For the first time since I can remember I felt like I was graced with the same regality as those who sit on thrones built from bricks of solid self-esteem, sealed with the plaster of confidence.

Every sweet silver tongued sentence that dripped from their mouths like honey helped to sow the seeds of yet another flower on my crown, blooming with the promise of an ever elusive beauty I have never had the honour of meeting before, until my crown blossomed with the sweetest scent and the prettiest petals you had ever seen.

These buds would encourage this forbidden nectar to fill in the gaps, to flow around and in between every crack and crevice in my self-polluted soul, mending, often overflowing leaving distinct pale pink kisses on the apples of my cheeks, and the dreaded dimple that is so often hidden would emerge from the shadows the moment that sweet nectar touched it and it was no longer afraid of showing.

Then you, sir, with your eyes shying from stardust could only speed the process, equipped with nothing but a rusty toolbox consisting of rosebud lips and blistered hands I know would never dare break my fragile stem, but be the foundations for my desperate, clinging vines to grasp so maybe someday I could taste the sunlight coating my lips, and veiling my skin the same way it did that one time I actually felt beautiful.

My legs were solid and strong, making just the right contact with the earth for me to keep my balance, my stomach a valley with just the right kind of hills and dips for my weary eyes to travel on, and I was blessed with a head held high paired with piercing eyes that only said that I wore all my flowers proud upon my crown.

Even if seeds of doubt still plant themselves in the caverns of your mind telling you that they will probably wilt the next day, you still water them with the tears you have left because ******* they are prettier alive.

Suddenly the sweet sound of ‘thank you’s echoed from my mouth to replace the bitter, constant taste of denial, and loathing took the form of loving and I embraced every second of it.

When someone at long last sees the galaxies in their own eyes and the pure luminescence of their soul, why must it be cruelly crushed by comments determined to blow them off course when they finally know exactly where they want to drop anchor, what is wrong if I decide to start with myself because I am living with me for the rest of my life and I realised I had better get comfortable. Self-respect, self-esteem, self-confidence, it all begins and ends with you, you are not just a chapter, you are the whole freaking book, so allow kind words to embed themselves in your skin and etch their outlines on your bones and it’s a pretty good way to start the first paragraph.

So let me be an empress, let me be a queen, no longer the princess of low self-esteem, rip off the nametag that reads ‘handle with care’ because you’re not breathing right you are not even aware of how much you are worth, step into your skin, accept every beautiful inch of you because you’re not going to win a battle where you fight by beating yourself, your body is not a warzone, but darling if you breathe in all the dirt you can take you’ll be exhaling the prettiest of flowers.

I know that it’s hard, but trust me, honey, you will grow so tall, you will blossom my friend, even though you may fall once, or twice while you climb.. keep your eyes fixed on that sun, and you’ll be just fine.

i keep thinking about this poem in my head
i cannot remember a thing
even though i live in my head

bloodshot eyes are all i see
looking straight in the mirror, lost at sea
keep thinking i will see you again
knowing the answer is "never again"

i still don't know a thing
about this world
keep thinking everything i hear
are lies that are told,
that everyone is out to get me, like a tower of cards
left to stumble and fold.
that people only care for them selves, even though
they always told me
two people can make one's self.

if life is truly survival of the fittest
then my life is a jacket that could never really fit
i outgrew it before i was born
a shame, a shame
i am a shell of who i used to be, i am a lame on the street.
after you died, nothing can ever be the same.

the love we cherished
at fifteen, will stay with me till fifty.
god forbid, it is 2016, here i am thinking
i would never live past 2015.

i am gone, i am dead
whatever you hear from me is posthumous
being written from the troughs in Heaven's den
lost and forgotten, look around, see.
the rock of Sisyphus
weighs heavy on the walking posthumous
they are gone, they are dead, they push on.

i hear them say, rest in peace.
hope they will say the same,
when i find reprieve
at the bottom of the sea.

(I) seaweed skin
today there is a
crevice where my
lungs used to be

(II) brass arteries
i took the long
way to work this
morning trying
to sidetrack my
mind with new
roads but there
are some bits of
you creeping up
my spine and
burrowing into
my hair and
nuzzling my ear
i had thought that
by now i would be
able to take breaths
without chunks of
sentences meant for
you breaking off
from my bronchial
tubes but they are
somehow still lodged
in there like they
have been called home

(III) umbrella heart
i used to wish no one
would ever touch me
ever touch me ever
touch me because their
fingerprints would last
too long and i can't scrub
them off like i want to
please let this be different
please let this be the end
of you aching at the base
of my skull and robbing
me of my purple dreams
and green hopes i want
to feel myself in my arms
instead of you

you still exist
in the crinkled pages of my notebook.
last autumn i dog-eared the top corners so i would find my way back.
your veins dance with the curves and loops of my
frail
frail
words.
the contours of your dreams lay in the indents of my ballpoint pens.
your fears bleed black and blue.
your voice--the raspy scratching of graphite before bed.
my sentences often sit incomplete because that's how you left--
in the middle
without warning
because you lacked a single transition.
your breath echos at the turn of every page
inhale--look back
exhale--look forward
(i can almost feel your lungs working alongside my own).
your blood runs red as i scribble across the pages--
at times i am in a frenzy, lacking control as my hands skirt along the paper.
other days, i am silent, waiting for my hand to pick up the pen
and bring you to life.

i keep telling myself that
you still exist
in the crinkled pages of my notebook
but
every time i close its covers shut,
i can't seem to find you.

Winter is coming but I fear I am not ready.
I may have spent too much time chasing sunsets that I've failed to notice the leaves changing.
Reds, oranges, yellows, and browns--
They came upon me before I had a chance to grab a jacket.
Now I'm left outside shivering.
Waiting.

Longing for a warmer day.
But the only day is today,
And I am at a loss.

The leaves are finishing their descent, eagerly awaiting to see their friends once more.
And as I watch, I am envious, so envious.
These leaves-- they are quick to change.
Quick to adapt without a single worry of what's next.
They know that reunion is coming soon.
Soon they will feel the rough edges of those they grew up with.
Soon they will echo together.

Winter is coming.
Winter is coming.

They whisper quietly as they crunch underneath my boot.

*Winter is coming.
Come quickly, dear friend,
For winter is coming.

I looked inside myself hoping to find in blood what liquid desires ran and created me, and found the tributaries of myself hollow and shrivelled and smelling like rust and iron. The arteries and capillaries which once carried sunlight now only hold the memories of who I used to be before the dark settled in, stank and putrid and petrifying my once course, swift bloostream. My inner rivers used to sing and now I lie halted and lame and the ocean is inside me but the riptides have died and the currents are stone. I am empty I am empty and the sun is eclipsed by my brokeness.