scratches

I am sad. Upset like spilled wine on white, 

like a stomach doing laps. Sad 

like an old lady left standing on a tram, 

sad like a child with a sweet smile 

who will never learn to use it. 

Sad like an empty shell, like the people 

who die alone. I am sad like 

Sarah Kane and my mother 

at their darkest thoughts. 

I write poems that astound people 

but it's nothing to celebrate because I have only 

ever done that when I felt the way I do. Undressed 

and naked from the happiness I genuinely feel,

left staring at whatever is left over. 

And everybody else is staring at it too, 

unsure of what to do with it, 

like a fish out of water flapping in their palms. 

Everybody knows, and I still 

don't know why I am typing laughter 

at every sentences in conversations 

- like it makes a difference.

I am sad because I have no reason to be. 

I am sad and I feel like I am imposing it, 

and I feel guilty because of this, 

so I get even more upset.

So I remain sad. 

Sad like the way he looks at me 

like I have shadows in my eyes, like the way 

they try to place a contagious smile back on 

my lips because my mind is

overworked and out on display. I am sad because 

I do not know when little things like buses and 

light banter and the lack of skins 

for my tobacco started getting to me and I

don't know which junction to take myself away from this. 

Sad because I don't know when the left overs of myself

began to matter more than my entire being.

Down like a basement tenants 

never use, like the bottom of a mountain,

the centre of a cave. 

It is obvious. 

What isn't obvious, is that 

I am happy. Despite all that, I am happy 

like the sun, like the father 

and son having lunch together, like

stumbling upon a sentiment you once 

thought you'd lost. Happy because 

I have somebody to wake up to, to

love and to comfort. Happy because I can 

still feel like I am alive. Happy because 

I am alive.

My mind is at its darkest but 

my soul is still light - where do I go from here?

Tired.

Can't I be tired?

Can't my eyes sink as low as graves,

Can't they shade their under skin dark?

Can't my body deteriorate and cause me pain

And set itself loose at the joints?

Can't my mind wander to the tip of the sea,

Can't it weigh me down and overwhelm?

Can't my senses be muffled and less aware,

Or accentuate with alarm into emotional disarray?

Can't I be tired?

Can't I be selflessly undernourished,

Can't I be helplessly weak?

Can't I be recklessly lashing,

And frighteningly coiling?

Can't I be foreign to the world,

Can't I be familiar nonetheless?

Can't I be afraid of nothing,

Or scared of everything?

I am so tired even my poem is tired and structured and stupidly

bland.

searching for buttons

I settle in the centre 
To give myself leeway of falling back 
Or moving forwards 
When a side becomes too heavy to balance, 
Because I believe I am a coward. 
It is comfortable like a purring cat on your lap 
And the veins on his hand under my fingertips 
When the time is right. 
I watch the sky tell me a story of 
Life as it passes, the many times 
I have missed it happen because I try 
To appreciate the closer things 
Like milkshakes, tobacco, the right films 
And the right dreams and him. 

There are cobbled paths 
on the journey to my heart many have 
tripped and stumbled upon for they were 
too used to easy living, 
But I have found one who has paved 
A similar path a thousand times enough to 
Push on. 

But walking the same road can get a bit colourless sometimes, even for the most determined. 

He shapes his shoulders and I 
Whisper a kiss on the middle of his back where 
The curves were made for me. 
I shiver at the touch of beauty 
In the closure of his eyes as he 
Drifts through a sleep so unperturbed 
As I fight the nightmares away. 

I like the idea of loyalty cards. 
Of how you 
commit every inch of yourself, 
and with every bundle of mistakes 
You can expect at least, 
Achieving something good out of it. 
Safe. 
Sometimes chances are the choices you make. 

Sometimes I smother 
And break concentration 
From the clog of his mind 
But I am impulsive and spend my time 
worrying if I don't tell him now 
Then I will never tell him 
And I will become the secret 
He never speaks of. 

