Maybe I don’t need the sunlight to blind me,
but gentle sunshine to bathe me
with its life sustaining light,
engulfing me in its warmth
and making me feel at home;
at peace; finally.
The best days at Gladstone park
were not the summer days or even fall,
they were springtime days
with a promise of a full bloom
come the summer.
Summer never came
and the just about blooming flowers
started to wilt until they died in my heart.
Maybe summer is not my season,
it is too hot and scorching towards my soul.
Maybe it burns so brilliantly
that it erodes my life away
and I’m lost in a sea of light that is so bright
that it’s hard to make out night from day.
Maybe I need to stay in the promise of the bloom,
for young love and my groom..
maybe I need to be not where I want to be
in a place or time,
but with a person who is mine…
who calls me “mine” and claims me.
Maybe I can enjoy the park again when it’s spring,
maybe I can go to a different park
that reminds me of him..
there is a park that I have been to,
where ducks quack in the pond
and the fish swim too..
it felt like spring,
it was spring..
even when the chilly breeze
grazed my skin,
his touch kept me warm amidst our spring.
Maybe I need to be not where I am,
but where the spring is
as the spring is the perfect weather
for my hair and skin too,
it is just cold but sunny but windy
and there’s green leaves too.
Everything is better with a promise of spring
and when the spring springs onto us,
it is always a beautiful day too..
like a daydream, too unreal
but realistically within reach too.
I just need to be,
where the flowers bloom for spring
and my heart sings too.

Stars await the moon to turn its gaze
Away from the earth towards the sun, the centre of the solar system
It is solar and not the earth system
He is not the sun, but a black hole that draws the moon towards him
How he tugs her at once, but she keeps her space
She feels the growing distance in their space
So she looks towards the vast universe in awe and envy
She has been trained, she is ready
And wants to depart but he says not today.

Coffee drips blue to the touch
Dark on its own brewed as such
I take one sip it’s over by the next
I take one cup,
And the three follow to keep me vexed.

I don’t understand what is happening
Why my dependence on caffeine is rising
Why I need that cold brew
Oh! But my coffee
That sweet drip of toffee!

I’m tired of having to prove myself even to me.
Tired of having to give chances
only for them to be empty and free.
I am tired of waiting for a better outcome,
maybe I am mad,
because it’s the same person,
same situation and the same me,
the only thing changed is my hope dying a little every day
but it’s the same ****,
just a different day.

Moved on to a better place
Found peace in the fallows
That dug knee deep in shadow
Living in darkness has become a crime
But I was so used to doing time
Caged liberty is no man’s dream
My dream is to die and pass on to a different time.

Days feel like months and months feel like years but alas,
only minutes have passed
and I’m still in today
and tomorrow is yet to pass.
But I have tried to move on and be free
I have tried to be better than I am today than I was yesterday
But this war unto myself
Has only ruined me.
I don’t know when the wait will end
I don’t know when my life will begin
But if life is to begin then it can begin again tomorrow
But that’s not the point
That’s not what the wait is for.
I’m waiting to be free
To be unburdened from life’s destiny
I wish to move on to a clear beginning
But to begin again, means an end is to come
So I’m stuck in this endless spiral that goes nor up nor down
Just moves in rotation to complete this circle
But always begins again for me.

Got up early, had a coffee
The vanilla in it makes me feel alive,
One sip a taste of wonder
Why when it’s forbidden I take it as a treat
It is bittersweet

Used and abused, I am worn
I stay here then I am thrown
Dethroned from the table where once I sat
Now I am just a rag to pat the poo
And that’s a fact.

Flowers are set to bloom
And it’s no longer doom
For I have my favourite human by my side
It is the best kind of ride.
 
The bird calls at night and day
Signalling for spring on its way
And with spring comes a new beginning  
A beginning from far away.

How lucky is my cat
Always tranquil, always sleeping
No worries of the world seeping
I am worried I have to write this story
About war and its glory
But I am just a girl who likes fiction,
Why is there so much friction?
I don’t want to understand the lessons of the war,
I don’t care about it,
What was it even for?
Going against the tide the book said,
But I like going with the flow
Breaking bounds and ceilings
With my believings
And a will to learn and live
Through life and its lessons
Not through going against my feelings.

