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?
What would I do If I couldn’t smell The blue syrup of the sky after dawn What would I do If you hadn’t worn a dress Baby blue with innocent joy What would I do If the waters didn’t flourish In all shades of blue
What would I do If I couldn’t romanticize My slothful blues Dull, greyish and tear-less What would I do Oh, what would I do?
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.
I hate that I love myself Even when I can’t. At me the looking glass gapes With a shadow as lifeless As the idol’s eyes in the temple Looking straight beyond me When I once used to pray
I hate that I look at the glass Harder and harder Trying to imagine myself into An aesthetic self A wise woman A smiling soul Bubbling with joy With a contagious smile
I hate that I make myself believe I need not be anyone else My reflection is flawed but never me Only the glass could be purer Oh I couldn’t be surer
But I hate that I don’t love myself As soon as my coerced conception Breaks into pieces The illusion shattering into shards of glass Piercing me everywhere And I’m back again
Stranded in the dark alley Sitting with my knees bent Drenching in the never ending rain.
My sadness is up for sale
Packaged in a skin of rage
Buy it for your lover, Ma’am.
Buy it for your children, Sir!
My sadness is a ghoul you’ll get
It’ll stick to the soft terrains
Of all the lovesick souls that you’ve met
They will all forever be chained
Forever and ever, to you.
Black hearts work better than black magic
I’m selling you my best ever trick
It’s an offer that you all must use
It’s my offer that you can’t refuse
I have let my sadness loose.
If my memory was mapped with
Blood clots and muted screams
Would I be a patient, or a soldier?
If I were too tired
To believe in dreams of victory
Should I march any further?
Angry tears facing the wall
I fall, I fall, I fall
Thudding my way down every night;
Rock bottoms and nondescript floors
Are so dangerously alike.
A part of me sings upbeat karaoke
Pauses for breath and asks me if I'm okay
(Forgive me the pun)
And I sing along, it's great
What's the use of wallowing in sadness?
If keeping away sorrow was enough
I'd still have a chance.
But you can't just dance the way
All your life. Aim! Aim!
Be on top of your game!
(I could rhyme this line with 'shame'
If I had it in me. Sorry.)
I am sorry, but perhaps I'm not.
The guilt for the absence of guilt I've got
Eats me inside when I imagine my life-
A cumbersome, crooked centipede of Time
Always ending up smashed into a fleshy patch
A huge footstep crashing down, down, down.
Or maybe I'll just be around
For pleasant winters and sultry summers
Gliding with peppy music
Perhaps I won't be sick.
I think I'll fight it.
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.
There’s nothing new under the sun There’s nothing new about my pain, longing, love Nor in my desire to be unique. There’s nothing new in my poem, When I say I’ve been blue to have missed you Red to have kissed you Black to have forgotten you and myself I’m only rewording what I’ve said Maybe a hundred years ago, Even a thousand, who knows? The gnawing hunger in my mind To compose the poem to end all poems To create it all and consume it all- Is a spectacular piece of comic nonsense I laugh, louder and louder till my lungs bitterly burst And I’m finally empty again- A quill with no ink A blank word file A waste of time.
Nobody told me how to look up From the road filled with grey, Stretching and stretching into eternity And look into the world Into People. Sheer crowds of them Moving in a steady fast pace
I lock my eyes with a man and my heart leaps Not in joy, There are no butterflies in my stomach No love in my heart My heart leaps like I’d like to leap into an abyss. The glance of the man Lasts only for a fraction of a second He looks away And I start looking at myself What did he see? That fraction of a second costs me a lifetime Of mapping my body, my gestures, my posture Measuring what I am and what I should be Measuring to fit in But sticking out like a sore thumb.
Nobody told me how to look straight Into the mirror And not want to be someone else. I resist the urge to shatter it into pieces The glass is spotless and devoid of cracks I am not No one is.
I lock my eyes with myself I travel back in time to all the promises I had made Pointing fingers at the mirror Pep-talk for the self. The mirror stays at the same place Neither have I gone any further Only the years have gone by. The one standing on the other side calls me a liar and a cheat I admit defeat And put out the lights.
Nobody told me how to look down Into the screen And not compare myself to every standard set. Scrolling up and down Sighs of despair and unfulfillment Oh the disparity.
I lock my eyes with the girl on the screen With eyes as blue as the times when I’m feeling down Figure as enchanting as non-existence is to me Skin as smooth as the paper I accidentally cut my fingertip with Smile as bright as sun on a scorching summer day. Even while I fight the Euro-centric bias Perpetuated in our minds I wonder why some get to be so perfect And more importantly, Why some get to decide what’s perfect.
Nobody told me how to look inside Get out of my head And get over myself.
mimimusing 