i oft wonder    when i stare at you
(& seeing how you live like sweet morningdew)
if perhaps, you are the work of athena–
or instead, pantheons altogether
          painstakingly threaded your body together.
          i touch your skin and i feel the weather.

did they toil over parenthetical curves
in your eyelashes, so? did they, in fact,
          under faintly ambered nightglo,
paint soothing hairline melodies into your soul?
          it was they!
          who carefully composed       your ballet!
     betwixt your brows and your lips
lies the aria of your kiss,
          and your murmur: the solemn swell of viols.

call me daft and sound your drums!
i think it had to be the ones who
          mastered the craft,    endeavoured to create,
who fired in kilns the earths to bake;
          who designed the bold mackerel,
          its iridescent scale, the peach, how
                    malt can turn into ale;
the celestial potter who sculpted the stars,
        and Jupiter
                 and Saturn
                                and Venus and Mars;
the ones who spun all into creation,
          and could undo infernal damnation;
who weaved you from threads cut by the fates
from the months and years we celebrate.
          from flowers sprouted from the dirt of eden
turned into watercolour, your colour, it deepens.
          as designed how grapes
          may blossom to wine,
the specks on your skin birthed from the divine.

i oft believe    when i stare at you
(& think of how you light me anew)
that i’m a curator given an exquisite delight -
trembling in awe of your beauty and light -
          to treasure and love and care for and feather,
          i touch your skin and i feel the weather.
          i touch your skin and i feel the weather.

i bare my soul to you, my love,
my love, my love, sweet love;
i give to you sweet words hereof
      my love, my love, sweet love.

i’ve loved you, all my heart this while,
promise i will hereafter —
i loathe to lie without you still,
      i flourish in your laughter.

i couldn’t bear to hear a sigh
heavy and leaden with burden and cry
from you,  my love
      my love, sweet love;
i will your pain to pass you by.

even till we’re old and grey,
i ask of you — stay day by day,
to hold my hand and lift me high!
      all while soothing sweet and sky.

do these soft words ring true for you?
my chest aches and heart swells blue,
i dip with tizz, my love accrues,
      my fingers    tend always to you.

i bare my soul to you, my love,
my love, my love, sweet love;
with me watch dusk fall on the doves,
      my love, my love, sweet love.

when he told me
he was taking back the words
‘i love you’
that he said back to me however many moons ago
my womb withered alongside
its comrade of my heart.

it was rushed: he hadn’t meant it yet.
he wanted to, hadn’t grown to,
couldn’t lie - forced a premature delivery unto me;
the crowning burned as it ripped
flesh from muscle from skin from flesh.
it pained him to swallow my travail.

i called him,
asked him if we could meet that night.

those unwelcome contractions curled my spine
as i sat placid in the hard bottomed seat of the train
mostly empty - this was the dark of juvenile midnight.
unboarding, i carried my labour to him up the shallow hill
rising to where he lived. he came down to meet me.

we sat on the biting metal platforms
(supported by their metal pole husbands,
raising their plastic roof offspring)
dotted with circular holes
in the sour sarcasm of a child’s playground;
i called him out here asking him
to let me cry with him, in lieu of over.

the epidural he administered to me
bit me as the needle pierced my giving skin.
the stinging truth: how he lied to please me,
caught up in the moment without thinking.
i asked him if he ever felt love for the girls before me.
he told me no. not like that.

the painkiller worked fast in its cruel irony.
how strange that his directness: impregnated me and
forced midwifeless accouchement down my throat.
and how strange still that it be that very same truthfulness
to comfort and soothe away those selfsame pains.
hark! pay attention to the devil in the details—
i found solace and relief in his candour.

he pampered me with a sprinkling of kisses
dotted below my brow, dabbing away
softly at my tears. my breathing was heavy,
encumbered, but i was no longer pained.

this was the first time he spoke to me for real.
what it all was that we said, i can’t say:
those words are to me precious as gold to a goblin;
they belong to us - those memories are ours. i bit down on
my hand to distract myself - i knew i had to push hard
through the ring of fire. i tore down my middle.
hell - dante’s dreams were my reality.

know this. listen and know the tumultuous labour
- how it was through loving him that i had to
wake through my own childbearing cries -
i got through. but know this. listen and know that it
was only through loving him that the child was safely
born unto me.

this child was for us our honesty.

