release your story
there's no one here
the brain's a frantic enemy
or maybe I don't know

it must be about time now
that's the only thing it could mean
when my words start to feel
this rough around the edges
heavy with mud

take me to the stream
point me to my anger

I'm clear quartz

wash me clean

and show me to the light

signal lost
static
let's send out
cyclone alerts
the light house says
I must go home
back to
seabed
no more duty
for me

now we're all ocean
no sailors
no wayfinding
no compasses
all ocean

all these puny feelings
are so misleading
but i follow them
they lead me
someplace familiar
an old creek
the sound of silence,
crickets
and the singing lady
no ravens in the sky
still trees, eerie
the only things alive
in this landscape
are my ghosts plunging
into sea

tornadoes invite me
and i walk right in
nothing's been kinder to me

send to my home a killer
knocking on my door
with a letter and a knife
upfront
he will fall in love
and hide his knife
and give me the world

send to my home a lost man
roaming the woods
knocking on my tulip door
the fragrance is a trap
he prepares to fall in love
his eyes full of secrets
the most dangerous
of men

I need to feel your presence
find a way somehow
through a flame
or a hole
or a spirit
somehow

give me a sign
I'm fuming
this scream refuses
to leave my throat
my eyes turn pale
with your absence

I circumambulate
your sacred fire
but the demons desecrate it

swallow the sky
in a fury only you can summon

clear the grounds

I'll be born again
like a breakthrough

I've stopped trying now
I've stopped flapping my arms and legs
frantically
and suddenly, I stop drowning

suddenly, I'm a leaf
being carried afloat to the shore

and why do you write?

i'll go first
i sometimes forget my name
it's one of those days
(every other day)

if you tell me I can't make it as a writer
that I must quit "trying"
I'll go into my burrow
and write about it in my little book

i write to live correctly

you're only alone
when you club yourself with the
employees
the tgif-ers
the rule abiders
the girls groupchat from college

you're only abnormal
when you compare yourself to the
smalltalkers
the engineers
the doctors
the selfie people

you had this wrong the whole time

the miscreants
the artists
lone visionaries who pay
for their brilliant ideas in tears
before bed each night
one more day gone by
undiscovered

this is
the secret majority
making no noise

the arthropods of the world
running the talent show
after the curtains draw close

go.

I don't know what the answer is
make a paper ball out of it
and hurl it my way
before they find out

I don't stop by
liquor houses anymore
I head straight to the sea

you're the ocean
I'm a group of islands in your world

reaching up into another

leave my mild mannered father alone
he might smile through his discomfort
but I don't

don't be afraid

moon eyed maiden

you're too delicate

for these night shifts you pull off

let's make a

make-believe world

where the beds are all the way up

to the ceiling of stars

just the way you like it



there's no yesterday here

no tomorrow

there's only now

and the tv playing

as you cook

food for the soul



will you remember me then

your friend from another time

like memories of a nice dream

after a song-like sleep



please do

because i love u

and i know u love me

when all else leaves
the monsoon doesn’t.
in the absence of
the world, I smell
july in the breeze
coercing me gently
like a grandmother
with a treat
when my eyes dart around
and I’m too blind to see
when all else leaves
the monsoon doesn’t
like a friend from sixth grade
peeping through the front door
with umbrella hands
and puddles for feet

my roots are firm now
the storm stood tall
my ascent was steep
but I had good company
a herd of mountain goats
meditative travelers
of life and death
the awesome peak is in sight now
my smile has grown quieter
and my heart,
a drum that announces rain
resounding

I've seen the world
let me take a seat
and put my pen down
now my life can begin

I want to find your bed
right next to mine tonight
no oceans
in between
just one time
I'd let you roll over
into my world
and never leave.

