yet again i find myself wide awake at midnight and beyond, lost in the labyrinth of my mind. the walls are dark and narrow, paths crumbling under every footstep and disintegrating with every tiptoe. the madness is overwhelming, echos of regret and misery dotting the darkness in broken frames and shattered glass. the end of the maze is identical to its start, empty and hollow and broken in ways that even i could not begin to fathom.

i am a ghost and a barren wasteland inside; a mannequin robot controlled by routine and forced smiles with no beating pulse or rhythmic heart. the silence is overwhelming, the sadness overbearing. there are tidal waves of emotions that wash over me in attempts to drown and flood me in this place, waters murky grey and suffocating. there is no shore here, only sea.

everything i am is mess, a chaos, a ruin, a tangled sphere of emotions and pent up feelings that run too deep past the surface of my heart and entwine themselves into my veins. it is here i am embedded with the shards of the past and memories that haunt me, gravity a weightless substance in the ocean of my tears. there are regrets and wishes and dreams, and as much as i try to escape i only sink further and further into manic depravity.

-

"i fell in love once."

"what happened?"

"i never stopped falling."

(A.H.Z)

there was the morning you found me, among weary eyes and tired souls. your enthusiasm was infectious, dangerous even, and through you i was almost convinced to love the hours of the morning. i remember because this was how we began, innocent, young and carefree.

there was the afternoon you arranged to meet with me, the grin on your face unmistakable as i stepped out of the hall into the windy corridor. your hair was golden brown in the sunlight, but your eyes outshone even the sun. i remember because that was the day you promised me the world, and i believed you.

there was the evening you coaxed me into running with you, passing grass and rocky paths till both our feet were sore. you sang and i laughed, and somehow through the exhaustion we managed to dance our way into each other's hearts. i remember because to me, it was everything.

there was the night you took me in your arms and told me it'd be okay. your warmth was enough to melt the ice around my heart and even though we were crying, you managed to smile through the tears. i remember because that was the moment i knew that as long as i was with you, i was home.

-

far off, you stand in the rain, head tilted up and a smile on your face; raindrops running races past your eyelids, your cheekbones, eventually falling off your chin. you look calm and at peace, but a glance that meets my eyes tell me otherwise, of feelings unspoken and words unsaid.

"do you miss him?"
a friend asks at my side, quiet and concerned.

i smile in response, hands trembling.
"i have never wanted so badly to be the rain."

(A.H.Z)

babe, baby,
flush them out
once they'd call us the
colonised, the lost -

together we are
pressed paper, labyrinth
i think in phrases,
phrases and
your thoughts,
calculate

love, lover,
grasping at straws
tell me of how she
broke you before, i'll
show you my own
scars.

(A.H.Z)

moon, you smile
fingernail curve
cheshire glint
radiate, radiate
the world is at your feet

moon, you are caged
window glass, storm
breeze and they
hurry to cover your light
dandelion, where are you now?

moon, you frown
the night feasts, crashing waves
lighthouse, lighthouse
if my mind sailed on these seas
then lost the heart would be

moon, you are gone
you imitate, you anticipate
my fall off the precipice
temporal death, life line
there are worlds that awake
under my slumber

moon, you are not the sun
the kite soars; you
swim through oceans
anchored to sea floors
vermillion hues, starry wonder

moon, you are as i am
you will as i would
vanish when he appears
illuminate as he goes

(A.H.Z)

There are some things you will not understand. I think you need to know that. That there are some things only those who are involved in the situation itself will understand. That no matter how much you try to explain to another they will never really get it. That somehow all the words that fall out of your mouth in prose or poem or story will always feel inadequate, like it was never enough. And maybe it is true, because in so many ways these words, these memories and all the time you spent together were and will always never be enough.

You can't measure memory in the present, only the past. And whoever you're telling only exists in the present. The person you loved exists in your past - a secret place now only you can reach, and in many ways that is enough for you, despite everything now.

Because people don't change in your memories.

They only change now.

