bedsheets and frost

There is a weight that sits tightly against my chest,

Like tyres on the dry of a road,

Glasses unbalanced on a tray

Or the weight of our bodies

Waning the beds we sleep on.

It is the weight of

Counting every breath he takes before he falls asleep

Like second nature, watching his eyes

Drift a thousand miles when he is

Vulnerable, the weight of

words that left our lips, or 

Remained untouched in our thoughts

Wearing us down,

Like the episodes of a favourite show 

we have left unregarded 

and the splash of night looming over 

a thin line of dusk.

It is the weight of unfamiliar feelings

And familiar worries

Creeping into our dreams as we sleep

To greet us at our wake.

It is the hunch of what could possibly leave us stale, or make us

Invincible.

You know you are meant for somebody

When you do not predict what the next steps are, when with pure love at its happiest

comes a string of negatives,

And situations you face are

Uncontrollable and breathtakingly

Overwhelming.

Everything is not the same

Because fresh air never hits twice.

There is a weight that sits

Neatly in my mind,

Of things I can never fix

Like the ache in my ribs and my self inflicted paranoia,

The weight of things that I learn to 

Accept, like our pasts and

Our present flaws that comes 

naturally with every life that is tangible.

It is the weight of emotions that have

Accumulated from extremities,

Stretched and compressed

Into a bulb of intensity,

The weight of our passion seeping into each other and sometimes

Going straight past what our eyes can contrive.

It is the weight of looking forward to the times

When everything sits firmly

And strongly

In the best of places

Like the hint of his smile and the warmth

Of his breath on my skin.

This weight is what fills a soul

As longing as mine,

Like my head when it rests on the dent 

In his shoulders,

Or his hand on the curve of my chest 

as I curl in.

Without it, I will only be empty, 

hollow, opaque.

So I learn to embrace the world

At its heaviest,

As it settles on my shoulders

Only hoping it balances out

Eventually..

And for the meantime,

I guess I could always shift the weight

Like backpacks and guitar cases,

Until I find a the place it will

Rightfully belong to,

Just like the way I have found my place

Rightfully beside you.

scratches

I am sad. Upset like spilled wine on white, 

like a stomach doing laps. Sad 

like an old lady left standing on a tram, 

sad like a child with a sweet smile 

who will never learn to use it. 

Sad like an empty shell, like the people 

who die alone. I am sad like 

Sarah Kane and my mother 

at their darkest thoughts. 

I write poems that astound people 

but it's nothing to celebrate because I have only 

ever done that when I felt the way I do. Undressed 

and naked from the happiness I genuinely feel,

left staring at whatever is left over. 

And everybody else is staring at it too, 

unsure of what to do with it, 

like a fish out of water flapping in their palms. 

Everybody knows, and I still 

don't know why I am typing laughter 

at every sentences in conversations 

- like it makes a difference.

I am sad because I have no reason to be. 

I am sad and I feel like I am imposing it, 

and I feel guilty because of this, 

so I get even more upset.

So I remain sad. 

Sad like the way he looks at me 

like I have shadows in my eyes, like the way 

they try to place a contagious smile back on 

my lips because my mind is

overworked and out on display. I am sad because 

I do not know when little things like buses and 

light banter and the lack of skins 

for my tobacco started getting to me and I

don't know which junction to take myself away from this. 

Sad because I don't know when the left overs of myself

began to matter more than my entire being.

Down like a basement tenants 

never use, like the bottom of a mountain,

the centre of a cave. 

It is obvious. 

What isn't obvious, is that 

I am happy. Despite all that, I am happy 

like the sun, like the father 

and son having lunch together, like

stumbling upon a sentiment you once 

thought you'd lost. Happy because 

I have somebody to wake up to, to

love and to comfort. Happy because I can 

still feel like I am alive. Happy because 

I am alive.

My mind is at its darkest but 

my soul is still light - where do I go from here?

Tired.

