I can write you a letter
You can read it before you sleep
I can knit you a toy
Only one which you can keep
My gifts to you
The only trace of me in your world

A strand of my auburn hair touches
Your floor
Your face
Your bed
Your beard
My gifts to you
The only trace of me in your world

You wore a coat of deceit,
Promising that we would meet.
I laid my heart bare in your palms,
You made it a puppet - strings and all.
Whilst I held my breath
And counted the days,
You warmed another's bed
And continued your games.
I tried to reason with myself,
But the flames in my heart burned too well.
You lied that you needed time
And that everything would be fine,
But wrecked souls lay in your wake,
You just know how to take.
And now, as I rip your knife out of my chest,
Only sorrow remains behind this lonely breast.

Tear soaked tissues accumulate beside me
Another round of escaped thoughts half-buried,
Like the undead rising from their graves
Unable to die, with an insatiable hunger to devour
Infecting pureness with it’s gnawing hatred

I've never known love
Yes, I've seen the word everywhere
Seen others experience it
Yet I never have
But I thought I did

I mistook lust for love
And when he lusted over the innocence and
purity of my white rabbit self
I assumed that it was love
Because I'd never been loved before

And when I was younger
And he would always physically hurt me
His parents said it meant he liked me
My parents said that's just how boys are
So I assumed that it was love

And back to the first man I've ever dated
Though I don't like to consider him
When he pressured me into a relationship
When he was ten years older than me
But I stayed
Because I thought it was love

And then my freedom was taken for 768 days
Because they caught me talking to the man
I couldn't tell any of my friends
Any of them that I was groomed
Because I didn't know if it "counted" if it was online
I didn't know if it was love

I knew another guy at the time
One who knew my groomer
And I fell in love with him
I thought that I'd finally found love
But after he broke up with me
And crawled back eight months later
He admitted to talking to other people
In the whole sixteen days we dated.
I was partially loved for sixteen days.

And finally, in the spring
I met a third guy I told others about
But I wish I didn't
I asked him to ask me out
But he never did
He responded to my love
With jokes about ****
And sexist remarks, so I left

There have been many other guys along the way
With the two I've dated
One I talked to, one groomed me, one cheated

Lusted, but never loved
Just to fill in for someone else
And I hold my independence proudly
But I've had it ever since I was born

I've watched everyone else fall in love
Yet I watch from the sidelines
Wondering when I'll be loved
Truly loved
For once in my life.

I try to find little bits of you in my heart
And no matter how hard I search my ocean depths
For one shining ray of yours
I only find bits of moonlight.
Like a puzzle missing a piece
A part of my perception of you is gone
I cannot leave
No matter how sad you make me
Because my heart remembers
How you'd made me the happiest I'd been
I thought the love was special
But I was standing in the queue
All the others you had been giving love to
Were hidden by walls only you could see
I feel as if my body is being ripped apart
Heart and mind on opposing sides
My body is so numb now
My body is dragging along, like a zombie
Like a puppet, pulled by your strings
Like a heart through the ocean.
I don't even know what I was thinking
Disappointed in you and myself
The person I loved the most
The person I admired most in my life
Has turned a red, beating heart
Into one full of rife

awareness or
the lack thereof
there is a self,
regardless of
the stupid things
you wish to be
and all those masks you hide behind

a sens of self
is all there is
it’s not a gift
that you receive
it’s that,
the only thing there
is

that’s all you got
that’s all you are
enjoy and swim in it
till dawn

it’s more than life,
it’s cheating death
it simply is,

the sense of self.