The Haunting

photo.   

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

Metamorphosis

photo.   

Lover, I'm sorry
but I am not always flesh blood and bone
I'm not talking of reincarnation
I don't know about metamorphosis
but sometimes
after days
I lose myself.

They say we are made up of
millions of pieces of stars
that my right hand
is made up of the dust
of a once-sun
but somedays I just feel like dust.
It feels lonely to be made up
of something
that died so long ago,
whose home is in the sky
and would blow away
given a moments notice
to get back there.
I don't want to be lost in the wind
if you are here.

Once, I crawled through the soft
sleepy sheets of your bed, to tell you
that today I was made of shells
every time I moved my fractured body
I could hear pieces of me grinding
against one another
pieces that did not fit perfectly
but left pockets of air throughout me
when i reached out to touch you
a gaping hole appeared
in my chest
you could see right through me
I do not want to be made up
of the armour of dead molluscs
no matter how tough they are.

For a time
before I met you
I was a ghost
it started with
my shadow softening
voice dampening
the tips of my fingers fading
one day I looked in the mirror
all I could see left of myself
were the bags beneath my eyes
packed and ready to go
it hurts to look at
when your body is a whisper
of something you said
as a sad child.

Tagore said
he found his lover in each life
I'm not talking of reincarnation
I don't know about metamorphosis
but lover, with you
I am solid
I promise you
my temperamental body
is yours
in all its forms.

bird

photo.   

lightly feathered, you lie
sprawled.
desperately clutching and releasing
a thousand tender
capsules of air
inside your tiny lungs

Mother

I have never been good at returning gifts.
In year five, mother, you gave me a pink, plastic iron,
for my dolls clothes, you said.
I didn't have the heart to tell you
that my doll had been lying in the shadows of my room
for the last year
and that every time I'd held her, it felt empty.
I smiled, I thanked you.
My doll didn't leave my arms for weeks,
so you would think I had meant it.
Then there were the watches,
you've given me three.
I wore each for years.
Until they inevitably paused, shuddered and died.
There was the too-bright beach towel.
There were the winter pyjamas and the bookmarks.

And to your credit,
you always offer to swap or return or resize
yet every time, I shake my head and swear I adore it
all pearly whites and whiter lies.
I have never wanted to disappoint you.
Mother, you raised a polite daughter, but not a truthful one.

So when you asked,
so tenderly,
if I had ever wanted to hurt myself.
I should have told you.
No, I have never wanted to hurt myself,
but when I was twelve I sat in the car on a lonely day and
sliced my hand with your pocket knife
while i waited for you to come out of the furniture shop.
I should have said,
no, I have never wanted to hurt
but sometimes I think there is a vampire living inside my head and he's eternally thirsty.
I should have said to you,
no, I have never wanted to
but sometimes i imagine stabbing myself in the throat with a carving knife
and it calms me down.
I should have said no,
I have never wanted to hurt myself because that would hurt you
but sometimes it feels like I'm craving something
there isn't a fix for.

I never wanted to kill myself
more than a drowning cat would want to be shot.
It was an option.
It was plan B.
It was meant to be release.

But mother, I could not tell you that,
anymore than I could tell you that I didn't like the first watch you gave me.

Because I don't know about God or religion,
but I know that you gave me my perfect arms,
and throat and beating heart.
And I could not bear to say: yes, Mother, I want return the first gift you gave me.

I know you did not want this for me.

untitled

photo.  

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.

The Apiarist.

photo.  

there is
a storm of bees
swarming, forming
around her head
on days like this morning
people passing
pretending
they can not see
any bees, can not see
the honey
dripping from her
eyes
knees
thighs
there is no smoke, today

one young man
nears her
does not wear
a beekeeper suit
but still, leans in
and licks the honey
off her swollen chin
and licks the honey
off his velvet lips
i think, maybe,
he knows
today, she doesn't like honey
i think, maybe,
he knows
she doesn't like to be
a beekeeper
always.

she wonders
if he exists
to prove the bees
don't have to.

Run

photo.  

In a new room,

In a new city

That smells like rain 

and my favourite 

colour. Friends ask me

if I miss them

How I want to say

yes, but

now I'm away

I feel I've found my self.

Again.

And I would not trade

her, for them.

I'm sorry friends

but alone beats lonely

any day.

Meat.

photo.   

The other night:
The way your eyes
looked at mine
made me feel
sick, sad, alone.
Please please please
do not look
at me
that way.
The way the other boys have.
I chose
you because
your eyes
are different.

Group Hallucination

I am so sick
of these ancient, iron cages
that separate
us. They separate
the artists from athletes
the scholars from blue-collars
the known from the unknowns;
the Romeos from Juliets.
They separate people from people.

I do not think
such persistent,
such acceptable ideas,
should remain unchallenged.

I cannot wait
for the day
they rust away.

(Sometimes, I think we make them up inside our head.)

Sleep-washed

A poem by Saba Vayani-Lai

photo.  

