occasionally i think about ways i want to die. it’s a buffet spread, really. i used to want to die in a high speed collision but i’d rather not paint the metal canvas with my carcass; drowning is also out of the question, i’ve had enough salty liquid on my cheeks and i want none in my lungs. when i was younger i’d sit by the window staring at my estate, coming up with routes to escape if a murderer ever came after us. now i’m not so sure. i might even leave a glass of warm milk by the gate. they say when you’re baptised you die and come back to life. in that manner i have died twice already, perhaps i should’ve stayed dead the second time. i’m not necessarily suicidal, i’m just saying that i can’t seem to visualise myself past 25 years old

don't tell me how i'm supposed to feel. stop dictating how fast my heart is supposed to beat, how clammy my hands should or shouldn't be. on good days i am able to rein in my mind, other days the tremors leak into my throat, taking over my vocal cords like venomous tendrils. don't tell me how i'm supposed to feel. your banal and repeated words are reflective of your foolishness and the windows to your soul are crumbling. do you tell a crippled man to rise and walk as if it is his weak will that bounds him to the wheelchair? in the same manner you are not the creator of my cerebrum and in no way are you entitled to categorize my twitching fingers, pale lips and darting eyes under Attention Seeking. is this a joke to you? is pacing around my room, battling myself, weighing the pros and cons of stepping out of the house merely for your entertainment? fit me in a metaphor- wring my skin, my bones, my muscles and you are left with a dehydrated skeleton and a pool of highly strung particles.

i am

i. made of convergence of words, stems & ink.

never one to love geography but knowledgeable enough to know of the convergence of twenty six letters, wilted life givers and pigments that forms my skin. you can keep the feather light secrets resting on the petals―i only want the stem, the xylem, the phloem; to support my fragile state. you can be the pigment that stains my skin like the sun rise and sun sets i entrapped from Mother Nature. it is unfortunate the light has lost its way amongst the maze that is my veins, but i can be your light at the end of the tunnel if you don’t mind a flickering hesitant radiator. when you have mastered Taking Things Apart Without Killing, come to me and unpick the threads in my skin. maybe you’ll learn more about the words that latched upon me and if you’re lucky enough, you may uncover a raw portion i’ve hidden away. don’t forget the Lock N Lock container.

ii. held together by creaky cartilage

never one to study human anatomy but interested enough to read up and find out that i am held together by two hundred and six bones. the clavicle cradles liquefied pieces of you and the patella locks to allow the world to rest its burden on my shoulders. the sternum pieces itself and encases the lump of muscle that keeps me breathing, and cranium holds the Boss of my body. you can pick my spine and play it like a flute but please be careful for nothing resides in them. nothingness clots up my veins; nothingness fills the space between my bones; nothingness slowly taking over my senses. your October poetry piece stings me like the harsh winter wind, blows across the land and reduces my cartilage to dust. hold me like you would a newborn baby for i do not take supplement pills and i am the result of several fractured wrists & hips.

iii. harboring galaxies & objects inside

never one to take up Astronomy but aware that i harbor several milky ways and universes among the frantic chaos of every *****. flowers blossom in the crevices of my wrist bones and butterflies and birds of unnamed species flutter around in the comfort of my rib cage, just as pixies and sprites sleep and sing Church songs in the palms of my hands. sequinned galaxies swirl around in microscopic areas and i will expand until my seams burst only for me to bleed gold dust and crumpled stars. these tidal waves inside of my head won’t stop crashing until someone wakes me up to make sense of what i am and the meaning of lif

titled: The True Confessions Of A Heartless Girl

this is not an apology letter and i will not apologize about my words that reek of *****, neither will i express my heartfelt woeful regret for burying what was left of your love under black wilted roses. in September we spent four hours under a tree attempting to bind our hearts and minds but i crumpled them together with the fallen autumn leaves, leaving you staring at the exposed bits of yellow xanthophylls and orange beta-carotene blended with the beautifully bruised muscle. i’m not sorry that your flowers ended in the trashcan with the weeds, but they were crooked and fading. i’m not sorry that the love poem you requested from me was written in the cemetery on the back of your father’s obituary, and i’m definitely not sorry that the first tree i felled in my backyard was the one with our initials carved in your pinned dead heart. call me heartless, but this will clear up everything you were ever baffled about. i am heartless. no, not that type of heartless. i am literally heartless. in my chest there lies a chest of drawers which used to be unlocked and filled with human traits but somehow along the way i think the key to them ended up rusting in my bottomless pit of a stomach. i won’t ask if you still feel that tingle in your spine when my name is mentioned, but did the letters from her burn prettier than the ones from me? did your last name fit her better than it did with me? did the last petal you plucked ended with “she loves me”? i know she smells like honey and roses but i’m not sorry that i smell like roadkill and expired cheese. now it’s December and i’ve changed my name to Hollow then repainted my skin with cut out pieces of eulogies. once upon a time i was actually a teen girl with hummingbird heart beats and red apples for cheeks, but as of today i am completely out of touch with this world, painting nail varnish on cigarettes and tucking in tulips with the weeds. her sad words may be written on textured paper but mine will stand up and punch you in the eye. most of the time we learn that you have choices in life, but all i ever know is that for every big leap you take you’ll end up with a splintered bone and it’s just like writing your life story in permanent ink. maybe one day the ocean will freeze and you’ll find the hidden message in your coffee, but this is not an apology letter and i’m still not sorry for scalding your skin with a hot iron rod when we were twelve years old. see you in the pool of regret; i won’t be there, since i’m lacking a heart.

i’ve been thinking a lot lately, mainly about why i seem to lose grip of the people around me so rapidly. people i’ve grown up around, people i’ve known since i was buck toothed and wearing crocs with socks. it feels like over the years something in the air shifted and so did the balance in my brain, no longer do we roll our eyes  nor do we playfully nudge each other. this has evolved into an inside joke that i am no part of; a box only with square holes but I am a circle. is it my fault though, that i’ve never met the person?  in my mind i have sculpted a figure and fit us into scenarios– laughing, closed eyes, arched backs, silent acknowledgements, understanding palms, wordless hugs. yet i promise myself never to open up. the key is to be mysterious, to not divulge information like a water dispenser.  this key will be the death of me and my sanity.

there is nothing romantic in thinking you’ve got everything under control then rapidly entering a downward spiral into destruction. my mother used to apply baby lotion on my hands and i thought maybe he’d want to hold them then. there is not a hint of warmth in realising that everything you ever thought was worth holding on to never seemed to want to stay. you have become a motel in a deserted town where nothing is constant except you and emptiness. or even a gas station– people come and take, take, and take but not once do they give. i am essentially a haunted house. you like the idea of me and the beginning mystery but ten minutes into the experience you want out. you know what? just put me in the blender, stop removing bit by bit, piece by piece. you can have me, bones and all.