I got myself heartbroken,
by that boy
who I only got to see until decisions were
made for me.

Everyone talks about the heartbeat that goes still,
silent,
rippling waves of fire melting skin,
the stony sickness riding inside,
the absent stumbles as you will yourself to sleep
through tears and the stolen ability to breathe.

Everyone talks about being vulnerable,
the power behind allowing yourself to feel things,
as they are
seconds to minutes, days to weeks and dreams to dusty
cracks in open eyes,
letting in the glare of things gone wrong,
horrid failures and cut glass pieces lodged in broken wings.

Everyone talks about the necessity, the fundamental
break to start the healing.
It’s the sticky glue and ***** hands of being and not being,
at once rocking inside, feeling the edge, protective,
at once sitting on the edge letting the empty air hold you.
It’s the trust you place to let yourself be free in wrapped arms
and watch it get ripped out if it fails.
But it’s also the calm warnings,
like sharp pebbles making cliffs to climb on bare feet,
not getting out of the surf when the waves get to beastly,
to never let yourself feel fear and pleasure and
true, complicated, I-don’t-know-how-to-say-this
love and hurt.

I got myself heartbroken,
by that boy
who held me more
than any other boy did.

Everyone wants something they find so easy to
keep.
The lightness, the unburdening burden of
loving someone to love you back.
Nothing sweeter than water on a parched throat,
nothing more kinder than a respite for a heart beating too fast and too hard;
we talk about feelings like raiding lands and gaining empires,
scars and tears and blood spattering the terrains of our chests
when we open siege
and fight to own something we have never been blessed to keep
for more than an extended moment;
fight to keep you wanting more,
flames and sparks and agony
when we give you the open ground to
lay waste to us.

Everyone wants to understand what it is,
that makes each attempt so much harder than the last.
Did we damage something vital the first time round?
Did we develop a fever, an ongoing sickness that we breathe around
for weeks?
Did we shut down a vital event of trauma, so hard to close away we completely
forget to try, to damaged to take note of scarred skin?
Let it run and rampage and leave us losers defeated,
walking the same tracks to collect things we left behind,
hoping no one stole them from the dying grass while we slept.

Everyone wants to push aside the worst of things.
I do,
feeling broken and sad looking at my insides
on the floor, a little heaped mound of beautiful knives,
you coveted and hurled back to me, after a simple cut.
You were afraid to bleed out and watch me patch you up,
when I let all my cuts bleed open in front of you,
knowing you would finally be the one to heal them.

I got myself heartbroken,
by a boy
I desperately want to have back again.
I’d fall and cut myself all over again,
to reopen all those empty notches
just for a little piece in the chaos I walk head-straight that
brings me all that warmth and brightness and security and peace
again.
Just please, once all over again.

Not a doubt in my mind we could be so happy,
if you didn’t step in it. And leave me alone in the woods
hearing the howls and screeches and feeling the
feel of claws trace down my spine…

Amongst your blank texts,
I have a message

You bring out something better in me, than when
I’m alone with myself.
What the **** is stable? I’m not stable.
Do not break my heart please.
I’m warning you.

We found ourselves in
a sticky
sticky mess
didn’t we?

We can be so intimate,
because I hate making my walls
from already crumbled bricks and
clay of wilted loves,
the dredge and slurries of everything that went wrong
plasters together the insecurities I hide from,
to protect you from.

You didn’t even build the offence I expected,
to prompt my building, my construction and strategy and
internal combat.
I didn’t have to crouch at your feet,
long forgotten how to feel for myself.
So mastered at letting you take over my body,
make it move with you where you need it to be,
matching ecstasies and heartbeats
and sweat and moans,
feeling you aroused,
secretly wondering if I was made of stone.

It took one touch
to do it.
Just one hopeless exploration of two bodies,
for me to return to my shrivelled husk,
tearful and vulnerable and exposed for all the others,
tainted parcel, envelope turned inside out,
only wishing to be your absolute perfect,
in and out of bedsheets and
the expectations we see peeking out of the shade,
******* us and ruining us as we go.

But you make it seem all ok.
You make that one shadow in my past,
turn me into something else entirely.
It still bothers me, plays me, screws me over and over
until I break a little because it’s just to much trauma to overcome.
Being used for little night-time, quickened searchings,
finding out what people always want from me,
and what they are happy to leave behind them,
with me.

I’ve always known about emotions.
But I don’t think it’s ever been this easy to feel them.
To feel that rise and fall of a wave people keep ranting of.
Because of you, I get it now.
It makes me see stars and feel everything hit at once.

