I'm trying to remember
The words my father wrote.

He was a poet, in earlier days.
When he lived my lifetime once,
(Now he's lived it three-or-so times over.)

And I remember one day finding the words he wrote,
Photocopied onto bright white paper.

And it was then that I first realized how much I am like my father.

His words then held just as much as my words do now--

As much love,
As much anger,
As much confusion,
And, at times, as much hate.

And now that I feel lost and alone, I try to dig up the pages
That were haphazardly tucked in-between the leafs of a novel, I think

Or maybe an atlas,
Or maybe in a drawer,
Or maybe under the bed...

Behind the bookshelf?
In a photo album?
In a book
Any book
In the kitchen
Above the fridge
In a box
This box
Not this box
That box
Not that box
Any box,
Try any box,
Every box --


Which brings me to now.

Now I sit here, on the kitchen floor
Stirring my lukewarm chamomile,
Watching the air,
And the clock,
Breathing deeply through my mouth,
Holding back any sound

Searching through my head
To remember the words he wrote
Long ago
That somehow might make me feel my father's comforting smile
Now.

"See you around"
Now, I have never been a fan of goodbyes
But that was far-stretched to a point
It could only be a lie.
Our song, whose words either
You have forgotten,
Or, no longer care to utter,
Has been long sung
And over.

And in an ideal world,
You would be exactly where I belong,
But the world always gets its way
I must admit,
It is hard to watch all your love
Getting drained out of your bone
With no face to blame

And I don't know if it's a choice,
I think not,
To have a control over
Who we choose to love
And maybe I should have kept
All these feelings bottled up
In some dark corner of my mind
But I had to try
Or how would have I known

And we tried,
Did not we?
Two souls against
This world's ways
But I guess it was just too much
For anyone to take
And we both were
Two little kids
Who increased in volume
But never really grew up

And writing is how I'll get to keep you
Yet give you the final closure you need
I loved you with every ounce of
What was mine
But it will be a suicide
If I choose to stand here
Hear your footsteps
Till they fade
Because your memories
A quicksand
I never learnt to escape

I have to leave,
Since you already have
So,
Goodbye to you,
My lover, my better half, my best friend.

Put your makeup on
Fix your hair
Don't let them know
You are hurting
But God, are you hurting!

Put a facade on
Make your voice sound softer
Walk with a zeal
Don't let your eyes betray you
But oh, they always betray you

Mirror, mirror on the wall
Can they tell
I have been wasting my self away
Curled up in a ball

Mirror mirror on the wall
Will they ever know
The face in the mirror
Masks more pain than they'll ever know

Fight the lump in your throat
Eat but never swallow
You need to fit into that dress
Your boyfriend bought
Oh, anything for him.

Pull your sleeves down
They must not see
The cracks through
Your impenetrable wall
But the voices are just too loud

Mirror, mirror on the wall
How long will he love me
If I continue to live
In this flawed skin I was born with

Mirror, mirror on the wall
Can I tell you a secret
Few more weeks
And I'll be the prettiest of them all

Ignore the stares
But does your hip look too flat
It can't be, you followed all the diet procedures perfectly
Or, did you

Give in
You can't do this anymore
Who would ever love
The ugly duckling you have
Become

Mirror,  mirror on the wall
Why do you have to be so shallow
Why don't you reflect
All the goodness inside a person

Mirror, mirror on the wall
Watch how I break you
And bleed my life dry
On the shattered piece of you

Dear little girl,
*You have hated your reflection
That I showed all this time
If you only knew
Only you have the acceptance
You sought in everyone's eyes

I like to think
I bury him a little bit
Every day
Under the pile of poems
He'll never get
To read

I like to think
That I have crossed a certain stage
Now that I refer to you
as "him" instead
And in this fact,
I find some solace

I like to think
About the sight Of you loving her
The way I wish you had loved me
And how that no longer
makes me cringe
I'm finally letting go

I like to think
That maybe,
Not all of us can find love
But If we try hard enough,
We will find something greater
Waiting just to happen to us

I like to think
We are more
And will always be
More than the bitter people
Who try to break us,
We are indestructible.

