I'm the girl you kiss once before you flee. The girl you lose your breath chasing after until her arms and legs give way. You tackle my fatigued body to the ground, and we roll through the grassy ground, my limp body positioned and posed by your strong, veiny hands. The lion devours the lamb and takes his leave. Your menacing gait marching into the night, powered by a victorious pursuit. My lifeless corpse left alone in the dark. The memory of the chase locked away safely in your mind, for you to retrieve one day in your warm nest, over the soft sounds of your life-mate, slumbering on your chest.
I love to watch you weep for me
For I could never cry
My eyes and chest have burst and broke
And left me stone cold, dry
To feel no sorrow
Nor heed no pain
Left a small blind ball
In a dark dreary sea
You: a glowing orb
You seem to call for me
I have no sight nor smell nor taste
But my body finds itself with you
Let me bite you
And become you
I must feel you
To feel
You must feel me too
I will stay by your side forever
My mouth melted into your skin
Our blood will flow as one
For I cannot live without you
I am banished from the sun
Let my epithet read epiphyte
For orchids are not parasites
For I could never cry
My eyes and chest have burst and broke
And left me stone cold, dry
To feel no sorrow
Nor heed no pain
Left a small blind ball
In a dark dreary sea
You: a glowing orb
You seem to call for me
I have no sight nor smell nor taste
But my body finds itself with you
Let me bite you
And become you
I must feel you
To feel
You must feel me too
I will stay by your side forever
My mouth melted into your skin
Our blood will flow as one
For I cannot live without you
I am banished from the sun
Let my epithet read epiphyte
For orchids are not parasites
Face to face
Touching feet
Forced nonchalance
When we meet
Fights for play
Midnight calls
Bodies brushing
In the halls
Laughing fits
Just kiss me please
You're so close
And out of reach
Touching feet
Forced nonchalance
When we meet
Fights for play
Midnight calls
Bodies brushing
In the halls
Laughing fits
Just kiss me please
You're so close
And out of reach
People are sand.
In the grand scheme of now, then and
tomorrow, what’s a grain to desert?
I read that the stars in our observable
universe outnumber every grain of sand on earth.
I appreciate the poetry in it. So
insignificant yet carelessly hopeful are we, that the representation of our
potential to achieve and our capacity to dream outnumber the cumulative
summation of everything we are, we were and ever will be.
Do you think sand remembers being stone?
That it was once a mighty rock or cliff
that the waves relentlessly pounded against for millennia, slowly chipping away
fragments, hoarding its sunken loot on the ocean floor?
It must feel lonely.
To once exist as an entity, forcefully pried
apart from its lifelong counterparts. The implication of its fate irreversible, even after the seas have dried and the tectonic plates have shifted, and
the face of the earth altered. Generations thrive and die, civilisations flourish and fall, species emerging and driven to extinction.
Some things just can't be undone.
Sand lives the rest of eternity buried among its
brethren but without the possibility of ever being whole again.
Here lies:
Arguments accounted for objectivity
Impressions unshaped by preconception
Freedom in liberation
Un-chastised chastity
Un-attacked defence
Sovereignty over self
Dearly missed:
Outdated sentiments
Restrictive roles
Enforced entitlement
Societal shackles
That hold back without cause
No more
Do winds of change
Extinguish or ignite
Flickers of hope?
The answer lies with you;
Congratulations. It’s a girl.
The driver
Was drunk. He'll swear he wasn't but he knows he was.
My mutually magnetic platonic partnership. Assured: I was too high maintenance, modest, moody for him to want me that way.
Yet he'd wake me in the middle of night prompted by the coercive properties of intoxication with confessions of hopeless desire and chivalrous encouragement to pursue his friends if he couldn't have me.
"I will never fuck you", I told him a final time; my planned playful warning undercut by an unanticipated firmness that reverberated through the suddenly still air, contaminated by an awkwardness that couldn't be withdrawn.
His defensive retort was swift, incoherent, yet strategically painful, a dull ache of the heart that persisted long after he lost his train of thought on the road ahead of us.
We made up later that night and he never tried it again.
He went after my best friend, and left me to pick up the pieces of her he left behind.
The silent shot-gun
Is now in social exile.
I saw the hidden loneliness and longing for companionship he tried to mask with an apparent newly-minted bravado - the second-guessing uncertainty of which was a tell-tale giveaway of his hopes of transformation.
I picked you. I was kind to you. Because you seemed like somebody who needed the compassion you were so intent on dealing out.
I chalked it up to you just needing a friend.
You could have been a great friend.
Instead you chose to be the living embodiment of nice guy with ulterior motives - who eventually proved to be worse than the fuckboys you berated me for giving the time of day.
"She's not that kind of girl."
But apparently, I was.
If all you ever wanted was to see me undressed, why pretend to be a gentleman?
The back seat comforter
Stroked my hair as I held back tears during the driver's muddled tirade.
He skilfully responded to diversions regarding direction while delivering repetitive yet appreciated assurances that it's okay and he doesn't mean it.
Last month you decided to tell me about all the girls you slept with.
Today you tried to stroke my hair again and I stepped away.
You deviated from your usual routine of walking me back and left early.
Please don't be like the others.
