Inner child

Oh my friend, my familiar friend

I've picked up this pen to write 

Too many thoughts of you 

Too many anger-filled words

Too many sorrows that broke down your essence

Tell me how you still sit and yearn

For everything , when you were never enough 

Never given enough , loved enough 

Speak to me of the peace you sleep with at night

When wrath still guards our tongue 

Better yet, tell me how you still love them

When forgiveness was carved out of our throat

I wrote and I write to tell

To tell you I am in awe of you

I am in despair for you

And yet I hope for you. I hope you're okay

Pretend we are okay

Please. I do not know the damage I have wrought 

Upon our crumbling bones 

But please be okay.

We have a long way to go

Another's tale - To not know a mother

 I was four when I looked up at my mother sleeping on the living room floor

her head curled around the dining room table

discarded pillows and a throwaway laid untouched by the couch

as if she had told herself she did not deserve to poison the delicate threads 

I was six when I met my first 'uncle'.

His hands were bigger than my legs, as they gently bounced me up and down on their knee

I watched as one uncle grew to many

As mother watched with vacant eyes

I was eight when I told my brother to run away

The uncles were too rough on his soft nature

red marks and imprints had embedded themselves upon his skin

as mother said nothing from the side of the cracked furniture

I was ten when I raised my voice in a burning fire

of insults and accusations and words that rang with truth and lies

I was a child made of flint , striking against fuel

I was ten when I told my mother I did not want to see her

I was 11 when father came on my doorstep

he brought a new brother along to convince me of a better life

mother screamed and hurled profanities I had never thought of

I was 11 when I learnt my parents didn't always fight

I was thirteen when I found myself in a new home

Another mother who did not know how to care for another's child

She tried, bless her heart she did it in her own way

But I was thirteen when I realised

A mother does not drown herself amongst smoke clouds of white

she does not raise her hand after every bottle

a mother does not smell like the aftermath of Katrina

A mother should never push me away from home

I was 15 when I realised I lacked the nurturing love most recieved

so I gave and Gave to everyone around me

pieces of myself, everything I could offer

To recieve a semblance of what love could be

I was 16 when I finally realised. That love can not be chased this way

mother taught me enough from young

that no matter the blood ties between family

love lasts long but never is it meant to stay

I was never young enough to grow up without a mother. But I know not if I miss it , or the idea of what a mother should be. I know not.

DNR - First tattoos

Mikhaila did not realise how beautiful the world was until she saw Riyon's very first tattoo on his skin. a stark reminder that beautiful things were no longer made to last, to be immortal.

It was a sunny afternoon, school had ended, and Riyon sat hunched on the bleachers twiddling with his fidget ring, while Mikhaila began taking all of the trash out of her bag, attempting to arrange it in, but to no avail.Her ADHD had been out of control recently, as had the number of empty gum wrappers.Scraps of papers with quotes and doodles, pens with no caps, and ink-blotted tissues seemed to have embedded themselves to become part of her beloved bag itself. Riyon watched this all, and the only sign of any emotion on his young yet so old face was the slight curve of his lips. He was amused, and rightly so, for he was the complete opposite of her. His own bag sat between his legs, and even Mikhaila knew it contained nothing but a sleek laptop and a diary, along with two caligraphy pens he had inherited from his grandfather. He finally huffed as he sat down besides Mikhaila on the ground, taking the trash she was discarding to the side so it didn't blow away with the rogue-ish winds their city was experiencing out of nowhere.

"Why do you throw your trash in your bag?" he asked curiously, as he slowly unfurled one such crumpled paper to only see vague math equations that he solved almost immediately in his mind. Mikhaila paused, frustrated, as she tried to fish out a half-broken pen, ink staining her pale fingers a dark purple. "Honestly, I swear on my life I do not know how they end up in the bag in the first place." "I swear I write everything in a notebook, but the notebook disappears, and yet I find pieces of paper in here." Riyon acknowledged her words with a hum before he opened up another piece of paper with colours sticking out of it. He paused, eyeing the details of the crumpled yet still beautiful artwork in front of him—a proud stag with long antlers and gentle eyes peering into the bag. "This is beautiful," he remarked, trying to smooth out the paper to hand it back to her. Mikhaila barely glanced at it, shrugging bashfully. "I was trying to design a tattoo, but it doesn't fit my aesthetic; I don't think I am as proud as a stag." Riyon hummed again, still taking in the details of the tattoo, before looking back at her. "Have you decided what you want as your very first tattoo then?" Mikhaila paused this time before looking down at her hands and rubbing her left wrists, where signs of her past still lingered amongst the white lines on her tanned skin. "I have not. But I do believe I'll be pulled towards something sometime soon. There have been the words "get better day by day" that hit in a way no other quotes have. "But I am still musing as of now." Riyon absentmindedly nodded as he carefully folded the stag drawing and pocketed it in his joggers, mindful of the way Mikhaila suddenly blushed and grinned at that. He also realised she was waiting for a reply, so he awkwardly looked back at her, wondering if he should've asked her permission. "Sorry. I think I'll keep the photo for future reference if I ever go back for tattoos again. I'll even credit your name under it if you want. He winked and tried not to smile as Mikhaila's eyes widened. "Wait,... once more?"Do you have a tattoo already? Wait, do you have many? When? Where?" 

