Poetry

Romantic poetry

Anticipation 

My beautiful maybe, my great perhaps  

The heat of my imagination 

Captures us, as we elapse 

In restrained, delicate elation 

Walls echo in your absence 

Another brief sojourn 

I’ll wreck myself against infinity 

In re-doubled lust I slowly burn 

Night after night my mind orbits

Around you, my sun, my star 

Anticipation, blazing like a comet

Confined to watch you from afar   

My new beginning 

The one that hasn’t come  

I ache over agonising details

Over you, my song unsung 

My future, I believe impending 

I am a thief of pleasure, 

Fantasies, recklessly spending 

Our delights, we have not measured  

Our moonlit elopements 

The ones that haven’t passed

My conspiracy of silence 

I’ve committed to steadfast 

My flame imperishable

You’ve rekindled all that’s earnest 

And even though you burn me so

My hope in us will spring eternal 

​

Old flames 

Sometimes old flames can reignite, after constant friction 

How often is she on your mind, is it an addition? 

You reassure me love is gone, that now you are ‘just friends’ 

But the way you talk of her, feels like it didn’t end 

You say it’s really over, but I don’t recognise 

The sincerity of your words is missing from your eyes  

Are you harbouring old hope for a continuation? 

Curious if she’ll take you back, without hesitation? 

Or is this about your ego, your need for validation?

And having her around so often is your affirmation? 

You keep on playing with fire, a gratuitous affliction  

We know old flames can reignite, after constant friction

Let me down 

Don’t use me to forget her, don’t say things you don’t mean 

Don’t show up here at midnight, acting out your dreams 

You don’t want me, you’re just lonely, after company 

Just trying to distract yourself, from your misery  

I can see her in your eyes, I know she’s on your mind 

You aren’t fully with me, as our fingers intertwine 

It’s not fair what you’re doing, what I’m going through 

Your broken heart beats just like mine, but mine beats just for you 

Part time lover 

Most days I feel I’m made of stone 

But not when I’m with you 

Your temporary touch, in time 

Will break my heart in two 

My part time lover, part time ghost 

In us, you don’t believe 

I know for you this isn’t real 

But love won’t let me leave 

Promises

Promise me the promises, that you intend to keep 

Act out your declarations as talk is often cheap 

Promise me without forgetting, or needing a reminder 

If you keep your promises, I’ll keep trusting you blindly  

Your words, a shield around my heart, protecting it from sorrow 

Breaking your oath shall splinter it, shards glint sharp like arrows

Metal fractures into daggers, impaling naked, trusting flesh

Agony, until removed, empty words and wounds enmesh

If no remedy comes ready, your shrapnel sits in sullen fragments 

Every fibre, absorbing pain, your rusting metal, in its absence

How many broken promises, can a heart still swallow?

Before the heart bleeds dry, hardens and turns hollow?

Silence

Dancing in silence, the music surrounds

Not daring to speak, or make any sounds

I don’t want to stop, and neither do you

So we keep spinning, to then start anew

I know that you’re bound, to one who’s not me

I’m bound to you, I don’t want to be free 

My soul is on fire and gladly I burn

For you’ll never know how fully I yearn

I’ll keep this my secret, I’ll savour my pain

For one more chance to see you again

The dread of departure, the hope of tomorrow

In you, my happiness and all my sorrows

Heaven weights heavy on my mind’s thin ice

There isn’t a way out, I’ll just close my eyes 

So play it again, our silent song

Play it again, and we’ll dance along

The Prince 

Are you doing what you’re doing,

Out of love or to be loved?

Content in the joy of the feeling,

Letting all your love flow freely?

Or is there another motivation 

Retaining power through obligation?

