He sat right beside me and grew up into someone I didn’t know All within a year She met me two hours ago Seven years later I will be crying on her shoulder When everyone has broken my heart Seemingly forever. I will borrow a phrase now “some memories exist out of time” Can you, too? If I slip away, will I find you again? Will I keep finding you, like I did three years ago? I think I saw you last Monday You were with your girlfriend’s mother But I am drinking tea next to you when we’re fifty. You said I grew up and forgot you I said that I forgot to remind you that I have loved you Since the second we met. That is, now. Hey.
Wait
If I walk away to a distant dream Someday Will you sit at your sofa, Homely and waiting? I will get all your letters but I cannot write back My arms will be fragile as snow My heart frigid Will you still hold your pen for me? I dreamt that we were at a party You were busy preparing snacks I waited for you to see me. There were so many people. We never liked so many people before You spoke for hours And hours With so many people I couldn't wait for you to see me so I came to you To help You laughed at the sandwich I made. I was happy to have been seen I wanted to leave that dream party I think you wanted me to leave. Midnight stations itself beside my eyes I really must go now In search of other dreams Where there are no many people I will wait for you to wait for me I should cry if you leave.
Tragicomedy
Show them the question you ache for News bulletins go to waste I don't care about the war, People die every day of hunger and abuse I only care for you. If I could burn the world to make you smile I'd do it in a heartbeat But everything is such a massive joke. It sucks. I wish I weren't so comic I wish it didn't hurt.
Ugly
I was thirteen when I knew If you look at a face long enough You forget it was unpleasant once The creases ring of laughter The up-and-down teeth are happy Everything is kinder When you befriend them. He fought with me day and night Like children do I detested him but I couldn't find him ugly Anymore I thought I was growing older Kinder, smarter You know, I was not. Years later I saw him again Puberty had done some charms Tall, wide and muscles gurgling with pride He was so ugly I couldn't look at his smile. He'd forgotten about me by then Yet I knew what kind of a man he has become He still fights with anyone he finds weak Like adults do And he's become an ugly man.
Tiptoeing between train tracks
This arrives so that can leave The sun is looking at me Curious I'm stuck like a paper On the underside of a dirty gray train track Flapping freely in the wind I am free, am I not? I can reread my stories and stay I can take a leap and leave Some kids are playing with cats and dogs And sticks And mud I am tiptoeing between train tracks, busy Everything must change, she says Does she know my arms flinch when she does? Change. Go. Come back. I'm tiptoeing between the train tracks.
A Childhood Memory
In the gritty aftermath of a long day I offer you my arm When you ask about my childhood. I let rivers ripple through memorybeds Some edges have eroded Time is so mighty that it makes me shudder, Everytime. All memories don't have to prick painfully, I decide. So I tell you of the time We went to the playground And a boy made me laugh until I burst The dusk covering our little hearts As they grew into something thicker. I remember how he wasn't taller than me I remember how he didn't know I was younger and he was older We were so small, it didn't matter He was so silly that I couldn't forget his teeth I was so happy that I thought I'd always be. We don't remember each other Or ourselves, even I don't know if he has grown taller, or if he now knows how age works I see us standing on the swings Taking in the evening breeze as he makes me laugh Like no one else had done before I can imagine no life beyond the moment. You see my lost eyes, you hold my joy You sigh, No memory can be lived again.
Your tears will rise and fall You will grow up and shrink into a child Is it alright? I dreamt of sleeping in his arms A paper thin love stuck to my humid skin Some mornings are so far away My tears will wash it all away Clean, spotless. You needn't worry, you can rise and go I will play music for myself to pour out And overspill Till then I chew hearts and find them rigid I don't want you to visit me.
Make sense
I was so lonely that I ran away to be alone So that it can make sense. Paper-pink flowers fell on my head today So I petted a cat Unafraid For the first time. She was hungry, and I gave her nothing to eat I was holding a paper-pink flower and nothing else. She left my hungry arm for another woman I thanked her for feeding the cat She told me that I may give her a name. How can I name her, if she is not to be mine? I ran away again So that there is no cat So that it can make sense. I was thinking about you the other day How I loved you more than anything But of course, I had to run away So that it can make sense When you see how unlovely I have always been. I have to keep running away Because nothing ever makes sense to me.
Write and wrong
By 9 pm I decided never to write Of what I feel Isn't it too common? Feeling poetry? What could I write about? Heartbreaks, lost hopes, The bright side of dark jokes; The persistent disappointment by men. Oh no I'm back again Writing about commonplace woes In commonplace tongue I keep writing what I feel Should I write about what I've done? Nothing there. Empty. Recoiling into spirals again Stop. Set free. If only we could help it. (The permanent disappointment Of the self.) It's way past 12, Midnight sleeps with me Tell me something so I don't have to write. Tell me something, Quickly. I must spend the night Tomorrow I'll wake up, I promise And I'll write about new things to think Tonight let me be all about My metaphored sorrows Translucent smiles The gaps left behind in unspoken goodbyes And such things that flow rivers down my eyes Such things I carry in my small womanly pocket. I worry I cannot see beyond what's right in front of my gaze I worry I see and I know so little My words are bound to fail I rhyme, and I know they don't aid memory Only makes my voice forced I can't do away with it, where will my words go? Scatter, yes, they will. Every day I scatter them Every day I open my mouth I do not wish to speak On my writing table I sit to seek Meanings. I cook my words to flavour them Add endings and beginnings. Yet I get lost, so often Did I just burn the dish? Oh the stench is so rotten I can do better. Or so I'd like to think.
Love letter.
I need you to pick my brain Leave my heart alone Let me speak rivers of wit and scorn And love and poetry Everything I'm capable of Let me never stop Lend your ear to me, forever I'll leave your heart alone. Take me with you wherever you go Inside the alleys of your mind Inside the realms where you hide I'll let you speak until your voice scrubs off your tongue I'm here, I'll be here Every word you speak I'll steal and store inside my soul. If you hadn't been a poet or a scientist If you hadn't been the man you are I would have tossed your words away Forgotten your name Your face But you picked my brain tonight I've got a taste of it now. Hunger has never been more romantic, It's amazing how I want to be your disciple And lover All at once Perhaps I can't leave your heart alone after all It's already said and done The moon sleeps in the sky with clouds of gray You and I lie awake Biting into our dreams and thoughts Will you leave my heart alone? I think (I hope) You will not.
mimimusing 