Can't I be tired?

Can't my eyes sink as low as graves,

Can't they shade their under skin dark?

Can't my body deteriorate and cause me pain

And set itself loose at the joints?

Can't my mind wander to the tip of the sea,

Can't it weigh me down and overwhelm?

Can't my senses be muffled and less aware,

Or accentuate with alarm into emotional disarray?

Can't I be tired?

Can't I be selflessly undernourished,

Can't I be helplessly weak?

Can't I be recklessly lashing,

And frighteningly coiling?

Can't I be foreign to the world,

Can't I be familiar nonetheless?

Can't I be afraid of nothing,

Or scared of everything?

I am so tired even my poem is tired and structured and stupidly

bland.

searching for buttons

I settle in the centre 
To give myself leeway of falling back 
Or moving forwards 
When a side becomes too heavy to balance, 
Because I believe I am a coward. 
It is comfortable like a purring cat on your lap 
And the veins on his hand under my fingertips 
When the time is right. 
I watch the sky tell me a story of 
Life as it passes, the many times 
I have missed it happen because I try 
To appreciate the closer things 
Like milkshakes, tobacco, the right films 
And the right dreams and him. 

There are cobbled paths 
on the journey to my heart many have 
tripped and stumbled upon for they were 
too used to easy living, 
But I have found one who has paved 
A similar path a thousand times enough to 
Push on. 

But walking the same road can get a bit colourless sometimes, even for the most determined. 

He shapes his shoulders and I 
Whisper a kiss on the middle of his back where 
The curves were made for me. 
I shiver at the touch of beauty 
In the closure of his eyes as he 
Drifts through a sleep so unperturbed 
As I fight the nightmares away. 

I like the idea of loyalty cards. 
Of how you 
commit every inch of yourself, 
and with every bundle of mistakes 
You can expect at least, 
Achieving something good out of it. 
Safe. 
Sometimes chances are the choices you make. 

Sometimes I smother 
And break concentration 
From the clog of his mind 
But I am impulsive and spend my time 
worrying if I don't tell him now 
Then I will never tell him 
And I will become the secret 
He never speaks of. 

So I give the choice to say more than 
He might care to hear and 
Be assured he has listened and the 
Choice is now out of my hands. 

There a several snapshots that 
Stay vivid in my memories 
Like learning how to swim 
And my cousin's ability to morph into an old man, 
Scraping my knees playing chase outside my uncle's house, 
And my soul scorched red from the impact of once colliding very physically with somebody who wasn't so nice. 

Some snapshots that 
May not be real, 
Like the man outside the gates on a stormy night 
Sat in with my cousins, 
My grandmother sat on her bed 
A week after she passed 
And the colours I saw when I 
Acquainted with the end. 

There are many chances that come with 
A choice but 
Sometimes the chances run dry, 
Like how I will not have the time now 
until Thursday 
To sew the buttons back on my right boot, 
To have proper sleep, 
To take a trip to the doctor's, 
To take the bins out, 
To make amends with time lost with him, 
To make amends with time lost with myself.

alone in a coffee shop

the things you learn about life are not gradual

like mouldy walls or a caterpillar's cocoon, 

the second lamp in my bedroom i never use 

and art with no timeframe. 

they come sudden

and obvious and permanent.

like the beep at the back of the kitchen that used to sit

just a little out of your hearing range and clockwork mind,

but now it ticks in time to your thoughts,

like how Matt Bellamy takes a breath before 

every line of a song. like how some people's voices pitch up 

at the end of sentences and some do not sing when they speak.

or like if you memorise what one person is becoming

you can predict everybody else.

the things i have learnt about life

has taught me to put aside my emotions

like the way i now recognise

and hear about foul profanities and intoxicating fear 

every corner i turn when i used to dismiss it with

solidity. like when my broken rib showed me ugly people existed

but their strength rebuilding mine showed me beautiful people did too.

