Tuesday, October 6, 2020

You Can't Hitchhike The Road Less Travelled...

Five months and eighteen nights have passed,
with an aching in my chest for your laugh.
Eight thousand miles later,
it feels like I'm still searching for that sound.
A reason for you to want to stick around.
One that isn't dressing my failings.

One look,
I'm reduced to a visceral burn to resuscitate hope.
Au Revoir Ambitions!
That rose in my lungs and died in my throat.
Blubbering tears hushing,
Eulogies I penned before you've croaked
and elegies for my house of straw
that rotted before it went up in smoke.

Oh but,
there's a hammock where I now live,
in the nugatory purgatory of everlasting guilt,
the only pit stop between fight and flight,
Thirty years and three months, I finally decide -
the first ride that arrives, whatever the fate.
Who knew that buses were always late.


~~~

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Caim...


Like a flat rock skimming still water
You disappear into the night
Soul, smothered, Lazarus?
Or are we always running out of time?
Do our songs never find a melody
Cause I’m always looking for a line?

I miss the smile settling in the corner of your eyes
The last drag before I escape your sight
The subtle devastation in your voice
When you cleared your throat to say goodbye.
Do I always eclipse before sunrise
Because you are my solitary light?

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Free Churro


The party’s over
It’s been over for sixteen songs or so
And I’d like to show everyone the door
But the ones that meant shit -
they left a long time ago.
Thread by thread
Like a hand-knit sweater
Coming apart.
Sinking into a sea of solo cups
I wonder if they just mean something
cause they respected themselves enough to leave.

~


I remember when I was sixteen
My mom would leave home dramatically
She’d lock herself outside
and weep in the corridor, motionless.
What are you doing? I’d say
And she’d say
“I have nowhere else to go”

I spent a good deal of my life
Never wanting to be her
All this while she was burning into my brain
That people never truly leave
She was wrong
Or maybe I’m just mad they beat me on my way out

I’d watch her come back in after an hour
And she’d sink back into the couch
Pull at the little bit of yarn she had left
And start knitting again.

~

It’s funny how
you wake up one day and
It’s been 13 years already
But I’m not fighting to justify every second anymore
The resilience is quieter now
Bathed in apathy most times and
For some
I just really want to feel myself combust
Like stubbing a cigarette on the grass and watching it
Rage into a wildfire across California.

Burning a hole outwards
Always outwards.
Emptiness always begins within.

~


Three years ago
My mother handed me a scarf
The colors mostly faded except one end
Which was a bright sapphire blue.
“I couldn’t understand
How to construct a neck”
I’m just glad somewhere along the way
She learnt to construct a spine.
After all that thread
She saved up pennies for
Wasted

Ever so slightly
She grew up

~

I read a meme the other day
It said that growing up meant knowing
You’re toxic too.
And I,
I guess I don’t even know what self-awareness means anymore.
It feels like
I’m outside the window of my own life
Looking in
And nothing’s on TV.

You sit there on the couch you bought
In the house you built.
You still have nowhere else to go.

Head stripped to strings
Thread by thread
You wring your own neck.
And I just wish you had used it

To throw her a line instead.

Saturday, September 16, 2017

Letters to a Black Hole...

Light floods in meekly through the windows,
Careful of my mind, careful of the lies,
I whisper to get through the day.

Through the corner of my eyes,
I watch you writhe,
Comforting, like warm rain,
your waves,
of violent passion and calm loneliness.

You’re the only one who
ever echoed my empty
with such precision.
And yet when I look at you
You feel like the hand I’d hold
As I wade through hours of cold water
Finding my way through a
Blank slate of paradise.

Eyes stare, wondering if you are 
the twisted paradise I'm entitled to?
As I shape shift between
the self-loathing saint and happy degenerate.

So tell me,who am I,
Who am I to you darling?
Cause your smile, broken in its corners
Only leaves me a foolish mother.

Walk by quiet houses on the street,
Wondering when they blew the candles out,