Stay caught up till June
I’ve made up my mind now it’s doom
Feeling scared and lost
Is it my life or my soul that it’ll cost
To be untangled
But I can’t let it stay mangled
I want to leave it now
Come back morrow noon
When it will be the first of the full moon
Of august the first
But by then the deal will be sealed
I will have new work and old pieces to sew
I will have fresh scars to heal
I’m not ready, I’m not confident it seems
This light in my eyes is dull it never beams
Lost to the tribe, lost to the ethics and conspiracies
Can’t find my way out even with different loopholes and currencies
Leaving away is not the same as being free
When I’m tethered  to this city
It’s by lanes and pity
Of what people will say
Will they watch me when I flay
Their concerns are disconcerting
They don’t have the right pieces of my heart
They are just pulling strings from my art.
Stuck in a loop again here we go
Another year of breakdowns and broken bones
Is there a way out my head is spinning
I want to get down of this merry go round
I want to move straight and not be caught up in life’s down turning.

No love song comes to mind
No poem brings a rhyme
When I think of you
It’s sunsets and coffee
and cold breeze and warm sweater and shorts and sweet toffee like
Your lips that failed to touch mine
Your hands intertwined with mine
Walking nowhere in mind
Having you beside
Is like turning my world upside
Down and about we go
In alleyways and car rides we flow
I only met you once but its like
I know you you were meant to be mine
But it’s fine if you leave
Don’t stay another day, just release
I shared a moment with you, it stopped the time
The world spinned but I stayed grounded
Held onto to the dunes
Tried to drown out the noise and listen to your words
They flow like tunes
I knew you were different but I don’t know why
It’s never been like this with another guy
Would like to see what you’re about
I bet it’s stardust of cosmos and magic and art
I’ll do my best to keep up and to restart in part
Looked at you with infatuation but there was a longing for belonging
Would you hold me one last time again before you leave for good?
I don’t want you to go but I think I understood
You don’t see me this way I hoped you would
I think i may be naive but I’m not a fool
Maybe a fool but not misunderstood
This sliver of hope at the beach
Is turning to be out of reach
And it would be sad to see you go
But wait and hold me one last time
When the time stops
And this poet fails to find a rhyme.

Before ever there being a beginning
I saw the end
You don’t like me
You don’t see me the way I see you
It’s fine I’ll go
I’ll take my love and flow
It hurts so I let the tears come
And they simply flow and flow..
Too fast I cast the net
But you weren’t the hunted
You pushed back and I felt the rejection
I’ll collect my lust and love and even the affection
And go away
These tears will guide me away
Away from the humiliation
Of the pain and this sadness
That’s amid suffocation and madness..

So it was
Once then never was
You left me and it hurt
Why did you choose to change so much?
We were best friends and sisters
You made it all about the misters
Finding time to keep you around
Why were you never around
When we broke bones and banks
I knew you were down hard
Broke down bikes and cars
And I turned scarred.

Seeing you after a year makes me wonder
Do you think of me too and ponder
Why things were left unsaid
Why we drifted away
Tried to forget you and found many other
But no one came to be so picture perfect as each other

You don’t even care you looked away
You ****** me off when things went grey
Contemplated many a times to message you
But remembered how you threw me away.
But pride came to play
And stayed more than half way

When I looked into your eyes
I saw hurt and pain but also crudest acclaim.
Why it never worked out I don’t know
Mistakes were made and both grew up
Careless nights to back road to and fro
Somehow we grew up and grew apart more.

I just don’t feel like an equal
“Life’s not meant to be equal”, you say
then what is it?
I don’t feel above people either..
I don’t feel good in my skin either

“What’s in a name?”, you say
I say it’s everything
It puts me in a box without ever giving any opinions
Gives me privilege and takes it away
Burns down the bridge of equality that’s left to stay

What’s in the gender?
Nowadays people mix and match
Men wear makeup and women wear slacks
Men wear their hair down and women move in a buzz
Idk what the fuss is about?

