My writing once flowed like fresh tears chasing each other down blotchy cheeks, unspeakable sorrow etched in the shadows of smile lines.

Words once arose at my every beckon, like a puppy to its owner.

Once, I could sit down and dream, my adolescent imagination trickling into paper and ink.

Once, these hands breathed life into a keyboard, stories and scenes dripping from my very skin.

Now my visions cling like clammy palms wiped on satin dresses, drops of sweat sticking stubbornly to flesh as ideas do to my fingertips.

What I would give to wield that power once more.

I do not yet know why I'm sad
Perhaps life's been a little too long
Perhaps a little too short
Perhaps a little bit empty
Perhaps a little too full

I just know that when the heart aches
I need to write, I need to embrace life
I need to live it with everything it takes
And somehow I'm all too aware
That nothing at all lasts forever

To the misery and the unbearable losses
To the days of hysterical laugher
To the paranoia that haunts me still
To the calming waves of a violent ocean
Everything ends at the shores

What is it to be brave, to be courageous
To stand tall in the face of fear and know
That you might die, but you won't live anyway
The night may be dark and uncertainties may lurk
I might not make it through the night but the sun will rise

Can I still smile, laugh even, just for a while
In the midst of this torment, can I fake a life
I might go silent from time to time
I might sit all alone, as the wind have me in shivers
Write my heart out and then burn it to ashes

And as the fire dies down, I'll write a bit faster
The heartache takes away with it my words
And I always struggle, just to be devastated
For a little while longer, just till I get rid of this trash
But just as always, nothing indeed lasts forever!

I can't write
I actually physically can't
OK
OK how about, something with flowers
Not like that's been done 1000000000 times
I swear to god anymore similes and I will

punch

my

own

esophagus

This is terrible
OK ummm
Fish tanks?
Fish tanks aren't all that poetic
I can't think of anything
I think I'm dried up
Like an empty...
Fish tank
******
Wait a minute
What if I just write something about
Not knowing what to write
That would be easy
It also explains why this *****
******

In order to expose my heart and truly write,
I must release my status or my pride,
this is not about me,
it was never meant to be a way to gain recognition,
another way for me to perform on a stage, some sort of exhibition.
Yet I find myself hesitating to write my thoughts,
trying to impress people I don't even know,
It was only meant to be an outlet a therapy for me, never some sort of show,
but like everything I have ever done somehow Id rather waste my time trying to impress. My guilty conscience driving me to be truly under duress. Forced to hold back the leanings of my heart I merely release a fluffy worthless shallow piece. I will not be stifled, held down by my need to please, my ribs will not rupture under this pressure as I try to breathe. I must write with heart and soul or not at all.
So this is my open message to you pride, no matter how many times I fool myself into putting on your mask, I promise, your control over me will not last.
I will take you off just as quickly as I put you on because I want someone who reads these to truly see me. To see me with all of my scars misfortunes and faith, I will put my heart out, I will never aspire to be fake.

When you forget how to do the things you know you love doing
It can feel like the ability that used to come so naturally
Has already soaked into the misshapen stain of nothingness you blame yourself for spilling

It’s contents have already slipped between the floorboards
And escaped from the cracks in your skin before you got a chance to check when they’d be coming back

I haven’t been writing recently
I haven’t been able to
I don’t know why

I don’t know why my right hand can’t find the will to cradle a pen the way it did before
Like my fingers have forgotten their favourite position to make love to lined paper in

A broken down marriage forcing itself to carry on collapsing
Wheels wasting away spoke by spoke with every rotation
Until there is nothing left to support it’s tired turning
Until it falls on it’s side
Disintegrates
And becomes one with the earth it used to roam so proudly

Maybe it’s just rusty
Growing weaker with age
Desperate for an oiling of inspiration
Provoked by the detonation of something bigger than it’s brittle body
Something so furious
so deafening
that the dots that hang on the insides of closed eyes never stop flashing
Even when the world violates fortresses of eyelashes
and pupils learn to dilate on demand

Maybe I’m missing something
Something already there
As plain as the nose on my face
Just north of cupids bow and south of sights for sore eyes

And yet
It still refuses to tell me where
or how to trace the invisibility of a saving grace that mockery comes second nature to

Maybe it’s not meant for me
But then please explain the fragility of such a thing
That threaded itself so delicately into the stitching of my naive and barren soul the first time I made my mouth move
to speak words it only ever spoke in silence

Explain the burning in my belly
Whose smoke rises into my chest with every late night
stage fright
bedroom performance delivered to absent guests whose applause is collected
Kept secret beneath my pillows
Only to emerge in the shapes of dreams
Evaporating with every 6am sunrise that shines through my window

I’ve never been a morning person
Tiredness has turned into a trait rather than a side effect

I find myself falling asleep on buses in the hope that when I wake up I will be somewhere I don’t recognise but always intended to visit
A place littered with billboards advertising what my purpose in life was always meant to be
And a phone number beneath where first come first served gets it for free

Early bird gets the worm
And now my wings only work in the dark
Ever since contracting the corrosive infection that spread all the way to the edges of the veins until it began to bleed but never had the courage to finish the job

Guilt has set so many seeds in my stomach
That a dynasty of doubts has grown it’s own garden
and is using my bones as a trellis
Contradictions can’t capture the cause of a catastrophe
But give the clouds enough time to settle and the dust might tell you why

It’s not that nothing was meant for me
I just don’t think I’m destined for anything
bigger than my body

The one I inhabit daily
On a part-time
rent-free basis

Where autopilot is automatic

We're still waiting for someone else to fix the off switch