I dreamt a pheonix was rising out of the ashes
I dreamt no smile was too big for your face
I dreamt of being held so tight I couldn't feel my heartbreak
I dreamt of barren trees beneath a hard grey sky
I dreamt that everything I ever lost came back to me
I dreamt of one day missing everything I have right now
I dreamt of all the things I want to be when I give up

You took me to a place in between
And showed me an ocean of rainbows
A river of stars
Where heavens poured golden drops

On the mountain of dreams
I forgot my fear of heights
On a carpet of smiles
We rode to the world of wonders

Beyond the hill of surprises
Was the wall of silence
And the trees of trust
With keys that danced their way down

To the doors of hope
And the place beyond
You told me about
The tornado's of love

The rainstorm of emotions
And I imagined
It would be like the feeling of being lost
In a forest of faeries

There could be unicorns
Or a flock of phoenix
Homes of chances
On a land of peace

I'll meet you in the meadow of risks
With my heart as prey
Beneath the lanterns of light
I'll stand in plain sight

I'll await for you to bring calmness
In a blanket of promises
And visions of tomorrow
To fulfil a life of prayers

The heart it has no pity on my body
If it had hands it would still reach for you
It aches as I sit in an empty classroom missing you
It aches when I wake up and you're not here
It aches when I come home and you're not here
It aches
It aches
It aches
I loved you even though you were already lost
I loved you and became lost myself
The empty gaping hole stings
And I desperately try to rub away the distress

i.
Every Sunday I lay awake afraid to close my eyes because if I do, tomorrow will arrive.

ii.
I sound mad, erratic, desperate. I am. Dear God I'm always begging him. Help me! With what, I'm not so sure. With everything. Dear God. DEAR GOD. GOD! HELP ME. Help me get through today. Dear God once I begged you to let me be here and you answered. Now I beg you to get me out. I'm gratefully sorry.

iii.
Every morning a panic seizes my heart as I think of the day ahead, laboured breaths yet everything around me is going too fast. I swear the clock skips time. I want it to fly but I need it to stop. There's so much to do and 24 hours are just not enough.

iv.
An email pings my phone and everything freezes. It ruins my entire day. I should never have connected my phone and work emails.

v.
I'm having dinner with my family and all I can think about are the reports I have not yet written. I haven't marked the topic books and I still need to create resources for the maths topic. The line manager wants targets and I need to reply to my colleagues request for organising a buddy system. We're having a review on Thursday that I can't forget to prepare for. I still haven't filled out the outdoor visit forms.

v.
I can feel myself slowly being turned into who I swore I'd never be. I've started doing things every fibre of my being was against. People became percentage scores. All that matters is presentation in books. Forget that you know this child would never do this normally and write it up in the behaviour book. You don't have time to investigate or figure out his problem. He's wasting precious learning time and he needs to meet those targets. Everyone will judge me if he doesn't.

vi.
Once my entire house was painted and it took me over a week to notice. Once I used to read novels, watch movies, cook, workout and write poems. I can't remember the last time I did that. I work every weekend and every evening. I feel guilty when I am free like I'm forgetting a very important thing.

vii.
I'm 23 with the back ache problems of a 60 year old. I'm 23 and its hard to fall asleep. My own sleepwalking wakes me up as I recite my 'to do' list. I'm 23 and I think of giving up at least twice a week. I'm 23 and I miss my family who I live with. I miss myself. I'm 23 and life should not be the living dead.

I've developed a coping strategy. Just shut up and get on with it. Get up and get the job done.

It's all getting done as I become undone.

When the faithful
Became unfaithful
I lost faith

When the religious
Sinned irreligiously
I lost God

When lovers
Turned passion into hatred
I lost love

When death
Arrived early at the door
I lost life

What little I had left of myself
I gave away to you
But you lost that part of me too.

you taught me how to trust with my eyes closed
then showed the blind the whole world
my world became the orbs that held me in them
and within mine you became frozen

with every movement your lips made
I reserved the right to keep those words
and for my heartbeat that raced in your name
you reserved the right to my life

together we each learnt how to fly
and separated during take off
now I see you in the horizon
up above my world so high

somewhere ahead I'll take a left turn
I'm mapping out a new destination
beyond the tremor of touch you left behind
I can feel new sensations

Every once in a while
Will you make sure I'm alive
That I'm going to college
And not wasting my life

I'll never tell you how
Every once in an hour
I want to quit
More than once a day my life is sh*t

But I miss you
I miss life a year ago
And a year before that
And all the years I lived

