short.

these eyes are angry today

shrouded with a clump of late night thoughts

and consequences that grab at her gut

and forces her to scoff in disbelief.

she sits awkwardly,

a foot half in a shoe, the other crossed;

trying to balance her tested spine

so it doesn’t bend like 

habits and promises and words that mean nothing.

this is a dying era for some,

the sun is out of phase,

everything in sight is refracted,

like friendship and honesty,

the loose bead in the machine,

spinning out of control in a place out of its own.

what is choice? 

convenience.

there are no coincidences,

and my judge of character has always been true

in the long run.

these eyes are angry today,

and they see everything.

this skin is angry today,

and it feels everything.

alone with the sunrise

the sun swelled over the naked branches this morning,

washing over the blue with a striking orange,

and i thought of you.

i thought of you 

and felt like the callous nature of the wind

carelessly sweeping leaves off the ground and

hurling them back to gravity’s hold,

i thought of you 

and pictured the dance of a bird whose wings may forget to

learn my lifts and drops as it tries to fly endlessly.

i felt the universe graze my cheek

and the branches waved forlornly at me,

so i used my strongest will to 

routinely transfer all i feel 

but most importantly all my will out to the atmosphere

i thought of you,

hoping those energies seep in through the window

to land on the curve of your sleep and settle on your soul

letting it grow like a tree that will age magnificently.

i remember the park,

with sun like this

burning its mark on your skin

as you couldn’t take your eyes off me,

i wonder if the note we left buried under the tree 

is now part of the earth and air

and i wonder if one day,

this will make sense,

and we will find our way to being

balanced like everything between earth and air.

in short, the end.

(alternate title: like cracked shells) 

my insides feel gutted even though
binge smoking and binge eating 
usually offers the contrary.

i have been staring at a wall
that stares back at me.
these walls shut me in, unable to escape
even the most sinister of my thoughts
as i lie awake at night listening to others fall in love,
ignoring the window that overlooks where all this began.

the flashing oven clock is blinding in the darkness
the time is all wrong, but then again,
everything is wrong
like how my boots rubbed my skin raw all night
and every cigarette i rolled was unsatisfying,
and there aren’t enough distractions to dry these eyes.

this heart will never break
but it definitely pushes the boundaries
as i sit and begin to piece together the answers
to questions i have no response for.

how does it feel to let go of
everything you have created with the entirety of
heart 
mind
soul?

how does it feel to loosen the grip when
your knuckles are white and hardened 
from clenching protectively this long?

how does it feel to know you are no longer a shelter?

i knew it was going to rain before i saw the clouds
and felt the frail shiver of a first drop. my greatest
and worst intuition; to predict when the universe is 
about to wane and shed its
merciless tears.
my shoulders buckle under the weight,
i am the tiny insects that drown in the downpour.

but my pain grows like a firm tree,
withered, bent but undying. it grew from 
immense beauty but it disgusts me nonetheless
because this tree will not ever bring me life.

i despise all that i feel.
i despise the person i was, is & will be,
because letting go of all of this
leaves nothing but a cracked and homeless shell,
tampered by an angry world.

i leave this to definition,
not karma, because karma can be forgiving,
and this will never budge,
unmoving like the night’s overpowering glare.

ruins are beautiful,
but beautiful things ruined are 
hard to comprehend,
and that is why i am lost.
ruin defines all i touch,
all i love, all
i become.
the lover, the daughter, the friend, the sister,
the fucking mental case.

the best way to let go is
to realise i created a disaster.

one day i will find it in myself to disappear,
the leaves will stop at golden brown,
the cold air will hold still,
and i will retreat, steadily and silently,

these clocks are ticking
time breathing down my neck;
the world takes pleasure in feeding this monster 
inside me, listening to it screech and tug as it grows.

it is hungry for agony, digging deeper within;
unleashing this psychological beast
will make my physical lack of
disillusioned psychosis and broken mugs
completely redundant.

but perhaps i don’t understand;
done being depressed all wrong
since it took close to a decade for someone closest to me
to ask if i thought i was depressed.

this is when i realise
i have lived in the world’s peripherals for the past twenty-two years.

i have shunned and been shunned by all I believe in,
i’ve kidded myself in thinking i have to be strong for them
and i spent a long time
giving a shit enough to live by that.

but how can i learn the art
of selfishness when i have so much to lose for it after?

unless “after” never comes.
and i will become the sorry case 
everyone else will try to understand.

people choose to stay close to tragedy, 
grasping to be understood for it
with nothing to show;
it is the strong ones who gulp down pain like bleach
and broken shards
who are forgotten.

