Some people are soft. I talk to her and I melt, how can a girl be Cotton candy? I read books and I wonder Like my scant-smile professor asks Do we see words or sentences? Do I see meanings? Someone looked proud of me today So I decided to believe it’s summer after all Not the bad kind with scorching stress The good kind Of childhood, holidays and holiday homework Of evenings in swings and ice-cream nights Some people are soft, you see They are the good kind. Cotton candy and white coconut flesh joy Refreshing. But I will go back Churn myself over to those who will spurn me I talk to them and I sting How can a man be a tempting thorn? Or, like the other girl who’s so brilliant that I cannot trust her eyes I squint and keep still, she throws her skeleton at my arms Flaming thoughts rupture into my skin I wish to win affection from her. And him. Some people aren’t soft. But it’s not so easy You see They are the good kind, too Some souls help me heal Some break me anew.
Tag: india
Make sense
I was so lonely that I ran away to be alone So that it can make sense. Paper-pink flowers fell on my head today So I petted a cat Unafraid For the first time. She was hungry, and I gave her nothing to eat I was holding a paper-pink flower and nothing else. She left my hungry arm for another woman I thanked her for feeding the cat She told me that I may give her a name. How can I name her, if she is not to be mine? I ran away again So that there is no cat So that it can make sense. I was thinking about you the other day How I loved you more than anything But of course, I had to run away So that it can make sense When you see how unlovely I have always been. I have to keep running away Because nothing ever makes sense to me.
Write and wrong
By 9 pm I decided never to write Of what I feel Isn't it too common? Feeling poetry? What could I write about? Heartbreaks, lost hopes, The bright side of dark jokes; The persistent disappointment by men. Oh no I'm back again Writing about commonplace woes In commonplace tongue I keep writing what I feel Should I write about what I've done? Nothing there. Empty. Recoiling into spirals again Stop. Set free. If only we could help it. (The permanent disappointment Of the self.) It's way past 12, Midnight sleeps with me Tell me something so I don't have to write. Tell me something, Quickly. I must spend the night Tomorrow I'll wake up, I promise And I'll write about new things to think Tonight let me be all about My metaphored sorrows Translucent smiles The gaps left behind in unspoken goodbyes And such things that flow rivers down my eyes Such things I carry in my small womanly pocket. I worry I cannot see beyond what's right in front of my gaze I worry I see and I know so little My words are bound to fail I rhyme, and I know they don't aid memory Only makes my voice forced I can't do away with it, where will my words go? Scatter, yes, they will. Every day I scatter them Every day I open my mouth I do not wish to speak On my writing table I sit to seek Meanings. I cook my words to flavour them Add endings and beginnings. Yet I get lost, so often Did I just burn the dish? Oh the stench is so rotten I can do better. Or so I'd like to think.
Love letter.
I need you to pick my brain Leave my heart alone Let me speak rivers of wit and scorn And love and poetry Everything I'm capable of Let me never stop Lend your ear to me, forever I'll leave your heart alone. Take me with you wherever you go Inside the alleys of your mind Inside the realms where you hide I'll let you speak until your voice scrubs off your tongue I'm here, I'll be here Every word you speak I'll steal and store inside my soul. If you hadn't been a poet or a scientist If you hadn't been the man you are I would have tossed your words away Forgotten your name Your face But you picked my brain tonight I've got a taste of it now. Hunger has never been more romantic, It's amazing how I want to be your disciple And lover All at once Perhaps I can't leave your heart alone after all It's already said and done The moon sleeps in the sky with clouds of gray You and I lie awake Biting into our dreams and thoughts Will you leave my heart alone? I think (I hope) You will not.