and how pain used to never hurt because it was always there

but now it is only occasional like moonless skies and phone calls to my mother.

and how he always uses the phrase "it's dead good", 

because some things are better than life, and hunches

and kisses my lips twice before my forehead at night.

these are things i notice, and i believe

i don't notice enough. perhaps i do not notice the specific day

trees begin to droop and grow old with winter,

or how people walking in groups align their footsteps, though i notice mine,

or the personality of a child by the way they hold their arms 

out and touch you inside.

the things you learn about life are 

not always meant for keeps,

so you turn away and keep your balance,

like the hint of an old bruise or the wild splash of chemicals in their eyes.

like children who learn too early about death and sexual intentions 

and are not yours to teach,

or how some stains resist all the detergent you use.

like the night and days of clutching to my bed sheets

because i couldn't face myself and the world, or how for a moment as

fleeting as a skylark, he looked at me differently 

because he was equally as lost.

some things are not meant for keeps

because they will rot inside you and make you 

regurgitate their poison.

these are the few of many things in life i have learnt

that syllabus and five days a week never taught me

like the counter breaths he takes before his heart can settle

and the way his shoulders shake when he is laughing

the way i can move the shine in my eyes to a certain spot

to hide my disarray of thoughts.

like knowing you are allowed to get frustrated at them sometimes and tell them,

but still share every word and thought because they are your best friends.

how my sister does not know i can hear the tone

in her voice as she says things are fine when they aren't

and the way my dad doesn't have to smile for me to know he is happy

but took a tear from his eyes to know i once broke his heart.

or like the escalation to my mother's voice when she realises 

i am on the other end of the line and i feel complete.

some things i embrace,

some things i throw out to the pigeons 

and lost souls that search for meaning.

some things i let take me to heights i

never knew i could reach.

living the afterhours

sometimes i will feel top-heavy like
the empty shampoo bottles in my shower,
turned over and
ready to fall, desperately
screaming to be thrown away. sometimes his eyes
rage wars with mine until i am
like the flailing ends
of window blinds nobody wants to touch
for fear of causing more damage.

because he fears to break me.
so he wavers,
like white noise and faded tv screens
through my insecurities,
and likewise i blind myself
until i am worn down and discolored
like the photographs our mothers keep
of me and us and their shadowed pasts.

we will all do the same eventually.

sometimes i wonder how life can be
this bipolar, throwing me
in the deep ends of both
extremities where all is
as light
as dark
as the place sitting still
in the bottom pit of my body
where either rupture or serenity takes place;
pick and choose.

sometimes i look at my reflection
and like what i see, most often
not,
because there are never enough
expressions that can change with my mood
to keep it intact and easy to display.
like how there are never enough
seasons or words or time in a day.

and i get sick of the see-saws that
fluctuate space inside me until all the
contradicting emotions
confuse and cause wreckage when really
i just want to love.

it is 8.22 in the morning
and the storm is on fire
because i let it.

sometimes i can hear his heart break.

it is the sound of waves
colliding with horizons
and a sky of despair.
it is the song my heart, too
has long memorised.

i have a compulsive obsession
with rubbing on surfaces
until every single layer of dirt the world
had to offer wipes clean.
maybe it is because i believe fixing
what the eye can see will
distract from the depths of
every detailed leftover debris and clumped underneaths.

or maybe not.
maybe i am really just okay,
and my mind chooses to exaggerate pain.

but pain is no longer my sole familiarity
and it scares me when it drops by to visit.
it is no longer my home, because you are.
your love.
your tears.
your laughter.
your hurt.
your joy.
your soul.
with mine.

heavy eyes, they say it all

i cannot breathe.

i cannot think the way i want myself to think because my thoughts are running over each other and i feel every scar on my skin revisiting the surface and screaming horrors into my sleep because my mind is as tense as air molecules struggling for air in a stained, overused kettle before they take flight and 

evaporate.

