I wish you weren't flimsy
Like the newspaper bit I picked up and scrunched into a ball
And threw away
I wish I could kiss you and the stain would stay.
Your words are mineral oildrops
They perfume my hair
And damage it
I dig graves to look for suppleness and return with bare hands
Why couldn't you be of soft clay?
I'd sculpt every bit of you into a god
Give you everything I can imagine
I'd learn your favourite language and sing you songs
If you were sincere I would never have let you forget me.
You're not,
And you don't even know.
I wish you were everything you're not
Can't you see I'm tired of looking for him?
I kiss you and wish my lips were ash
I love you and I keep coming back
One day, one day you'll be him
Won't you?
I'll keep coming back
Until I find him. For once.
I write out my soul onto your ragged paper heart
You give it away next morning to ten other women
I write myself onto you again
And again
I kiss you for others to wipe it off
You stay a stone statue with words too perfectly carved
I stay a girl looking for love
Until I find it
I wait
I see through you but I can't not stay.
What happens to girls who never grow strong
Trees not hardened but rotting away
Beauty dissolving with pain, arid and stripped of music
What happens to women who need men to kiss them
Fool them into reassurance
They're still lovely, still beautiful
And it does not matter if they're ghost-images
Of their mothers who forgot to shout
Or sisters who could never be tired
What happens to people who never quieten their minds
Gritty dirt clogging every channel in their brains
Sweet radio static a dream
Skilled at muffling all screams
What happens to us who can't roll their mouths into confident spells
Us who are selfish sufferers
You who is cruel to yourself and everyone you love
Me who is everything you ask me not to be
What happens at the end?
Can we not bargain?
Dry kisses for you in a collage of lies
That's all I can offer for now
Until I know what happens at the end
Until you tell me
How to live with my pain.
She called me pretty so I had to confess
That I am not smart
She decided I am smart so I said
It doesn't matter
I am not ambitious
She said I must be, why else was I worried?
And I didn't know where to go.
If I can't fix my hair
Constantly
What will I do?
What will I do?
She has moved on to much better fodder
Coffee table conversation
Our friends are discussing important things.
I am inside my head, I can hear the clock,
Ticking
Slowly, but fast as soon as I stop thinking about it
My friends around me don't seem to care.
I sit with them but I'm not really there
So I look at my phone.
And I've been here before.
What is your problem?
He asks.
She looks at me in mourning
I feel the hurtful guilt churning
Is it my belly or my fate?
I say, I am so full of hate.
I have never loved any of you
Which girl doesn't love her own?
I have never loved, never will. I am not human
Like the rest of you
Like the most of you
I am dying like a star because my love ran out
Droplet by droplet
My laptop blinks. It's getting old
I am happy. It feels human, like a pet
My laptop talks back
You're not human, you're so full of hate
Where do I go with this black hole heart?
I die for love
I die again
My laptop mocks my static brain
Our visions get so blurred.
A kind word from a stranger
And she cries like a baby.
She'd chewed her heart and spat it out
Many moons ago, when she did not know her name
Unseen, unheard, unknown, unloved
She could have run away.
A little lady, a wholesome man
Or some teenage lovebirds holding hands
And she cries like a baby
How did a heart grow again?
Days peel off smoothly enough
She smiles at unimportant joys
I marvel at her maddening beauty
She charms me with her muslin voice
I take her hand,
I plant a kiss, gently
She cries like a baby
And I find my heart again
We water our hearts reborn, soaking in the purest rain.
I earmark this happiness for another day
I chew my fruits in measured joy
This afternoon
She learns about the cadence of my voice
As I tell her about you
She laughs, I laugh, we dance around
Our earphones get jumbled in unmeasured sounds
I wish I weren't so happy. What if it exhausts itself?
She asks me about the new one I met
But I earmark my happiness for another day
They're no big deal, of course, I scoff
She hears my high pitched squeals unhidden
Grins at feigned indifference
Does she know what I think I am scared of?
We recall the artists we followed like dogs
They're faded, we have new art to consume
She gives me more of art and poetry
We link our worlds
We stay in our rooms
She says she has found the perfect face
To wear when she meets the world
I applaud her ruse. She's so clever,
She's just the perfect girl, I think
She breathes a pause and asks me why
I keep back all my joy
She won't understand but I tell her.
She tells me she too can't sleep a wink
If she's too happy, she gets too sad
Do I think that she's gone mad?
I cannot laugh, I can't even cry
She knows what my heart means!
We earmark happiness for days to come
We're such anxious little lovely beings.
The summer stops to ask me if I want to be warmer
I say, "No."
It soothes into spring
I lie down in a flowerbed. I dream of him
Again.
Eras and worlds intertwine
Our fates erupt and converge
I dream of the stories I shall never live
I have never lived, yet. I haven't seen the world.
The flowers dry up and my eyes are heavy
How much can a girl sleep, after all?
It's already winter. No one asked me if I want to be cold
I sit up, shivering. No more dreams to unfold
The sun falls asleep on my skin
Soft and homely, like a friendly cat
I like the winter. I like this cold.
They who have known my heart
Arrive with buckets of sweets, I could cry
Overjoyed with the love I hold
I am so happy. I have new dreams to dream
A new spring. It's time to go.
Out of sight, out of mind
Out of dreams
Yet you keep coming back
In between.
Meanwhile, I've never grown up
I like the wooden benches as if they are things to be loved
Time is only present and nothing beyond
You are there, to be loved
And lost
I am there, I don't wish I am not.
Were we affectionate, like we could have been?
But I loved you so, if only
You could have seen. If only, if ever.
Some regrets last forever
Did I promise to name my child after your favourite hero
Did you promise me you'll go wherever I go?
I know we did not,
I never thought we needed to promise
My small mind never looked past the present,
Naïve enough to think we would always be.
That's what little girls think,
That's what big girls dream.
A thousand ghosts look like you
I dream of them, and I don't know how to stop
You have died long ago, it seems
It's not really you, in my dreams
Yet, out of sight, not out of mind
You crop up in between.
Terrify me
So I have a reason for these baited breaths
Going up and down
Tsunami tides of heartache, strong
Dark overwhelming fear.
They touched me everywhere
In their kindly voices they peppered me with hope
You can stay, or you can go.
Aren't you terrified
Of being alone?
Walk with me, till the end of time.
A drunk guy sings aloud before us
We laugh, is he in love or in pain?
And we answer, aren't they the same?
The river flows swiftly along our path
The moon is his bride
We write poems for each other
And recite every line
Like a pleasure torn from a deathbed
Our love is precious
So are we, bathed in glee
We tie our hearts tight, brimming in smiles
We have never been so free
We're so beautiful, how we've grown
I fill my eyes with what I see,
(I can never get enough
We're never too much, in love)
Billboards glow afar in the city,
They try to sell us happiness
I point out all the spelling mistakes I see
As usual
You laugh and roll your eyes,
As usual
I love the joy we make
We don't need to say what we feel
Our hearts are clocked alike
We can read each beat, in sync.
mimimusing 