hello goodbye

it’s strange the way names and faces
and inside jokes slip in and out of life
because life is a road is a river is a sky
and these people, they are, each of them,
a hitchhiker catching a ride in your car,
beside you for only that one ride,
they are pebbles being skipped, 
whispering wishes, in your waves,
they are clouds, moving slowly,
forming pictures, then turning into rain
a goodbye riding in tow with every hello
it’s a strange profession
carrying the role of ‘stepping stone’,
every hundred or so days you
hear a hundred or so ‘hello’s and
restart the countdown to a hundred or so
goodbyes

— wishing you all well. thank you for the visit, every one of you

.

does yellow represent fake sunshine or something

i had a wistful dream where my hair turned yellow and i think maybe it was about

the death of the routine we have now as she extends her

contract and he extends our physical distance, maybe colouring

myself yellow is like pretending i am mellow about growing

apart, and ‘we are not apart’ he says, she says, and yes, i know

i know, we are close, we are still close and you are still here i know, but

change is still change and i have never won any awards for my adaptability

but yellow is the sun always rises, yellow is it is what it is so put a smile on your face

because maybe then will have some better days than now, but still, i’ll miss you now

i miss you now

scared, i

scared i. leave leave leaves burn holes in my crippled heart
please stop the fall, please stop the fall, please stop me from
falling every time i think of how you will come back and then leave
i fear seeing your face again so close to mine again, so close yet so far
so close yet so closed, how, why, when, and how much longer
how much longer will you stay open, stay with me, stay with me
please, stay, i hear her talk of disappointments and failures and cockily
my crippled heart thinks “i remember when i searched so frantically for
disappointments and failures in you, in us, and
did not find any, only found many in me”. i thought, how is that even possible?
that you made me laugh so much, no one else did this before, and you kept
making me laugh, we kept making us laugh, for 700 days and onward.
that is a lot more than 500 days of summer, and all of it was spring,
completely spring, no fall, no winter, only you and me, but
how is that even possible? how are we still so open?

scared ii. the only people i opened up to have changed,
and change means pieces of them evaporate into old melded memories
made to fit the nostalgic cracks in our brains,
my brains, because when you evaporate, you leave,
and i,
left behind, hold on with sweaty palms to the water droplets your river leaves behind,
so my mind like a broken record player screeches
are you mine, when will you be mine,
and i remember you, you who used to be mine, but i guess
family is more temporary than love, despite the, or more like, because of the, real permanency of it. but it still hurts, i still miss you and it leaks sometimes when i
accidentally, absent-mindedly pick at the wounds this left in me, pick at the holes
in the dam in me that keeps my flooding eyes in check.
i know we all know picking only leads to more scabbing
and the wounds they will never heal this way, but it gets itchy,
my eyes get itchy with how much they miss the special days, the ballerina benches,
the carpe diem dances, the me and you in a cocoon, those cocoons.

and scared iii. you and me in this cocoon; when do we, will we turn into butterflies?
when will it be real, on paper, will it be real on paper? will they lead you away from me,
will they take you away, will you take you away, or
am i really this lucky yet unlucky because
scared, maybe i will keep frantically counting the days even when we are together for
something like 18,250 of them, and you will laugh, we will still be laughing,
and you will pet my head and call me crazy, and i will pick at my scab,
and wish you all are near, and
i’m sorry, i have developed this allergy to leaves, said the scared i.

historical fiction and purple dreams

we used to be embarrassed of admitting our love for love, so we
jokingly labelled it something that bored us to death.
and you’re scared of happiness dying once labelled, so where
i dream and see romance, you dream and fear horror. but love,
love is love and horror all mixed up together and everyday i wake up
with my heart gripped in the firm grasp of your warm hands, both
(a) fearing that we may one day cling too tight and suffocate like maybe you’ll
squeeze my heart dry and i’ll bloody your pure hands, and (b) also dreaming
that our grips may never loosen and we love so hard our faces turn purple

wings and leaves

leaves may leave but roots are hard to move from

where i am, where you are, i am a tree, i am a nest

and you built me up, i am built up from remnants of

you that you shared with me, little birdies, wings make it so easy

to leave, but i didn’t know even she would fly so far because

bigger nests and brighter skies are out there, somewhere, while

i am only the same old, loved, stems and branches, yes, you are still

loved, she told me, a home is a home even if my wings take me elsewhere,

i will still sing to you as i roam the skies, i will, but me, i shake and try

to raise my leaves as though they are wings and i can leave along with them, but

i cry knowing that i am glued to the ground where i grew around

you, onto you, when you called me home, and while

you stuck onto me like i am a house, i stuck onto you like you

are my heart, and hearts don’t have doors and windows.

