Cold hands warm heart they say.
Always clutching cold hands on warm nights;
being together yet feeling alone;
aroused, stimulated, distracted, absent-minded,
lost, perplexed,
all at the same time as focused,
like steel blades and the precision of knives.
You know what this is.
But you can’t ever outrun its fingers.
Can’t pull your throat out from under a choking hold.

Hiding is like allowing the wolf to catch your scent;
fighting is like battling a wave;
accepting is like russian roulette.
Are you daring enough to play?

‘Why are you crying over that?’
People said to me
in scolding tones and glacier eyes.

I can’t be this vulnerable; it’s spiky
and stinging and
rolling over hurdles backward.
Condense, squeeze it down so
you don’t have to swallow too hard.

Emotional vulnerability is feeling all those
spikes of emotions, all those acute,
mount everest’s climbed without warm clothes
allowing them to hit you full in the face,
being driven under the pull of a wave.

We feel these rides of our lives,
micro moments in days of episodes.
There is nothing like intimacy to completely throw you
off everything;
the superficial cover to fill out the empty spot.

We roll onwards in our spirals;
our cycles and roundabouts of fear and self-pity;
contempt follows us whilst
dusty, aged hope drives us.
I know my triggers.
I know the cycle I feed, I bleed into,
I run chased by myself,
branching into more cycles,
looping on each other in
disgusting order;
concentric whirls,
at alarming speed,
facing walled obstacles,
tackling nightmares hands bound up
waiting to see if someone can pull you up and out
or make you draw
the ugly patterns
of your own mind games
out in circles, broken lines
and scratches.

I was emotionally abandoned.
In a realm of angry, biting storms and
numbing head spins.
Knocked around by severe internal seasons,
wearing sweaters under hot sun,
or drowning in half-shirts under icy rain,
I can keep it away.
Don’t look.
Suppress.
Bite down on something hard
before you scream.

And then they burst in bright beautiful sparks;
feeling swept in delicious tastes,
explosive episodes,
rapturous warmth and synchronised heartbeats.
Painful glows and inspiring tornadoes;
destruction and recreation,
a chaotic peace and warm sweats,
stinging burns and hot tears
mixed with not-so-equal parts
of silken nights and glorious
wakeful dreaming.

'Of course you may hurt, of course you may cry.
Of course you can sing and laugh and ache, anything
you want to try.'

And this is why we feel.
Why we need to feel.
Why we love the slow smoulder of being caught up.
Caught up in emotions and their separate rides;
shifting speeds and tracks each new time
they crawl to our surface again.
Holding back is wasting precious passions;
it’s exhaustion you crave when everything else is
flat, blank, rigorous rigid routine and ripping open
empty boxes.

So you say I always have cold hands.
Cold hands warm heart they say.
This is the reason I love you.
This is the reason I wait for you,
to realise you love me too.
This is the reason I can only
hope
you make the right choice.
Not for me, for them, for anyone.
For you.
I don’t have a say anymore.
I never did.
I can’t speak, or help, or keep you warm anymore.
I can’t be your escapism.
I can’t be crack, dope, speed or any of your illicit nonsense.
I can’t be your forbidden fruit
in your late night feast;
creeping around, undercover lover,
giving you pleasure and happiness and smiles
locked under secrets and
silent words.
I’ll seethe and brood
underneath you, caged in the dark
shadow of your body
dreaming up it’s presence before I fall to sleep.

Cold hands warm heart they say.
Fuel my fire.
Keep my hands cold.

My mind is full of tirades
A tempest fills my brain
I've lost a part of myself in love before
How gullible I've been.
Would you rather I pour my heart out?
Spill my passion let me bleed?
I apologise. **** myself in front of your eyes.
Take off my mask so you can see where my vulnerability lies.

I have these scars on my elbows
They're from a long time ago
And I never really appreciated their protrusion until now
Pretending to prefer unblemished skin
But when I was 10 and still believed in Superman
I had a tendency to ride my bike with stuntman speed
Forgetting about the frivolous concerns that consumed me
Hoping my kryptonite never crept up from underneath sidewalk bumps
Flipping my ambition over handlebars
Leaving the pieces of my reflections painted crimson along the asphalt
Scattered like hand-picked petals of an ill-advised ascetic
I am me, I am not, I am me, I am not
So I always wore my helmet as a precautionary measure
It contained my thoughts from running straight through my skull
And becoming neighbors with the pavement
But I never wore my elbow pads
They collected dust beside the waste bin
Replacing security for sincerity
I improved my flexibility while losing some skin
And that was a trade off I was willing to make at the time
I finally felt alive
I was invincible on my bicycle
The sidewalk my only bully
The summer breeze my only friend
And at the time I never realized what it meant to be vulnerable
But those bike rides were the closest I would get
I was fixated on fitting in around my classmates
Accumulating fake friends by
Ripping insincerities out of my esophagus
And stapling them to my forehead
I stole my own identity
Morphing my puzzle piece and jamming it into the jigsaw
Claiming to be the missing link everyone was searching for
But what am I searching for?

I was lost on my own yellow brick road
I had two left feet and no right way to go
I stopped dead in my tracks
Hoping the soles of my feet would soak in the golden stones while
Singing Dorothy's hymn like spoken sin
I just want to fit in
I just want to fit in
I just want to fit in
Wondering if that was loud enough for Oz to hear me
I didn't have any magic slippers
And this situation was twisting towards witchcraft
I'm not even sure Oz can help me
You see these requests were a tall order for a tiny man
Who wore masks just like me
Oz and I were anonymous
Oz and I were synonymous
Using smoke and mirror tactics to terrorize the innocent
When in reality we were only playing tricks on ourselves
Hiding behind perfectly sculpted ****** expressions
And make-believe manuscripts
Doing basic impressions of manufactured mannequins
Out in the real world
I really needed to speak with the Scarecrow
The Tinman, the Lion, and Dorothy too
And investigate their stresses with relentless pursuit

The Scarecrow would tell me
Wisdom is wasteful for those
Without a strong appetite for improvement
But sometimes common sense can lead
The most sensible person astray
The Tinman would tell me
Compassion is constructed for
Tender hands to hold
But sometimes empathy can leave
The most charitable person betrayed
The Lion would tell me
Courage can be critical in
Times of distress
But sometimes vulnerability can make
The most sensitive person brave
And Dorothy would tell me
Home is paradise
Wrapped in picket fences
But sometimes a terrifying trip can bring
The most wary person escape
And suddenly it would occur to me
That strengths are just solid scars
We have confidence to display on our sleeves
And perfection can only permeate the souls willing to recognize
That faults shine golden too
So from here on out I'm placing my masks alongside my elbow pads
Both collecting dust beside the waste bin
Replacing security for sincerity
Finally embracing the scars on my skin
Now that is a trade off I'm willing to make
Because I want to feel alive again