So last night
I whispered all of your dreams unprompted
I saw your jaw drop but I tried to conspicuously not pay attention;
I paid a lot of attention to the needs and dreams of your friend.
I remember who talked to me all night about everything
about significant things great and small
tiny odd reccolecctions
everything her things my things your things all things fuck pretty much everything
That I answered or said without saying as thing that are true
I might have lied
Because you started talking like my dreams...
I covered every base what the fuck do you want me to do?
You were so fucking cool
I think I met your friend
Only to meet you
or your boyfriend...
fuck i seriously hope that one ain't true but like I'm a buhhdist now and can't say
It's like you have never met a man who see's the future
in a gingerbread man baked and burned in the oven for fun
it's like we all take things so seriously instead of laughing and drinking
and hearing the endearing lunacy of our friends
fuck if we just took a minute to wait and pretend to understand all of that darkness we let lurk in
it would be like a circus show of light delivering all of us from the three ring thing of everything
that is bad
our own macabre circus of rejection, judgement, and humiliation for all of our kind. So when you are done with your boyfriend, fiance, husband, i know not yet; talk to me first before every voyage and adventure set in opposition just for the fuck of it.
but what you can't count on
is that i'm so much older and I've been around
I don't think you might know what it is like
to double down
over years and years
it's like you get a discount
on the odds
for multiples of five years
cause who really lasts that long?
maybe me
Maybe you.
but who knows
cause life is like a lotto taro hurricane
no sense to distribute the sad recompense
let's just fucking spend it before we pay
on all the debts we just made
and all of the futures that greyed out just fadet(ed)
that's the point of grey vistas
all the deals and the souls we just promised in casual relation to make it
We try to pretend
we're all samurai
noble sacrafice to budo
it's cool that i alone must die
but i think we all smell some bullshit
in the way and the feel of this philosophy
that tells us to fight it instead of accept it
so let's beware those wayward philosophies
that perhaps might be misguided
telling us that nothing matters
now
or anytime
as opposed to those that tell us
to simply love
all of those that surround us
I have no idea why I come to this bar every night.
But I just do.
I just leave it feeling jet blue with the weight of the wanders of the world crushing down on my shoulders.
And I leave with questions and grief for anyone I see there.
Of pity for the girl behind the counter who isn’t very pretty.
She’s washed up on the wrong side of the great Mississippi.
Now she’s working shitty shifts and pulling pints filled with misery for the bums of the city.
Of shame for the alcoholic with his alcohol frozen brain.
Standing by the bar eying up his drink before he chooses where to take his aim.
But it’s his own fault he got dragged into this whole addiction game.
Of humiliation for the boy in the couple corner alone with his head filled with that question he shouldn’t have asked her.
At least he now knows his place for it finally been confirmed.
And so it’s time for him to forget it by sucking up his bottle of Estonian liqueur.
Of frustration for the poor taxi driver who picks up drunks stumbling up to his car under the influence of the pale moonlight every single night.
I ask him if he’s been busy even though I know he has been asked this by everyone he has picked up tonight.
Despite this he answers me just to be polite.
Of eternal embarrassment for my own self when my face hits the pillow and I ask what I’m doing with life.
Why I’ve went to that hellish bar another evening to get drunk off my face and spend all my of savings and come home alone to go to bed and cry again.
Worst of all is I know tomorrow it will be a repeat, like the next day and all days after that.
I have no idea why I come to this bar every night. But I just do.
I'm a very creative guy,
Baby you should know it,
I foresee in my imagination,
A sunny-snowy day in winters,
Up in the mountains to the north,
Both of us sitting together on a bench,
Then you tell me to relax from life as such,
I understand and sink my head in your lap,
You put a warm gloved hand on my left cheek,
Giving me the ultimate relaxation to be felt in love.
©Atul Kaushal
YOU DON'T KNOW HOW SPECIAL AND NICE
I FELT ABOUT MAMMA'S CHICKEN AND RICE
BUT FOR ME AT THE TIME IT WAS BEYOND PRICE
ON FRIDAY WHEN MAMA COOKS HER SPECIAL CHICKEN RICE
CHICKEN AND RICE, CHICKEN AND RICE I SAY
ESPECIALLY ON A FRIDAY ON MOM'S LAUNDRY DAY
MY MOM MADE THE BEST, IN HER OWN SPECIAL WAY
WHEN EVER I AM FEELING I AM CRAVING FOR RICE
I WOULD ALWAYS FIND AN EXCUSE
TO HAVE MY MAMA'S CHICKEN AND RICE.
You never know do you?
Don't you get that feeling?
