The Love of You

If I were to line my heart,
with fingerprints
and fireflies,
I’d forget the lights
and fray my mind,
to keep the love of you.

False Advertising

When I tell you I love you,
I don’t say it lightly.
It doesn’t just roll off my tongue,
it takes effort.
Like how planes have to reach speeds before they fly,
Like how the earth has to keep turning or we’d fall out the sky,
I can’t just say “I love you” and not mean it.

When I was 5, love meant family.
When I was 10 I learnt that love can sometimes break,
When I was 15 I learnt that picking up pieces of broken glass
will do more damage than just leaving them,
When I was 18, I no longer knew what love was.
True I had knowledge,
But it’s like an advert for a product you haven’t got,
you can reiterate what they tell you,
but until you’ve owned it
you don’t know.
You can’t teach people the secrets,
you can’t explain how it works,
you can’t recommend it to anyone,

Because you don’t know.

When I was 18, I finally bought it.
I finally bought into the thought that this would be a good idea.
Because getting hurt wasn’t in the item description
Damages were covered with a fresh coat of paint,
And I was getting something used,
but it was advertised as new.

And surprise surprise…
it broke.

And I had nothing left to do.
No receipt was given to me,
No return terms and conditions,
this broken thing in my hands was all I had left.
The pieces of glass wedged between my fingers where his hands uncomfortably sat,
The scratches on my heart when a week in he told me “I love you.”
It didn’t work, but nor did I want it to.
So I smashed it up,
I beat it down,
because what it gave me wasn’t what I paid for.
I deserved more.

So I exchanged it.

I traded for something new.
And along with that came
something borrowed
something old
and something blue.

I traded for you.

Because when you hold my hand
you do it right,
you accepted me when I said
“Turn off the light”
Your words left me with sparks,
not bruises
and when you said “I love you”
You meant it.

You came with a lifetime Guarantee
because you were made from different parts,
When every part of me ends,
I know that’s where you start.
You made me spell “love” like I was learning for the first time

L: Like nothing I’ve ever known before
O: Obstacles don’t seem so scary when I’m with you
V: Veins that no longer carry my blood but yours,
E: Everyday I’m with you is like new.

I’ve never wanted to learn so much in my life,
And you’re the kind of teacher I’d never had.
You taught me that being me,
Was beautiful.

So when I tell you

“I love you”

I don’t say it lightly.

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The nerves pulsate, ripping through my brain like a child opening their first present on christmas morning.
Like a tidal wave of shooting stars that only carry black dust in their cores;
Stars that have been shooting for so long, they forgot what they were aiming for. 
And don’t tell me that it doesn’t hurt,
Because just as much as a cut deep enough leaves a scar,
If you carry that weight around for too long,
Optimism will get tired
And it will leave a mark on your heart that’s dark enough for the naked eye to be blinded by it’s innate possibilities to hurt you. 
Don’t breathe because you feel you must, 
Breathe like everyone around you is telling you to stop,
But it’s your last day on earth so breathe in the dust,
Breathe in the souls that try to tear you apart
Because to them, it’s just lust.
Take every single finger that’s pointed to the ground because they’re trying to put you down
And twist them around.
Like the world’s a treasure hunt
And you’re the first one the sky found. 
Because you’re not alone.
And in every minute that breaks you, there’s 60 seconds to make you,
So be brave. 
Take each raindrop like a waterfall,
And bring the clouds down to your knees,
So that when you reach the summit
Of your dreams
You can look down on everyone
Who’s drenched at your feet.
Because you believed in what could be.
You touched the sun with your mind,
And you made it bleed.

Learning to Fall

There are times,
When the thoughts of tomorrow cancel out the thoughts of yesterday.
Usually, these times coincide
With when I look into your eyes,
And I feel the moonlight
That searches your face
For every time your smile
Is engraved,
Into the heart that you made.

A Heart that skips 10 million beats
Because it becomes a want more than a need.
And when every freckle on your face
Makes up a dot to dot that
Defines your place,
Sometimes you need to draw with black chalk on a white board.
You need to get your hands dirty
So that in order to make things clean
You have to repaint the sky
With days that only might have been.

So if you’re learning to fall,
I’ll catch you,
And throw you back to the stars,
Because if you long to fly
between the diamond skies,
you’ll have longer to try.
And with every moment you steal,
Electric sparks grow in your fingertips
That have turned into lightning
Before you’ve even had the chance to breathe.

And if being close means I have to draw you the night,
So you can keep it held tight
Then godforbid
I’ll grab a pen and draw it in permanent ink;

Because forever belongs to tonight.

Clutching Stars

Despite the fact that people tell you they love you, 
You’re backed up behind a vale.
You’re clenching the stars so tight in your hands,
That even their light threatens to extinguish. 
And you’ve finally suffocated 
Under the weight of the doubt that has constantly tried to drown you.

Because everyone’s eyes are windows,
And their minds are made up of wrecking balls that consist of judgement,
That swing into your walls 
In a vain but whole hearted attempt to break them down.
And piece by piece,
Chunk by chunk,
They forge deeper cracks
Into what feels like forever.

