TO THE FUCKBOY WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE: YOU WANTED TO BE A POEM SO I MADE YOU ONE

You say it’s poetic

to fuck a poet?
Alright, let’s give it a go then –

You’re the boy who’s used to having
girls being handed to you on a silver platter.
You think it’s fun to have me eating
out of the palm of your hand, well
I think that’s funny coming from someone who says
they hate the game, but God do you play it well.
You pick your teeth
with the loneliness you smelled
from my bones and every girl you’ve ever undone
but joke’s on you, love,
you need us more than we need you.
Without our blood staining your tongue
all you’d taste is
how empty you’ve become
and how so hard you’re trying to be you.
You called me a coward, and maybe I am but
at least I admit it. You think you’re brave
the way you blaze through life with closed wrists?

It takes more guts to be gentle and kind.
It takes more guts to let the darkness swallow you whole than
to hold a torch screaming how indestructible you are.

One day you’ll look in the mirror and for the first time
it won’t be vanity staring back –
it will be our ghosts and your former self,
whoever the hell it was, and it will sting your throat like
Jaegermeister hidden in snow. You’ll expect me
to be awkward weak knees and all, and that’s sad
because I could save you, but I won’t.
Instead I’ll smoke my cigarette
and watch you crash and burn.

You read my writing and it
told you not to fuck with me.
I warned you not to play with fire.
Tell me, now –
how does it feel to be a poem? 

~ Sade Andria Zabala 

–

eerily similar
to my thoughts, reactions

desires.

two types of people

Painting by Leonid Afremov

There are, I think, only two types of people. There are those who ache, and those who don’t. I have yet to meet those who don’t. I ache for the unrealisable dreams, I ache for the options I didn’t take. I ache for the world as I wish it was. I ache because I love the world, and I hate I’ll have to leave it so soon, too soon. I knew a man who ached because he’d always wanted slightly more. I knew a man. She would lie beside him, and she could never be enough, and he knew it, because he would always want more. Does the ache get passed by the hurt?

There are two types of people, those who live and those who don’t.

I’d wrap you in silk if I thought it would keep you safe but I know the only way to live is to love so much it aches. Love everything, love the hurt that loving can leave. To ache is to be alive. I remember you saying that, just before you left.

– Martin Edwards

i kissed a feminist once

Artwork by Antonio Lee

“I kissed a feminist once”,
he says, face flushed blotchy, something heavy resting on his shoulders
maybe
“I kissed a feminist once,”
and everybody laughs
“she was cold as ice,” he says
and he doesn’t mention how I turned
warm beneath his fingers,
heated up like embers
and reduced his bed to flame and ashes
“God was she mean,” he says
but he hasn’t forgotten the time
I told him to be kind to himself, to
purge the poison from his veins and
scrape the smoke from his lungs
“I love you I love you I love you”
I said,
“please love yourself too”
“I kissed a feminist once,”
he says, to loud guffaws,
an elbow in his side
and he doesn’t say “her lips
were the softest thing to ever brush
my collar bone”
he doesn’t say “she made playlists in my mind”
or “she covered me like a blanket”
or “her teeth on my earlobe ripped me open and scattered me across the sheets of her twin bed”
he doesn’t say “I loved that
storm of a girl,
I loved her heavy at 4am I loved
her like pennies
at the bottom of a fountain
like memorized freckles
I loved her like depth perception
like opposable thumbs
I loved her I loved her I loved her”
and instead he shrugs
that heavy thing off his shoulders
and shrugs the feel of my lips
off his chest and he says,
“she was a crazy bitch anyway”

– Lily Cigale

palette: #FF0000

❝ the soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts ❞
in which colours speak of their stories without saying their names

---

the anger radiating off your body as your stormed out of the house and into the pouring rain

the newly purchased tight dress barely covering your chest and thighs as your burst into the club, your hair still limp and soggy from the downpour outside

the lights on the dance floor flashing to the beat of the loud electronic music

your martini with a small cherry fitted on the rim of the glass to make the drink look more appealing and less harmless — the purest form of sin

the burning sensation in your throat that seemed to engulf your own body as you gulped down tequila shots of fiery passion

the immediate attraction towards him when you laid eyes on him, just like a moth entranced by an open flame

the mixture of danger and thrill as he approached you step by step

the warning bells that resounded in your already pounding head yet you still bit your lip to pull him in

the warmth you felt when he wrapped his arms around your waist

even though his proximity gave you chills, his whisper in your ear ignited a strong want for him

desperate kisses as you both stumbled up the stairs, trying to keep balance while trying to maintain the tension

fiery passion mixed with loud profanities filled the silence of the dark room, illuminated only by a sliver of moonlight that peeped through the thick curtains

the euphoria you felt when he entered you — how it was so much better than any alcohol you had ever downed, as you believed you were both deeply in love for that night

the comfort mixed with caution that overcame you when you were pressed up against his chest with his arms safely around you, him assuring you that he would see you in the morning

the frustration you felt as you gripped your hair and screamed when you realised that the other half of the bed was gone, and the sun had not yet risen

but you felt hopeful again, when you looked at the bedside table and saw his number scribbled on a piece of scrap paper

the excitement coursing through your veins as you entered his world, and he, yours, during your midnight escapades — it was the best time for you because he made you forget who you were

the tinted lenses you wore whenever you looked up at him adoringly, never wondering why he had not brought you out in public

the blood that dripped slowly from your lines on your thighs as you berated yourself for feeling so dirty, so used; for retreating back into this vicious cycle despite having known that even though he was your world, you were never even a part of his

the indignation, embarrassment and fury you felt when you saw the large ruby on a woman’s finger — and from the way he slung his arm over her shoulders, you knew that the ring would have been yours

your heart on the floor when it finally hit you that he was taken — not that he was ever yours to begin with