So I give the choice to say more than 
He might care to hear and 
Be assured he has listened and the 
Choice is now out of my hands. 

There a several snapshots that 
Stay vivid in my memories 
Like learning how to swim 
And my cousin's ability to morph into an old man, 
Scraping my knees playing chase outside my uncle's house, 
And my soul scorched red from the impact of once colliding very physically with somebody who wasn't so nice. 

Some snapshots that 
May not be real, 
Like the man outside the gates on a stormy night 
Sat in with my cousins, 
My grandmother sat on her bed 
A week after she passed 
And the colours I saw when I 
Acquainted with the end. 

There are many chances that come with 
A choice but 
Sometimes the chances run dry, 
Like how I will not have the time now 
until Thursday 
To sew the buttons back on my right boot, 
To have proper sleep, 
To take a trip to the doctor's, 
To take the bins out, 
To make amends with time lost with him, 
To make amends with time lost with myself.

alone in a coffee shop

the things you learn about life are not gradual

like mouldy walls or a caterpillar's cocoon, 

the second lamp in my bedroom i never use 

and art with no timeframe. 

they come sudden

and obvious and permanent.

like the beep at the back of the kitchen that used to sit

just a little out of your hearing range and clockwork mind,

but now it ticks in time to your thoughts,

like how Matt Bellamy takes a breath before 

every line of a song. like how some people's voices pitch up 

at the end of sentences and some do not sing when they speak.

or like if you memorise what one person is becoming

you can predict everybody else.

the things i have learnt about life

has taught me to put aside my emotions

like the way i now recognise

and hear about foul profanities and intoxicating fear 

every corner i turn when i used to dismiss it with

solidity. like when my broken rib showed me ugly people existed

but their strength rebuilding mine showed me beautiful people did too.

and how pain used to never hurt because it was always there

but now it is only occasional like moonless skies and phone calls to my mother.

and how he always uses the phrase "it's dead good", 

because some things are better than life, and hunches

and kisses my lips twice before my forehead at night.

these are things i notice, and i believe

i don't notice enough. perhaps i do not notice the specific day

trees begin to droop and grow old with winter,

or how people walking in groups align their footsteps, though i notice mine,

or the personality of a child by the way they hold their arms 

out and touch you inside.

the things you learn about life are 

not always meant for keeps,

so you turn away and keep your balance,

like the hint of an old bruise or the wild splash of chemicals in their eyes.

like children who learn too early about death and sexual intentions 

and are not yours to teach,

or how some stains resist all the detergent you use.

like the night and days of clutching to my bed sheets

because i couldn't face myself and the world, or how for a moment as

fleeting as a skylark, he looked at me differently 

because he was equally as lost.

some things are not meant for keeps

because they will rot inside you and make you 

regurgitate their poison.

these are the few of many things in life i have learnt

that syllabus and five days a week never taught me

like the counter breaths he takes before his heart can settle

and the way his shoulders shake when he is laughing

the way i can move the shine in my eyes to a certain spot

to hide my disarray of thoughts.

like knowing you are allowed to get frustrated at them sometimes and tell them,

but still share every word and thought because they are your best friends.

how my sister does not know i can hear the tone

in her voice as she says things are fine when they aren't

and the way my dad doesn't have to smile for me to know he is happy

but took a tear from his eyes to know i once broke his heart.

or like the escalation to my mother's voice when she realises 

i am on the other end of the line and i feel complete.

some things i embrace,

some things i throw out to the pigeons 

and lost souls that search for meaning.

some things i let take me to heights i

never knew i could reach.

living the afterhours

sometimes i will feel top-heavy like
the empty shampoo bottles in my shower,
turned over and
ready to fall, desperately
screaming to be thrown away. sometimes his eyes
rage wars with mine until i am
like the flailing ends
of window blinds nobody wants to touch
for fear of causing more damage.

because he fears to break me.
so he wavers,
like white noise and faded tv screens
through my insecurities,
and likewise i blind myself
until i am worn down and discolored
like the photographs our mothers keep
of me and us and their shadowed pasts.

