Dangerous words are the ones that slip
under our guard.
They nestle next to us at night,
and whisper treacle-sweet nothings
that trickle and slide down canals
to a dosing mind, honeying the way.
They want to ensure easy passage
for the poison kept still at bay.

They tuck us in,
fluff our pillows and our egos,
till we give them freely
those moments of sincerity.
All those genuine smiles and hitched breaths,
we suppose their value
was in their exclusivity.

We break off these pieces of truth
like our hearts are homemade chocolate,
and hand them over in pretty gift wrap.

It’s when these snakes have us so charmed
and they are sated,
that they finally snap and spit.

Their bites are full of venom,
and we see their fangs too late.

No one stays
well, no one stays
for long
maybe that's why I feel this
certainty
that I would follow you till the ends
of the earth, if you would let me

no one stays for long
no one, who understands me stays
maybe that's why I'm so certain
I want to stay with you.

and here are the reasons why no one tells you to go be a third cultured person:

its not easy.

When you are one of us,
different and foreign are not even a blip on your radar,
(because my life has always been detachment - meeting and smiling and beginning to say "hi", only to have to wave goodbye.)
you will always be different and foreign, belonging to a place is a wish and not a reality, home has always meant people as opposed to a place (not that people are at all constant).
leaving is normal too, just pack your bags and go go go, doesn't matter if you never come back, onto a new place now, and goodbyes are hard -- but seldom unexpected.

when you are one of us, you are shifting and turning and never never staying, always changing and moving forward, frighteningly frighteningly fast, all impermanence and hopeful, but broken promises-- you will perhaps stay in one place for some period of time.
(you will never belong)

You know the type.
She's probably called something like
Isabella. Rosalie. Ginevra.
and you find her in the sort of novel where
she's outdone by someone called something like
Jane. Agnes. Lucy.
She's remembered in criticism as
Trivial. Silly. Foolish.
She's defined as Shallow. Vain. False gold.
She's analysed as the mirror, the contrast or the foil
and you're supposed to vaguely dislike her.
She'll reaffirm to the reader that the heroine,
whether she be plain or beautiful, is always, in the end,
Rational. Independent. Brave.
She reaffirms the heroine as someone who
learns and grows
while the silly girl is left looking at herself in the mirror.

The thing is sometimes I feel more like the silly girl,
the girl who needs a hand, the girl who reads books
and wants to believe the stories.
Sometimes, I'm looking in the mirror,
chest deep in my own trivial, silly little worries,
looking at the puddles not the lake, and I know.
I know I'd be one of the silly girls,
not the heroine, out there, just surviving.
I'd be one of those silly girls and I hate it - and yet
- what's so wrong with the silly girls?

What's so wrong with the girls who love themselves,
or love the wrong people or love their clothes?
What's wrong with the girls who are
brave but not rational,
independent but trivial,
selfish but practical?

What's wrong with those girls,
because I always find myself preferring
the Ginevras and the Isabellas anyway.

i am not the kind of sick
that leaves the body flushed
at 104 degrees
in the middle of the winter.

                                                               ­                  i am not the kind of sick
                                                            ­                         that causes every breath
                                                          ­          to force
                                                           ­         its way

                                                               ­    back up

                                                             yo­ur throat
                                                          ­             while dragging razor blades
along the inside of your neck.

                       i am not even the kind of sick
                       that comes with a vaccination
                                  or an antibiotic
                            that will chase it away.
no.
                                                                ­                          i am the kind of sick
that leaves you locked in
the bathroom during class
because you can't seem to stop the
             flow of tears
                       running
                               down
                                     your face.

i am the kind of sick
that leaves your hands
sweating
and your voice
shaking
when it's your turn to order dinner
at the diner you've been to
a thousand times.
                                            
                                             i am the kind of sick
                                         that leaves you feeling

l o n e l y
                                              in a crowded room
                                           filled with the people you've
                                           known your whole life.

i am the kind of sick                                                                  ­                                that nobody sees
                                        because it's all in my head
                                      and cannot be cured.

love is not a safe word
it’s one haiku revised 400 times
on cracked leather chairs in the corner of cafés

some of us love badly
she says as she kisses the rim of her glass.
some of us love stretched out
like pizza dough that rips when our rolling pin rolls it too thin.

some of us love in secrecy
we do not trust your hands.
you try to pull our scalp off and draw your portrait on our mind

some of us love clean
like bubble bath that smells like lavender from some fancy store in the mall
some of us love *****
we cant clean you off our skin

some of us kiss with our teeth
some of us braid our lovers into our hair
and when we remove the hair tie
it is crimped and messy and tangled

some of us love love
but only far from home
when we slip into bed we start thinking
and we can’t stay still

some of us wash our clothes even when they don’t smell
or aren’t stained
just because it feels like you are inside of our shirts and pants and sneakers

some of us walk alone past your house
on the way to ours
and stop at the front step
waiting for you to come out
and smile at us
the only thing we wait for today
are the smudged signatures of snails
scrawled across your pavement

some of us love to the bone
until there are no more “ifs”
just “is” and “are”
the collected poems of our fingers
swollen, bruised, red like a bouquet of roses

some of us love
and we regret it
we never get home in time for dinner because of it, we leak like a faulty faucet, we sleep with our pillows over our heads to keep everything in
but some of us love
some of us own a watch and know the time with a glance at our wrist, some of us own a sponge to soak up the water, some of us own satin pillows that feel like whispers on our cheekbones