buttons-and-bicycles

Poetry is like a puzzle To be solved, tiny words Pieces Fitting together To create whatever you wish Edges Meeting edges Some are wrong but I Can never quite figure out Why Until the final picture Makes itself known Months pass yet still Disjointed I just can’t figure you out

The girl was out of control, sprinting too fast. She ran herself right down into the ground And did not stop until she was so far under The sun was lost to layers of soil and earth, too Heavy for her exhausted arms to lift. Trapped; She curled herself up and rested, dormant A seed. Alone, she waited. Time passed, seasons Changed as gradually parts of her began to awaken and unravel. Painful at first, reaching out, pushing up, searching- When she finally broke the surface she shyly stood Unsure of herself, slowly shaking off the dirt until She found the warmth again and bloomed.

Please do not cut yourself open and lay bare your insides For how can I honestly carry your heart and soul upon my shoulders When I am barely strong enough to stand upright Crippled under the weight of myself?

Blood tests Blood tests Blood tests Three doctors Two specialists Medication Eight tablets Morning and night Every day for Months on end Blood tests Radioactive scans Blood tests An acupuncturist Needles More blood tests And once those stats are Finally back to normal When I am ‘well’ Dosage cut down Medication for another Eighteen months Blood tests Hopefully dropping Back to every Three months Then six months And twelve months For the rest of my life It has been eleven months Since I stopped writing And that is long enough.

Eyes magnified behind forest-rimmed circles of glass. Dark shadows beneath her eyes; hair fluffy and feathered from being tousled in the wind. She does not sleep. Her hunt for knowledge is nocturnal. Later, she stands at the window and looks towards the sky, listening to the calling of the owls.

And it’s like I’m hoping that this time baby, I’ll be bulletproof but I know that I won’t be because I’m only human and you still have the power to hurt me.

And this time I’m drowning but there’s no one here to save me, and this time I can’t find the surface alone. And he’s dumping me and the water is soaking and the sand is stinging and I’m just waiting for the seagulls to come and peck out my heart.

Driving 110km down the highway; Eight hours on the road and I'm drinking ridiculous amounts of iced tea while you're resting one hand on the steering wheel, arm lazing on the open window ledge. Air conditioning full blast, music deafeningly competes with the silence That comes when the singing stops. Thirty five degrees and twelve years of friendship. And if we're honest it's much too hot to talk anyway.

You always said I was an emotional eater. Right now i'm hungry, tired and sad. Today, I ate two chocolate bars while driving home; one was meant for after dinner, the other during my double shift at work tomorrow. Woops. Maybe it's because even though I ran three kilometres today, the happy endorphins which are meant to kick in after exercise still weren't enough to stop me thinking of you.

you are an art gallery. let me sculpture your anatomy and draw your attention to yourself, paintings of pain mask your face [i didn't think i was hostile] i frame your expression in my mind in such a way, i cannot cry with fearful eyes without smudging your ink or changing your colours. beauty is only skin deep to you and mine was wrapped over your masterpiece, pierced. you spoke of masquerades in the dark, the blazing moon alight with passion   burning brighter than your spark. the blood, it stains         [more than acrylics] but remember that life ends begins in stains you know that i can't take the strain of you leaving me ag

He looked up from his chemistry notes to see her staring at him intently from across the table. She sat with her hands clasped around a cup of dandelion tea, eyebrows furrowed and lips frowning bright red over the white china rim. “Do you ever stop and think,” she said, slowly and purposefully, “that you could have been a binder?” He looked down at the binder in his hands. She’d been staring at his notes, not at him. “Sorry, what?” he said, slightly annoyed. “Just think. Your body is made of billions of atoms. What was the probability those exact atoms would come together to make you?”

In forty-seven minutes I will be twenty-one years old and my throat is tight with this notion that every passing moment is a boat taking me further from the boy on the side of the road. I am terrified of the swelling tide of time, the ripples I will create, the creases that will be etched into my face without the laughter lines I know he would have left and one day someone will ask me how many siblings I have and I will hesitate because he will be so distant and I can feel it coming. I never intended to swim without him, but I am drowning under the weight of pocket-stone-people, the ones I love who he has never met and won't ever meet and it

you are not born with your fire  it is an accumalation of experiences and words and ideas found dry during your life's camping trip on this earth  and lit with the spark of your passion and let me tell you  when your fire is lit your whole being: mindbodysoul becomes encased in warmth and you are as vast as the sky  as free as the air as bright as the fucking milky way galaxy as vulnerable as a newborn child when your fire is lit   you see how dark and cold the world is  how easily a fire can be snuffed out   obliterated rained down upon like it doesn't matter like it doesn't mean something but let me tell it does i want to t

i hate my stretchmarks the vertical   the horizontal  the ones running miles down my arms stripes on a circus tent my body is a freak show 75 cents a ticket they are the bars on a cage trapping me inside this prison cell of flesh                                   (not letting me run away                                           from all i once was) reminding me that i am still that little girl who was told that she had too much weight in her stomach and in her thighs to be called beautiful my stretchmarks are the debris from when i tried to collapse upon myself tried taking up less space because beautiful is small  beautiful is skinn

I am a scientist; Pinning down ideas like butterflies preserving them in their fragile beauty as I take away their freedom, their life. I am a parasite; sucking the soul out of music and leaving it a hollow shell that plays like the noisy silence in my ears. I am a thief; taking what is not mine, the world around me, and pouring it into a mould that I claim is my own. I am a blasphemer; playing God in a sacred place, changing the world to my liking when the orchestra is not under my conduction. I am a liar; selling false havens to lonely runaways, giving them a glimpse of a world more glamorous, more fantas

i know your type, i’ve seen them around here before, browsing through my poems like you’re flipping through vinyl records, trying to find that one disc you were listening to the first time he leaned over and kissed you. the only way you’ll ever be able to love yourself is if he leans over and kisses you again, is if someone tells you about the seven wonders of your soul, if someone sits down and writes a list of all your beautiful fault lines that you’ve never been able to forgive. you want to love yourself and you want to be loved, but i know it’s hard to believe that you’re holy, when your hands still s

i am a collection of dust and stars, blue luster in a sea of inky void. i am a tongue licking lips, clicking against teeth, shaping sounds that matter. i am the lightning that explodes in purple storm clouds, four miles of haphazard beauty on a lonely night. i am the sea in autumn, still holding the warmth of a summer of sunlight, though the air outside is cold by now. i am the snow at 6am. i have not been touched, not stepped on. my surface is smooth as glass. i am the snow at 6pm. i am still beautiful. i am the sound of rain just before sunrise on a sunday morning. i am the swirl of cream in a coffee, blossoming and unfolding like a

i. i have a theory that the size of the universe is measured in negative numbers: so small that it looped over became big again thus we are all collapsing into ourselves and each other brilliant clusters entwined with the void and our expanses are startled and crossed when we touch and the universe isn't enough every nebula or space where a star was re- placed with something that wasn't nothing or a nothing becoming something ii. lately the hole in my chest is growing, so i will observe the vacuum and wait for infinity recurring a bleak space imploding chemicals corroding stark ribs contracting volatile, reacting is this a refr