and I’m sorry I haven’t been posting any writing but I’m entering a young poet of the year competition (eeeee) and I’m not allowed to post anything I enter ;_; once I’ve sent off for that I’ll probably start posting again :)))

Through years of storms we make our way home
from the valleys of heaven to the midnight zone
we don’t look behind as the eruption flows
burns the path we once tread
leaves only the unknown

I used to pull stars down
like mosquitoes in the summer
leave their corpses scattered on the back porch
and bear no second thought.
Now the galaxies expand and I can no longer reach
to the farthest corner of Saturn
and find the answers there.

It’s all just dust and empty spaces
where mystery was supposed to wait patiently
to be discovered.

I never knew batteries
would one day cough
sputter out and die
leave the world without light
and I knew the danger of fire
but not of its smoke
the way death rises to the ceiling
and waits for you to
inhale her

I blew bubbles and believed
they could drift on for infinity.
That a gap-toothed smile
could stitch the world back together.
That there would always be someone
to carry me to bed
when I gave up for the night.

But evil resides
in undetected places
and I can not trust
the shadows of the moon
to warn me. Goodness
has become so underrated
I don’t know where to find it
anymore.

The soles of my feet
are wearing to nothing
but shards of bone.
My spine is curving
in a way that leaves me
always looking down.

My heart has been recycled
too many times.

I always thought I’d find someone
as I travelled along this road
but now I realise getting old
just screams the word ‘alone’

running hands across
the expansive surface
of all god’s mistakes
he has reserved for me alone

I see it in car doors
mirrors and windows
the dark side of a TV screen
staring back at me
in all it’s lopsided and
disproportionate shame

through the eyes
of those beside me
I see why they pull away
for it’s human nature to distrust
a sinful face
and call it natural selection
as to why no fingers dare venture

onto the disgusting gates of hell
that open on my stomach
and down my thighs

the demons spill out
and cling to my skin
working their way under the scars
and making me worse

than before. I didn’t believe it to be possible

that one human could exist alone
in such a parallel dimension

of repulsive abnormality.

I am the mistake
you’ll all laugh about one day

shake me from my middle class nightmare
pull me from the sheets
that have wound themselves around me
and strangled my cells.
take me out of the equation
pull me out of that war
where I am destined to fall
on a battlefield that just keeps repeating itself.

I’m a fugitive
running from the lines
that have been assigned to me
going off script
and miles off key

I search for greener pastures
amongst flowers with no roots
I search for summer air
when the city’s trapped under ice

and the fish just keep swimming
swimming
one end to the other end
with coffee in their veins
and their important lives
tick tick ticking away
like their tiny fins
could even break the surface.

I hide under the bed
because I prefer the monsters there

your blood is aromatic
like there’s incense burning
and pine forests
sprinkled with snow
somewhere deep in your soul.

when you smile, I see lights.
the kind you string up at Christmas
to make your house
blink brightly through the dark.

your hands remind me
of engine oil and leather
the smokey air of a workshop
where you build skyscrapers
out of screws.

and I won’t even write about your eyes
for no writer would attempt
to describe each layer of the ocean.
it was designed to be spectacularly
indescribable.

I’d maybe even become
a cliche for you.

through hollow bones
and weakening blood
she breathes in.
the moon watches her fall apart
but never steps in to save her.
the sun watches her put the pieces
back together in the morning,
but doesn’t help to pick them up.

each day she watches
flowers wilt
trees become skeletons
the ocean’s desperate fight.

she hears the earth crying
but it never listened to her
anyway.

from the west side to the east coast
I see shades of nothing.
a shoreline ghost
wandering aimlessly
through steel tides

a poet’s penultimate dying words
the ones nobody wrote down
the ones she truly meant.

I stitch wounds with silk
so I am smooth and pretty
yet infected. I sleep in nettles
so the stings of lies
do not shock my skin.

I’d rather chase wasps
than peaceful little birds
and not because I care for nature

but because the fight and the fury
and that chainsaw sound of hate
is like looking in a mirror
that for once is not distorted
by the deceitful gift wrap of skin

tied with a pretty bow
to hide an ugly present
picked up off the side of the road
on the way to a stranger’s party.

I am the poison
diluting a princess’s champagne.
I am the cancer
riddling each and every vein.
I am the lies
you almost told
I am the soul
that you almost sold
but didn’t.

haunting a stage isn’t fun
when the audience has gone home
cut out their lamplight
and hidden their fears
between sheets and the heavy breath
of false sleep.

I resign myself to a nightmare.
for you’d never become
that shadowy half of yourself,
the one with bruised knuckles
and bloodlust.
would you?

don’t compliment me
but never put me down
don’t force me to breathe
but never let me drown

I’ll expect you to know me
inside each and every bone
but still be a mystery
who never answers the phone

I’ll expect you to be there
although I run from your care
I’ll act like we are strangers
even though it’s not fair

when you dedicate yourself to me
and I still won’t smile at you.

don’t feed me after midnight
although I’ll insist it’s fine
I’d put your life in danger
just to avoid the line
I’ve drawn between us
ever getting broken.

I sent myself into space
forgetting that stars aren’t good listeners
and the moon won’t answer my questions

but I could never come home
for the shame of being
that one astronaut who got lonely
and fell back down to earth.

everybody’s obsessed
with being loved
and cared about
having their name scrawled in someone’s journal
being on somebody’s mind.
a desperate sun
wanting to be revolved around
searching for planets
to follow them around the galaxy.

I don’t care so much
about being loved.
I just want to love.

for being loved makes you feel
‘special’
but loving someone
gives you purpose.

I want to be dedicated to someone
devote my life to them.
fear nothing
because I am too busy
protecting them
to see my own problems.
too focused on ensuring
that they are not scared
to ever be scared myself.

I want to love someone so much
it won’t matter if they love me back
and as long as they smile
I will fall asleep with ease.

to be all someone has
to be their saving grace
would give me something
to breathe for.

I would be a hero,
not someone in need of saving.
I’d find my own peace
in creating theirs.

If somebody would just
need me
I’d never need anyone again.