I stole a sheet from the test papers
For my hands are filled
Already with ink
from exhausted pens
Well, that is all I planned to say
But I must keep on this ramble
Only these words feel real
Only they keep me warm

Sun dies gently behind the clouds
And gossips scatter around
Girls in blacks
And yellows and reds
Scarves dyed in greens, browns
And blues
Intricate galaxies stitched
On their swaying tunics

I do not dissolve here
In these beautiful tides
and their slow dance
Not with a carnage stuck in my chest
Not with the bleached dawns
Rising and rising restless
And we’re all fighting, yes, we all are
Why then
Is this field so lonely?
Not a mourning, not a deafening blast
Is heard

A barricade of silence
I wrap around us
Us, I,
The boy
who constantly yells for freedom
And the girl
Who will let him not

Then again, us
I, the two children inside
One weaves a step out of his fingers
Other hops on
Peeps out of my eyes—
“Do they want me yet?”
“No”
“You, then?”
“No”
What then is wanted,
They wonder
But do not say—

It is an ungrateful inquiry
All luxuries they have known in this house
Crowns and swords, dresses, blooms
None kept from either
Why must
Then they want out?

Then the guys pass by
The scarce colours
that fill up their clothes
And hoarse laughs erupting
Their uncovered heads
And princely gaits

I belong there,
No more than here.
Not in flowers, not in bees
Do I blend
Not in capes, nor veils

No weapon I wish to hold,
Not an anklet studded with gold

In the grass, I cross my legs
Far from beetles
Far from wasps—
I watch red ants crawl up my shoes
Crush them, I do,
Casually beneath my fingers
One, then, three and more
Until dusk is silenced
by the night

Not a beetle approaches
Near
I wear the shimmering skin of a wasp
Not a wasp calls
I am skin only

Later,
The black sky comes
And takes us far.
The girl climbs up my spine
And pulls the boy along
They zip me open
And crawl out
Sit next to me, and they sing a song

I am the castle
Who could not help them live
I am the rusty duel
They were born to fight
Yet love me still, they do

And the crescent—
It is a woman nor a man
A crescent it is,
a crescent, stays

And when darkness comes
And eats the world
We join our hands
And build a softer one
But what good—

It is too dark to write now.
The lights flicker like stars
with smoke sickened
They pound in my head, pound and pound.
I hope the ramble
Was worth the theft

Flowers fight flowers
To aridity
In my chest
Such is a penance
Must paid
For your distant benevolence

A liveliness so ecstatic
It slays and slays
All bits
Of melancholy peace
I’ve known
Lust you,

I lust you to war
Lust you, I lust you on
Nothing purer dare I claim
Lest the Sirens
Whirling
Within your gaze
Question the chastity
I have so well known

There is a desolation
Beneath this devouring tide
And you do not get me
You do not understand
I have always
Loved bleakness
Have always loved
A piece or two
Of you

And here
Bees fight bees
And the carnage
Weaves you a golden dirge
Soft as satin and softer still
Will you not hear—
Will you not?

I sink and sink
with the fair maidens
Who lured me to stillness
And not a note
Not a tune stirs its gentle wings

Your mute Muses
They know not a taste
Of hues
And I lure myself
Into you
Still

How awfully beautiful
Is our dance
How bleak—

Treading on through the hazy crowd
This circus dims with every dawn
Every dawn, I say, every dawn
Not the funeral, nor the mother knows
But dusk is a pitiful thing
Wrecked and lone, a pitiful devour
Overruled by its own shade

The crumbled clouds
Plummet upon us
And our skeleton hands
Sculpt gods out of mud

One for lightening,
One for the calm
One unborn and one undying
For you one, for me
We worship them then
Light up a fire that runs down our veins
And we bow

It is a beautiful blasphemy
A painful ecstasy
As the goddess within
shrivels to stone
And dust becomes the funeral
The mother
Dawns kissed and kissed
By dusk’s benevolent shade

The jester lies still with his king
And swords are headstones
Ripping skulls apart
Only uttered eulogies bathed in red
Dusk is a pitiful thing
As flames gush out of our skins
And ground can hold no more

Gods, gods still
One for war
And one for birth
One loving, one deaf
For you one, for us

Mortals, we trod through our immortal realm
Deathless we’re buried in her stoney arms

