Sober recollections are strange.

I see them all there, in their own spheres.

Some very, very old acquaintances and some new ones.

The first lover.

The boy who lost me.

The guy I flaked out on.

The one whose heart I broke.

The newish one.

And the more I try to remember, more memories pop up in my head.

But I can't remember your face. I just can't. And it fills me with a strange sense of melancholy. Time heals, but time can also be very cruel. All I have of you are my memories and like fabric, the threads are slowly coming undone, they're starting to break and disintegrate. I hold on as tightly as I can, whatever little I have left of you.

You're not here.

You never will be again.

Everything that I believed in- all gone.

I don't want to lose my faith, it is my only strength.

I have always believed, believed so strongly and yet my universe pushes me down to a deeper, darker abyss. It is as though I have to fight my way back up again like I always do. This is not the first time and this will certainly not be the last. I should know by now. Bla bla bla. 

And yet I'm starting to get so tired already. I don't know how long I can hold on anymore.  

Foreword

His skin breeds strange familiarity. I caress, I bite.

It's been a long, long time.

Two of us, that's it. That's all I ever wanted from him anyway.

I'm loud and I'm drunk but it's okay.

Hashtag girls just wanna have fun. 

Game Night

I cancel yet another date to be with my friends. He's nothing like you anyway.

Priorities.

We're drinking little, but drinking nevertheless.

And I'm not thinking about you.

I'm not thinking about you.

I would be lying if I said I never wondered what could have been, but you're not here. My love for you blossoms like a flower, but it is starting to wilt slowly.

I want to hold on, not let go, I don't know for how much longer though.

I'm not thinking about you.

I'm trying hard not to think about you and how you hold me in your arms as you kiss me. 

The mental image of you holding me so close, so close is stuck in my head.

You and me. You in me.

It's that one moment of intimacy that I can't seem to get over, the craving for your warmth and also your skin.

I want you. I want you. I want you.

I want you so bad.

I want you so much it's starting to hurt.

This mild obsession.

I'm not thinking about you, just reminiscing. 

Back to Back

It's been a while without the sex and the drugs. The clarity doesn't feel too bad. The uphill struggle to open up again has been fruitful because I feel like I've written my most favourite song yet. This leads me to believe that sobriety post-binge is much needed.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good fuck and I love good drugs but sometimes you really have to clear your head out before you dive in again.

I wonder if he feels my love for him when he's away. I wonder if he'll feel my love for him when he's away.

In March this year, I decided to actively fight my depression. I forced myself to get out of the house and plant myself in unfamiliar situations around unfamiliar people. It was scary to say the least. But I did good, it did me good. My black hole is for me to wallow in, not for the world to see. 

I guess artists are a bit more sensitive than regular folks, it's a pre-requisite almost. It doesn't matter what form of art you create or practise, it is essential that you are capable of feeling-it's a superpower almost.

He recites poetry as we sit under the evening sky. His voice is magic. We get off on cheap thrills like stealing kisses on the streets much to the envy and disgust of others. The romance, oh the romance! 

This summer, I thought I'd get my brains fucked out and then go back to work again. Instead, I found intimacy and I don't mean to sound like I'm growing old but maybe I'm starting to prefer the latter over the former. It could be just a phase before I go back to my old ways again but it's lovely, I hope this lasts for a little bit longer. 

Brave/Stupid

You give me all that I want,

So here I am, 

Running away.

"Don't fall in love", I tell you.

But you're not listening.

I mean what I say, I always do.

We hold hands and you give me butterflies.

I am 16 again.

I am strangely nervous about giving you my body.

Only when the time is right, only when the universe approves.

There will be love, there will always be love. 

Growing Up Pains

Is it alright to write music from your personal experiences of people around you or does that make you an asshole?

Well maybe I am incase it is but the gap in writing the new record has definitely brought some interesting changes. I guess I've been surrounding myself with people who are as sensitive so the influence has definitely rubbed off on me.

It's another summer. I've downed a couple of vodkas and all I want to do is play guitar and reminisce. But so far this summer has been of a different kind of love, so unfamilar.

I feel like a child, incredibly vulnerable.

Don't take advantage of my love.

Please don't take advantage of my love, I'm begging.

Annual Heartache

Nearly a year ago we were together. You whispered sweet nothings into my ear. I was slightly drunk, but not too much, just enough to lower my inhibitions.

I wanted you.

I wanted you to show me how attracted you were to me.

I wanted to explore your body, an unfamiliar territory. 

You kissed me, made love to me.

I was only looking for sex.

You took my heart, I couldn't get you out of my head.