But you can’t deny the pain
When it smacks you across the face,
Leaving a hand shaped mark 
That contains every single finger of blame
You’ve ever had pointed your way.
Because with every word that created a scratch,
Every snicker that wound up in a bruise,
Every night that turned into day
Before the monsters clocked off to get paid,
You found yourself falling deeper into forever. 

Alive.
But not really living.
So You reach to take the hand that extends itself through the crowd,
like it’s a rendition
Of your favourite song 
that breaks out of your headphones and into your heart 
because it’s coming to give you a hug. 
To let you know that everything’s okay.
To hold you through the nights
When just a simple touch would spark your nerve endings enough 
to stop you from shooting yourself in the head 
with a bullet that was made of gold dust.

Every wall you put up,
Is several feet thicker when you try to break it down.
So be prepared.
Be vigilant.

Be wary.
Be strong.
Be confident.
Be considerate.
Be the light that the sun cowers away from because it’s scared of the power you posses.
Play havoc with the monsters that live under your bed,
Because you’re the one who’s in charge. 

Not them.

Trees

I have a way of working things out
And it starts with a tree.
You dig down with the roots
Like you’re going the wrong way,
While the creases in your hands can taste the dirt,
And your sturdy ground
Begins to fray.
But when you get far enough,
You reach the heart of where you’re heading,
Where your problems are no longer seen.
You can’t feel them forming into your solutions foundations,
But believe me, that’s why they’re there.
To hold you upright when the wind decides to take your most important breath,
To pull you back down to earth when the gravity falls from beneath your feet
And the only sense you can see is amongst the stars;
So you stay put.

And then you grow upwards with the trunk.
You pack everything you have
Into a space that is already dense,
A waiting room that is already full,
Because none of the doctors are in today.
And you rely on the solidity of your own self,
To not collapse in on itself,
To hold your world as it ages with wonder,
To hold the secrets of every part of you.
As the sap is the tears that carry you through,
You feel.
You let it wrap round you like the blanket you had as a child.
And the leaves begin to whisper.

They rustle your hair
And the sun shines through them
Like it’s peering into every thought you’ve ever had,
And every branch becomes your mind,
Covered in a million new thoughts,
Each of which you take the time to memorise,
But barely recognise.
And as the sun rises above your head,
You see yourself from the ground below.
And the you that’s underground,
Emits the sound
Of a life you didn’t know you had.

And so what, if you wanna open up like a flower when it tastes the first drops of spring,
And feel the first breath your heart took
As you fell to your knees,
Because all this bark is a part of you,
Every leaf falls off its branch,
But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it,

Because your life is beautiful.

Melancholy

The air is yours.
Except…

Is it?

Because when the dust settles,
And you’re buried so deep
You can’t even begin to breathe,

It doesn’t feel like yours.

Your lungs refuse to live;
They drain you of every beat
That your heart struggles to make.

And as the sun sinks
Into the depths of your mind
Even you don’t want to divulge,
And the shadows that have been hiding
Away from the blaze,
Become as apparent as the darkness they create,

You close your eyes,
And open yourself,

To nothing.

Hollow

I like to believe in daydreams.
When the pieces of the sky
Fall into your lap,
And with outstretched arms you cradle them.
Embrace them.
Hold them.

You take each fleck,
Each spark of your mind,
And draw the stars so bright
You blind yourself with wonder.
And it takes a second to steady yourself,
Because the hole in your heart
Takes a battering,
From everything your world couldn’t be.

So don’t be afraid to dream.
Because when your lungs get punctured,
And the sky begins bleeds,
You’re going to need an escape.

And it doesn’t hurt
To want a world,
Where the ground you lay on
Is made of all the colours of beauty.
Where the rocks you rest on
Are no longer stone.
Where the words written in crux of your soul,
Display themselves as a fire,
Ready to be burned.
Where the birds fly so low,
You can feel the wind in their wings.

And you realise,

This…is what life should be.

The Day the Sun Burned

Descending from chaos
Is the obscurity
Which no one knows how to view.
Because you’re lifted high enough to fall
Into the broken bones,
Of that which once would catch you.

And you remember what it’s like
To be free.
But you don’t feel.
Because feeling hurts.
It takes too much of a part of you,
And drags across your skin
The marks of those who didn’t believe.
Because remembering is like escaping a burning building
To be faced by flames outside.
Because being distorted became the world you knew,
And the right way was wrong,
And everything you wanted to see
Blinded you.

You were deafened by the sound
Of your own defeat.
And your legs were too frail to keep you
Above the ground
That wanted to swallow you whole. 

But you remembered anyway.
Because feeling your broken reflection behind you was enough to push you forward.
Enough to bring you a world,
That held you in the palm of its hand,
Like a flower picked from the earth,
On the day the sun burned.

And it reminded you,
Of what beauty truly was.

All We Have Left

You held it in your hands,
The future.
The past.
The cracks of everything
That planted themselves in the gap
Between our paths.
Where the footprints became immortal
In the fate that came from our hearts.

But now you’ve left me in the dark,
Because you created the light,
And the tears in my soul have nothing left
but to stitch themselves up,
With the pain that stains my cheeks.

So frame the distance
And personify the silence
That has nothing left to give.
Just let the rain drown your eyes,
Because too many clouds flood your mind.

And if one day
You see the stars disappearing
Know only that my heart was amongst them.