Happiness: A Country The concept of happiness is unfamiliar to this brain A foreign country I have countlessly read about but have never properly visited before. Happiness is a woman pressed softly against the glass window pane; always on the outside of wherever I am. Things do not just become happy and if they do I cling on so tightly it’s a chore more than a love no heather relationship sits on the table as I clutch at straws asking what it wants. Every day of my #life I actively recite 3 good things. Even on the worst day of my entire #life thus far I believe there is something positive. Though it need not be much a clear commute to work or a smile from a stranger I do not live in the world where there isn’t a single shred of light. Though often I need so much more than a glimpse I bathe in the tiniest glow so that it fills this room just for a second the world is clear and there is something to strive for If happiness insists on remaining on the outside I will go and find her. It’s so damn hard to live in something else’s shadow, an overbearing stranger but one day we will be lovers the stars the light to our dance floor and happiness will be mine. One day she will be mine.

The sadness ‘off switch’ How do you turn off the sad? It’s 3am and I’m left wondering why I’m still staring at the ceiling. I have spent today surrounded by people who are happy to be alive being constantly reminded of how they don’t have to carry this sadness with them, recognising their reflection in the bathroom mirror as something beautiful and familiar, whilst smiling at it. It’s 3am and I’m thinking about how much I would love an off switch for the sad thoughts, simply saying no to the overwhelming sea of #depression which engulfs me daily. Choosing to make it stop. Instead, straightening my back I would going out into the world as it waited for me with open arms with so much reason to keep living it would burst from my fingertips. Being awake before the sun gets chance to rise from its slumber cooking breakfast, know what it feels like to WANT to get out of bed. The world would see me appreciating mornings and nights for being part of the non-exhaustive list of things I am grateful to see every day but, It’s 3am. And I’m looking at my skin overwhelmed by this predatorial desire to cut into it. There is no ‘off switch’, but my mind won’t stop wondering about it, obsessing over the thought of digging my nails so deeply into my arms trying to answers in loose pieces of skin and wet pillows I was not born with an off switch, but maybe one day I will make my own.

Fragile Rose I want you to see my face in everything you ever thought was exquisite. Let me redefine how you pick apart the word ‘beautiful’ And show you how to treat it as though you were holding a rose made from human bones So that if you ever break my heart, you will only ever be able to see me.

Black and Golden I washed my hands at work yesterday And as I did, I looked down at my arms revealing the old scars that once bled out from under you. You didn’t even know I was hurting, or trying to die faster than everyone else. Inflicting pain just to feel like I was part of something bigger, leaving pieces of skin under my fingernails. I couldn’t fathom telling you That this body of mine, a ‘golden temple’ (as some people view their own bodies, and rightly so) was everything I grew to hate. If I told you there was nothing to love about me, a piece of me wondered if you’d grow to believe that too. That, like I do, you would be greeted with disappointment as you looked over my body. When I wore fitted dresses and t-shirts, You would stop seeing the enchanting woman in her equally captivating clothes, but the places they didn’t stretch to. At last, your eyes would be open to the rolls of fat that unleash themselves from my back like gushing waterfalls with no end in sight. If I painted my flaws on a canvas for you and pointed out everything I spent each twilight crying over, you might have actually have started to see them. Not just in the way I look, But my pessimism towards #life fundamentally. A constant reminder that nothing is permanent Despite markers claiming to be And love labelling itself as the ‘forever bond’ between two people; Something that could only act to make you whole instead of broken. What a punchline. If I took my mind in my hands and gave it to you, all of my damning thoughts my heart aches, my struggles would be realised. You’d know that despite waking up next to you, getting up each morning was so utterly depressing to me because I had to put clothes on my back and say hello world like a lion roar despite having embodied the confidence of a timid dormouse; Only then would you understand how hard wanting to leave my bed was. So much of me wanted to open myself up to you To splatter this colour of me on the canvas we created Once blank, but slowly became filled with flicks of colours from each end of the spectrum. Each time you kissed me; it was a rosy pink, like the lips you once kissed me with. Each time we made love; our canvas painted itself a golden yellow Even though this part of me was pure black, I should’ve let it corrupt our rainbow picture But oh, how I didn’t want to burden you with my broken heart.

Field of sunflowers I knew that you once loved me, That every time you saw a sunflower Or a field full of them When you saw something beautiful, You instantaneously thought of me. How did I get here? Crying each night before laying awake for hours Who needed sleep when there’s no one to wake up next to anymore? Don’t you remember how it used to feel Getting up at dawn, still thinking about the “I love you’s” we exchanged before sleeping; Peacefully. I felt so safe I slept for hours Only I wish it was harder, Give me those wasted moments I spent dreaming instead of living my #life next to you, I didn’t want sleep because everything I ever wanted had his arms around me, So I could scream I LOVE YOU I love YOU I love you And you’d hear me. What did it matter now, screaming all I things I loved... love about you to an empty side of the bed? Let me have a few moments to see you now To remind you what my laughter used to sound like To tell you that I love you and always will, Even if it wouldn’t last. Make me naive enough to think it would, again, I wanted to hold onto the belief with every cell in my body That you would love me forever; You would see that I am made to love you like no one else. Even now, I hope you see fields of sunflowers, and call out to me.