i try to place radiance where there is dark

in every single fucking thing i do

because shadows can never form

where there is no shine

but i smother myself with so much

until i am stood too close to the light

and my own shadows engulf the entire space 

of my being.

i want to feel the way i deserve to feel.

i carry myself like deadweight

promising myself the meaning of all this.

sometimes i meditate to such heights

where i feel completely ethereal

but always fall to the constant comedown 

that resides in the depths of permanence

clogging my will and draining my sight.

i want to feel the way i deserve to feel.

there are days like these

when i try to face the world

because it is expected of me

and assume that if everybody else 

cannot see the girl that digs her nails into her skin and

tears her hair out and runs into walls

at the flight of insanity

this girl will soon disappear

but there is only so much i can exert

before i revert into myself

and claim recognition with this

familiar pain i try to disguise and

push out.

i tell myself there is more to life

and truly believe it

because of you and because of 

who i have learned to become 

when i am at my strongest.

but maybe i will only settle on the ease of

believing it in all purity

if i dare to accept

that without this pain

life will only be as meaningless

as my belief that i am in complete control of myself.

it is with pain

where life is shatteringly beautiful

and all i feel 

is worth everything.

i want to feel what i deserve to feel,

so i need to stop fearing fear

and face it

and fight it

until there is nothing left to fight for.

ode to the sleepless

i hit solid wall and

drift backwards.

the valley of emotions unravel, 

like loose string

caught on the crook of 

hope

fleeting pass

my skin is too tight for my mind

so i strip down to an inner orifice.

i run nowhere,

hitting blanks and

i undress the fabric

of my inner self

until i am all around me.

i felt unfamiliar,

dwelled too long

in the cracks my shadows

carved into walls.

i travelled sleepless nights

to a land i cannot live in,

so i stumbled along my footsteps

tracing the lines i drew and

never coloured in.

then there was a strange light,

trapped in the blinds of my eyelashes

drying from the storm,

and i found rainbows

in the shape of you.

i learnt to hit a wall,

only to fall backwards

into your entire being

and live in you.

i found in the depths of your body

the traces of me 

i absent-mindedly drew,

and ran to your mind until i

found the hues i long abandoned

from myself.

[i shine.

i shiver.

i soar.]

alive.

the barricades have lifted.

the emotions channel in as they

channel out,

igniting on the surface of my skin

where they intertwine and

bind my soul tight with the missing pieces 

intact.

i feel everything.

my senses escalate like an

upward avalanche,

plummeting to a plateau of

intense calm and unrecognisable peace

i have fought so many wars to reach.

love touches upon my center 

and i feel his emotions sliding into mine

in absolute parallel,

like the rush to my head when i

stand up too quickly.

i feel everything.

the barricades i built to

block myself reaching out

and the outside reaching in

have lifted.

i take a shy step out to embrace the unfamiliar

and all the energy around me

channel in,

surprisingly delicate,

taking me to an ethereal level of

utmost inner balance,

where light meets dark.

i reach my mind,

brooding in its lair

of comfortable distress,

and place my thoughts

into a space of clarity

i have so long neglected.

the barricades have lifted.

i open my eyes and see

everything,

through what's placed in my visual spectrum,

into the middle where

i learn to finally feel connected.

i feel everything.

the most i have ever felt

I think about the many things that occur

and make a difference

in a second or

a blink of an eye.

I think about the emotions one can feel

or lose entirely

in a minute,

in a lifetime - in a moment.

I also think about you

and the way your eyes surprise me,

the way they capture

my innermost joy and

shade my fears.

I think about me and the way 

I fell in love with you,

with your flaws and your strengths,

because love doesn't come wrapped in ribbons,

but it delivers nonetheless.

I think about the nights

when the sky is dry because our eyes are

drenched with sorrow,

but with rain there will always

come sun -

however long it takes.

There lives a girl

in the depths of my heart

with a broken window,

dancing patterns on my skin tissues

for she is now found and

reborn.

