You came into my life temporarily
And I still gave you pieces of myself
Knowing that when you'd leave
You would take me with you

Her diary was a catalogue of rejected fates
When they asked she said
it wasn't meant to be
Now her diary is blank pages of regret
What if she chose to forego destiny
The one who came knocking at her door

I'm gut wrenchingly sad
Soul shatteringly devastated
A silent storm drenching in abysmal
The black clouds have engulfed me
From head to toe
The depths of this despair
Pull me down
Suffocate my dreams

This time tomorrow
I'll be looking back on yesterday
Thankful I have woken up
And got through another day

This time next month
I'll be looking back on today
It was 8 months then
Now it's 7 more to go

This time next year
I'll be where I dreamed happy would be
I won't be looking back on yesterday
I'll be in the present

I slide my fingers
up my collarbone
trace them around the column of my neck
searching for the evidence
through the pulsing vein on my neck
just to be sure
my heart is still there
it's here
where it needs to be
I lay my palm against the left side of my chest
you're mine more than his
beat for me

I tell you
I dont know who I am anymore
I tell you I'm a stranger
Taken over by an imposter
This body doesn't fit into mine
Its hijacked my mind
I tell you
I don't know who is in control
But it's not me
I tell you
I'm scared
Because people can't tell the difference
I tell you things have changed
Even though nothing has
I'm telling you I'm not happy
I haven't been for a long time
I'm longing for a change
For something to arrive
What it is I'm not sure
Just that my bones hurt
And my eyes can't rest
My blood hums in anticipation

When you're tired of dreaming of a new start
You don't even want one anymore
You don't want anything anymore
You don't care
You don't even dream anymore

When the bright lights in the distance
Become blinding orbs glaring at you
Your feet stuck on the tarmac
You should move, move a little faster
Fast flies out your mind
And what remains is

What is the worse that could happen?

I have long since forgotten your name
But even now still
When my breathing labours
I remember the pressure of your hand
Holding tightly onto mine
Keeping me in the presence
I can still feel the coolness of your skin against my clammy palms
The way you brushed my hair away from my eyes
And held my head against your chest
So that I could align my panting breaths to the steady beating in your chest
When all I could hear was the rushing roar of blood against my ears
And feel the numbness right down to my toes
When my eyelids strained to remain open
I remember the edges of your body pressed against mine
And how even though it felt like I was dying
I was glad that I wasn't alone
Those moments felt like a lifetime
Through slow motion I heard your soft murmurs
I can't remember what you said
But it was as gentle as your knuckles
Brushing lightly against my cheeks
Your eyes calm in contrast to the desperation in mine
As they stared at you
Silently commanding
Imploring that you save me from drowning
Begging for you to understand my demons
Without asking any questions
Embarassed that you were witnessing me self destruct
In an uncontrollable manner
Spiralling
Unravelling
I wonder if you can see my lungs caving
My heart is being squeezed through its cage
But it can't fit through the narrow gaps of the bones surrounding it in a painful hug
I can feel it
It's trying to escape and be free
But it can't
And that makes me panic

My heart is caged
I can't feel it
I want to reach down my throat and rip it out
But my throat also conspires against it
It tightens its passage
Refusing to let it burst through my lips
And splatter in all its glory at your feet
My blood boils in protest
I am left gasping
Out of breath
I feel everything
I've never felt so much
It overwhelms me like a suffocating blanket
I welcome the darkness
To escape this feeling

I used to think that I would be so good at it
He made my head spin
His fingers traced empires on my back
That refused to collapse long after his touch had gone
Now it all tastes wrong on my tongue
There's something inside me that wants to remain untouched
Every silence is a space of misinterpretations
Infinite imperfect endings
I don't have the stomach to hold dear
Scrunched paper and meaningless words
It doesn't sound right to my ears
I thought love would fill me
Instead it ate away what I had built for myself
We starved each other
Devoured on bodies in the dark
Crammed and indulged
Until all I could feel was the sun burning my skin
The purge lasted for days
We ejected cold
And discharged the fates we didn't try hard enough to hold
It bled into weeks of damage
Until our memories wept
And our bodies healed
Waiting for either of us to acknowledge
That we were better as strangers

He said he loved her with every ounce of his unworthy soul
His heart for all it was worth
Wrenched right out of his chest
And laid at the diamonds beneath her soles
He didn't know how to treat her the way she deserved
He put her on a pedestal
A platform he created with his words
He carved her love from the burning wax of his devotion
Watched her draw hearts in the condensation on the window
He longed to reach out and take her dreams
Arrange them in order
Then perhaps write in his own
She lived in the light of his affection
Her skin was tired of his touch
But it's okay, it's okay
It's cute and poetic
She's a flower he waters
His sun blinds her
Her heart is an animal
It knows not what it wants
Better to be trapped in its cage
That to flee his grasp
And long for another cage to hold it down