Counting.
I'm counting
Days and weeks
When this will be over

And a fresh start will begin
The doors will open
And lead to somewhere
Across the oceans

I wont miss the past
I wont miss anything
Life will be good
In the moment

i. I have died too many deaths that were not mine always saving him.

ii. The best thing about living in a big city was that I could go back to being myself. You would not have to see me on your morning train to work

iii. His accusing finger always found me even when all I had was him.

iv. My tired voice spoke of the cage I was trapped in. Obligatory responsibilities of a relationship.

v. Bury me. I wish you would bury me because a thought of a life without you is unbearable.

vi. Love was meant for beautiful girls with clear skin and a figure that fits snugly into his arms.

vii. That time you waved goodbye as I walked away made me feel like a stranger intruding on a personal moment in your life. I wasn't supposed to be there. I wasn't supposed to be the one. We were not supposed to suspend that time and treasure it always.

viii. But you did it anyways. We created something that cant be erased. Lit the fire of a crazy search ahead.

ix. I want that bury me feeling again. It hurt so bad after it was over but I want that drown me kind of feeling. I want my lighthouse and I want to be the light. I want daydreams and doodles. I want the ache and to not be able to place it. I want a litany of your name to fall from my lips. I want us and nothing else. forever forever forever.

I survived today on the thoughts of you alone
How you are both the quiet
And confusion in my life
You're still uprooting me
Even when you're not here
I'm in love with being alone
I love the knife
The pills
The silence
The wine
The empty your arms couldn't hold
The mansions your greedy fingers traced on my bare skin are still here
I'm in love with the gentle push of the wind
And I can tame the beast howling within me
I've learned your most impressive magic trick
Promises
Forever you told me
And your eyes the magic mirror
Made me believe
So I promise myself the world
I promise that what I felt was nowhere near love
I promise to find myself
But I'm still looking for my magic mirror

My heart is mine
But mostly its yours
And I won't forgive you
Because I won't know how to forget
That my heart is mine
But mostly it's yours
I can trace where too many good women have gone to die
And all you left us with
Was your agitated pacing

He feels like oppression
But protection
Commitment
Yet addiction

And she's half way to crazy in love
With a foot still in cautious
From the first person she wants
To not wanting to be dependent

He's trusting
But jealous
Loving
Yet uncompromising

And she's a non-swimmer
Wanting to skinny dip in the ocean
Hell bent on all or nothing

I found her
Kissing her knees
Cupping her neck
Gasping to feel a pulse
Nails bitten to the core
Spewing profanities
About how everyday ends on a cliffhanger
She stood slowly
Defiantly
Tiny and dainty
Hair a messy mane
A lioness
Concealed beneath layers of indifference
Her hands trembled
And her body swayed
I won't beg she growled
Feral and wild
As though her lips were not a flat line like that on a heartbeat monitor
She reminds me of what it felt like to be betrayed
And what it felt like to be loved
She made me want to get involved in something I no longer believe in
I am a cathedral of deadbolts
And she made me want to change the locks

Here between these walls
The world is intoxicated
And you and I are the only ones sane
As we negotiate each others pain
And compensate it with blissful pleasure
Only we can fix all that is wrong
Beyond steamed windows
Outside where the world drowns in rain
Bit by bit
We discover the secret of happiness
And peace
As we fulfill the hunger within us
I swear we are half way there to ending poverty
We are overcome within ourselves
We are not you and I
But one
I'm wearing your old sweater
And we snuggle propped up against the wall
Or each other
Our arms wound around and palms pressed close, fingers knitted together
Your fingers stroke my hair
As we listen to the different heartbeats
And voice our own dreams
With words we build separate versions of an ideal world
Cora you say
How come we're here like this
We're both so different
And I reply that it doesn't matter
We both have too much respect to let differences matter
Respect for the right of others
To reach for achieving a utopia without harming another being
The secret is to never see yourself as superior
And balance it with never seeing yourself as inferior
It doesn't matter what the colour of your envelope is
Or what factory you were made in
Your brand is not the name of your religion or the soil you were born on
The essence and material are the same
I can feel your smile tickling against my forehead as you whisper
I think I know what you mean
Let me show you
And a foreign sound reaches my ears
It's a slow rhythmic tune
With soft vocals
I have no idea what the words mean
And at that moment
Not for the first time
It crosses my mind
That if everyone spoke the same language would we still be like this
But it doesn't matter
As I listen like a blind man with no sense of time
I understand the song is about love
And there's a touch of longing
I can feel the melancholy in her voice
And the nostalgic homesickness in his
As the song plays on
I imagine the two lovers were reunited
I can feel the gratitude
And relief
I can see their future
And its everything I've always dreamed of
My kind of utopia