i never thought i would see the end
of this story mid-chapter,
but there is no story without ink,
and without ink,
nothing is written.

my book closes,
curtains fall.

this is my last.

weightless currents

it was raining the day we met,

i remember the whispers of gold drizzle  

tapering along the sidelight

as it washed over the derelict walls that held the dreams

of unkept souls.

i remember the rain on the soft of your hair

weightless,

outlining everything that took my breath away;

the air tasted like booze and earth.

the rain has never stopped,

pouring out its centre through the scape of 

heavy emotions,

giving weight to all.

it is a weight of my head on your shoulder

as we breathe to one another stories that

form rings and coil themselves into the air

until all we breathe is of each other.

i have seen the way

the delicate sleeves of morning skies 

unfurl at the end of your slumber

kissing your eyelashes as they 

flutter into another day.

i have seen these eyelashes

flutter in protection over

angry eyes, dry and tormented

when hurt tasted like stomach acid and tobacco.

i have felt the inability to look at you.

our eyes divert behind furious quakes 

that shake the bridge of our consciousness.

i have climbed your walls

as many times as i have built mine,

but somehow there is always a boat 

by the river under our bridge

where we float in silence until our eyes

meet

and the walls wane to the furious quake’s final shudder.

i have grown to understand the ability

of falling asleep with you

and staying awake without.

i recite the mental notes in my head,

and sometimes i do it aloud

overturning my reality of everything i know,

including you

and all the ways i have grown to love you.

when the relentless storms pass,

i remember you.

the rise of your nose,

the fall between your lips 

shying into a smile,

the way your whole body floats on every cloud of a breath.

i remember your stunning gaze

as you searched for my truths,

my hopes, my agony

and my all

between cigarette papers and

warm mugs gone cold.

the way your arms tingle when they meet

delicate friction, and the rough ends of your guitar fingers 

do not represent your gentlest touch.

i have mapped out the geometrical landscape of your back

and dreamt on the plains of your chest as you 

slept in metronomic sighs.

i remember you in utter completion,

and i waver in relief.

i imagine for our love to

age like a favourite book, 

the pages of our story

will curl at the edges, creased at the spine

from experience and good use.

i want to collect every fragment of your

buried hopes

and present them to you in different disguises,

until they become the new hope

that will always remind you of who you are.

there is much more to life

than poems and shadow puppets,

than routine chocolate and jokes that

always bring out a laugh,

than the usual mistakes, the unforgivable buzz in the room

when there are no words left to say,

there is much more to our regularities,

but there is nothing more wholesome

than the way our eyes 

meet 

and love is everything.

the rain will fall again,

cold upon my fingertips,

just like the night we met

when our eyes were tired and 

our breath formed clumps of December air

and we grew to listen to our

minds yearning for the warmth and solace of another.

we are tidal waves,

forever on the rise and fall of life’s equator,

but no matter how heavy we crash

on foreign shores,

we will always find ourselves

as one whole form

at the centre of the sea.

black stone

the beauty of nothing is when you catch yourself
at a dead stop,
when your mind is completely out of phase with your body -
that is when you listen hard because their voices are clear.

i have mastered the unfortunate skill in becoming nothing,
non-existential like traffic hum we learn to block out,
the nothingness that drives a man crazy when he hears it all.

i don’t need this.
i don’t need much;
the shimmer at the dent of young eyes, that is all i need.

there is cotton in my mind, 
the purple sky chokes, holding back
the cold dribbles of what i feel,
its hues cushion me from nights that glare
like the peacock feathers hanging by the window
all-seeing and sure.

i am a lying cunt.

to pretend for years on end
that this lack of will to live in a world that has forgotten
to live with me
isn’t always there like backdrop 
is the biggest lie one can ever make.

to understand these black stones,
platonic to the currents that exhume the dirt of our minds 
is to know, want, need, see, feel, taste, smell, hear everything,
even when one has fallen from their grace.

can you take it all?

the air mocks my solitude,
crisp and loud in my breath
catching my surprise like loose scabs.
everything tastes like iron and 
wood,
like i am face down once again.

the sun is dead.
i am dead.
we are all dead.

i think about laughter and how it lies.
the cab drivers, shopkeepers, regular faces from a world i continuously lie to with my 
genuine smile.

it is an ugly sight when i realise
how many things a long-sleeved kaftan can hide
and the fall of hair onto the soft of
burning eyes.

i woke up today to the death of everyone.
the ground below my feet is treacherous, seeping poison
into my veins, like i am a dying plant.
my legs are numb and my insides purge out.