The sound of breath in your lungs pressed against my ears and soothed me
I closed my eyes and saw the shadows in your eyes speaking to me in a way that only a girl with shadows in her eyes could understand
There's something inside you that hides, curled and wounded
It's between our skin
Making me pay the price for something that came and settled before I did
It made me want to mouth your name to a God whose language you don't speak
That night I finally knew what to say
But you were not ready to hear it
Your fingers pressed into the notches of my spine
And I kissed you imagining you could lip-read my mind
Since then everytime you came to steal my breath and hold it in your lungs
I closed my eyes and let you be the surgeon

To my mother,

I could never be like you
I'm too untame and wild
Stubborn and selfish
Ever since I was a child

I'm foolish
I can't hide my anger
I can't hide my distaste
I don't care about slander

I don't plan ahead
I'm harsh and rude
I can't hold my tongue
Bitter and crude

I run away from my troubles
I find it hard to forgive
Even the smallest things
I can't forget as long as I live

Mother, I'm impatient
Rude and arrogant
My faith wavers and falters
I'm anything but eloquent

Mother I have your eyes
And your nose
I don't have your patience
And heart of gold

We disagree on many things
Mother, we don't get along
But know that I love you
With you is where I belong

You make my heart soft
My faith strong
You're my mum
Remain with me lifelong

To my mother,

May God save you from ever being helpless
For ever having to rely on anyone for anything
May God grant you great health, every happiness and ease from financial burdens

You are an angel
A woman of countless talents
A woman surrounded by thankless people
A woman who is selfless

You are
The glue in the cracks
The respect he doesn't deserve
The cook, the nurse, the finance manager

You are a defeated fighter
I've seen people tear you down
Stab you with their words
Bury you with their bitter twisted lies

But when those very people ask for your help
You've tirelessly helped
The very snakes that robbed you of your smile
You have a heart of naivety

A mind of forgiveness
An unbreakable belief in innocence
You've always been an easy target
And I hate that part of you

I admire that part of you

Your belief in God unshakeable
Your patience is endless
Even if I pray that God exacts your revenge
I know you will feel pity and pray for them

He will ask you for your name
Then say it back to you
In a voice like gravel and honey
He'll make the mornings a forgiveable thing
When you think of him a war will end
When he reminds you of his dark
You'll swallow his shadows whole
But when he leaves you
The birds in your blood will stop mid flight
And when you search for a word for the end of missing someone
Every language will come up empty
You'll make new mistakes to forget the old ones
Until one day you'll wake up missing who you were about to become before he came along
But by then it will be too late
The memories inside you won't leave room to remember your own name

Out there was war zones
And in here was paradise
Our heads lay on the pillow
Arms brushed up against eachother
I told you I could burn you
And you said my fire gave you the warmest light
You didn't promise me the world
But said a fragmented puzzle was something you were accustomed to
And I wished that I could offer you something whole
With not even a suggestion of "some assembly required"
I read chapters of your skin
An archive of a library
And I wonder if it's a place I could be written into
My fingers trace the section of care instructions on your lips
And I wonder if they're the ones for me

In this story
I am in the future I dreamt of
I know that it's a dream and I mustn't wake up
I mustn't waste time with a dream within a dream
This version has been drafted and edited to perfection
I am the master of this ideal creation
The best conjuring of my imagination
The soft touch of wind at twilight
The mountainous range at dawn
The ocean glistening like diamonds in the distance
Fields and valleys as far as my eye can see
Cobbled paths
A cafe along the beach
So many places I could get lost in
But my favourite would always be the cliffs edge
Where the sunrise performs it's majestic show
Until it touches what the moon has paused
And everything comes alive for another day more

I have a choice
between a rock and a hard place
a choice to leave and break a few hearts
or to stay and break mine alone
Become the hatred that eats me up inside

Be my stubborn wish
My painful truth
The breath in my lungs
Teach me how to live without you
All I want is you alive
Let me hold you close one last time
All I want is for you to be here right now
I didn't think that you'd ever go so far
All that I'd have left was to cry for you in my prayers

Barefooted, ragged, with neglected hair, she was a thin slip of a girl, like a new moon
Head hung like a dying flower
She gave herself with open palms
Yet every sorrow and distress found her like flourishing weeds
There was no one I admired and hated more
The way they peeled her to the core
And she revealed she had more seeds to grow
Never was she afraid to show
The unchanging depths of her heart
Worth its weight in gold

