He is a stick figure and he jumps around my room
Screeching my name, he pokes my poker face rest
What are you doing? Who will you be? What will you eat and who will you see?
Stick boy, calm down
My stick boy still jumps around
He makes me a flower out of the poems I threw away
Takes my sunglasses, mimics my anxious gaze.
Stick boy, stop.
I smile until I can’t but laugh
I take his hand and we both jump
Up and down
Here, to there
We go out of my room
What are you doing? Who will you be? What will you eat and who will you see?
When will you know who are you?
Stick boy, I say
How are you so invested in life?
How do sad endings make your stick eyes cry?
Meat girl, he speaks
Life is all we have, all we can feel!
We jump around some more till my feet hardens, hurt
My stick boy sticks around
With his sticky, lovely heart.
Halfway through the sentence I remember it was you
Sweating on a terrible April
Smiling as I spoke freely
It was you that I poured into
It was you I had known to love.
Halfway through my promise to him
I stop, abrupt. He thinks I’m overwhelmed
Just like he is
We kiss to make up for the uninvited gaps
He doesn’t seem to care, at all
I wrap around his life tighter, my words can’t suffice
I try to speak but I keep going back
To April, to the month I can never return to live
To the time I flowered beliefs of everything lukewarm and joy
I wish I could forget your voice
He moves in his sleep, calls my name, so sweet.
Why can’t I whisper back?
My words –they are stuck again
Stubborn and helpless, jumble of sounds
Halfway through my life
I stand shaking
Somebody please let me out.
lights on their faces glow as their smiles wane; distance creeps up. don’t you know the difference between the love-word in your mother tongue and a casual iloveyousomuch? their hearts collect dust with every ticking second, i watch and i write and i watch again. come sit with me and see how it’s not a lie that love is beauty: breathing in and out, she wonders, would he understand? would he know what it meant to grow up like she did, would he see what it took? would he clutch her after the walls break down and she can’t see her soul, would he look for her shadowselves and hold her, pure and whole? would he love her (the substantial question) if he knew who she was? he stares at the keyboard, blank. he hates to think yet there he is. (the beat drops and the hero walks away from the explosion unscathed) he looks at himself marked by everything that has ever gone wrong. how much should he hide from her? would she understand if he doesn’t become, what he’d wanted to be? would she see how he holds his scattered self together, for her? would she soothe his pain, when he is surrounded by his plethora of well-wishers, feeling alone again? would she love him (the substantial question) if she knew who he wasn’t? sit with me as i watch and write with their faces alight. i’ll give you these words to remember me by.
I have always been this age, girls.
Hasn’t my hair always been this long?
Your skin always this honey warm
And yours, butter soft?
His face? Always impressive
Beyond all right and wrong.
I have always been inside this room
Memories float, mirage
I may be forgetful but there are souls I’ve touched
Haven’t I? I didn’t keep a watch.
Palls of déjà vu, I shudder
How could this be true?
I have always been inside this room,
Stranger,
How did I meet you?
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 remember you, all the time
When the days are shapeless
Rain falling lonely on a little puddle
A man walking home to his bed
I remember how you said
Nothing.
Nothing when I loved you, quiet
Not a word when I stroked your hair
I remember everything you didn't say or do
I remember everything else about you
I remember you because you're not there.
The rain falls harder and the puddle overspills
I never said I loved you, and I never will
Perhaps I didn't
Perhaps you know that too
I remember when you left one day
Smiling, "See you soon."
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.
Are you happy or have you been ...?
I ask you how you are but I don't want to listen
I know you'll mould sound waves of sadness
"I'm fine". Such cliche.
So boring!
Tell me you're happy
And we can breathe
Tell me you're sad
And we can leave
I shouldn't ask you questions, I know.
I see you crying every night
Newborn tears, so funny in the daylight
Tell me you'll be okay and I can rest.
Loving ourselves is by far the hardest
I speak to myself so I can't disappear
So, are you happy
Or shedding tears?
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.
mimimusing 