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you and I are a story
with an open ending
each person who sees us together
writes a different version
                                                         ­        some say we’re a fairytale
                                                       ­          some say we’re a tragedy
                                                         ­                                                            for others were are a comedy
                                                          ­                                                           or just a short story
in some minds we’re a thriller
going on all kinds of adventures
in others an expression of horror
two people who just should not be together

                                                       ­     the way I see it sweetheart
                                                      ­             we are all of these
                                                        but­ the most important thing
                                                        is that our story has no ending
                                                       and that’s the way it should be

- Vijayalakshmi Harish
        12.09.2012

Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish
 Sep 2012 cassie sky
Chloe Sayre
At the end, will it be brandy-wine or mescaline to sugar coat
enlightenment, the purpose,
the omnipotent influence?

Some live to make a whirling dervish swoon.
Some pray to Love, composing sonnets for the moon.
Some find themselves floating, bloated lungs with lazy currents,
mourning free-will.

With questions perched atop your windowsill,
do decomposing wings pull with yearning to wake
in dawn's warning? Your beak,
a rattling, pneumonic drill.

It's a dead end,
fear and adrenaline.
Invite me in
to ostracizing nuisances.

Therefore,
I may imprison myself in cylindrical cells,
pop out wisdom like bubble-wrap,
fight the mighty ocean swells,
or shimmy up the lobster trap,
With inevitable siege by buzzards eying wildly,
shedding sea-salt feathers that won't be washed for weeks.

Still, the mad-hatter trades me one more spill for spill.
And I taste the honesty we sip for swollen memories
whose frantic bodies let fists fly on flushed faces
that we never truly see.

In profound confusion we stumble, blind.
Then, we all forget so blissfully,
once we reach the rainbow's end.
My greatest fear is
that my mind will become languid
all these nerves that buzz and fill
will someday become a vegetable

somnolent times will set upon me
a spell from which I cannot recover
lazily and languorously I shall dwell
an intellect without vigour

too much comfort too much praise too much ease
shall push me off the cliff of complacency
and I shall fall without cognizance
a mental suicide, awareness in deep freeze

a hardened blank consciousness
that needs to be broken through
excavated from a  grave of self-righteousness
pushed beyond self-set limits
melted until the core is seen

I need to feel the pain and hurt
cry briny tears and experience grief
need to feel unsure undecided
obscure myself in anxiety
make sure the inner ocean stays unfrozen

- Vijayalakshmi Harish
        12.09.2012

Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish
From a letter by Franz Kafka to his schoolmate Oskar Pollak, 27 January 1904 (translated by Richard and Clara Winston): 'I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us. That is my belief.'
I want to live in the embrace
of these rain clouds so ominous so dark
and yet within them somewhere
there must be a spark
why else to they set alight such illicit pleasure

the drizzle burns upon my skin
and glistens like a diadem in my hair
petrichor teasing gently before the shower brings
a volley of dreams crashing down here
a bird within my chest sings

a mizzle is just not enough
the darkness without echoes the darkness within
I want a deluge, I want to drown
want to be borne away and lose control
want to stand in the rain and feel this sweet pain

I just want to feel – don’t want to think
- Vijayalakshmi Harish
        11.09.2012

Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish
 Sep 2012 cassie sky
mûre
i watched as she picked
up her shadow like a baby
and rocked it i didn't understand
like a black lab laid down by
the front door for 20 years,
waiting to be seen, touched,
it submitted with a low sigh.
"The heart of darkness isn't
darkness", she said to the wallpaper,
glancing up from her bundle,
"the heart of darkness is
authenticity, the heart of
authenticity is love".
she didn't speak after that
the moment was not for me and
i was suddenly an intruder.
Quietly, i stood up
and slid away.
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