lately, everything's been about you.
i'd see "closed" signs on antique shop windows
and eviction notices on apartment doors
and remember how it felt when you slammed the door on every possibility of us.
i'd see pens and papers and stop myself in the bookstore from throwing them on the ground and screaming "i used to be the one you write about". now i just find spare ones in my room that i can cry onto when no one's around. the ink seeps through my fingertips as i break the plastic case of every pen i lay my hands on and it's supposed to make me feel better but it doesn't. it just reminds me of the ink you injected in my veins and no matter how deep i cut i can't get it the **** out.

you grew something inside of me and i swear they're not flowers because they've been flourishing when i water them with *****.

i'd stare at streetlights and remember that one time you told me you'd  kiss me under every single one of them but here i am brushing my teeth so hard it bleeds every night because the only time i taste your lips now is when i'm dreaming.

and now here i am trying in vain to paint the sunset with the color of your eyes. i didn't want to forget how they lit up when you said "i love you" but maybe it was just a reflection of how bright mine were when you finally said those three words.

well, to be fair, you only told me you loved me. i guess it's my fault i assumed it meant you'd never leave.

This house, it does not speak of me
I am unknown to these adobe walls
these cool clay floors
I press my feet against
wanderlust, I dance
desert nights alone, roam
these sands to drink
and drink of moon
thirst for stars
to call me home

I travel endless nights
painted blue with black
wait until sunlight
warms my room
once more to bloom
in wild fields
with you

Its like your sitting at a table
Then a handsome man walks up and sits down
You have a few drinks
And share a couple laughs
You get to know eachother,
You share old memories
And untold secrets,
Then a bell rings
And hes gone in a blink of an eye
Winking at the next girl
At the very next table.
You'll share a glance or two,
But after a couple minutes hes a little further down the line.

In a forest,
A lonely fawn
Said to the moon,
"what is mother?"
The moon replied,
"mother is blue sky,
Mother is my light."
He went to the sea
And said to it,
"what is mother?"
The sea replied,
"mother is my depth,
Mother is my water."
He turned to a flower
And said to it,
"what is mother?"
The flower replied,
"mother is clouds,
Mother is rain."
Then he moved to the tree
And said to it,
"what is mother?"
The tree replied,
"mother is the song of a nightingale,
Mother is my branches."
The fawn burst into weeping
And sat under the tree.
There was a small bird
Perched on its one twig.
She spoke,
"My dear!
Mother is that precious diamond
That cant be found anywhere if you lost it!"

You said I need to stop pretending like nothing hurts me
To which I replied, I was never an actor and I never pretend.
You sighed with that extra exhausted breath
And it sounded like you're giving up on me
Then I realized you’re about to  

You said I need to stop wearing my anger like an armor of steel ,
And my love like a wall of bricks
because the stronger the steel and the taller the walls,
the more people get hurt

I put fences and traps around my heart
so no one will ever touch it
Then I saw you desperately hide your bruises,
your raw scars and the evidence that you tried

The spaces between your fingers I cannot fill anymore
because my hands are nothing but angry fists I can’t unfurl
The story of us is nothing but an urban legend that refuses to die
Instead of the fairy tale with a happy ending that you wanted

I let myself become the villain for too long, I forgot to be your hero

I wanted you because I desperately needed to have fun and it felt like you'd give me a good time.
It was an accident, actually falling in love with you
but I knew I would.
I made eye contact before I got in the backseat of my car to skip lunch,
and that's when I ******* knew I wanted to fall in love with you,
and I panicked of course because I wasn't supposed to
and this is a story about over-thinking
and this is how I will remember making eye contact
and the way the sun was on your face and the lighting of the sky-
even when it becomes insignificant,
I will think about it when I no longer want to,
I will think about it even though you never knew me then,
and I was just a girl
with eyes
who happened to look.

This sounds creepy, but it wasn't. It wasn't me already knowing I wanted you..it was me thinking it'd be nice to want you. That you looked like someone I wouldn't mind holding hands with, it was '****, that boys lips could do a number of things to my body', it was a 'maybe one day I'll like him a lot, and that might be a cool thing.'

At seventeen I stepped out of the cloud
and into a clearer knowledge; an atypical
viewpoint skewed by my heritage and
stubborn willingness to always be right.

Some kind of British tolerance has kept me
from howling 'injustice!' in the streets,
whilst some idiotic notion of love or truth
presides, to keep me invested in this life.

With knowledge comes the weight of knowing
and it wore my shoulder down to a chip,
causing me to walk in hurried strides
in order to keep balance, to make my way.

With clarity comes a more potent love;
all features and laughter amplified
to make you forget the sound of silence,
until you cannot deal with its return.

Some kind of solace has been found
in reducing life's events to a plot device,
whilst some irreducible desire causes me
to wake, to persist with a purpose.

At twenty-three I found that better sight
only illuminates the complexity of existence,
the fractal nature of the developing foetus;
echoes of evolution: a better self each day.

You and I
Are water and salt:
Needing one another
Separately,
To live,
But dying of thirst
If taken together.