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INFINITEabyss Feb 2016
I felt safe with you
It could have been so simple
I have some regrets

It had been a while
And our friends encouraged us
then we never spoke

in the tub I thought
of drowning but came to you
to ****‘n’ forget

I loved who you were
Past tense but also present
Like, genuinely

Sorry I felt zilch,
You met me at a bad time
And in a bad place
Benedict smith's poem (a haiku for every girl i've slept with) inspired me to do this one
INFINITEabyss Sep 2016
And I know youll use youre gender nonspecific pronouns,
You think that won't hurt me
Ill tell you say he instead of they... if that's what it is it, it should be what it is. I wont think you any less or more
You can trade in her for him and she for he and its all ok
Its not my  fault, its not your fault
You dont choose who you love
That doesnt change that you loved me... once... in august, in may
May day may day I hear you calling
Dont fret, be free I know you loved me three and I loved you two
Its not my fault and its not your fault
You dont chose who you love
And that doesnt change that you loved me once and you love me still
And my heart still beats
Louder than crickets speak in a still, tranquil, night when you walk in a room. And I see you hold stares longer when they walk in than when I did, ****. My heart beats in anx-iety but its still all love.
INFINITEabyss Jan 2016
You'll write their name on your tired body with permanent ink and call it love
Because Aunty said it's beyond what the eye can  see but what the body can feel.
Itll take you months to learn its not the same thing to create this.        
You'll try to make them stay with your wet mouth, with those trembling hands, wisper all the things that would make you stay in that husky voice
But warsan said you cant make homes out of people
And your new mantra is "nothing in this world belongs to me I release it all"  
But you keep it all in slit like creases in your scattered messy heart, and your tender thighs,
And your static and wandering mind.
and my love? My lover? Dont you see the only thing you're letting go of is yourself.
INFINITEabyss Aug 2015
My heart is an overflowing suitcase my red dress you liked so much the one with the horses is spilling out along with that jumper you wore once and the shirt i bought for 50p in bricklane
my insecurities have been buried deep but they are demanding to see the sun now
i sit on my suitcase in a crowded airport
i don't know where i'm going
all i have is this overflowing suitcase, no ticket, where am i going?
Many strangers have walked by, some had friendly faces so i whispered sometimes shouted:
'a little help'
mostly non have stopped
the few that have, leave me with old memories they no longer want to hold on to and i've become accustomed to carrying the burdens... i think they can see it on my face
so i pretend i have room in my suitcase
after all i'm not really going anywhere
and they seem to be
INFINITEabyss May 2016
come
come tell me what you're thinking about when your nails dig into your nail beds in conversations
i want your demons to play with mine, maybe they'll tire and we'll find our way to content
its an 8th continent and we've both never been
only read detailed travel books on
come lay your face on my lap and tell me about what wakes you up at night
tell me why you look like you're falling in love and mending a broken heart simultaneously
INFINITEabyss Nov 2015
You only seem to love me when im empty
There must be something in that that makes you happy
And ill never understand it.  
The first time I heard the king of sorrow
by sade I felt like I had told her how I felt, took her hands to my chest and let her dig deep.
And she wrote about me.  
There's a difference between writing for someone and about someone
There are no trinkets, no hidden words.
It's all bare.
Like when you're making love to someone even though they're just trying to **** and you bare it all.  
Ive been meaning to write about you. Not for you.    
But ive placed you on a pedestal that wont allow me to.
INFINITEabyss Aug 2015
31 days, its been 31 days and i've been dazed, you've dizzied me
I spoke to God on day 30 while you lay asleep and I held you for what felt like it was the last time
It cut and healed all at once.
As I held you and spoke to a God I know you don't believe in I said,
God you astonish me for making a being so instantly resplendent who when dissected still is flowering on the inside      
You are spring,
And as spring goes else where Robert Graves' 'I will write' sits in me and I have tears stuck in my throat
I let them stay and know this has been beautiful                  
You are spring, you are flowering inside and I am jealous of all that will experience your constitution
   But you have taught me your philosophy, painted me with your utilitarianism
So I won't pluck the flowers and pray all who revel in your immensity water you
INFINITEabyss Aug 2015
My mother is the light at the end of the tunnel,
she pulls me from pits i half explain through mumbles on the phone,
i give her so little and she works with it,
until it becomes something
i mean what do you expect from a woman that has made herself what she is and is humble enough to place all praise at god's feet
my mother is the light at the end of the tunnel
and i go through these tunnels so often
and still there she is patiently waiting for me
and she is the light
INFINITEabyss Aug 2015
you know, i knew you were special that wednesday afternoon in october
the one where your hand went searching for mine as we walked around the city of canterbury
we sat in that hollow subway up stairs where there was one other guy
and i ate my sub so messy- symbolic for how it would all end-
underneath the table my feet were on top of yours
   i always wanted to be touching you
we sat in that subway for 3 hours i didn't want to move
just sit opposite you and watch your beautiful eyes and beard
you were always so breathtaking and weird to look at
its in that moment i think back now that we are no longer together
i know i loved you
and im glad i gave you the parts of me i did
I'm sorry i fell asleep watching donnie darko that night i know it was your favourite movie and you wanted to give me a piece of you too.
i want you to know you did.
i  also want you to know i was never going to be enough
INFINITEabyss Aug 2015
When you meet someone in a coffee shop to say goodbye, as friends or lovers or family
and you know you are far more emotional because this goodbye has no time limit,