We watched the stars at night-my favourite thing to do. 

Tonight, I don't know why, but I'm thinking of you. 

No Angel

(Former junkie trying to find intimacy in a world of instant gratification and banal sex)

There is a sense of resentment and latent hate in my head today and I don't like it one bit. 

I'm at the Orange Festival in Dambuk, Joseph Arthur is on stage and we're up next. "Please play my song, please play my song" I mutter to myself. He does.

I run to the front from our makeshift greenroom. It's raining as he plays our song. It's such a beautiful, beautiful tragedy. 

"Don't know why I'm still afraid, if you weren't real I would make you up..."

I go back to the summers we spent in my room, making love. We were so fucking great together. You were the yin to my yang. Maybe if I'd loved you a little bit more, you would have stayed. But I was so young and so caught up in my own tragedies back then. I am sorry for not reaching out to you more. I'm really really sorry. I guess this will be my cross to bear till the day I die. I beat myself up every other day thinking I could have saved you, if only I hadn't been so indifferent to your suffering. I should have saved you, I could have saved you. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. 

The idea of the existence of parallel universes brings me a strange sense of comfort. Maybe I am with you, we're together, in one of them. Maybe we're a super generic, boringly normal couple somewhere. Who knows. But I like to think that there is a possibility. It gives me the strength to carry on with my shit-show of a life. I miss you man, I miss you so much sometimes. All I want is for you to hold me and never let go.

I have been in love many times since. It's been the most wonderful thing. But I cannot say that I love you any less today because I am still so hopelessly in love with you. There has always been a special place for you in my heart and in my head.

What do I do? What do I do? 

Some days are great, I keep you in my heart and go about my life. But some days are so terrible. I have trouble getting out of bed, the same bed on which we'd make love and you'd hold me as I slept. I miss us. I miss how happy you'd make me. I miss everything about you. 

Your voice.

Your touch.

Your kisses.

Your taste.

Your smell.

Your everything. 

Lately, I've been forcing myself to break down all my walls, lower my guard and this is the most vulnerable I have been in years. It's a strangely masochistic thing to do because the cynic in me knows very well how badly it could end. I don't care though. Bring it on, universe. Hurt me, break me down again and again and again. I've learnt to enjoy this pain. 

I have been broken so many times before that I don't feel scared anymore. 

You've filled me with endless love and endless strength. Death may have forced us apart but that's alright. It's only a matter of time before we're together again. 

Love Is The New Feel Awful

Stoned, I listen to the Dandy Warhols song on loop. The more I listen to it, the more drawn I am. Or maybe it's just the drugs.
Is love really the new feel awful?

I feel so good, but I also feel so much pain.
Yin and yang.

I want you, I don't need you.
I need you, I don't want you.







There are times when you know you're walking right off a cliff but you don't care, you feel invincible. The heartache is constant, it always will be. The heart only craves for what it can't have. It's human nature.
 

And what about me

deciding you all the time

oh my aching heart

forget all.

It's all about you

convincing me

all the time

oh my aching heart

forget all

and what about me

deserving you

of the time

oh my aching heart

forget all

Everlong

The sunlight filters in through the window, it's warm and cool at the same time with the ac on. There is no music, no drugs and no distraction this time. I want to know him, his everything everything.

What a beautiful boy.

 And as he kisses me I wonder, like that Foo song,
"If everything could ever be this real forever, if anything could ever be this good again.."

Former Junkie

My hair is growing long.
I feel strangely comfortable in my own skin.
There is no need to impress, only empathise.

It's a strangely beautiful state of mind to be in. I only see love and I only see the other side, lack of humanity.
I never want to go there.
It is dark, death.

There is only love, we just need to believe.
Those who never take risks never live, they cannot feel.

The chase, the high, the comedown.
The strongest drug there ever was.

Muse/ Dreaming Of You

Open,
blossom,
like a flower.

The glory is in love.
The pleasure is in love.

So beautiful,
exciting, 

like magic. 

 
I want him to hold me, I'm so strangely drawn.
Maybe it's because he is not mine to keep.
But he sees me, right into my soul.
I think.

I write a love-song. Or two. Or a million.
None of them describe the chaos in my heart.
This feeling is more than good, it's a kind of ecstatic lunacy.

Beautiful Boys

I like you and I like you too.

What do I do?

My heart is full of love for you, for you. 

Nothing's Gonna Hurt You Baby

The physical fatigue, the travelling, severe lack of sleep and endless debauchery has finally caught up with me. My body feels used up. I need to rest, I need to let it heal...It's the only thing I have that is truly mine.