The promised land
Is where the sky is a hue of a shade between orange and pink
Littered with clouds of silken silver
The grass is emerald
And the flowers nod their heads in a waving salute as you walk by
The wind sings in a way that has you closing your eyes
Pausing so you can feel the cool breeze that touches you like a lover who has memorised your skin
There's a soft silent stillness
You are living in the moment
Like the first push on the swings at the local park
Where your father taught you to swing your legs to reach the sky
It's just you
Within reach of the horizon
That holds endless possibilities

I love you like I love dreaming of travelling
I love you like I love walking outside in the drizzling rain
I love you like I love the ache in my bones after a good workout at the gym
I love you like I love the thrill of new experiences
I love you like I love the sun touching my eyelids first thing in the morning
I love you like I love watching the world go by from the window of a fast car
I love you like I love Christmas lights brightening up the streets on a cold winters evening
I love you like I love shortcuts
I love you like I love a blank canvas being filled with writing

I'm not good at staying
Or being in one piece
I'm not good at commitment
Or comforting the weak
I wish you could see
I'm not as good as you make me out to be
But you
You see me as someone strong
You tell me all these kind words
Effortlessly genuine
You look at me in awe and bottomless trust
And you make me scared
You are pure and real
And I am a tripping revelation
Of skinned knees
Bloodied by holy words
You are taking a walk on the wild side
Flirting with death
And tempting the devil
I'm the helpless fall
The guilt in being unable to resist
I'm hopeless
But sometimes I can see the rainbow painted on the ground
The only beautiful sight in the soggy pouring rain
I'm also the butterflies when you call
You make me nervously sick
This picture of piety you painted of me
And instant forgiveness
At not seeing what you see
It's the way you tug on emotions I never knew I could feel
It's the beauty in you slaying the beast in me
Everything feels dangerously perfect when you are in the room
I've learned that I can get addicted to anything
And people are too unpredictable
So this time I'm not going to pick up
I'm not going to reply
I don't feel like dreaming of things that won't happen

She knew love was just a safe place
To fall apart
To trust the hands
That bend you
And see pretty even without the sun's shine
Love was holding you in the dark
And being afraid of happiness
Lest it be taken away for being too much
Love was the realisation of having so much skin
After it became coordinates of every part you touched
Love is the story of how she pleaded with a map
As she measured oceans with the length of her fingers
And moved entire forests that came between you

Because it stops all the questions
And I want to find God again
I miss myself, who I used to be
I miss loving everything

Because it makes you happy
And I hate making people worry
Especially about me
I smile so I don't look lonely

Because maybe you will feel it
Even if I don't
Maybe if I smile all the time
It will start to rub off on the inside

I can hear you in the silence
With my eyes opened
A nice dark shade of exhaustion
Beneath my eyes

I want to knock on your door
Your absence did not **** me
I want you to see
That you mean nothing to me

I've forgotten the way you spun me
Beneath the pomegranate tree
How much I loved to hear the smile in your voice
Every time we spoke on the phone

I don't remember how your touch made me feel
I can't fool myself with the lies
But still I will try
To trick you with a disguise

Like my soul is not carrying around a corpse
Like my lips don't taste of tears

I am standing in paradise gardens
Where you told me to wait
It took getting soaked in the rain
To realise you only loved me in the sun
You wrote my name in the mud
Whist I etched yours into the trees
I watched my love grow
It took being washed away in the rain to realise your love was temporary
For years I had tasted the artificial flavours of your words
And inhaled the ammonia
Of your aroma
Now I drink only water

The sun plays hide and seek in the clouds
As the tide kissed then retreated from the dancing sand
The waves gloomily sang
And it felt like everything I've never had
Beckoning me
My God
What a cruel game destiny plays
In the distance
Above the weeping willow
The moon mischievously winks
Hiding secrets

If it makes you feel better
I would say sorry
I'll apologise on behalf of those whom I don't know
If it gave us peace
I would be the first to be held for the terror
But this world of ours
Is falling apart
The oceans are spewing bodies
And the sound of fireworks make me flinch
I am frozen in fear of whiplash
As I watch you cry on the t.v
My breath synchronises with the pants of your fear
They show belongings of victims as they raced for their lives
And I see a watch my brother wears
I see streets that I grew up in
I see people whom I feel nothing but compassion for
I want to hold you tight and rewind away the pain
I want to come and lay flowers where the blood of mankind is soaked into the sawdust
But will you accept a hug from a Muslim?
I want to tell you I love you
I want to tell you if I was there I'd like to think I could protect you
I would stand in front of the innocent
And spit at the gunmen in disgust
I would cry like a mother whose child had gone astray
I would mourn
The spawn of Satan
Has Islam not taught you anything?
I want you to know
That denouncing my faith
To make you happy
Will truly not make everything okay
For I will be leaving what taught me to love
And then what better would I be than our perpetrator?

