stained cloth

when the dark stains grow from a
flow that won't cease, i'll shut my eyes and
count to three
giving each number a significant ring
one life
two chances
three slip-and-
falls
one foot in the grave and
the other on fire.

the same shadows tinted
with my lack of sleep, i can keep
minds dreaming while mine
runs free
but i can never, never
escape the four walls
i can never, never
escape the four walls.

i can hear rhyme in my head
but none escapes my lips but i
try to fake a smile and
sing in different keys
still wishing i could breathe

when the dark stains grow
and the flow won't cease, i'll
shut my eyes and make believe

that none of this is real.

natural disasters

it was a hurricane,
it was.

crushing down hard on me
pulling me out of control
spinning me in circles
tearing me apart
stealing my breath.

taking with it,
everything of me.

that love was a fucking
hurricane,
because it lasted
like nothingseconds
but had taken with it
my everything.

the last tear I shed for you

There are reasons I
cannot see; maybe, I never will
and it's alright that I'm on
black lists and gun-point dreams, being
stared at like
I am wrong,
because I remember the first day I
gave you my heart, under an eve night-sky
like Sarsi velvet, I was stared at
like I was right, and the hurt
seems worth it, now; yours
and mine.

My tears
now cost a lot less than
where we had started,
so my new resolution is to
cry less, because we don't have to wait until a
New Year to make things
better.

You were a thousand bedtime stories
and thriller movies, romantic
comedies that made me cry and yet,
laugh, haunting scenes that left me
screaming inside.

I can write two, threeforever pages about
what I feel and
who I am but
who am I?

So many things like silent glances
and knowing some things just
won't change no matter
how many alphabets I switch and new languages I create
and how many jeans I wear per day I still
will never erase the scars
across every line of my body
because you etch on me like
constant reminders of who I
have become.

I still cannot shut my eyes because nightmares
are not my favourite dreams, so I take the nights
to wish on rainbows that might land
on my eyelashes
when the tears
have dried.

brown couches

I close the lid of your escape box
to keep your memories
to keep them safe
awaynearby?

I hide away your ring and paint my
nails black because
it is a depression I cannot
fail to acknowledge
this time
tying together fallen hair into
knots of stress, I
cover spots where I buried
myself in tears, once
I don't like sleeping in beds anymore,
in fact, I don't like sleeping
at all because you remind me
of nightmares, like always it
terrifies me because your favourite song
is me, right now, mumbling lines like
ican'tfigureitoutit'sbringingmedown

i count empty pages at the back of
our diary, my diary of you and
wonder, ponder, imagine what that could have been filled with, the stories the tears
the laughter the (false) hopes
knowing, hurting, falling because
I know now that I'll never find out.

answer me

Why don't I shut my eyes
Why do I lose my breath
Why does everybody else make sense
but me but you
Why am I alone
Why do I feel that way
Why is my necklace breaking
like little pieces of me
Why do I wear different clothes
Why do I do different things
Why does your ring feel heavy
Why don't I listen to your songs
Why am I singing your songs
Why do I feel lost
Why do I miss myself
Why can't I see myself
Why do I feel guilty
Why am I scared
Why don't I dare
Why do I lie
Why doesn't the pieces fit anymore
Why don't you fit anymore?

like seasons, we change

I read poems that I wrote about you

and realize I still believe

half of all the things I said

most of them about how you make me fear

and how you also make me

smile


made me smile.

I am glancing through broken bottles

and empty cigarette paper trying

to find clues of

who and where I am

while singing songs by the verve

because I start to feel I am

no longer

with you

i look at cut up papers i once tore

to stick on birthday presents for

you

and realize i would lose a lot

more than just you if i

left

but i am now so lost and asking myself if

i am ever ready to be

found again

maybe by you or

someone else?

The Wedding

A poem I dedicated and recited to my sister, and her new husband on the day of their marriage.
---------------------------

I tried to write a poem
Of candlelight and flowers
But all I ended up with were
A few scruffy sessions of blank words that showed nothing
Real, and everything material,
Which did not make
Marlene & Jonathan.

I come up with this poem
Listening to songs about loss
Because from loss is where they were
Found
Where two hands entwined
For a sealing kiss because
They could not bear to lose what they have
Built.

From east and west, they were walking through
Mountains, alone; but if two people
Are on the same path, is that not
One 'together'?

And so they meet under a pour of light
Like midday shine
Hand in hand strolling from lonely mountains
To stormy seas, to bright purple fields of
Lavender;
Making every kitchen and couch argument
A lot less like fights and a lot more
Worth it.

& when everything else turns to gray,
They are forever in each other's eyes,
Alive with colours.