once, you lifted lines from your palms
and placed them into my own.
      they charred deep into my flesh.
      scarred. insignia in bones.
when i raised my hands to my chest,
      your fingerprints laid on my breast,
            breathing the beat, tasting the sweet;
you ****** like possession: your spirit in me.
      my step was your walk, your melodies, my talk,
i spun pirouettes in your accent,
kissed to turn keys in your locks.
i was a vacuum full, filled with selfsame
      idiosyncrasy– grabbed by the handful:
from your heart to your feet,
      from your lips to your cheek,
            from your lips to your cheek,
      from your heart to your feet.

when you left me, my palms were left blank–
      stead of crashing cymbals of beaches
      i walked only on sand.
god breathed on the glass
and my vision was clouded;
      my soul pounded on the bars,
      for her rosetint was shrouded.
i was robbed of colour.
      the wind left my lungs.
            honey leaked from my eyes,
                  and sugar left my tongue.

i begged for my colour back
and pastels danced in my hair;
      yes, i love him so
      but fear still it can’t compare–
so i pray once more!
heed and hear my warcry call!
      for my colour to come back,
            step into me once more.

i am the universe
come alive, come conscious,
and what is sentience but
a mystery living at the base
of all that we can ever be?
what a strange dichotomy,
how insignificant, and yet
spectacular! inconceivable beauty.
my life is a verse in the cosmic poetry
constructed out of explosive nothing,
a vast vacuum littered with
unknowable everythings.
what to me is familiar idiosyncrasy,
the everyday routine of my wakings
was arbitrarily designed by some intricate,
equation unsolvable, navier-stokes
nothing compared to the machinations
of the minute turbulent eddies
from the swirling currents in my bloodstream
to the patterns formed by astronomical dances
debris and space dust.
so how is it then that in my miniature
dollhouse of a life, am i languished?
i look up through the pollution,
through the night sky, and think
of how much i long to simply bask
in the beautiful artistic whimsy
the universe has let me into,
to embark on the philosophical,
the insurmountable task to uncover
the myriad of deep secrets locked now
for i am the universe come conscious.

my heart is like an ocean perle:
melancholy sleep under saltwater’s curl.
closed, locked, under lost mollusk key,
i wait as not one delves down for me.

midnyght oil burns blue, seagreen;
eyes swell of syghts of things i ne’er forseen.
alone, these shells crack soundlessly
under the water, sealight flickers on me.

once, i was treasured: a young cabochon
pulled from the rocks in a late avalon.
he wore me round his neck - eight seasons due -
but into his heartbeat, i could not imbue.

my heart is like an ocean perle:
melancholy sleep under cold water’s curl.
closed in, locked under lost mollusk key,
i wait as not one delves down for me.

melancholy sleep under deep water’s curl,
melancholy sleep under black water’s curl.
rest now, rest now, sweet ocean perle.

day through night, i face the same fate
my flesh inches closer to its expiry date.

a hell:
my mind is at its limit,
and my body; no longer mine.

each minute goes by, i pray to gods,
every holy name, those i've never heard of,
pray, pray with all my might -
choose a different girl to feast on tonight.

my face was stolen from a world of debris
to support a family i'll never again see
i sold myself, let me be bought,
for just two coins, a price of naught.

a customer.
i tell myself,
don't open your eyes,
don't move a muscle.

hands on my thighs - deja vu
my body to her is just revenue.

memories of every night still live within my body - a bookmark telling me i'll never be my own. a constant image of flesh flickers behind my eyelids every time i close my eyes.

give me my body back.

every time you touch me
the skin blanketing me screams,
  a babe newly out the womb.
only air - no sound escapes -
in breaths
breaths
panting breaths!

  just                fingertips
          grazing
     now
                they climb,
         venturing
    to
  unexplored     curves.

every time you touch me
you leave invisible singes glow;
  a masochistic craving for more.
wanton wanting, eager to please
in exchange for pleasure.

your flavour dribbles
spiralling pirouettes across our tongues.
  now, not now, and now.

