82. once in a million words

to know fear is to have never tasted it, that bitter acrid taste of rotting apples mixed with strong perfume. there is no knowing, only inhalation and dizziness before the lights go on. then, fear subsides.
the aftertaste remains. cologne is rotting. rotting all the same.

and swallowing the cider bile i stop. and start. i stop and start. and i remember that this was rhythm beaten out for me and Y. aeons ago, i would have told him this was our rhythm, that it was made for us. really, the rhythm is mine alone.
it is the heartbeat of a rabbit caught running in circles, breaking out of a different hole every time. only i have no space of time and who knows if i’m late?
there is no knowing here, only white roses being painted red. but i need no paint, truth always comes out in the end.

and this fear reigns over love. it transcends the borders of us and reproduces in our creations. why is that, will you tell me?
it must be us, the charcoal darkening the paper.
it must be orange juice spilt on a linen cloth. or coffee. coffee on those tiles.

still, it’s so nice to be able taste fear once in a million words, wouldn’t you say?

i live thence

no one replies.
and in this deadly silence,
i sit alone,
my suitors lost in time.
the pain’s misplaced.
never mine.

      and i can fall all i want
cos nobody would hear the noise |

socially unacceptable.
murdering your life.
taking risks at your expense.
not knowing how to live, i live thence.

      and i can fall all i want
cos nobody would hear the noise |

i am that tree in the forest.
you want romance?
you never had a chance.

trace of us

we’ll stop tonight
where lights carry a trace of us
and moon shines loftily on bare skin

if only to say goodbye 

we’ll lay in the long grass
just like you wanted
no questions asked
no answers given
and put the cork into the essence of us

although,
it may still feel unfinished somehow
still raw
still paling
in the sunshine of your blackest sun, 

maybe then, under the searching light,
i’ll stop hearing your goodbyes
knowing
you’re listening for my hellos 

a year too late

———————————————–

and there are moments in our lives that lay imprinted behind our eyelids, fluttering with every heartbeat, waiting to escape.
this is one. 
of stars was another.

but…
different people. different lives.

i know. 
circles never end.

49. and to think i used to call him mine

if he ever tried to retrace his steps, Y would still be here. there’s only so many lives a man can lead. whilst i lived out my three, not quite a cat but near enough the slinky nine, he could barely grasp onto one.

so here we are again. and he won’t admit that he was wrong to have jilted me at my elusive altar and though i’m not bitter, i still think it should have been me to have waved the first goodbye. i was never the taker for seconds.
now we speak for barely more than seconds.

and we had a conversation today. somehow i manipulated minutes out of him when he claimed to have none. and he wants me to call on a weekend. and he listened to my poetry of loving women and war poets. it’s been a while. but i’ll let him live his life. that one life he holds onto like a raft in a burly sea.
those sort of lives were never meant for me: i like mine long and luscious, like sweltering summer days.

and when i read him my lines, he stopped talking altogether, pondering, wondering, what it was that i meant, knowing it concerned him but not knowing how.

and to think i used to call him mine.

19. i live it. so hate me.

if you only just asked me why i do it, i’d have told you it was out of insecurity.
if you asked me to stop, i’d say that  i couldn’t, though i tried.
if you begged me to stop hurting you… i’d break apart.

and the world is full of ifs, but there are facts too.
Y and X and Z and you, it seems, are not enough for me.
it only seems, because i don’t really know. it seems, because there’s a new actor on the stage. and i don’t know him much, but he can raise the butteflies in my stomach. and we flirted, maybe even courted, a little bit today. in front of you. and i thought your heart would break, but i couldn’t stop it, i couldn’t not laugh at every joke he said or smile at him like i smile at you.

so hate me.

and sometimes i wish you would. but you don’t, because you love me. you don’t because you’re better than me. but then again, is that really true? or are you holding on because you’re scared to let go?

if i were to tell you that i’ll never be yours, will you still be there in the morning, smiling at me, carrying my folders, love radiating in every gesture?
would you still want to hold me and never let go?
would you understand and accept me as i am, knowing that the day will come when i will leave the nest you’ve made me and fly away into another’s arms?

and i can’t put it into words, but i’ve found a poem that does.
it’s not mine, i just wish it was. and i love it.
i live it.

have a read. love it too.
but don’t live it please, cos i’m not as strong as you.

i couldn’t take you leaving me.
i’d  be the first to leave you.

—————————————-

I Scandalize Myself

I must tell my father
that the only man for whom “desire shattered me”
looked exactly like him,

and tell my friends
that I have different pictures of myself,
all true, all me,
that I will distribute among them one at a time.

I must tell my lover,
“Be grateful for my infidelities.
Without them
I wouldn’t have waited all this time
to discover the exceptional pause in your laugh.”

As for me
I am almost certain
that I scandalize myself
to hide behind it.

Iman Mersal

and that’s the poem. don’t you just love it?
don’t you just?