in the emptiness
of all these lonely nights
i drift slowly to the planet in my heart
and its knock
knock
knocking
still mock
mock
mocking
and stop
stop
stopping
my every line

heels clicking
glasses chinking
the whisper of a forgotten light
flickers on and off
an endless chime

I just let the ringing echo
and in my mind
the sounds of my planet are the only peace I can find
so fluttering heart
un-still and unrefined
crack open and splutter onto the duvet
and let me listen to the sounds of the planet inside

I’ve been snapped out of the void before
Endless relenting overthinking never did me any good
But with ego
I stubbornly persist

On an overground tram
Heading back from a casual birthday party
Casual by default since her mum insisted
On jack in the box games and a caterpillar cake at nineteen

I told her all about the online echo chamber
For my newfound identity
For which she held the same
Did she have these same experiences
These strangers liked to insist?

I will never forget how she so cool told me no
And like a slap in the face I was reminded
Of the futility of my own overthinking.
There didn’t need to be some grand explanation
For my cosmic being in the universe
I just had to exist

We were two stars dancing in the dust
Afraid of falling in love
But we still learned to fall together
And somehow that was enough

I take your lives into my eyes
And twist your realities into mine.
Whatever you believed in that moment
Never was yours.
Whatever you felt
Now drips sickly down a blade of words
I'll tell myself
To make you the villain
So I can sleep at night.

.

It’s okay to let go...

Maybe one day I'll walk out of town
and say I'll see you around at the movies
Since I know you like to mull over
everything you'd never be

I don't need another perfect summer
lying on your lap
So you can tell your friends you knew me
Over that stale paper cup of reunion coffee

But for now you can pretend I'm yours
Living off couch benefits
till I finally take off.

The bitter cold of Monday morn
Entices every bone within
And whilst the passing freeze forlorn
I'll shake a grin.

Minds wander of tomorrow's fate
With mouths wide open, eyes closed shut
My heart and head can't concentrate
Word's aren't enough.

Surrounded by a thousand stares
The child in me giggles contempt
I revel this secret affair
This smile shall tempt.

t.
it's a malignant disease
a six-letter word; tipping off tongues
armed with locks and keys.
cloaked within the folds of lucid sight,
its bare grip, it holds tight,
suspending a sonorous expression of disbelief.

a.
there is no direction.
instead we are shoved onto the stage of shadows
for a lifetime of grief,
clinging to words of forgotten past.
if self-recognition is a sin,
then I am a glutton
starving for their hungry eyes.

l.
and so, insecurities grow,
and without mention
we chase for the escape to break surface tension.
rushing to dreams we were meant to prolong -
and although we're given choice,
we're still hunted in this vicious game
forced to put down
forced to ease
mirages,
conjured by delusions that everlast the time we're given...

e.
yet in my sleep I ask for mercy,
and glass eyes never shut.
I know I've lost my sheen,
still I yearn to deceive
poor reflections that plastered smiles
can no longer convey.

n.
oh the pride of the gifted!
how it has bestowed immortality to me
in this foreign home called vertigo;
now all I do is scream to slow down
on this never-ending highway,
polishing this obsession for perfection.

t.
my passion's run away,
i don't know who to please...
so to the victims of the pride:
forgive me.

there is a festering wound you do not touch.
it sits here, dormant, at the edge of shallow breaths.
sometimes I’ll draw the curtains
and feel it’s cold throbbing in the darkness
against my chest,
pumping a stampede under my skin;
sometimes that howl and wail
drives my blades up to the walls -
those plaster membranes,
crumbling membranes,
pulsating
till it echoes a crawl.

it waits most days by that crack in the door,
for that shadow on the floor to grow fonder.

nothing will pull me from this sleep.