Dusk is a pitiful thing
Gods mourn our funeral
We, mothers no more
The circus dims
Dims to life with every dawn
Every dawn, I say, every dawn

You must love me
Oh, no, but you must, you must!
I am the muse they request to sing
in your old, beloved books
I am the twinkling butterfly
Over a thousand darkened blooms
Life twirls around on my palm
Deathlessness sleeps
Love me, love me
Mustn’t you now?
I have whirled and withered
Since the morn
Of this endless mourn
I have heard all smothered wails

Must you sway
In your precarious little trance,
must you?
You sure do know
A thing or two of heaven
But a thing or two merely
Must you love me, oh must!
I could tell you a dozen more

Death surrenders his cloak
For my dresses
Must you see—
I am a snowy woman kissing
Her mulberry love
I lurk on the vivid edges
Of an infant’s dream

You must hear me,
You must now, you must!
I have pushed my way through
The froth
That settles on the surface of the stirring sky
And I fight on,
Hum, oh I hum
One upon another lullaby
Luring the day to sleep
Must you love me!
Must you not?

Bruised and scarred
I have a hundred tales of beauty
Unheard
Must you ask,
Oh, must you ask only!
You sure do know some secrets
Of godhood, but
Must you ask me about yourself
Ask, ask, mustn’t you ask!

Love me!
O you peace-less, fluttering moths
The sun smirks an immortality away
Must you love me
For a single night, must you!
I wait, I wait
I count your molten bodies
That dreamed of kissing
The mighty sun
Counting, recounting

I wait, I wait
Then curl away in my lone vacancy
I wait
Then bloom again
Uncountable deaths I have died
Reborn only for you
Must you,
Oh, must you love me
Mustn’t you?

I shine a full goddess tonight
See me, ask and ask
I have so much of living
To spare
Oh must you love me
Love me—

Here I lurk
Clutching my shadow
In my fists
It shivers, shrivels, sighs
A flame shushed to silence
On its ashen throne
Here I grasp
Grasp the oozing, burning night
That drips down my fingers
A palm beneath a palm I place
A palm beneath another
It the creamy tiles kisses
And will come to me no more

A rumble wobbles
around the room
Of laughs and talks
And talks
However do I mingle
In these faceless folks?
However do I fathom
All these massless worlds
Orbiting around ecstatic tongues
That birth them
Birth them on and on
Birth them meaningless, and birth them blind

I think,
Maybe when the flood dies out
I think,
Maybe then I will see
Pick up the shells this land could not drink
And read the tales preserved
In their wounds
Maybe the drunken ghosts
Serving all these brightly dressed drinks
Will approach me too—

Not yet though
Not yet

I pull little hymns out of my throat
Roll them around in my mouth
It is there they sway,
There they wilt

A gaze chained to my eyes
Wanders about
Like an injured fly
On one face it rests
On one chuckle stumbles,
A crack skipping down the wall
A high-pitched laugh blooming
In the corner
There is a bleakness, believe me
In this world

A bleakness so pitiless and rotten
Its stench covers all that is born
All that is not
All—
There is a bleakness
And I often mistake it for my own
But I do not now
It is there in every eye
In every corpse hanging between the ribs
It grows up like a sturdy ****
On arms and legs and
Bones
Up and down the aisle it flows
In this classroom twinkling
with childish mirth

Up and down
It pats heads and laughing cheeks
It is there
It is there
And will not still
Will not stir either

I think,
I must warn them
These energetic faces trying
to resurrect joy
From the flesh of stories all skinned alive
Warn them
I must, I must
But the words pile up
And floods pile up
One upon the other thousands
And I lose myself somewhere

The chatter blends in with the chortle
And I cannot tell
The shadows imagined
From cloaked figures swaying around
I would warn them, believe me
Warn them I would
If only
If only I could grasp hold
Of this darkness
That mimics me everywhere I go
Ghost of a black lamb
I once sacrificed for
A purity I loved to violence

And longing never became
A shackle so well

I think,
maybe when the flood dies down
I will breathe,
I will breathe maybe
Here we lurk
A slave upon a slave rests
A slave beneath still
Two ghosts I birthed,
Two lambs opened up,
One will not love me
And one will not not—

Not a seat is left here
For your gentle grief
The ritual started a breath ago
And has not tired since
Not a glass is empty,
Not a plate unused

