You are not broken
He said
You are whole
And you are amazing

And right there, I believed him
I could see a glimpse of myself through his eyes
Powerful and soft all at once

You are not afraid to live
You are not afraid to féél*

And he was right
For once I had been scared
But right there I existed out of nothing but
What I felt for this man

Bartender,
pour me the usual as I
take a seat and watch your every
move as if I pay you in bills of one. I'll make a comment that makes
you unable to not make that joke,
because after all your stupid jokes
comes that devastating laugh you always laugh.
It hurts so good to see you love her.
I'll just pretend I am her for the moment when I watch you
undress her at night.
Let me automutilate myself by looking at you for hours and
I promise, I won't say a word.
Just be you, my lost love.
And let me be my drunk and crushed self tonight.

I know
you would have
accepted my father day gifts
so I didn't have to cry every year in class.
And you would have never
let me leave the house like this.
I know you would have helped
when mom was too busy
******* a plummer
and my anxiety first popped up.
I know.
You'd have kept the bad boys away,
and taught me how to be strong.
I know you'd have told me about
self-respect
if you had only been here.

He didn't kiss me, he gave me a kiss.
A sweet smelling present, light and quick.

He didn't push his tongue through my lips,
no hands on my ***. No biting.

It was a kiss.

The kiss I saw a little boy give his baby sister when she started to cry.
The exact same kiss my grandmother gave to the love of her life,
on his cold, white cheek. Their last kiss.

To be completely honest,
some days I purposely lean towards the things that trigger my crazy.
Because you see,
after a certain amount of years,
one can get used to the cold air in one's neck,
or the dellusional ideas.
(I'm going mad. My body's here but I am not really experiencing this moment.)
It has become a familiar, but still terrifying place.
On days like today I am too curious, if maybe I can still visit it.
And every single time I find out I can easily,
but it's much harder to leave.

You still take my breathe sometimes,
and my mouth craves to speak all the vowels of your name.
Oh how the memory of your touch still echos through this town and all drunken dark alleys always lead to your voice.

If I could go back I would have never met you because all we learned this time is that life was still a *****,
no matter how well you mean or how hard you try or how sincere it feels.

I'd give so much to erase you and your ghost that's watching over everything I do.
Sometimes I find it staring at me or whispering terrible things to my mind at night.
You were good for nothing, not a lesson learned.
Everytime I pass that balcony my heart forgets to beat.
I still spend hours fighting feelings that were supposed to be long gone and (godverdomme ik mis je)

And it just won't stop

I must admit
I forgot a name on the list
But I am totally behind my theory
Of doing what you want
I swear
I have never felt *****
Or banged my head in the shower
Because this is my idea of fun
And I don't mind thay my name is not remembered
I really don't
Even though I remember
Everything

I have this tendency
Of wanting to be loved most
By those who do not see me
For rejection never hurts that much
When we could have seen it coming.



*But I can see you
All of you
From your nervous giggles
To your restless heart
And I won't stop staring
Until you feel my love and
Accept it all at once.
You will never see it coming.

To the two year old baby,
trapped in the body of a 31 year old man.
To the young lovers keeping eachothers addiction alive.
To the boy who got kicked out of school at 6,
for being agressive.
To the kitten of my neighbours, throwing up worms.
To the lady in the supermarket, with new shades of blue on her face every week.
To the people in the bar, all escaping something else.
To the ginger girl who was never understood, just diagnosed.

I want to apologise in the name of everybody who did not love you as much as you needed them to.

The tip of his nose to mine,
as our hips moved towards and away.
My arm around his shoulders,
his fingers in my hair.
As he tried to get up to finish,
I automaticly pulled him back in and
cried out:
Stay with me!
He did,
pressed his body against me,
but somehow both of us knew
I wasn't talking about ***.

I like the monday evening, as I walk home from my
replacement mother.
I eat something and go to bed.
I don't feel great and I don't feel terrible.
I feel all right, and that seems to be
the best feeling lately.

They fell in love through summer.
Did too much foolish things.
Now snort it from my ****.
And
Let's do two at a time!

During autumn,
she cried sometimes.
But he held her.
Nothing will happen.
She started to believe him and
his careless state of mind.
  
Only now that winter is
coming down on them,
the cold air makes her scared.
You have no idea how ****** up I am.

Two seasons, never more or less.
Two seasons, time for aching chests.

