We attempt rescue, unable to bear
the stardust-coated dragonfly
beat, beat, beating
frantic on the glass.
We entice him to perch
on our extended lifeline-broom
nurse him in a box, where he flutters
quivers, lies quietly blue.
My son cries bitterly
as we place a minute cross
upon the dragonfly grave
while intoning our final goodbyes:
*We honor those who have fallen victim
to this fatal architectural trap, lured
by skylights of enticing white-light death
and the paned illusion of freedom.
In admiration of winged determination
and perseverance in the face of futility
we carefully tend the fragile, curved bodies
lay them here to rest under the mock orange.*
years of gauze-weighted detritus
swept beneath these ponderous shrubs
a reminder - what seems like freedom
often isn’t.
Apr 21, 2016
Apr 21, 2016 at 10:00 PM UTC
Pen ink gliding across paper
Yellowed by the sun for ages
From my fingertips bubble words
I do not yet understand
But they come from the innermost depths
Of my soul, never to be voiced
My words never wished to be voiced
Created to live on the paper
Found only in the hidden depths
Of my notebooks on shelves for ages
No one could understand
All my thoughts strung into words
My head is so full of words
That know not how to be adequately voiced
Themselves they do not understand
As flimsy and fragile as paper
Building up for what seems like ages
Into the sea of confusion they sink to the depths
How deep are my soul's depths
It's distance cannot be put into words
The extent of my thoughts goes on for ages
For ages they'll decline to be voiced
And one day I'll crumple them up like paper
Until they're too wrinkled to understand
I do not want others to understand
My thoughts, that I hide in the depths
Of my pen kept away from paper
I refuse to make words
That fear being voiced
To people of all genders and ages
I wish not to be remembered for ages
Most will not understand
My opinions seek not to be voiced
Before my soul implodes into its own depths
Devoid of all thoughts, feelings, & words
As blank as a white sheet of paper
For ages I'll stay in the depths
Of what I don't understand, the words
never voiced, smeared in ink on yellow paper.
Apr 11, 2016
Apr 11, 2016 at 5:32 AM UTC
As I stood facing a family portrait
nailed to a pale yellow wall,
I saw a girl who was my replica:
She put on a smile and stood proudly
in a graduation robe, posed with two gentlemen beside her
and an older couple in front.
How could I belong in there?
That girl in the portrait must be a mistake
It's just a group of strangers living under one roof all along,
void of feelings, warmth and love.
I shouldn't belong in there
I grew up with a broken soul-
sadness and loneliness filled me whole;
pain and tears had taught me to be strong-
yet my heart's shattered
from time to time, in repeated cycles.
I belong to nowhere;
perhaps it's just a coincidence.
Whoever put that girl there
should paint another prettier girl
to replace her.
Apr 9, 2016
Apr 9, 2016 at 3:22 AM UTC
The girl with the paper heart
Stood upon the hill and thought
"If I stand tall from up real high,
The wind will take me to the sky!"
She waited there for just a breeze
To whisper, lift her to the trees
And blow it did, a hefty whooooosh!
That sent her rolling into a bush
But up she stood and to the hill
With just a scrape left from the spill
She studied the branches softly sway
And waited for a breeze her way
And fast it came, a strength so grand
She swirled up high and crashed to land
Bent and twisted, swaying to a stance
She thought of taking one more chance
She approached the hill and climbed the slope
And once a top she laid her hope
And closer, near she heard the whistle
She let it go her heart without dismissal
Then up she flew, and down she swayed,
Before she was swallowed by the Bay
To the girl with the paper heart,
The love you crave was false from start
The wind alone can not be trusted
To take you to the love you lusted
Don't give it all away so fast
You'll find that kind of love can't last
You'll learn in time, the complex art
Of building up a stronger heart
One that doesn't scrape or twist
Or drown into a deep abyss
The heart you want will have a beat,
And keep you dancing on your feet
So take that paper heart at last
And keep it as a lesson passed
Apr 1, 2016
Apr 1, 2016 at 8:24 AM UTC
I'm scared that no one takes me seriously
That everything I say is labeled "dumb"
That they laugh when my back is turned
That I'm secretly "the joke".
I wonder if the people who get talked about
Know and don't give a sh*t,
Or are completely oblivious to it.
If it were me,
If I were the **** of those jokes,
I would crack
And crumble into shards.
And I surely would not make it out alive.
-m.m.
Apr 1, 2016
Apr 1, 2016 at 8:03 AM UTC
The mannequin faceless,
Clothed in gold
With hands pandering svelte,
Remains an admired inanimate,
Albeit, atop whispers to a girl,
A 4-foot flower 3-feet my right,
Fretting and stumped;
Extrinsic a label – “undesirable.”