Beautiful Shapes

I look at you through
the blinds of a fork, unaware,
always, of the reasons
why you look left
when I look right,
I spend hours awake missing your voice
touchkissyouyou,
thinking of moments when I kissed your
forehead as you cried
my tears and sobbed
my pain,
yet I clamp shut and
withdraw from the world you
beautify me in like
the way I want you to,
because I remember moments when you
clasped me in your
palm
and did not let me go until I was
helpless
selfless.

I look at you, upside down,
through the eye of a spoon
seeing all of me
because you are nothing
like me,
I miss your fingers,
the laughter you hurl
from my stomach,
the cigarette aftertaste
on your tongue
I miss the way you'd tickle me until I was
breathless, to breathe into me when we kiss,
the heart shapes you'd draw on my face before trying to stick your
finger up my nose,
I miss the way we'd switch gender
in the middle of a shopping mall,
your lips on my eyelids,
your hand in mine,
I miss the way you make me feel

Words, just words
Words I couldn't say when you'd
told me you missed me.

being with

i.
Like the way you always flatten your hair to one side.
I would tell you a million times not to, because I like it messy but you like it flat, I would getso annoyed because you keep doing it.
I sometimes wish you'd never stop, so I can keeptalking to you in ways I am used to
as if there is nothing wrong with us except
flattened hair and I wish it could always be like this
so I won't have to start looking at our
huge, uglier problems that tear us apart
and rip away our routine and end us up like
hair on your bathroom floor
unwanted and ready to be trashed.

ii.
I remember the day when we sat in the upper floor of
McDonald's and all we did was laugh.
You were laughing because I was laughing, and I think you still don't know why, up until today.

well, I was laughing because I was so happy
to be with you.

There was another time we were at the same place
and we were laughing, too
but did you realize the hardness behind
my laughter?

I did, because it hurt me when I tried to smile
and pretend everything was alright.

The next day, you ate up my heart and threw it away
like all the tears that fell from my eyes into the toilet bowl of a shopping centre
that day along with throat-blood
and a broken shard from my heart.

It was my first physical injury
and my millionth mental pain.

iii.
I like it when we watch movies because we either
pay very close attention
or none at all.

I like kissing your jawline because it is
your finest feature.

I like trying to explain things to you
that are impossible for guys to understand
because it makes me feel like you are
Superman.

My very own.

I like thinking of all the things I like about you
because it makes me forget what you made me hate.

iv.
Like how your closest companion comes in pills
and powderand you use it against me because you know
I hate it when you lose yourself in the smoke
and jittery mistakes.

I think about how I could run a thousand miles to
bring you back, but I might lose myself, too,
along the way.

But what if I was the only one
to realize that the air grazing an empty palm
is the most frightening thing
one can go looking for,

what if you were never as scared as I to be
lost?

v.
There was this one time
I woke up from three nightmares in a row
and they were all about you.

My mother once told me two theories of dreams:
one. they are the opposite of reality
two. if you told the person in your dream about the dream
it would come true.

I never listened to her and told you everything
because you had promised to calm me down
when I was afraid
and I was afraid.

But if I'd known dreams could come true
like my mother said,
if I had listened, shit, if I had listened,
I would never ever tell you about the nightmares that
make me wake up screaming your name
because you left.

ticktock

If you stared wide-eyed at a
death black hole gaping
like the end
can you pretend you are
asleep and at peace because
shutting your eyes make you feel
insomniac and takes you places
you don't want to be in?

If you strolled around the plans
of a house when nothing's breathing
but the sound of your
kaftan brushing skin
can you piece together a dream
like the one you're waiting
for but just
won't come?

If you turned on the lights
and watched a window
looking out become
a reflection looking in
to you
can you believe reality is
far, far away and
you're your own
land, here and there and
maybe near a cliff drop?

If you stared at a
computer screen, daring
it to spark out a welcome
sign though the plug's not
in the socket
can you for one second, imagine
you have to power to ignite
just about anything
in your life?

bedroom windows

It is not just sex
but what I gave with it
a body of everything I gutted out for you
as perfect as I tried
but somehow you tasted me wrong and
perhaps I am now just a piece of
torn meat on you?

It is not just rotten clenches
in me when I wake up knowing
I now have to learn to trust
that you trust me, too It is not just the fact that
I'm delusional, buying sizes
too small and eating
too little It is not
just because I hold onto
your T-shirt every
night as if you are here looking at me the
way I want you to, the way you
don't.
Do you?

It is not just rings
and dreams that make me scream
'let me go!' It is not just
the distances apart like gazillion
fingers and half held breaths
I just can't put a finger to
what's making me my own
catastrophe, can I get back
to you later,
please?