“You think too much” you say
“You’re young and fine and attractive” you say
It’s not that deep that comedian is mad
He’s just trying to pay his rent
His jokes are just sad

But if things stirred the ***
And brought
About a feeling of resentment
In caste and name and female and the lack of
Privilege as they claim
Know that money talks
In all it’s fame

That you don’t need to earn respect
you have it tailor made
That you don’t need equality
Money can tower the gap of wealth and fortune and fame

But I claim:
Life’s not fair when you’re a female brown minority in a hateful society
Where it’s all about the name
Check your privilege, check your privilege as they suppose
I don’t have any I begrudgingly oppose

He triggered me and reminded me of my position
He meant no offence but I’m reminded of my face
That has no place in this society
Just a pretty girl
Wow so light her skin
So pretty her features
Until they know my name.

You are the sun to my moon
You are the day to my noon
You bring out this side of me
That is away and never beside me
I start to see you rise
I start to bring you light
Why if we are so perfect
We live on opposite sides?
You’re the west to my east
Fall to my rise
I wish I had more than the twilight lights
To hold you in my arms all night.
See the twinkling stars in a gaze
Leave you with much more than the chase
Of after morning glory
Wish we forever stayed
In a state of smiling haze.

You left in the morning in a daze
I stayed waiting for you in a haze
Made promises you said you’d be back
It’s been 2 years no looking back.

Showed up in a dream you said you were close
Finishing up school and work and chores
I don’t even know you anymore
But you keep your promise and me on my toes.

I loved you when I didn’t understand you wholly
I wanted you when you were broken completely
But you made a choice to go back and leave
Left me crying and calling out in a heave.

Now you said you’d be there when I’d come too
It’s been a minute I don’t know what to look for in you
Been a great friend, a great ally
Seen you walking looking back at my side
Maybe you never forgot who I was
But you’re starting to look like I don’t even know who you was.

Bring back the higher note, the old soul
Bring back the promise that you made in your past
Four folds ago
Four years ago
It’s been just minute longer than before
Maybe I’d remember when you return
Why you left to earn
And didn’t come back in turn.

He didn’t see me
I’m depressed
He sees me smiling,
I’m repressed.
I wanted to be his only one
He said stay blessed
But I’m the only one
Cleaning up this mess

He didn’t love me to leave her and be mine
He didn’t want me for more than half time
He kept switching and kept coming back and forth
He kept playing and leaving me in limbo
I stayed true to him, I never lied
Why can’t he see me be by his side
This half baked love has a shelf life

I tried my hardest to make him be mine
He just didn’t see me in that light
Good for a side, good for a small time
Never enough to be his life
Wife. He never cared to live up to his promises,
It’s true, I’m not turning into his wife
He never loved nor he cared
It is beginning to become a hard life.

I’ll leave him, I’ll move on to better skies
No more internalising his lies
I wanted love and security
This was turning a difficult time.
I’ll be gone, I promise I won’t pine
He is the last person who could be mine
Don’t need him, don’t care
Walking out is better than living a stupid lie.

My broken heart is in pieces
Got a missing piece too
It’s beyond repair,
It turned black
Had so much love which felt green
Now the glass is shattering
Everything turning blue and black

Reminiscing the good times that felt fatal
Remembering the memories of him
Oh so unstable
Had a niggling feeling
Couldn’t catch the onset becoming
Possessed with demon blood
I hate that I’m ugly beyond repair
My heart sings the songs of the fallen
I hate that it’s breaking up
Whatever was befallen

I can’t run or hide away from this feeling,
It’s the last of humanity dealing
I can’t finish the crossed line
I’m becoming the demon that which I am dealing.
Rescue me no man coming
I’m unbecoming the version that cried to god
But no one came nor they stayed
It was a one man job.

Help me there is no resolution
I have been and un-been
Feeling gratuitous from the moment the flesh erased to the glass skin.
I will go down and under
Lost in the sea of monster
If this is the end, let me be
An uncaring **** stirrer.

I can’t bare weight to these bearings
Followed me down bare things
Showed me a glass half empty-
Waited to be half full by me.