 

Riyon froze and fought not to pull up his hand to rub the left side of his chest, which he found himself doing out of habit for the past 4 months out of anxiety. He grimaced as he considered how he could quickly get himself OUT of this conversation he had started, before returning his gaze to the only person who had remained his friend despite everything they had been through."Yeah," he finally whispered, as he looked away from her towards the park trees. The afternoon was lovely; the sun was gleaming through the trees, and even from here, he could hear the birds chirping in the distance. Yet it did nothing to warm the chill in his bones as he tried to smile at her once again. "Tell me, where would you want to go in this world before you die?"

Mikhaila blinked, taken aback by the abrupt question; her eyes became unfocused as she thought of an answer. Riyon once again found himself slowly rubbing his chest as Mikhaila looked at his hand and back at him, awareness dawning in her eyes at the possibility of where he might have his tattoo.

"Scotland perhaps. Reside in a castle in a remote land, surrounded by lush greenery and trees, and only the stories within the walls."I think that would be the most ideal way to leave this world."

Riyon hummed, nodding his head slowly as he imagined that, before he looked back up at the sky. "At least you have a place," he muttered before he looked back down at her. "I haven't really found a place worth visiting before dying yet." Mikhaila smiled before glancing back at his chest, then at his eyes, then away, biting her lips in a fashion that made him know she was trying her best not to ask an intrusive question. "Ask Mikhaila," he told her, amused at her withholding her own curiosity. She blushed before she looked at the place he had been rubbing absentmindedly. "Do you have a tattoo there?" she finally asked, trying not to look away from his eyes as he fixed his gaze at her. He could lie; he could tell her no, and she wouldn't ever see it again anyway, for it was in a place where one would have to lift their shirts.

"Aye, I do," he answered, looking away to the trees once again in the distance behind Mikhaila. Her eyes widened before she leant forward, one of her hands wrapping around his wrists in excitement, making him jump at the unexpected contact and physical touch."Can I see?" she asked, her eyes flitting between his eyes and his chest, almost as if she would stir his material off herself if he said no. Trying to ease the sudden anxiety racing through him, he looked at the young teenager in front of him, only a year younger than he was, yet so full of life and intrigue that he debated whether he should crack this shell of a human being and show her the other side of the coin.

He didn't want to. But something made him unwrap her hands from his wrist, and he unbuttoned the first few buttons of his shirt before pulling it aside to her eyes with practised fluid movements.her eyes only.

With saddened eyes and baited breath, he watched as her eyes traced the ECG permanently etched into his skin.He watched the way her brows furrowed in confusion and concentration as the 8 cm by 10 cm tattoo sketched itself out from the ecg to the little angel wings that were boldly underlined. She then stopped breathing as she read the three letters written on his skin, big bold letters in cursive written beautifully as his chest seemed to stop moving to highlight the heaviness behind the letters.He blinked before carefully buttoning his shirt up again, swallowing thickly as he breathed in slowly, watching the way the light left her eyes and how they averted to the ground in front of him, her hands stilling as she pieced together the tattoo in her mind.

"I see," she said quietly, looking up at him again, her face no longer bright with joy, but with a sad understanding, a knowingness that haunted him to see on a 16-year-old's face.a knowingness that she would have known where it came from, for she had been there when he had been brought back to life.

He nodded once more, swallowing as he broke eye contact and looked out to the woods behind her, the silence descending among the duo as unfinished words comforted them in the silence that blanketed their world.The sun was no longer shining as it had, the birds were settling down, and the trees did not look as inviting as before. He sighed.

 

There, inscribed under the ECG and angel wings, were three letter words that reminded him of a life that he could've had had he not been in the fated car crash those months ago—a reminder that he was here while others weren't.

There, under the bold line, were three letters that described his pain of living here, in the moment, a stark reminder he lived through everyday.

DNR.

