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.

you love her, don't you?   
because she's beautiful; 
she's exciting; 
she's empyreal.  
because she kisses like these are her final moments of life  
and she wants to spend them only with you. 
 
but be careful who you trust (the devil was once an angel, you know). 
she makes your heart flutter, but  
anyone'll tell you that really,  
arrhythmia isn't a good thing.  
 
she's a disguise, grief wrapped up like a gift. 
oh, darling, she's a pretty war. ****** in her veins.  
 
(but) 
 
let's go from the start. 
 
your bones don't fit  
you feel as though your throat is all sandpaperandnails 
you're alone. you've been ohsolonely.
 
then you meet her and she's all chocolateandcinnamon and     
    perfectly 
                aligned. 
 
you look into her eyes. you see a nebula.  
an interstellar cloud but made up of something you should know but don't.  
she's  dumbfounding; 
it's refreshing.  
you like mysteries.  
 
she’s  everything  you’ve  ever wanted (probably) and she pulls you out of that hole. 
that one with the festering thoughts  
and the dark spaces where you could go for days at a time. 
your heart was heavy, a sky full of rain.  
but she was a tempest. your saving grace. 
 
this is a story about love, but it's not a love story.  
not really. 
this is a story about the human condition, 
about how, though the heart isn’t the *****  
that makes us feel, 
it still hurts the most. 
and more importantly, this is an open letter 
to the skies, 
to whichever deity decided that you couldn’t 
be with her forever. 
 
you're a house with empty rooms and 
there's a storm teasing the windows; 
an aggressive ballet. 
looking back, 
you suppose you should have noticed the leak 
before it got the chance to flood 
 
and you remember the look in her eyes when you said  
"even though I did geography at school, it didn't teach me  
the difference between an earthquake 
and you" 
and she said she didn't understand  
and you said * that's the point, neither do I.*

for to love someone 
is to give them your heart on a platter 
and hand over the cutlery, too. 
but you remember just thinking oh,  
if she makes you giddy like this then  
what could be wrong? 
 
you know that "gravitation is not responsible 
for people falling in love" 
but the force with which you feel the desire 
to present your heart like a gift, to 
open yourself to the possibility of hurt and break 
must be greater than yourself 
 
and you never knew why they called it  
"heartbreak" until the day she left 
and you realised after, that the difference  
between you and humpty dumpty 
is that his friends thought he was worth trying to  
put back together again. 
 
the thing is that 
empty rooms echo, and now 
so do you. 
 
and after that, 
after the fallout 
and the body count of all your past selves 
they'll say to you: 
you're young 
it's not the end of the world.
but 
when someone makes flowers grow in your lungs  
and then makes you choke on them 
it feels like it is. 
 
you know what? 
you notice empty spaces more 
once your chest becomes one. 
 
a house of cards 
imagine matchsticks; 
burning love but 
singeing your fingers, 
and she never asked why you flinched 
 
her palms, eden. 
her kiss of death, 
her purgatory embrace. 
she, aokigahara, suicide forest. 
you were born to die in her arms. 
 
and if you ever wondered
why they name tornadoes after girls, 
you don't now. 
 
you, lacklustre lazarus­. 
you know you're no phoenix; 
the ashes consume. 
 
so here you are. 
and ode to you, 
because words shouldn't be like bullets, 
staccato, and 
vowels shouldn’t have sharp edges- 
but they do. 
 
you see, 
poetry is the place love goes when it dies, 
the place where heartbreak is framed with metaphors 
and mounted on the wall as art. 
a library of all the things left unsaid. 
 
the psychiatrist takes lots of notes. 
about how you thought she was your   
deus ex machina, 
about how you remembered too late that this is real life  
and really, all of this is just a periphrasis. 
 
you think 
sticks and stones, sticks and stones 
but the truth is that words 
are like bullets, 
and her tongue the gun; 
her “goodbye” ricocheting against her teeth. 
 
now, today, it’s you with the weapon;  
taking control the way god never did. 
cold metal and clammy hands. 
cleaning up the mess left behind 
by a tornado named her. 
 
b a n g.

a lifetime of gestation;
of making myself,
of bringing myself
back from you,
of trying to get over someone I was
only ever under.

bend me, shape me
whichever way you’d like me
for I could be the apple of your eye if only you’d
let me;
- kiss me to
      pulp

you turned me inside out,
naked,
viscerally
      exposed -
heart beating tenderly not upon my sleeve but
atop my inverted chest;
I asked you to cradle it,
care
      swat me like a fly;
      a throwaway affair.

saying you care about ‘this’,
but not me, I think

      lacklustre lover lacking the
      love in the
      - making

and above all, I keep thinking about how unrequited love
is the sweetest kind of self-inflicted wound.
something that never was shouldn’t be so much,
      oh but it hurts just right.

I’m forever pulling cells,
bits of myself apart to
examine, deconstruct.
cytoplasmic, holding it all together,

I'm just looking at your scars, you said.
      would you like to add another?

suture me then pick me apart
- I’d let you.
It's not your fault you didn't
know, don't
know how I feel, not really;
I don't want you to run
better to have a piece of you than
      none.

we only do this to ourselves,
I don't blame you.

this mouth tastes like an ashtray
I'm sorry,
it’s just that a lot of sweet nothings have died and
burnt away in here before they could be said.

everything changes yet it all stays the same
we know how this story goes,
so please don't tell me I'm
beautiful from all angles
because I can’t take it. I can’t.

rising for him, a flowerbed for the spring
blush as pink, which,
bleeding into the edge of the skyline at sunset,
anamorphic, consumes.