(A.H.Z)

if our paths met again
a string of red will take its
place, crimson and bleeding
god once spoke and then
there was us

tell me everything over
these star bright scars
how in one hand these
constellations spark
light, and in the other
the orbits glow forever

water recedes in these
lungs, the sea she knows
watch our moon wane
here I will be the shore
give my all when the
tide takes

(a.h.z)

I tell you of the time I almost drowned in the sea, because I wanted to know the taste of salt and ocean freedom. I was young, foolish and curious; a combination that invited disaster merely by existing in the same spheres of thought. The ocean was warm that day, although I thought it would be icy cold. I swam out against the tide and current, closed my eyes and let the murky turquoise waves wash over me; then darkness. Even in the midst of my suffocation, the loosening grip of this world never scared me, only calmed me. I wondered how it would be like to sink to the bottom and find serenity, peace and tranquility, away from the glaring rays of the sun and the fears that remained on the surface.

I lived to tell the tale of course,
but I never forgot how the sea gave me death and life all at once.

You laugh, and say you're very glad I'm still alive.
I smile in return, because I am too; to be able to meet you.

-

I never tell you how you are now the ocean for me.

(A.H.Z)

if concealing means forgetting,
I will make myself invisible;
translucent in emotion,
audible to the voiceless,
the shadows glide amongst us

the candle flickers with each breath
and i take my year with pride,
practiced steps in phantom bodies
each inhale is hollow; sometimes
I even forget to breathe

smile cracking, teeth shattering
the moments are fleeting;
how you whispered words
but as always the silence
is louder than the noise

(A.H.Z)

i made staircases out of these bones
too young and too fast, the same way
you came and the same way you left.
in those days these lungs were oceans;
this ribcage was sinking. i only wanted
to let the waves wash over, to forget you,
to dissolve me.

we made homes in stairwells when
the light still leaked through the leaves,
when it still spilt orange over faded green.
the times when i was your sky and you
electric blue, the times the strawberries
seeped into your skin; how the cuts
on your fingers made me want to heal
you when i could only
love you more.

but maybe even after all these years
your fingerprints are still etched into me;
i will always carry your hands
in my own.

(A.H.Z)

this is the problem, you see. i hate orange flavoured things, but don't mind the fruit or the colour itself. i despise chocolate flavoured items as well, but will never complain if a whole bar fell into my lap. i cannot decide if it is the simple idea of disliking the watered down version of the original thing that irks me the most, or if it is something more. perhaps it is the very thought of a half truth - an illusion, if you may - that disgusts me, because these things will never be as good as the real, original item to me. you are the same, i have realised; years of sporadic vanishing and reappearing have not wavered my feelings for you, and all the people i have tried to replace you with pale in comparison.

i might be capable of lying to everyone around me, but i cannot do it to myself or you. the funny thing is that you know this, as much as i know it too. for we are vulnerable as we are broken, and somehow deep down in the darkness where we sink we are guided by the same light, which always brings me back to you, and you to me.

-

"how have you been?"

i miss you in ways i cannot even begin to describe. i miss you the way sleep lingers in our eyes as the dawn breaks, and i miss you when our song comes on. i miss you the most when the storms arrive or when a joke is made and i turn around expecting to see your accompanying smile, but meet empty air.

the truth is, i'm lost. i miss you completely, terribly, unbelievably so, and it eats at me every single day.

"just fine."

i put on the biggest smile i can muster and walk away.

(A.H.Z)

the moon graces my face,
in the form of a smile
bright and waning crescent
constellations dot the
back of my mind

you have the sun in your eyes
and the sparks of summer
that reflect into the sky
a smirk; the remains of dawn
are light freckles on your skin

it has been a year or two
since i last smiled at you
or you at me; how time passes
and yet doesn't at all

we are the star-crossed and luckless
the lightning and the thunder
if i was paper, you'd be fire
this love is always for
and against us

(A.H.Z)

you are the fluttering thought
at the back of my mind,
the steady staccato beat of
my pulse, my heart, me

i think i love you the most
when my hands linger in yours;
voice ringing, heart abandoned
we are running, free

you seem so real and yet -
sometimes i forget,
this only lasts as
long as i can
sleep

(A.H.Z)

He will whisper words
and you will hear them.
He will promise things
and you will believe them.
He will be perfection
and you will let go of yourself to mirror him.

He will play with your feelings
and you will fall for him.
He will pull you in
and you will be dragged along.
He will make you happy
and you will love him.

He will anger you
and you will forgive him.
He will hurt you
and you will forgive him.
He will break you
and you will forgive him.
He will destroy you
and you will forgive him.

He will push you away
and you will still return.
He will leave you
and you will still wait.
He will forget you
and you will still remember.

He will stop loving you
and you will never stop loving him.