I see humans
I feel humanity
I see a world not Syria or Paris

I am a trespasser in my own life
One who violates my own rights
Barricade my dreams
I find my soul on a Friday night
And let it go on a Sunday
As the blues leak in
I have grown roots I thought I needed
They tied me down and left me stranded
Now I nurture them because I grew them
I am not a tree
But like a blind man with no sense of time
I do not know what I am doing
I cannot remember what I did last week
I cannot make plans for a future when I don't know where I want to be

A slave to instinct
She does not speak
A beast that stabs daggers to your heart
She can make your whispers sound like screams
Give pain without leaving a scar
You'll only ever feel half full of her desire
Craving the other half of need
You'll become a half empty kind of person
Only living half a life
Of a one sided love

We had everything
Then even the silence left after chaos when there was nothing left to destroy
And the only warmth I feel now is in my belly from the drinks I drown to feel alive
But they can't chase away the chill in my soul as I listen to the story of my life in 4 minutes
Of loving, crying and leaving
And I want you to know I never made any plans without you in them
So today's death of mine bleeds into tomorrow
Tell me you can't resent these good intentions

She smiles when she's sad
And laughs when it hurts
Words flood out of her mouth
But truth fails to leave the harbour
She's been through doorways of disappointments
And a life time of indecision
Ended by making the wrong decision
Always craving someone else's presence
Because she's got that sick feeling in her chest
That intensifies in people's absence
She's too soft for the world
Would never doubt a word you said
Why would she?

Head bowed
Arms held out
Fill my lap
I refuse to leave empty handed from this world
**** the pain that wanders in my dreams
Wipe the tears that threaten to spill
You know all my secrets
You read my soul before I bared it
I am a believer
Treat me so
Imperfectly perfect
I detect my defects
Would you conceal them for me

I wonder how many years worth of prayers are stuck on hospital room ceilings
A thick layer of souls lost like a language no longer spoken
I am drowning in the things I never got to tell you
Your last words are stuck in my throat
And I am haunted like a house by a ghost who once called me home
I feel the pull of the ocean to the tide you have become

I chase happiness into the depths of the night
And search for it on eBay and Amazon
I light a fire trying to find the light
But bring destruction upon myself
I spend the weekends working out why it's so simple but so complicated
That I found a home for my body in yours
And there isn't a greater anchor than that of a human
I confessed my love like a secret
That never got to be told
It wrapped around you like a rumour
You couldn't believe to be true
I stated it like a fact
A breed between a noun and a verb
Yet I am mute
And your hands were my subtitles
I can now say I have a heart because I can feel it breaking
I can now say that people are not medicine
I am able to taste history and remember things that never happened
The coldness in my heart never leaves from my tongue
I keep the worst of us close to myself

She always sits next to a window or near the door
And stares outside with a daydream look on her face
Like a bird waiting to fly from a cage
Within her I see
A fire
a hurricane
a catalyst
She can't sit still
It's like her fingers itch to feel
And her body is always on the move
Perhaps a desire to be free
Sometimes I catch her smiling randomly
And she makes me want to read her mind
To be apart of that something so beautiful that shines on the outside

I've seen people love You madly
I've seen them drowned in light
I've seen them in worship never wanting to lift their head off the ground
Ya Allah
I've seen these very people get lost
They've turned their backs and forgotten your existence
Called it laziness
I see them suffer
I watch them pine
After a love they once held
And let slip through their hands
I've heard of hearts at unease
And life being empty
And of that I am afraid
I'm begging you please
To never let me let you go
And if ever I wonder
Make it easy to find my way back to you
For I have been where they are
And I am afraid of going back

It's my word against his
And I have nothing but the way he made me feel
The sleepless nights, anxiety attacks and skin dried out from the wetness of my tears
Is hardly evidence
But the rumours and gossip
That I'm not the only one
Could have been the only thing to save me
Yet no one came forward
To take a stand
And my voice was weaker than the cry our voices could have been together
So I'm just another story for the next girl to hear
I'm just another reason for her voice to be weaker