Thorns

You picked me like a rose, enchanted 

I bloomed for you, I wanted to,

To bring you happiness, undaunted 

You praised sweet fragrances, fine petals 

But rubbed me wrong, pricked on a thorn 

Your love turned furious, unsettled 

One by one, picked off my spines  

I bled for you, I wanted to,

Loathing thorns once mine 

With wounds unbound, began to wilt 

No remorse from you, no guilt 

Just harsh distain, repulsion, pain 

No longer I, your rose

Just a reminder, what I once was 

Blaming me for being wrong 

But all roses come with thorns

Perhaps it’s not a rose 

You wanted, all along 

Roses 

Three times you tried to fan the flames 

And twice, they re-ignited 

I watch you walk into the room

My heart, for you, short-sighted   

Love, I’m on your side 

In your cocoon

Roses should bloom

However blighted 

You wipe my mind of fear 

Of memory and time 

My treasured everlasting 

You are the true sublime 

The love I want is chaos 

A youthful wanderlust 

You touch my hand so tamely 

That weak grip, I mistrust 

My blood love, once a firework

You lit up my whole sky

I breathed you in and every night

With you, another high 

You ask if you should stay 

My eyes glance at the door

In love with love, forever

In love with you, no more

Riptide

I wonder if you ever 

Wonder about me?

And if you ever wonder

Was it meant to be?

If I still love the Killers  

And strawberry iced tea?

If I’m sleeping next to someone 

And letting him hold me?

I wonder if you ever

Say aloud my name?

I wonder if you wonder 

If I ever do the same?

Our stars were not aligned,

It wasn’t meant to be 

So if you ever wonder,

Stop wondering ‘bout me

​

​

​

Bad habit

Each time you give me less, I just want more 

Each time you pull away, I want you close  

You’re my bad habit that I can’t ignore  

And every day it goes from bad to worse  

Your name burns up my tongue, when I call it out 

You’re heavy on my mind, but I can’t go without

The certainty of your touch, I can’t help but doubt 

And still you’re my bad habit, to which I’ll stay devout 

Cardinal sin

Parched soil of our mutual desire 

Carnal delights lead to cardinal sins 

Awaiting promises expire 

Think what you’ll end if this begins

Your wounded innocence you preach 

With subdued violence, you continue 

Unfaithful absence I impeach  

Your lethal lust, the death of us 

A thousand cuts 

You give me your poison, I drink it with glee 

You’re not supposed to want to do that to me 

Don’t ask me to jump, I’ll ask you how high

All you want from my love, you know I’ll comply 

Your life-size ghost is haunting me 

Stockholm syndrome is taunting me 

You keep me so close that we can’t grow apart 

Keep cutting me down, keep on breaking my heart

You are my madness, but I need sanity  

I can’t let you go, so let go of me 

Different chances

What are you really holding onto, something real or just your hope?

That this time they’ll treat you better, but you know they really won’t 

How many different chances will you give day after day?

Only to have them hurt you in exactly the same way 

Dominoes 

Broken hearts keep breaking others 

Holding on to their disdain 

Not thinking twice about hurting lovers 

When they’re already numb to pain 

Hearts

Fragile hearts, they often break 

But heal with perseverance 

And their pain, they soon forget 

Fragile, yet resilient 

Timeless 

In my memory, right where I left you

You will remain, just as you were, 

Perfect and shining, like the day that you left me 

This way you’re with me and you’ll never blur

​

​

Poetry of loss

Love’s not the word 

Love’s not the word I’m looking for 

That word’s too ordinary 

You deserve a word that’s more  

A word that’s never arbitrary  

You deserve the grandest gestures 

You deserve a thousand odes 

I’m sorry all I have to offer 

Is just some poetry and prose 

I’ll carve, for you, a hundred statues 

Of all the things you once so loved  

Just wait till I afford the marble 

Every block, I’ll make use of 

I’ll conduct dozens of strings 

To sing you lullabies so sweet 

It’ll make the songs of nightingales 

Sound to your ears, obsolete 

I’ll plant, for you, a million roses 

So you can see them from above 

It’s for you that I keep striving

And the things that you dreamed of 

It seems so unforgiving

When a good thing comes to end 

Why am I the one here living?

Why was it you, I couldn’t mend? 

Now you’re the ghost in all my stories 

And I miss you every day 

Each night, I keep on writing for you

To keep my loneliness at bay 

The things that I would give 

For just a minute more with you 

To worship your perfection, 

All your pain I would un-do 

One day, for you, I’ll find the words 

To match your beauty and your grace

They will be simple, like you wanted 

They’ll be your final resting place  

Live on 

I vividly imagine, your arms around me

Dancing, spinning with your ghost, past realities 

At least we’re reunited, in my hollow dreams 

Warming, worn-out memories, bursting all my seams 

I wish we had more time, when we had the chance 

My solemn, silent serenade, my hypnotising trance 

Even if it’s futile, this, I won’t regret 

You’re never fully gone, because I won’t forget 

​

Grief

Grief is all the love, that is left unspent 

When a departure, a full heart outlives, 

All that resides inside becomes torment 

Lamenting all the love one could not give

Summer nights

Do you still keep our photos, like I do, boxed up? 