(A.H.Z)

if you are the sea
i am the shore
eroded by your waves
yet missing you when
the tide recedes

(A.H.Z)

i kiss the line where
shore meets sea,
and pray for the tide
to swallow us
whole

tell me when
my eyelids close
for yours open then -

when sirens sing of
babylon's lovers, all
i can think of is
you.

(A.H.Z)

hours, days, years and
this must be a game to you
chase, catch, go and
reel me back in

lost wooden limbs;
the heat of your hands
but i am charcoal by now

burnt ash, tar black soul
i lost my heart in the space
where yours once lay

(A.H.Z)

for you smell like warmth
and laugh like sunshine
but your eyes are the ocean floor;
dark, unseen and inherently lonely

(A.H.Z)

blizzard, winter falls and I
am summer; roots for feet
and a garden in my heart

this is how it starts
ash and scars, but the
ice is welcome here
if it only appeared at all

slumber -
you dream, spring child
the humming of bees and
clapping of dragonfly wings
echoing your laughter

the rain does not charm
yet only stays to love you
as everyone is prone to
all of lightning, thunder
grass and fire

autumn kisses the last breaths away
and I, summer field and dimming light
watch the sky darken as the moon rises
but you are eternal sun

summer falls into spring
see -
we were meant to transcend

it's always, always
been you.

(A.H.Z)

we were a whirlwind,
and everyone knew -
i was pale skin, cold bones
to your trembling frame;
teary eyed and warm,
they used to warn me of you
but i sang your praises anyway.

"breathe," you say
and i do, i do, i did
inhale every spark of you
exhaled my own dark,
they used to warn me of you
but i sang your praises anyway.

oh, how i should have listened.

(A.H.Z)

I collect mountain ash from your remains
maybe the rising smoke is all I can bear;
but how this shallow water is neck deep
and if I close my eyes now only your
shadow devours me.

(A.H.Z)

you are the anchor,
the lighthouse,
the storm and the sea
how waves roll and crash,
yet you glide through its grasp

we were a tempest waiting to happen,
a hurricane of emotions;
dock and shore, but we
were too far gone -

i fell into you
gravity withstanding
hold, let go,
stay,
stay,
stay.

(A.H.Z)

I'll miss you till the sun breaks,
till the ground falls from my feet,
till the world ends, till I meet you again.

(A.H.Z)

youth will drain out of
this skin in waves, and
you come to me in light
light light light, smash
our teeth on collarbones
grooves where knuckle
grows into jaw, sacrifice
love on the cornerstones
when you sing of safety
and a land I have never
reached. when father calls
me daughter and I bleed
split lip syrup thick, two
glazed eyes of the celestial
city passing by push us in
as we pull ourselves out
here, here in between these
fingers in the palm that lies
gapes gasps gasping for
air all for a promise, the
prayers on the tip of my
tongue amen, amen,
amen.

(a.h.z)

it's in the way we'd bleed black and white,
and how i'd still come running back to you.
all the words we left unspoken and now
tangled in silence, but i still keep your letter
next to me; ink stains all over the tips of
my fingers, laced in the corners of my heart

you'd mouth the songs they played
and i'd taste the lyrics on my tongue,
voices sugar sweet and dripping;
how it felt as if i had already
loved you for an eternity

one step forward and three steps back
now i close my eyes to see your face,
trace your skin to heal these scars;
maybe this is the only way to go when
i said i'd find my way back to you somehow

(A.H.Z)

Love cannot swim.
I know this because I am drowning,
breath shallow, voice hollow
blackness, blackness.

My heart is an anchor in the sea that is you,
waves crashing to the beat of your voice.
You are in the water, murky blue -

green in the colours of our memories,
in the sea foam forming bubbles
pops; echo your laughter,
your songs, your warmth.

Years, years,
they say time heals all wounds.
Appendages fail; cut rose
petal fall, blood stained call

In you, the sea only grows deeper;
heart suffocating in wounds unhealed,
stories untold.

(A.H.Z)

we are constantly at war with one another like this: a needle against my heart, a knife against her neck. she smiles something dark – almost deranged, even – and still my hand holds steady against her pulse. I do not know how I manage it when the needle in hers pierces ever so slightly as a warning, the weight of it against me sharp and static.

“further,” she laughs, shrill screeches echoing into my ear. a flash barely registers in my sight, and the movement of silver is too fast for me to stop – something within me begins to bleed. first dripping, and then gushing; but even an explosion would make no difference at this point.

we both know blind instinct moves my hand in response, splitting skin from her in retaliation. it is not red but black that pours, her manic expression growing as the liquids pool around us; murky and desolate.

