The Haunting

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you make me ache
there's a feeling in my chest of
how many girls left a mark on you?
i want to be sick
but i can't get her face out of my mind's eye
would she mind i sleep where
she's slept
like i mind
she's kissed your lips
cause right now I'm at the lowest of my high
there are shadows from someone else's dreams chasing me
and i ache for my own missed memories
how many people
have left a mark on me
who are they out haunting
i can't listen to his song
without thinking about the last one i loved
and if he's loving someone now
we are just a chink in the chain of this never-ending
story of heartbreaks
and moving on

6 things I should tell you but haven't

1. You are giving me growing pains. I have stretch marks showing up, on my hips, lips, thighs. I never knew I could be this much.

2. I'm sorry for all my past and future mistakes. I am still getting the hang of this. I want to be better.

3. Sometimes my stomach hurts when you kiss me. Being with you scares me. You are miles away from my comfort zone.

4. Last night you told me you loved me for the first time, during a drunken fight. You're an idiot. I love you. I've loved you for weeks. I can't remember what it's like not to love you.

5. I write and rewrite texts to you. It has been months and I still can't control myself. I will not stop trying for you.

6. You still leave me speechless. I can't remember how to string words together because all I can think of is your lips. I have tried writing two dozen poems about you. None did you justice.

Letterhead #17

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Dear Jack,

I am so, so sorry I fell out of love with you.

If it means anything, I didn't want to fall out of love.

But I just…I felt so far away from myself.

I tried so much to make it work. And I did for a while. 

And we were happy.

I was the perfect girlfriend. But I wasn't me.

I fell out of love with you when I fell in love with myself.

And that's when I stopped wanting to try.

It's not your fault and it's not mine.

We both changed until we stopped suiting each other.

Thank-you for being the perfect first love.

I hope we can still stay friends.

With love,

Letterhead #16

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Dear Jack,
I'm lonely when I'm with you.
Not always, but often.
I try so hard not to be sad around you.
Or if I am sad, not to let it show.

I don't want to tie my sadness to you.
Tie you to my sadness.
I told you that, once.
You said something like:
I'm sorry that you're sad, but it doesn't affect my mood.
You wanted to reassure me.
It did.
But it also made me feel
so
incredibly
lonely.
Sometimes I feel so lonely it feels as though I'm trying to breathe in Carbon Dioxide. 
Because, you're my person, and even you don't understand.
It was different when I was alone.
I was better at caring for myself.
Less focussed on you.
Less soft.
It was better.
I don't know if I can get better with you.
I can't breathe.

It's getting to the point where I am no fun anymore, I am sorry. / Sometimes it hurts so badly I must cry out loud, ' I am lonely.' / I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are, you make it hard.

-David Crosby

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my skin
rises to meet your hands
i can tell
i have no control, that
this is unconscious
it's automatic
instinctive
this
this is bigger than you
or me
this is chemistry
and nature
and DNA
this is written into my body
into the patterns of your palms
as they glide
down my spine
over my stomach
this is different
and new
and it makes my heart
beat
in time with something
there isn't a word for.
this might not be love but
it makes me believe in it.

A different Anna (a story).

The last time Anna’s hands had touched this wood she had been sitting beside her Grandmother ten years ago.


Eight year-old Anna had been scraping into the top layer of the curiously soft wood, only halting to flick out the remains from underneath her fingernails. Her mind had wandered as the monotonous voice of Murwillumbah’s parish priest filled the air, punctuated by his hoarse cough, like a bark, Anna had thought. Every time he coughed like this, her Grandmother’s eyes would flit to Anna’ busily working fingers and she would perse her lips in annoyance. Anna was sullen with frustration and boredom as her blank gaze drifted from her handiwork to the priest in response to her Grandmother’s disapproving eyes. More than anything Anna had wanted to be back at home in Sydney with her friends.

Anna sighs, she had been such a brat when she was young. She pulls back her legs to make room for her Auntie’s boisterous figure as she bustles past her to sit next to her Dad and the strong scent of gardenias fills the air. Anna twists in her seat to peer at all those who have come. There are plenty of people, most of whom Anna doesn’t recognise; some aged with years of rough laughter and crinkled smiles, others’ skin still smooth and sombre. As the organ starts up, Anna turns back to the front in time to stand with everyone else. But the faces linger in her mind, they are friendly faces, she thinks.

Twelve year-old Anna had been tugging absent-mindedly at her lower lip with her left hand, while her right arranged and rearranged the seven lettered tiles in front of her. GF IAYLM. MAY.YAM. LAY. MAIL. GAILY. FAIL. Anna frowned at the last option as her eyes flicked towards the score board; she was coming fourth...

