Alternate title: scar tissue that I wish you saw
****
Scar tissue that I wish you saw,
There are no birds here to share the view,
No familiar faces to confide in
About the loss, this dull, numbing consistency
Of grey buildings, litter and adulthood,
No birds, only patches of grass, no birds,
Only pigeons, and I’m not sure
If they classify as birds or pests
And if that’s a controversial statement
Given humans are definitely parasites,
An empty mcdonald’s cup, half crushed
Like our teenage dreams to make this
World a better place, a charity shop
Across the street that I never seemed
To notice, on the dry grass lies broken glass,
a soiled mask, useless,
like our spiralling loops
Of anxiety in this era of great pandemics
And great, unfulfilled expectations,
I have fought my own thoughts
Till I’m temporarily empty with multiple
Thoughts still in the making,
Half healed, half trying to make peace
With my own self-inflicted conditions,
Scar tissue, last month I had a scratch that wouldn’t heal fast enough
And I heard that’s definitely a sign of growing older, though sometimes the older
I get, the younger, more lost I feel,
Scar tissue that I wish you saw now,
Younger sister.
****
For a moment, I turn up the music and suddenly, red hot chili peppers is in the charts, suddenly, we are back to the glorious 2000s
And I am not crossing this grimy park
In the heart of this daunting city,
Suddenly we are in grandma’s house
And everything’s familiar,
Everything’s homely,
The smell of frying onions
Clinging on our skin for dear life
Though we already smell of
Chlorine and sugar
After a long summer day
Spent splashing warm water
In the swimming pool and licking
Melting ice cream off our fingers.
Tell me where did our best summers go
And why do we spend
Our ever diminishing time
Crossing dirty streets in a haste,
Barely noticing the details
Until they are barely traceable memories,
Our minds distracted by empty coffee cups,
The buzz of caffeine, financial plans and smartphones,
Our minds always preoccupied
With this taxing process of
Always trying to remember
The long forgotten details of
Where we were three summers ago,
On this day two decades ago,
pre-pandemic, planning, still, planning
where we’d like to be next summer,
Who we’d like to be in another lifetime.
We’d definitely be our younger selves
In another lifetime, ourselves
Before we got lost amongst scar tissues
And crossing dirty parks,
The details of great distraction.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Kid, sorry
Maybe I’m not ready to leave all this behind, the late night, brisk walks, the unnecessary heart beat, earphones plugged in, volume turned all the way up until the piano keys give my tired spine shivers, the quiet, restless nights in, watching life’s outcasts through my window, candle flame dangerously growing, head spinning, hanging upside down, shoulderstand, barefoot, drop of sweat between my breasts, lying flat on my belly, lying on the floor as if that could elevate me from the gutters of my own lowly thoughts to spiritual dimensions I never even scratch with the tips of my fingers no matter how far I stretch towards the ceiling, maybe I’m not ready for celestial moderation, the nirvana of perfect hormonal, emotional, dietary balance, maybe I’m not ready to not walk till my legs burn, to not dance till my skin blisters, to not eat till I can’t feel my tongue anymore, till everything is too sweet or too salty, till my stomach can no longer take the plunge into this adventure of gluttony and surrender, to stop kindling homely fires, burning through an endless stream of candles and could-have been moments I happily waste away on my sofa, seeking sparkles and bubbles and thunder in everything that’s otherwise dark and real and meaningless and gloomy, maybe I’m not ready to live in a house with functional furniture, electronic devices for mature adults, food that’s perfectly wrapped in perfectly shaped boxes that perfectly serve their purpose, well-behaved children and neutral curtains, bright white lights that reveal every spot of dust and tomato soup stain, the most expensive vacuum cleaner and guests that only want to compare furniture, devices and children, maybe I’m not ready to stop playing, floating into my own confined space, the illusion of free will and freedom, escaping outside my tiny universe for a moment, observing my own insignificance, laughing at my crackling hip bone and short-lasting, tragedy of an existence, maybe I’m not ready to not waste my days dreaming of better days that I know won’t come, sunny weather and better nourished house plants, pastel houses and vases with handpicked tulips, fields of wild flowers, guitars under moonlight, the sea singing in the distance, my feet swollen from walking uphill all day under the scorching sun, the all-sweeping wind in its humbling glory, my mind flooded with the view at the top of the mountain, the clarity of my chain of thoughts once I’ve sifted through all these muddled feelings, my mind flooded with the good humour of my messy descent back to the earth every time I convince myself I’ve grasped a pinch of meaning.
