Commanding fire, they call me the arsonist

I am the arsonist with a fire in my belly, blessed with the Midas Touch of flames. I'll make a name for myself with the embers I leave in my wake. Draw shapes in the ash - symbols of memories we once called ours.Then forget. I walk alone. I'll burn bridges without thinking.Pour me another...

I won’t have claws and nails here

When I'm turned up to thunder, savouring the flash of fury in my fists, I am furthest from myself. Wrists bending, threatening to break in the grip of this fight, flesh still singing with the sting of that blow. The wake of this will still stand right here in the morning. This time won't be...

Let these final notes be my last bow

No one told me I would continue to write your melody even after the song was sung – the performance was done, the crowds have gone, the show must go on. So I play and pray, chord upon chord upon chord. I give the memory of my body beneath your body to the dance of...

Why I’m switching off for 59 minutes every day

The signs are easy to spot: eat less, drink more, joke less, stress more, sleep less, complain more, create less, isolate more, and the list will become very long if I don’t stop there. The signs of what? Being constantly connected, not switching off and furiously consuming information in an attempt to feed the demand...

On slow love and instant coffee

She reads the instructions on instant coffee labels and leaves bite marks on shoulders between sheets and sweat. She is not one for you to try understand but rather one to be understood by, for when she plants you in her nail beds like seeds you will never cease to grow. She will leave you...

This is not my home

I pray in my mother tongue to a God they call Father. I feel like an orphan surrounded by a family I can’t yet call my own – my home. This is not my home. My body is not my home. This body is not my home.

Watch me go up in flames

Watch me go up in flames; watch me light the way.

For the times I didn’t say sorry enough

Sorry is a flock of foul feathers sitting beneath my tongue. Sorry mom. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry I’m not strong. Sorry it’s been so long and I can’t bring myself to come home. Sorry I’m not ever coming home. Sorry. Sorry. I hope if I say sorry enough I might just fly away from... everything. Flight...