Too painful to look at, too precious to give up 

Does your tattoo remind you, how drunk we used to get? 

Wasting summer nights, making crazy bets

You never tried to change me, just quietly adored 

I just want to say thank you, I wish I’d told you more 

I still think of us, when I hear our final song 

We weren’t a good match, but brightly we still burned 

I hope you don’t regret, a single thing we’d done 

Because the truth is, I loved you, more than anyone 

Andy

So you returned to New York City 

Packed up your life, left me behind   

You picked a fight as you were leaving   

To ease our parting, ease your mind  

I know you didn’t really mean it, 

Word by word your smile gave way 

Not me, I lost you to a city 

That’s a different kind of pain  

We didn’t have so long together, 

But you were sublime every day 

Your spark ignited fires burning,  

Casting all past aches away 

You were the light of my perfection, 

The moment that red curtain rose,  

You captured everybody’s hearts 

But then you went and gave me yours   

We danced in Paris to Moon River

Underneath the shimmering lights 

I gave you all of my tomorrows 

And you gave me your endless nights 

Now I’m sleeping on my sofa 

Trying to find closure and ensue 

No composure, I’m hardly sober

As you dance with someone new  

Curtain raised; you’ll take your stage 

Glowing, blooming as you are 

 Just like all those nights in London  

Oh Andy, Andy, you’re a star 

Silver frame 

Hemmed in by a silver frame, a haunted, holy relic 

Tarnished now with unseen pain, no longer pure, angelic 

This old photograph of us, a living reassurance 

Evidence of being loved, a memory’s endurance  

A momentary comfort, proof it wasn’t our pretend 

Turns into remembering the slow and grieved descent

All the pain we drank for love, escapes this cornered heaven 

Of slivered bliss that we once were, and everything that had been 

Augusta

Sweet emotion, don’t fade yet 

I’m not finished with this high 

Separation, I’ll regret 

It’s too soon to say goodbye 

My home and my adventure

Here we stand two broken hearts

Destiny, I censure how 

Even good things break apart 

​

Fond farewell 

I’m glad we had the courage 

To follow our desires 

To pursue with both our hearts 

The love we thought worthwhile  

No ill-intent, I know, beloved  

We were star-crossed from the start 

Our duet, a touch too arduous 

Living two, three worlds apart  

Fond farewell, to you, my sun 

Become your constellation 

Wishing you a life of love,

Without any reservation 

Love gone 

Put it down. Don’t rifle through a love gone.  

Let it be exactly what it was 

Let it rest in a vaulted pantheon 

Without glum grief, nor thundering applause 

Don’t rake through all the things they said

It will anchor you in memory 

Nor curate, exaggerate  

Them in warm, nostalgic reveries 

Let it lie, untouched and out of reach 

Continue being in your present 

Or love gone, the past, will future breach

Like an ant, it will amber you in lament 

After love  

You exalt a God you don’t believe in 

Faithful to a church, burned down long ago 

The flame is out, you’re worshipping ashes 

In hopes that your prayers will light it aglow 

Spin empty words, weave your dead flowers 

Once a bouquet, now a funeral wreath 

Love is gone, in its shadow you cower 

Knowing it’s over, but refusing to leave 

Amor fati

Goodbye my lover, you were never my friend 

Only love as our guide, it led to dead ends 

Both taxing and wanting, what we put on the line 

Right from the start, our hearts beat out of time  

Seasoned with sorrows, minds heavy with loss 

All good intentions, destroyed in chaos 

Our only redemption, without any blame 

The right thing and hard thing turned out all the same 

Blame it on me 

I think I’m tired. I think that’s it.

