Warning Signs I have faced evil and I have survived. You ask me what that means, and I can only tell you what it means to me. Evil is something that takes you slowly, piece by piece by piece until it has so many parts of you that you no longer recognise the bits left behind. The pieces it takes, it feeds on, nibbling away - it doesn't destroy them. Just changes them - a little at a time; returning them bit by bit by bit. Putting them back where it found them. So maybe you don't realise yet and maybe, maybe no one else does either. and then it happens, you're submerged in an ocean of grief and you sink to the undertow because you're filled with holes from what he ate away. Carried away with a tide you have no means to swim because he took your bones. He took your fight. Evil is not the same for everyone, it may not have a face or shape, it may be physical for some, mental for others but it all ends the same - things are changed. and yes, you’re right... Change isn’t always a bad thing, but change after evil is laying in the wake of a destruction so vast it leaves you in a wasteland of regret, and all you can think is, I should’ve seen it coming. I should have seen the warning signs. This. Is. My. Fault.

Sugar Water He came into your #life without intention, as water pretending to be wine, he tried so hard to fake it. But over time, even sweet wine turns to vinegar when left exposed. He leaves a sour taste in your mouth... I spend so much time trying to romanticise the evil in my #life, it wasn't always bad, was it? Something must have happened, there was a turning point along the way and he got to choose and just then, if I had been better, if I held some kind of value, perhaps he would've chosen good, perhaps I would have been worth his time. I manifest a character flaw for him, thinking that this monster was by my design... but sometimes, the simplest answer is true: beautiful apples can have rotten cores too, you know.

before I was a writer before you claimed me, as nothing - for nothing. I was beautiful before you stripped me, a blank canvas - for nothing and no one. I was vibrant before you dulled my gold and sold me. I jest, there was no sale... crumpled in the bin, a throwaway not good enough for a sell away or giveaway. Not enough to stowaway, to storeaway for a rainy day. Not anything. I was a writer before you met me. There were words I was desperate for you to read. Now I'm just desperate for you to see What you've done. I was beautiful before you took me. There was light in my face I was desperate to shine on you. Now I have black eyes from walking into doors. I was alive on the inside and now I spend my time scooping out the parts you destroyed. and thank you for the voice your absence has returned.

Stuck I don't know who I am any more. I don't sleep. I don't eat. I just sit and read his phone bills, his messages, look at pictures. I asked him how many there were, he says he doesn't remember - he says he doesn't keep count. I believe him, I lost count now too. They're not pretty girls, they don't have good bodies, there is nothing extraordinary about them, yet they swarm in their multitudes, drowning me. I don't wear make up anymore, stopped doing my hair, wear pyjamas everyday. He doesn't care. He was never interested. He just doesn't want anyone else to have me. Now I don't even want myself.

Take Me Laying on the ground wishing the ocean would take her, swallow her whole like a grain of sand. Staring at the sky, hoping for rain to fill her lungs, breath to become breathless and drown their sins. Every day, counting the grains, the drops, the seconds of the clock - just counting, alone, in the dark, praying for darkness to take her.