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.

~~~

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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