“Come on, Anna.” Her Grandmother’s words awoke her from her reverie,

“I’ll just be a minute,” she had muttered; discouraged by the impatience and her own low score. She glanced at the tattered paper again before scoping the cramped board for spaces.

“Well, I should hope so. At this rate we’ll be here ‘til Christmas.” Anna looked up at her Grandmother for this snide remark, but it was softened by her smile, as she leaned in to offer Anna some advice, her hands deftly moved the pieces. FAMILY. “If you place it here, you can get 22 points.” she whispered discreetly, as Anna’s Dad came back from the toilet and her brother walked back with a wooden bowl of Smith’s Crisps.

It had taken her another four years until she had finally won a game of scrabble without any help, Anna muses. The priest’s voice is ringing out through the church and Anna keeps catching phrases, “you may not grieve as others do who have no hope…The word of the Lord”. She nibbles her lip as she fails yet again, to join in on the congregation’s response: “Thanks be to God” they murmur, unified.

Fourteen year-old Anna had been lying with her left cheek against the itchy carpet of her Grandmother’s flat against her left cheek, as she gazed blankly at the television screen which had been playing cricket for the last four hours. She sighed heavily and her grandmother had taken pity on her and suggested she read a book. After much persuasion Anna had unenthusiastically began reading Pride and Prejudice. But by the end of the week, Anna had clutched the faded copy (now her very own) to her chest as she had finished reading the Darcy’s letter. A new fervour could be found in her eyes.

As the organ and congregation wobble into Psalm 23,Anna’s mind returns to the present and her hands, sticky in the north-coast humidity, gripped the bench’s edge; she can hardly believe what she saw on the back of the pew. It is still there…the furtive and wicked ‘A’ she had carved there ten years ago. Anna surprises herself by suppressing a smirk that quickly evaporates as her eyes are drawn once more to the mahogany coffin on her left. Anna thinks about her Grandma and Murwillumbah and a part of her feels like if she leaves the town tomorrow afternoon, she will have finally lost her grandmother. As the priest’s parting words ring out through Saint Patrick’s, Anna’s hand finds her mum’s.

Afterwards, Anna once again sits down at the empty pew, her fingers trace the rivets and she leaves, feeling satisfied. But only after carving her grandma’s initial beside her own.

too much

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"You are the most dangerous kind of female the world can ever know. You carry the seeds for your own destruction and the destruction of everyone who loves you. And a great many will love you for your beautiful face for your seductive body; but you will fail them all because you will believe they all fail you first. You are an idealist of the worst kind - the romantic idealist. Born to destroy and self destruct."
-V. C. Andrews

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Sleep-washed

A poem by Saba Vayani-Lai

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This,
This simplicity,
This sleep-washed morning,
The raindrops dancing gently
Upon soft glass,
Reflecting the sleeping forms of
Living poetry,
Of us,
Lost in a mindless tangle of limbs and
Sheets and sticky puddles of light.


At last,
Letting the words and the yearning finally,
Finally,
Spring from the page and into motion,
Into reality,
Into this tangible mess of feeling,
Lazily looped not in ink,
Not in restricting monochrome and colour-starved
paper,
Not caged in the heavy iron lattice of forced rhyme
-
But in the mixing of our breaths,
In the mingling of a million miniscule atoms,
Air cocktails slipping, shared,
Between our lips.


And then…
I feel the resignation festering,
Wild mushrooms growing in sad lumps, slow
and hungry,
Around my tired heart –
Such joy,
Such interdependent joy,
It cannot last.
It can only cling
As raindrops do to a spider’s web,
Desperately hoping the wind doesn’t lose
Her temper.


But I have traced stars
With fearless fingertips –
Traced that pale harmony between living and
Expressing
In the creases and valleys
Of your skin.


To have known such joy,
Even just for a moment -
It is enough.

This,
This simplicity,
This sleep-washed morning,
I watch our lazy forms reflected
In rain-speckled glass –
All drowsy smiles and
Poetry,
Alive at last.

(This is in the 2009 winners if you follow the link)

Uncovered

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Again, doubts are nesting. That already,

With a soft word, you can voice your feelings
Ignites fear. Can't you see I'm concealing
...What? Incertitude, reluctance, dread. Flee
From me while you freedom holds its head. See
The way my mouth curves (not to the ceiling),
Not your fault but mine. A lack of zeal? Sings
The voice. No, I swear, my mouth is steady.
But look at what you have been dragged into,
My lair. The voice suggests I should sever
What has not even begun.  No! Adieu!
I scream to voices. Are they so clever
or am I so foolish as to undo
That which may bring joy to me? No. Never.

maybe baby

and then,
(and only then)
i might let myself

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Dylan.

