I live a life collecting pieces.

Pieces of fantasies forever the

realm of

childhood;

Pieces of imaginations turned wild and wonderful.

Pieces of laughter, confusion, delight and tears.

Pieces of melancholy, shards of sorrow;

fragments of regret, portions of jealousy.

Sections of desire, passion, leading us on

blindly to others of

heartache and yearning.


The rough edges of frustration, yet the

smooth curves of contentment, peace.

I live a life collecting pieces;

this is what I’m told makes a life worthy.

Worthy of remembrance, joy; fulfilment.

But only I can see the struggles,

feel my bones bearing more weight;

the aching tiredness I fall into,

when I’m not at work,

collecting the pieces I speak of.


The fright I hastily pick up off the ground,

when I compare my clumsy, ***** array of

pieces to your perfect and bound ones;

when you aren’t looking.

The dread I reach for, because you leave it crushed

beneath your feet.

The nervous tension pulling strings beneath my skin;

leaving me a reckless, vulnerable puppet

collecting the pieces left in your wake.


Torn to scattered, dusty pieces;

Reborn a puzzle of simplicities,

bright and shining pieces woven into form.

No matter where we have been, where we

were taken,

where we were loved,

where we were betrayed,

where we fought bravely,

where we surrendered nobly,

where we were embittered,

where we learnt of strengths and weaknesses;

we are all made of pieces.


We are collections of pieces.

You and I.

Our collection is known as life;

each piece is our experience of something.

Someone.

Somewhere.

And the more we know each other, the more

often our hands can reach for two of the same,

available pieces left before us.

I pen them down, keep them special and fragrant.

I live a life collecting pieces

and often they are of you.

This is what hurt looks like.

This is what pain creates, added that

you are conditioned to feel sad.

Chemicals unbalanced and unchecked,

You’re a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.


The sudden icy tingle of cold

as you move from warm sunlight to shade;

the sudden shimmer before your eyes,

blending into the last sight you wish to see that day.

The sudden jump in your sleep,

before you fall and wake knowing you will, soon;

the sudden lights that dance before you,

before you know they’ll eclipse you as soon

as you are left alone.


These are all the ways you are unpredictable.

These are all the little things you

plead for others to understand.

And all the little things they never will.

Because that is the cruelest blow, the

omnipresent bleed underneath the skin,

the constant broken limb and sickness that

doesn’t heal.

That is the cruelest part of all;

they just don’t understand.


I write and let the frustrations climb the pages;

mountains inked out before me to mark

the journey’s edges.

I write and leave traces of every scar and wound,

praying one day you will find them.

I write to leave it all behind;

leave the roads mapped as far as they have been followed.

I write in order to tell you things I no longer can,

to remind you of what I was, what I did, how

I helped you move on to someone else.

I write to ask you the questions you never allowed me to,

to ask why

how,

who,

when?


This is how I process all the ways I hurt.

So I can avoid the physical cuts and bruises.

So I can gather my defences, to brace another onslaught.

So I can enjoy, love, laugh, grow while my demons

are away, left on quests to search for the proofs they can

use against me; paste on walls in my mind.

I know you won’t understand,

I know you can’t and I have learnt to allow you

to fall short.

But you need to hear some truths regardless.

This is how I process all the ways I hurt.

How do you look at yours?

We always make sure to hold each other.

We always cry to be wrapped in

each other,

heated embraces,

breathless kisses;

trailing bodies and entwining limbs.


I pen this wrapped in your abandoned

bed sheets,

the lingering smell of you staining my skin.

I sprawl over where you laid,

hoping to take in as much as I can of you.


I pen this while we’re disentangled,

to let you know something.

Please don’t loosen yourself from me.

Please, I worry when I wake

in your bed to find you were never

once there; you were never once taking me in your arms.


I pen this because I’ve realised what

makes it so painful,

to imagine you lost from me;

a distant, faded smudge in a photo album.

You’re a biochemical addiction,

a drug I can’t seem to avoid, I can’t seem

to stop taking my daily shot.

A sheer addiction rooting me down to my

bare bones.


I pen this because what we are is purely

selfish.

Relationships are purely narcissistic.