A room of (dust)(thoughts)
It’s a cold, dark afternoon,
4pm but it’s already 10pm,
I feel drowsy, dopey, drifting out
Of consciousness
And I haven’t breathed in any fresh air
For hours, maybe days, these bedsheets
Haven’t been changed for days
And that plays on my mind,
Sometimes around 3am, but it seems
I actually don’t care or don’t care
Enough to truly care,
I am sitting on top of this messy bed anyway
it’s a light, casual affair
With this giant wave of procrastination
That’s swept me into multiple,
Repeating, pointless naps today,
I watch my chest rise and fall with
The corner of my eye,
Deep breaths of stuffy, heated air,
With the corner of my eye
I watch the dust that’s firmly settled
On all the glass surfaces of this room,
Half an inch of dust, I want to wipe it away
With my finger just to find out
How much dirt can accumulate at once
How rusty the mind can get too
When it has nowhere to run to
No art galleries, no music shows,
No peculiar strangers, bustling streets,
Familiar faces drinking coffee
In familiar places, no heated debates
In warm houses, no swift night walks,
No crisp morning walks, nowhere,
Nowhere to run to, nowhere to get lost in.
I should wipe away the dust
These days.
I should wipe away these distracting spikes of uncomfortable feelings.
I should meditate.
I should hold myself together.
I should.
Grip on to everything I got
Like dust on glass, like dirt on
White floors, like balls of fluff
Resting quietly in this room’s corners,
Undiscovered by humans.
I stare aimlessly towards the room’s
Ceiling.
With the corner of my eye, I catch
Flying particles of dust,
A cloud of something lost in space,
The distant past or future,
Memories of a life lived outside this room,
Faded, then vivid.
I allow myself to be lost for a minute,
To float and not look
For a place to settle,
A conclusion to fool myself
Into.
November Shame
I have exhausted all trash TV,
Drowned my sorrows in reality TV
And sobbed and smiled
And blushed and cursed my own
Lack of inspiration,
This mental dead-end, this physical knot
I am tied in, my mind a bundle
Of messy wires and short circuits,
Entangled chains of hormones and feelings
that have
Messed themselves up
so bad,
I have bombed myself down
With colourful nothingness,
cheerful celebrations of everything
That doesn’t last for long,
I have numbed myself with dramatic
Noise, the banging sound of
Feeling void, the echo at the bottom
Of this emotional sink,
I have left the tap running
And everything I feel is washing itself
Down the drain, down the sink,
I am not cleansing myself,
I am bleaching myself, I am bleaching myself clean
While washing these dirty white plates,
Smoothening the knives,
Scrubbing this glass clean
As I stare at my screen
And into the eyes of this unknown person, this stranger occupying my screen,
As I stare into this shallow glass,
Someone else’s crushed dreams,
this otherworldliness,
This alien, abstract, clumsy world
Of glitter and fame, glitter and shame,
Scrubbing myself
Clean, sweating within, somehow
Feeling less lonely watching
These messily crafted caricatures
Of humans that somehow
Look more normal than me,
More real than the
Friends who have ghosted me
One time too many,
Those who loved me once, a little,
Too much and not at all.
I watch the clock tick,
This god damn Sunday has been
Killed scrolling through memes,
This deafening silence, this drudgery, followed by
Laughing at terrible jokes,
Everything is visual these days,
These days,
endlessly
Searching for watchable scenes,
Artful acts that will light up my
Brain synapses, get me to think,
To think through, to think, I think, I think that November,
This month of near-winter and grief,
Of collecting one’s thoughts, of
Coming to terms with the darkness
And the loneliness and
The masterful phobias within, the fear of giving in
To hope so much it leaves you
Begging, next year, at your
knees, I think that November is the month I’m finally grey and free,
An angry teenage song,
Unfinished pre-pubescent angst,
This screeching wind of adulthood
That’s trying to mask itself
As casual, cool breeze.
November shame, I am finally
Me, no more hiding,
No more masking the truth,
I am finally me,
At least
I am finally
Coming
Clean.
My loneliness
My loneliness is a crowded schoolyard,
Sweaty boys flirting with girls whose skirts are pulled up five inches above the knee, hair perfectly braided, sleek pony tails, nike shoes, boys flirting with girls,
Not me, because my skirt covers my knees, because last year I read too many books, because I speak too loudly, belting my truth when the truth is a dark sonnet about the void of loving then losing, the deception of time when all we have is a short timeline of fighting and forgiving.
