Hope
Hope is the most wicked of all villains.
It caresses your heart with its feather like touch,
Whispers sweet promises into your ears
All while twisting a dull knife in your back.
It is the most lethal of all poisons,
and the slowest one, too.
You indulge yourself in its sugary taste,
Believing you're only quenching your thirst
But it's the very thing that kills you in the end.
Hope is the air that fills your lungs
and the raft that keeps you afloat,
Hope is the whirlpool that pulls you under
and drowns you, oh so softly.
Hope
The only monster that didn't escape Pandora's box.
Hope
Stubborn, vicious, fatal.
Pretty Little Hedonist (Pt.I)
You were born with a flaw in your code
Or did you acquire it over the ages?
You blame this godforsaken world for your misery,
But didn't you turn away from every chance
it offered you to be different?
Drag your blade over the same old wounds,
Call it masochism, self destruction
But aren't you simply built from broken things?
For someone who has lies sitting at the tip of her tongue
You demand others for honest answers a bit too ardently.
You step over the caution tapes
And jump right into the crime scene, just for the hell of it.
You get your hands bloody, make a mess out of yourself
All for the sake of love and poetry and the fucking dramatics
It's all suicide, just to lose another worthless fight.
You have a sickness etched within your bones
And you dare to call it love.
Don't you see it? You never learned to love
without dissolving yourself into a disaster.
You never learned to leave
Without leaving everything behind in ruins.
Always craving another high, another fix
Take another shot of adrenaline and believe it's something more,
So you keep losing your breath chasing illusions.
You have the audacity to ask for peace
When the beast locked inside your ribs feeds on catastrophe.
You can indulge yourself in every sin,
But when was the last time your hunger for More was sated?
You let every bullet pierce your heart
And bury themselves into paper, carving words after words.
Call it separating the art from both the art and the artist
Come clean, aren't you just hiding from yourself?
Pretty Little Hedonist (Pt.II)
Do you remember the night you had died the first time
You were lying on the cold, hard ground
Thinking this was about as much as you can take?
Look at how far we've come,
You just crawled out of another train wreck.
Was it the third time or the twenty-seventh?
We've lost count.
You washed the blood off your sleeve and move on,
This time I can't tell if you're hiding or just unfazed.
Did someone put your heart under anaesthesia?
You're seeing red but you only care about taking the jagged pieces
And turning them into art. (Is it all worth it?)
You went back to the stage and gave your best performance yet,
You walked home with your head held high,
Paced your room till the sunlight fell on your words
and went to sleep with your eyes dry.
Did the pain make you stronger or just desensitised?
Where is the remorse?
Why are you choking on rage?
You're not the woman I raised,
Where did you go?
To Be The Muse, and Not The Artist
For once, I want to fill a cup without the water spilling out
For once, I want to be anchored without the weight dragging me down.
I want to fly as high as Icarus without having to fear the heat of the Sun,
Make my home in their arms without having to fear when I'd have to move out.
Rain on someone without worry about raining on their parade.
To be celebrated and not tolerated
To be lovesick without love feeling like a fatal disease,
Their initials around my neck without the chain feeling like a leash.
For once, I want to beloved without having to bleed or plead for it,
For once, I want love to feel as easy as an an old habit, and not like a chore.
For once, I want to feel like a promise written across the sky
And not a hideous secret laced with guilt.
Skin
My body has known how to endure more than it has ever known to be loved.
I met damage for the first time when I was nine.
Her affection felt like affliction, filthy and sickening
The burn of her touch all over the places they wouldn't see,
Twisted arms, pinched skin, all for a Game.
Girls are warned against men, but for me, girls were just the same.
I met another blight when I was beginning to learn and love the new shape of my body
Who made sure to make me believe I was nothing
more than all the ugly words she threw at me.
I remember headlocks and low blows, purple bruises and a sore neck
I remember tasting blood every other week.
I was told not to be wild and impulsive, when I was only trying to survive.
Of course there was a man, too.
On good days, he is my father.
But anger is a strange thing and violence is often disguised as discipline.
My sister grew up with consideration and forgiveness,
She has never had to fear falling behind her classmates or other blunders.
But I only remember all the times I heard ringing in my ears after a blinding hit,
I remember how the bruises had taken a week to start fading after the worst night.
I remember shattered pieces of glass on the floor and a cut lip,
So much for wanting to survive with a voice and beating heart.
It never goes away, really.
Every now and then, there is someone
to remind me of the vulnerability of my skin.
Someone to bring back the chain of purple around my neck,
Someone to make me detest human touch all over again.
And after every time, a handful of new words join the voices inside my head.
He used to ask why I hate my body with such intensity,
Why I dragged red gashes over my flesh.
I never learnt to love the vessel I was born within,
It's hard to love your own skin
When you feel like your worst memories are still imprinted on it.
Summer of '24
I never learnt to keep my mouth shut when I fall in love.
I sell my words out too cheap,
On people who neither deserved nor asked for them,
On memories turned bitter, on promises long broken.
I spent too much time trying to fit inside someone else's skin,
Now I simply turn away from the mirror when I strip down
and never look to closely, I spare myself the judgment
of whether it's good enough for someone else's taste.
I spent too many days watering myself down
and standing on tiptoes to fit in with quote-unquote friends,
Now I'm loud and silly, I'm the same idiot I've always been.
Someone said I don't laugh as much as I used to,
But they haven't seen me in a room with my favourite people.
Wearing my heart on my sleeve was never a good idea,
Not everyone deserves the full story, not everyone needs the truth.
I cut too many people off and tied all loose ends except one,
Sure, it keeps me up at night, but I've been sleeping better too.
I was delusional until my dream came true,
I faked it till I made it and let it hurt until it didn't anymore.
I locked the blade back inside the sharpener,
I haven't seen the white little devils in a long time.
For once, I want to let myself heal without relapsing
For once, I want to trust the process
and not give in to the urge to self sabotage.
I wish I could bottle up this peace, sling it around my neck
Like a pendant and never take it off.
I wish I could save my progress and come back to this checkpoint
Every time the screen would flash with the words GAME OVER,
This easy, weightless intake of breath would be the perfect moment
To return to, for every RESTART, for every TRY AGAIN.
I'm still alright if I cry sometimes, or maybe all the time
I'm still learning even if I stumble, or trip over sometimes.
It has been so happy here,
For the first time in my life, I'm scared to die.