What do you write when there is so much happening but nothing to say
No letters of an alphabet could come together in the way that they need to
These fingers once created poetry
Pretty and painful
Now there's nothing but a mess all jumbled
Not a word that goes from my brain to my fingers fast enough
Not a thought that stays longer than a fleeting moment
It feels like there's so much there but nothing all the same

I am sick
The sky is green
My stomach turns inside out
Your words are yellow
I can't avoid them
My skin is orange
My eyes are black
Black like I'm wearing shades but I'm not
It's black like a rotting banana that's leaving a smell
Attracting attention
I'm chain smoking through days
Not liking the taste
Coughing up deconstruction
Collapsed stomach and lungs
I'm sick because
I'm unravelling like a golden thread
Like a tent full of birds
Until there's nothing but purple left
Hands wave from a train I need to be on
To stain me velvet red
To mix me yellow
And to dye me brown
Like they want to plant a garden in my fingertips
And write a novel on my skin
About strangers and fumbling for wrists to hold like the world is empty
Hands that make you fall from your graces
About walking into a bar and finding God
About sunshine falling from the gaps between teeth

I feel sick thinking about the time I opened up to you
Cut my chest open
Set my organs on display
You synchronised your tears with mine
My mind your art gallery
A museum of history
Shaking fists and trembling teeth
You collected me like an artefact
And my body took you as an external *****
But it's hard to keep someone on the outside
Once they begin to eat you on the inside

The earth it is dry
The lips mute
The eyes blind
Lovers of letters
Words fell on deaf ears
Take out my hand
The heart it is cold
The soul wracks against a ribcage
The one I offered so much freedom to
It is hungry and it weeps
The moisture is clammy on my skin
But my mind protested
I am right
My Lord knows
He know it for sure
He know the insides of my heart are pure
Yes He knows
I dream of the blessed days
To catch up with Him
Eyes closed. Mind numb.
My heart it melts in an inferno only He could create
His month arrives like an operation of the emergency kind
Like a flat field where there's nowhere to hide from the truth
So that a believer may find Him
Even the careless stumble upon His way
My footsteps falter at His doorstep
My head it bows in defeat
I am helpless to my shame
Regretted never taking His name
Every fibre of my being supplicates to the almighty
Fill my mind with a humbleness that is a dying art
Fill my heart with a loyalty so strong it cannot be watered down
My Lord fill my lap with righteousness so I don't leave you empty
As the month it nears to an end
I bid farewell consoling my heart it has been sealed
Praying it sewn tight enough to last longer than before
I look ahead prepared for another test
And just when I start to fail beyond repair
Your month comes around again
Like an operation of the emergency kind
Breathing life into the walking dead
Save me before I am lost for sure
Arrogance it purges on my skin
Pride licks at the edges
I am ugly with sins threatening to swallow me whole
They chew on my balancing scales
Attempting to plunge me overboard
Suicide or ****** I can't tell the difference

I remember how you claimed to read me like a book
And then left me on the shelf
Forgotten by the person
I could never forget
Slowly quietly
Hiding behind closed doors
I remember
The time I loved you
Quickly frantically burying my tears
In the cloth of my sleeves
I remember
The time I loved you

The insomniac had a dream
The butcher fell in love with a goat
And the pauper begged for riches to leave for he had a mango dried voice and a sunflower for shade
The bartender was as sober as a priest
But his cup was filled to the brim not to be seen empty

The doctor had a dream
Pain had mercy
And God had time
Bandages wrapped souls tightly
To the bed, to the table, to the handle on the door
To the hand clamped to theirs
Anywhere to keep them here

When he says mi casa su casa
I wonder if he knows that walls can never make a home

Home has a beating heart and sweaty palms
Home has a smile that feeds my hunger
He has open arms
And a shoulder to lay my head on

Home makes me dream like no other
Has ears that hear my heartbeat
And eyes that dream with me
Home doesn't feel empty

Home holds my hand
With me he takes a stand
Home is here and there
He's everywhere

Home shows me how to live
Helps me to breathe
Home quotes books and movies and songs we listened to
Home calls me home too

An ugly thing that makes you jealous of     another you

By the time you walked away
I didn't know if I had been kissed or cut
Loved or butchered
Just that I was happy you came close enough to touch

My name melts on your tongue
As it rolls and sizzles
You hold it like a pearl
It's shell, your mouth

Your name
It dances with angels
And silences my demons
I hold it like a shield

A litany of prayers
A synonym of belonging
Like the warmth of the sun
The blooming of a bud

I waited for tingles down my spine
Colours to shine
Breath to seize
But all I got was a brain freeze

I waited for your voice to sound like angels
All the so called changes
A smile that would melt glaciers
But all I had was the remainders

