I mourn the self that was taken from me.
A beautiful woman that I’ll never be.
A stunning reflection that I’ll never see.

Instead, a short man, barely any stubble.
Will be made, created, formed out of her rubble.
In a sense, I’m two people, metaphorically double.

I’m the man that I am, but also her too.
She lies in the organs and ******* that I grew.
She never would have existed if earlier I knew.

She is my body, and he is my mind.
Though sometimes I want to, I can’t leave either behind.
I hope if they were to meet me, they’d say I am kind.

We are all heroes in someone’s story.
A brief moment.
A needed word.
A helping hand.

We all question if we’re the bad guy.
In the sink, we see blood.
In the mirror, we see the villain.
In our heads, we hear the victims.

We all are just normal people in the end.
Flying through life.
Saving the people we love.
Protecting what we care about.

We may be the heroes after all.

this is because i am...
I am a artist
I am a poet
I am a cutter
I am a starver
I am a mess of scars
And broken pieces
But the problem is
I am me
When I look in the mirror
All I see is a mistake
A little mess
Of pain And starving
And the scars all along my body
A problem
A smudge on humanity
But that's who I am
I guess I have to accept that

I rinse my face, cold with no soap, not
waiting for water to warm.
The droplets race in uniform rivulets,
stroking, lukewarm, unrivaled
down my cheeks - a careful tease,
without competition. I'm not sure
if it's hurt or an aching hunger, or just
a longing for what I never had, a tainting anger.

The mirror shines an echo of reality
a thousand times blurrier than I see.
The white lies praise closure, toxic autobiography,
as wax eyes glaze over, magnetic abnormality.

Painted mouth, a harsh sculpted shape.
Torn plastic hair, a blocked-off escape.
Between the fluorescence and the silver reply
the fruits of my labour or a sordid
fruit fly?

The scars on my shoulders, the spots on my face;
saturated colours polluting the lace.
Rouge tinted balm, a turned sickly ochre,
My elbows together so my chest looks fuller,
shoulders narrower, triangular figure;
carved by an egoist, all angles and fissures.

The moisturiser refuses to sink into my skin,
a tantaliser of trial, on the surface, a swim.
Impenetrable, inaccessible, my hands rip the surface.
A false doll face with a fast fading purpose.

Foreigners test us:

are we really as caring --


as we think we are?

(a piece from high school (I’ve been reorganizing))

I am simply at my worst these days.
Wild and unpredictable emotions rush on me - it's a place where the layer of control and composure are very thin.

This school year has been an endless working, always desperate, collection of days.

Each passing week seemed to unmask some flaw in me.. Like peeling a rotten onion.

Emotionally, spiritually, I’m drubbed—I droop like a hanged man.

It's not the work—I survive (piano) competitions and academic battles as if by some brand of magic..

No, it's more.
I have lost my goal. Like biblical engineers raising the tower of Babel on the plain of Sennaar, I am struck by a lack of focus. My direction, my original plans, seem shallow—I stand purposefully gelded.

It's worse because I'm somehow so much less who I want to be.

Like an asymptotic curve I constantly miss my ideal. I am hunted, internally, by my own inner voice, that ruthless, pittyless, seeker of perfection.. it lurks like the prowling wolf, stalk bent walk.. sifting my every thought, my every action for flaws.. until like the wing weary hunted pray I could almost welcome the killers warmth for sweet silence

In a mood somewhere between cowardly and courageous I finally approached my mom..

In a speech from the scaffold, I told her of my black, tight, treacherous spiral.. of my doubts about everything.

I expected the worst.. a disappointment, in less than cryptic, ciphered messages, a slow sharpening of her claws on me for endless shortcomings..

Instead, I got miracles..
as if rigid constellations had shifted.. an atmosphere of freedom earned.. and at least for that moment, the mom who used to sing me awake in the mornings as a girl.. and a delicious summer of rest.
.
.
A song for this:
Everyday Is A Winding Road by Sheryl Crow
Cruel To Be Kind by Letters to Cleo
.
Oh, and a Christmas playlist because—it’s December!:
https://daweb.us/xmas/Christmas_02.mp3

I've always been too skinny
and a little bit too tall
my torso almost looks
like there is zero flesh at all

my complexion’s very pale
worryingly more than most
not unlike my mother
if my mother was a ghost

my eyes are chocolate brown
with darker flecks inside
my lips are small and round
no cupid’s bow in sight

people say I'm beautiful
that my smile is sweet
I don't really see it
but mum says I'm a treat

Ruby’s always honest
and she says I'm super cute
I asked my friend Georgie
and he just called me a “beaut”

don't know why they think this
it's obviously not true
looking in the mirror
always makes me sorta blue

Sammy saying “***, I'd die
for such a figure!”
doesn't stop me wishing that my hips were slightly bigger