You’ve finally worn me out

It’s all too much, I can’t commit

To your life of ups and downs 

Every day it’s something new 

We can’t rewind to the beginning

You douse my fire until it’s blue, 

And all you care about is winning

Preoccupied with gaining ground 

Keeping score and turning tables,

At that table we sit, bound  

And I just want to leave

Deleted scenes 

Shaking and crying, a meter apart 

Already forgiving, as you’re breaking my heart 

I’ll do what I can to soften these blows   

When you hurt, I hurt, I need you to know 

I’ll accept when you say – it’s not meant to be  

And I pray for your happiness, even if it’s not me 

Evanescence 

Evanescence of perfection 

Your face evades my recollection 

To summon you is proving hopeless

With time, you’re fading out of focus 

Faithless  

A love so sweet that soured all too quickly

You rushed to have me, then you rushed to leave 

Our love’s myth, kept alive by the faithful

Fades as quickly if you cease to believe  

Innocence lost and paradise wilting 

Our creed is doomed with just one devotee 

Our church’s haunted to me if you jilt it 

Are you breaking me to simply break free? 

Feeling 

I had always suspected  

You’re in love with a feeling 

But I kept on believing 

That you really loved me 

Time came, I, unwilling 

Gave up all my dreaming 

Let you go, though it’s chilling

What you loved, who’s to see? 

Tired of goodbyes 

I’m so tired of these goodbyes 

I’m so tired of my heart breaking

How many more times must I try,

Till lasting love ceases the aching?

Another face I must forget 

Another future shatters  

The pain inside me swells, and yet, 

I’ll pretend like it’s no matter 

I am the great performer, me 

Wearing hope like it’s a crown

But life has crushed my certainties 

And I’m close to breaking down

These paths turn into labyrinths

Dead ends consume my heart, my head

I cannot sleep, I cannot think, 

And all my hope has turned to dread 

I’m so tired of this routine 

It’s getting harder to let go 

Of all the things that could have been  

Is this goodbye the fatal blow? 

​

Tourist

We haven’t loved in vain,

Through my memories you’ll wander

But just a tourist you’ll remain

Nothing more thereafter 

​

​

Poetry of Philosophy

Nausea 

The drizzle of horror is turning into rain

Above, below, the rising tide, it conquers

All once-pleasant shores, distorting them arcane

I recognise these frequent joys, no longer

The path submerges into viscous darkness

There’s no way out, the only way is through

Will I arise from this in quiet catharsis?

Seeds of my misery are watered to full bloom

Dread breaks free from the dungeons of my spirit

To the rhythmic beating of its battle drums

This war, I fear may lead to something pyrrhic

The struggle I know, I cannot outrun

The trees are shaking, I do not hear them  

A heavy, helpless stupor fills my bones

I am ensnared in gloom that’s suffocating

In slow descent, I disappear, a sinking stone

Unfocused anxiety conducts a distortion 

Eroding the banks of my uncertain sanity 

My mind is fogged with a greying exhaustion  

All minor things become a labour to me

Winter wears on, bleak, stale and constant

I’m drinking too much and not writing enough 

Ever-accompanied by a ghost, I am haunted

Can’t shake the memories, they have me engulfed 

But in pain’s mute, tenebrous hellscape 

There glimmers one distant, guiding star

The promise of alleviation, inspires in me

An adamant endurance from afar

My healers – sleep, solitude and time

Have smoothed the jagged contours of my life

To death by despair, I shall not succumb 

I will protest and simply survive 

I’m the king of my kingdom, all four of these walls

Out of reach from the dulling of touch

Keep me safe from society’s calls

The spectacle which, I do not begrudge

I don’t need a psychiatrist, I need a philosopher

My issues are existential in craving 

I am free enough to know I am caged

But not free enough to know how to escape it 

There is no one but me, who can say who I am

Or what I’m living and striving here for 

The human condition, we’re unhappy animals

Rich in things, but in our minds, we are poor 

Mysterious in its coming, mysterious in its going, 

The affliction runs its course

And once more I am able to inhale 

In peace, the glory of the blossomed rose

Perhaps tomorrow the air will be ripe 

With the sweet, mingled scents of flowers and flesh

I am reminded the things worth dying for, 

I cannot taste in death 

Precious love and precious liberty

The wind rises, with it, lifts my spirit 

The darkness within, my life-enriching friend

Next to you, the light of being is vivid 

​

Loneliness

It’s not in mere absence, when we’re most alone  

It’s when coveted hands do not meet our own 

Loneliness inhabits the unfulfilled ideal  

Of our desired connection, becoming our ordeal 

We all require others, to understand and love us

But our needs cannot be met every second that we fret

We’re doomed to be alone, at times within our lives 

From our mute desperation something else must rise 

In loneliness grows, whatever there one brings  

Are you in bad company, without anything? 

