I want to create silence with you
to know your crevices and patterns
your good intentions and bad habits
please be patient with me
I grew up learning to make a fortress out of my fears
to find comfort in inconsistency
I'm sorry if the way I built my walls ever makes it difficult to see
and if you don't want to stay say it now
because I'm starting to feel at home when you sit next to me
I'm not sure of much but I'm sure of you

She keeps her walls high,
head above water;
her thoughts are deeper
than the ocean, yet,
She's not waiting for
someone to save her.

if only
the walls
were thicker
and then
i wouldn't
be able
to hear
my parents
fighting

if only
the walls
were thicker
so when
i'm talking
to my
bestfriends
over the phone,
they won't
ask what's
going on

if only
the walls
were thicker
and then
i wouldn't
have to tell
them it's
nothing

if only the
walls were
thicker
and then i'd
be able
to lie down
on my bed
not thinking
about what's
going on but
focusing on
myself
and my studies

if only
the walls
were thicker
so i could
sleep at
night
without
having to
hear them
all the time

if only the
walls were
thicker
so i could
close my
eyes,
even for
a second

if only
it were true
that everything
was fine

but now
i'm
listening to
their arguments
as a lullaby to
fall asleep

I had a wall so high, the top you couldn’t see,
and in front there were trenches in the ground.
It had stood there strong for all of my memory,
no one could lift it or break it down.
Then one day you strolled up so casually,
you were so stealthy I didn’t hear a sound.
You asked I could remove it completely
and I suggested going to the next town,
but you knocked and you climbed so persistently
to get inside it seemed you were bound.
Finally one day I opened the gate very cautiously,
then my wall became just a brick mound.
My stronghold had revealed it’s vulnerability,
you had conquered and taken my crown.
Then you said “nevermind, this place isn’t for me.”
after only a short glance around.

My baby.
You’re wondering about the type of women you want to be. It’s a sad and soggy Sunday and you sit by the railing while it’s raining and the wind sighs at your presence.
You long for love, and peace, and mystery and excitement and you long to be wanted for who you are not who you could be if you were small.

My baby.
Everything you want isn’t everything you see.
Damaged isn’t pretty, my baby and maybe it looks it but the pain, oh baby the pain is like nothing you’ve ever felt.
And maybe you crave the mystery, maybe you crave the smudges mascara and the hunger pains.
But honest to truth my baby
Being this ****** up ain’t cute
Being this ****** up isn’t safe.
Being this ****** up makes you wonder what in the world is.

My baby there is nothing like the ache of being empty,
The sad and solemn nothing, the pitiless void that seldom empties but when it does you put stars in his eyes for he is the only other person with the key.
And a lot of the time the key doesn’t fit your locks,
The walls you’ve put up are brick.
Solid.
And for every brick you stack he takes one away, eager to pull them down he tries and baby one day you might stop building.
Maybe it’ll be on a soft and sunny Saturday when both of you are laughing and you see it within him.
You’ll stop building and he’ll smile knowing that
Yes.
Finally.
Free.

My baby your walls are thick and strong,
Most of the time,
Sometimes they fall but you pick them up and rebuild don’t let anyone see the truth.
He knows.

My baby the boy you love will never quiet fill your cup and it’ll break you but it’s not his job to.
You have to try too.
Because baby I know you hurt and I know you just want out of the cruel ******* world but now no.
Now you have someone to love you.
To love you for who you are and not who you would be if you were small.
Someone who loves you so that to go would be to take a piece of him with you.
Maybe that piece is the spark you fell in love with.
Baby no now you have someone to live for.

My baby I know you think smudged mascara and running away is desirable and makes them want more but baby.
On the good days you feel like a well oiled machine, task after task focus, seem well act well everybody laughs, smooth machine yet still lack the basic humanity that should consume you.

My baby on the bad days, broken down, some days you manage to trudge your way out of bed and into the daytime, empty but there,
Worse, the days where you can’t get up. Where you open the window and stare out into the garden you’ve always seen and you let the sadness and elusive sleepiness win until you’re exhausted with sleep.
Days where blades help you feel and help the anger inside you escape when the blood bubbles through your torn skin.

My baby the overthinking will drive you crazy, where the concept of an ear is weird even when he whispers sweet nothings into them and tucks that little stray piece of hair behind them.
Where *** is a mechanism by which sounds so wrong but feels so right but baby do not use it to cure the sadness.
It will always win.  

My baby home is haunting.
The ghosts of who you used to be haunt you, taunt you, and the love you used to feel is gone. Home isn’t home. Home is a house in the hillside.
Home is the space between his arms where your head rests against his chest and he breathes in to smell the coconut in your hair, home is the way he stares at you and smiles, home is the way he plays video games with you in his lap, home is his dilated pupils, home is the weird way you hold hands on the train, home is short jokes and home is when he looks at you as if you
You
You my baby
Are just absolutely spectacular
Even when you feel like a fleck of dust on this pointless world.

My baby though he is home, mental illness and distress isn’t pretty.
Panic attacks and ugly crying in public isn’t pretty. The disability of breathing isn’t pretty. Being perched over a toilet bowl isn’t pretty. Not eating for days isn’t pretty. Pulling out clumps of hair isn’t pretty. Being clumsy because you are so anaemic isn’t pretty. Passing out isn’t pretty. Wrist scars and bloodstained sheets aren’t pretty.
Being sick isn’t pretty.

Baby I wish we’d stopped when we knew.

Baby I wish help meant something because though you’ve tried,
Nothing gets through.

Baby when it rains it pours, and through every storm I have you, my hand is there to hold.
So we’ll call Noah’s arc and we’ll start a new world.
I know you’re hurting.
But my baby I promise one day we’ll be safe.
No longer shipwrecked.
My baby one day
One day
We’ll be free.