we will all do the same eventually.

sometimes i wonder how life can be
this bipolar, throwing me
in the deep ends of both
extremities where all is
as light
as dark
as the place sitting still
in the bottom pit of my body
where either rupture or serenity takes place;
pick and choose.

sometimes i look at my reflection
and like what i see, most often
not,
because there are never enough
expressions that can change with my mood
to keep it intact and easy to display.
like how there are never enough
seasons or words or time in a day.

and i get sick of the see-saws that
fluctuate space inside me until all the
contradicting emotions
confuse and cause wreckage when really
i just want to love.

it is 8.22 in the morning
and the storm is on fire
because i let it.

sometimes i can hear his heart break.

it is the sound of waves
colliding with horizons
and a sky of despair.
it is the song my heart, too
has long memorised.

i have a compulsive obsession
with rubbing on surfaces
until every single layer of dirt the world
had to offer wipes clean.
maybe it is because i believe fixing
what the eye can see will
distract from the depths of
every detailed leftover debris and clumped underneaths.

or maybe not.
maybe i am really just okay,
and my mind chooses to exaggerate pain.

but pain is no longer my sole familiarity
and it scares me when it drops by to visit.
it is no longer my home, because you are.
your love.
your tears.
your laughter.
your hurt.
your joy.
your soul.
with mine.

heavy eyes, they say it all

i cannot breathe.

i cannot think the way i want myself to think because my thoughts are running over each other and i feel every scar on my skin revisiting the surface and screaming horrors into my sleep because my mind is as tense as air molecules struggling for air in a stained, overused kettle before they take flight and 

evaporate.

i try to place radiance where there is dark

in every single fucking thing i do

because shadows can never form

where there is no shine

but i smother myself with so much

until i am stood too close to the light

and my own shadows engulf the entire space 

of my being.

i want to feel the way i deserve to feel.

i carry myself like deadweight

promising myself the meaning of all this.

sometimes i meditate to such heights

where i feel completely ethereal

but always fall to the constant comedown 

that resides in the depths of permanence

clogging my will and draining my sight.

i want to feel the way i deserve to feel.

there are days like these

when i try to face the world

because it is expected of me

and assume that if everybody else 

cannot see the girl that digs her nails into her skin and

tears her hair out and runs into walls

at the flight of insanity

this girl will soon disappear

but there is only so much i can exert

before i revert into myself

and claim recognition with this

familiar pain i try to disguise and

push out.

i tell myself there is more to life

and truly believe it

because of you and because of 

who i have learned to become 

when i am at my strongest.

but maybe i will only settle on the ease of

believing it in all purity

if i dare to accept

that without this pain

life will only be as meaningless

as my belief that i am in complete control of myself.

it is with pain

where life is shatteringly beautiful

and all i feel 

is worth everything.

i want to feel what i deserve to feel,

so i need to stop fearing fear

and face it

and fight it

until there is nothing left to fight for.

ode to the sleepless

i hit solid wall and

drift backwards.

the valley of emotions unravel, 

like loose string

caught on the crook of 

hope

fleeting pass

my skin is too tight for my mind

so i strip down to an inner orifice.

i run nowhere,

hitting blanks and

i undress the fabric

of my inner self

until i am all around me.

i felt unfamiliar,

dwelled too long

in the cracks my shadows

carved into walls.

i travelled sleepless nights

to a land i cannot live in,

so i stumbled along my footsteps

tracing the lines i drew and

never coloured in.

then there was a strange light,

trapped in the blinds of my eyelashes

drying from the storm,

and i found rainbows

in the shape of you.

i learnt to hit a wall,

only to fall backwards

into your entire being

and live in you.

i found in the depths of your body

the traces of me 

i absent-mindedly drew,

and ran to your mind until i

found the hues i long abandoned

from myself.

[i shine.

i shiver.

i soar.]