Diamond wrinkles on her laugh-clad sweet face
I'd burn to ashes for her in the furnace
Keep me like a ring or a shoelace
It's all so much the same
How does she know what skin shakes me
Laughter crackling like a melody
A home that's lighting up under a pallid Christmas sky
It's gifted, how we know our wishes
Tragic when we can't fulfil them
Longing, stargazing, endless questions
"Why?"
She shakes her head, she loves me mostly
I can keep her like some poetry
She will go to dance
I smile and smile until my ribs crack
Sadness swirling down my long back
She leaves a forlorn man.
Loss is a four-letter word
So is hope (and love and shit)
Where am I going with this?
I was looking at a man sipping tea
It’s poetic, my life flashed past my eyes.
A slow but steady train
(Not really going against the grain)
Leaving off passengers
One
By
One.
Some of them waited for the stops
A few pulled the chain
Abrupt in their leave.
I think some of them are still on board.
Where am I going with them, and
Why are they going with me?
I must come home before dark
Before the lake spills over and the bridge crumbles
into stones
(The roads are never safe, anywhere, you know)
The man sips his tea
Maybe he’s thinking of his daughter back home
Who must have a train of her own.
Does she wander like me?
Does she say, life is a four-letter word
So she never has to talk about it?
I keep looking as he takes another sip.
1
She's shaking in her teenage tears
Life is waiting with its claws
I'm looking, it's not perverse really
Just breaking the fourth wall
Instant gratification grips us
Ten thousand kisses inside a group chat
But the kisses are so small
She's wondering where she can go wrong
Sifting crowds for lessons to learn from
It's scary and exciting,
She is meant to fall
I smirk at this, I'm such a cynic
It's so clichéd, not even thrilling
Keep crying, doll.
2
Where is the little man who fell in love with me?
I was stuck with him, playing the lover
Returning his kisses with my cold lips, barren
I couldn’t love him as long as I was sober
He didn’t complain once, not even a little.
I needed to be the silhouette woman
“She was too hard to keep”
I laughed (and then cried) when I left him,
When he said he needed me
Where are you, my little man?
With your songs and letters and eyes of sheep?
Here I am, a little woman (surprise)
But you have no more love to give.
I gaze at a man who never looks at me
An amused grin hanging over his thin lips
(Like a curtain I’m supposed to uncover)
I lie down on the grass, counting my piecemeal joys
Wondering if the day is over
Sighing, nodding, humming a tune
Waiting for my sacred moon
He pays no attention while he smokes rings into the
air
I wish he were a gentleman with flowers
He doesn’t look at me, yet
Life is so unfair
I’m sure he’s up to something
He lectures at the empty sun but I catch his shy breath
I look at him, for hours on end
A nasty tiktok song stuck in my goddamn brain
How long will it take for him
To kiss me in the dusk?
Before it’s too late, I might have to ask
What did you mean when you hugged her
What do you mean when you hold my hands?
Look at me, face my eyes
Or I’ll leave to look at another man.
Before the month end meets another mouth
Speak the unspoken
The sky was too blue so I couldn’t say it
And you didn’t mean it
What’s the difference between see you
And goodbye?
I hugged a sweater and curled up in it
Some warmths are trees, deciduous
If their arms contract some day, they spring back
Outstretched
Loves that might wane but never disappear
If nothing, you can always plant dreams
Evergreen, forever blooming
Enough with nature and its metaphors
You must be bored
Like I am.
I’m catching up with my words
Before the month end meets another mouth
And they spill over, too soonWe like to repeat ourselves, after all
My city has no snowflakes so I make do with tears
I gulp down the past because the month will end
The year too, so funny.
Nights crawl around me, begging me in hushed tones
Join the end, it is near
The future is too far away!
But I know it’s only the cold
I shut my eyes and scold them to sleep
Achieving peace needs such violence, so funny.
At dawn I’m up again chiming words
Dragging the end of a chewing gum until it’s dry
And there are no tears to gulp down
Only white, fresh snowflakes around the bright greentree
Pink flowers
Joy
Inside my dream garden
I know even you are tempted to join me
We will wave farewell soon
To meet new ends which must begin
Should I say goodbye
Or
...until we meet again?
Oh yellow child basking in my winter warmth I spare you my coarse unhappiness I'm all smiles, all laughter, all joy Never meaning anything beyond the passage of time Take my hand, we shall walk for now The afternoon is dying around us My yellow child of joy I steal your kisses and save them in envelopes My bookshelf smells of golden love now Every other novel inside clasps your sweet nothings. I feign reading the letters and dissolve into daydreaming Of you, my yellow boy We're not children But oh, we are There's nothing more innocent than my hand clumped in yours We're running now, leaving houses and streetlights behind We'll run away some day I'll turn red in a distant shame Our twilight beauty will melt everyone's hearts into water At last, nothing else shall matter.
It was only a dream You had only stopped once A glance that asked, are you alright? I could've stopped at no But I spoke for ten minutes straight Words gushing out of my lips Making them busy To forget that I can't kiss you, yet A smile danced on your face My complaints amused you, didn't they? If it were a different city afternoon A different sky A different room and a different dress I would've been angry At a man laughing at a rambling woman Instead I fell in love How did I die for an insolent grin? You made it worse A light touch of your brown fingers On my restless hands You tried to stop me but you only made me race I can't forget your face I want to chew your brain alive I want to wipe off your smirk with my lipstick I want to grab your hair and shake you until you love me back But it was only a dream, I promise, And if you ask me if I'm alright What can I do but say yes and smile?
As the nights grow cold I plunge myself into my narcissistic depths It's easier than losing grip on my heart And giving it to you I love myself harder to unsee your longing for me I relish my pain and pleasure of solitude Face to face with a mirror, I shine. But over my shoulder you stand tall With a hole in your heart so big it daunts me With a love so desperate I cower like a coward I am too small for you My kisses cannot fix your eyebrows bent in gloom So I unsee you I unfeel your shadow resting on my back I unknow you and focus on myself Narcissism, my shield of arms, Covers my lonely heart as the nights grow cold I stifle tears, I watch you go.
How can I hate myself When I smell the city in dusk The green trees Naive nobodies stuck in jams I lay my feet to sleep My ears clouded with music I close my eyes and rivers ripple Through my toes Through my bones My ribs are open in my dream
I keep speaking of dreams But I cannot hate the reality It’s cruel but it made me And I cannot hate myself anymore Without a reality, there’d be no dreams No stories, no songs, no lore I make peace with the real Even if it’s not ideal
It keeps raining these days Grass growing on the narrow patch outside the house I shave my legs but the fat is not shed I take my notebook Write poems, songs, jokes. I’m kidding, I don’t. I sketch beautiful girls Look at them so I can believe I’m them Fluid beauty, wearing the looks as in video game skins I want to be the girls of my dreams Unless I eat I feel tired Unless I eat I cannot sleep. They urge me to have food I wish they’d let me be;
Why do I care about my body In the worst manner I could? Let me eat something, It will do me some good. It is raining as always And I think the grass looks nice Muddy patches and cats fleeing raindrops What a time to be alive.
