would it surprise you to know
people have told me
they've never seen me without a smile?
did you know
i have one dimple?
everyone gets to see it,
plain as day
on my right cheek.
and when i find myself alone,
when i say goodbye,
see you tomorrow,
see you friday or monday or whenever,
and i am alone,
it disappears.
i guess
happiness looks particularly good on me.
i have always been
conscious of my appearance
after all--
i'm not me unless
i've got my dimple
on my right cheek!
ahaha.
no,
the truth is,
nine years ago in a
solemn little office for
children that don't know how to be children
my mother was told
i have depression.
nine years of this.
i have memories that put that dimple away.
at what age should you
learn how to take a pill?
i had to learn it so i could be happy.
at what age should you
learn not to take pills?
at sixteen i wondered how many i needed
to undo the life i've lived.
how much food is enough food?
i measure how well i'm doing by
how awful eating food makes me feel.
what should i blame myself for?
do my friends really like me?
am i pretty enough for people to love me?
and why don't people stay?
why don't people communicate?
what's wrong with me?
what's wrong with me?
what's wrong with me?
i'm looking for love in the wrong places.
when i look in the mirror,
what do i even see?
let me put on some eyeliner...
...that's a little better.
Mar 26, 2021
Mar 26, 2021 at 10:12 PM UTC
the ocean outside the window--
that clear blue hue that
reflects nothing to the eyes
but illustrates the heart--
turned to autumn orange and
some blue shade of red
so suddenly.
with my eyes i watched
as the light travelled against
the shadows of my textbooks,
inching across the table
until it reached its end horizon
and disappeared beyond the window.
that blue was gone so suddenly.
and the ocean came
to my eyes.
Nov 3, 2020
Nov 3, 2020 at 1:09 AM UTC
the sunset melting from
a light, lively blue to lovely lavender hues;
soft, romantic piano melodies and
sopranos harmonizing in the trees;
and quiet, happy mornings,
the sunlight tickling the leaves and then my window,
and then your eyelids, the outline of your profile,
softly rising and falling, dreaming
next to me.
if i had words for how i feel of these things;
the gentle waves of your voice like the ocean,
your arms washing over and enveloping me,
the happy crashing of your laughter with mine,
your lips like fragments of light on the water's surface;
i believe those words might be
i love you
May 5, 2020
May 5, 2020 at 5:00 PM UTC
i don't talk to people.
sometimes i smile,
and i know how to say hello,
but i don't talk to people.
i can read, though.
it was foreign to me
until middle school age,
but the runes on the pages of
the holy book, the look of
my mother's first language,
became words that i could
slowly untangle. and
i was proud of myself,
but that doesn't matter when
i don't talk to people.
my grandmother tiptoes in
conversation with me; her eyes
know no frustration but she
cannot expect a full reply.
my cousin laughs with my mother
and i can't help but wonder
if she wishes i’d laugh, too.
and i worry that the words
will refuse my american accent.
i worry i do not
eat enough spiced curry,
pray enough to the right gods,
or even act
indian enough.
i don't talk to people.
i’m not sure how.
Apr 25, 2019
Apr 25, 2019 at 12:36 AM UTC
i remember your laugh
blooming like spring roses
at the end of summer
i could imagine the way your
lips parted, cheeks blushed
over the phone so clearly
i fell in love that day,
so much so that
even if i were to someday forget all about you
those roses would still smell so sweet
Nov 29, 2018
Nov 29, 2018 at 10:46 PM UTC
i'm afraid that
i'll have all the words
to a love poem in my head
but no one to give them to
Nov 20, 2018
Nov 20, 2018 at 11:21 PM UTC
she basks in the sun's warmth
her half brilliantly glows
she dances on starlight
soft quiet steps on each star
as she twirls, twisting
the cosmos around her.
and yet her other half
hides away, unseen
her secrets embedded in her
forever companion, the
shroud of darkness that is the sky.
how mysterious and how beautiful
she is tonight.
Nov 16, 2018
Nov 16, 2018 at 2:07 AM UTC
in the dead of night
cruising past the streetlights
in a college student's car,
who am i?
i'm not american in these streets;
i'm not indian in this skin;
i am just another shadowed face
behind the windshield.
another pair of headlights reflecting off the asphalt.
another fleeting thought,
if even that.
Nov 4, 2018
Nov 4, 2018 at 2:39 AM UTC
regrettably,
i layed in bed
before i got myself dinner.
when i had gotten up again,
only a single cold plate remained
on that table for two.
my only company were
the memories that dined with me.
they laughed with me as i ate,
chased me back to my blankets,
wrapped their arms around me,
and slept with me.
and i couldn't breathe.
no matter how much i tell myself
you're gone,
i see you in everything
Oct 30, 2018
Oct 30, 2018 at 8:37 PM UTC
i wrote your name in pencil
i would erase it before you passed me by
but, watching your back distance from me,
i rewrote those letters like i
could not wear down that pencil enough
and i wrote your name in pen
that day you saw it, it was embedded in ink
no eraser could hide those feelings
but truly no pen could encompass the answer
written in your twinkling eyes
then i tried to draw your name.
but what color could possibly rival
the love your heart contains? and
how do i put on this paper what
the sound of your laugh does to me?
every time i wrote every way i love you
i just wrote your name again and again
even now
it's all i can do anymore
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 2:21 AM UTC