i lived those years inside my head:
held together by bits of masking tape
so young, with the smallest slice of life
in love with oceans my childhood had never seen

it all comes back to those years i lived outside:
little heart beating fast for so many things
innocent, lonely, sinless, unholy
sad girl with nothing to hold but a heart on two sleeves

now my parents don't have luggage space for me

heavily, i exist; being is the burden i carry

the first time i spoke to God i said please, please, please
i want a horse, a pool, and to meet my friends in heaven
He said heaven is for the martyred, the right, and the young

the last time i spoke to God, i told Him i would improvise
i am tangled in a web of my own making, and i cannot cry
the sky is a lightweight blanket, and i do not sleep at night
i have tried to find ways to be bright like the Sun-

-but i am tired of trying to be

the black hole i visit is a land of thoughtlessness
a cosmic ocean of feeling and sleep
you tell me what His poetry means
my heart interprets it in the ways it is made to believe:

the smallest slice of life is to know everything is nothing,
and once i eat these three hands, nothing is all i will be

if you do not love me, i do not exist

visit my meadow and only see a way to leave through it

feline, are you not curious?

blue roses grow here like nothing you know

if you do not want to know, i am not worth a single ****

shining for you, i am a million shards of scattered star

won't you come swim in these midnight waters?

for the glitter, for the gold

sweet wanderer, your words hold my soul

i am scared to be.
to love.
to lose.

i laugh and it is musical.
i laugh and it is hopeless.

i see a mountain and i see my house and they are two things that should be the same but one is a breathless life and the other a painless death.

one is fleeting,
the other a gaping minute on a clock that slowly ticks.

one is a boy with a heart,
the other a boy in the news.

one is a jeep that climbs the sky in a peaceful moment,
the other is our ambulance, raging along these city streets.

one is my mother:
she is the most beautiful person to exist.
the other is a creature's corpse wearing her skin.

there are fruits that prosper and fruits that rot:
fruits full of worms and fruits half-forgot.

there are strangely shaped ghars filled with things i've seen in dreams, inside caves i could never imagine to know.

there is this ghar made of carcass i have always known, that is so, so tired and should not exist.

so i am scared to be.
to live.
to lose.

i laugh and i am crying.

i see this ghar and i see my ghar and they are two things that should be the same but one is breathing, moving, and the other is a body that will be still forever, and i don't want to be here like this any more.

you speak in song:
i am becoming yours, ever since we met

so tell me about it
what can i say to make you mine?
when you smile it makes me burn
i wonder if you noticed our hands are the same
i want to look at you until i have you memorised
warm and sweet and so piercing when you look at me
all the honey in the north can't compare to your eyes
brown skin like strong chai and this mountain under the sun

you're driving tonight on a road to the stars
and my heart is with you, sitting quiet in your car
this is not real

were your eyes on me when i made myself look away?
i've been all about you since the first day you chose to stay
am i just a sweet but strange child to you?
i have lost my mind

if this was real
i would drive with you forever
along the harshest mountain roads
between these trees watching over me
by all the ducks, cows, goats, moles and geese in the world
you would know we have the same hands
i bet you'd taste like smoke and mystery
i wonder if you have a girl at home
i know you'd love her like the love songs instruct
do you speak in song with everyone you love?
you are a fleeting 4 day dream i want to forget
you gave me an apricot and you made it taste sweet
i hope when i looked away you took the chance to look at me

so tell me, is this real?
i think i noticed you don't like to be too far from me
one time i was counting centimeters; we met at 15
i wonder if your mind has been close to mine all along

now you're on your way home
and i hope you're the boy in this poem

you are the girl in my songs, you'd tell me if we were alone
you'd tell me you liked hearing the poem baba read to you
we'd speak a common language
romance, music, and warm cups of tea
things only the two of us here seem to know
we'd talk about a future on a farm between two high places
what do you see when (i think) you look at me?
can you read my eyes for all the things i don't speak?
please tell me you've been wanting to be mine this whole time

if this is not real
i hope you have someone to tell you, you are the boy in the songs
you are the biggest sunflower in this yellow field
you are the coolest winds in the cold desert
you are a steady rock and i am water falling, falling again

you speak in song:
you are gone and i won't be hearing from you

but you don't speak a word to me

here is the end of an era
a season of desperate drought
we carry these bags, the luggage we have
while in these frail cubes we are bound to stay sat

eating plastic for food, wearing pixels for eyes
the warmth that we know is of blazing pink skies
our present lives offer no living
the books i so love start to tear at the seams,

all reality becomes less sure than a dream
nothing is as it should seem to be
our clock has sped up as the men aim their guns
and the women are told to stay silent and sweet

losing ourselves, we consent to this mess
horizons of East burn to bleed and hold "peace",
dark roses of truth colour this cursed country
a lifetime of growth swears to halt at my feet

2020: year of grief, no relief
this bleak closing scene promises to haunt me

But I would rather be horizontal.
I am not a tree with my root in the soil
******* up minerals and motherly love
So that each March I may gleam into leaf,
Nor am I the beauty of a garden bed
Attracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted,
Unknowing I must soon unpetal.
Compared with me, a tree is immortal
And a flower-head not tall, but more startling,
And I want the one's longevity and the other's daring.

Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars,
The trees and flowers have been strewing their cool odors.
I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.
Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping
I must most perfectly resemble them--
Thoughts gone dim.
It is more natural to me, lying down.
Then the sky and I are in open conversation,
And I shall be useful when I lie down finally:
The the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me.