I am walking,
clutching fists once more,
sealing the passages long forgotten
arteries of heartache
dry wells ring and trip all over my
chest, making out
a host of me
“call it a day, desist some memories”
oh well
drawing a blank midway
skipping battlegrounds,
armed antagonists await my arrival
while I stealth my way to
the wrong direction
corpses of tomorrow
and riches of today
silver gates and arrows of mirth
re;life?
you dare bereave me mephistopheles?
it’s been 268 days,
you hesitate and gulp back in
making it difficult for yourself even when you know it is how they feel too,
but evasive enough to hold back
you reach for the oxygen pockets out on your terrace
where all bougainvillea rises upward to hear you say it
finally
the words roll off your tongue like acid. you hear birds chirp in accidental unison at the other side.
“Why-
why would you say that? Why now?”
tears flood down your cheeks
You can barely keep it hushed now
choking on what there is left to say
your voice is menacing
more than it is coarse.
they call you out by your name
you hate it but you can’t stop them
they say it in a way that you feel gutted with a knife
“It’s the walls, the couch, the damned laptop, this phone, this coffee, and these vines
I hate it-
i hate it all but you. please.” you say.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
like it is the most hurtful thing that you have ever said.
so bloody hurtful that you wanna jump out of the terrace for saying it out loud. nobody knew these words. not the coffee not the walls no one. not even you for that matter. words so unspoiled that they rip you both in halves.
the coffee tastes like a bad shot of gin in your mouth.
and so it rains.
you see, whenever you fiddle your callused fingers unto that cellphone, you lead me to believe these wondrous charades of yours. even when you've watched me be cut and bruised, saw me be kissed and abused
your hands don't shiver when you type.
i should've known better than to run laps around your schemes.
you've held me like water in your hands and now that i'm a drought you're mourning me.
how more pathetic can i be? losing all shape in this world, somehow i still find myself on your porch like a house dog. i pattern soft dust on your doormat with my hushed bare feet and peek through the pet door until you open.
you're dressed in black which means there is in fact a funeral for me.
how unfortunate that i remained a mere beast until the end.
If i look up at you, i hope for the love of pete you're not looking back
the infinity between us
reduced to seconds and i’m forced to evade you yet again
maybe if only the whole world stopped, i’d be able to think
about how i bit myself all summer for not being the white
daisies in your hair and pens between your lips
for not being the paperbacks you smell of and
the coffee that you wake up to
In pitiable hindsight, i’m a stray
ailing and unloved, i try to find you in my words
and then in the words of people who have lived before me
and you appear to me as a swan
travelling through the plasma of my being
maybe someday i’ll have enough water to extinguish the sun
and savour it until the entire milky way gets vacuumed into the raven tinted universe
I’ll save you a meteor
when finally my skin will lose it’s scars and i’ll be able to look at you
would you take the leap?
leaving behind candy coated hums of your favourite song in my head
It’s crazy how this distance, somehow is so dramatically put
you walk alongside the bunch of others who are too busy waving back at the building when it is the-
earworm, unpleasantly repeating, taking up space so much so i feel familiarity yet again
a lump in my throat starts to grow, subduing the one from before
click and chimes of your keychain nail me down all the way to the
end of the street- it’s tough
the ground beneath me moves slightly to mock me, to make me remember my place
and to shut up this instance
say it already
It’ll be easier,
MERELY WORDS.
MERELY WORDS
MERELY WORDS
my eyes
try,
momentarily, to find yours,
the audacity.
would it have gone differently if i hadn’t shoved my eyelids shut when i sensed you looking right above my cheeks
i am filled with angst it is raining inside of me even when I can barely see you
you appear to me as an angel, i cannot even hate you now
it’s a relief the others havent caught up with us so i-
Are
you
frowning?
my lungs and ribs adjust inside of me while my hand trembles with the inevitable fear of never being able to look at you again
so i rush words
i rush words in so sudden, they sound like paper bombs to my ears
THE SKY WAS SO BLUE TODAY, WHERE DID IT GO WRONG
my breath thickens with every passing second
hell, i’m not even sure it is oxygen i’m breathing
hey?
i’m trying to save something here, can you say something? anything?
why aren’t you running for the hills
why haven’t you already mocked me away like you have been for the past 3 years
why haven’t you ridiculed my words
why are you upset?
Somewhere an artist sets up a canvas
my eyes are stuck on that keychain which just wouldn’t stop making chimes, i hate it ,please say something- move or nudge i cant bring myself to look UP AT YOUR EYES
I know i should’ve
should have waited outside the restroom longer
should have played that song a little louder
should have bought that one last ice-cream to see you smile brighter
smile harder
no doubt you are so upset
no doubt you’re frowning
why now, why today, why when this has to be the last memory of us, why when we have to part ways for the last time, why did of all days, being in this god awful place i chose today
to tell you this
“Dummy.”, you say
and the others catch up.
my unscarred knuckles bug me these days
& so slithers droplets off my cheeks, a little orange
like her
cremated butterflies slip their way in
my head, fluttering again
with mantles of mid-night blue-this once
tainted leaves sob with the breeze as she
redoes her bun-
just so,
i fall smitten to the halo around her
hands, satin
oh to be the quill interpolated by her
saffron lips
singing to you the fables of
delay, amidst hushed silence
you gain creases on your forehead
even so, busy again
caught off guard, pushed again
to the handle with a dull
silver finish, shelves with spirals that
do not cease
i try to clasp at the loosen
threads but it’s t-too-
too fast
my hands are all but wounded,
by yesterday’s coarse writing
woeful beside an open dormer
moon manic,
i let melodies fill parts of me that happen
to be hollow
floorboards creak
as all the bugs slither in a wallop
and then the ink starts to weep
i feel the eyes of a rookery letching me of my
solitary
a constant reminder
young hearts besieged by monochromic skies,
tragic
so cup me,
cup me as they say
in a blanket that is your
skin.