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)

hypocrite

photo.   

at times
i have written
against girls
talking talking always talking
about boys.
i've wanted
girls to live for themselves
to be okay with themselves
without a boy being okay with them
first.
but i hate to admit
i may start (writing) soon
because there is a boy
who meant a bit more than a kiss
and even if it doesn't go
anywhere
right now
i wanted to write
about him
and how nice
his kisses were.

(please get out of my head.)

it would be a lot easier

Mud in My Tears



photo.  

For two thousand sessions
and three analysts
and so many tears

I've gnawed over
this division of roles
for twenty years

what happened
what happened to her
what happened to me

I've sorted and sieved
and dissected
I've strained

through this corset
and shamed myself
I've repeated and remembered

and divided
the borders
she was the mother

I am the daughter
I am the daughter
born after the war

after the hunger
after the torture
after the typhoid

after the disfigurement
after the disinfection
after the dead

and well after
the rape
and the German Shepherd

I am the daughter
born after the war
but I've stalled

I am stuck
like a pig in mud
mud from the barracks

mud from the huts
mud from the bunks
mud from my eyes and lungs

mud in my liver
mud in my mouth
mud ringing in my ears

mud in my fingers
mud in my screams
mud in my tears.

-Lily Brett

Possession

photo.  

it envelops her once more
tucking her up
neat and trapped
inside its suffocating fragile embrace
a frosted gaze
unnoticed glazed
look betrays her
as her heavy mind catches alight
dangerous rampant sparks
tease the blackening white
of her papery cage
the corners furl
forgotten smoke pressing on her
she reaches out
now she's burning those near
and fear takes hold
of her frayed reins
soon she'll have no control
she's running in and out of ways
to make this right
she'd try to warn
anyone who tries to stay
but she's lost hold
her mind's ablaze

nights



photo.  

Moments flicker
twist
jump
into and out of one another
you are at a party
by the bonfire
at the sink
talking to bella
fallon
peter
on the phone
you are
refusing
giving in
failing to hold yesterday's convictions
by yourself
quiet
still laughing
looking in the mirror at someone else's life
buttery fingers try to hold on to awareness
it slips away again
in a car
walking
talking
trying to act
how you normally act
talking too quietly in an attempt
to ease suspicion
you are sneaking back in to your house
trying not to trip
you are in bed
trying to fall asleep
you are sneaking back in again
at the party again
looking at your blood-shot eyes again
wondering what you're doing, again.
You get the feeling
that you are skipping through moments that are grouped together
-moments that are happening always-
as you try and fail
to stay in the present.

tub

photo.  

my hands are limp,
mute and white.
they float
against my naked body
occasionally nudging the bleached tub
their bones, sharp,
peer out at the bleak room
through a thin layer of film
almost kissing the air
they are contrasted by the-
contrasted.
i imagine the day
they will be contrasted
and i will have no eyes to see it.

Monster

photos.   

His handprints, imprinted
On her skin, chest, her thighs.
They draw my red-ringed eyes
To the unseen -his prize
Lost, that which showed his lies.
Society decries
Us. Who blames their surmise?

He causes me to despise
Myself. My babe was unwise.
Her failure to realise
His motivation, implies
I failed her, to advise
Her, as a father. Chastise
Her? I can't. In his cold eyes
She saw goodness. But his guise
Misled her. Led to her demise,
Her brokenness. I hear her cries
As she sleeps, blending with my sighs
For our lost years. It's been hinted
They've drifted off to holy skies.

Uncovered

photo.  

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.

twins

photo.  

 
i.
you look at me with dual faces they take me places
i don't want to go
your words wrap around each other, juxtaposed to their brother
twisting their meanings to your smile.
it is so wearing to tell which face you are wearing
today, to whom i am telling my thoughts.
I love you but only part of you
and aren't lovers meant to love all
 
 
ii.
it doesn't matter. we are identical
when i look in the mirror i wonder who i will be
today, and i wonder who
is wondering those thoughts.
i wander aimlessly through volleys of motions,
valleys of emotions
i have no ultimate.
only guilt for this affliction i force on you
on you who love me
part of me - even lovers can't love every part
 
 
iii.
you and me, we are identical

in that our faces aren't                                               

 

it's not me it's you (open your eyes)

photos.  

thereisadarkness
insidemy
head;thatihave
nocontrolover
it stirs in me
tracing my ribs with enticing
tendrils
lovinglystrokingmyskull
pulsing its way toward my centre
binding itself around my heart.
(it'ssmokeandiron)
ifyoulook closely
you can
see it,
in the hollows
(beneath) my eyes
shade and light manipulated into
puffypuffypuffiness

ifyoulook closely
you can
see it,
in the curves
of my lips
after they have halted from their never-ending chatter
happyhappyhappyhappyhappyjokelaugh

ifyoulook closely
you can
see it,
in the blotches
in my skin;
in the edges of
my appearance;
the bite of my speech;
the shortness of my fuse;
how much i fight
appetite
words i write
i'mlosingsight

ifyoulook closely
you can
see it,
but noone does.

sum

photo.  

You're sad because you're sad.


It's psychic. It's the age. It's chemical.

Go see a shrink or take a pill,

or hug your sadness like an eyeless doll

you need to sleep.

-excerpt from sad child by Margaret Atwood