I cannot tell who screams louder after that – but it is with a desperation that mirrors mine. to live? to die? the pitch shatters glass around us and shards force their way into our skins, yet it does not hurt; it has not for a very long time.

a pause, and then the words slip out of our mouths at the same time before I even register it:

“no, I am okay. I am still me.”

-

“I think it’s funny how they say the scariest monsters are the ones under your bed, when clearly the true monsters are the ones that live in your head.”

(A.H.Z)

"you're beautiful"*
compliments slip so easily
rolls off the tongue
gliding; passing phrase

you say it enough till i begin
to believe it as much as you
want me to believe you
and i do, i do, i did
naive and foolish and as
broken as the day he left me

but you are a replacement, a shadow,
a puppet who took the place
of the boy i used to and still love
mere illusions of a past time
the heart grasps these empty sheets

oh hear!
dead silence when
the symphony stops
***** keys shatter; dull ringing
silence fills the space where
late night murmurs once were

for you see, sticks and stones
may break these hollow bones
but words will always devour
and destroy me

(A.H.Z)

I loved you,
it wasn't enough.


(A.H.Z)

There are so many feelings I cannot pen into words, but if there is anything I can say that you might understand, it would be that I love you. I love you and miss you and hate you and detest you all at once, with the intensity of a hurricane and thunderstorm, the sun's rays and it's burning flames.

You find me again, in the darkest hours of the morning devoid of light but I can only grasp at empty air, fingers clutching uselessly into the wisps of memory and smoke. The past is a fog that blurs out anything else and you are the cigarette that stays alight; a drug, a numbing sensation that consumes everything I am.

As real as it seems, you're only in my dreams.

(A.H.Z)

i dot the sky with tears
that resemble faintly
shimmering stars

for you are the glass globe
and memory is the snow
that keeps me trapped within

(A.H.Z)

I don’t know if you’ve ever felt a constant emptiness that lingers as you shake the sleep from your eyes as I have. I hardly get any sleep as it is, nowadays. How I think I think too much and altogether too little, only if I managed to string my words together better I wouldn’t be all loose ends and frayed knots. I’ve wrung my thoughts dry with the weight of my memories to watch the blood drain from my bones; knuckles white and brittle, hollow. They bloom red in my anger, concrete cracking under my skin, peeling in layers till I can’t distinguish my injuries from the chaos. I’m saying all this because I wish you would stay, would’ve stayed - tenses slip past me - but it’s too late now, has forever been too late.

I guess that this is my way of saying I still love you.

I did, I will, I do.

(A.H.Z)

I shake this glass as if the motions will bring you back one day. Liqueur slips through my grasp and tequila tumbles down my throat; I can tell you absinthe tastes like liquorice but it is ***** that shoots my highs to heaven. We chase liquids in place of light, but I wonder if it is these trembling hands and the fever bright fog that consumes my mind that makes it all the more harder to let go.

(A.H.Z)

Dear You,

I am writing because I have written so much about you that one more word or sentence or paragraph won’t make a difference to the mountains of text I have dedicated to you. I have gone through verse after rhyme after phrase to find you in betwixt and between the 26 alphabets that make up this language that we speak. There are never-ending metaphors and similes and fantasy worlds in which you live as the sea and I am the anchor that is sinking, or you are the sun and I am the moon that timidly lives in the shadow and reflection of your light.

However you will never know that any of these exist. You will never know how you saved me from myself and showed me love in ways I never knew existed. You will be unaware of the girl who has thousands of letters and poetry and prose dedicated to your mere existence - from the hairs on your head to the way you move seamlessly along the ground. You will not recall the promises you broke that I still remember, and you will never read any of the emotions or feelings I have confessed and penned down over and over again. You will not, even though subconsciously I will tell myself you have, because I would like to stay in the memories where you understood me with just one look; in those moments where I truly believed we were the lock and key of each other.

And even though things are like this at this very moment, I still believe you are mine as I will always be yours. I have imprinted the sound of your voice and the echo of your laughter on my heart; engraved the words you used to sing and say onto my skin. I have made a thousand paper cranes to match up to the thousands of excuses I have made for our drifting apart. I have formed bridges of prayers and tears to hopefully find my way back into you, staying up night after night to watch the sunrise illuminate my room; hoping that somehow the rays will penetrate the dark of my soul and I will finally become as bright as you are to me.

