one

her name is a wooden ship

to try and force it into his glass bottle heart would only break her

but isn’t that what they describe as- love?

not being able to see the explosion even though you’re the one holding the bomb, and the bomb is also you.

how it’s also like discovering the ocean after years of puddle jumping

it is realising that you have hands

hands that shatter the glass bottle

it is hard to stop loving the ocean, even after it has left you drowning, gasping, salty

and the ocean, it was so wreckless with me that i’ll never run out of things to write about

how well a drought can dress itself like a boy

how i can be trapped under the water yet feel parched

and when he gives me droplets i call myself full.

two

her name is also going to museums to admire wooden ships

realise other things have history too

when you’re not sure whats worse, the nightmares about your sides splitting open or the dreams where he held your jaw like it was the life he was clinging onto.

or how the way his smile creeps into every stranger you meet

i bet if you were to dust my heart for fingerprints you would find his palms

like a child hand painting making their mark wrecklessly

you might aswell tape your eyelids to your forehead because at least you can lie to yourself while you’re awake

stay up until 2, 2:30, 3

brew tea with the bags under your eyes

write

write words because when he used them to lie, they were the only truth you had left

write until you’ve used every metaphor in your vocabulary

until you start using the same ones over and over, because there’s only so many ways to describe being destroyed

one day it will all come to an end like these words, though they say love is inifinite

because you grew new skin he’s never touched

three

why apologise for loving until you burst

my capacity to feel needs no pardon, i need no mending

i am not broken, i’m just a little more explosive.