Flimsy
I wish you weren't flimsy Like the newspaper bit I picked up and scrunched into a ball And threw away I wish I could kiss you and the stain would stay. Your words are mineral oildrops They perfume my hair And damage it I dig graves to look for suppleness and return with bare hands Why couldn't you be of soft clay? I'd sculpt every bit of you into a god Give you everything I can imagine I'd learn your favourite language and sing you songs If you were sincere I would never have let you forget me. You're not, And you don't even know. I wish you were everything you're not Can't you see I'm tired of looking for him? I kiss you and wish my lips were ash I love you and I keep coming back One day, one day you'll be him Won't you? I'll keep coming back Until I find him. For once. I write out my soul onto your ragged paper heart You give it away next morning to ten other women I write myself onto you again And again I kiss you for others to wipe it off You stay a stone statue with words too perfectly carved I stay a girl looking for love Until I find it I wait I see through you but I can't not stay.
What happens to girls who never grow strong
What happens to girls who never grow strong Trees not hardened but rotting away Beauty dissolving with pain, arid and stripped of music What happens to women who need men to kiss them Fool them into reassurance They're still lovely, still beautiful And it does not matter if they're ghost-images Of their mothers who forgot to shout Or sisters who could never be tired What happens to people who never quieten their minds Gritty dirt clogging every channel in their brains Sweet radio static a dream Skilled at muffling all screams What happens to us who can't roll their mouths into confident spells Us who are selfish sufferers You who is cruel to yourself and everyone you love Me who is everything you ask me not to be What happens at the end? Can we not bargain? Dry kisses for you in a collage of lies That's all I can offer for now Until I know what happens at the end Until you tell me How to live with my pain.
Fog
She called me pretty so I had to confess That I am not smart She decided I am smart so I said It doesn't matter I am not ambitious She said I must be, why else was I worried? And I didn't know where to go. If I can't fix my hair Constantly What will I do? What will I do? She has moved on to much better fodder Coffee table conversation Our friends are discussing important things. I am inside my head, I can hear the clock, Ticking Slowly, but fast as soon as I stop thinking about it My friends around me don't seem to care. I sit with them but I'm not really there So I look at my phone. And I've been here before.
Confession
What is your problem? He asks. She looks at me in mourning I feel the hurtful guilt churning Is it my belly or my fate? I say, I am so full of hate. I have never loved any of you Which girl doesn't love her own? I have never loved, never will. I am not human Like the rest of you Like the most of you I am dying like a star because my love ran out Droplet by droplet My laptop blinks. It's getting old I am happy. It feels human, like a pet My laptop talks back You're not human, you're so full of hate Where do I go with this black hole heart? I die for love I die again My laptop mocks my static brain Our visions get so blurred.
Her
A kind word from a stranger And she cries like a baby. She'd chewed her heart and spat it out Many moons ago, when she did not know her name Unseen, unheard, unknown, unloved She could have run away. A little lady, a wholesome man Or some teenage lovebirds holding hands And she cries like a baby How did a heart grow again? Days peel off smoothly enough She smiles at unimportant joys I marvel at her maddening beauty She charms me with her muslin voice I take her hand, I plant a kiss, gently She cries like a baby And I find my heart again We water our hearts reborn, soaking in the purest rain.
I earmark this happiness for another day
I earmark this happiness for another day I chew my fruits in measured joy This afternoon She learns about the cadence of my voice As I tell her about you She laughs, I laugh, we dance around Our earphones get jumbled in unmeasured sounds I wish I weren't so happy. What if it exhausts itself? She asks me about the new one I met But I earmark my happiness for another day They're no big deal, of course, I scoff She hears my high pitched squeals unhidden Grins at feigned indifference Does she know what I think I am scared of? We recall the artists we followed like dogs They're faded, we have new art to consume She gives me more of art and poetry We link our worlds We stay in our rooms She says she has found the perfect face To wear when she meets the world I applaud her ruse. She's so clever, She's just the perfect girl, I think She breathes a pause and asks me why I keep back all my joy She won't understand but I tell her. She tells me she too can't sleep a wink If she's too happy, she gets too sad Do I think that she's gone mad? I cannot laugh, I can't even cry She knows what my heart means! We earmark happiness for days to come We're such anxious little lovely beings.
mimimusing 