I lost words in translation
I became a killer instead
Wanted him to save me
I failed to save myself instead.

Coming down with a fever
Knowing I won’t ever be her
It kills me to find my destiny
Is far away from humanity.

I wanted it all and got nothing
But shame and guilt and sorrow
And sometimes all too slow in the morrow
Killing me with spears
like icy daggers to the chest,
Wondering did I leave my best to rest.

I can’t be the only one who messed up
Prim and proper people repel me like
A magnet that’s broken but pretty and smashed up
They see my flaws and judge me, change me, or ignore me.
I can’t be arsed to give two ***** already.

But icy daggers make me bleed purple
With veins in shock with blue so casual
I feel wounded and wound up
Found no ways to half it up.

Glass half full is still half empty
I learned it the hard way through penalty
I can’t change my past and swallow my future
It’s time I learned new tricks to become a preacher.

I feel you in my arms
Even though you’re not here
I feel a niggling in my neck
Even though you kiss isn’t for real
I love watching myself imagine
How you would feel near
I love making up stories
Of when you’d be here
I miss your voice and your tongue
Don’t know which one will click here
I love the scarlet fever I ran
Just to hold you near
Come be here to feel me breathe
Hold me close I intend to be
With you forever near and dear.

Craving for something I cannot have
it’s the forbidden fruit of soul
I know I met you even before knowing,
listening to your song on repeat ,
hoping something will come through
That the veil will be see through
But the passenger has passed over
The fog like veil blinds my eyes
There is no one to peak over.

My soul is really stuck on this song that beats in your heart like repeat
My vision is in the past reminiscing that day on beat
Oel Ngati kameie not, it’s just your ghost that I do.
But my heart skips beating whenever I think of you.
Rewinding to that minute when you saw me,
keeping it close to my vision so I can see me,
Holding on to your gaze like this,
I do it in the mirror envisioning you to be on the other side,
I’m not ready to mourn you,
But is it time to say goodbye?

I’m not ready and I never will be,
You took away a piece of me.
I am forever indebted for the moments that you let me steal ,
and the times that you showed me how to be free.
Some other time, perhaps another life,
I will find you and keep you close to my chest
You are the only one I consider the best.

I can’t rhyme with reason, it makes little sense
Today I’m feeling a bit dense.
You will always be my forever
Even when words fumble and stumble..
I will wait on you forever
It’s a short time
A **** time
But for you I’ll do it twice more than the last time.

I still feel bad that you never got to read my poem that I wrote for you,
not as a muse or inspiration,
but as a genuine ripped sleeve
that held my heart exposed beating,
rapidly, erratically;
when the only thing that could calm it down was your tender embrace and your own heart beating just as wildly.

Your madness made sense to me,
your pain felt known and homely.
I wanted to hold you and breathe into your foreign fragrance,
that felt home to me.
You were a missing piece,
an important bishop missing from the checkered board.
Without you, life had no structure and no fun.
Emotions had their ups and downs
but never as strong and never as abound.
You made sense to me,
my heart felt safe with you
but still it hurt the most with you.

It aches more longing for the days when you held it,
but I’m not over the pain that you triggered;
maybe I wasn’t over it,
maybe I wasn’t done being my old self,
who craved destruction and wanted war unto herself.

Maybe I’ve healed enough to touch your icy heart again,
maybe I’m warm enough to cool you down to retain,
your blissful sweet nothings
and careless slippings of fondness and laughter,
of smooches and simple hums
and running your fingers through my hair and your chords;
with little rhymes for no reason,
to harmonise the songs in off tune and high key,
to sing our love songs in glee.

It was a brief time, the winter nights stayed short.
you showed me a world that I never imagined,
and with you I want it all.
It didn’t last, some things stay beautiful just as memories,
but I’m not over how you’re so warm and cool,
so strong and sensitive,
so brave yet a fool.

Maybe if you return I could see
what long summer nights bring to me.
Maybe it’d be long enough
for you to make base,
to stay here and embrace,
my emotions and me..
perhaps this time, you’d be selfish
to stay just for me.

