they say love is not supposed to hurt
but it does.
it hurts to say it.
it hurts to feel it.
it hurts to know it.

but maybe it's not the love itself
that is painful.
what's painful are the cracks
and ropes
that trap us to this mess.
I'm tired of being trapped here
and I'm tired of feeling hurt.
I wanna escape
but there's not a single way out

The other day I showed my mom my poems
"Why do you always write sad poems? Write happy." She says
I just nodded, but I couldn't tell her my code of secrecy.
I write so I can let all the pain go
The pain of yesterday
and the reason that was was that I didn't have anybody when I moved
Everybody was occupied
And on my first day of school, I ruined everything
my words were spoken in clumps
and my pen was my only companion
So I wrote
wrote like the ink was my blood and paper my skin
and poetry accepted my request of being a friend
now my poems act as a mentor and a tutor
I can't give up writing sad poems
because if I do,
I'll lose yesterday

Her mailed candy
from half a world away
taste of our friendship
and of my childhood
but mostly bittersweet nostalgia
I remember those afternoons under the bent tree
crouching on the trodden grass because we didn't want to get bitten by bugs
chewing the exact candy I have in my mouth
my mouth watering and melting it
the sweet and stale candy took me somewhere else
where only my memories of her existed

Today is Mother's Day.
My mother's name means victory.
She smells like a proper, hard-working woman, but also a pristine chrysanthemum.
I type this with a burnt tea tongue for and to my lovely, lovely mom.
My mother supports feminism, masculinism, and me.
She taught me how to speak, how to run, how to love, how to feel.
I love my mother.
I miss being 8 when you would tuck me in, but I miss yesterday when you told me how to deal with a mishap.
My family isn't in any way organised or perfect, but you do your best to put us in line like toy soldiers.
Sometimes I fall out with her, we get into fights a lot.
I hate crying in front of her, it makes me insecure.
I hate when she gets mad at me, my heart shakes when her voice drills the car.
But without her my life would be different, I would be a selfish, spoilt girl who isn't strong and doesn't have common sense.
Although she won't understand this, she gave up half her life to move from her homeland to the country whose tongue she can't understand,
I want to scream out,
I LOVE YOU, MOM.
Happy Mother's Day to the sweetest, most-hardworking mother in this eternity.
xoxo,
F C

Of course it's her; she is the universe while I am barely a moon
She's the shooting stars while I am an asteroid
She's the galaxy while I am merely a planet
She's has a meaning while I am just a riddle