She is burying her heart deep in her sleep
Stop her, stop her
She is unwomanly in her grave
Just because she's heartless, she cannot be called brave.
I used to see her awake at night
Eyes sparkling
Mind meandering inside waves of words
She read and read until she forgot to write
And I lost interest
There was no food to eat or clothes to fold
Not even movies to watch
I was away, for a while
Now I've come back
Now I've seen many like her
Exact copies
Cropped hair, tanned skin, eyes like pearls
The ones who forgot how to be girls
Teach them how to pose, to act
Won't you? Won't you?
She looks at me with eyes erased
My words have no power,
My love has no strength
I try to return
To see her
So she'll see me
But the nights sigh away, in vain
She throws dust upon herself, numb
I wonder if these things can be undone.
Couldn't you buy yourself hearts?
With money?
I never had any, I only had eyes.
Even then I haven't been very wise
Will she change and rise undead,
Or rest forever in her premature grave?
I don't love you
I think about you all the time
And in all my dreams you're never mine.
Go away, and never come back.
Until my tears exhaust themselves you make me cry
What was in your skin when your palm brushed mine?
Every second I know you
Every second I've known you
I'm made aware of this lack
You know, right?
You know my heart is water, it cannot hold?
Or do you think it's frozen
Icy and cold, to your touch?
I wonder, how do you get me so attached,
Dropping in my mind every time I sneak out the door?
You've ruined me enough
Not anymore.
Go away, never come back
I'm removing your cobweb words
Erasing all our tracks
In another life we might fit like a glove
Not this time. Not this love.
I don't love you, not enough.
1
Ease me, don't tease me
Quantify your love aloud for buckets to fill
Prodding my sharp doubts I incise into your soft corners
But, if you don't appease me, who will?
I soaked myself in rain
Muddy glory, sensuous in petrichor spark
Your breath seemed fresh when we kissed
I buried my hand inside your lungs
To throw out all the hurt, disease,
You smoked into the air in rings
Red. Love. Passion.
Are you scared of my obsession?
Alas, we had come so far.
2
I love you so much it breaks my heart into glass dust on the shore
The music stops, suddenly
I am so bone-haggard, alone, termite hollow and sick
Bereft of you, my love, I waste away into dust
I love you knowing you cannot return
I sealed our fate as we sealed our lips
Cold blues rippled on your face as I refused your kiss
I hate you, I'd said, and you believed my words
I'd pictured pain but it turned out worse.
3
Grieve the skin that has burnt in black
New flesh takes over, you say
Rapid and anxious
Pink and glowing in health
Won't you grieve what smoked and peeled?
It was you, too
Even if it was brief
Skin cells now turned to dust, broomed away
Such pain
I must grieve the skin you'd set ablaze,
So I can let it be replaced
Can we not begin again?
Green waves dilute and deepen in the front yard I like the assortment of plants
I joke, will you skip me like a YouTube ad? We chuckle. I'm funny, we agree She says she'll miss me And I will But I reassure, it's just a new year Sadly(?), not a new me
I can go on about the book I'm reading She calls me a beautiful kid I smile, knowing she's lonely I keep taking advantage of it
There's nothing new about something new There's nothing new to feel I enjoy the chant of daily TV There's nothing new I want to be.
Coffee beans brimming over my cupped hands
We're so many, so small, too much
I think it's fine
Everything green turns grey someday
Our planet, its climate, its crisis
Everything born must die a death
We know.
I think about plastic hazards only when I get some
free time
Only when I can think
Over the noise of my dad watching the TV
Over my mom's relentless questions
Over my agonising thoughts that take me nowhere
“Free some time to think :)”
Free me so I can think
But you say I'll be free if only I think.
I say, I am just a word-mincer
I only care about plastic clogging the drains
Because it flooded the city when it rained
Because I wanted to write a poem about it
Or maybe I needed to write an essay
Alternatively, to impress a man
In truth, I'm not doing all I can
And I know neither are you.
Yes you're reading it, and you cannot run
We feel responsible for ourselves
But we leave things undone.
I will preserve you like the sun preserves the brown in
my hair
May you need me like you do, forever
Sometimes you jar me into an unthinking sorrow
I doubt my heart, shrieking loud enough to pierce its
walls
When it unflowers and the veins are shed
You appear again, awaken from the dead,
Or perhaps from my very own self
I do not need to know
I hope you'll preserve me like a pearl inside a locket,
too
So that when my heart is rebuilt again
Maybe a little less red this time
I am still whole and soft like a mother's touch
You're still a home, a haven, a shrine
Even if I wander alone in fairs, concerts, cafés and
malls
Carve my way through dingy lanes
Or get lost inside humongous halls
I'll unload into you all my noise
And we can make music
Like we do,
Like we'll do.We'll be preserved in touches unshaken
Doors ajar, no tiptoeing around
Our calm rejoicing in silence and sound
We will keep it all
Life will go, as it goes on
We will go, as we must
Yet we can't leave so we will stay
Preserved in our love and trust.
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?
mimimusing 