To be a man, is to face your fears everyday.
Carry this meat suit in a dignified fashion.
Question life and its maelstrom of sorrow.
Forgive the failures of others.

To be a man, is to protect your friends.
Hide your disgust at others happiness.
Move unnoticed through a crowd of people who struggle everyday.
Find, laugh and be merry with your best friends.

To be a man, is to know thine enemy.
Prepare for your future trials by training the body.
Always mistrust the ones you love.
Pretend to feel empathy and recognize their true intentions.

To be a man, is to control your violent impulses.
Never acknowledge the visions of killing that you see.
Hold back the feeling of tears when spoken kindly to.
Never help the destitute.

And when I stop being a man.
And the facade finally breaks.
And the families who stabbed me in the back, come for more.
And when everyone has quietly left me.
And I am now the destitute.
I cradle my body.
And tremble alone.

the stars, quite literally,
aligned for the sweet & sour
meddling of the human race.
an artistic, feuding mortality now born,
thanks to the haphazard and
wildly unlikely mix of
tingling elements.
humans, we are in a
tiny sliver of time.
the stars, oh wow, they gave us
our legs and quickly enough
an unearthly load of growing pains.
a prophecy, a gift, a humble endowment
of neuroplasticity.
the tiniest sliver of time, where the stars
aligned, for the tiniest burst of
clumsy, hopeful light.
in these star-kissed structures we grow,
fail, fail more and fail again until
finally we decide which failure defines
our livelihood– a raw and honorable
pursuit which is not our ultimate
footprint. the starts, they know,
they die.
we must live our lives knowing
that we are in a sliver of time.

lately i have been dissipating,
trying to vanish.
not die,
but not live.
there are clouds of smoke where my brain used to reside,
now you could classify me as a shell of a human.
this is my own fault,
right?
i became vulnerable
i handed him my heart.
i expected him to do the same,
but he deceived me.
he let my heart shatter on the floor.
i set his beating soul down next to me as i was picking up the pieces of mine that he had carelessly dropped.
turns out he picked up his heart from beside me without me noticing.
when i stood up i handed him the shards of my soul because that’s what you do in a relationship,
right?
you trust that person with those delicate pieces of yourself.
he then continued to grind the fragments of my heart into a fine powder
put it in pill capsules,
and took them as he walked away to a better option.
now he takes a daily dose of me.
he has his heart and mine and a piece of whatever girl he decides to make, no fake, whatever girl he decides to fake love to that night.
what do i have left?
absolutely nothing.
he has left me completely hollow.
heartless sleepless alone
and all i can do is keep waking up and wandering this empty life.
i am so utterly numb
i honestly can not feel right now.
i wish he would have at least given me some of my heart back,
even just half of a prescription.
i have lost myself
to his sick soul,
and it makes me feel absolutely nothing.
but hey,
at least i am making him feel better.
right?
at least the prescription is working for him.
i would hate to see it go to waste,
like the rest of myself.

My failings are justified
Ghosting your presence
Love me once meant life
Kindred lips part ways
Varied volume waves your force
Happiness used to be your metaphor for me
Climbing down now
Grounded grinding and generous

I don’t know how we changed,
and when

I can’t remember the first time we kissed
or the first time we - well.
but I remember the first time you told me where you were living next year
and the second time
and the third.

you picked the right moment to meet me, or was it just chance?
that the club was closing but there was still time for one dance

and I only had one ciggie left but you didn’t mind sharing
and you knew where the after party was and you didn’t mind sharing

I have to stop seeing techno boys
Because I think that it’s meaningful when really I’m just high
on the music.

I really want to talk to you about how crazy it is that the light hitting the Earth right now is billions of years old
or maybe just how my day went because I’m not a Tumblr post

we’re sitting in the pub with two drinks between us like a moat
and I really want to tell you something
but I CAN'T because you're talking
about where you're going to be living
next year.

or what you study at uni & last week's pub crawl
you say all these words and you just say **** ALL

but I just smile and filter you out
because in the end I know there’s no doubt
that we’ll go home tonight and go through the motions
& in the morning you’ll leave to ‘charge your phone’

I’m kidding I’m kidding take me seriously, please
not that I care but it means the world to me

because the person you are in my head doesn’t match up
to the boy sitting in front of me on a ****-up

I think that I'm realising I’m in love with MY love
and it’s impossible for you to ever measure up

(but anyway you were kinda setting yourself up to fail)
(when you spend the whole date talking about trainer resales)

so I guess this is a break-up - if we even warrant that -
cause I know we won't speak if I don't text back

and then in three months, I’ll run into you again
and I’ll wonder how we changed,
and when.