I love you. Maybe this was meant to be the most important thing to tell you first, but I believe love can only be said in so many words. Don’t worry about me. I will continue writing prose and stories of how we were and what we lost while you move on with the same vitality in your step. I will stay in the past afraid of the present and keep our memories in my core of my heart so that wherever and whatever happens, you will be there with me.

Regardless of everything, I love you first, last and always. No matter how far we go, where we are or when we depart from this life there will forever be a part of you that lingers inside my heart. I will always want the best for you, and I will always want you to be happy, safe and well.

Yours always,

Me.

(A.H.Z)

and even on days when i
don’t feel the sadness so strongly
you are still, still,
the base of my thoughts

in the midst of a storm
in the grass before the dawn
how the little things
remind me of you -
yet the memories i keep
can only quell the lonely
for so long

i dream and dance upon
the figments of fading scars,
tear old wounds open
find you in the chaos

for i cannot let you go
and i cannot let anyone in
i miss you far too much
and i love you all the same

(A.H.Z)

It has been so long since I last heard my name out of your mouth that this time, it takes me by shock. I’m standing in the shadows, mouth agape, and you’re illuminated by the sun rays, blinding smile on your face. It’s funny, I note as a passing thought; we’ve been the light and dark of each other for as long as I can remember. You pull me out of my stupor, eyes finding mine and as always it feels like returning home.

"Are you coming?"

I shake my head, the weather is searing and my health is frail. The sun has never been a sanctuary for me like it has been for you, hair a faded brown and skin tanned from overexposure to the day. I pale in comparison, thriving in the moonlight and the shadows, at night and in the cold.

To my surprise, you don’t push any further. The briefest shock in your expression lingers before realisation sets in, and the corners of your lips turn up. It then occurs to me that you remember all that I have told you before, years ago when I thought you weren’t listening. I suppose you have been, all this while. A small spark of hope ignites somewhere deep inside my lungs.

"Tsk."

You truly smile by this time, fondness embedded in your gaze and the hints of affection in the tilt of your head. I return the gesture, a nervous, happy laugh escaping even before I can stop it. The moment is a giddy whirlwind of emotions; I have never been able to control myself around you.

-

I never notice until much later, but I spend the rest of the day away from the shade and under the sunlight; transfixed by your stare.

In these moments I can only think of how much I love you.

(A.H.Z)

I am tempted to let you enter this room which is my being and soul, but you see - the last person in here trampled over the grass, uprooted the flowers and tore down the lights. He brought storms with him in place of the windy spring air and poisoned everything he touched with his fingerprints; permanent stains on a fragile heart. This is why everything smells cloyingly of rain, grass and roses here, overbearingly so.

He has stayed for years, coming and going as he pleases, so often so that the hinges of the door of the entrance are rusty and breaking apart. The gates used to be white and intricately laced with wildflowers that screamed freedom and naivety, but now they are wilted fragments on the remnants of charred wood from the lightning and thunder.

When he returns and lingers for a long long while, I take pity on him; placing a candle on the table and fixing a lamp above his head. I give him water and food and nourishment, emotions taking over any rational thought. I give him comfort and attention and answer any whim, demand or request. I give him all and everything I am simply because he is who he is, and I am who I am. During these moments he is sometimes pacified, and destroys less of me than does in times of anger and desolation.

But if he becomes too tame, too kind, too gentle - without warning, he will disappear. He will disappear into the dark but come back in radiant light. He will leave with an apology in his eyes and a smile on his lips, but return with fire in his soul and anger on his tongue. The storms he creates are violent and threaten to collapse the walls of this room, but never do.

During his disappearance, other people like yourself try to enter this place, but he takes the key with him and locks the broken door. I have an extra key to escape, but it is dangerous in here - glass shards, broken smiles and plaster masks that litter the wall and floor - so I never let anyone in. Only he knows how to tip toe around the chaos and ruin to find his way back, and allowing visitors in here would hurt them, so I stay alone till he returns. It is safer this way.

-

You will ask why she does not run if he is destructive and as deadly as she says. You will wonder why this girl refuses to escape from the storms she is terrified of and return to the spring. You will relentlessly beg her to stop watering the roses whose thorns ***** her so, but it will all be futile.

Because regardless of what you ask, she will answer out of the same conscience that makes her care for him endlessly; love, love, love.

(A.H.Z)

The first thing that hits me is the fear.