Meanwhile he gets promotions
And climbs higher up the ladder
It's called social capital
These people know people
Like the ones you grieve to
And forms of complaint go missing as easily as the people
They can and will make you non-existent

I wonder if this is what being in a bar fight feels like
Bleeding into my belly
Nails bitten down to the skin
A tongue that can taste the bitter dryness of my skeleton
A matter of fact honesty that lays into my bones
And grips my ribs
My eyes are thirsty for black nothingness and my mind aches from standing all the time
It's 6am and I need to switch on
But I never switched off
I'm on standby
Like a cracked clay ***
I function but need to be replaced as the cracks will eventually break and no one wants to see everything fall apart
I am hunting for the sound of silence
Desperate to pierce stillness
To just stop and listen to my heart beat
Not for you, or them
For me
My body is like a jelly mould against my bed
But I can't stay awake long enough to enjoy this comfort
Dreams of the following day and anticipated disasters plague me
I need to be prepared
Organised
Ready
Somewhere along the way
I have pressured myself into being perfect
Everything has to be just right all the time or I'll get into trouble
I still don't know what the 'trouble' would be
Just that I can feel it eating everything away
Like a rotten disease
It will spread and taint all that has been signed and sealed with approval
I crave to stay awake and make time mine
At 3am
When the world is quiet
Just to quench the longing for how it felt like to sit and do nothing
I want to stare blankly at a wall for hours without a care in the world
No one would expect anything from me
No interruptions
Or consequences
Just me
Alone
In the calm

I am a gold digger
Speak to me in the language of God
Show me your wealth with the currency of deeds
I am attracted to the finer things in life
Your manners will leave butterflies in my stomach
I will be left breathless at virtue that shines brighter than any diamond you could find
And when your strength is measured against the trials and tribulations with the trust you have left
Everything will cease to exist except you and I
And humbleness will bring me to my knees
I am a gold digger
For the one whose company can truly benefit me
A banker of deeds
Who invests in good will
Keen to reach the top
And nothing could stop
Us reaching the seventh heaven

She can taste memories on your lips
And the chapter of the hearts you collected
On the pulsing vein on your neck
So she used her tongue to sign an autograph
And paint a story over the broken cries you savoured

Amen for the chocolate cake that melts and oozes gooey goodness in the warm custard
Amen for the rich taste of the moist soft sponge
Amen for birthdays and anniversary's
And all the excuses
Amen for the most enticing smell
Amen to not resisting temptations
Amen to diets meant to be broken
Amen for powerful combinations
Like cake and ice cream
Cake and custard
Cake and coffee
Cake and tea
Amen to icing and buttercream

Amen for cake

Beneath the canopy of stars
I sit and wonder
Dear God
Would you give me a sign
Would you tell me the future
Of distance and time
How will my destiny take a turn
I am scared of the unknown
Can you hear my heartbeat thudding away
It knows not what it wants
And I am afraid of taking a wrong turn
All that I am sure
Is that I am yours
Write me as you wish
For your wish is mine
You know what I dare not bring to voice
Only you could find clarity in the confusion of my self
And the contradiction it presents
I live in your trust alone
And even if I am lost
Nothing is of loss if I have you

In another universe the sky is always pink
A sleek back car takes a left turn up ahead
And everything slows down as a white one drives toward me
I'm walking beneath the shade of the trees as they make an arching umbrella above
I have seen gentle monsters quiet in the backseats of luxury cars
They are like church for me
A reflective moment as the world whizzes by

When does love become dangerous
When is it really crazy
At which point does one stop and think
This is not healthy

Because she's all you think about all day everyday but its okay because its just a crush. You're in love. You want to know her more. So you imagine making her smile and putting your fingers through her hair.

He's started to message you a little too often;

Where are you?

What are you doing?

Who are you with?

I'm outside.

When you rely on a person to validate your entire existence. To be the reason that you breathe. To be the be all and end all of everything you know.

When you're both sinking and foolish hands grab at eachother instead of swimming up towards the light. When you're too far gone to let go no matter what.

Honey love is a crazy thing from the moment you 'fall' into it.

A verb: to move from a higher to a lower level, typically, rapidly and without control.
To descend and plummet you dwindle and decrease individual being for that other.

Don't.

Darling don't fall in love. Believe me its not worth it. Stand in love. Stand with him, stand with her, hold hands and love shoulder to shoulder, feet to feet. Meet your love head on and make eye contact.