! l i v e    i n    t h e   m o m e n t !

for you know this moment
will soon be mere memory,
  replayed, looping a single track.
the scene that plays behind your eyelids
      as the curtains fall before slumber.

enjoy and savour his touch;
every time you touch me
vines intertwine between my toes
     flames burn the nape of my neck.
curl, curl, curl, writhe,
a gurgle of a moan.

a rarity of intimacy,
the time of now comes not.
  it's back to the waiting room,
doodling in a notepad,
solving sudoku problems
in the back of my mind.
procrastinate the longing,
begging is desperation.

sickly, the wait invigorates,
a catalyst of passionfruit!

acting on a stage,
she builds with each step,
step,
    step,
        stepping,
the floorboards trail behind her feet.
they form from the soil,
the earth breathing beneath,
wooden planks sprouting between her toes.

she sings in a voice strained and trained,
her diaphragm strong and core
rumbling in single breaths.

her skin brushed with pigment,
cheeks tinted rouge and lips scrubbed till pain,
gold-dusted on her bones
rays reflecting and blinding from her beauty.

stomach she ***** in,
twenty-four
seven,
always prim and proper,
a perfect specimen of femininity,
her blood flows in a viscosity unique
only to the elite.

fingers down
but she lacks words to throw up,
she's silent,
an empty vessel,
her lips meant to be a two-way gate
but nothing flows either way.

her skin sunkissed turmeric,
her irises tapioca pearls,
hair flowing and falling from her face
toasted nori on the white rice her dress.

daily rehearsals of sixteen
odd years practicing lines;
memorizing them, repeating internally,
the stage she builds like a church
her loves oppose to the act,
but she builds an antidisestablishment
forcing her audience of parishioners
away from her.

He,
standing on my doorstep,
         it is only
He             who i open the door for.

He    steps in,     standing
     n o n c h a l a n t.
i offer,
offer to Him scalding tea
     with poisoned biscuits.

His fingers  taper
tapering to            claws,
claws that run along my collar
    collarbones

undoing my collar,
undoing my buttons down,
  d
       o
              w
                            n
and o! He unclasps the fishing hooks
where He wounded me                      so long ago,
the once open gashes now
      scars! scars! keloids and scars!

fear, fearing, i feared,
i knew He would be disgusted,
my impure skin, with bUmPs
and so many im pur ities,
      no longer am i blank,
blank slate,
                extra ****** olive oil to sear with.

and still, He ravages my flesh,
the flesh with purpose
purpose to summon Her,
      life.

He rips my insides, allowing
wilting, withering away,
    losing first blood was so long ago.
  the last i bled a month ago,
                  yet i need not fear fertility.

He is welcome,
He is here!
He uses me,
eats me,
inside me,
becomes one with me,
and then
He leaves.

His next visit i await.

time worth ash i spent in gold, two summers
ago sweet apples, a break and burst from
my old self, those iron anvil shackles.

there was she, a poem herself, her words
exotic and sour-- a drizzle of oil, olives
in her eyes; her treacle breath a shower

"words don't matter, meaning dies, just
think not your words you write-- syntax and
grammar shouldn't be used, and never out of spite."

she told me there of artistic lies, her ways
of writing bare, those bubblegum hearts and
lemonade tears evaporating into air.

talent was she; still she stood oblivious
laughing snowflakes blush, they melted
in the summer heat, wash away my crush.

there are lies in every fairy tale
secrets in every spoon
and both usually stay well hidden
from the time for breakfast
and the hour of bedtime stories

but there is a place
within the telling of dreams
that an old wise witch
of strange young beauty who
will read your fate
with only words of truth
that she stirs out of a soup
made out of the alphabet
of the comfortable lonely sky

she'll feed you slowly
with the spoon
of her mothers grandmothers mother
that has been handed down
from the first star ever born
to the last name
of the last god
yet to be named
or prayed to
and in that instant
you will know every secret
and detect every lie ever told

you will be a new babe
and an old man
and a young girl
stealing her first kiss
from a shy boy

you will be both
a nymph, a snail
and the leaf that feed you both

you will be
the last tree on earth
the first flower
to bloom on jupiter

the death of mars
and the heartache of venus

you will know
who made you first
learning that that knowledge
is negligible when compared to
the virtues of loves
true heart and reason

the witch will close your hand
and seal it with a stolen kiss
and smile and laugh and giggle
and give you a knowing grin
and you will understand
why spoons keep secrets
and the importance of lies
that hide in fairy tales

profanity--
a fun ball of words setting fires, unleashing
a world of endorphins and adrenaline, yet
seen to be shamed, a shameful act indeed,
so much in fact that we rectify these acts with
a payment of change and coins in jars.