I think about her

and the pain she can now learn to forget.

I think about the change you bring to my life.

I think about my world now

colourful and ever-growing.

I think about you and the way you

smile when you feel my touch 

on your skin

on your soul.

I think about me

living the rest of my life with you

feeling the way I feel, for evermore

and I smile, too.

after the longest time of self-repair.

life can sometimes be like sunlight through tinted glass,

tamed and made to look easy to handle

until the full scorch when you turn its direction.

but once you capture the blinding truth once,

you'll never shake off the worry of looking back unintentionally

turning the world around you black with the intensity of

repeating the same mistakes.

there are days with you when my eyes are burnt

and i live in shadows.

i will sit and shake my mind and

constantly remind myself that i should never be afraid

of the fire inside me

because my independence to stand my ground

is not a flaw

no matter how sometimes it feels like it is

with you,

and i am better than waiting for your reassurance to tell me i am worth more than i sometimes feel.

i need to embrace that sometimes

i am not what you need

and it's what i do that you seek from me

but it's alright if i cannot give you everything

because i try.

i need to stop momentary fury

from making me reach out to you to fix us

when you need me to

dim the shine to fix yourself.

and i try to pave easier paths for you, for us,

every other day,

but the cracks on the ground are getting wider

with the thought that you cannot see the struggle within me

because of your own struggles

but i will cherish that you are more important

than my own imperfections so

i need to stop momentary impulse washing over the realm of peace i build for us because in there lies no place for my pain anymore.

The Light, it flickers

there is a shiver every so often
in the silence of the nights,
long sighs that graze
the tip of the moon that belligerently shines
over the pain

and teach us not to shudder over a new moon
because its pitch black
is only a temporary fix before
light.

i can whisper a million thoughts
onto my pillowcase
to cushion my mind beneath my sleep,
but there is always the risk
of facing these nightmares sleepless
for we all know thoughts will forever channel in.

these are the pieces we have to bear,
things that once never mattered
therefore never hurt as much before.

it is time to stop
and ask ourselves
if magic really lasts forever
in the palm of poetic fate,
or perhaps, how long
forever
really is,
because it can never be the only solution
to what reality tries to strike on us.

and it is time to stop
believing that fate will work itself out
because things are just meant to be -
because they obviously aren't,
when our ties no longer heal pain
but binds it tighter around us.

we can only stare at the light
until our eyes go blind,
and remember why it shines so bright.

Appointment No. 4

It is a routine I have
Begun to dread
When the night touches
The core of our souls
And blackens them
I am faced with another day of
I shouldn't haves and why does it always
Come to this? and
I'm nervous to see you nows because you might think my lack of words and lack of actions mean I'm not giving my all, when I am always giving my all, and when really I am just so shaken and tired of feeling like this over something that has hurt me many times before and I am scraping for you to understand, scraping to stash away this horrible confusion you make me feel and clawing and ripping for the little bit of permanence from you that I more often than not will get and feel like I am again on top of the world, and believe you when you say things that make me feel like I am doing things right without having to face the sudden punch in my emotional gut when you suddenly say there are things you can't find in the canvas of colours I made for you.

It is the sick slow routine
Of watching my hopes soar
Until they touch the sky
Finding their way to pick at my flaws
Like itching scabs that
Infect and blind
They blind everything
They blind
Everything I hold out
Within your reach
Just like how
Positive plus negative
Will always be negative.

dreamcatchers

it is the silence of our thoughts that pave
the way it feels better than
right
when my hand is in yours and
i am scraping and clutching
to the skin of your mind
trying to live in you
and be you,
sometimes forgetting that the urgence is
not so necessary
because you are already a part of me,
and you have already chased away
the tangible nightmares that sought refuge
in the centre of my soul for
far too long.

it is the way our bodies fit,
in pace with fate
and the turn of your head when you notice
my glance falling on the soft of your skin
and the emerald glow of your
eternal eyes
when they meet mine,
that churns away all the ephemeral moments
i call fear,
and bring me the permanence of bliss.

