My nails scraped and bloody

Torn from my skin

Used unfairly as grappling hooks

In my shaky climb up this cliff

My heart still down below as my hand slips

My own gravity pulling me back

Fighting against an unstoppable force

That empty place in my chest sinking and sinking

Cold air pricks me as I plummet through the air

I got so close to the top

To hauling myself over and beaming into the sun

To glimpsing you, arms outstretched

Yet here I am, falling right back to the beginning

This time no tears track my descent

The impact of my body on the floor is jolting

I do not feel my spine breaking

My lungs rupturing

My limbs shattering

I only stare up at the wall

That brick by brick I built myself

Defeat is the impact I truly feel

"Does it scare you?" She asks you. In the dead of the night. Her breath merely clouds.

"Does what scare me?" Your eyes still focused on the great expanse of stars below you.

"That we are so small. That your most treasured friend could disappear and you wouldn't have the means to figure out why or where. That there are most likely beings out there that could tear our entire world apart with a raised finger, and our civilisation is too young to know what to do. Humanity could only be learning how to say its first word while others are exploring space and planets and slowly, slowly making their way to us. Or maybe they are already hurtling towards us full speed and we are just sitting here. Worried about such trivial things. Will a well paying job save us from these bigger things? Does it scare you that nothing we do in our lives really matters? But it does matter doesn't it? It matters to us. Of course a mistake made by me, or you, mightn't make the moon fall but it matters to us and we should not dismiss a human's feelings.

Maybe we are the biggest thing out here. Between these exploding stars and galaxies and planets. Maybe it is not our mistakes that will bring the moon down, but our failure to recognise the lessons thrown at us by life. A left turn instead of a right, a failed exam or interview or marriage or friendship, or a lost will to live... a lost will to love. It is our dismissal of these emotions that will sabotage humanity.

Does it scare you?"

I once fell in love with feeling free

I have chased the feeling ever since, it only lasts a second

I will stand on bridges above speeding cars

Climb to heights in the dead of the night

To stand above the city's sprawling lights

That chill breeze giving me goosebumps

I once fell in love with feeling like I could do anything

Wings have come to represent this with me

Because when I stand there

Rain running down my skin and my friend running barefoot

I feel as though I could grow wings and soar into the sunrise

Starlight strands in hair as dark as the night sky

Soft sunlight glowing from soft skin

Eyes the grey concrete that make the stairs to safety

Car headlights passing us by like tiny flashes of hope

A wire fence splits our vision into perfect parts

Pale fingers linking through the wires

Flushed cheeks, inhaling the air like it's the best thing

I look for this feeling in every song, in every movie, every place

Every face, will you give me that feeling in my chest

It makes me feel like I am, bigger than my form

I am more than this life, more than what I have done

And when I stand there with my arms out wide

I am finally free

(trigger warning for mention of mental illness etc)

I watch her smile too wide

I watch her leave the house in just torn tights and a fluffy black jacket

I watch her as she twirls through the street with a can in hand

I watch her cry until she has to change the pillow

I watch her insult some 14 year olds back

I watch her lay in bed until she cries from the hunger pains

I watch her sneak a weighing scales into our house

I watch her spend all day at the skatepark

I watch her talk to people she doesn’t like

I watch her fight with her girlfriend everyday

I watch her flush food down the toilet

I watch her throw up what little food she did eat

I watch her do lines off a self-help book

I watch her hurt herself to the same hyper-pop song everynight

I watch her sneak out of the house at midnight

I watch her meet up with people who just want her drugged

I watch her sit in the CAMHS waiting room with big boots and a bigger scowl

I watch her take antidepressants and antipsychotics

I watch her become more and more numb with every day

I watch her take an OD and fall asleep with the worst pain

I watch her lie to doctors and show her scars when she felt unheard

I watch her long to be so ill that they would hospitalise her

I watch her hit her head off walls and black out, not remembering it when her mother brings it up

I watch her scream at her girlfriend for caring

I watch her romanticise Euphoria and use bad eyeliner

I watch her never sleep and give herself tattoos that she knows she’ll regret

I watch her sit on her windowsill because she liked how it made her friends worry

I watch her destroy herself

I watch her, trapped in the future, thinking if only she knew that her future self cares about her

I watch myself stumble upon that same hyper-pop song and have honest to god flashbacks

I watch myself hear the name of the meds and have even more flashbacks

I watch myself have to take the same OD substance and have yet another flashback

I watch myself start to have compassion for my teenager

I watch myself defend her, she was just so angry and so sad

I watch myself recognise that she made so many mistakes

I watch myself grow, while leaving room for her to stomp around

I watch myself move away from the half closed blinds

The words are just at the tip of my tongue

But it steals them away until I am left hating the silence

This page laughs, each new draft makes a mockery of me

Too tired to fully commit or force myself to think

Too tired to gain my energy back

This ink holds so much potential within me

I avoid full stops in the hope that it will not hinder my progress

Grabbing the vial to swallow the ink

If it will not bend to my fingers and let me speak

Then I will become one with it

Ink flows through my veins

Sentences wrap themselves around my neck and limbs

Words empty my brain and fill it anew

My skin burns away, replaced with handcrafted paper

My eyes slowly open and the colour is different inks all mixed

My head raises to where they can see my face

Remade and tired of new drafts

Tired of feeling these words crawling under my skin

Tired of not letting them out on paper

Tired of not being able to write down the stories

With blood of ink, skin of paper and talons made of words

I am the story

It sat, staring out the window filled with white.