I'm 25--
there's something so high fashion
about being a recluse

no?

there's a small setback
my backpack is weighing me down
let me stop by an inn
and dance on my heels

this fever won't keep me for long
the innkeeper is a kind woman
she tells me she's my mother
and feeds me warm rice

I wait for the days my love feels
as natural to me as my writing does
no second thoughts
no need to edit
only momentary pauses
when I feel watchful eyes on me
when I'm performing for the invisible
men and women in my room

The ****** is in sight
and it's blinding like the sun
let's leave on foot
before nightfall

let me meditate
on your voice
my sweet moon
you sound
like a being of the sky
a silver cloud
that turns with the night
damp blue

your laughter
the news
of first rain
a freshwater stream
lifegiving

the sound of your
cotton footsteps
my early mornings

the sight of your feet
my good fortune

I'm a poet, I must
carry my notebook around
just in case you turn to
look over your shoulder
on a sunny afternoon
the sun squinting
at the blinding light in the sky

I'll be back
when I have more to say
can you blame me
for falling short of words?

goodnight

Orbit around me and forget I exist
feed me the dust falling and rising inside of your head
watch how I accept your dying
seasons with gratitude for
you have become the very reason
why my feet spin in this empty space
without making a point.
But when I the darkness rise, the mountains fall
into deep purple slumber like the moon,
yawning as the sky keeps mumbling at us
it's inescapable questions.
Moist shores continue to gaze at the floating stars
above, gliding and swimming the black waters
distant and untouchable like a dream.
The talking has been left behind.
The moaning of the beautiful is resonating everywhere
every place, every corner, every cave
Love, roaring, makes it's way back into the candle
that stands outside the door
of a stranger hiding yet another world
in his eyes, alive.

the yellow
falls down onto the sea
old dreamers walk by the woods
in search of home
a slow surrender
a giving in, a pleasure
that numbs too much

come
in search of me

summon me down to my knees
bringing me
to consume you bit by bit
at the price of your moans
my religion
finally calls me close

I began as piercing blue light that heals
****** wounds and scars
from this human life

I have been touched by a man
immaculate his spirit
his eyes a mirror that hold
escape

I am rock
sedimentary through eras in time
crumbling into stardust
screaming as I reach
the farthest corners of space

I am the eye of the universe
a void that reaches back into the
mother

I feel a fever in my chest
warm and persistent
I long to meet you
and turn into vapour in the
heat of your
breath

deafening silence

old creaky doors unsure

whether to stay shut or stay put



inky sky

wet flowers in the backyard

mean kids running

in childhood streets



quiet love

between mother and daughter

quiet distance

between husband and wife



all good things

make you wait

stay put

in this lilac house

of today

Come sit next to me
and don't speak a word
I will find in your flaws
something to treasure
and caress your unruly hair
when you're miles deep in sleep

I lay in my bed in a room echoing with the sound of your voice, wet and blue like a september evening.

I fall into river
the water is wet, I'm begging
for it to make me feel
the way we do when we're together

I fall into sky
unafraid I fall, I'm singing
a soft birdsong
with familiar tickles in my tummy
This is nowhere close
to you and me

I fall into silence
at the end of day
stunned in gratitude.

His eyes are blue even
though they're as black as
a rainy night
I look at him and feel the rot inside my chest,
the imperfections of my habits
I lie bare before him
and he watches with care
and says
you are the moon of my night

My colors are changing into ugly shades of pink
and the nausea is kicking in but wait
hold on, stay right there it'll get
better? worse? what am I dragging you in this for?
Exit please. Oh yes, the
colors they change when the sky dampens
late after lunch too soon after dinner
while I belch my mother walks by
as she tells me to pull my **** together, oh
the good old days haven't gone past me just yet
I sometimes think of my father
and how I should try loving him for
smiling at me and calling my mother a *****
while I tried hard to sleep
Sometimes I think I love my mother way too much
so much that I try to socialize and then I
somehow realize that was an ouch idea
Pessimism is more honest because the optimist
is lying to everyone.

Clench your fists against my
vulnerability
ask me for what I want
more so, for what I need
and deny me my release

watch me enlightened
in all my glory
and watch me still.