Two long and thin legs,
wrapped tight in see-through fabric.
Her walk was destructing and suspicious,
never looked you in the eye.
Her hair was a faded version of the red it used to be,
and her eyes rested deeper
and cold.
She always wore one hand in her pocket,
firmly holding a key.
Just in case, she said.
Those things happen.
Not one person in town had never seen her
with a plastic bag
or a cigarette.
Not a single person hadn't seen her walk.
Only never towards home.

I found a picture of our family
about thirteen years ago.
You look at us
with pride and love.
Yesterday I saw you walking around your house
and I couldn't help but wonder
What has happened within those years
that made you lost your strength?
Who transformed you from
strongest woman I knew
to
exhausted and scared?

We all have the right to choose
our own way to misery.

She lies against him.
Washes his skin with her mouth.
He sleeps.
Sometimes he pushes her eager lips away
and she's hurt for some seconds,
than carries on
licking.
She tries to crawl as close as she can
into his warmth,
he doesn't even notice.
He's dreaming about a world
where every bird is slow
and every human lets him eat their meat.

I'm afraid.
Because I know me, not you.
I've seen my choise of men, and I know after today,
the way you kissed me, made me laugh
kissed me, made me laugh,
that I will fall in love with you.

I'm afraid because you're pretty.
And because most men cheat, especially the pretty ones.

I'm afraid I will forget all of this.
The pain, the healing,
and that I will eventually trust you.
Give everything I have, just like I always do.
Loose myself in your approval, love you more than I love myself.

I'm afraid that there,
at my weakest point,
you will be just like them.

We stood in the shower
As I gave you a vow
And as you let me take all the water
You repeated

*I promise
To be faithful and loving
Untill it's empty

I have loved you
a million times before
I have chased you over
snow-dipped mountain peeks
into filthy alleys
and I have loved you
as hard and as fast as I could
I tried forgetting you
just as much as I tried
to remember
as it's all but the same

I have, I swear I've loved you
from your intoxicating lightness
to your deepest fears
I loved every inch of you
and then you ran away

My first poem was about you.
I bet you can't remember. You promised me you'd come visit me that summer.
Because you missed me.
I was about about five years old. At that age I still believed in promises.
You never came.
In fact, I never saw you after that.

I saw fathers around me.
Carrying their children on their shoulders.
Mom couldn't, she's not that strong.
I saw them, kissing mothers, with their children in the middle.
I kiss my mother. She needs it.

Once, in class, I wrote your name in my notebook.
With the words 'I miss my dad'
Got detention for messing up my homework.

I think about you dying. And I wonder what I'd feel.
I hope your ghost will also never keep his promises.

We talked about fathers
In between the jokes
Of how we really ****** up this time
Especially for a monday

It was one of those nights
Where nobody really wanted to go home
Because the only thing worse than
The mistakes we were about to make
Was the silence that would hit us
And the sunrise we escaped

There was that old familiar feeling
As the birds began to sing
And the people started doing
All their normal tuesday things

It was then that I realised
Maybe we aren't looking for reasons
To wake up in the morning
Maybe we are looking for reasons
To go home and fall asleep

I am too loud.
Too energetic.
I expect too much. It's so selfish.
I'm lazy.
Don't do **** around the house.
I'm too much of a girl and too little of a lady.
I'm too touchy.
Too scared of rejection.
When I'm asleep, I make noise and move too much.
I loose or break something every ******* week.
When I'm drunk, I think I'm so much tougher than I actually am.
And I'm such a bad friend.
A terrible daughter.
A despicable girlfriend.

You think you're ******* perfect.

Her words keep echoing in my head.
Can I tell you something?

We were half asleep and slightly drunk,
our fingers strangled in eachother.
I nodded,
and she told me something that made my heart race.
I'm so glad you're in my life right now.
I blushed, forgot to breathe.
I feel so much better now.

For a moment there, I couldn't speak.
So I kissed her on the cheek.
And I've been wondering for the last few weeks,
why I did not choose her lips.

Father
I see you
And your flaws

I know you never meant to
Always thought you did
And in your way even

I know you'll never
And it wouldn't make
No matter how

You left me
Hurt me

As yours left you
Hurt you

And it was never your intention
To be a bad parent
Or to hurt anyone
When you were a little boy

You are a victim of bad circumstances
Just like me back when you left

But today I leave my victim-self
And finally move on because

Father
I forgive you

You came here for the last time
About a month ago
I snorted up your scent the last time
When I was finally ready to clean our sheets
We had our last talk about us
I still hear the words echoing around this building
Our last party has finished
The tickets sold and given away
For the last time you gave me a kiss
Though it tasted like guilt
I think today I told the last person you left
Slowly there's no evidence left
That we ever were more than this

I can not let go now
But last time after last time
I'm letting it be

I seem to fail
in finding his love
in the arms of
the boys I ****.

