it’s hard to love
love
it’s hard to deconstruct the
nihilism and the
consumerism of it all -
so this is for you
the eternal believer with the kind soul

never supine in the face of
failure
diving head first into
calamity by the name of
She

and maybe you’re right;
we’re built for it
machines oiled by romance and
adoration.
perhaps there is only
one true meaning.

how many hands do I have to touch
to connect to the world?
how long till my heart
bursts?

because, it’s the small things
and so:

love is the blanket
love is the month old birthday balloon still valiantly afloat
love is the dog greeting you at the door
love is his first breath, the gasp of new lungs,
is the grasp reflex of a tiny hand around your calloused finger.

and would you believe?
love is waking up thinking it’s dawn when it’s
2am and you can fall back asleep
love is a meal when you’re starving and
water when you’re parched
love is watching your friend do well because
they deserve it.

and love is lust realised
love is her perfume
love is the kingdom of infinite wonder and
love is like coming home.

love is love is love;
find your corner of the sky and
fill it with precious things.
rest easy.

oh
good intentions,
good intentions

on being too much and not enough:
love me like you need me;
like my arms are home
not embers

for I’ve
growing pains, but in my
chest
and a map of you on the back of my knees.

the danger of vulnerability
my love, our love,
a parody of true love,
a marionette propped up by pleasantries and
obscura.

the tender fingers of moonlight caressing the hills, the skyline
in the nighttime as we traverse;
silky tendrils of hope and the mysterious promise of midnight,
stars blooming across space -
this is
our anhedonia

and with you I taste god;
impossible to get to know the
crevices of you and not
pour myself into them,
consume them.

play my heart strings like an
instrument,
guttural.
make me scream.

I was a wonder girl but not a
forever girl
much too much to
press under your thumb.

find someone more wholesome and
crackle-of-our-fireplace.
oh good intentions
good intentions
say goodbye.

seven wonders: the phenomena of the human condition in seven parts

1. the broken heart
the “humpty dumpty” syndrome, where you couldn’t be put back together again
the replaying your last words until I *****;
the part where I was drunk on your lips
and now I’m just drunk.
the part where you pretend this pain isn’t tangible,
that you can’t die from the break; from the flowers growing in your lungs
2. lost
a child, wayward
a blank space and the search for gravity, stability-
it’s the theme of your nightmares,
the thud thud of a tiny, panicked heart.
but, you don’t know the real definition of lost
until you’re a nomad in your own cranium
3. loss



4. disaster
nature obscura;
picasso reimagined.
the breeze pushes the seat of a swing set,
and in that moment nothing aches more than the way that swing misses children,
or how the ground yearns for feet.
chernobyl: a mass eviction
5. war
desolation; annihilation. this is what we’ve become.
I don’t believe in god (maybe nobody does), and
in this game of chance, a tango on a tripwire
there is no space for a deity;
telling ourselves that fighting for your country is a salvation
as we try to justify holocaust
6. ignorance
as the sunrise sets the clouds on fire
you try to reject the possibility that not all is good
it’s a comfort;
it’s bliss;
it’s your coffin and your funeral
7. death
better to burn out than fade away
a spray of stars, smouldering ash
we all have to go one day.

So let me captivate you with my tenacity
(My fervour)

The perilous fabric of you and I
Drowning in the palm of your hand
Undulating under your touch

I am the seabed and lay upon me yes
Let the waves crash
I am new and shiny from the abrasions of the sand.

There are plenty more fish in the sea but are any of them pernicious like me can
Any of them blow bubbles into your bloodstream can
Any of them out-swim the past?

Pick me up and skim me across the water
I swear I’ll go as long as I can
I swear I’ll try not to sink

I’ll try not to sink.

the pathophysiology of
you and i

something between
love me so ******* hard i
combust and
caress the sharpest edges of me
gently, softly

sometimes it’s only in the aftermath of lust
that we begin to dismantle people

now we’re in the graveyard of
all things good.

i am like a child
innocent in my adoration and
my cells respire for you
skin yearns
because i am foolish

you were a paroxysm
of breathing in light
fast

i found the atlantis
in your eyes
and then drowned in the
distillation of colour

your lungs were
coated in lies
that i breathed in
like air to survive

so dismantle the self
deconstruct the heart
find the morphology of love
for it was not shaped like
us

this is an open letter to anyone who has the audacity to try and love you like i did.

dear whateverthefuckyournameis,

i apologize in advance for spilling my boiled blood on the hem of your skirt. what you need to understand, is that you are standing on ground previously reserved for my feet, so forgive me for any bitterness that seeps through the cracks in my clenched fists. i don't hate you, but i can't be your friend. you probably don't know about me, and if you do, let me commend your bravery. i have a tendency to set my problems on fire, and in my bouts of anger everything looks flammable, especially girls with paper complexions. i'm sorry. i have never been one to walk away, so i don't know how to explain to you the holes in the bottoms of my shoes. but i have been further than you will ever go. this is not supposed to be an angry letter, but lately that's the only thing coming out of me. i don't even know your name but the thought of your hands reaching for him makes we want to break them. i will douse your dreams in gasoline and strike the match against your cheek. but i know that's not right, see, the poison crawling out from the end of my pen belongs to a scarier version of myself i try not to know. my heartache is an insatiable war cry in the dead of night, that will stop at nothing to shatter all your windows. it shames me to admit that i've found a sort of twisted satisfaction in using passive aggression to breach your armor. i am sick with missing a set of arms i was not privileged enough to know. i speak with all the grace of an atom bomb and wonder about the rubble at my feet. you are white picket fence and i am barbed wire. some girls are lions, some are lambs, and i learned to love, teeth bared and snarling. one of the only things that keeps me going is the hope that one day i'll learn how to love something without making it bleed. i may have never been his, but for a time he was mine, so please understand why i taste acid when i think about your mouth on his. again, i am sorry. i know it is not my place to be so full of resentment, but there is a part of me that sincerely hopes it bothers you to know he dreamt of me before you were even a thought. there is a side of me that thrives on the image of the color being drained from your face when you read this. but i am trying to learn how to be softer. this letter is the manifestation of a self-inflicted war that has been raging in my chest since he first told me about you. you will try to be good to him, and you might even succeed. if you ever find yourself singing him to sleep, like i did, don't ask if he wants to hear another song, just keep going until his breathing slows.

- m.f.