 

Do Not Resuscitate

 

A product of expectations

 I cannot count the years I have spent begging to be someone else

Someone more capable, more thinner perhaps, more charming, a beauty to withhold

I do not know who I am anymore

I am my mother's failed dreams

sculpted by the broken skin of my fathers' tired hands

I am the product of my brothers' failures

and a child lost in despair

Mirrors no longer shine as they used to

as I glance upon the what ifs of my being

How ugly is this resentment I carry

To be made of everyone but myself

How do I forgive myself?

I do not know where to start.

Ghosts of all I could've been

 I spent my 20's chasing ghosts of all those I thought I should be

Could be

Should've been

Until I finally became someone

Yet now that I am someone

I feel like I am no one

I feel like I am not enough

Someone explain to me how I spent 10 years chasing after dreams to make something of myself only to still be left wondering and focusing on the what ifs and the what could've been if becoming someone isnt enough.

I never thought I would ever come to the realisation the only ghost I have been chasing is my own shadow- and yet as I sit here with my shadow in front of me, asking me what else could I ever want when I have achieved the stability I craved so desperately for, I am rendered speechless.

To all the versions of me, I am sorry I put you through hell to only be unhappy

to all the future versions of me, i am sorry for feeling like I am not enough

I do not know how to feel like I am someone. But I will try. I will pick myself up and I will continue searching for this unknown feeling of never being satisfied enough. Of never being enough

I am sorry to you , dear self. How selfish and cruel I have been to put you through all this only to never tell you how thankful I am for bringing me where I am now. I am sorry.

My parents are running out of time

 My parents are running out of time

like the flowers that wilt after water no longer strengthens their stems

the way their petals droop

and the leaves curl up on themselves

daffodils and peonies wilt and fall

whilst roses stay as their petals fall one by one

My parents are running out of time.

I never knew distance could be as great as it is now

Haze

 I do not know how to describe the feeling of failure

The slow haze of acceptance and anxiety

Like the quiet tears mother wiped by herself at night

Or the blurry gaze of contacts of the wrong prescription 

It is akin to watching sunlight through cracks of a broken window

Glaring sunrays reflecting but not quite hitting the expanse of my skin

It is the realisation of the symphony within my head

That the world was not made for me to be in it

There is no simple way to tell you I want to die

Words are not enough to describe the emptiness in the hollows of my being

Love is poured into it endlessly yet it has not reached the bottom

Affection has been stripped from my skin

I am a walking roaring green-eyed monster

Envious of people who can love and be loved 

I am simply a being hurt and afraid of being hurt

A suicidal girl beneath the tresses

No, I do not know hot to tell you

I am Icarus flying without wings

Freefalling to the sea

With no desire of stopping.

A Walking Contradiction

 God took his time to make a walking contradiction

To create a being so uncertain about life

That I spend more time counting down how much longer I can live

Than to look at what I have left to live for.

To be said more simply, I love the life that I live

I love the people I love and I love the kids I teach

But I feel like with every person I add in to love

I give away pieces of me that crumble away from my being

Like toppling dominos

Or cracks in pastry

Or flakes of the delicate croissant you spent hours folding and creating

I am as fragile as melting snow and as cold as burnt out flames.

To all that is out there

Oh I am so frustrated with myself

I want to break down my veins and tear out my skin

Take away everything that creates who I am

And set alight to all that I am not

I want to throw them towards the Sun

And watch myself fade from existence

As If I have not been doing this in the first place.

I have been this way for years

Unstable, Unreal, Unloveable and Unadorned

This soul no longer takes in the beauty this world has to offer

For the emptiness is no longer ‘borderline’ or ‘diagnosed’.

It is eating away at my being like untreatable cancer

And no amount of therapy can stop its descent down my throat

If only I could express what I felt is real with how you treat me

Rip my shell off to show you the truest version of myself

A little girl crying out to be loved in a world full of hate

A little girl crying at the realisation

That people like me are not meant to be loved

We are meant to give 

We give and give until we no longer exist

The world runs on the throes of our love. 

So forgive me If I no longer want to be a part of this world

For my soul was not meant to be at your disposal.