My loneliness is a man who obsessed with me enough to keep testing the limits of my own genes, kept pushing,
Kept pulling, work faster, think faster, wax those legs more, pluck those eyebrows more, pull that hair, spit that food, be more like her, that woman in his class, his mum, that woman
Who seemed happy and free
Until I switched off my brain, until
I switched off the TV.
My loneliness is a short nap on the sofa because what else is there to do on a Sunday afternoon, because people want to text you but never walk with you
while you just weep, because smiling is easy and stripping yourself naked of this mud of insecurities, this cloud of inadequacy, this dust of vanity, because stripping yourself naked is hard
And sometimes comes at much too high
A cost, whoever is stripping is losing
If it’s only one person in two.
My loneliness is a misplaced happy song, it plays loudly till I am deaf with what I should feel, till I am lost inside
The labyrinth of my self-constructed
Sense of worth and lack of it.
****
My loneliness is simultaneously
A proud hymn and a soft lullaby, a return
To my days as a young girl, this time
Untamed, this time unfazed, this time
Unstoppable.
The comfort to let go of what doesn’t suit me, standards of beauty and expectations, the fear of losing someone
If I’m not willing to lose myself.
My loneliness is a short nap, the pristine beauty of a quiet moment that
I had the luxury of choosing,
A sad song that makes me happier.
In isolation
1. Release
****
Turn off the news.
I want to tell you I have already spent countless hours counting your freckles, measuring the size of your beauty spot, running my fingers through your hair, smelling your skin. I have already spent countless hours loving you remotely, writing virtual postcards, clinging on to wifi, trying to grasp a glimpse of your mood, an inch of whatever it is that burdens you so that I can lift off some weight.
Turn off the news.
I’ve loved you in my own mental prison before all of this, I’ve loved you and I know better that now is the time to let go,
let go, let go,
let go of the pride.
Release it.
2. #whoami
****
I will take you in my arms like you’ve never been held, slow cooking, slow loving, that slow song that hits to the core, piano jamming off beat, acoustic guitar on a sunny, lazy Sunday afternoon, water that’s boiling, that gargling sound of revolt, never compliant, never complicit, that mature alto note that never fits in, high energy, turn up the volume, fizzing, sizzling, fizzling away sometimes, high temperature that suddenly drops then stubbornly rises,
I will not give in, I will not give in.
3. Chewing gum (thoughts)
****
I’ve chewed on this idea before, that we can find meaning in nothingness, these repetitive urges that rejuvenate and deplete us, all at once, but this is the type of strawberry chewing gum that wears off in 30 seconds, soon you’ll be left chewing and chewing and it will only be your mouth that hurts. I don’t know if we have to decipher, decode, demystify when all we can do is blink, scratch our skin, repeat. I feed myself the questions anyway, I mourn over everything that isn’t lost just yet, I call it a practice test. I switch off the lights, lie on the floor, sink deep inside this moving sand I call my thoughts, I feel heavy but also light, whatever darkness there is, at least I’ll know it’s all a funny game, I’ve been there before.
4. Slow up
****
I gaze outside my window, the flashing lights of a police car to nowhere, the speed of an ambulance, a quick illegal trade, the thought of my ego reflecting in the glass windows of unused skyscrapers, tell me how did we get here. Tell me how did time pick me up and drop me here, like a pin in the virtual map of life, tell me why do I still travel back sometimes to the leaves of that lemon tree, cold lemonade with three ice cubes, my sister’s laughing in the distance and dad’s still watching the news, the summer breeze kisses my shoulders, that loose white dress feels light on my shoulders, bare feet, my MP3 player, a melancholic song about love, growing up, a coming of age book sitting on my lap, tell me how did we get here. Bad news. I got lost outgrowing my old self. Good news. I am growing back into myself, more self aware now.
5. Untitled
****
In an imperfectly structured, clumsily balanced, multiple-shades-of-black-and-white world,
I do not know what justice looks likes.
Some everyday, no-expert thoughts on what it probably doesn’t look like:
1) A society that breeds an innate, subconscious fear based on genetic features that cannot be chosen at birth or changed.
2) Cities with ‘good’ and ‘bad’ neighbourhoods, ghettos on one hand, green spaces and good schools on the other.
3) A presumption that a person’s cultural background dictates how well read, well educated, well off, well polished they are without any questioning of the definitions of ‘justice’, ‘democracy’ or ‘well’ for that matter.
4) Workplaces that necessitate actively seeking diversity recruitment.
5) A ‘justice’ system that would leave Kafka scared.