1)get a larger drink than the person you are saying goodbye to, sip slow, look at them and take it in. how their eyes wrinkle when they laugh, how their eyes keep looking at you and away because they don't want to sit for too long because they've known you and they know you could cry at any moment

2) when they finish their drink, you will still have some left
they shall get up 'well i better be going' to make it seem less permanent  
you will both smile and say you'll keep in touch. Keep talking to stop from looking sad cause you know you won't  

3) say 'i still have some of my tea' implying you will stay behind

4)hug and exchange really sweet words. Now, because you are sentimental you will want to cry there and then.

5)DO NOT!!

6)This had been a long time coming

7)they will walk away

8)you will take a breath, sit back down

9)it's ok that your eyes are so teary you can barely see your mug of tea
it's ok that the couple next to you are looking at you

10)give yourself some time before you leave the coffee shop.
INFINITEabyss Aug 2015
lately all i have to come home to are 'i told you sos'
i climb into bed, fetal position and they cling to my back and loudly whisper in my ears,
'what did you expect, why did you move of course that was never going to turn into anything'
and i don't ask the i told you sos to stop saying i told you so
This is my bed. I made it. So i'll have to lay in it
but i swear some days it's like someone's made it for me and i still have to lay in it.
These are all excuses because you told me so
and i never listen because i'm always hoping your i told you sos will be wrong
they were right tonight and i held my own hand as my stomach snapped into two and i cried a cry so deep i felt it in my womb and i said yes you were right it wasn't gonna work
yes you were right
it wasn't good enough and my eyes dry shut stained with this liquid that's become so familiar
yes you were right
what was i thinking

what was i thinking
INFINITEabyss May 2016
Honesty is the best policy!.... or is it privacy
heres both;
My hearts are scattered in 5 different directions and they all feel like home
is that alright?
Not all things need a label, we're not all products up for display and purchase
Is that alright?
Sometimes, gloves fit but there's 6 more pairs you need to try on,
You never have to wait you can go, but kiss me goodbye and promise You'll write.
Theres no such thing as an ending if names are ingraved in mouth pockets
And are never too far from the corners of lips
And you can call to tell me about the time you cried  and drunk too much at a party because there was a stranger you could imagine me falling in love with,
I meant to say I love you but the words found themselves tangled in a tornado in my stomach,
Honesty is the best policy.
jar
INFINITEabyss Oct 2015
jar
placing the fingers in your mouth
They are warm and cold like heart and feet, its bitter and sweet. Bittersweet.
Dip them in and around the jar between my thighs
and it tastes like cinnamon, sand, rain, submission, cold soup, lonely, happy, drowning