Let the absence of presence become nominal

Alone is unavoidable, loneliness is optional 

​

​

Icarus, the Absurd 

Suspended between sand and dawn 

Waiting for your beauty, your terror, to ascend  

Time is kinder at night, there’s nothing to wait for, 

We hide inside ourselves, folding away our maybes and loose ends  

It’s not easy to be human, 

We seem to know so much, without knowing at all 

The cliffs do not need us, nor sun, nor the ocean 

But we need to be needed, yearn for someone to break all our falls  

From sunrise to sunrise we ache 

For a purpose, in a deeply meaningless void 

We’re fragile, we’re arrogant, think we’re so precious

We’re here by chance, that’s all. Not a single one of us is special  

There’s no meaning to anything

Till, by us, it’s imposed. Mistakes of our fathers, 

We take time un-learning and shedding the burdens 

Levied on us, in hopes to save our damage from others 

Withal, it’s still enough for me 

To quietly seek what the world, in me, enthrals 

But to fly, Icarus, the son, that’s the absurd  

Oh, the greatest tragedy is to never try to fly at all

​

Writer’s block  

I’ve been seeing it more frequently, 

The sudden flood of dark

Consuming all, around me, 

Leaving rising watermarks 

In this bleak and cold winter 

No hope ripens in my veins 

Life before me, barely flickers  

Sitting still in home-made chains 

Existing day to day, feels all the same 

I repeat ‘nothing too much’

But continue living in excess 

Of thinking, poetry and sin 

Not quite sober, not quite drunk, 

To mediocrity, I’ve sunk

I’d hate to be transparent 

While the Absurd flows in my marrow 

My misspent childhood, 

My hollow teenage reveries  

Feeds my emptiness, 

In place of fantasy 

Show me a peg on which to hang my dreams 

If the grave should yawn in front of me 

Tell me, how do I forgive myself 

For the things I could not be? 

​

​

Season of peaches 

The fragrant fruit of summer 

Once ripe, now rotting sweetly on 

Confectionary skin browns over 

Soft flesh slackens on the stone

Your breath last night, fresh balm of peaches  

Candied over by the moon

The morning after, thick like syrup 

Curdled sour by next noon 

Late August, youth is oozing out 

Reminds me we won’t live too long 

Each alone, we ripen, perish 

Let us taste before taste’s gone 

Summertime   

Let summer be just what it is 

Let autumn come, and kill it slowly 

And I will be, at peace as well 

In uncertainty, as always 

No need to weep, or rage at time 

It’s not your friend or enemy 

Whatever season it may be 

Summer lives on in my memory

​

Bones 

We’re only flesh that borrows bones 

Wanting full stomachs and calm minds 

Get drunk off music and each other 

Let’s dance while we have time  

We are at our best performing 

Nameless acts of love and kindness

Remembered or forgotten   

Before we slip into the timeless 

​​

Complicated  

It’s not the truth that’s complicated 

It’s our relationship with it 

The truth is always very simple

Times we don’t want to say or hear it 

We don’t want to have to act

That’s the certain aggravation

The pretty lies help us be still, 

Help us indulge in our creations  

We fake excuses, spin our stories 

To make sure we still seem nice  

But who are we protecting? 

The truth might hurt, but lies hurt twice 

​

Morning person

I am not a morning person

Each day I rise, in angst and dread 

I consciously remind myself 

Choices and change may lie ahead 

It’s a good thing, just to be alive 

In the heaven that man made hell 

I’ll warm my hands before life’s fire 

With my existence, I rebel 

Poetry of narcissists

Fool’s gold

You must think yourself enchanting  

The way you cast your spells 

Incantations you’re supplanting 

Pure embellishment and bells 

All your demi-truths and white lies 

I see you smile and hide your ghosts 

Convinced it’s such a clever guise,

You’re in the emperor’s new clothes

You must think yourself so clever 

So important, so demure 

But in your trivial endeavours 

I’m afraid there’s no allure 

All this pyrite, you’re concealing 

Soon they’ll know, as I foretold 

Time will strip your mask, revealing  

You are nothing but fool’s gold 

Glorify  

You ignore me till I leave

When I’m gone you can’t believe

How much you miss me, so you beg

Forgetting all your disrespect

You had your chance, you had a hundred

You didn’t use them, why, I wonder?

