It's not me, it's you.

My cocoon is spun of surreal striped sheets, maggi and a phone that’s meant to ring. But my dreams are a frenzied rush of morbid colour and if I wake up smiling, I don’t remember it.
I’m talking again. The words spilling into each other till they spin me round and round and you watch me like you should – enthralled, blazed, fingers twirling rolling paper.
I’m not that fascinating and you’re not that quiet but we’re fated to swap moods and spit, warmth and the reasons I still make you smile. It’s raining and I want the windows open. Your hair smells of smoke and Betty Boop and Che paint faces on your wall. They’re jealous. Who wouldn’t be?
If I could trace cheat codes to find you, I would. We both have shiny happy fits of rage, I’d upset your game if it bored me, you - you’d curl up in your corner, fight words beating though your veins and I’d know you’re my plus one.
I’m not that breathtaking and you’re not that safe but we’ve mastered the art of sulking and if my scars are your gift I’m keeping them.
We’re in my room and I’m glowing and Carry Out is playing in the background. I’m on my toes and you’re holding me up and we’re suffering from mutual addiction.
“Pretend you’re out clubbing with your friends okay, and I’m a random boy”
“Do I get to be drunk?”
“Definitely”
We play hide ‘n’ seek with gravity and your hands dance their way down my spine, your face inches from mine. Look but don’t touch. Touch but don’t taste.
My mouth is yours and our cheat codes make me laugh.

Bas.
I miss you.

HeartBeatBox

My heart is your fist wrapped in blood. 
My aching insides see no way out so I kill time in oversized tshirts and chipped fluorescent nails, faded purple streaks playing with my split ends as I trace my tracks in circles.
I press lit up buttons on an ancient cellphone and watch the sleazy snake eat it's insides out but both stay silent.
I watch endless mind numbing videos, sit through serials that preach sex and conjure up meaningless conversations with green moons on a pop up box, but none of them seem to fit the jigsaw puzzle of a forgotten fist.
I wait.
I wait on zebra print sheets, by black curtains laced with gold, on mutilated college benches, by old paan chewing men selling menthols, in crowded spaces with empty faces, I wait.
I wait for you to unclench your fist, to dip your fingers in blood and fingerpaint my fingerprints so I know I am me.

But you don't exist.

What the fuck am I doing?
I'm eighteen. I'm whole and unbreakable.
But my heart beats me like you did and so I think it is you.

See, you do exist.

Brighter than sunshine

The darkest corners of this room taste like home, the heady smell of vodka, smoke and heated friendship the lullaby to my adolescence. I sit curled up in a corner as my comrades fight life with rolling paper, masks and oscillating obsessions. Boredom is our favourite foe.

“What colour would J be?” C asks, her BlackBerry the new shape of her heart. She doesn’t look up, she’s forgotten how.

“Dark blue.” Z says, stubbing out a cigeratte in an overflowing ashtray. It looks like us. Z has his own theory on colours and shades - hues, tints, tones, the color spectrum on a high. He says people change but only so much. They still stick to the same colour zone, blues don’t become pinks. J can be intense and calm, mysterious and alluring, raging and quiet, shallow but in too deep – Dark blue. We raise our dirty beer stained glasses in acquiesce. J chugs, smiling.

“And R?” Lime green, we say easily – uncomplicated, smooth, happy, calm, comfortable, strong, pretty. She traces beer rings on the old scar scratched table, smiling.

D plays happy with brown - camouflage boy, K throws up the peace sign with yellow, C gets deep purple – she bares her teeth, loving it, F is orange – unreadable and sometimes, unreachable, Z is the colour of wine, someone you have to acquire a taste for. They're all shining smiles off each other.

“N?” they think. I wait. 

“Red. In-your-face, fiery, fucking red.” I hold. Red – the colour of blood, the colour of passion, late sunsets, little girl ribbons, hearts, denial and danger. So attention seeking, so obviously uncomplicated, so sure of herself. I smile. I wonder if they all had colour coated secret smiles.

I don’t see red.

The pretty me screams at me for being ugly, the smart part for spitting stupidity, the intense side hates the superficial one and together we fight, light versus dark, dark versus light, me against myself. I hate and I hurt.

I see myself in black & white.

But those movies died a long long time ago.

If You See Kay

Zebra print bedsheets, your hands slipping on the satin of my dress, an undramatic sunrise, a mess of unsmoked menthols, a pout that bites and sulks, my hand in your hair, your hand holding my heels, green grass on our side, smudged kajal and a stained heart.
Your voice burns holes in my memory but you see me in still images –stuck- light edged eyes fixed on you, long chocolate legs crossed lazily, black painted nails reaching out for you and a smile that cracks my face in half. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
A figment of imagination doesn’t feel, right? You wouldn’t want it any other way.

So together we’ll live in indecision, indifference and with an incision on our hearts.
Yours deeper, brighter, a slash of what you never had.
Mine, a secret slit.  

I'm only Chasing Safety

JT,

You've engraved your initials so deep into my pulse that every boy who crashes into me catches me quicken in the same way.
I have always loved - before you and after, but always, I am drawn to the sharp edge of your scar where my bitter bitten fingernails scratch again and again till I bleed
These Boys, they mouth the same lies you did but it is your script I seek. You who taught me to cross my legs, my fingers and my heart so I don't get too 'serious'.

The Chocolate Boy who melted.
The Bassist who plays dead.
Superman who can't save himself.
The Night Prince who only wakes up wasted.

I've walled my veins, buried my blood, straitjacketed my heart, but the occasional heartburn always gets me to recount my pulse rate. I count slowly, checking and rechecking, till your initials are a blur, my heart a fist.

I paint my nails, my face, my hair, my body till I can barely breathe.
Your scar lies dormant, waiting.
Let go of my wrist,
I'm dying.

- Niv

Whatcha say?

The truth is, mystery lies in honesty.

But adolescence makes fucking liars of us all.

We play and switch sides and blades and hide our smiles behind fuck bands, so eventually our mystery fades and boredom and suffocation play referee to a game that ends in tears.

I vote for honesty.

I say, “I love you, now.”

So you know, right? That I love you. But I’m hitting you with it straight - I love you, now.  Tonight when flashing lights veil the whites of my eyes I might love a stranger, now.

We’re so young and overrun by blinding emotion, fueled by fire and intoxicants we forget how to unscrew, and then we end up, you know, screwing. So when her hands trace the silhouette of your spine I know you will love her, now, then.

And I will cry, then, but I know that someday when someone says, “I love you”, I won’t take change and chance and growing pains that spill scars into consideration.

I will say, “I love you too.”

‘cause that’s how we’ll roll, then.

Rainbow Veins

You breathe smoke into me as I brush past you.

My nerves sing fire. I look away. You smile, waiting.

“I’m mad at you”, I say, twisting my hair around my fingers, wishing I could do the same to you.

“Why?”

“You don’t see me," I mouth, as I take in the frayed edges of your jeans, metallic glint of your belt, your veins playing havoc with your forearms and your headphones like heartstrings falling out of your shirt.

I don’t look at your face.

You step forward stealing your way under my skin. I flinch.

You raise your eyebrows, one scar slit, the other whole.You cup my chin with your guitar grazed fingers and as I fight my way out of your familiarity, you headhunt your way into my heart. Again.

“Don’t hide.”

Are you counting? ‘Ready or not, here I come!’ Say it,

It’s your turn.