****, ****, ****, ****, ****, and *******.

six entire dollars, gone to the swear jar, a
jar holding value for every 'mistake', mistakes
meaning freedom of speech, creative, raw, and
honest expression, and despite how there's no
difference between them and 'clean' words.

utter *******.

another dollar falls in, the sonorous ring of metal
falling into this closing container now silent, coins
cushion and muffle, marking my clearly abundant
profanity, a loss for worth and value to my poor
wallet and poor name, the money simply pooling.

freaking hellish.

a couple of bucks lost now, the last ones losr for i
shall now shatter this glass, nicks and cuts on my
shaking fingers from the shards as i pick my coins
back up, knowing i shouldn't have to have to pay
for mistakes that aren't at all mistakes, just simply
--profanity

i can feel the cotton
weave beneath my feet, soles
brushing against the sheets
as i scroll, waiting for the shallow
excitement of a notification from
you, this boredom and isolation
boring orafices shallow as my
joy and deep as my pain into
my skull for its been days and
weeks since ive seen you, this
loneliness confining me to
my warm and comforting yet
cold and distressed cotton sheets.

it’s all a lie, how i say i’m
a writer; i’m a fraud, and none of it is
mine. my pieces are edited over and
over, occasionally by those who’re
adequate,
intelligent,
with genuine talent,
but i’m just a fraud, a fraud with a
vocab, a fraud pretending they possess skills.


    my first real crime: i applied for a writing course-- i guess stanford didn’t see how my fiction wasn’t just me, and it was jenny, my good friend jenny who edited this piece-- made it worthy of  praise, worthy of pride, worthy of
stanford.
i remember that morning, a sunday in may, my phone waking me in vexation, and with a grudge i pick it up, reading jenny, my good friend jenny say: cher, i got in, i ****** got in, check your god ****** email. now.

congratula

  *******, i can only internally scream, it’s
all a lie.
    i’m not who they think  am, i’m
a fraud, a really good
fraud, a fraud who
deceived not only stanford but also
       themselves, a fraud with
too much pride     so they
forced themselves to apply. i don’t deserve
any of this, at all. i faked my skills, my
     piece isn’t mine, it’s all a lie, i’m not
adequate,
intelligent,
with genuine talent,
cause i’m just a fraud, a fraud with a
vocab, a fraud pretending they possess skills.


     and another time: on the flight to san francisco, it sank in-- how i’d be stretched thin, pretending and acting and deceiving a professor, a real stanford professor, how there was no way in hell i’d be nearly as good, i was misunderstood cause i wasn’t anybody, you see, i’m just me; a sad, short, fool; like i was once again the sad and  anxious kid alone in
preschool.
then in a blur, i’m checking in, these students sitting here all assured and then there’s me, o me, about to be marked as an absentee because apparently they see me as an equal, an equal who was at the very least
adequate,
intelligent,
with genuine talent,
but i’m just a fraud, a fraud with a
vocab, a fraud pretending they possess skills.


this is insane,
i can’t stay in this house full of writing
   students, they’re almost like mutants,
writers are an absolutely crazy
lot, they’ll give me  a blood clot and
whatnot. well, maybe the expository bunch
will be alright, but that’s just a hunch. my
concern is with the creative crew,
         cause everyone knows the
            most catastrophic murders are
creative.  they know no bounds, they’ll write
whatever to the grave, their poetry so sharp
it could ****, and i know,
just from looking at them that, well,
i’m *******, cause i’m not at all
adequate,
intelligent,
with genuine talent,
and i’m just a fraud, a fraud with a
vocab, a fraud pretending they possess skills.



     and now a paradigm: i’m in class, my first class with twelve others, and next to me, my friend jenny, my good friend jenny, sat quietly, and in my chair i’m in internal warfare-- my head reeling, face flushing, all sorts of anxious feelings. so we’re waiting for the prof, and the moment he shows up i’m about to throw up because i know i’ll make myself out to be the weakling, the pleb, the imbecile amongst the others and i feel like a criminal. matthew, the prof, gives us five minutes to write, and all i could write was a pathetic seventeen syllables, and it truly was terrible, something like:

we are born as light
and struggle not to drown in dark
but it’s all for naught

  and i clearly remember his face, that expression showing subtly that i was a disgrace when i recited that haiku, and i felt as if that that was my cue; to leave, that is, but i couldn’t. and so i sat in class for the next three hours hanging my head in shame, because i knew that i wasn’t
adequate,
intelligent,
with genuine talent,
and i’m just a fraud, a fraud with a
vocab, a fraud pretending they possess skills.