If I leave - napowrimo #1.5

The lipstick stains on your light blue shirt will wash off with a little lemon and hot water - like I showed you. Will you do it well enough without me? (Don’t squeeze too much of the lemon, it’ll ruin the fabric) I know your hands might tremble when you see the deep red leaking into the basin - try not to think of it as the lifeblood of us. It’ll just be lipstick to you when I leave.
If I leave. 

Will you change the arrangement of your bookshelf? Will you take the pain of going through your gargantuan collection, and run the risk of finding two or three books that we bought together? What if you find an unruly note that I wrote to you? Will you return it to its rightful place, or will it make a home in the ashes of your hearth? I have a hunch that you will collect any paper, parchment, letter, ticket, recipe, bill, photo that bears my cross and store it in a box in the last shelf of your study table. Your hands will run to these bits and pieces of me against your will. Your wistfulness betrayed you when I first met you, and it will betray you when I leave. 

If I leave. 

I sense a pattern here - I’m worried about your hands the most. Will they go cold and numb when a new texture touches them, and it isn’t my hair? Will you see the ghosts of curls wrapped around your fingers when you go to sleep? I hope you don’t, I wish you a good night’s sleep every night, with or without my head on your chest. Will your fingers dance along the curves of a new smile and freeze? Will your palms cup the happiness and light of another world after me? I hope they don’t - that would be terribly unfair to both of you. I hope I don’t hold the generously loving parts of you hostage when I leave.

If I leave. 

Will your shoulders droop when you step out for a walk? I hope they don’t - you know I hate bad posture. Will your hands be anxious without the anchor of mine? Maybe they’ll settle down in your pockets like old pennies earned from the written sale of melancholy when I leave.

If I leave.

Letters to the long night - napowrimo #1

Time has had a strange way of unfurling in these last few weeks. It may be the un-making of days itself - the unpacking of every single digit on the face of a clock. Time has no qualms about wasting itself on you, no regrets.

Mornings sometimes fail to wake me up properly - I am half-asleep as I stumble into a routine of housework - of cleaning and dusting and mopping and hoping for no more bad news. There is no dust for me to clean today, there was no movement to unsettle and settle its particles yesterday. The morning will pass in breakfast table talk of rot and rage, and then aai will go to chop cucumbers for a fresh salad.

In the city, the lights aren’t asked to stay home. Instead, they spread their garish yellow-white wings and leap into rooms, uninvited. These wings pierce the drum of darkness that tried to drown out everything, even the silence. Gaping holes are left in the night. There is nothing else, no sounds to interrupt the strains of music that waft up from the houses around me. This stealthy arbitrariness has crept into my nights, where once the sun sets, it’s anybody’s guess.

I know I long for faces to touch, they are the surfaces of my real home. There are eyes waiting for me yet on the shores of the other ocean, shoulders waiting for my touch. I know I want to hide once again in the silence that is crafted by my favourite breaths - not this weird, misshapen, jagged silence that prowls the streets and throws glances at my dark window.

witches - NaPoWriMo #27

It was written in deep magic -
in tongues that danced in shadows
of bubbling cauldrons
as green smoke filled the air - 
that no witch will stand alone.
It was said that we will stand
and stand together,
down to every drop of blood,
down to every dry bone.

And stand we do,
for the night brought on by Man
is not the easiest to melt into
a new dawn. 
Stand we do,
for our first lines of defence
are the very hands that we bring along.

Never bring a sharp tongue 
to a witches' fight, 
it is said -
for our quiet strength alone
can bring your downfall,
as long as we stand together.

And stand, we do.

always been fascinated by the raw magic and mystery surrounding the lore on witches.

wires (or why i like lines in the sky) - NaPoWriMo #26

never has the sky looked down
and declared that today,
dreamers must find new sights to see;
that birds must find
new places to be.

never has the sky decided
that a million wires
are enough lines to cut across
its silken expanses,
he always makes room for more -
neatly dividing spaces 
that everyone is allowed to 
dream in.

and so you ask me,
why the wires to cut in 
to his beauty?

and i'll say,
it's because he knows exactly
how they carry words to him,
which may otherwise
never be said again.

reference to my obsession with posting lyrics on telephone wires that cut across beautiful skies

writing a haiku - NaPoWriMo #25

sometimes,
my brain finds solace
on a sweet picnic table - 
set up for a short tea,
on tatami mats,
in a garden with half a blanket
of pink-white blossoms
sleeping on the earth.
on such days,
my words settle into
seventeen sweet spots - 
no fuss, no muss -
like schoolchildren after a field trip,
too tired and hopefully
too content
to rebel. 

sometimes,
my words come to rest
as if my heart and my hands
are all weary travellers,
and i sent them to retrieve riches
that are way beyond
belonging to seventeen neat corners.
and so i apologize,
i call it laziness,
offer some food for thought,
and a warm place to rest 
between the 
three 
simple 
lines
of a haiku.

the art of procrastination - NaPoWriMo #24

the art of procrastination 
is just that - 
exactly what it says 
on its faded, beaten label -
an art in itself;
a weathered process
that has divided humanity, 
much like its more
celebrated
brethren - painting, dancing,
maybe even writing poetry.

the art of procrastination 
makes no bones -
it is made of unequal 
and ever-changing parts
of chaos and consistency,
passion and practice,
destruction and discipline, 
all at once.

it is learning that 
you can train yourself
to not feel fearful of
whatever doom is upon you,
but also struggling to stay 
just barely afloat
when the tides of said doom
sweep you off your feet.
it is both vain strength
(to think you can outrun Time)
and smart cowardice
(to trust that you can hide from Time)

the art of procrastination 
does not beat around the bush -
to master it,
you must walk on the serrations
of a double-edged dagger -
both balance 
and falling beyond measure 
can ruin the practice
of the oldest art 
in all of existence.

on writing women - NaPoWriMo #23

the written word
will never do justice to a woman,
and yet i try to capture
the movements of strangers
as their lives weave in and out 
of each others'. 

with what ink 
can i write down the colours
of a woman's day,
as she goes about her day -
measured movements,
silent prayers,
unsettled glances.
what metaphor 
can ever perfectly capture
how she navigates tides and tides
of love and loss
and everything in between 
like a sailor without 
a North Star. 
what verse 
can perfectly worship
her strength, her fears,
her joy, her tears,
and everything that lies 
in the middle of nothing,
nowhere.

i try to write down
a woman,
but my words,
any words,
will never be enough.