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?
I read what you wrote.
Bring me the coffee so I can read it again,
This time, calmer
This time, knowing
The week is expiring into a nonsensical knot
I have given up on my hair
Sitting in my bed with an ugly grease-bun
Sipping my coffee
I'm reading it again
You write like a bird flying with twigs
Making a nest but not quite, yet
Who am I to review?
Let's say, I'm the cat
I'm eyeing your little home building every dawn
For a chance to pounce upon it
Don't look so shocked, please
Don't pretend you didn't know I am ruthless.
Bring me the fork please, thank you
It's delicious how I can tear apart
Your feeble similes and metaphors
Oh, so easily.
Your poems reek of Romeo and Juliet
No complaints, but, really?
Would you die for him,
Or is it only your many moments
Of boredom turned infatuation
Teen drama cliché
I know you're older, I know
Stop scowling.
The poem looks fine
Could've been a little less flowery
Could've been more like a poem.
Even then, my dear, it's all wrong
My coffee has never tasted so bitter
And whose fault is it?
You fell for the one I fell for.
I was playing with words and he got stuck in them
I knew the craft of meaning making
He was too blind
With river eyes and saltbeds of skin
He never asked me why
I then played with a gun and he got killed almost
I relished the skill of slaughter
He was too kind, again
He held my wrist not to wring it
Asked himself "why did I bring it?"
The gun was thrown away
I took him to the bedroom and locked him inside, I was bored
Closed the doors on his face, so cute
Why didn't he hate me then?
I wish he were a brute
I tossed the keys into the fireplace
Read a book for fun
Ended up breaking in through the window
Our life has just begun.
I hold myself back
My lungs will shatter if I say
I love you
If you could see me crying every night
For your sorrows
Wouldn't you know?
I hold myself back
Like always
Always
I want to be so far away that
Even the moon can't touch me
Even the sun can't hurt me
And then I wash away, lonely
You walk away
My love.
One day I gave you two stones to keep
Then another one
And I stopped.
You said you'd build a castle
For us to live in
With playful curtains and hours of kisses
Music stained walls
Flowered garden and coloured windows
You said we can have it all
I thought we could, too
I scoured the riverbed for more pebbles
Keeping aside only two
The ones which sang as they tinkled against my
anklets
I, the happy explorer, paused for some rest
Floating like a moonclad lily in motherly waters
I worshipped the god of love
I danced till daybreak and slept like a child
The fourth day we met
You poured before me a sack of stones
They were so beautiful
You were so beautiful
My eyes widened and shone
Your little boy grin and our pile of stones
We couldn't stop smiling,
Our cheeks were alight with hope
I dropped the two stones I had
Our hillock rose by a hair's breadth
I looked up at you and you were a changed man
No longer the boy who matched my faith
But a man I'd think twice before talking to.
How incredibly our pillage of precious pebbles
Turned to rubble
Ashen and disgusting
Cold and dull
You looked at your watch
I looked away
Perhaps we had always known
It was only a castle of sand
You should not have held my hand,
When I was meant to let you go.
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.
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.
mimimusing 