the brain is a filter
severing unhelpful connections
we try to hold the smoke
of rapidly fading memories
yet it passes through our fingertips.

since we worry about what we lack
the loss of memories may create a void
yet that same void can hold
new, tangible memories
ones that help us grow.

A repeated feat, just as dusk lusts for dawn:
Nights blend seemlessly with the days they seek.
Infatuation to the greatest degree
because if it was love, they'd have found a way to suceed.
Sun would share the sky with stars,
a liminal space split in half.
The ultimate comprimise for exisiting.  
When will the missing them dull to an ache I can bare?
or is this the price?
Would the abscene of pain simply mean the abscene of them?
because if so,
I'd rather dispare in the knowledge that just like the dawn,
I'm cursed to an eternity one step before them,
forever casting shadows.

lightning
a faint clap of thunder follows suit
piercing through — open wound

crying skies
dripping with unrelenting acrid stench
rain knows me better than I know myself

it creeps upon the ground in such a vengeful way —
carried by the storm
a lightning falls
burning as much as it brightens
a sweet lullaby flows

isn't the ocean deep and miserable
lonesome and cold;
is rain the prelude — our last chance to be touched?

it is true
hour long showers are no cure
for this or any of my illnesses
I am yet to find a more suitable place for my sufferings

like a lightning — I burn
only in rain I own
deep and miserable
only in rain —
the world softly blurs
only in rain
I feel I could melt
to the salt in the water
sea foam and strands

its thunder and
its lightning
coming back home

yes. to escape the compression
of my identity, my voice, my freedom.
this compression is restricting
my breath. I'm at 1% now. 

all I want is to breathe
without the trauma coursing
through my body -
to stay away from the
physical embodiment of my pain -
to confide in certain people
without being blamed, minimized,
invalidated, shut down, or told off.

I don't know if
the last dream will come true. 
but i'm waiting for the day
when the other ones do. 
that day will be 
written in my history.

but for now,
the hope keeps me going.

I’ve always been good at navigating. I can find my way in a crowd or a city unknown to me. I no longer get shaky when I think about getting lost. Asking strangers for directions has never been a problem. My legs take me as far as I need to go, and my feet share secrets with the road to bargain with back in the bazaar of my head. We know how to get there. We usually do.  I tried going to my happy place today. Turns out it’s hard to pinpoint on the myriad of maps I’ve been making since I was 4 years old. I don’t know where to start. I don’t know what counts anymore. Places I once knew to glow yellow from the inside out have dimmed, and most old memories have the scrap of a taint too sharp to touch still attached to them. I have problems with letting go. I find it hard to forget the same way an elephant keeps count of every word anyone’s ever said. You would think this would be an advantage. Sometimes it isn’t. It is hard to try and write new on a slate that was never wiped clean. I have changed. I am envious of everyone able to close the boxes they’ve packed away. Because the lid on mine never seems to fit properly. It is tiring to be responsible for your own hurt every time you have to hold the door shut to stop the past from lingering. Nails ready to dig into the New you’re doing your best to treasure. I think about the temporary nature of all things. How no one is invincible. No one is ever as perfect as we project.  I am not without my flaws or faults. In fact, they have grown bouquets on my sleeves and have built their own corsages on my wrists for when my heart is too heavy to smile for the camera. I think of the “who” rather than the where. The bubbles I have collected with my breath and held with full air in the hopes they don’t burst. Their rainbow undersides and defiance to my gravity while never floating too far away outside my hazy atmosphere. The happy they have given me to make my own. The happy they radiate during visiting hours. The happy that soaks into the knowledge that I sometimes do the same. I am grateful. Always grateful. I may not have bought my house yet but I can always keep renting the flat where the couch is always cosying up to a comfy I am lucky to accommodate. It still smells like warmth and conversations  yet to come once they leave. Until next time. Let yourself in.

Surface tension
Tender
Snips away at the inner bruising
Behind the eyes the windows are shut
And the curtains drawn
Run fingers over hidden ribs in the early morning
Witching hours
When fairy dust can decorate the pores
For imaginations sake

Morning skinny is now a norm
I plaster the walls of my subconscious
With posters of picture perfect shells

What they want
What you want
What I have convinced myself I think you want
What I want

What we want

I want to stop
I have told tall tales as unstable as my legs
Written them in invisible ink
Doused with sour lemon stings
So only I can see them
They appear before I eat
And in the quakes of my stomach aches

I know it is there to protect me
The most important parts of my body
The bubble which constantly pokes at me to ask
“what if there was nothing more than me
What if we couldn’t see
Shapes or sizes or colours or better
What if we couldn’t see pretty

Would that make you happy?

How
do I make you happy?”

They knocked quietly again
Asked my eyelids for entry to pass
The threshold of my frontal lobe
Patterned the two doors in twin fingerprints
Can the thoughts from today come out to play?
I reached with fingers crossed
The way I always do
And let sway the weeping willows and
Barren bank of my sedated brain
Wishing for breadcrumbs breaking clarity
seeding lily pads and ponds

But it goes dark
The streetlamp glows monochrome
And the river runs mute
A face appears in familiar fashion
Who are you wearing tonight?
Vapid hand-me-downs in shards of
Visions kept unkempt in your resemblance
Everything I know you not to do
Comes streaming from your eyes
Like every tear that’s ever stung
Learned the taste of a tsunami by watching
The waves peel layers from my skull

It throbs around my throat
I watch as the impossible performs
And the fears take centre stage
Puppets with the same shadows as yours
Identical to all my insecurities
Suspended in my own stupidity
For carrying them down the hallway
warming them by the fire
Expecting them to leave hand in hand
With the waning of the ochre moon

But they forget to close the door behind them
And the worst of them comes to the fore

They don’t always burn away with the sunlight
They can’t wait to come back for more