I wake up screaming in my heart, plastered to the sheets of my bed that weigh me down like an anchor. There are tears streaming down my face and I know if I could see my own face at that very moment, there would be terror; panic etched in every corner. It should comfort me, the morning rays of sunlight dancing in the room, but it doesn't. Only when I take the first inhale and exhale of the day does my pulse start to slow down, my mind reminding me that I am awake. That this is reality now, and everything that I just saw - no matter how real it seemed - was only just a dream.

I turn to my side and whisper in frantic breaths for you to still be safe, to always be safe, to be alive. It is a mindless thing, acted upon impulsion, desperation and intuition. There are things in this world that cannot be explained until a person finds themselves in that particular position, and this is one of them. This is the second time, a voice reminds me in the back of my thoughts, that I have been terrified that you have possibly passed on. Scared to the very core of my heart, even, and it frightens me to even consider the possibility of you not there.

People don’t understand. I didn't either, not for a very long time, how one can love another wholeheartedly and completely. To be connected to someone in your heart - and to just know that connection is, and has always been there. That somehow all the moments in life and everything that happened was building up to that one grand moment where it all began. That even though you try to convince yourself otherwise, you know you would do anything for them. That despite everything that has happened, you still hope for everything in the future to happen, a future with them still in it, because they’re a part of all you have.

Sleep takes me under her wing soon after my murmuring ends, but you are still at the tip of my tongue, base of my thoughts and whole of my heart.

Please, I love you. Be safe, be safe, be safe.

(A.H.Z)

this is you living when you are standing beneath the vast expanse of ocean blue sky, under winter white clouds; hands in the air and wind in your face. the mountain is cold but you are warm and the moon is up even though the sun still shines. heavy breaths don't mean anything here, not when you're at eye level with the sky and every step on ground is the same as flying in the air. the sky and you are one, breaths mingling and every atom in your being - zillions and trillions of them - a part of the canvas that paints our planet with the light that is the sun and moon, the lanterns that are our stars. as you are still and the voices blur in the background, with your arms high and laughter ringing; a smile creeps onto your face, slow and sly like the waning curve of the pale moon.

this is you living when there are two children in your arms and the gentle pull of their hands against your arms along their torsos sparks the love in your tired heart. it is their innocence and their smiles that ignite your ***** into working again, the steady pulse growing stronger with every hug and memory. they tell you they love you and will miss you always, and then you realise there is nothing like falling in love all over again, and as you wave goodbye you know that love will always hurt you, but it is always worth suffering for.

this is you living when you are on the road trip of your life with the people you have come to love, in a little van with cream coloured seats and tinted glass windows; screaming at the top of your lungs to the constant beat of the house music that blasts fervently in the background, only because your driver secretly believes he owns a portable club. there is dancing and singing and repeated laughter, hands and heart abandoned to the winding roads of this new and foreign country that already feels like home. trees and buildings and scenery flies past the windows and when the door opens at every stop, others gape and only wish they were where you are.

this is you living when you are on the plane ride home and there are continued drops and shakes and little quakes that make others faint. you are an exception to this rule, a grin on your face and sparks in your eyes at the excitement of it all - because when you're flying above the clouds it feels free and you feel alive. living. actually being. and in that moment, all these things come together and you realise this is it. this is everything you've wanted and everything you thought could never happen but happened anyway. and despite the heartache and the brokenness that lingers in the corners of your soul, this is the part in your existence that makes you glad that you still exist, that you are breathing and here and alive.

this is how to live, and i will live it all.

(A.H.Z)

I am running.

It is an hour past midnight into the new year, and there are people streaming out of buildings and cars speeding by on the street, but I am running. I am in a dress and flats that are threatening to fly off my soles, hair tangling in the wind breeze but all this doesn't compare to the smile breaking onto my face, eventually turning into a laugh. A real laugh, one with arms high and heart abandoned to the moment. To now. To being glad that I have survived another year and lived to tell the tale, because despite the pain and the empty, these moments make the suffering worth it.

The moments where everything in the world seems to have righted itself and I realise that this planet is beautiful. That my own fragile life and state of mind is beautiful. That the shadows and the darkness are nothing in comparison to the light. That despite what life can throw at me now and then, nothing will ever compare to this. It is the unlocking of the heart and the accompanying audible 'click' that makes me live. Actually live, and not just survive day by day. And to be grateful, for having this moment. For having the now, in my life, and not slip back into the past.