so, when you joke around about me being too sticky like honey, but honey,

do you know i have been holding my breath since the first night

you fell asleep among my leaves,

counting down the days until you make like a tree

i am here

(when) are you coming back?

i wanted to ask “when” but now i ask

are you? but then i think, thankful that i have

a silent “today” at the end of my

hey, i was born with half of a pair of

handcuffs closed around my wrist, the

other half dangling and i must have

swallowed the key in my sleep as an infant.

i am thankful for the “today” and that i know

if you say no it will be “okay” my monsters are

scared of that word, you know? of okay. so i am over

joyed when they allow me to think it and

i try so hard to not close the other half of

the handcuffs on any one because that is

when they start squirming and i do not like

squirmy things i want all of us to be free

and yet i was born with these handcuffs

dangling from my wrist so i smile and then

i shake in fear of my own claws when

you leave pieces of you behind because then

i know you will have to come back to get them but

when i feel okay i am okay and know

you will come back anyway because

i believe i am a big piece of you that

i will always have with me so you

will come back for that for me

even if not today

i hate when you ask me about tomorrow

i don’t know who Tomorrow is,

mom, dad, please.

Tomorrow is a shadow and

our flashlights do not shine

can not shine light that far into

places that dark, even though

dad, you are in love with those shadows

imagining you can see what is there, and

mom, you are trying to love those shadows,

imagining you know what they are shadows of, but

we don’t, i know we don’t, i do not like

looking at things i can not see, being

blind when i could choose not to be,

so, please, let me look around at

what is well-lit, what is within reach,

please, let me be Today.

i do not like staring at places i can not see.

i am thankful for the moments

of when you laugh like a child how can you laugh so much like a child that i want to carry that sound around with me in my ears i want to see that image of the dimple on the right side of your cheek every time i close my eyes to remind myself that despite these cages we build around our hearts as we grow, this still exists you still exist in such burning light despite your corners of darkness and i am thankful for the moments of when your arms reach out like safety nets to catch the bits and pieces of fears and doubts that leak out from my overcrowded anxious mind and sing to them even though they are scared of music but your voice feels like blankets and they seek warmth they crave warmth like the warmth of grocery store shopping in pairs and of you letting me borrow your longer limbs to reach places i could never reach before in my shortness and i am thankful for the moments where the monsters in our heads decided to lay down their heads and rest because somehow when i held you and when you held me our hollow throats intertwined and burst out sweet lullabies and so i am so thankful for these fourteen months and counting of counting sheep let the monsters that plague lonely corners sleep let the chirping birds and shared bedsheets remind us how lucky we are to be two is better than one and alive

me in so many pieces i think

i think i am me in pieces not me as whole who is

who is that even which is me which piece is

what i really want do i really want any of

i feel like i am pieced together for many people in

so many pieces so here is my piece for you

you had my biggest piece because you were born to

fit me and the beginnings of your life were fit to

fit the beginnings of mine and you have my biggest piece because i

chose you to fit me and you chose me to fit you for

the rest of it for the most of the rest of other life beginnings

but oh, dear, where do the pieces tear where did one

beginning end and another begin, dear you are so

dear to me everyone is every one every piece of me

and so i want to stay here while also i want to stay with

you and i want to follow you wherever you go and also

i want to follow me but where am i where am i even.

we bought puzzle glue the other day and just now i

thought it would be nice if i could hold me all together and

you or some me could glue it all up so i could look at it in one

piece but i don’t think these pieces would even fit together

so how could we glue them up without making a huge mess

and leaking leaking into the cracks and bends between all of us

all of me

a storm;

a storm grew inside my heart the day our voices intertwined
and made stars fall from the sky.
the storm planted its roots inside my heart, but i mistook
the thunder for heartbeats and the tornado for a spring breeze
and so it grew, and grew, and grew

– excerpt from wip novel “better to have loved”