Where you think you're walking
Working all day and all night
Everyday with no motivation at all
Unhappiness, Awkwardness and Stressfulness
But never moving forward
While the others are already at the end of the finish line
You're still at the start of the line
Still alive but I'm barely breathing
Next thing I know I'm falling to pieces
What am I going to do when I'm all
choked up and you're okay
When the best part of me was always you
I'm falling to pieces
Brokenhearted, Loneliness, Heartbreak
I'm gonna get a heart attack soon
And going to die slowly
I let all of this happen
I let myself cause my heart so much misery
I will not break myself
I've learnt the hard way
to never let it get that far
because of you
i find it hard to trust not only me,
but everyone around me
I am afraid
I lose my ways
I cannot cry
Because I know that's weakness
I'm forced to fake a smile everyday of my life
my heart can't possibly break
I learn to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt
But, I'll move on, stay strong and move forward
I don't need those silly boys
I don't need a man
I can live by myself and
I don't need any friends
Forget about them
They're not worth my time at all
I can do it
I am strong
I should , I should just move on
Get on back with my life.
when i begin to free-wheel
and shudder with contempt
i take comfort in the thought
that we are mostly born to fail.
honey-slow days are steeped in loss,
marinated in missed opportunities
sweetly whistling tunes that pipe
"all is well because all will be, regardless."
my life might have no payoff
to the meandering silk i weave
and death could prove a hostel,
relief from what i was born to carry.
effort always looks to me
like a lack of priorities
while i jealously guard potential
and covet their delusions.
i'm a coward gently born
to soft beds and microchips
and indulgence of my worst self
when i am too afraid to move.
i am worried i am a narcissist
for wanting to keep breathing
soon picnics and parties become noble acts
proof of love through self-flagellation.
i've heard that poets see farther
but i don't even know metric units
so how can i tell anyone how far ahead
the beginning begins and the end ends?
Tell me this,
how nice is paradise
is everything free
or is it cut price
Is it Harrods or a Tesco?
That's what I'd like to know.
Do you sit do you sing
do you do anything
or do you just float in the air
are there many up there?
can you fall in love
or is it just him up above you adore
what do you wear?
I care to know.
One day I'll go and give it a shot
will you forget me not?
in the gardens of Eden we'll meet
parting is not sweet
just bitter.
Sweet baby girl
With ocean eyes,
Go ahead and
Keep on crying.
Let the tears go
Until they're drying.
Your sadness won't
Want to stay.
You'll forget it all
In yesterday.
Soft little girl
With ocean eyes,
It's okay to
Keep on crying.
Let the tears go
Until they're drying.
Your sadness won't
Want to stay.
You'll forget it all
In yesterday.
Hopeful young girl
With ocean eyes,
I know it's hard
To still be crying.
Let the tears go
Until they're drying.
Your sadness wont
Want to stay.
You'll forget it all
In yesterday.
Strong woman
With ocean eyes,
I know you're tired
Of all this crying.
Let the tears go
They're almost drying.
Your sadness seems to
Want to stay.
But at least it lives
In yesterday.
©NDHK
If a mermaid falls in love...
Where does she get weak,
Is that electric connection dangerous,
And if her breath isn't taken away...
What is?
©NDHK
There is this space that exists inside.
In between my ribs and just under my heart.
It's not in a place to constantly remind me of its presence there.
But it does get nudged from time to time.
It holds onto things I've tried to rise above, to let go of...
But never fully doing so.
Things like negativity and doubt and stubbornness...
Like self esteem bruising childhood judgements.
Like bitter regret of missing out on "I love you" before someone dies.
Like ignorant teenage decisions there was no reason to be making.
Like that secret you told and the one you promised to keep.
Like dutifully cleaning up after destruction since it was easier than starting over new.
Like the coltish grace of learning to be a woman without one.
Like leading a child with having no direction of your own.
Like taking that last piece.
Like hoping karma takes over.
Like waiting for a sign before walking away from toxic people.
Like throwing your heart out there with only faith and hope to be its wings.
Like innate fear of being alright with who you truly are.
Like disappointment for taking all these years to figure yourself out.
Those are some things that rattle around on a quiet and calm night.
On a night that finally arrives after strenuous days bleeding together...
They ghost in and remind you they're still there.
It used to terrorize the still moments when that happened.
No control over the flood of images and empathy associated with each and every reminder.
I thought it was in times like that, when drowning with the sorrows of yesterday was just as easy as an exhale.
But I was wrong...
I was mislead in my own thoughts.
Because when I was tapped on the shoulder by history.
It wasn't trying to hold me back.
It wasn't intending to maim my conscious.
I believe in fact, it just simply wanted to show progress.
To show the "then", compared to the "now"
How every piece of who I am today was shaped and structured in part, to everything I haven't let go of yet.
How do you know when your soul is weaker than strong but mighty enough to fight?
In being made to contemplate all the wonderful and fulfilling things and parts of who we are,
We also have to give credit to the dark pieces
The events and people that have burdened and burnt but never destroyed.
Like any balance in life we acknowledge both light and shadow.
Appreciation of the good in our lives is more fluid when we have proof of the struggles we've overcome.
Be it years ago or hours,
Seeing how far you've come from that which had held you under or has trampled your spirit.
It helps enlighten bit by bit.
And a step at a time is how we all move forward into who we're meant to be.
So i think, that space that exists very close to my heart but just far enough away...
I think I'm okay with it being there.
It may hold scars in the eyes of others
But I know scars are just golden reminders;
Of that which make us stronger.
For if one has no scars, what has one conquered?
©NDHK