6) A place where freedom of speech is afforded to haters and -most dangerously- the ignorant (with no sympathy for the rightfully emotional responses of those deeply undermined and affected).
6. What I’ll miss
****
When our breath runs out, what I’ll miss is the rain, the way it taps on the trees like tears tap on cheeks, the way fingers tap on stiff bodies at the end of the night, the way fingers run rivers through hair, the way the wind sweeps wild hair like a kite that’s broken free, the way we always want to break free, the way our bodies are programmed to swim when we are diving deep, drowning deep, the sound of waves, our avalanche of feelings in silence, the way silence and music have the same calming effect, the syncopated notes, piano playing off beat, dimished chords in an old jazz song, the way the sound of saxophone glides through the ears, the way a lover’s breath glides through the ears to make us feel found, to make us feel lost, the colour of love, the depth of brown eyes, the pink as it blends with the blue, the simplicity of a sunset when for a moment you are a tiny human, a breath of life loved by another breath of life, both carried away by music, rain, colour and wind, the mysticism of physics, the blunt beauty of biology, a destiny not yet written yet destiny, yes destiny, still.
2020, late 20s
Foxes are howling tonight
Or is this people, empty bottles
And pills, the smell of urine,
Chaos in evaporated form,
As I walk one more time around the block
What’s the time today, when is it
not
Danger o’clock,
A mask, a glove, broken glass,
A delivery man
Collecting sushi, Saturday night,
They said,
another one waved at me, chin up,
I was dressed in all black,
My hair a greasy mess, five inches longer
Than it should be, mood
blacker than ever,
A black couple, smiling, holding hands,
I read the poster they are reading
‘I am black therefore I am’,
I think that
They always tell me I shouldn’t think,
Therefore I am, the more you
Think the less
You are, don’t let yourself get angry
Just keep posting on that wall, numb,
‘Black lives matter’ but only
For one day, while it’s trending,
No feelings threatened to be harmed,
No change threatened to occur,
Everything is important until it’s
Right there, real, raw,
The ‘others’ are fine until they
Come knocking on your country’s door,
The ‘others’ are fine until you are
Scared and lonely and looking
To decipher this mess
It’s always someone else’s mess,
Like when you are almost 30
And still not know who you are,
Like when you are almost 30
And scared to not lose what you have,
Scared to be who you are.
If London were a human, he would be a man. Mid-20s, athletic,
running, drinking,
Working himself to the ground,
Sleeping less and less, thrill-seeker
Money-loving, half loveless child
Half adult waiting to be loved.
If London were a human we would
No longer be a match. I, a woman,
In my late 20s, mostly thinking,
Peace-seeking, mostly knowing
I am still waiting myself to love me.
Where I’m from I am expected
To abide. To blend in.
To be young but not too young,
To party, to win but not (try) too hard,
To live my life but only by their book,
To live my life but not by my book.
Where I’m from I am expected
To love children
but also easy money,
To love family
But also the easy life that only those
Who do not
Think
Deserve.
Late 20s and I am confused as hell.
The world is turning upside down
And all I can do is change sides
In bed.
Eat chocolate, wash my hands
And pray for the best.
2020 and this world is confused as hell.
My friend said I should forgive and forget.
But I read somewhere, ‘not everything
That’s faced can be changed,
But nothing can be changed until it’s faced’.
My book said this was James Baldwin
And I thought he must have been a wise man.
****
2020, late 20s.
I am confused as hell, friend.
This is it, I confess.
Late 20s and I am more confused
Than when I was 19.
I admit and
This is
my catharsis,
friend.
****
2020, late 20s.
Something has changed cause
I am confused enough
To be willing to take
My bets.
Sirens
“Sirens, hear the sirens. Hear the circus all go found.”
I google the same words as yesterday,
But only once this time, when it was twice yesterday,
I call this progress before I freeze,
Red flashing figures, I see pluses, I catch my pulse skipping, then dropping, I’ve seen this before, worldometer.com
Never lies, or maybe it does,
Like the rest of them, I am unfazed.
Ten seconds later I’ve changed my search to ‘pearl jam’
And before you know it, Spotify is playing Pearl Jam, then Radiohead,
No alarms and no surprises, please.
Nostalgia is a real intruder and the ’90s
Are woefully retro, 2000s are a distant trail
Of photos with low cut jeans and awkward crop tops, moments are captured, sure, but memories are elusive and nostalgia is a movie that you remember loving but never remember the fine print details of anymore.
If I turn 50, how will I remember this?