-3am

Survival

 I see all these words

That describe loneliness to the tee

An empty home and cold bedsheets

so beautiful yet so lonely

These words fail to form what I want to scream however

I want to tell you I am okay I promise

I am simply a sad person with a lost soul

Or perhaps just a broken being with a happy soul

I love life, I could cry cherry blossoms from my love

and sing oceans of joy inbetween shores

yet tell me why i am a person

who is so burdened by grief

That love escapes when I look to myself

love ceases to exist as i turn to myself

The truth is, I learned to survive in this society

Dependent upon how I gave all of me

Therefore once I stop giving

I fear I shall cease to exist

And therein lies the root of my problem

My crippling fear of simply not to be

To give this unconditional love until I can no longer

To then realise I cease to exist as I am

I am no one if I did not give you all of me

Ribcage

 I believed my mother was the most beautiful thing in the room

when I first opened my eyes to see the halo of her in my vision

and as I grew older

Fascinated at the tone of her voice

the way her voice lulled me to sleep and woke me from the darkness

I wondered when I too would match her tones

But as I grew older her voice no longer brought me the arduous joy

It instead made me tremble and flee

For her voice no longer lulled me to sleep 

but it roused the demons within

Her words grew thorns of their own

and embedded themselves within my skin

amongst all the rose petals that now withered within the darkness

her words proved my existence was a sin

I know not why this happened

how a person so full of wrath reared from love

I just wish I could tell the child under the blows of a rage-drunk mother

that it was not her fault to choose herself above her

Explosion

 

Bones do not do justice

To hold my head up

To swim my way through voices

To fashion Iron for my spine

And nitrogen in my blood

My mother was the greatest chemist of all time

For she taught me how to take my pain

And transform it to hydrogen

To remind me of my existence

That I am nothing but the universe

A broken star on the verge of explosion

Burning House

 I was born into a burning house

My skin was melted from my bones

The voices raised as I lifted my head

The moment I learned to speak my mind

I watched others receive rivers of love 

that flowed endlessly through my  eyes

but any love that I was given

Was burnt within the embers of loneliness

And it disintegrated in my hands

I grew up in a burning house

As a child of delicate paper

Sister to kindle, daughter of spark

to mother of flame and father of flint

There is no room for paper, no purpose in bonfire

other than to catch flame and burn alive

to boil down to the very essence of water at my core

to not be, to become nothing at all.

I was a child born in a burning house 

-3AM

Devoted

I've been staring at these humans lately

The way they walk and the way they talk 

I've been wondering a few things lately 

About these humans as they talk

Creatures of creatures made of sand and time

Of species present before you and I 

Oh I've been wondering about you lately 

And the way all of you are somehow the imperfect versions of I

In saying so I am just as imperfect as you 

I show the flaws of you like you to do me

So tell me in what crazy world do I live in

To have so much love for more than three .

How is it I have fallen in love with all of you

Your little flaws and nuggets of imperfections

Tell me how do I hold this unfathomable love for you

When all you do is rip apart my aspirations 

I'm not a soul who came to earth for a reason 

Perhaps I did. Perhaps to love so endlessly .

My ancestors whisper and shake to heir heads in despair

As I fall in love with another so thoughtlessly 

Oh the tragedy of loving you humans 

You and your subtle flaws

Bite me, choke me, tell me you love me

And I will worship you above all 

To be in love with all of you

Yet to despise you just the same 

Servant

The world bends to the fervour of your will

to the tides that clash beneath your iron castle of glory

how is it your sword has cut its way through steel

like gold shifting under ivory

Your father lurks in the shadows of the corridor

to the red rimmed eyes under your spectacled gaze

i hear him goading you to pull me closer

to end my life once again

I am but a servant to her King

A mistress of ill to her saviour

so have your way with me, drink me dry

I am wine not to be forgotten

Son of Mine

 Son of mine your scars are showing

like neon lights guiding you to Rome

they glow and glimmer in the darkness plaguing your bones

oh my child

The door's open, it is time to come home

Do you know these thoughts - they are of your deepest darkest fears?

They are whispered to you at 2am on a smoky night

where no amount of air you breathe

can quiet the unrestrained in your mind

Son of the scorned, the pills rattle in your hand

as you tip your head back and swallow them whole

this descent of the lonely you have chosen

Son you do not have to do this on your own

Gunshots ring through the cries of help

as you shoot down every parent that has done you wrong

I am sorry I am yet another one down the line

Son of mine, I will carry you home

I will take your broken limbs and straighten them gently

I will curl your fingers and close your eyes

I will breathe my soul into your existence

Son of mine, do not leave me behind

It will be so easy to end it all in the name of existence

of the lonely, the hurt, the broken

but what of the tomorrow you will take away

once you realise this was not the path to be taken?

What of the friends you wormed your way into

that no amount of distance can push them away

what of the hearts you embalmed yourself into

can love truly not make you stay?

Oh the sorrow that now seeps out of me

to know my trembling bones can no longer hold you close

no, how can I do what you could not

When you don't want to be home?

Go , free, fly if you will

take my soul to the places beyond your sight

I will forever accept my failure to be what I was not

I did not stay when you needed me last night.

I do not know how to save those when I cannot save myself.