this isn’t a cry for help.

i watch the walls change colour upon
my static body, and i pretend
everything is timeless, like the rage of the sea.

the patterns form, 
an all-encompassing epiphany of a storm,
telling me i should’ve
done myself in better;
what was the point of it all 
if my death was walked in on
and i am still here forking away
at a bowl full of panic attacks
and lies?

the people who contemplate suicide 
are all in stagnant, angry pain.
and the ones who stay to live,
tired and tried with the knowledge that
the finality of a second time
will destroy the ones they love - again,
these ones are under
unbearable weight that come in
large, unforgiving waves.

can you take it all?

these dark tides rise to my feet
too many times for my liking
and i am starting to believe the reflections i see, 
afloat on the surface like black stones in the moonlight;
solid shadows.

one day i will forget who i am entirely,
and become one of them,
untouchable, immovable,
non-existent when the dark washes over.

i will be part of
every shadow cast, 
every storm,
every dusk and dawn,
every blackout,
every death,
every blink of the eye,
everywhere.

maybe then,

i can take it all.

les yeux qui manquent

i can take it all.

the silent glares

from the other side of the room.

white emotion.

her laughter as she talks

of demise,

churning sorrow in my gut.

i can take saying nothing back

and nodding with habit

for my troubles need less

attention.

i can take the way his shoulder stills

like windless nights

and life is a silhouette.

my words always sound different 

when they wander out.

i can take the alternate reality

she lives in,

i have spent 18 years in it

the anger

when we disagree.

the conversations that carry on in my mind

because it cannot carry on aloud.

i can take making sense of everybody’s thoughts alone.

i can take every time i am reminded

of the things i forget. 

i can take hearing i do not want to take care of my mother.

i can take hearing i do not understand.

i don’t mind lies.

they remind me of what is real.

i am running out of money.

i am ill. 

i’m fine.

i can take it all.

but sooner or later,

we have to let things go.

let it in.

let it out.

like broken china

i.
i guess it is because these days
seem borrowed.
elusive and slippery like
dead snow catching my feet.

there is a disturbance in my reflection.
frayed with a stream of thoughts 
that translate into static in my ear
white noise at the most silent of nights;
white noise of the troubled.

cold air rises
in the tundra of my skin;
these shallow waters hold no more secrets for me.
the surface is black
leaving no reflections afloat
and no salt for the wounds.

courage, let me wade in
to the unknown
until i reach the depths
and face the risks
one never meets
when one is an island.

perhaps i will find answers,
in the waves, in the forgotten stories
of shipwrecks that have grown to become
beautiful, colourful coral kingdoms.

perhaps i will hear the sea sing, and finally 
be able to come home.

ii. 
i can hear it all when i look in.

these tears are tired, dipped into the
sunken contours that tell stories,
and emerge for the days that fail the sun.
they carry the troubles of a young woman
who feels aged like oak
and the guitar that mounts above the doorway,
rusted and mute.

they call me a saint,
but who am i a saint for? and what happens to saints who 
lose their cause,
and forfeit their sanity?

something has passed on to the netherworld.
it is weightless but it lingers,
the lost soul in our unseeing eyes.
maybe it happened in the dark of my womb
maybe it happened in a coffin of words i brought to therapy
maybe it happened in my mother’s dug up sorrow
maybe it happened in the waking nights of lashing grief,
in the spaces where our breaths catch 
and fall under our gaze.

a pile of shine, unnoticed and unscathed.

i know of its all-encompassing beauty,
i feel the burden of its hope,
so rewarding, so exhausting.
i keep the windows open,
so it is always within sight, 
but a framed perception is far less confident 
than the bigger picture, 
where i could touch everything with all of my being
to become all i was to be.

i walk out in joyful sorrow
memorising life
feeling every energy that surrounds me.
i feel like i live in the centre of a mandala
casting shadows,
and once you are part of, you are part of,
for this is a solid structure, a shelter for the broken.
it is my home, i have learnt to know its
nooks and towering pillars,
i have also learnt its escape routes
in case of an earthquake.

i have always been a cautious person.

gently, gently,
i lift my arms up,
and caress it all.
i stroke the wind,
i kiss the moon,
i hold the rain,
and i weep.

i weep for how beautiful and free it all looks
when you are standing at the furthest end of the spectrum
and this gravity is firmly holding you in place. 

iii.
my hands are shaking,
from conducting this orchestra
playing to the scores of my life, on & on,
the final note still unwritten.