Because
even though they want me
like you never did
they leave me
just the same.

And maybe freud was right.
I am looking for a guy
just as scary as you,
just as crazy.
Because the only male attention
younger me got
was the hurting kind.

Take me to your island and
wrap me with your words
or hands and write mine
down
in inkt on your skin.
Pull me back and forth up and
down
untill I dance in fear and
can only find shelter in you.
Lock me to your arms or
your arms to me give me
all the invisible strength.
Use me as long as there's something and
leave me come back.
Steal me from myself and loose me.
But whatever you do love,
please don't break my heart.

I just want to hide my face in your warm chest during autumn
while I try to not think of everything I should be studying.
And we could stop time right there and never end up
at the part where I get scared and run away or desperately hold on.
We can stay there, on our safe one-person matress.

Where did we go from
Just follow my breathing
With the three of us in the bathroom
A broken wine glass on the floor
And all I could feel was
Her chest against and away from my back
To guide me back to reality
As I traced it with my longues.

What happened between
This one year and a half
That made us strangers
In some competition
Which no one will eventually win
But everyone will be exhausted after.

Did I change too much
Or didn't you for too long?

How do I write down
the facts
of the nine year old me,
shivering at night
at the thought of his eyes.
How do I tell a stranger
without any tears
that he can't be a father,
never could, never will.
These words get stuck
halfway my throat,
and the awkward feeling
grows.
Everytime I try,
second time
I see him go.

You trace your fingers carefully across my dark side
As you tell me it won't scare you
But it does me
Your tranquility does

I am diving deeper into my demons
While holding up on your strength
The fear in me arises
What if you made me jump too soon?

I hate how little I hate you.
It's gonna hurt.

Sometimes I get so positive
I scare myself to death.
I see beauty that does not excist
and I feel loved
by people who have never loved anything before.
I have fallen for the most terrible men,
I felt at home in the most hatefull families,
and now I look at you
and I see the best in you
even though you never did.

I'm a victim of my own optimism.

You taught me so much.
I ****** a guy last week.
I didn't moan for his pride.
I just let him release me,
but not shower that night.

You should see what I learned.
I needed attention,
then turned down the sweet guy.
And his tears did not shake me.
I got bored of his cries.

I am proud to say that
my weakness has passed.
For this time is real,
I am not made of water
no longer, I'm steel.

I was never built for orgasming
Because of men who love to give
I was built for
Steal another ******
Kind of ***
Out of pure selfishness and absolutely
Never
Out of generousity.

I was made for
Out of your head
Shut the **** up
Type of romantic insanity.

I used to think I was built to travel the world with somebody
But I found I was built
To get locked up and
Break free by myself.

I tried shaving you off of me today
Without a clue who I was trying to kid
I thought that maybe if I could rinse you from my body, I might be able to silence your absense.

You see,
I hate you for loving me the way you do
With all your patience and your ease
I hate you for handeling everything better than me
And that I am always the one begging not to hang up the phone
I hate you for not leaving me
Because slowly you are forcing me into
The scariest part of my life
Of trusting you that you'll stay
And I will never survive that fall

He never gave us one cent.
Some months we had no light and we pretended that we liked using just candles.

Mommy, he's asleep.

She worked for two.
We only got ourselves in more debts.

Where's his jacket?
In the hall.

We hadn't seen him in years,
I had guessed what he looked like.

Are we really gonna do this?

He bought us a bottle of something we didn't like,
thank drank it and passed out.

Yes, we need it.

He had a stack of hundred dollar bills in his pocket.
He always said he was a business man,
but nobody had ever seen him work

Do you think this is enough?

He never gave us one cent.
We never took one from him.

My brain zaps every minute to remind me
I belong in a room made of pillow.
"Now can you draw a fantasytree for me little lady?"
I'm working on it, it's getting better I promise.
Did you hear that?
In my dream last night I murdered and
it felt kind of freeing.
I forgot my meds mom, help.
Just tap your hand a little more,
there's a screaming really close.
I, I feel it zapping again. Minute's past.