My father who art in heaven
May he be also a masterpiece
Like eleven
May my main man also join the skies
That part the seas like milky lights.
May my man bring with him me
As a tourist of the nightlife.
Wife me up and hold me tight
Like the stars cling onto the duly skies.

May my main man be the mainest of them all
Sure a little mean isn’t bad at all
Nay he never become a Mayfair sayer
Or a naysayer to his wife’s call.
Today I call upon thee
To help me free fall.
Tall and fully
In love with you truly
You are my one and only all.

I want to go out of here
Move on and about from here
See the world with dizzy eyes
And dossy smiles
And half-full Of gallant laughters.

Rafters. I have been packed
To be drafters
Since Wednesday yesterday
Today is the day I move away.
To see ***** lies all day, maybe everyday.

Don’t care about this one or that
Shouldn’t care about this one but that
That seems reasonable
Agreeable, manageable, remarkable even
I remember who it is even
But man was it hard to move on even
Still I reminisce and remember
Look past my deep slumber
On the memories I count by the number.

Have so much to do
So little to say
I’m done talking today, I spoke too much
Everyday.
Truth is I don’t even know
What lies to befall and behold
Halo hello, no one becomes god
With these fine lines of truth
Meshed with the bad fruit Of the lord.

My god, get me out of here
A plead of mercy that I cry
Within the deep black hole
That insights my insides
A call to heaven if it even picks up
Today I won’t cry.
Today I won’t beg
Today I demand what was rightfully mine
What was denied truthfully very unkind

I ask that I get the freedom that I deserve
That I earned through blood and tears
Tears are indeed thicker than blood
Cause you watched me cry mercilessly
But didn’t show enough mercy to let me die.

So goodbye.

I scream, I scream,
No one can hear me.
From under the ground,
In the middle of the crowd,
On top of that mountain;
But no one can hear me.
Or see me.
Can you see me?
Can you see the lies drawn
On my face?
That frown forcefully erased
From its place?
Can you see I'm holding
My breath?
Waiting to find an outlet..
And I scream, I scream,
But what's the point?
I'm buried deep
And I'm drowning inside.
There's no way to wake up
Because I'm not asleep,
I'm simply dead inside.
I scream, I scream,
But how can you hear me?
When these voices scream louder
And there's no way to find me.
Are you finding me?
But how can you,
When you don't even know I'm
Lost.
You see me, sitting right here,
Smiling away my life;
Little do you know,
I'm living in my own
Holocaust.

When life gives you lemons,
You squeeze them in your eyes,
You don't think twice, regret
Or get to question why.
For it is written in fate
For it is how it is to be,
You don't get to choose it ,
And you don't get to cry.

You'll fight it, hate it, neglect it and whine,
You'll curse it, resist it, run from it and hide.
But it'll catch you one way or the other,
It's better if it catches you this way than the other.
For it stings like a bee,
Then pains like a wound
And you may think you are enough to take it,
Before it comes back and bites you in the moon.

One shot, two shot, three shot, four
Glasses become empty but the lemons keep coming more.
It's no fun with the acidic
Sourness creeping into my soul.
Yet it keeps coming more, more
And more...

Call it fate,
Call it luck,
Call it magic,
Whatever you must,
It is easier to blame others
Than to put myself under the bus.
A *****-up here,
A ****-up there,
One by one my life has scattered everywhere.

So I take these lemons that life owes
And the ones that I already own,
Trying hard not to put them all in my drink,
Days go by but it feels like a blink,
Maybe I do down them all
Maybe that's become my thing.
But hey, I don't whine about it anymore,
Or fight it, hate it or neglect it
Life keeps changing erratically,
This is the truth, this is my new reality.

Uplift this curse from me,
I don't want to go there anymore,
I want to move forward, live in the now,
My past is not a place to move around and about.

I pinch myself once, nay, twice at least,
I pinch myself everyday,
But the reality stays the same
I'm in the present, in the now
Still my past plays a cruel joke with my life's endless game.

It is another year, a better time
This is my moment to shine
New clothes, new hair, new boy
Still it is the same as last time
My feelings are my life's favourite toy.