Are you okay?

 For as long as I can remember

I have been plagued by this desperate need

to prove my suffering to others

For someone to realise that something was wrong

For horrible, unspeakable things to happen to me

to provide me an Excuse to not be okay

I should be okay

I am okay

but healthy people do not wish to be sick

if they are of healthy body and mind

so pray explain to me while I am healthy outside

why my mind is so sick

It crawls into my insides and into my being

like blood trickling down the bathroom floor at 3am

when the voices grow in cacophony

like an artery with unhindered blood flow

like the wound of the weary

this wound is growing bigger everyday

and doctors cannot see it with their spectacled gaze

as they poke and prod my oh-so tender skin

the bleeding spreads rapidly inside.

I smile wider as the wound increases 

for how do I show this phantom pain?

Its so fucking stupid

that my mind is decaying like terminal cancer

And I am waiting for the news to hit everyone one day

"She was such a good soul , and god took her too early"

for it is shameful for them to admit

they never learnt how to tell when people like you and I

are so sick on the inside

This pain

this crippling desire to be understood

but more so to not be existing

oh this pain

it is eating me alive.

God was the man of my household

 Forgive my lips as they tremble upon your name

forbidden whispers were beaten out of my being

at an age unsaid and unmarked

For god was he who was stronger than my body

and wiser than my mind 

god was the man of the household

who brought me to life

Forgive me if I close my eyes at your touch

it brings back memories that have no light

of darkness unkept and unhindered

For god was he who visited me at night

and crept into my covers with hands so old

God was the man of the household

who held me till my bones grew weary and old

Forgive my fears they seep so freely

Your soul lingers in the corners of the house

with the touch of anguish and peril

Our house was never my home

For god still speaks through me

every time I raise a hand to my unborn children 

He speaks of fear and terorr, of darkness and might

I fear that one day, in the shadow of night

God will give me his mantle

to carry on his deeds in his name

But I am a follower

a timid worshipper at this feet

my unshed tears are the testimony

That I can run as far as I can

But you and I shall always meet.

God was the man of my household.

the woes of gold

I know not where time has passed

To have pulled my face so low

I am burdened by my grief

Ever so present in every line and space

That the air I breathe out

Has noxious plumes of toxins

That worm into those who now no longer stay 

I am sorrowful of my woes

They ever so slowly seep into my being

Into the crevices of my existence 

My soul throbbing in fear 

As the guilded cage of love and light 

Rattles to keep the tendrils away

No  it shouldn't be so

But it is such 

How can a spiritual being live when the dead permit the space of living so often than not ?

I should not be a puppet of fear 

Nor be submissive to my pain

Yet here I am both a master and a slave 

This life I strove to create from precious threads of thought and existence 

Is oh so woeful I know not where we go from here

Where do we go my love ?

his eyes

His eyes reminded me of the darkest hues of a forest that had just experienced a downpour of rain the Trees bowing under the weight of the droplets. The Dark vines swaying between pregnant mosses and feathered barks that climbed down to the satin softness of earth. They were so dark of a hue of emeralds yet so distinct and bright in the light, I was drowning within them. How had I not seen such beauty before ? How had I not held his trembling soul still and dance within the irises of this boy ? .

broken kids

I worry for these kids who enter the grounds broken

Their souls are shattered and their wounds are bleeding

I worry for these kids who are screaming for help quietly yet so loudly

But all we worry about is the information we can force down their throats that is no longer relevant

Lord I worry about their safety 

Their pride and their broken will

Their fingers are not meant to carry such pain

Their hands can no longer bend and break

Lord their eyes scream at me with sorrow

It seeps into my nightmares till morning

Oh they come in not wanting to see the 'morrow

Tell me how can I love broken people like this ?

I know not if I ended up here to help these souls

Who are wanting to love and be loved

How have parents overseen these gems of old

That they step over all to still be so cold?

Have we truly forgotten to nourish these kids ?

To listen , to understand, to let them express their fears and fright ?

Tell me how can I wipe their tears and promise a better future

If I cannot even guarantee them that the darkness is hiding the light 

What light am I trying to guide them to

If their self worth and efforts have never been validated

Tell me, how do you let a kid feel the true love they want to feel

If they never knew how to feel it in the first place ?

I am frustrated, sad and angry at the world 

For bringing in souls to experience such pain

I am devastated, exasperated and heart broken with the job I have 

Because I have to be careful with how I comfort them

Tell me, how can one take advantage of these brilliant minds

Who work so hard to gain our approval and say

Oh I am so angry at the world for this

This is why we lose kids to life everyday

I fear for the broken kids who slip through the cracks.