"She draw her father without feet"

I remember her
Running up and down the bridge next to our house at midnight
I remember her screaming
I remember her body, almost lifeless, as we tried to pull her out of bed every morning
I remember all the things that were said when she wasn't around to hear
I remember agreeing with them, then hating myself for it
I remember the back of her head on a staircase when I was twelve
I remember her diaries
Our mother crying while asking me for advice

I remember all the bad days
Bur I cannot find the one that quenched her fire
The one that made her whist

No madame, I refuse
to do this one more time.
By the sight of my eyes on him
I can feel a danger coming.
I will not let a man, so beautiful,
destroy me once again.
Madame, please help me
for I am afraid.
I don't want him to break my bones
with every kiss he plants.
For he can make me take my weapons off
with the sparkle in his eye.
Madame, please, don't let me
do this one more time.
For I will not let the man go,
But he will not be mine.

I have a list in my head of things I really want. It goes something like this.

- A house where I can live in for as long as I want, with a nice kitchen and maybe a cat.
- Some friends that really love me for me and make me happier then without them.
- The possibilities to travel wherever and whenever I want.
- A job I enjoy and a body that works.

So for me, this list is the ultimate state of happiness. It occured to me that a boyfriend or husband or lovelife is not on this list. That's why I really wonder: how come I spend everyday thinking about that and trying to fix that part of my life instead of the others?

There are glasses and bottles
Lines joints and hands full
There's evenings and weekends
And mornings we wake.

There are men and their bodies
And girls and their skin
There are kisses and touches
And oh for **** sakes.

There are sisters and mothers
Good-for-nothing fathers
There's uncles who managed
To fix some of the break.

There's jobs and there's classes
There's friends and there's lovers
There's me in the middle
More than I could take.

I feel
Exactly
Nothing

I hope one day I'll tell you how the green inside your eyes outweighs the brown and when I stare in them to long during an unaware moment I see the forest that I used to walk through as a kid when we visited grandma.

I should talk about the way the left side of your lips curve a little bit to the inside of your mouth when you think of something funny and that's why I always kiss that corner of your mouth.

How your hair, that's always a little too long, smells so safe and I spend nights with my nose in there because every breathe makes me realise I want to be with you like this forever.

And I truly hate your sense of humor and your favourite songs but we take having breakfast to a whole new level. The way you love food the same way I do and I never want to eat somebody else's omelettes.

When we lay in bed together, all I can think of is how I want you closer and my body reacts to your fingers like it has always been waiting for them to unlock it.

You are the love of my life and I can't wait to meet you one day.

If I could I would have hidden the pills and never wear my robe.

Is that why you left, baby?

I could have closed my eyes on nights like this instead of latching onto you.

Would that make you stay, darlin?

I should have laughed at none of your jokes, nor cried at all your kisses.
Let your hand go in public.
Take your t-shirt off.
Left.

I could have tried to love you less, would you still love me, honey?

Maybe I should just stop shaving my legs.
Everytime I do, somebody doesn't show.
I'm really starting to question my theory about me choosing bad men
and starting to believe there 's no such thing as a good man.

You are that one black picture from my disposable camera. I don't know if your memory was a good one but i would give everything to see you.

Like that one frustrating grip. I feel you all the time but i just can't hold on to you, no matter how much i hurt myself.

You are that appartement i lived in for seven months that never was mine but also was the only place i ever felt at home.

I don't know what scares me the most.

The loneliness or the freedom.
Thirty-one days are a lot when you have no obligations.
Nothing to complain about, I'm not used to that.
For the first time of my life I can wake up,
ask myself,
"what do you want to do today?"
And what if I don't know?
What if I don't like myself,
when I have to spend a month alone with me.
What if I'm a bad person?
Or nobody will miss me?
Forget about me and why they liked me.

What if I find out where all my pain comes from.

Is there some kind of rule for
how many flashbacks
of you saying home
and forgetting the your?

Is there someone to answer
the question of how long
it takes to stop seeing
your clothes on the floor?

Is there any book written
on stages of heartbreak
and how to get over
not being enough?

Is there some sort of method
that makes us immune
for the things that destroy us
when we fall in love?

We are all just collections
of reactions
to our past.

Don't ask me those questions
for I have no idea why I am like this either.
All I know is how I'd be easier without his abscense.
Don't ask me what I want
because I don't know how to analyse these feelings
let alone turn them in words.

Please don't ask me
and just be here just close enough for me to grab
and figure out everything at the speed of zero
as I trace you
Up
and
Down
and
as I look at you and put all the pain in my eyes
I hope you can read it.

I just don't know the answers.

I know.
How time heals all wounds and
we were never getting married.
I know that in a year from now I cant even care less.
I'm aware.
I didn't even love you yet.
It was too short for that.
I know you're just 4 months in 12.
Of hopefully 80.
And I'm going to be just fine,
even better than with you.
I know all of that.
But now,
right now,
I just wish your body was warming my bed.