      [HE LOVES ME HE LOVES ME NOT
      HE LOVES ME HE LOVES ME NOT]

my heart is so heavy
with the ways in which I love you
quickening,
the birth of something new -
or maybe I just have a penchant for self-destruction.

and on getting out alive:
we’re all here,
doctoring our hearts,
recovering from the cataclysm of it all.

disclaimer:
I’m thinking about the hourglass in your mouth.
this is what is left behind
when the dust has settled.

please find attached:-
my heart.

my apoplexy, this, your words bleeding into me
settling, stagnant
clotting around the end of us -
salvaging the wound.

to have something, but not be able to truly hold it,
liquid, seeping through your fingers -
to see it pooled on the floor, the remnants of something you had
so transiently your fingers don’t even feel wet with it,
[not at all]
not when you’d rather be immersed.

you see, I don’t like to be in my body because it only serves to
remind me where your hands once were.
when all you want is what you had,
what is left behind in your palms?
whispers of the last time they were held,
and a kind of vacancy you don’t want to fill.

[close your eyes, breathe,
count how long it takes to fall apart]

interesting
to think of the systemic effects of heartbreak.
interesting
how you can pull one heart string and I’ll unravel.
I know I’ve been a shadow of myself lately;
it’s called “going through the motions”,
apologies.

safe as in a place,
safe as in your arms,
safe as in has-been once-was
and never again.
what happens when the goods commodify themselves?

I have never missed someone like I miss you,
have missed you since the day of my exile from your heart
a concept: existence as a kind of festering,
as though I’m in the last place I saw you like a finger probing the wound,
septic and exactly the wrong kind of comfort:
there is no unloving.

it comes in waves - the weight and salt of it
makes my back ache and my eyes sting.
you see, I’ve never been vulnerable like this before, and I’m wondering if
there’s a limit as to how broken a person can be,
the same way you can only fold a piece of A4 paper in half seven times?

I wanted to be unforgettable
and now I’m just trying to Be,
hoping that somewhere I linger

eat my feelings,
stick pencils down my throat
  ***** poetry.

if my heart is on my sleeve and my sadness upon my eyelids;
then my belly is a processor,
and all it spits out is simply
a checklist
of all the things we could have been
- our morphogenesis, our eulogy.

please. thank you.

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.

it's easy.

1. let him enchant you

you’ll think you’re above this, you’ll think you’re the one with him wrapped around your finger; meanwhile, you don’t notice your own body knotting -

2. let him in

let him know you. let him know your day, your thoughts, bits of your heart. share music, share opinions, laughter. let him find you interesting, funny, witty, whatever else. let him find you something that matters.

3. be vulnerable

this part is hard for you. you’re normally so grounded. but tell yourself it’s okay; he’s the smart, beautiful boy with the kind eyes and he’d never hurt you. you know this latter part to be absolutely true. tell yourself that, even you, the eternal pessimist, deserves to be optimistic about perhaps just this one thing. for once be tender to yourself. trust the sky won’t fall.

4. get comfortable.

this step is absolutely essential in the process. crave his touch, smile into his kisses because you’re just so **** happy, wow!, sleep sound beside him and know you can tell him anything; your thoughts are never unacceptable. plan ahead because there's no reason not to. don’t realise that gut feelings of longevity don’t necessarily go both ways.

5. be blindsided

the day comes when he decides to break your heart, and you’re busy planning what to make him for breakfast. have the wind knocked out of you, and the tears, too. he’s crying as well, and he knows you didn’t see this coming, didn’t think he’d be the one having to do this. he says all of the nice things about you, tries to be chivalrous; says he’ll miss you. it’s strange that as the two of you fall apart, you’re thinking about how well you fit together. it feels like a waste to throw away something that’s barely begun, but if he says it’s not right you can’t argue. maybe it is just the distance, maybe it would have worked out otherwise, or maybe not. regardless, you’re left with the feeling of something gorgeous - some piece of art - left unfinished. you can’t even get angry because you know he didn’t want to hurt you. you’re soft for him, and now you’re pulp, floored and wondering why you can’t stop forgiving the boy who put you there.

nice boys break hearts the worst because they do it with kindness, with good intentions peppered with apologies and well-meaning and ‘I wish it could have worked out, you know’, ‘it’s not that I don’t care’. they always think you deserve better, but don’t realise they’re it. now you have to navigate a world in which the confluence of your bodies doesn’t exist anymore, in which the poetry of romantics isn’t for you any longer.

breathe. countdown.

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

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.

My perfect date would probably go something like this:

Night time adventures and park benches,
staring up at the stars because the sky is so clear we could probably see
Venus if we squinted, looked hard enough;
dark canvas the pupil of God's eye, Him, smiling
upon us as we blossom, knowing what we will be
though we don't - not yet - tentative fingers and flitting touches;
a gasp of a moment as lips brush against one another fitting so
sweetly oh how can this be the first time
how can we not have been made to be like this for all eternity
how can you know my crevices so soon
how can this moment be so beautiful, witnessed only by the whisper of the air?

And
gorgeous idiosyncrasies,
philosophising together talking about the world because
small talk is for small minds and together we're the universal expansion, we're infinite -
oh my God the things we could be.

Maybe we're not looking for anything except ourselves but
I think I found pieces of myself in the curve
of your neck and upon your eyelids so why not
reconsider;
The best things happen when we're not
looking out for them.

Have me as I am or not at all.
All I ask is you keep me in mind,
I'm worth waiting for.
You know this is for you
don't be shy.

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.