my hands are shaking uncontrollably, 
but they cannot fall

not yet.

my sentiments are real,
glistening in the canvas of evening skies,
strange-like and refracted in the hum of the universe.
these sighing doubts
keep me chained within my own reach.
i believe my heart is shrinking or
maybe it is just the world expanding,
leaving me behind.

the walls are heavy on my eyes,
and all i want to do is sleep where my fears hide, 
lying just under my breath, within orange 
peel and chocolate wrappers.

the hours do not seem plausible,
ticking away like mockery
moving at a pace unparalleled to mine.
i don’t remember how to realign.

this is familiar, but not the comforting type.
i cannot be comfortable here.

i cannot become numb.

where are we, amongst the haze?

i.

this is the most intense i have felt,

looking into the realms of his eyes,

to see everything.

everything my life could be.

everything my life was.

he blinks, and i am now;

we look out the window at a dawning sky

and fall asleep together, the first of many more nights

of his touch tracing the map of my skin,

and a kiss on the curve of my back.

he is there, in that moment of golden dust,

all-encompassing, in full embrace

of all life gives to him,

because he understands that with the worst

you will find the best you can ever achieve,

like how i’d fallen through the cracks and stayed down there for a while

with splinter thoughts and memory minefields 

until nature called for me to seek light,

a photosynthesis of consciousness that has long been 

left in the shadows;

i passed through the cracks once more

and found him, hunched over, 

scraping out his last splinter

and our eyes meet.

falling in love is entirely natural and totally uncompromising.

ii.

it is the darkest point,

he tells me. darker than the blackest night,

he tells me, strangled

in the knots of bedsheets, lost in the scent of stale 

cigarette 

he is trying so hard to become part of;

in the turn of nocturnal hours

he is as wide-eyed as the owls patterned across the covers.

he coils,

into the threads of his thoughts

until he becomes the bane of his own

the curtains are closed.

there is no dawn to rise with.

i look at my bare hands that have learnt

the contours of his face and i look into my own eyes,

in search of his pain.

he is not here, in this moment,

stray and mind askew, searching for 

comprehension even he cannot master.

i am here, 

waiting for happiness to find me in the centre of its palm again,

and what more can bring me closer

besides patience

and compassion?

iii.

the winds have blown

and the leaves touch ground

in delicate search for gravity,

the way i search for calm

at the end of heavy rain,

where the air is static and my emotions are weary.

he wakes to a brighter day

and looks into my eyes for comfort,

and the voices under my pillow and

hanging off the doorknobs tell me

it will save him if i learn to look away,

because he must learn

that his truest comfort can only come

from himself, and love must come from within

before he can connect with it 

externally.

but i cannot look away,

because i fear the worst,

and want the best,

so i look deep into his eyes

until i begin to stare and touch his all

with the purest of honesty,

until i find a nerve and prick it without notice.

the storms return,

torrential and unforgiving,

but i have faith in the sun

for i was born under its light.

iv.

i do not want to listen 

to the echoes of empty walls

and empty embodiment. 

these hands

there are changes in the weather

that lives in your eyes; we will experience 

a high chance of storm

but still,

the sun will shine.

the sun will shine where you soul has hidden away from.

these hands were your shelter

delicate, but firm

the lines told you stories of all you could live for,

and you’d grown to learn them like the map of our universe.

now you have gone astray, 

like a leaf amidst the wind, spiralling out of reach,

and i only hope you will not forget the contours of these fingers,

these cuticles that don’t quite fit around the nails

from bad habits that cannot be broken.

i forgave the hurricane,

when i learnt its ways and learnt to appreciate

the beauty of destruction;

i looked in, i sat in the centre of the hurricane

and heard its hum,

calm and peaceful amongst the forces that churned and unwound.

these hands are still your shelter

no matter which way you wish to run

and the paths will hopefully

lead you to where you wish to be held again.

these hands are shaking, but they will still carry you

and still do their best

to catch rain.

of patience, of urge

courage, take me where the deepest fears linger,

teach me to swim to shore.

there are eyes that glisten with the yearn

for hope,

and there are those that look 

away from where the light refracts.

my days are towed,

heavy and testing on the pull of my shoulders,

bearing the weight of expired minds behind heavy duty locks.

there are tears flowing from a broken pipe

behind the wallpaper, 

rust and pressure wearing it down;

it will not be long now

until the damp grows through the walls 

forcing the corners to curl and

shrivel

so the strong and sturdy, too,

begin to tire.

but all it takes,

is a fitting hand and the right tools

to straighten things out

and stop the tears from flowing.