The wooden frame curving up into a graceful sweep, the cushions flattened with time. Still fresh as ever though, the wood regularly polished and dusted, the covers washed in a warm cycle with two and a quarter cups of soap and carefully put back on the chair. The floor bears no marks of movement, it has sat still these past years, supporting its owner. Being an island in a sea of people, a sea of intermittent fasting and surgeries. Of diagnoses and medication. Its owner comes every day, without fail, to sit and look out the window. Calming their nerves after a long day of stress.

Slung over the back of the chair is a knitted blanket, wonderful colours as bright as ever, in a pattern that seems to swirl down the chair. Tiny scratches climb from the front left leg, from where the owner's daughter had gotten a kitten but it had passed away. Leaving the wood intact. The fabric faded from constant sunlight, there were no blinds in this room, and the temperature was always kept warm, the owner getting colder than others.

But eventually, as all things do, the owner's visits came to an end. The chair sits alone, a thin layer of dust slowly dancing its way out of the air to lay on the cushioned seat. The room turns warm again with the incoming summer, the covers now being washed in a cold cycle with only two cups of soap.

It sat, staring out the window filled with white, enough for the both of them.

Light drains the dregs of colour from the world, like he drains the coffee dregs.

Sitting at the kitchen table in the present, so silent. Thinking back on the loud cheerful people. Quiet presses down on him, like hands out of the grey shadows.

Pressing and pressing, pushing and pushing, shoving him down and further and further—

The coffee is knocked across the table. He stood so quickly. Jerking back from the dark emotions. Clicks follow him through the house as he switches on all the lights. Trying to brighten up his soul.

Each breath ragged and uneven. The hands still pulling— never faulting. Never failing.

He stumbles into a wall, letting himself slide down. But that is as far as he will let himself fall. Eyes flick to the bare light bulb above the bare table.

"Stop." He speaks as if in an interview.

"Stop." Monotone and hollow.

The hands hesitate. Retract a little. Then burst forward. Hitting and tearing at his head. He screams- terrified and hurting and rattling. Blood sears red into his sight. The blinding sudden colour startling him. Startling the hands. They run back to the shadows. Pain pounds in his skull.

He lowers his bruised hands down to the cool floor.

"What have I..."

A woman with a friendly face kneels down in front of him. Her hair blonde and tightly curled.

"What have you done, darling?"

He blinks and the room is empty.

"I need a cup of coffee."

You call me demon wrapped in shadows

You say I belong in hell

You say I deserve to be burnt by red fire

You call me a thousand slurs and names

You call me demon

I stare straight ahead, letting the shadows keep me safe

Letting hell become my home

Letting the red fire scare you away

Letting those slurs and names became my shield

You say watch you as you dance

I let the music carry my happiness away

You say hold my jacket

The material cuts into my skin

You say take a sip

I take a long mouthful of that poison

You say touch this

I eat up the loveless pleasure

You say drown

I ask in which emotion

You say smile

I grin at your friends

You say die, I take death between my teeth like pebbles

You say jump

I ask from where

You stoop down and pick up the child, holding them safe in your arms. Their eyes peer up into yours, sad and full of tears, you whisper to them, "it's alright now, I'm taking care of you." They cling to you. You knew they were crying for so long, knew that they kicked and screamed when you picked them up and shoved them in a dark place. You knew that they hated it. You knew their heart broke a little more everytime you insulted them, everytime you slapped them, everytime you told them you were disappointed in them. Every single time. You saw the tears streaming down their cheeks. Yet you did nothing.

But you are now. "It's okay, I care." Holding them tightly you say all the wonderful things about them. All the things that you love about them. You feel tears drip onto your shirt, but you continue listing all those things that you adore about them. For they are part of you. They're your mind. You kicked and slapped and screamed at them for years. But now you're hugging them, holding them close and whispering how much you love them. How much you love yourself. You hold yourself tightly on the bathroom floor, tears rolling down your chin and dripping onto your shirt.

"It's okay, I care."

The thing in the mirror clawed at the edges. Its black fingers scraping and cutting along the sides. But the mirror didn't crack. She stood, with bare skin exposed, head tilted to the side

staring

at the mirror like it would shatter at her command.

Its hollow eyes crawled with centipedes, each leg reminding her of her own fears, scuttling down her spine.

Skin dragging along a freshly washed glass.

Grit between your teeth.

A single invisible stone in your shoe.

A price tag that scissors refuses to cut.

The only pen in the house, vacant of ink.

A single drop of black falls to the floor

Muttered words that hung on see-through threads

Who is in control

No hate, no anger, no sadness,

This feeling transcends words

You ask for an embrace but disappear as I turn the corner

I wonder if you know how I feel

A rose that has been diminished by a blade hacking at its hard-earned roots

How can you do that

Let me lay in pain