nick away your eyes, and breath
so i know you’re okay. for once, once again
do not let go, i have been by myself all this time, breathe above me o’ life tree,
teach me how to walk, once again
veil me behind your wrinkled long
branches, sing me a lullaby, life’s not right
my face is blemished, & my eyes
feel grimy
this skin is stolen, sewn
unskillfully
my body has become a pyre, a
thousand cremations done
on the verge of collapsing, I
have not eaten since you fed me last
my lungs play a melody long
forgotten
while my eyes cannot choose but
weep
sour oceans,
expecting a storm ahead
you called me a gem, called me a
diamond
why did you bring me up this way?
this world doesn’t
see me with the same eyes as yours,
won’t you scold the world now ma?
I have grudges
against everyone,
I have complaints
& I have wounds
they intimidate me
mother
feed me just this
once-
come back to me.
I DON’T WANNA WAKE
UP! I DON’T WANNA WAKE UP! I DON’T WANNA WAKE UP! I DON’T WANNA WAKE UP! I
DON’T WANNA WAKE UP! I DON’T WANNA WAKE UP!
it was the mid of a march and you held my head close to your heart and sighed with a deep breath. it was warm and safe and it was that moment that I felt so vulnerable, so soft, that it almost felt like a new emotion. I could hear your heartbeat and I knew you could hear mine so I couldn't help but sync them. as if suddenly all the light in the world entered my life. it was that moment I felt like I belonged here, with you.
i never want this to go away, to be
packed in a suitcase with other souvenirs. i want you, to let me engrave this
for the entirety of our lives. the skies to remember us as we fall into a yellow
slumber. the soil to remember us as we caress the dandelions and leave glitter
on the bushes. the wind to remember us as we scream out of joy and shut our
eyes to be thankful for the whole of it.
my body might grow old and wither away
with dead roots but my soul will always remember you.
the clinking of forks and spoons forms an echo in my head, i miss a part of me like a lock with a forgotten key. and i can’t remember anything. it’s the clink. it’s almost like a parasite, a pair of hands. every time i look into the mirror i can’t see myself, can't think of myself. i am missing parts, more than one. i can tell its wolfing out of me. now. right now. i want to fight but my fists are weakened. i can’t shut it out. so afraid i can't tell. so paranoid these pages will say. a jar of conditional love inches away from fall. castle inside of a rotten lung. ice cold under 40 sheets & mirrors that are blank don’t scare me. what scares me is that this will dim out. the clink would stop. and when i'm reaching for that jar, its breaking would stop. the silence scares me. darkness doesn’t.
have i met you?
1) the thread in my hands//now, coiled into yours//tangibles formed from soft oblivions //first howls of cardiac ducts rising: virgin yellows//cheeks as orange as mine and-- oh, do not untie, this is nature's own fairing//an ecstasy running in my temples and purging out the thick white dunes of past//cast out cards, foresee my future, for there is no room for more: unsaid carcasses of words//
2) a creamy mustard lingers on these pages, loose ink//hidden letters have now seemed to find their purposes, to suffice// the keys go on till fingers grow weary//of wait soaking in the flush//the apples are no longer red for they have been housed by unscrupulous renters//ghosted forever//the knot still manages to survive, even so,// meet: ripple plague of blood and honey hands on my face//reading colours off breaths//
3) your smile is beckoning, dawn’s blush.
the koel sits by helios in raspberry lit skies
above the golden clouds, where blues melt the light
downpour of seas
the window raves in flashes
young petrichor fills the room and water kisses
our cheeks touch in brimming beige of twinkles
arid azaleas inhales once more
parallel yet still together, for better or worse
the riverbed cries with gills and bubbles
you say “don’t leave yet” and
build soft walls of merino all around us,
and as much as I want to abide these hand-knit groves
I have to leave
to come again tomorrow
so I step afoot in my neon vans.
I brush off hair to my back
amusing my ears in
tempt
and walk afoot in my
neon vans
accounting a ripple
in puddles of soil
I avenge my night’s
turmoil
for it had smothered
my thrill
the day before
reeling out tongue
on dewy
chapped lips, my
teeth knit in and
barbed cornea dilates
down as
vehicles scoot by me
in windy haste
saving a seat I come
aboard
so do you in a
fleeced hoodie
and soon inks and
paper cloud us forthwith
we do not exchange
gestures or conversations
instead
we move by each
other’s presence
aware of the warmth
that comes from within.
like chalk, paper and ink
we dip ourselves
in blue crystal water
"it's only summer" I mumble
these feet refuse to move even an inch
whilst you stroke the walls :pastel
the peaches tell one story
mahogany greens the other
bedsheets are rest wrinkled and you're the one
to blame
soft pavements, untouched, virgin floor
doughs call out our names
toiling beneath sheets, until the stars bow down
living a pluto life
unbothered by wars and battles
sorrows and failures
and the inevitable wretchedness of futures we behold
aimlessly wandering into orange lights
away from the awful whites.