I'm not a broken record,
Stop playing me on repeat;
I'm not your favourite song,
Stop singing it on and on;
I want to break this cycle,
I want to move on;
Stop blocking my path,
Let my life go on.

Eventhough he is buried deep,
His memories float on shore and never leave
He poisins my mind, my heart, my every need,
He's dead but he never leaves
He eats at my brain
And lives on in the name
Of present and takes the form
Of anything that matters most to me.

Break this curse at last!
Let me breathe for once!
Untie this knot that binds me to my past!
Let me free at last!

Somehow my life circles back to him
I begin where he ends,
Yet, I end up where I begin
He found a way to live on in another,
His ghost haunts me every night
He is gone, so stay gone!
Don't dare come back in another form!

When shall my troubled mind ease?
When shall I find my peace?
When will that new day begin?
When will I know my life has changed from within?

People are like acrylic vases..
So pretty and shapely and tidy and neat..
With their simple designs and flat bottoms;
Some are glittery, some are bold,
Some are colourful and, some are plain gold.

They rest on the shelves for display,
Each showing their perfect angle, their brightest colour..
Each waiting to be knocked down by life's childish play.
Some tumble and fall,
Others crack open but stand tall,
Some are yet to be victims of life's call.

Among thousands of millions of acrylic vases,
There sits one unnoticed vase that faces
The direct rays of the sunlight beams,
Which dance through its translucent glass
It's the only unique one in the entire mass.

When light dances through it you can see
That it's not translucent but crystal-clear,
The fog of patchwork which makes it unclear to see,
Is nothing but shards of glass in a smear.

My broken baby stands tall,
With a few missing pieces and others glued on,
He breaks more and cracks further with every fall
He doesn't look like he once used to,
That silhouette of his shadow is long gone...

But he is beautiful like no other can be
And he is whole in his incompleteness
His damaged self and damaged reputation
Makes him purer and truer than most others
If only they put aside their prejudiced condemnation.

But broken he is, and pain he is enduring.
How long can he carry on?
How long can he stand upright?
How long before all his pieces begin to fall and he loses his fight?
I want to fix him, I want to glue him back piece by piece
I want to ease his agony, help him up,
If only he'd let me.

Perhaps he's too afraid of my touch,
Too afraid that I may break him further
And crack down his glass into powder
If only he'd let me touch him, he'd know
That my grip on his form is like a soothing balm,
His cracks would lessen, while I'd watch his mind
Shift from madness to a serene calm.

But my broken baby needs no one, he made it very clear,
He'd rather face the elements alone than lean on another.
If only he saw how it makes me feel,
How it makes me weep tear after tear
Perhaps  one day he'd want me and no other.

Oh, my broken baby let me save you!
Let me build you up again piece by piece
Let me rip my pieces to make you whole,
Let me help you become complete.
Let me be your martyr, your saviour in disguise,
Watch my features plead and hear my helpless cries!

Words can't begin to describe
I can't undo what I scribed
I wish I could take back
The shame that I ride
On my back and on my bare chest
'COWARD', 'LOSER', 'USELESS'
Are the engraved letters which make me
Feel less and less
And smaller and smaller
As the words grow bigger and mightier,
My will to fight back
Is growing less and less

Removed him from my heart,
Removed him from my life;
Burned all his memories in
The back of my mind,
And tore all his art.
Yet in the intoxicated state that my mind lives,
Swaying with the slightest whip,
My shaky fingers
Grow a mind of their own
And I sigh on the phone
With his name on my
lips.

His voice is like poisoned honey
So deep and sharp and deadly and sweet
His whole being a mirage. . A mystery to me
The closer I reach,
The quicker he vanishes..
Vanishes into another's arms indeed.

He told me he found another,
He told me he has moved on,
I don't understand it,
One instant he seemed so close,
And now he is so far gone.

With the remaining dignity I now swear,
That not another day will rise when I wear
His broken, distorted thoughts on my sleeve;
I know I should find my own path,
Should set him free,
But this time I am selfish enough
To do it for me!