tell me that you can't sleep
press your forehead against the window
tiny rivers of condensation
cool breath painting pictures in the glass
lie there pitifully in your underwear
pale tangle of white cotton and trembling lower lip

outside there is another life
past your haunting eyes and self destructive hold is opportunity
happiness even
you raise your chin proudly
obnoxious
i could no more walk out that door than you could let me go

sigh
swallow me in your sea of limbs
hopeful face and slender arms outstretched
you are the eternal flame that flickers over gravestones
impossible
your sadness burns on in an endless light

and even though i stay
i know that your flame ignites the air you exist in
and casts everyone else into darkness

sadness

since the day i found you
nicotine stained teeth and unsteady hands
you were lonely
so was i
loneliness is a terrible thing
seeping into your skin
sinking its teeth into your heart
like a punch in the stomach that chokes the breath right out of your lungs and leaves you helpless and gasping for air
with loneliness comes an overwhelming sadness and with this sadness all kinds of terrible things are to come.


to leave behind, misplace, forget
staring blindly at blurred text
tangled in this indescribable light-limbed, heavy hearted whirlwind of bitterness
it's deathly silent
you won't stop rocking back and forth
i feel light headed
we were just lonely

it's kind of hard to explain
the way that loneliness swallows you
the way you wake up in the morning and already the dark haze of day has already wrapped itself around your gut, twisting tightly
light taunts you
day mocks you
night for all it's effort, offers little comfort
if loneliness was a sea, i would surely drown

you sit there in in your undone tshirt, dirty hair dangling limply past your nipples. Chipped red polish adorns trembling fingertips and i stare at your tiny hands in silent agony.
Dirty pretty little thing.
You were so out of touch, so revered. I put you on a pedestool, my god, i worshipped you.

You stare in the mirror, agonising over the size of your thighs. I have to sit on my hands so i won't grab you and run my fingers over every inch of your tiny self.
It hurts that i can't open your eyes. You stare at yourself so intently, raking critical gazes over every inch of your unblemished skin. I want to grab you by the shoulders and shake you until you cry.

pale, coral pout. Pretty snub nose. Smattering of freckles dancing prettily across your cheekbones.
You light a cigarette and i cry quietly into my pillow at night.
i thought you were invincible.

Absent mindedly twirling an auburn lock around your finger, we both pretend we don't notice the strands come easily undone, fluttering uselessly to the floor. Your bottom lip trembles.

i reach out and kiss it.

You lie there unblinking and now it's my lip that trembles.
pourquoi

it starts out so minor, so insignificant.
Tiny shards of glass that rain down upon your skin upon a loss, a heartache, a goodbye.
Tiny insignificant shards of glass that over time slowly splinter their way through your flesh, stabbing your soul and wounding your spirit.'
You stand there and you smile, feelings painted on skin, cheery grin pasted from one broken cheek to the other. Open me up.

One quick smile from you and invisible ropes snake around my throat, twisted tongues leaving wet trails of inadequacy and self loathing from my earlobe to my collarbone.
reminders.
One tug of the rope and i could fall into an endless hole in the earth. I taunt you to push me in, to pull that rope with all that you have. I beg and i whine and i taunt and i dare and all i want more than anything in the whole goddamn world is for you to push me into that fucking hole and never give me the chance to try and stop you.
i know you wouldn't though.
If i thought you actually would, i wouldn't ask.

Something is always missing, of course. But it shouldn't be, it really, really shouldn't be. There's something wrong even when nothing is wrong. Because i'm obsessed and vain and selfish and lazy. It used to be one of my favorite quotes; All writers are, at their core, vain selfish and lazy. It's true. I can feel it in the weight of my eyelids now, a body that wants nothing more than to lie still and go through the same motions of today, tomorrow, subtle variations that don't play to the right soundtrack and words spelled out in the air in invisible light paintings. Big tipped paintbrushes soaked and bleeding into the air, letters that nobody will ever read. Because it's a front, it's all merely a front. I'm so good at creating these facades, these false illusions of happiness that seem to radiate out from every smile and fingertip, guzzling jubilation until it bubbles up from my chest, spilling out and coating everything around me in merriment. But it's only a front if i let it be. Sometimes it's true and i believe with every little piece of myself that this is right and this is it and there's not the slightest bit of doubt or fear or regret or anything other than exhilaration in knowing, just knowing that it's completely and utterly right. Right now i don't know. Those are powerful words, those three. I don't know. Loaded despite their will power and destiny ripped away in a repetition of a trite easy way out. I don't know. Fuck sake, no more of this. No more of this uncertain cry from something more. Just fucking do something. This isn't about inspiration, this isn't about waiting for the right moment or the right time, rather jumping into the rain wet and cold and unexpected fast in rivers on bare skin and soaking through cotton. This is impulsiveness and elation and freedom and the thrill of life delicious on my tongue like unexpected orange bites in dark cocoa chocolate, like green tea scented soap or silk covers against skin flushed from a shower. Unrealistic expectations and burning desires that clench desperately at thin air, great tides of pent up insecurity and emotion churning in the pit of my stomach, clawing my insides to shreds. i'm so obsessed with this concept of reality, with these big words and ideas that don't mean anything. Not really. I'm always aspiring to this unattainable something, without knowing quite what it is. So i sit here, epic battles raging violently within me as i stare blankly out the window. All the passion and the anger and the violence and the insecurity and misery and the desperation, it's all being wasted. All the deliberation and great debates over what constitutes art renders me speechless, because this is it, we are living, breathing, lustful examples of art, we are walking emotion and life drinks deeply from our misery before churning us round and spitting us out. All this agonizing over unhappiness without realising that this is it, this is life

all of your pieces fill up other people's holes, but they don't fill up your own.

months blur together, days crawling lethargically across one another in an endless miserable stretch. My mind is drained of reason and my conscience decides to look the other way while i trudge dutifully through life, pushing aside anyone who ever implied they might care.
why
i really couldn't say
Some people have defining moments in their lives, a tragic accident or a horrific break up that left them distraught, ripping their hearts out and shredding their insides.

i don't have any excuse.
It's like i woke up one morning and i had disappeared, a cloaked figure robbing me of my happiness.

Shedding all emotion leaves you empty, starved of feeling. It's nice, you know. When someone rises up to hurt you and you stand there blankly as they rain insult upon insult on your cold, hardened skin. It's nice not to hurt, to be able to look the other way as the people around you suffer.

Eventually though, the world we build for ourselves starts to crumble. Walls we built from the ground slip through our fingers and we sit helplessly in confusion and misery as our defense mechanism slows to a halt.
It's almost amusing how much it confuses us.
how can we be hurting?
we never let anyone in, we never opened up. Our lives were foolproof.
spirits laugh as we flounder pathetically in our own misery.
The deepest wounds we get aren't the ones from other people hurting us. They are the wounds we give ourselves when we hurt other people.
Being empty doesn't mean that if you're held underwater you won't drown.

faded and thin, like a letter too often read

grief is a house
where the doors no longer let you
in
or out