It started with a goodbye.
It started with me wrapping up my past
in bubblewrap, as if it was fragile.
It was really so that its sharp edges would be
unable to hurt me anymore.
I decided it was better to leave it inside
my bedside table, next to the pictures and the letters.
Not to pack it in a suitcase
and bring it with me on my many travels.
But it refused to leave my side,
it followed me, like a paper plane
guided by my insecurities.
Like I was a holding up a neon sign that read
STILL HOLDING ON.
Perhaps it was a sign that I was to carry it with me
to all the places I hadn't been but longed to see.
People asked me about the big monster
that hunkered down beside me.
But how could I tell them that
I was caught up in something
I'd promised to leave behind?
How it has consumed my mind
my body, my very soul.
How it threatened to rip a hole
in the very future I was trying to protect.
Maybe I'm exaggerating
Maybe the time I spent hating every part of me
wasn't very long at all.
But it felt like an eternity
the summer, winter and fall.
Finally, spring arrived
With hopeful eyes and a big bright smile.
I shook myself awake from what was
starting to feel like a neverending nightmare,
A rabbit hole that wasn't taking me to Wonderland
I started to understand that I couldn't go on like this.
I took a hit or miss dive into the future,
And like a magician, unlocked the weights at my ankles.
Once at the shore, I looked at my past as it drowned
unwanted and forgotten,
And I realised I was no more a crinkled mess.
With wrinkled fingertips at the end of my hand,
I held up a mirror to my freshly washed face.
I smiled, digging my toes into the sand.
It ended with a hello.

When you ask people

about their biggest fears

they’ll say things like

the darkness, failure, loneliness
but a lot of them will say change.
The idea that change is something

to be feared has always bewildered me.

Perhaps because I’m one of the few ones
who isn’t really scared of it.
I accept change with open arms,

even if it’s something that I know is going to hurt.
I think this is why when I went back 
to the place
where I lived for most of my life,
the fact that everything was still the same
scared me far more than leaving everything
I’d never known in favour of a new city.

Static. Same. Never changing.
Seeing the same buildings,
same people, with the same expressions
made me uncomfortable.
We run away from change because we’re afraid

it might destroy what we have.
But from the deepest of pain

comes the purest of joys.
This is about more than just me and you.

Change is universal. Change is the only constant.
Without change, there wouldn’t be caterpillars
turning into magnificent butterflies.
Without change, there wouldn’t be summer
turning into autumn giving out to winter.
Without change, there wouldn’t be the constant circle

of endings turning into beginnings.

No destruction and creation.
Shiva and Kali would weep in the heavens.
Without change, there would be no beauty.

There would be no life.
Change IS good.
It is the background noise of the universe.
We can’t ignore it.
One day, a hundred million, billion, trillion years from now;

when the earth is long gone and the last of the stars burn out.

Long after the the black holes turn to dust

and the dust turns to atoms
and the atoms turn to… nothing.

When the universe is just a sea of photons,
witnessed by nothing and no one.

When there will be no way 
to set apart the past from the future
We will listen in from the other side.

Listen. *Silence.
*
Maybe that is when will miss change the most.

You there, I see you with your sullen eyes
looking down at your feet, your back hunched forward,
turning away from the cacophony, the loud words they throw at you.
The arrows they fire dig into your back, and you let it bleed.
Your body a constellation of bruises.
You laugh, a glass of wine in your hand.
You call them beautiful, a beautiful mess.
But, my dear, I see them every time you turn around.
Trust me, your pain isn’t beautiful. It’s not meant to be.

You’re good at hiding your hurt:
you put it underneath patchwork blankets
you wrap it like christmas presents
and stack them on your bookshelf.
You collect it. You save it old green bottles.
You cut your pain into pieces
and hang it up like art.

Sometimes, however, you aren’t so subtle.
I can hear the anger behind your singing,
see how your fingers shake every time
your cigarette touches your lips.
I can feel your heartbeat rippling through you,
as I’m sure you do,
when I hold your hand, trying to steady it.
And I wish, more than ever
that I could make it better.

Perhaps I can’t change things.
I can’t change what has happened
or what will.
But don’t you dare think
I’m going to let you rust away.
Every time that layer of oxide forms on you,
I will be right there to clean you up
Until you don’t need me to anymore.
Giving up on yourself is the easy way out
and even though I’m lazy,
I’m not going to let you take it.
I will drag you through the mud,
lift you when you think
you can’t take another step.
Through the dirt we will fight,
like comrades on a battlefield.
Both of us will emerge alive and victorious
on the other side.

I’m a good friend, I will help you lose those ten pounds
But don’t for a second think I’m going to let you
shrink yourself out of fear of taking up too much space.
When the crowds hit you with their acidic words,
I can’t promise that I can keep them all from hitting you
but I will help you wash away the ones that do.
Together, we can watch the words dissolve into water.
And your pain with it.

All of this, I can only do if you’re willing to let me.
All I need to know, is that if I hold out my hand
will you place yours in it?

My heart shattered
into eight pieces.
They lay there on my carpet.
Each one told me
a story.

one
My eyes meet yours
on that Monday afternoon.
I smile and so do you.

two
My hands run through your
hair as you kiss me
in the warm summer rain.

three
The sky is pink as we drive
down to the shore on your
black motorbike, laughing.

four
You're wearing a blue shirt
as we get drunk on
the thought of forever.

five
My ears are ringing from
all the screaming, I slide against
the door as you walk away.

six
My skin burns where you touched
me, you pack your clothes
in an old, weathered bag.

seven
Your lips are chapped when
you kiss me for the last time,
wrapping your arms around me.

eight
A picture flashes up on my computer,
I look at it until you're nothing
but a blurry memory.