Why don't you rid yourself of these shiny
achievements
and sit back without ignoring for once
the blue light you bleed upon the sun

Why don't you want to be more of nothing
and less of you?

You smile like you do not want to be hurt
you are afraid of not being responsible
to the children
who you pretend to garner
and guide, knowingly,
pretentiously into a world
you have woven
with such subtle doubt

You cry yourself to bed
after you put your only daughter to sleep
and look into the black night ahead
with silver moons under your eyes
tired and dreaming of love

You watch a film and smile a sober smile
then walk slowly to clean up after
dinner
and stare a stolen gaze
like your eyes are not yours and your
reflection isn't yours to stare
at the glass to the right of your misery, somewhere
numb to your touch
and comprehending

the arrested state of your being
your soul,
somewhere up in the september clouds
just above your home sweet home

call me at the midnight hour by the rainy window
we will watch the blue stars come alive
shooting down
into the late december sea

to the stars

forgive me for falling back into the black
but I am looking up at you and asking you to come back into me
tear open my flesh and let me rise up
like ether into your ambient neighbourhood

make me forget
**** me and once more I shall be born
and this time I will remain beautiful

and at peace

you pull me close
delicately
you're making me cry my eyes say to you
a warm hug, eyes
flutter close

the scent of purity fills us
inside the blanket two hearts beat
stars gaze out of your eyes
and I begin to kiss you

you lift me in your arms
making me feel like I am a
fragile little rose.


hurt me

learning to find love in
your silence will teach me
everything I need
in order to live.

with love
*amrutha

A time will come when I'm barren inside.
Every sound would remind me that I am hopeful

I am rain, hoping for shelter
I am the running breeze. Screaming, unabashed.
I would confess all those ugly truths,
about living and loving and forgetting
and be fearless, senseless.
aimless, being
just for the sake of being

The gloom feeds upon me
the sky, moaning, unafraid,
vulnerable

   a slow moon rises
and disappears before it rains
the breeze, inviting me into the woods

what do we have, to lose
honey

It cannot be silenced
this throbbing hunger, as it burns mildly
a yellow flame against the silhouettes of now

They know what this madness is
this hunger that I talk of, this fire that keeps bustling
the stars are watching me
as I look back up
and they know

and out of all the things I chose to remember
I remember
   the way she tries not to smile
when my eyes flutter close as I breathe the smell of
her body and
  how she writhes faultlessly like
the sun upon seawater
with subtlety her voice it blooms
inside my chest
still


Her lips stayed quiet most of the time.

She reminded me of mellow white flowers I remember
how I wanted to stay by her feet when I felt low
   her toes, pearls of deep blue waters I thought I remember
shone within her black eyes forever aglow.

Oh, my dear
When I lay on the bed the way I do
I search for you

Your soul seduces me
   your voice, your unwavering stare
Oh, my dear
   how you make me sigh
   there's so much on your mind but you say nothing

Just sit there
and I shall dance
for you

the stillness
of this innocent gloom

of the lanterns silently gazing at the open field, wet,
swaying
as the slow evening whispers, sighs
waiting for the sky to fall back into the sea

I'm sitting here
on the wet wooden stairway
and thinking of you

the night is falling onto me
and my eyes stare at the descending blackness
that first frost touches my eyelash
and I shut them close,
collapse back into the
womb of death

morning's here
and I have nothing

Silver fog
the stairs wet
knock knock
would you let
the winter enter
your door
would you let her
swallow the floor
underneath your toes
collapsing into her heart
would you meet her there
waiting in the womb of silence

I could just sit here wounded,
do nothing but stare at all your colours
closing my eyes, tracing your face
with cold palms, I could just be
How ever you want me to, I can be
Without wanting anything back,
without taking anything but your blood
into my veins,
And it's okay my love, let the door be
Let the rain pour
We have this night and you have all of me.