Only after my goodbye

You grieve and pine and glorify

Why didn’t you care when I was yours?

You made love seem like a chore

It shouldn’t have to take me leaving

For you to see that I’m worth keeping 

Fiction

You’re the source of your fiction, can’t handle the truth

Preaching lies, your addiction, your guilt they will soothe 

You re-write events, save your holy depiction 

But you give to yourself, the biggest restriction  

You annul the sins, that could cause you pain

But rob yourself of some learning, some gain

You repeat your lies in hope they’ll come true 

Fool everyone, but the main fool is you 

Hunt to kill 

I thought your lonely heart, was seeking company 

Your lonely heart’s a hunter, killing hungrily 

What kind of love have you been taught?  

What kind of horrors have you seen? 

You use that word just like a leash,

A noose that tightens at your whim   

I’m sorry you feel incomplete 

It’s not my duty to fulfil you  

Find in you whatever you need 

Do not use me to complete you 

You are destroying half of me 

So I might fit your sole half better  

Without a care what you impair 

In your razing, you take pleasure  

The helping hand I offered you 

Your mad arrogance rejected 

All your anger, doubts and sadness, 

You instead at me, directed 

As I am, I won’t appease, your exhausting hunger 

Your lonely heart remains, a lonely, wandering hunter 

Inverse 

You’re arrogant because you’re insecure, you try to dim their lights 

So you’ll shine brighter by comparison, distorting the true sight 

Your cruelty springs from weakness, you project out all you fear

You’re angry when you’re helpless, but at helping hands you sneer 

Surrounded by distractions, you’re afraid to be alone 

You know you’re in bad company when you are on your own  

Always the first to leave, because you’re scared you’re not enough 

Terrified of being vulnerable, always acting tough 

You self-destruct so you won’t feel you’ve ever lost control 

Stubborn against change, you are petrified of the unknown 

Always hungry for attention, but never satisfied 

Regardless what you get, you are empty all inside  

You demonise the other, but from fear your actions stem 

Afraid of others treating you how you are treating them 

​

Irrelevant now

Thought we had so much in common 

Both straining under heavy dreams 

You brag you sail with passions high 

While pushing paper boats downstream  

Romanticising all your plans 

While chasing dreams inside your head 

But nothing works, unless you do 

Can’t cheat yourself to get ahead   

You’re not a victim, you’re not drowning, 

You just can’t be arsed to swim 

The only danger is your sloth,  

That you keep fuelling from within 

Instead of standing by my side 

You tricked me into conceding  

Into dimming my own light, 

Feeling guilty for succeeding  

You hurt me, and then complain? 

You don’t get it, you don’t listen 

Knocking haloes off my saints 

Has always been your vile religion 

I’m tired of carrying us both 

I can’t do this any longer 

At least carrying your dead weight 

Made me a little stronger 

You’ve been calling, it rings out 

Without a flinch of apprehension  

I’ll starve your ego with a drought  

You don’t deserve any attention  

Sometimes I think I might miss you 

Sometimes I doubt why I left 

Then I remember the bad things   

You did and how awful they felt  

Go ahead, fill up my voicemail 

I won’t grant you one last bow 

Yours fears, like my dreams, all came true 

You are irrelevant now 

​

​

The Anglerfish

Months ago, on the day it snowed,

You confessed your dystopia 

Suspended from your happiness  

Succumbed to anhedonia 

Your higher calling called on me

Knew at once to guarantee 

To hold your heart with both my hands 

Warm it up, as best as I can 

Tell me, what pain made you so cruel?

