Roses are red

As songs from before I was born
Play on the radio
Celebrating love
I find myself missing a boy
That isn't mine

headache

All the pain

That courses through my body

Has now formed a clot

In my head

The pain in my knee

And ankle that makes me wince

When I walk

Has now formed roots in my head

The pain in my wrist

That comes and goes

Making me consider a career

In anything but writing

Has found its way deep into my head

The pain in my chest

When I over-exert myself

With exercise or walking

When my lungs tighten

Begging for air

The pain that stabs at my chest

Has crawled into my head

All the pain

That courses through my body

Has now formed a clot

In my head

It has come to a standstill

And every movement

Feels like a stab right through my skull

Loud noise

And bright light

Feel deafening

Blinding

I was to cut open my skull

And remove that clot

Before it

Bursts

Present

You have become the person I write for

Even though you are no longer a person I love

Temporary

For the first time in a while

I'm happy

.

This is not the kind of

filled-to-the-brim happiness

that'll have me

running down the streets

with a dozen balloons

tied to a dozen ribbons

This is not the kind of

in-your-face happiness

that reminds me of

sunflowers and sunshine

so much yellow

warm

the colour of happiness

This is not the kind of

all-consuming happiness

that spreads like a

juicy rumour or

common cold

it's not contagious

my happiness won't make you happy

.

No

This is a different kind of happiness

.

This is the kind of happiness

that only shows itself

in a smile that is no longer forced

This is the kind of happiness

that fills me not with butterflies

fluttering about, but a calm emptiness

This is the kind of happiness

that makes me want to hold on to it

for as long as it lasts

The clock is ticking

Hurry now

We are running out of time

To say I love you

And later, fuck you too

We are running out of time

To fall hopelessly in love

And then slowly

Fall out of love 

Hurry now

Before it's too late

And we never get to finish

This thing we've started

Hurry now
We are running out of time
To go from strangers to lovers to enemies
To strangers once again

Sunday morning

It's a Sunday
The last of the month
The sun only rose
An hour ago
For now
Everyone else is asleep
Except
The birds outside

I love these moments of quiet
When it's just me
And a cool morning
They can fill me with a strange energy
Make me hope
And dream
I have faith, during these moments,
That life will work out

But it gets so quiet sometimes
That my mind gets too loud
Then I can't hope or dream
I can't focus or think
I can't feel that quiet content that comes with such
Sunday mornings
All I can do is to
Let the sadness in
Let it embrace me
Be one with it

Roses

He drew on me
On my skin
He drew roses
All over me
He said they made me
Look beautiful
He drew on me
On my skin
Roses
So many of them
He drew on me
On my skin
With a blade

Familiar

Ah this sadness

So familiar

Settling down

In my bones

Blood and flesh

When I least expect it to

Like a suit of armour

But

Instead of protecting

Merely weighs me down

Blocks out

Sunlight

Fresh air

This sadness

It's never gone for good

Desperate

Why do we talk about desperation
Like it's such a bad thing

Like it's sad to be desperate for some love
To yearn for someone whose hand you can hold
Someone to love
Be loved by
Why is it so pathetic
For someone to be so in need of
Some love?

Why is love okay as long as you aren't looking for it
But have already found it
With your public displays of affection
Timelines full of your posts
Images and text
Reminding me of
The love you have found
But the love I can't look for
Because it'll make me seem
So fucking desperate
And sad

Why do we shame people
For wanting this one little thing in life
Hoping for a future
As short as it may be
With someone
They are told they can't have
Who is way out of their league

Why do we laugh at people
Who just want to be with someone
To share a bottle of wine with
Get a little tipsy, count stars with
A warm body next to theirs
When they wake up in the morning

Why is it so bad
Pathetic, so sad
To be desperate for a love
They've never known
Or once had but lost?

Death

I have avoided death
Of other people
All my life

When my grandmother woke me up one night
At 11.40pm
And told me she didn't feel well
As her body felt so light
And yet so heavy
Against my arm
Some part of me knew
She was dying
And so I left the room
And looked away
As they carried her body
On a stretcher
I hid from her
I hid from death

When my cat, Johnny Meowing, was sick
I refused to accept he was too old, too far gone
To be brought back to good health
And wanting him to live a longer life
I left him overnight at a hospital
And so when the call came
The next day
That he had died
A small part of me knew
As I answered that call
From an unsaved number
That it was bad news
And so I wasn't with him as he died
And I never saw his body

Two weeks ago
While I was away from Colombo
We got a call in the morning
One of the kittens had been found dead
And I broke into tears
But when we got home later that day
His tiny body
Had already been buried
So I never had to deal with death
That day

Last week
My luck ran out
And I couldn't avoid death any longer
Another kitten was dead
And I had to lift his tiny lifeless body
Which felt so heavy
And place him in a box
All the while
With tears streaming down my face
As I felt death coat my skin
Crawl into me
And go to sleep in a corner
Waiting for the day it would awake
And get me