The mannequin faceless,
Her and hollow –
A towering nose above, stands
Opaque ivory, scarred come
Synonymous eyes with a symmetrical
Soul, assumed plastic perfection
And more importantly,
Soon to be sale.
The mannequin faceless
Convinced her new friend,
Her lesser, lopsided,
And natural not-so counterpart
To consume,
“Eat me, “eat me,” “eat it all,”
And then, “binge some more.”
The mannequin faceless
SCREAMS,
“BUY!” Amongst the other torments –
Born both fingers that can’t move and
The thumbs that shuffle, “One’s,”
To the girl that was never,
“Good enough;” so shared the
Tabloid’s mouth.
The mannequin faceless demands
And DEMANDS nothing less than to
Buy, starve, suffer and sacrifice
So that every “broken body,”
May embody polymer, and for a price,
A not so fair trade whilst
Considering old man gold,
The curator of conundrum
And the plastic he’s created.
Apr 1, 2016
Apr 1, 2016 at 7:58 AM UTC
The day she refused to converse with me,
I was sad and pondered what it could be.
She passed by me without saying a hi,
Let alone bothering to say goodbye.
Her mind was filled with incessant bad thoughts,
Like ropes tied around her neck in huge knots.
Worries and doubts stayed rooted in her mind,
Grief and frustration- that's all she could find.
Unease and fearful of those snide comments
From those people whom she loathe with laments,
Soon she avoided me with suspicion-
Thought I befriended with ill intention.
When I gave her a gift to bid farewell;
A meal in which I'd got no right to dwell.
She sat furthest from me- I'm a virus.
She didn't want what I'd given-it's not hers.
Then she left quietly on her last day,
This I remembered: early part of May.
A colleague said she had left a present
Without telling me, to my amazement.
When I was given her gift later on,
I wished to apologise, but she'd gone.
Why didn't I realise sooner? It's too late
To cry over spilled milk. Perhaps that's fate.
Mar 27, 2016
Mar 27, 2016 at 7:43 AM UTC
The agony was too much
and the memories suffocated
her until she could not breathe.
For two months she found herself
in a hospital, for she thought
seeking Death would be
a better choice. Jagged red
lines smiled at her
cunningly from her own wrists.
The doctors, nurses and her family
kept her far away from
her best friend, a sharp
point dripping in crimson.
She wondered where it was;
if she was going to see
it again. For days, she
slept and wished
she could sleep forever.
But one day she was told
by the doctor
there was nothing more to be
done to keep her from
thinking the bad thoughts,
except to prescribe drugs
to make her either numb
or fine for a while.
So she went back home,
back to the empty spaces,
back to those horrible memories-
that time of the year
she could not forget, no matter how
she tried to push them to
the back of her mind. Then
she found the farewell letter
she had written two months ago,
meaning to say goodbye
and never, ever come back.
She read it and the agony
came back once again.
It was too much and
the memories suffocated her,
until she could not breathe.
Mar 27, 2016
Mar 27, 2016 at 7:27 AM UTC
THEN
You were a pillar, sturdy and tall.
I desperately clung onto you.
Dependent, naive and still young,
I was ignorant to the fact that you
woke up too early and came back too late.
Until one day you collapsed
in front of me
and I fell along with you.
My fault, my fault, my fault.
Those bleak nights with your absence,
I stared into the darkness that seemed
to stretch for eternity.
I could not stop my cheeks from getting wet;
that saltiness that seeped into
the corners of my mouth.
No. I could not stay like this forever.
I need to change.
I need to be independent, because I'd
lost you.
I don't want to lose you
any further.
NOW
You were once my anchor
to keep me from sinking.
Yet I've learnt to stand
on my own two feet.
You have finally returned,
but you are no longer as strong
as before.
It's okay, it's okay, it's okay.
You are shrinking- more bones
are protruding.
You move slowly, meticulously,
as though relearning how to
walk again.
I admire your resilience;
your diligence to get better.
No more waking up too early
and coming back too late.
We are both aging, yet
your rate of getting sunken cheeks
and sagging skin appears
to speed up too fast,
too soon.
If time could rewind, I want you
back to when you were still
tall and radiant, and that
I would get a chance to love you
more- I would not be a burden
to you, then.
What has been done cannot be undone.
So I embrace the changes
and learn to love you
in the present and many
years to come.
Thank you for being my pillar.
Mar 27, 2016
Mar 27, 2016 at 7:08 AM UTC