I am aware that the past never really leaves a person, and if you're not careful, it can become a person. And maybe sometimes, I have been in that dark and scary place. But it is a new year, with hopes and dreams and wishes and chances to make things right. To make things better. To learn new things and make new mistakes and fall down and get up and do it all over again, because we're human. And that's beautiful in it's own right; persistence and resilience. The hope that tomorrow will be better, starting from now. And this is my now.

I never run. But right now I am, and it's not away from something but into something. A new hope. A new life. A new beginning. The past is not behind me, but with me. I have made that mistake once, and never again. It will accompany me because it helped form my heart, and sometimes we need to look back to appreciate where we are today. And I do. I am grateful for my life and the falls and the triumphs. The heartbreak and the anguish. The joy, the laughter, Every feeling I have and can possibly feel. Everything.

I am running.

It is brilliant.

(A.H.Z)

he sits in a corner with a cigarette in his mouth and i can barely make out the features of his face behind the wispy smoke. i am wide awake and blinking wearily, my trademark playlist for the 'sad and lonely' beating away quietly in the background. our meetings have become frequent rituals where misery and metaphorical silence fills the air, gazing at each other until one gives in.

as always, he speaks first.

"and here we are, we meet again."

i stare blankly at him, watching the way his eyes glow under the dim light of my room. he is twenty to my seventeen and the three years mean nothing, not when he is here within arms' reach. it has never mattered, i think back in retrospect; i have loved him just as long.

"you insist on appearing when i least want you to return, why is that?" my heart clenches on itself harder, the beating of my pulse no different than angry smashes to my rib cage. i have come to hate our meetings, but i am powerless to stop them.

he grins and it is a stupid little thing, the cigarette rolling freely in between his thin fingers. the pause in his reply is long enough for him to take another drag, smoke billowing out in thin, circular shapes as he purses his lips together.

"you know perfectly why, it's because you miss me."

what a self absorbed, conceited *******, i find myself thinking. i lean forward to tear the cigarette out of his hand and crush it in mine, the heat a welcome sensation to the icy tension between the two of us.

"you're a terrible liar, you don't even actually smoke."

he stares at me properly now, eyes twinkling and fever bright.

"i can be anything you imagine me up to be - and today you wanted cigarette smoke and me to fill up the lonely."

the smell of nicotine slowly fades to that of a familiar faint vanilla and honeysuckle of my room, the image of the boy in my vision similarly humming silently in a preparation to disappear.

"i'll see you the next time you want me to. same time, same place?"

i have never been able to watch him leave, so i close my eyes and nod silently. there are only so many times you can watch a person leave you over and over again.

"of course," he whispers, and the smile in his voice is evident. "only for you."

-

by the time i open my eyes, he is gone.

(A.H.Z)

I have had this exact same song on repeat for 7 times, only because I bother to count and I think it is a beautiful, wonderful number (second only to 15 but that is a story for another time). I tie my dead knots 7 times and count the seconds before I fall asleep that eventually add up to 7 too, a little number that trails behind me like a reminder of a blessing; exactly how amazing it is to be alive sometimes and all the time.

I'd like to point out that you can't exactly be alive all the time in every sense of the word, because physically existing on one metaphysical plane and slumbering in the soul and emotional metaphysical plane does not account for actually living. Most of the time I am hibernating in myself; a plane shifting mess of tangled emotions, and other times I am numb. It is the type of numbness that penetrates and envelops everything that a person is, was, and ever will be.

Today is one of those days.

-

If you were here you would point out that it is interesting that I am not like other girls and do not follow the 10 cm rule concerning boys and dating (to which, you would also add a wink and a knowing smile, simply because we both know you are attracted to me as I am to you because we are separate from the normality in life) but count the times that 7 and 15 appear in my life despite being absolutely terrible at math. You have - and always have - prided yourself in being the only person successful at eliciting a response from me in moments where I withdraw myself from the world, your hands finding mine, your gaze resting on me. And you know this, to some extent. You know how much our existences depend on each other, how some people were destined to meet and never be the same again.

I have doubted a lot of things in this life, but the one thing I have never doubted is my endless affection for you.
-

"You're exasperating," I say, with a roll of the eyes. "I don't know how anyone puts up with you."

You grin in response.

"But you do."

