she is a narcissist
you can find her at 9 o’clock on tuesday nights,
taking photos in front of a full length mirror,
trying to find a spark of beauty in a life that is more bland
than bread without butter, people without mouths, mouths without words
(words outside mouths)

words fall out of her mouth before she can stop them
they are not always hers
she stole them from the magazine she reads on sundays, the one that keeps her distracted
because monday is back to the real world
(school means enemies)


she doesn’t make enemies, she chooses them
she speaks to a boy once and has a bad impression
and for the next three years he somehow manages to make her angry
she hates how he looks, how he talks, how he walks
how he beats her in an election of popularity
he doesn’t know he’s her enemy, but she doesn’t care
(if sharing is caring, she will not even breathe the same air as him)


air isn’t hard to come by, everyone she doesn’t like has a head full of it
everyone she likes also has a head full of it
the difference is that half think she’s crazy, and the other half are crazy
she has pride in herself
(that’s what everyone else thinks)


she has daytime insomnia, except
instead of not falling asleep, she can’t stay awake
in a world of people who think shallow water is safer and
shallow minds are better
it drives her crazy to think of romantic love
(she wants it but i guess she can’t have it)


her life is divided by the color of lockers
the yellow lockers of her first middle school, the good years, when she was admired by everyone
she was smart and charismatic
and she was happy in only a way that a
bee that has never lost it’s stinger can be
(innocent children always change)


the red lockers of a second middle school, full of memories she hopes to forget
the building where she first learned hatred and hopelessness and how you can never take happiness for granted because there will always be someone to take it away
(she was angry at her parents for their uninspired decision to move)


the blue lockers of high school, the idea of which kept her going all through the red year where she almost let go of the thin, little, fraying string of a balloon, keeping her barely out of the reach of the sharp nails of the devil’s paradise
she ran into blue as she ran away from red’s angry arms, crying for help, crying to be saved,
and she was.
she saved herself.


in blue she found herself away from the miserable creatures red produced, and she could never put a pin quite on how it changed
but she fell in love with feeling clean, and she started to look pretty
she pulled herself together and woke up each day grateful for the blue lockers that lined the halls of her high school
(she worked hard to be narcissistic)


she believed she found euphoria
she trusts in herself now, but
only because she trusted everyone at the beginning
(and no one in the middle)


her life is divided by the color of lockers
when she sees photos of the blue of her new school,
she is reminded of the yellow where she was so happy and
the red where the walls of the school mirrored what she saw everytime she closed her eyes
her mind is a board game, divided
by emotional reasoning
(i read an article that said that’s dangerous)

Weeks without response
Has our friendship ended or
Will you soon return

Single whipping flame
Maybe that is what I am
Sparked by unknowing

i watched a grainy film once,
through blurs of a stolen light,
words dropped like crumbs.
i picked them all up,
kept them safe
tucked away in my mind,
until i had the puzzle pieces
to give them back their shape.

years later, i etched
a number on my hand.
not for him,
but for the girl,
who mimicked the words
before knowing what they meant.

now i wear his language
like a second skin,
slightly flushed
from the heartbeat beneath —
pulsing with all
once chased,
and incomplete.

i didn’t know it then,
how far that ship would sail —
how it would anchor me,
then leave behind a trail
to places only dreamed,
with a way back for when i was ready.
i didn’t know it then,
how it would lead me
to chart entire lives
into maps of unfolding,
guided by a compass of poetry —
all of it
once borrowed
from a screen.

Once he’d adored her,
‘daddy’s little girl’
he had said
while he swung her around
then she perched on his shoulders.
He’d tell everybody
about his angel.

Until she hit thirteen,
the devil she became.
His grip tightened,
knuckles now white
‘Just like your mother’
‘Don’t you dare talk back’
He’d taught her how to flinch

Shown her
the cost of silence.
and whilst
Mothers forgive,
Wives excuse,
daughters remember-
because he always remembered

He raised a daddy’s girl
who won’t bow now
a girl unfettered she became
whilst he, fettered by his past
mistook fear for power
but now that’s gone
and so is he

to be a teenager is to be in those social media group chats
to be a teenager is to know the hot goss, to know everyone's life
to be a teenager is to gush over boys and giggle when they look at you
to be a teenager is to be reckless, and funny, and happy
it's a social norm
it's known that if you don't do any of that, you're left out

so no, I'm not in the group chat with the funny name
no, i don't know the hot goss on jenny and tyler
no, I don't like any boys — i'm trying to figure out my sexuality
no, i don't like to be reckless, i'm not funny and...
i'm not happy
but maybe being a teenager isn't just that-
maybe it's the quiet, chaotic, messy in-betweens
maybe it's the questions with no answers yet
maybe it's the becoming, not the being
.....right?

She’s not taken seriously for her innocent smile, her round eyes, her rosy cheeks
She’s a child at heart; or at least that’s what her face says.

She’s not taken seriously for the curve of her hips, the swell of her *******, the length of her skirt
She’s an adult, after all; or at least that’s what her body shows.

Too young to understand the problems life has to offer;
Too mature to go under the radar of prying eyes.

Fragile;
****;
Sweet;
Fuckable;
A trophy to have;
A means to an end.

“You’re a woman now,” they tell you, but that means nothing more than getting treated like a child yet being expected to handle it like an adult.

Her face is angelic: a cherub, something untouchable and pure.
Her body is the devil himself
- the ultimate temptation, she’s told -
and that’s what she starts truly seeing it for,
it’s evil,
because why else would she get treated this way,
if not for her body?
she begins punishing it, because she’s the evil,
right?
at least that’s what she’s told.

and so the angel sees the devil for what it is,
and begins torturing it slowly
until nothing is left but skin and bone
and people saying
“such a shame, she used to have such a sweet face”
“what a waste, she had a beautiful body”

such a shame,
what a waste
of a body
for an angel to become the devil.

My toes on the ledge,

thinking how scary it is --


before I do it.

For a boy who went to the beach and never came home

He ran where the wind met the sea,
barefoot dreams where the gulls flew free—
sixteen summers held in his hands,
cut short on Ayrshire’s golden sands.

A footballer’s heart, fierce and bright,
he lit the pitch with laughter and fight.
Busby’s pride, a brother's guide,
a grandson's echo, a father's stride.

But one moment broke the tide.
One blade, one act, one shattered sky.
What words can make the silence speak
of blood spilled young on Irvine Beach?

A town now grieves in hushed lament,
a school wears sorrow like cement.
His desk, his voice, his empty place,
the ghost of kindness in every face.

And his father writes through trembling hand:
My main man, you’ll always stand
in every breath, in every dream,
in places you were yet to be.

Scotland weeps with East Kilbride.
A wound too deep. A soul denied.
We say his name. We rage, we cry:
Kayden Moy—too young to die.