-I scream at you for bleeding everywhere, when I myself feel like an never-ending open wound.

-Lazy, laying, and filled with disdain we sit and let time wander through the dusty halls.

-Suspended in mid-air, twirling amongst light and darkness, I wait for movement to occur.

-The smog has lifted, but we remained mentally clouded and uncertain.

-There's plenty of food, but nobody eats. We stay still until the sun sets and countless clouds of *** eagerly activate the palate. Then we feast meagerly on snacks and drink and drink and drink until tomorrow blinks into our vision. We clean until the space feels open and momentarily alive, only to wreck it through the night to create purpose for the next day.

-The fragility of the day immediately crumbles in my hands the moment I make contact.

-I'm holding my breath, hoping all the air will keep me afloat.

-Because in the end I'm just a scared girl, shooting arrows at the world trying to pinpoint my direction.

All I ever get is your ashes:
The macaroni dinner you burned,
The last part of your jokes,
The short end of your smokes,
And the last ones will be in your urn.

I never liked people who call trauma "interesting"
especially in reference to those white raised lines
cascading skin, or young worship of praying
for the hurt to stop in my sleep.

Devoting years to stupid diets,
melting away the jiggle of my thighs,
sometimes when I indulge, my brain receives texts
but I don't reply.

You certainly don't, so why
should we give energy to the notion,
I am only as interesting as my suffering. Saving
ourselves isn't a definitive moment,
though I strive to find purpose within myself,
slivers who I'm meant to be
come through
in conversations with you.

All those years,
living life like an obituary. I want
to show you I'm more than a picture
that told herself shallow things like,
ugly people are a statistic and pretty
people are a portrait-
these things bore me.

But your head resting between my thighs
as I hold you

doesn't

knowing our imperfections
keep us young

doesn't

a meaningful life in love

doesn't.

We use to glide
With nothing to hide
The smile we have
On a waltz we dance

May music won't end
Eternal dance to spend
We tried to hold
And grip with hope

But hope turned cold
My grip you no longer hold
The waltz changed its tone
And now I dance alone

I'm a happy little angel
sentimental and soft
as I dance through the clouds
I think of you sweetly

I'm a happy little angel
saying "I love you" in between sweet smiles
as you wipe your tears away
I will guide you, my dear

How could we have survived,
Without that old table?
Memories made of creaking wood,
Every scratch a storyteller.
Super glue for flesh and blood,
Which rested in my mother’s kitchen.

The clouds over Antwerp (so far from home)
Caress the cathedral, barely brush the dome.
The sun is mild, and the wind soft,
Yet darker, boiling things come aloft.

Tendrils of remembrance, making me a liar –
I said I'd extinguish that treacherous fire.
A torch that shouldn't be, let alone be carried,
What should stay hidden, locked, and buried.
A flashback unbidden - your easy laughter -
There is no hope, not in the After.

The sky seems paper-thin, a fake screen of blue,
Threatening to peel back, revealing only you;
The cottony clouds, an illusion that will melt,
Spilling the intensity of all that I felt;
Still feel (oh god), and I can't disperse,
You are woven in the fabric of my universe.

I wonder if you're gazing, taking in the stars,
Or dark forests whose trees seem to me like bars;
A prison: I'm trapped, without being held,
My heart saw yours and decided to weld
Us together, but the alloy didn't match –
My forever, your bad batch.
Bleeding, I hold on to the damaged patch,
Too stupid to let go, too stupid to detach.

My life stands still, as chances pass through,
And all I see, all, is that they're not you.

*

There's fog now, heavy like lead -
I wonder if the veil seeped straight from my head;
Shrouding the world in a numb ache,
Distracting my thoughts, for sanity's sake.

And your presence pulses, a soft thrum of power,
Pitter-patter of rain, a ghost of a shower.
Just like a ghost, you're gone, but you're here,
Too far to touch, but to forget - too near.

I've forgotten how to breathe without you.

And now that you're not around,

I'm suffocating, or I'm about to;

Fallen, and glued to the ground.


Claustrophobic in my own skin -

It feels wrong, existing outside your space.

Wish I could destroy the vacuum within,

What went on too long, what I should replace.


Even the world-wide plague would fade,

if compared in magnitude,

To the way you cast my soul in shade;

The memories in solitude.


And my lungs feel full of flowers,

Sowed by your unknowing hand,

And my doom above me towers,

I gasp for air - I breathe in sand.


And you, unaware of your powers,

Sleep somewhere miles away,

While I watch rainy, grey showers,

And chase my breath that just won't stay.


Seems some raindrops, small and week,

From the storm have gone astray,

Wandered in, onto my cheek,

That's why it's wet (or so I say).


And I hear talk of Crown* blight,

The fear it drives in people's hearts,

While my own still pulses with your light,

Riddled with Cupid's darts.


And they had lied when they said,

All wounds would be healed by Time:

Some sorrows stay without being fed,

Only good for fuelling rhyme.


So, on half a breath I learn to live,

Just getting by to the next day,

Tired, untethered, but with plenty to give

- for I know I must follow my way.