(A.H.Z)

I am sorry that you wished for spring and
ended up with summer. How I only feel
bones and not the warmth you desperately
want to show me. That at night you pray
for my peace but come morning I am only
a marionette that resembles the fading ember
of father's cigarettes. How I cannot bear to step
out of this house; the ghosts will devour
me if I do, both inside and out. The skin
upon my soul cracks and cracks; like the
pavement you fell in when you broke your
feet. The time you told me to feel less, to stop
blaming myself; I am sorry for that too, that
I have tried and I cannot. Perhaps one day I
will manage to breathe without choking on
all the silences I cannot word, perhaps one
day I will be able to sleep without death on
the precipice. I am sorry I am the moon and
not the sun for you, that my sister radiates
light and I only reflect it. I have half your mind
and the full sum of your smile, but if only my
voice would remain as calm as yours when you
deal with misery, maybe I would finally learn to
be okay.

(A.H.Z)

Th(i)s life feels like a dre(am)
(a)nd days feel (li)ke fore(ve)r
but if there’s another world
where i am (with) (you)
please wake me up.

(A.H.Z)

I am no poet if
you cease to be my poem.
And I am no singer,
if you cease to be my song.

This is why I
carry your memory,
in the hollows of my bones,
where blooming flowers grow.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
yet all these words
always lead me back to you.

(A.H.Z)

if you ask me who i am now, i will tell you that i am the wilting rose you forgot to water and the last leak of orange light vanishing across the horizon as the sun sets. i am the lightning streak and thunder bolt i have learnt to fear, hate and admire all at once, the lonely in the night and the silence as the dawn breaks. a candle flame flickers in the far off distance, and i am as quiet as the solitude allows me to be; firecrackers bursting in the palm of my hand and in the core of my heart.

the memories where your voice sings to me sound like gunshots now, bullet wounds ripping the fabric of my soul to shreds. it occurs to me that without you i am a ghost of the person i once was, static electric current sparking on the surface of my skin. heated words laced with anger and bitter hurt are spun forth carelessly in seamless strings, blanketing over every rational thought now that you are a permanent absence in this fleeting life. it seems the longer you have vanished, the deeper i fall - into the crevices and cracks of a trap you lay for me, vulnerable and susceptible to your charms and the past where you still stay, immune to the ever changing currents of time and the present.

i have loved and i have lost, but none have created a wound as deep as you.

(A.H.Z)

it moves -
invisible,
almost.

a catalyst after
our own chaos,
I stand in the midst

and the ground
is soft beneath
my feet.

I hear what I cannot see,
feel what you cannot say
the glass rattles,
shatters;

rain smashing against
our hearts -

love was a storm.

(A.H.Z)

I often wonder what it feels like
to put you and me together
could we then feel the
tangible beat and sporadic pulse
of hearts waltzing and
dancing to a tempo,
on and on forever?

i often wonder what it feels like
if you were my saviour
and i was a wounded lover
with cuts and bleeding failures
would you bring me back to life then,
with promises and candlelight dinners?

i often wonder what it feels like
for empty spaces to be filled
for the broken to be mended
i wonder and ponder and wander away
though it's you that i come back to
always, in any way

see, you complete my every sentence,
in every poem and every song

you complete me basically
and that has been the truth
forever, all along

(A.H.Z)

these crisscrossing streets
were once ours, our screaming
neon, the dazzling infinite
lights but time

she weaved
herself between
the clench of my fist
in the shape of his
absence, that grows,
grows

blood only
multiplies while we
splutter, incoherent
with the clarity -

your heart,
it does not beat
for me anymore.

(A.H.Z)

when you have watched me all my life
and never warned of ashes in the west,
our prodigal son that returns again
my unrepentant lover lies in sallow skin
silhouettes only dance at night


the sun never sets in the east, but china she
screams from the earth when you leave me
wondering if warmth burns like ice or fire
with both hands smiling, you drive it all
a stake through my heart


father, my samson
home is four walls of the lion’s den
mother, my delilah
home is four walls of the lion’s den


all I know is sacrifice.

(a.h.z)

I've been trying to word the infinity that I experienced with you. To condense the moments between my lungs and breathe them onto others, expecting them to experience even a sliver of the spark you gave me. But how does one possibly clasp the invisible between hands, much less the heart?

Scientists say that we live about 80 milliseconds in the past, but they do not know me - I have lived in the past for far longer, flourishing. As far back as days, months and years; I have hidden in my memories in order to stay alive, stay with you.

Even if it takes a lifetime, I will remain.

(A.H.Z)