It’s always a start that ages before it’s time.
It’s always the nerves that settle under my skin,
bumps and bruises and dead hour wanderings,
waiting for the inevitable moment it all ends.
As soon as you like me, I start to panic.
I can’t sleep and eat waiting for that little rattle,
pop shake
of when you pick up the phone and make my panic real.

I can only believe you for a day.
I can only like you for for a day at a time.
I can only show you what I am for a day at a time under very
rational considerations.

To feed you until you want me no more.
You can scrunch up your eyes and turn to plead you would never,
but having been a lot of messed-up lovely things to a lot of people,
I know you are a human emotional puddle.
And they were all human too.

And all our time together
becomes a heartfelt plea,
the heavy, pressure-on-chest of hope
that no one ever warns you about,
of the dangers of letting yourself go
with them
that special person
feeling everything you strive so hard to suppress
given over to trickster hands and laughs
of those emotions you fear.

We don’t regret it.
Not at all.
But all our movements and affections are
dictated expiry dates,
and I hate it being about us needing
to consume as much of each other
before the time ticks over and
it’s all spoiled.

So this solidifies where I am,
where I am coming from,
when I curl up next to you.
This is my flagged position,
in this strategic push-pull, give-take, want-relinquish
games we desperately seek to play.
I’m always the loyal friend, crying when you close a door on me,
or leave me aside,
or throw me away for someone, something new.

So instead
for now,
I’m going to remind myself of all the things one day could be true.
And get a little lost in you,
because that’s all I can do.

It’s that or I’m going to have to watch you walk away,
and hope I feel this rollercoaster again.

I missed you.

Oh how I missed you; like a wandering
traveller waiting for the new light on the darkened
foreign streets to everywhere.
And so our travels go like this…

Like the traveller delayed, already departed from home,
yet still searching for the next greatest ambition, dream, landscape of contentment
I felt the sludge of home-sickness;
a deepened breath when I heard from you again.
And to keep the sick down;
I realised what I hadn’t been able to say;
words choking my throat, razor edges skimming,
drawing slivered cracks in my breath.

I realised my feet had been standing still the entire time,
out of phone calls and the sound of smiles from the other line,
a companionship was never too hard to resist from you.
The tricky little games of life and feeling weren’t so stressful to navigate,
compass, map, rushed footsteps dancing along the roads to you.
Neither were your hands ever unwanted;
you could carve such brilliant sculptures of me with your fingers,
roaming, heated, the quickened pulse under mingling collarbones.
Lying with you reminded me of your talents, your greatness
that integrity and solid stillness out of place anywhere
but with
you.

A picture postcard of me and you.

Coming together again on beaten, dusty paths of the sweat and painfully
sharp air we breathe,
a kiss.
Was all it took.
I returned home all over again.
My feet were still standing still.
The miss, the bursting heart, hot and explosive to rekindle everything.

I divulged what ticked over in my head, the beats my heart skipped over you.
Blurted it out over the fear that
what is gone is completely gone.
Taking a step back to take that step forward again.
I made you reconnect with all your burdens;
over me and everything we touched together.
*** returned to the table, but I found out I know longer
wanted to own it, want flowers placed in a vase without purpose.
And we all went back again;
I missed our friendship, our coupled retreat, I missed how we used to simply be.
But I can learn to regret the risky flights I took with you,
and the physical became one.

The sad truth, is that I will never be able to stay at home forever.
I need to tell you I miss you but I also can’t be with you forever.
Paths are not worn down, they are not trekked, nor found
at the end if I am resting, waiting,
for them all to meet me.

I feel sorry for returning home, knowing my bags are already filled
for another adventure, another place.
But I can’t take home with me.
I can’t take you with me.
I feel sorry for making you dredge it up for no reason,
for lies, for misinterpretation;
I wanted to tell you before you opened up to it, to save you from shame.

And now I wrap my arms around myself,
to shield against the lonely slow footsteps I take now,
bags packed full of me, to take with me and remind myself,
of who I am, and where I will be going;
Don’t think I don’t feel despicable;
about making you feel about your feelings for me again, for no reason in the end.
I can only feel guilty and sick to the core for so long.

But now I wander. I can still love you
like home,
but I can also be free.

I’m nervous, simply waiting for you to snap me
like a twig.
I’ve bundled my feelings, my loves and hates,
all those outspoken words
and all those silenced words,
into a little gift-wrapped, topped-with-a-bow
gift
for you.