Of a life tainted
Once knighted and sainted
By butterflies and stolen kisses
Then slayed and exchanged

She ate him up and went away
So I'll take the betrayed glares
And nightmares
Mistrust and unjust

And hope that one day
Your heart knows the tune
To the melody mine plays
That you're nobody's fool

Your love feels like teeth
Like tight hugs
Squeezed ribs
Like a heavy chain around my neck

You unhook my spine
And undo my hips
Unseat my shoulder bones
And realign my lips

Your love is a possessive grip
Purple skin
Falling stars, droopy eyes
A stomach full of butterflies

In this story I don't keep secrets
And tell you all about
Gunshots and fireworks
How they both sound the same
I always sit next to a window
Or a door
If it leads outdoors
I hate black and dark, small spaces and walls
Loud noises remind me of showers
And water pelting on empty tiles
Silence feels like loss
Or the calm before the storm I could never trust
But it's not that serious
I can take the loud and the silence
The gunshots and the fireworks
You won't even be able to see me flinch in the fraction of a millisecond it takes for you to blink
Nothing is serious
I laugh about everything
Even pain
And death
And how they were lucky to get an early exit ticket on this crazy ride
My biggest problem is I could never let things slide
Always questioning age old sanctions
I could never keep my mouth shut
Eyes closed
Feet moving forward
Maybe that's why I'm always changing
I'm different to who I was yesterday and last week
I don't even recognise the me years ago
The world was different then
It has ended for me many times
And began again in the morning
Sometimes when I'm toppling over and my insides can't contain the life
I don't have any room for oxygen
But you'll never know that
No one does
I'm good at hiding
And pretending
Make shift scenarios
Finding solutions
They work for me even if there's flaws in the theory behind them
I free fall in and out of everything
Planning never made any sense
Not when I didn't know where I'd be
I like running
On treadmills, on pavements, on planes
When it gets too comfortable I have an urge to rock the boat
New things keep you awake
And fresh
By the time you figured it out
It's time to move on

Not for the first time
I tried to feel blank
To rid myself of the overwhelming sensation of dastard emotions
That wring you exhausted
I can't keep up with the swing of highs and lows
The fluctuation beyond control
Not for the first time I wondered
If the good of the highs was worth the badness in the lows
And that I'd rather not feel anything at all

It's hard to explain
When I don't understand it myself
But my heart mourns
That which it never had

I miss what was not mine
From the stories I heard
Of the personality you had
My over active mind

Conjures up experiences I've never felt
I swear I've met you
A few nights when I closed my eyes
We conversed beliefs and talked all night

Long after I opened my eyes
You stayed with me in the lull of life
I loved someone I never knew
To this day

My fate I rue
For I wish I had known you
Met such a wonder
Had you been in my life

It would have been a blessing

It's hard to explain
when I don't understand it myself
but in this story
I miss you like you're not already mine
and my heart feels like stone
as though you're not wrapped tightly in my arms
I miss you so much it hurts to breathe
in this story it feels like I'm watching you through a telescope
from afar
gazing at you through a busy array of stars
I'm in the dark
longing to be besides you
the brightest light
I smile and you smile back
I wish you were here

He's the feeling that I can't name
the daydreams that lure me into a future I create
with words that don't fit
he's the only sound I can hear
the scent soaked in my skin
in every sigh I inhale
he's everything I wish was mine

Today I left you at the pier
I watched your city become a matchbox
Then shadows, then clouds
The seagulls flocked
And screeched in dismay
The water, it carried me away
I tried to keep with me the birds that were from your shores
I threw bread so they followed me all the way home
When the boat docked
And I walked off
Even the birds left
And took my heart back

in this game they call love
what is mine is yours
and what is yours
is also yours
they ask you about me
as though I exist not on my own

The seventy fourth time I believed you
I finally realised I should probably stop
And within a millisecond I knew I always would
I always thought people could change
And because you changed everything about who I used to be
I knew I would always believe you
Because that's the only part of myself I still have
It's the part I'm still waiting for you to change

My heart was mine
Then it was yours
You gave it back
But that which was given never returned intact
Will ever again be given whole

Crazy never looks good on anyone
Especially us
We are chaos
And you are poison
Inside me like a disease
Yet still your laugh awakens my soul
Darling there are two hearts on the floor
One is mine
And *both are yours

Last night
After years you crossed my mind
Last night, like some past few times
I found your number and wrote a message
Hey, I hope you're well.
And lots of other things I would never say in the early hours of the morning
Last night, unlike the past few times
I pressed send
I wanted you to reply then
I waited wishing
And this morning I hoped you changed your number
This morning you're a can of worms I regret trying to open
I hope my attempts were unsuccessful