Lost in reflections of each other,

I want to love you as much as I can

while I want you

to love me as much as I can only try to love myself.


I pen this to open up the box of secrets that

sleeps between us.

To open up the lies we paint on each other’s skin,

when we lie in bed and dream across each other.

We bury our hearts in the beautiful rubble of

romance, ecstasy, heated passion and blissful reunions

of bodies and loves.

But really we cover our insecurities.

We believe we are worthy only when we know

we can be desired by another.

We believe in love, only when we are the object of attention,

not in our own eyes, but reflected in yours.


I pen this because we are each other’s poetry.

The sketches I get to make of you,

the colours you can pull out of me and place

on your canvas.


I pen this,

because it’s so impossible to let you go.

Lost in silent songs,

calling before closed doors.

The prickle of tears before they spill,

uncared for and unknown,

onto the floor.


Never believe the words they speak.

They made me learn to never believe them.

They taught me to fear the words they mouth;

in gentle whispers pressed against lips,

argued or yelled or reminded or prodded,

a strategy in a list of seductive tricks.


I’m never your love, but your conditional toy.

Restricted to a timeframe;

before you get too old for me,

before you get over having me around,

before you cease to care I still have feelings.

The teddy bear that loves unconditionally,

but gets abandoned to dusty boxes deep in the past.

I step forward, you step back.

Try and understand my frustration.


Why must you always seek to lie?

Why must you always be the joker,

and play me like your beloved fool?

You know it’s easy to stop a feeling;

to drown it and stifle it’s cry.

But I only know how deep their roots go;

and how suddenly painful their death can be.


You look, but then you turn away.

You ask, but then you cease to ask.

You beg and persuade, but then you lose patience and stay silent.

You chase, but then you find an easier target to shoot.

You give, but then you realise it’s yours and take it back.

You care, but then you transform it into pity.

You like, but then you doubt it’s real and cool the fire.

You love, but then you know you never could.


I know your words are temporary.

I know they linger in the air between us, and I’m

not supposed to take them.

I’m not supposed to shelve them and trust

they mean what they are.

Likely, they aren’t, nor ever will be.

I know they fill a void, but again, they don’t close wounds.

They heal like stitches, before they only infect you more.


I know you like me.

I know you want me.

I know you say all the things I need you to say,

but I also know you simply shape them to soothe me.

They don’t have substance, or form;

they hover and poke in delicate places.

Lodge themselves like glass shards I don’t notice.


I will always be the physical desire,

the gorgeous thing you like to hold as your own;

but once I learn to love you,

you make it clear I’m only there for the moment.

I’m only there to please and tempt for now.

I’m there to entertain you, when no one else can.


Trying to find you, when you don’t want to be found.

Trying to hide what I feel, because I know you won’t agree.

Trying to mend something, that broke long before we touched it.

Trying to revive fire, when you left it to burn down long before.


All the doors you open, before you lock them shut.

All the lights you switch on, before you cut the wires and leave

me in the dark.

All the places we explore, before you run and leave me stranded.

All the pictures you help me paint, before you burn the canvases.


How am I supposed to trust you again?

How am I supposed to know anything?

How am I to open, when being closed means I at least

don’t have to pick up all your little lies?


Yes I will be your lover for the night.

Yes I can please you and touch all the right places.

Yes I can make you hunger, and realise your starving.

Yes I only expected it to be short-lived, destined to end when

you pack your belongings, and have your final squeeze

before you go.

Yes I know you need to cheer up, and being your private

**** will help.


But in the end, I know where your trail of bread crumbs leads.

It doesn’t lead to a home, nor a heaven, nor a shelter or safety;

but to a bitter, endless path of failures.

Of points I never met, and things I never did for you.


Never believe the words they speak.

Because you can never quite tell when to start to.

Because they are so good at breeding little lies.

And they are so good at conditioning you to believe

all the little nightmares you tell yourself are real.

So goodnight, and try to dream other dreams.

Because a dream with them, is unattainable.

A crumpled dress thrown like rags

upon the floor.

The hopeless, desperate appeal

of rumpled bed sheets, a fortress of

your own.

Waiting for a message in silence,

curled and surrounded by your

dismembered pieces.