Not long ago,
I remember the aimless walks in urban outfitters, nearing 30 and still feeling young enough for a cactus and a sweater, a pretentious notebook when all I need is a mobile phone, I’ve got my purple-tinted glasses on, I tell you nothing matters yet we are born, endless aisles of clothes and thoughts, to be human is to mourn then shop.
I had a dream the other day, I was casually strolling in a shop, it seemed cool but I was trapped in brick walls and the music was getting louder as I snaked around the shelves,
do you hear the sirens yet,
I wonder what percentage of my life is already gone, if I were a glass of coconut water or almond milk,
How much of me has been consumed,
Poured down the drain of ‘no regrets’.
I wonder,
When this is all over,
Will I ever feel the pressure to
Live like there’s no tomorrow, when all I want to do is to gently love myself. Tonight I took a salt bath and all the salty tears were dripping down my face,
into my own comfort bath.
When all of this is over, will I learn to kindly refuse? When everyone’s overgrazing again,
Will I have the courage to sit idle on the grass?
To consume the silence, this cleaner air now, the brighter skies,
To hear the sirens, these (false) alarms
and not feel
Compelled
To run.
#whoami
I am both soft and hard, I pierce with my gaze and my truth, sometimes bad temper, slice you like a thin knife, thin cuts that hurt, those words that bounce across the walls, words like bouncing balls, screaming back at you, back at you, I have your back, bones and skin, I am all in, never half hearted, a jar full of spices, exploding with flavours within, smoked paprika, oregano, cumin, coriander, always sharp, never blunt, I will take you in my arms like you’ve never been held, slow cooking, slow loving, that slow song that hits to the core, piano jamming off beat, acoustic guitar on a sunny, lazy Sunday afternoon, water that’s boiling, that gargling sound of revolt, never compliant, never complicit, that mature alto note that never fits in, high energy, turn up the volume, fizzing, sizzling, fizzling away sometimes, high temperature that suddenly drops then stubbornly rises, I will not give in, I will not give in, I will not give in, I will never hum the sound of defeat, dancing to the drum of this earth, raw, rough, sharp around the edges, grounded within, bare feet, stumping, frizzy hair, this scratching, this aching, this yearning to live, to love, to burn, the softness of acknowledgment, sweet honey dissolving in warm tea, the human condition, weak, flawed, restless, resting flawed in its beauty, a bruised flower, the scent of lavender, both soothing and uncomfortable, sweet chilli, pineapple that’s rough on the tongue, bright smile, punchy humour, if I were a colour I’d be neon yellow melting into black, black melting into punchy red, thoughts like thunderstorms, multiple and all at once, short circuit sometimes, the creative power of persistence at times when all the lights go off. Tell me how to switch off. I am soft cookies baked with feelings, tell me how to switch off. A hard body softening, lying on the floor, staring at the stars, the contradiction of a rationally minded, pulsing, still pulsing, heart.
Incessantly (goes on)
What’s the story behind our eyelashes,
our finger nails, our incessant need to bite
and chew and scratch and consume and package up,
pick up, discard, discard, discard,
the reason we need oxygen and (processed) love,
and water and (processed) food, sugar, sugar, love,
a body to hold (onto), to scratch, to make love to,
to have love made to us, to kiss, what’s the reason
we need sleep, the reason we deny it,
the reasons we can’t,
what’s the story behind our veins popping out
of our skin, the reason we have ten toes and funny
bones we always have to hit against the edge of
the most pointy of tables, why are we always so close to the
edge, on edge
what’s the story behind the table, its four legs,
our legs, the knife and the fork, the woman who meets man
who meets woman
the reason we still worry about
manners and friendships and the way our persona (not us)
is perceived,
not us, not us but them, the reason we worry about
wrinkles and clocks, wrinkles and socks, cellulite, loose skin,
dirty clothes in the washing bin,
the passing of time, the ticking, the ticking, this tinkling sensation
when we think, when we think, over and over again
when it’s over what’s left, when we leave
what is left within,
what escapes the earth when the body is buried within.
I think a lot about the end.
Maybe this nonsense will make sense, in the end.
Maybe I am scared,
maybe I am lost,
maybe I am too human to comprehend,
maybe I am, maybe I am not.
Maybe this nonsense means I am way too human
to digest
the silence of my own body,
the absence, the nothingness,
when everything else, the wheel of circumstances,
of molecules, probabilities, of molecules, probabilities
and dust,
when everything else, the universe, its reasons,
the universe, this birthplace, this deathbed,
continuously, incessantly
goes on.
Rational Artist 