Don't you realise?
Nothing has changed.
NOTHING.
And all I keep thinking is how I hate how lately it's been an effort to stay friends.
How you're starting to annoy me more than anything.
How when I feel shit, I can't tell you.
How you seem so cocky to me these days.
How you always seem uncomfortable.
How I feel uncomfortable because I feel like you want a relationship, when I can only handle a friend.
How even the songs you write about me are actually about you.
How you only ever make the effort to talk to me over the phone, or internet
   when I want something more real than that.
But then again, I guess we've always wanted different things.

And then I think: fuck you.
And that's how this all began.
And that's why it's falling apart.


I NEED A BREAK.

"Letting go doesn't always mean giving up, but rather accepting that there are things that cannot be."

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(sorry I gave up)

                                                                                                this one is about me.

Soulmates

Plato believed that humans were originally in pairs, joined to another by the backs, but were split by the Gods because we were too powerful.
Now we are doomed to wander the Earth
until we find
our other
half.

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"condemning them to spend their lives searching for the other half to complete them"

According to Theosophy, God created androgynous souls, equally male and female. Later theories postulate that the souls split into separate genders, perhaps because they incurred karma while playing around on the Earth, or "separation from God". Over a number of reincarnations, each half seeks the other. When all karmic debt is purged, the two will fuse back together and return to the ultimate.

I really, REALLY like this idea.
I think I should have liked Plato.

Story.

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Once, in a land far from here, in a time that may never come to pass, I escaped from Despair, a demon who was hunting me. I arrived in an unfamiliar land, where despair did not follow me. As I walked through fields of tranquility, I met a young girl with sweet melodies plaited through her hair and light in her heart. She spoke in colours. As we talked I told her of my world and the monster I was fleeing, confused, she questioned me, "What colour is despair?"
"Black, I suppose."
She thought about this. "But what kind of black? Black like a crow's feathers? Or nightfall? Or-"
"No," I cut her off, frustrated, "black like in your room, alone at night. Like the deepest part of the ocean where just looking at it you feel like you will lose yourself. Like nothingness, the unknown."
Confusion clouded her face and envy filled my depths. She lived in a world where that colour wasn't a feeling, where it didn't exist, her next words confirmed it.
"I don't think I've ever felt that colour."
"How I wish I could stay here," I whispered with a voice like glass.
"You can." She murmured, her face filled with warmth.
"I can't," I whispered, longing clouding my voice, "what about all those I love?"
She hesitated, "Love? What colour is that?"
My breath ran away, and in an instant my envy transformed into pity. After much thought, I spoke, "Well, I suppose, it's every colour."
The girl who spoke in colours searched my eyes for the hidden meaning that she couldn't reach, not here.
"Do you mean white?"
"No," I choked on the words, "not at all...I'm sorry, I- I don't think there is a colour."
And with that I leant down to kiss her on both cheeks before walking away. And as soon as she was out of sight I began to run. And as I ran I sobbed, my heart cracking open, emotions filling my lungs. I prayed I could find my way back home and no longer feared the monster that had chased me here.
Because feeling horrible beats feeling nothing.
Because I didn't want to close off.
Because that poor girl would never feel love because she lived in a world without hate.
Beacuse I'd rather be fucked up anyday.

hope is a dangerous thing.

and again,

i put my faith in a boy who didn't feel the same
i'm such an idiot

letterhead #2

Dear c,
sorry.
but apparently it was mutual anyway.
thats okay then.
Have a nice life.

With love,

.

What i don't want to do -more than anything- is to
repeat my mistakes because that would mean i haven't learnt,

and i can't waste you on a mistake.

because this isn't twilight.

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"Why did you say that?", Jonesy said, his eyes searching her. Lee's eyes widened and she shrugged her shoulders, praying it would come across as apathy and not her stomach coiling and recoiling, as if her nerves were on fire. She could hear the words hanging in the air, the words he so badly wanted to say but couldn't.
"Why does it matter?", she choked out, amazed how his physical presence alone could affect her.
Now it was his turn to shrug, before -after a few moments of studying her- turning and walking away. It wasn't that she didn't love him, it was that she'd proved it to him enough times already and now it was his turn. That she wanted him to prove this was a mutual feeling, this love. But he couldn't, because he had too much too lose and he didn't know if there was anything to gain.
Because this wasn't Romeo and Juliet or Pride and Prejudice, this was real life, and he probably never had loved her, and he would never come back, and Lee would find another boy with laughter in his eyes and warmth in his mouth and give her heart to him, and hope he would take care of it because it's the only one she's got thank-you-very-much.
"Fucking coward." Lee muttered as she shook her head, her dark hair loose around her face catching her tears as she bent down to collect the shards of her self that lay scattered at her feet like glass.

letterhead #1

dear c,
sorry they say what they say
even if you don't hear it and i deny it.
it would hurt you if you knew.
don't worry, they lie
he loves you.
i know he does.

with love,

p.s. i really do want to be friends.