I will distill it all from you

I won’t let this infection spread 

All your past aches, I’ll help you shed 

Whatever poisoned you before

I will take care and I’ll adore

I’ll heal your wounds, and with great care

I’ll pour in so much love to spare  

But I can’t heal you from outside 

You hear me calling, hear my plight 

You drink my love, like it’s your due

But banish me from seeing through 

I know it’s not within my right

But I can see your losing fight 

If you don’t ease your source of pain 

Forever with you, it’ll remain 

Regardless how much love you drink 

It’ll spread there too, so please rethink 

I swear I’m only trying to aid 

The more I do, the more you hate

As if you savour being in pain,

Feel entitled over my strain 

You seek to drain me till I’m done 

Then you’ll discard me and move on

To the next one, that you will trick 

And you’ll drain her, just like you did 

To me, to all, as you see fit 

All your cruelty, you’ll re-emit 

​

Twenty-five  

You think you’re old at twenty-five  

Without hard work, somehow, you’ll thrive 

The rules, to you, they don’t apply  

To you, we’ll bow, without your try 

The center of the universe 

Around you, the rest must spin 

Unconcerned by their opinions

Your wisdom comes from deep within 

So comfortable in your convictions 

But on second glance, your chains 

If one questions their existence 

Under pressure, you feel strained 

Your brittle ears crumble in plight 

Incapacitated by your ego 

If you feel wronged, you turn to spite 

Victimising yourself, your placebo 

You backtrack on apologies 

You don’t mean a word you say 

When you know you’re ’bout to lose, 

You’re too quick to run away 

Being on time is such a chore 

You are their king; can’t they just wait? 

And when you finally turn up 

How dare they point out that you’re late! 

Lose your pride or lose your love 

You’ve been told this all before 

But you’ve descended from above 

All those ‘below’ you, you ignore 

Paramount for you to be right 

And if she leaves, it’s her, not you  

You’re just ‘so misunderstood’ 

Your ‘genius’ is a different hue  

Your suffering is so unique  

Oh, your wounds are full of salt! 

No one’s felt pain as deep as yours  

And it’s all somebody’s fault 

Folly of youth, I sympathise  

We were all once that childish bore 

The only problem with you is – 

You’re not twenty-five anymore  

​

Unconditional 

You push me far away, then wonder where I went 

You do not treat me kindly, but kindness you expect?   

You complain at me, after closing yourself off 

I’m not fighting hard enough to break down all your walls 

You treat me like your enemy, but expect to be my friend 

You keep on breaking us, assuming us I’ll mend

It’s not my job to raise you, and manage your emotions 

You cannot be malicious and still expect devotion  

You seek to keep my love with actions so equivocal 

Except I’m not your mother, my love’s not unconditional 

Vain 

You gave away the things I loved 

And one of them was you 

To all of those who wanted some 

Regardless if it’s due 

Your crowded heart and fickle mind 

Charmed by validation 

Overlooking your commitment 

Addicted to attention 

You say you’re mine, but every time 

My nerves quietly fray

As you embrace the whole world while 

It’s me you hide away 

Your beautiful game   

You never let me get too close. 

Your ‘omens’ taught you otherwise

You say, in your stern voice.

You say you like these games we play

But some rules have turned it ugly 

Dance if you want, sing along if you want

Don’t stand and stare so smugly 

I’m tired of these eggshells

Your ‘cause and effect’

Love’s not formulaic 

News to you, I suspect

And in your labyrinth 

I have no birds-eye view 

I loathe your instructions 

Don’t preach what to do

You’re not an enigma 

My puzzle to solve 

Just a beautiful boy

Who wants my resolve 

Anything I do

I do it all wrong 

This is exhausting 

And just can’t go on

​

Say my name 

Do not mistake me for your friend

Do not believe that ‘we are good’

My mute departure and my grace

You seem to have misunderstood 

I don’t have goodwill towards you 

Nor can I spare you any hate

I remember what you did 

There’s not a thing you can abate 

I’ve found my peace, I’m happy now

It doesn’t mean there’s room for you

Do not infect me with your chaos 

You’ve not changed since we were through 

You think you shaped me in your image

I’ll never be like you, you’ll see 

All your poison, I’ve cried out, 

All the hate you poured on me  

I won’t raise my voice or egress 

From you, I’ll just turn away 

But don’t you dare approach me,

You don’t deserve to say my name

​

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