Tag: family

Of cigarettes and ends

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When the blue sky drips down
And darkens into my hair
When my skin is sketched with human dust
I lie down on seas of grass.

Pearls flow out of my half-closed eyes
A gathering grows around me
Spectres and smoke-heavy souls
Touch my arm in a grey breeze

My demure lips part in peace
Closer to freedom than bliss.

Each time my mother lacked care
My father, love
Myself, hope
I sighed.
I blew out lukewarm images
Of the Ones Who Should Have Been.

They have come to visit me, finally,
A swarm of smoke enters my soul
Each whiff a companion
My heart is full.

Home

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“Who will be my home?”
Everyone looks outside the window and asks.
But I can’t remember what a home is,
Is it my mind, my body, my family, my city, my country?
I’ve been a stranger everywhere,
Often enough to ask like a little child
What is a home?
Home is the person you love, they say,
The person you return to after a day of rain and hailstorms,
The arms you hide inside when the world comes out to swallow you whole.
It’s not that I don’t know what a home is
I can’t feel it.
All I can understand with my massive joke of a brain
Are stories.
You and I, we’re stories, we’ve always been
Some are more than that, they are dreams.
Therefore I’ve stopped searching for a home
(After years of walking along aimless alleys and lanes which lead nowhere)
I’ll start stringing words and actions into tales
Only hoping they’ll connect me to a story that I can call mine
So the next time I put on sad, soothing music
And look out of the window
I’ll ask
“Who will be my story?”

Daughter

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I don’t know what it is to be a daughter
They say that blood runs thicker than water
But why is it that I feel no ties?
I look at my mother and I see it in her eyes
The pure, unconditional love she bears
I know ‘motherhood’ has been glorified for years
Their sacrifices becoming not a choice but a consequence.
Yet unmistakably I’ve seen love in her, hence
Her love must make me a daughter?
There have been days when I have thought her
Love for me was misplaced, a mistake
Because despite my desire to reciprocate
I’ve let my heart be an impassive stone
Despite her love, I have felt alone.
My father does listen to what I have to say
But smiles at my concerns, at the end of the day
I’m not the older son whose advice holds sway
And not until my brother had to move away
Did I become my father’s right hand
Despite a daughter, (almost) a dependable young ‘man’.
I was twelve when one day I served him tea
Without being asked to, and he
Smiled sweetly and said “It’s great
You’re finally learning how a daughter should behave.”
What it is to be a daughter I don’t know yet
I’m putting together pieces from the society’s set
Of rules and do’s and don’ts I can find
So that one day I can have my peace of mind.