The days when you shy away from

the light;

Wrapped in a wall of quiet,

except this isn’t calm.

It’s an unbearable weight,

marking impressions on your skin.

It’s a deep, roaring stillness;

gushing, rolling and sweeping around

everything you touch.


People can leer,

eyes prying to find what

little cracks you speak of.

But they are immune to what you feel,

layered beneath your skin;

what you see etched in coloured mixes,

painted brushstrokes making art around you;

what you hear and sense;

what you think, to yourself,

the countless visions and places you peek

behind doors unknown to them.


The freedom you alone shall know;

yet all the painful days to follow.

The brilliance you alone can seek;

yet the relentless torments you are to meet.

The feats of strength, russet desire and

hidden depths you could show;

yet all the nervous energy,

self conscious woe you show.


You can be the exhibit of both worlds.

You know what it is to feel the deep burn

of quiet pain inside,

yet the warmth of healing and the

fiery blaze of strength.

Be the exhibit you know you are.

Render even the most lonely and heartbreaking

of your moments beautiful.

Because they truly are.


You may feel broken, torn and ripped in places

you long forgot could be wounded.

You may feel empty, insides carved out for

another’s purposes.

You may feel bereft, lost, confused and vague,

feeling the frightening gaze of the unknown making you

their favourite puppet.


But burdens can be treasures.

Use them and invite people to your show.

Make them laugh, cry and grow.

Your burdens and treasures are necessary,

to be the exact person you are.

Without them there is numbing, nothing.

And you,

you can be more beautiful than that.

You coated your words in spice;

fragrant lies perfuse deep inside.

Wrapped and bundled and brandished

in bouquets of flowering excuses.


You’ve taught me a lesson;

after letting those words of yours

taint the inside of my head,

dripping into my heart.

Spoilage, wasted.


Never could you have committed

any crime more cruel.

When your flowers wilt

and fade,

when your spices turn rancid,

I will know what it was.

You never loved me at all.


You can replace me in days.

Find a new love to call.

Apparently she fills the voids

I couldn’t anymore.

Take those fanciful dreams of yours,

of you and me and memories,

and bury them alongside what’s

left of me.


I don’t need to be pulled along

into your little playground;

your little fair, exhibit, of

times gone by when we

once touched.

Just know that I’m still the one

who took you exploring.

I’m the one who offered you a different

revolution.

I’m the one you worshipped naked before you

not very long ago.


And you, girl.

I can only offer you such sympathy.

Because you’ve opened yourself to the same shadow,

the predator in all loves;

the one that toys and bends and preys on that

vulnerable little parcel of yours.

The one that beats for him.

But don’t forget it also beats for you.

And do you really want him to tease and taunt and

hold that thing?


Poor girl.

When he brandishes that same bouquet at your door,

you know it’s time, poor thing.

It’s so sweet,
how you held my hand in yours
and I could tremble inside.
It was a basic touch.
Not at all very much,
but I could feel your warmth,
your fingers caress my hand
as I surrendered to the dreams of you
that night.
And a new revolution ticks over.

Begin again.
Brighter and stronger as a flame,
you are drawn to the light.
This cycle, I can feel your lips meet mine.
The gentle press of your mouth, slowly
quickening as of a new blaze.
It was a larger gift than I foresaw,
but it left me aching, desiring more.
We are both not left wanting at all.
Tick, and a new revolution greets me.

To begin again.
You cradle me in your arms,
tight and close and I never want to let go.
Feathery touches tracing my body,
up and down you caress,
as soft yet powerful as spider’s silk.
We kiss and it leaves us out of breath.
I’ve never wanted you like this before,
leaving me craving for what’s in store.
Before a revolution takes hold.

A fresh morning, a new start.
I seem to float beside you;
you leave me drifting after you,
a ghost still attached to its haunts.

You are still as warm and beautiful as I remember.
You still leave me laughing and my
soul singing like no one has before.
But it strips me down to the core,
waiting for a new revolution again.

These little revolutions.
New cycles happen all around us,
to us;
weaving, pulling, cleaving and breaking;
lifting, strengthening, soothing and exciting.
All these little revolutions.