Punching Bag.

It doesn't matter how long you neglect me,
Because, when you need a scape goat,
I'm just as tough as the day you first met me.

Hit me all you like, I'll barely budge.
And no matter how hard you throw that punch,
I'll only move closer to you.

Not once will I ever swing back.

You'll find those more well-aquainted with me sometimes call me,
Used Tissue.

When things get a little too messy, I'm the reliable one who cleans you up.
Get sick, I'll take care of you.
A broken heart? I'll dry your tears.
I'll fix your make-up.

Then, when the exitement is over,
Just toss me out.
I won't mind.

As you spend more time with me, I'm sure you'll learn to refer to me as:
Closet, or even Mirror.

A part of the furniture you're used to having around
But even whenyou get bored with the look,
You don't throw me out.

I'm a place to point ot your insecurities,
Then hang them up along side your skeletons, locked inside me.

Then, seeing yourself as better than you are,
Go on with your day.

Go ahead and stick a lable on me reading Story Book,
Even though I'm still fairly empty of fairytales inside.

I won't even read into your faibles;
There's nothing more exciting than a history that never really happened, right?

Make up what you think might be fun to tell before passing me to someone else,
To read and add on more.

But, now that you've gotten to know me better, why don't you call me Staircase?

I let people walk on me, walk all over me 'til they reach the top.

I'll have to warn you about this though.
I'm not made of marble, stone or brick.
I'm made of wood that's been warn away by heavy boots
So, each step is a little less thick.
One of my dusty, rotten boards might give way and you might fall.

Please, don't blame me.
Even with all my identities, I can't change what I am.
As har as I try, I'm still only human.

Brown eyes scan the crowd.
Wild with fury.
Frantically hopping from face to face.

She is hunting, with an intention to ****.
Your heartbeat spills over her eardrums.
She knows her prey is nearby.

She focusses on you,
And you finally see her, too late.
She is only meters away.

No escaping this time.

People slide past like ghosts.
Not one of them notices you, frozen in fear.

Her hate cannot mask her hurt.

She is an injured creature,
Out for vengence.

Her mouth curves back into a snarl
To reveal the sharpest teeth you've ever seen.

You search desperately,
For a man with an axe,
For someone to protect the castle.

But an imposter's lips can only call for help
Is so many instances

You are caught.
No escaping this time.

She circles, preparing to strike.

Her lips shape one word:
Liar

It's soundwaves wash over you,
Truth knocks you to the ground.
You were only ever house of straw.

Retracting her claws,
She retreats into the sea of oblivous faces.

You're humilty served.

You are left in shreds.

Nobody notices.
Nobody cares.

Once upon a time,
I was your hero.
I would come to your side,
Sword in hand and defend until I could no longer breath or stand and even then
I’d fight.
I’d wipe your eyes dry and tell you everything was alright.
Once upon a time,
I did my job too well.
I guess I built you up so high, you can see that I’m not so strong, that I can be wrong and so you take me and break me down.
I try to get through to you one day. I ask for you to come and play and remember the days we’d spend together.
But you don’t want to.
You don’t need me anymore.
You have better thoughts to think about and better friends to think thoughts to.
And I’ve become nothing in the eyes of you.
So, I want to climb up to where you think you stand and look you in the eye but you look down at your hands.
So, I keep climbing, higher and higher until I can look down on you. But that’s not fair.
So, instead, I tilt my head back to the sky and shout:
Who are you?!
And start to cry.
But you don’t hear me.
No, you have headphones in your ears, thoughts in the clouds, feet off the ground and a keyboard at your fingertips.
To you, everything’s fine. To you.
To me, I see us falling apart. I see ice slowly encaging your heart. And it hurts me.
But why? Isn’t this what I wanted you to be?
That’s not why I cry. You don’t need me and that’s just fine, but still, I hurt...
Because, once upon a time,
You were my hero.
My rock, my crutches, my voice of reason.
Now your voice just dissolves into noise and I see you as a stranger on the street. One who won’t help me on my feet but knock me down.
I watch you walk away. I sit on the ground, thinking “There’ goes my happy ending”.

She tells me her problems,
Where she's been
the troubles she's gone through....
And she's putting everything in perspective
Not that one or two point ****
it's more like the thousand plus one kind.
First she starts off simple,
common wear and tears
and it's not so hard to handle.
But then she moves on.
I'm talking that rocket ship type of moving on
The kind of moving on
that can just blow you out of the water
and she holds her head high,
She's strong.
A Warrior.
Maybe not the Roman Coliseum type of warrior,
but if I close my eyes
turn my head to the side
and spin in a circle
I can imagine.
I can imagine my lady Hercules
winning it all
and nothing challenges her.
Because she's strong
A warrior.
And because of that
she learns to fight.
Battling the three headed dogs
the pig headed serpent goats
just to sleep at night.
So when she dreams,
someone else takes her role
as the fighter,
and she's more than glad for that...
to be somewhere she can rest,
Just to wake up and start again.
But she doesn't complain,
because she's strong,
A Warrior
and she puts it all in perspective.

I am what I am, to me
But to you, I am what you want me to be;
Everything you wanted to see.
I never lied, tried to hide a secret side, or deceive
And yet somehow the distance is widening
And this darkness is blinding
And somewhere along this long road we’re unwinding
Side by side we have traced only each grey cloud’s silver lining
And just now we are finding
The path before us is long and the future is frightening.

The mask I've been wearing was temporary
And now it fades and is tearing.
You’re staring… you turn away,
I'm not, to you, who I was but yesterday.
And I guess you were wearing one too.
How foolish I was to think I could see through.
There is nothing I can do to make things right
And no closer would we be by ending it tonight.
It always happens this way, it’s never-changing
And now I've found the cause - my head is aching.
The problem is clear to see – so do you still love me
Or are you clinging to the memory of what you want me to be.