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.