Let me feel the rush again
My pounding heart pumping hard
You, my lifeblood
Warming the chills
You set scurrying
Up and down my spine
Colouring my skin
With the anticipation
Of your touch
Let me feel that numbness again
The life from my extremities
Drained by the vigour of my core
Centred around your celestial orbit
Encased around my frigid heart
Which learned to lend itself
To a sole exception
A numbness that proves
A transcendent capacity to feel
Instead of the numbness
Of the remnants of a soul
Who can no longer give
What it promised to you
My broken pieces gravitate towards your jagged edges
Spurned by an innate compulsion to be complete
But my delicate shattered shell could never withstand your adamantine shards
Which will pierce me into powder the moment our perfect puzzle pieces meet
The One I Should Have Stayed Friends With
For someone who I constantly insisted was devoid of any care for me at all, he made profound observations about my personality. Most of which would never have occurred to me otherwise.
When I got angry I'd cry and call him a wall. He never did anything, I'd say. He'd let people do whatever they want to him and not react. That's probably why people gravitate towards him. They could project whatever idea or emotion onto him as if he'd care, and if all they needed was a one-sided relationship, then all they'd need was him. But I'm ungrateful. Ultimately, a wall would be a wall and a wall wouldn't move. Or care. Or love.
I told him he needed to learn to have feelings. He said he did. His peaks and troughs just weren't as volatile as mine. I told him he needed to actually say what he felt. He was too quiet. He said for all my loudness and drama, I never let my real feelings show either.
I didn't want to admit he was right.
-
The One That Ruined My Life
An ex boyfriend used to get frustrated with me really easily. He'd scream and yell and threaten me so much that by 3am I'd be too damn tired to defend myself and just let him win. I learnt to cope with problems by thinking everything through. In my head. By the time he'd finally ask me what was wrong, I'd have already reached a mental conclusion and an explanation just seemed redundant, so I'd just say it was nothing.
We fought and screamed and cried and kissed constantly. I thought that was passion.
In retrospect, it wasn't.
-
The One Who Eventually Got Bored of Me
We were high when I said it. My face was on his cheek. His thigh between my legs. My right arm resting on his chest. His right hand lightly brushing against my bra strap.
He got mad when I said he didn't care about anyone.
By then I knew I'd go to him when I didn't want to feel anymore. When I didn't want anyone to tell me everything will be okay. Or worse, how to make everything okay again. Someone who could understand that I didn't want to make them understand.
I can't remember how I phrased it.
-
"Are you the eldest child? You seem very independent.", a stranger said to me that morning.
-
In school they always made us feel bad for not calling our parents every night. I'd overhear my peers having their nightly conversations. Small talk, casual, friendly, empty. I never called my parents. They never called me back.
-
"I don't mind. I'm just shocked is all."
"Yeah, I don't understand why you did it so suddenly. Why didn't you tell us?"
"Why do I need to tell you everything?"
"You never mentioned anything about it before"
"I did tell you. Multiple times. It's not my fault you don't listen to me."
30 second silence.
"Anyway, about your brother..."
-
The One That Never Was
My phone was buzzing constantly, reminding me every 30 seconds of all the responsibilities I'm trying to run away from. I'm starting to see a trend here. A self-fulfilling prophecy.
The thought of calling him struck my mind for a fleeting moment. Of course, the idea was ludicrous. He wouldn't pick up as quickly as he used to. He wouldn't stay up for hours and entertain me with stories of his childhood or details about his hobbies so I wouldn't have to deal with whatever hole I dug myself into that time.
He'd probably tell me not to call him again, like he did last time. Or he wouldn't even pick up at all.
My battery reached 0%. And like I learnt to do with my thoughts and emotions, I decided to let it stay dead for the night.
He got mad when I said he didn't care about anyone.
By then I knew I'd go to him when I didn't want to feel anymore. When I didn't want anyone to tell me everything will be okay. Or worse, how to make everything okay again. Someone who could understand that I didn't want to make them understand.
I can't remember how I phrased it.
-
"Are you the eldest child? You seem very independent.", a stranger said to me that morning.
-
In school they always made us feel bad for not calling our parents every night. I'd overhear my peers having their nightly conversations. Small talk, casual, friendly, empty. I never called my parents. They never called me back.
-
"I don't mind. I'm just shocked is all."
"Yeah, I don't understand why you did it so suddenly. Why didn't you tell us?"
"Why do I need to tell you everything?"
"You never mentioned anything about it before"
"I did tell you. Multiple times. It's not my fault you don't listen to me."
30 second silence.
"Anyway, about your brother..."
-
The One That Never Was
My phone was buzzing constantly, reminding me every 30 seconds of all the responsibilities I'm trying to run away from. I'm starting to see a trend here. A self-fulfilling prophecy.
The thought of calling him struck my mind for a fleeting moment. Of course, the idea was ludicrous. He wouldn't pick up as quickly as he used to. He wouldn't stay up for hours and entertain me with stories of his childhood or details about his hobbies so I wouldn't have to deal with whatever hole I dug myself into that time.
He'd probably tell me not to call him again, like he did last time. Or he wouldn't even pick up at all.
My battery reached 0%. And like I learnt to do with my thoughts and emotions, I decided to let it stay dead for the night.
“All he’ll do is break you”
As if I was born pristine
I gifted the gavel in his hand
If found to be brittle and fragile and
clean
I’d readily beg to be shattered complete
Yes, I’ll revel in the freedom of the
wind’s embrace
To endless cliffs and seas and valleys my
broken parts give chase
Perhaps my pieces will find repurpose
In something that can actually be whole.