we build around us and
inside us,
our world.

a world with
tides that will rise with the sun and tumble
away with the flood of passing rain,
with land that give us growth through time and
breathless shades of colour;
a neverending world of
life and forevershine
that will live in our palms
but not on our shoulders,
because we are willing to
create that much for each other.

mask

i am shaking like an earthquake
a hundred years away
falling like a suicide
off the high end

wherever i land will be
wherever i decay
and my fingers are clawing, clawing
clawing again

ten thousand emotions
but not one significant enough
and i am shaking, shaking
shaking away all the bad thoughts
and all the bad dreams
all the bad thoughts
all the bad dreams
but they stay
they stay
they rise and balance on the pit of my mind
where i was dumped with a large pile of
ragged hope and misled directions
where do i go
where do i stop
where do i start
where do i look

i am shaking
shaking like an earthquake
seconds away
and i cannot find the reason
to what got me here in the first place
where did i stumble
where did i crumble
the scar from the past
the black of it all
the hurt from it all
the pain the hate the pure shit

it's all coming back
it's all coming back
stale and tainted
i cannot fucking do any better
can't fucking do any better
i am stumbling
and crumbling
again.

stop me before i hit the bottom
because i am sick of climbing back up
just to breathe again.

char

the screeching in my ears
from the emission of the TV
on the other side of the room
is muted and thick
and i feel like i am
drowning underwater.

i cannot even tell if the frequencies are
shattering my insides
i cannot tell if this is pain
it is one of those nights
where every minute expands
and every touch is numb
and every thought is
set aside to collect dust
making room for the nonsensical foreplay of my mind
to tease its way
into my centered conscience
until i break apart
and feel
ashamed
for being weak
disgusted
for being out of self control
again.

it is one of those nights.


-------------------

relief.

The Realm of Bewilderment: Poems in Podcast

Hello musers,

I present to you two of my poems featured in my friend's independent podcast.

The Zone of Bewilderment 4

In it features 'I Can Hear Them Flutter' and 'The Figure in the Fog' which Rylan has so kindly added music to. :)

Happy listening, some nice tunes on there as well!

mental morphine

For a flashburnstrike of a second,
I am widened to senses that
Share your pain,
As your nightmares paint a picture
In my mind
And I scare away my own demons
Because I feel the bareness of yours.

I feel brave, though
Disarrayed,
To touch something once
Strange to me, and I
Embrace its familiarity.

For a flashburnstrike of a second,
I shudder and face your fears
For you.

And I feel alive.

For Us, I Dive, I Soar

These vulgar fears I let take a toll on me,
they discharge like unruly, sticky pleasure
from the barbed wired coils of a certain
chip in my soul that remains
discolored and out of bounds.

I tread carefully and gamble my release
on stepping into a place I once escaped,
hoping to conquer where I once was
defeated.

In there lies the knots of memories
I wish to chop away and
never learn to untangle
for the better of my sanity
and the sanity of my present.

I try, I try,
to never horrify
but I horrify myself with my thoughts
at specific reflective states of
clarity,
where I know I can be
as beautiful and you make me believe,
but I am too exhausted
to make the final jump, so I dangle
mid-air instead,
because it is sometimes a
much more comforting thought
to know if my feet are never on the ground,
I can never lose my balance.

But the comfort shakes
in the center of my nightmares
clawing at my mind
as I claw at your skin
until my wake of stretching inwards
ad screaming a muted,
familiar sound. I recycle
all the dark in me whilst I
still try to shine.

I try, I do try,
to never horrify, especially you,
but there are certain things that will
never rub off
from under the calm of my mind.

I just need to feel
that the language
of the past we share so
coincidentally,
can help you understand
that these scars of time do not mean
we are not healed,
and there is nothing wrong in
learning to live
because we finally want to.