i.
last week you were sitting by your window watching the sun melt into a thousand shades of darkness and you thought of her. you still remember how she always smelled like lavender and roses and peonies and freshly mowed grass and rain - a living breathing walking talking singing dancing growing but ever so slowly dying garden. you suppose she must've smelled like cigarettes as well, since she went through a pack a week, and the whiskey she laced her coffee with and the teabags she used as toothbrushes, but all you can remember is the garden of her mind and the green of her thumbs that planted flowers in-between your ribs and turned your blood to a breeding ground for aphids. a single lotus flower can live for a thousand years. a single memory can live even longer.

ii.
on the train ride to paris she didn't think of you, instead she counted all the prime numbers from one to one thousand and kissed a boy with oceans for eyes. you came home to an empty house in february, a receipt for valentine's day roses still fresh in your wallet. all of your belongings were still there, tainted with the memory of her - the set of calligraphy pens she got you for hanukkah, the sweater of yours she would always wear in the mornings after *** while drinking coffee and filling out the crossword. the endless number of bobby pins she'd left in your bedroom were still there, littering your floor like land mines. you found the flowers she planted in your veins tossed in the trash, and you spent hours pulling each petal from its receptacle and deciding that if she'd ever loved you she would have chosen something gentler than forget-me-nots to sew into your veins. the seeds of a lotus flower must be cracked before they can be planted, must be broken to allow the water to seep into them and breathe possibility into their veins. your heart is cracked, have you blossomed yet?

The blue of his eyes is
Mesmerizing enough
to keep me captivated
But kind enough to let me float
And not drown
He is infinitely dreamy
And he is infinitely
Mine

I am found
Behind the cavity of his eyes
Between the beats of his heart
The deviousness lurking
Around the corner of his lips
He is infinitely fine
And he is infinitely
Mine

The touch of his
Is velvety enough
To soothe the chasms after a long day
But wild enough to awake
The wolf in me On a new moon night
He is infinitely wild
He is infinitely
Mine

I am found
On the tip of his tongue
In between the words,
And in his eloquence
He is infinitely artistic
He is infinitely
Mine

The voice of his
Magical enough to put my restlessness Into ease
But playful enough to make my
Heartbeats Flutter
Whenever and however he wishes
He is infinitely magical
He is infinitely
Mine

I'm found
In his memories and dreams
In his longings and reality
I'm the music he breathes
With his missing heartbeats
He is infinitely passionate
He is **infinitely
Mine

You ask me
To snap out if it
Like it's a choice
Like I'm hurting
By desire
And not a compulsion
Fate has
Bound me with

You cry
For all these materialistic things
Your teeth have gaps
And you had to get it fixed
I cry
Because I have seen a mother
Trying to get through
Her son's epileptic brain
And let him know
She loves him.

You say you know
The pain I must feel
But can you
Can you really?
I remember all the times you were there
But I also remember the majority of nights
When you were not

I had to battle alone
All those days
Darker than most of the nights
You were busy
Getting laid

my issues
Were downplayed
And I was blamed
To be the one
Eclipsing your happiness
And I apologised
Who needs razor blades
Your words
Make deeper cuts
And no one can even see the harm

I was fine before
Always Maintaining my distance
As if the plague inside me
Will create havoc
The moment I
Get near a happy soul
I'll infect them
With the misery
That I am

But you were different
You gave me hope
You showed me there was another way
And just like that
I thought I was saved
But I was not
The flood came
When I was fully assured
You were the life boat
And you were gone.


You were an illusion
I mistook for pure magic
You were the toxicant
I hoped would cure me
You gave me hope
Only to ****** it
Away from me
And the walk back home
All alone
Has never felt this lonely

Why did you hold my hand
Only to let me go
Why did you give me shelter
Only to kick me out
When I get used to the warmth
Why did you assure me
You'll be here
When that was never the part of your plan

And now I look at the mother of epileptic kid
Whose pain lasted longer
Than she ever will
Her eyes have lost their light
She is oblivious to my hands
Holding hers
Don't you dare tell me
It gets better
Cause it never does