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.
My smiling face in the polaroid That I left behind in your heart Is losing its colours and I Am out of focus I multiplied my two arms Into thousands Hand-in-hand like a mesh The thatched wall of blood and flesh Is crumbling and I’m scattered all over How do I protect you now? Your lips have forgotten to sting At the strike of my name Oh how easily now They’re just vowels and consonants I think I have indeed Begun to end.
Bury me when the sun finally sets I’ll leave the rope of my long hair For you Not as a reminder to forget But to secure the ones who come next spring Bury me now Bury me So that I can bury you well.
When lockdown ends The flowers that have grown on my bedcover Will crawl back into their still shapes The grey floor that has stretched into miles Will squeeze back into the 10×10 room The hours that have become endless Will trap themselves inside the watch When lockdown ends I’ll come out of a Dali painting
And I’ll ask (perhaps in vain) Am I still the same? My mind tends to forget the worst She keeps me away from my own ghosts When lockdown ends Will it make sense, if I find That in the corners of my mind Greyish blue patches of memory have disappeared Forgetfulness spreading like fungus on old bread Where did the time go? Where did I? Where am I?
I might go round in circles When the lockdown ends Will I be able to make amends To those who I might have lost Might have crossed Out from my life When I perhaps dissolved in my endless room It is the season of doom, after all.
Paper-thin lies and overcast eyes
I look away from you.
Back when I never thought I’d be here one day
I knew perfectly what I’d do
(In my mind I’d lived so many lives
But I didn’t really, did I?)
I could throw my arms and bawl
Act as if I’d lost it all
“How could you do this to me?”
I could curse you a thousand times.
Or I could be cool and quiet
Keep my self-respect and pride
Leave you in a moment, and say,
“I hope you are worth her pain.”
I could even keep a straight face.
Before we part our ways,
We might even promise to stay friends.
Your paper-thin lies and my overcast eyes
I look away from you.
I do nothing really, I’ve turned to stone
I am not surprised, I had always known.
How foolish of me to fancy
That I’ll be someone’s home.
mimimusing 