You will accept it.
It is what comes after, when it reaches your nimble hands,
that frightens me.

You weave your skill so well,
like knitted discord inside, I can feel
when I reach in to see if I’m all still there.
Under many dark moons,
you leave your shadow to keep me company.

It walks beside me, keeping my head whirring on into the
small hours of the darkened dawn when
I see it
at the foot of my bed
watching me sleep.
You told it to crawl into all the tight spaces
inside me,
with me.
It reminds me of you, endlessly, always,
breathing your name as I surrender to closing my eyes,
vulnerable lying before your peering shadow,
it could stop me breathing in a heartbeat.

Only you, sweet devil, can keep me falling so hard
so fast,
shedding myself trailing from your bed to mine.
I linger in the smell of you wrapped around my clothes,
taken off in a hurry as your words,
sizzling spitfire,
hand-made cuts and invisible haemorrhage
shatter me to pieces
easy enough for you to pick and keep in
your bed until you are finally finished
with me.

All I feel is the burden of myself,
when I really have no burden to hold.
I’m a phone running out of battery when you need it most.
Filled with a frenzied panic, a slap of frustration passes your face
to use against me all that bottled irritation.
If I don’t touch you back you will
wield it against me,
blame for insensitivity, a slowly seeping coldness
I can fight off under your roaming form
in a shady light of fear.

Your emotional abuse is a character.
It has a body, limbs and hollow face and it can bruise me
with a single touch.
I never leave my body open with you.
And to what end do I let you paint me with your manipulations,
your scheming tactics
your irrevocable evidence I’m worth nothing more for you;
like a girl’s doll known to be too pretty,
putting sticky residue inside their goals at night.

So use me with your infamous fingers.
I dare you, do it.
Again.

I get your message, but I struggle

making the words come together.

Just like I struggled making our pieces fit.

I have one question.

That’s been digging trenches in my mind.

Hollowing out all the empathy, the faith,

the blind addiction to sourcing a better humanity;

better lovers, stronger fighters,

stunning believers, more tender hearts.

With actual effort to beat on their own.


Your exclamations are false, always.

And I can tell you why

my shell is caked in your muddy, rotting stink of fake facts.

I’m cracked, embittered, roughened edges capable of paper-cut slicing skin

and all my lovely scars can tell you something you hardly believe.

I’m here to tell you why.

And why I hate how you make me feel this way;

a cynical coil of seething, jilted, passion, to fix what I can’t.


For all those who make hearts melt and weep,

shed heat and fire in rapturous thoughts and darkened, tainted dreams;

for all the single words you used as tools to build up walls,

break down my walls,

deceive me into caring about you

who chisels into only getting the gem he wants.

You can collapse a mine on me for all you care

in the end.


For all those who can make devilishly delightful

fantasies for all the vulnerable loners,

like me,

like us all when we shut our eyes,

to hover and circle over, beg for on our backs,

naked and open and bleeding raw beneath you

like ritual sacrifices for some higher purpose, some higher hopes and

goals and unwavering loyalties

to you,

my dearest demon behind every salvation;

You are the emotional abusers that gravitate in my orbit,

and I can’t seem to dislodge your planets from my line.

I admit, you got me high off some stunning ****.

Of yours.


For all those gentle, perpetually unavailable, curious beings

vacationing deep away inside

if only you would let me try and reach you, for you

to bring out all the best in me back;

before you close up like sealing a scar

We are left in a continual loop of back and forth and sideways,

hovering through open, closing doors

elevator rides to the same living routine, breaths, steps,

burdened heavy heart and raw eyelids

bruised red and blue in swollen tears

when you can never emerge from yourself to realise I’m right here

for you.


For those that run around, commanding disciples, throwing the weight of luck,

fortunate coincidences, helping fools sabotage and **** for existence,

perfection,

idealism,

licking off frosting,

dwelling in your own superiority,

I see your ruse.

Painting pristine pictures

with the lift of a finger

selling illicit jealousies and spite

like wildfire

from the back of your 24/7 Facebook page.

You make us understand the reality of one-sided loyalties,

the critical unfair rulings of want and have,

divided and mixed between people,

achievements hard fought for like precious land

and ownerships of better peoples

determined by the infernal number of people you know.


So yes.

I do have one question for you.

Why are you like this?

An why must we all break apart alone in

the boiling pressure of it all?

Forget the next night.

Wait for the return.