Toxic

Sometimes we just all need a little

bubble wrap

and popping

releasing, safely

and holding

You know 

Inhaling straws 

So that pieces can get stuck in 

our throats

Hydrating,

but uncomfortably, so

We dream 

and we crave

Pretending to go with 

the flow 

A steady stream, like oxygen 

Entering the lungs

Filling

and, then, let go

Sometimes we crave care

and kindness so much

That we blow bubbles

and tie ourselves into circles

Like trying a cigarette

as a younger person

in the 90s

(Don’t do it)

Not inhaling 

Then forcing

Coughing, 

with each toke

Trying to experiment 

with what is gross

We needed air

But looking for codes 

and smoke signals

Love in toxicity

Burns on a palm

When, hoping, 

For a hand to hold

Someone to take our hearts

and hold, gently 

As if precious

(we are, it is)

When we need 

and we don’t know 

With whom to reach 

Don’t want to be controlled

Put it out there 

And, hope

I remember saying 

Could you stay until 

I fall asleep?

You choke 

I shamed my looking 

for warmth from 

a dragon burning skin

Flames, thrown

This is a circus

I’m looking, never for you

But, for a sort of home 

Needing parts of me filled

In a place where 

my seeking 

Me offering up

You mock my desperation

and the tone 

I see this kindly 

Holding out hands

from parts of me that

could barely even hope 

Those seconds hoping

in dungeons 

And, I, almost never wanted 

you to reach me 

Needed something 

Not filling my chest with rocks 

The adult in me

Needing a moat 

A drawbridge 

Choice

and the core of me

leading the ways I float

I am home

They are an extra

I’m my peace

I can do this

Learning to cope

Someone to 

revel in the sunset with

Screeching joy of the

child inside 

When I searched

for a release

The alveoli inflate

like flowers

There is beauty 

in safe sleep 

Reflected from my insides 

You see the ugly, raw

and know the beautiful

Pain in the eyes 

That flashes, wounded,

when I don’t bleed

I don’t have to create layers

in the charade and facade

No need to hide

Wailing cries

Ache out all the times

I tried 

Really, tried 

I hurt 

You see,

and understand,

gentle, naturally

and talk

Heart doing cartwheels

Not numb, dizzy-afterwards, circles 

Life is there for the present

And, I am deserving of my shine 

Not others weighing and judging 

straw state

To see what you can lay claim to

In corruption

You can’t lie to get inside

It wasn’t my fault

It was never my fault

I can thrive 

Your manipulation

Never tender

It’s faking

For all you can seize

And now, we rise

It wasn’t my fault

It was ‘never’ your fault

There were tricks of the 

trade

The big, in the little now 

I am, the me, that’s inside 

Seen and used

We wanted reusable 

straws, stable 

And got regular paper

For writing on 

You took all you could

Not everything 

You, of little heart

Cold crucifies

What was left for me

Trying to fill me up

Paper fell apart

became mulch 

To pull apart, years later

I wish I started to do that earlier

Not shamed the paper cuts,

inside

What patterns, of course

could that teach

There are phrases about licking 

knives

Tender is the hope

Maybe felt

But, not what they teach

Sorry is the place 

Although there is no forced repair

And life is not closing your eyes 

Once giving, believing you have to

Not seeing is not hurting you

But, what you did 

Was what corruption created

Touch release

Like a stove

Holding on too tight 

I want to live

Then, tightly deeming giving as an exhale

Believing your value is in

the giving 

It’s tight that you close the eyes

Underneath your eyelids

there were dreams 

And that daily weave 

What were you shown

Within it, to magic spirals

You say hello

and goodbyes

Who in your heart’s home

That’s your home 

in perpetuity

Your soul

Your, serendipitous, you-ness 

Kept you

All the times you tried 

With that main character energy

You become your lead 

And you don’t need to be 

out there 

Or you do,

As toddler me 

squeals, laughs in joy

And cries

They took it - no afterthought

They take and receive

Chase oxygen like it’s 

sweet sugar 

Sucking it all, like parasites 

Some don’t have the deeper levels

They see what they want

It’s only their time 

There’s a home

That never appeased 

There is hurt there

But some never notice

there are others

Their needs 

Such sorrow

They are cruel

And don’t see the hearts 

that nod, but later cry

You reserve your place, daily

At the top of the rock

Watching the sunrise

At the front with your camera

Romanticising internally

In your own, perfect

glimmer of paradise

This is one experience, living

You in your moment 

In time 

Stepping away

From the rush hour 

I find it hard to understand 

When people only see their lives 

physically

Take all the pieces

at, sandwich-sharing, time 

I live an exquisite life 

Write words to help eradicate 

the overwhelm

Some of the most spectacular in 

my mind 

I take them of the paper now

Live with love 

Because of all the thousands

wanting to photograph the view

Maybe they only see them

They can’t take from others

The connection

that we have

Though, they’d try

Would you like bacon with 

my body as bread

And is it my fault you think

you’re owed that

I shame me

Poem out 

The exhale 

and, untangling

When there’s time 

They block all the other cameras

I untie my intestines 

My anger

Try to understand 

and untwist the branches of 

my lungs

That you convince me 

we’re already untied 

Do you worth, within?

There is selfish

I wonder about all of it

Every, sometimes 

A kind society 

But they think they are the only ones

I talk to myself 

when I became self-obsessed

in ego

And try to separate it from

Eve being told she was wrong to

eat the apple

Was it really her?

All tangled up in someone else’s

vines

When we all need a turn

At the photo 

They stand before your lens

Their spot, only 

When you enjoy one, solitary moment 

What happened 

To allow that one person

to take all the places

and times 

Perhaps, we keep memories

Not for show

When fingers cover the lens cap

For them, it isn’t that deep

I’m intrigued 

And wonder if I’m one of them

Wording it and spilling it

Keeps me from,

and helps me, sleep 

The exhales too long for poems 

But, I should be the one person

that cares about coughing up my

alveoli 

We all need to breathe 

Empty with anticipation 

No one heard my soul speak

Shoe laces untied

Running towards the peak

I need one who doesn’t see 

the sunrise in my moment

But holds my hand 

and celebrates my dreams

Respecting boundaries

Being on our team

Calmly knotting each others laces

It becomes about so many things 

Knowing what I, we, might need

Offering it, kindly

Asking for it, with intrigue 

Let me get the chest pressure out

Apologising for mis-speaks

Oh, to see this pattern 

And know, for what, and why, to teach

Deep care and evolution

Human, in joy and sadness

Holding and acceptance 

When it’s too powerful to speak

Baby me, holding out clenching fingers

Needing to reach 

The tender strokes

In all that peace

We are all adult children running around

Self-soothing

In regulating  

You will know the ages to which

you speak

So, me too 

Bored of my own existential crisis

It’s not that

It’s questioning where is the human, 

sometimes 

And needing my soul and fingers

to pace it out 

Let’s get on it 

I need

You do

We all need 

Cos I layered up empty 

and now you see the raw

and real is what you want

Not polished and pretty

I love my unique

We are beautiful

Our inner, and human,

team

The straws take in tea

Succulent, cold

Handling the bubbles

and cutting the cords

You have to smile 

sometimes with other people

Unaware of their own unawareness 

Maybe we all have our own mazes

Here, my truth speaks 

Cutting the codes that forbade us

Seized, it all

I magnify

And we can always dream 

You can do all that you love 

And, in those moments

of frustration and confusion 

Life is worth,

and about, 

more than it seems