Or if light existed at all.
I feel like I’ve been searching all my life
For a door that would make me want to go in.

You catch my eye, with a knowing smile.
And in your gaze, I know, I found a home.
All I want to do
is go through the door of your unblinking stare
All you do is smile,
as I fumble in the dark for a key
you never gave me.


Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Alice...

Grey pebbles with streams beneath,
shriveled, broken, orange leaves,
frayed edges connected to the bone,

there’s nothing my heart resembles more.

Fingers trail water as I walk on by,

underneath the curtain of a desert sky,
I stare blankly, waiting for the show to begin,
but always false awaken to this elaborate dream.

My last reality, was the breath of you,
body drenched, petrichor, the rain in june,
water streaming down your lips,
Stay, don’t close your eyes,” the record hissed.
Sigh.


Feet move breathlessly, one sense deprived,
each emotion heightened, each smile contrived,
and I wonder how long this ride goes on,tongue numb, 
blue snow and the cold light of dawn.


The sounds of my childhood echo in the wind,
this place, its colors, the stories within
and every scent is perfectly as I dreamed,
everything but me.

Fantasize your return until reality’s bleak,

the breaking ship bleeds an ocean onto my cheeks
as I hang a lantern on my porch to guide you home,
“Jai Gurudeva Om,
Nothing’s gonna change my world,” the record croons, 
Sigh.

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Toe Crusher...


You,
You who lurks in the shadows of my mind,
I haven't forgotten you.
I know that I have tried every trick in the book,
From bribes to wars,
I have coddled you, And cradled you,
In the bosom where you were born.
Clenched, beaten into existence.
I have held you,
On the tip of my tongue,
Through countless evenings,
While I mindlessly,
Licked, sucked and swallowed
Phalli you rendered tasteless.
I'm talking to You,
You, who fled
when hormones and dopamine
Trapped you in a hail storm,
I know where you hide.
But I cannot drive you out
Of your camp at the hippocampus,
while amygdala stares me down
at the gates.
I cannot drive you
Out Of a home that nurtured you,
Built you slowly through years
I wasn't sure you even existed.
But I haven't forgotten you,
You won't let me.
Making sure I hear you run across the field
When fear takes over,
And I shiver,
In the wake,
Of your little earthquakes
till I convince myself you've left the building.

But you're only
Biding your time,
Pulling my strings,
Knowing I'll reach
For any bait you throw my way.
Even though I know you're only
Waiting,
When I'm convinced about my prey.
Waiting,
When I give him a place.
Waiting,
When I undo my buttons.
Waiting,
Until his fingers move into me.
Waiting,
To shatter his ego
and dry me out.
So I can feel my walls tear apart,
Over and over again,
Unable to ever break even.
And he will leave,
Like the Last one,
Hurt, confused and ashamed,
Like I knew he would
Before he came along.
Because we have entwined so long
That the chicken and the egg
Is an easier mystery to solve.
Don't worry, I won't ask you,
Pointless questions,
while I lay here,
collapsed on the blood stained rug .
But know that,
I know where you are,
And I know you
are growing stronger,
Because lately I
walk by your gate
and not want
To take you out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

Sunday, December 27, 2015

Maps of You...

Frazzled hair, tingling wounds,
Smeared mascara, burning heat.
The desert wind snickers slowly,
wipes away, the traces of her feet.

She hums an old forgotten tune,
heat waves sketch a familiar face.
“I knew you’d come to take me home,
darling, let’s never leave this place.”

The moon pulls in, a shiver runs over.
Rushing, she chases the dying light.
Rays slip through, her hair and fingers,
only cold reflection to stay the night.

She awaits the storm, to bring her reason,
a battle to fight, to pass the day.
Her stomach growls, her vision fades,
each day she sees lesser of his face.

Days fade to black, sands turn to seas,
gravity releases her, accepting defeat.
The battle walks away from an unworthy opponent,
she turns to find no steps to retreat.

“Is this death?” She waits with arms wide open
but never rises into the sky.
She has always been a half written song,
suspended in the dying light.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~