Or is it?

So many hands and mouths once I turned twelve, still a child.
My body feels used, defiled.
It's a horrible feeling when you've been fighting to keep this feeling out of your head and yet it all comes back one day, out of nowhere.

I rewind to being fourteen, discovering sex again, pushing myself to face my nightmares so they disappear once and for all. Brave, brave little girl.

I got my first tattoo when I was seventeen-so fierce, cocky almost.
A new person, the strongest you'd see.
And today I feel weak and so vulnerable.
His hands, cruelest I've seen, taking from me what is mine.
I want to scream and tell him that I am only a child.
But I am barely twelve, so defenseless and dumb.
I am unaware of human cruelty, greed, lust.

But it doesn't matter anymore, it's all in the past.
Tomorrow I'll shower and try to scrub him off me again.

My body has experienced much love as well. I will not be a hypocrite.
It has felt the tenderest of kisses and the purest of touch.
Some have been so kind, I am grateful. I keep them in my heart, always.

Maybe in another decade or so I'll realise how strong I have been through it all.
Tonight, however, I wish I had some reassurance from another soul.
Such is life. Yin and Yang.

Sticky Icky Sweat

Summertime, I want to spend it with you.
The heat, the hysteria.
Break down the walls, give yourself.

My body contorts into a lotus flower, blooming only for you.
Don't pluck me just yet.
This youth is still sacred, don't defile it.

Lovers in summer, we twist and turn.
Like the hands of a clock,
There is no concept of time in our dimension.

Make love to me after you're done fucking me.
How else will I remember you otherwise?
Last summer was someone, the next will be someone else.

Morality

There is something in those pair of eyes, I'm drawn to them.

It feels intoxicating, the presence.

But I know I cannot go down that road.

Some boundaries are best left uncrossed.

I have been stupid, frivolous.

And now there is a deep sense of regret.

Maybe time will change things, although my cynicism doesn't allow me to believe.

I will forever crave, they'll stick to their rules.

But I'm stubborn too, for a change.

I need, I need to believe.

Universe, this one's on you. 

Running To Stand Still

As a female artist in a predominantly male industry, Kesha's court ruling is rather heart-breaking and downright scary. Truth is, the law will never be sensitive to a victim of sexual assault. In my own way, I send out a prayer to her through this universe. I hope she gets through it, I hope she finds the strength to fight. I cannot imagine how horrific it must be for someone to have to continue being around one's molester. Life is sometimes cruel, nobody knows why.

The older I grow, the more irrelevant the sexual abuse in my past becomes. Sometimes, actually on months at a stretch, I don't think about it at all. Then there are days when I do, I try to gauge how far I've come since. I refuse to let it define who I am. Although, deep down inside I know it still does, it always will.

The triggers are strange. Most have disappeared over time but it's like a virus. You think you're healed but no, it hits you really hard one day when you're least expecting it.

I've never spoken to him since the last time I met him, as a fully-functional adult aware of one's body and sense to consent to something, but tonight I wonder how he is, where he is. I wonder if he ever thinks about me too.
He probably doesn't, why should he, I was a mere mistake he made in his youth. I wonder if he did with others what he did with me. I hope and pray he didn't.
I have forgiven him. I have forgiven many others who have used my body, who have used my heart. I guess it's easy for me to forgive because the scar he left behind remains the deepest till date.

Meditation keeps me calm, keeps me sane.
I breathe in, I breathe out.
All scars will heal.
All scars will eventually heal.
I tell myself everyday.
It is only a matter of time.



I have fought long and hard for my emancipation, but what about those who are unable to find the strength to do it on their own?
The pain comes back, the feeling of helplessness, being alone and alienated.

Sometimes, human beings can be strangely heartless.
I wish I could be a child forever.
Young, naive, hopeful...so pure, never cruel.

My Wild Heart, My Bad Choices

I'm by the sea, looking at the moon.
I'm thinking about you,
even though I know you aren't thinking of me too.

I join my boys, my moment of solidarity is over.
I drink, I dance, I sing, I laugh.
But before I go to sleep, I think about you,
even though I know you never think of me too.

I blame my luck, I blame my flaws, I blame my inability to tame my heart.
I blame myself, never you.
You don't know me
And it's not like you ever wanted to.

Maybe some day you will think about me, I can only hope.
It's sad to think how something so beautiful can mean nothing to you at all.
All of this technology, yet the distance grows.
You drift away, I wait for you to disappear from my mind completely.
But you never do,
I think about you, I only think about you.

I think about you more often than I'd like to,
I'm in love only because I can't have you.