Don't you understand? It hurts me that you exist in the world.

When I am old
and these eyes have seen all they already know for themselves
       to see what I have seen
       to see what I see
       to go to sea
When I am old
I'll take out my heart and store it in a jar.
I'll dry it out in a jar and display it on my front step proudly for visitors.

There in the centre, floating in a small row boat
you will be singing softly
smiling like you know a secret.

James

Veins

It was all a joke
at my expense
I never wanted to stop laughing at myself
so I made up a reason to smile
cutting the laughter piece by piece from my flesh
Trying to prove the bubbling sound of flowing blood
is as joyful as a river
filled with sticks
Already knowing where it will flow
                what it will see.

Why do I keep dreaming about you?
Why are you still on my mind
I thought you were just a bruise, a mystery bruise
The type you discover two days after a night out
     forgotten as soon as it's found
But you've become a fracture
An injury I still cannot heal
Because you eased me into you
You wrapped your hands around my heart and promised to be kind
And because  knew you would be, I could not, would not let those hands
     so soft, so wondering, wander across my wounds
And expose just how cruel I have been to myself

You're so good at words, but I know they're actually empty.
I can hear them echo.
I can't be hallow anymore.
When you speak I feel nothing - each word another spadeful you take from my heart's capacity to love.
I want to fall into the great fabric of the world
   and feel the universe slip through my fingers
   winds that merge my colours with those outside of me
Every atom screams out the need to feel to feel
My soul is a constant vibration
Why can no one see it?
When you tell me about myself I feel like I am actively unlearning who I really am.
You rose tinted glasses soften all of my edges
   and I feel it like sandpaper
   trying to make me less spiky
I feel ready to be pulled apart
My limbs are screaming to be set free
My fingers are edging over the great divide, finding their grip.

Serena (a self portrait)

I tiptoed across the rare quiet
not wanting to disturb
to wake the beast
to rustle a feather
to crunch a stick

Anything to avoid the constant motion
of running running running away

But in my mind a piano started playing
and once again
I surrender to its roars
its heavy growls
its moans

poor beast, so lonely
with a thorn in its paw

Ode to those whose names pass my lips like prayers

Go slow, my love, go slow.

Too too fast

did you wander into my heart

when I had opened its doors for spring cleaning,

not expecting visitors.

Faces that I let close but did not let in

Control
     to counter
   ease balance fall stand up
   try harder be better
   feel smaller
   ease into it
I have control
   no control
I don't want it. I do I do I do
Where shall I land
   on the bruised balls of my feet

     I am all torn up
     I am broken and bloody
     I am all edges
     I am nothing

Counter me counter me
   fight me hit me hurt me
   I want to feel something

Kyle

Shannon

Sunlight hangs in your eyes
    a glittering
    a wiseness
    a naughtiness

In the cheeky half-baked smile you flash to strangers, to lovers, to loved ones
You  build a universe and destroy it again

But softly.
More a gift than a nightmare
A soft humming on the other side of the door
That moment, as a kid, of waking up in the backseat of a car and hearing your parents talk of things just out of your reach
You'll never quite catch
You'll never quite understand

              You have th power to boil up a soul

Walk through long grass with your eyes closed, dear
Catch sunlight in your palms
Feed yourself

              You are perfectly made
              incapable of hiding your own vitality
              Divinely recognisable you

Love yourself,
    as we do
On this and all days.

Tell me how to take ownership of myself
There are white line holding me back and giving me a Mother Courage scream and I'm not strong enough.
I'm not strong.