Terrify me So I have a reason for these baited breaths Going up and down Tsunami tides of heartache, strong Dark overwhelming fear. They touched me everywhere In their kindly voices they peppered me with hope You can stay, or you can go. Aren't you terrified Of being alone?
I
I try so hard to be happy. My hands tremble, I want to be firm Thunderstorms have left behind debris I stand with a flower (which you didn't bring me) And I try so hard to be happy. I etch lines inside my mind It bleeds, I smile; The bleeding stops, it clots What a waste of time And another day goes by I stand with the flower Anxious It shall wilt soon. If the bleeding resumes Will the flower stay alive? Does it know, I try so hard to be happy? I try so hard to smile. II I hide in her room She breaks my bones I cope with her losses, she sobs with her soul Isn't it funny? How you love me so well I've been here forever and I see you fail We're reeling in memories And images conjured Forehead to forehead With nowhere to go. III Once it's all said and done Do I fumble for your hands? I have done what I can, and I lost I always think of the worst. My dreams are clouded again She laughs at me, cold He texts me "bye." I misread it: "hello!" And then I wake up, with nowhere to go. Why do I have to remember All the lies we shared? Friends come and go, But some of them stare at me Even as I die I never could look away, Fixated by their eyes.
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.
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.
I hide my heart in a skeleton closet My arm fat is melting into lumps of grease How long does it take to be human? I'm waiting. Don't look at me with so much pity Don't look at me Please. I've lost my watch, long ago When I wanted to be a mother of two Now I am not even a child What will I do with this massive room? The rickshaw outside moves, empty Sullen afternoon in a winterscape How to mourn something never started Sunlight frozen on an unborn day?
Diamond wrinkles on her laugh-clad sweet face I'd burn to ashes for her in the furnace Keep me like a ring or a shoelace It's all so much the same How does she know what skin shakes me Laughter crackling like a melody A home that's lighting up under a pallid Christmas sky It's gifted, how we know our wishes Tragic when we can't fulfil them Longing, stargazing, endless questions "Why?" She shakes her head, she loves me mostly I can keep her like some poetry She will go to dance I smile and smile until my ribs crack Sadness swirling down my long back She leaves a forlorn man.
My aloneness is an island Walls so high that a tsunami can't break it down My aloneness is naked I keep trying to clothe myself in strangers' words But my skeletoned yearning is exposed and loud It's battering my brain I am back this time again My aloneness is punching me to a pulp I have no memories to eat I am hungry and in need I think I'm going to throw up.
How many arms did I touch And flinched away Before the blink of an eye? How many words did I miss To mouth into a phrase To greet a passer-by? How many smiles did I keep Chained into coldness Instead of laughing wide? And more importantly, Why? Why is it that I look back now Recalling names who could've been friends Heaping on sighs as the hours go by, Why is it that I know I'll drown Making the same mistakes again and again Knowing I'll never be able to try Am I dooming myself to loneliness? I wonder what's the worse case- Feeling lonely in a crowd Or lonely enough by oneself?
I think I’m dying
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 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.
mimimusing 