Now meet him in the quiet shadows
Of the garden humming
Itself to sleep
Now dance on with the beetles
You two,
For the hall in here is full

Not a gossip chirps the name
Of your long loyal lover
Not a searching glance
Birthed for him

Here, the ladies sparkle around
And spices giggle on tongues
Here, kings now stumble on their crowns
And goddesses
Painted on windows
Smile the lambs once killed for chastity
In their altars

Did I not warn you, beloved?
Did I not open the moon up
Vessel by vessel
And weave a castle out it all
Did I not surrender?
Spared a throne for him, I did
and a thousand ones for you
in my bleak little hall

I watch you sneak out into the night
Pearls kissing your cheeks,
And teasing your lips
Slipping down that slender neck
Shining a dawn
in the fading lights
Oh, how I envy
the silliest of things!

Precarious dresses
And grasses smothered
Beneath flushed soles

Oh, how I wait and wait
In the hall I slaughtered to silence
For your peace
The stars I invited, drunk on boredom
And sunlit teas
Warm no more
Oh, how I wait, I wait
My breaths away!

Not a dove dares mimic the grace
Of your beautiful grief
Not a moth dares look

You swirl about his finger
And the world does
About you

I sewed myself a dress
Made it prettier than spring
Oh, the laces hiss like golden snakes
And winter sits, a heavy shroud
Did you not prefer frozen lakes over
Golden flowers?
Why then, why then—

And as the dreamy plants
Whisper soft verses to your dress
You sigh happiness in his
Melancholy embrace
Oh, I know,
Not a shadow is left here
For me to blend in

How I wish I were him
your sweet, gentle grief
Oh, how I wish
I were a nameless goddess
Buried in the glass window of a rotten hall
Swaying to the sounds
Of your laughs

Sometimes, sometimes
I will sit in my own room like a stranger
I will gracefully drag the chair out its den
And run my fingers through the white fur
That is white no longer
It lies there inviting
But I prop myself on the table instead
Head just touching the shelves above
Books kissed by dry dust
College notes never noticed
An empty fruitcake box
A candy wrapper
I run my gazes up and down the walls
Up and down
Up and down

A disheveled slave girl bare—
Still for me
Someone has covered her wounds
With poems ripped out of forgotten books
Her tears slide down like curious cracks
Beneath the silver veil
A bottle of Kerosine oil sits patiently near the pallet,
Rows of paint tubes
Children’s beds in a quiet, orphanage hall

Unfinished canvases awaiting a god
Brushes scattered around
Scattered like arms and legs
and skulls
In a tired battlefield

Sometimes I reread the stories
Scribbled on the doors
Quotes as bullet shells
abandoned
and hollow

Like a stranger
I admire the designs on the wall picture
Leaves of all the races
And the blueness beneath
Like a stranger
This silent, beautiful girl I see
For as a lover I have long ceased
A shy dove scared
Quietly humming a tune
I have never known

I look for the person who smiles in the pictures
The girl who’s known to talk to the walls
But the bed is empty
And folks in the photos
Will not meet my eyes
The verses swirl around in the air
And fumes of the oil
Rise up
Slow as the arrival of blooms
Slow as a withering moon
Till they are everywhere
A horde of soldiers
Marching down my throat

There is no one here
Somebody once taped the roses to the window
And painted suns on pieces of stray T-shirts
hung them up as tapestries
But they are not here now
The walls reek of aridity
A slave girl who will not smile

They like to preach to us to
Always be ourselves
But who are we—
Some fancy clothes wrinkled on the floor
As if passed out after a jolly evening
A fidget spinner
Spinning spinning spinning
In my hands
The fan groaning—
A symphony struggling to scream
And fumes rise up

I jump off the table
And slide the window open
The city, a worried lover, rushes in
It kisses the room
Its beautified bruises
Washes her with light
Air jolts the calendar awake
“Are you here?”
“Are you here?” It seems to ask
Are you here, are you here, are you—
And the walls nod their tired nods
A practiced, perfected ritual

Sometimes, some nights
I will tread through my own writings
Trail touches down
My own drawings, looking
For myself
Looking, looking,
And forever on search

Sometimes, sometimes I will realise
that no matter how many plants I hang
And words
I nail to these walls
To make them mine
I will always be a stranger to this room
Searching the stalls for another anklet
that will smile a star
in her next alluring dance—
A slave girl
And her golden crown.
Dah