and back to lonely
jul
INFINITEabyss Sep 2015
jul
She was tragically sad in a way that I was but couldnt afford to have tattooed on me because im african and no one has time for internal misery when there are kids with flies on the look out for something to unempty their bellies, you know stuff you see on telly  
She had blond curly hair and we had the mutal understanding that bus rides were where we went to check on our selves, see how well we had supressed the demons for that day or week or past ten years
When I was going through my episodes I'd reinvent myself by establishing a new laugh
"Does this make me sound happier"
She would decide she was moving to india but never really left the university or ended up in brixton
Thats heres india if you cant afford the real thing
We would go for months without speaking and she would show up At my door with dark brown tresses dyed to conseal the misfortunes, unrequited loves and abortions
And I would put together the potions to help us through. No bus rides. just camomile teas and rouge lipsticks  
Sit at cafe rouge and pretend to be happy old ladies meeting to exchange photographs of our grandchildren
INFINITEabyss Aug 2016
It's the last night  ill make love to you. Frank ocean's Godspeed will play, loud enough to drown out the countless failed efforts. We pushed our luck.Ill let go of my claim for you; its a free world. It cant even escape our lips that we didnt try. Ive been thrifting too long, I dont wanna have to always make something out of the old. I need that new new. And no one can say we didnt try.   Ill make love to you and what other lips couldnt say these will say. Smoke something, with me you could always  let the tears shed. We'LL dance with tears in our eyes and better love at our finger tips. Youll find better and ill stop thrifting find that new new, where I love you isnt an apology.
INFINITEabyss Aug 2015
A sore loser
I couldn't handle the deep yearning for something i couldn't have alongside a creeping in scent of depression
Like a strong concoction of lavender and thyme concentrated in an unventilated room
so i chose one
INFINITEabyss Mar 2016
The night of the last day of February
where it was a rare occasion that the month felt complete
I lay in my mother's garden
looked up at the stars and I felt so small and my impermance was forced down my spine
I called to say im tired of writing sad poems
poems about people
they appear and reappear- so they can be written about
The written are seldom forgotten, you see
              its a cold world baby girl,
but let that Coldplay lighten the load
                      
                         Look at the stars ,
                     Look how they shine for you,
                 And everything that you do,
              Yeah, they were all yellow,

Stared at the stars long enough and it all came to me,
All the times ive emptied my cup for those who've never traced their shea butter laced fingers through my scalp and intricate braids,
All the times I...

So I Untied my anklets and made new ones
With colourful beads I individually hand picked from the local market
and im a step closer to only being mine
returning all of me to me
And I am *enough
INFINITEabyss Aug 2016
There's aways going to be a girl in Bangkok.
I know, I'm the flutter she is the tick tock, cant be silenced, comes out as action, at your finger tips, a text away, it soothes the inability to touch?
         There's always gonna be that.   
Theres always gonna be a girl in paris,
A little smarter, a little timid flower.
And what was it you said?
I'm a locked open book. A little too much give me love and meaning.
The time we lay on your bed, coversations about the end turned into how you cant feel anyones love. Blood and water hold the same consistency.  And I think I can change you.
INFINITEabyss Aug 2015
Tell me again about how the caterpillars in your stomach metamorphosed into butterflies that fluttered around when frankie walked through the door.
Leave out the part about the butterflies' stagnation,
how eventually they reverted back to caterpillars and mistook your insides for leaves;
because we can't stay in another day just listening to Au Revoir Simone with that same story rolling off your tongue.
darling, it is starting to leave unkissable burns on your mouth.
INFINITEabyss Aug 2016
Im never ready when I need to be,
I always leave when I should stay
Disconnect when I should connect.
It wasnt going to be any different with you.
I wasnt ready when you were.
Ill be honest, I want the things I cant have.
I tried to be less sabotaging like you asked
On the stairs, hand on my right cheek, you said I need you to know you are enough.
But who wants to settle when the winds beneath your feet and your always moving to greener grass.
At 3am you sent me small hands by keaton Henson
I dont blame you for leaving me cold, hanging, blue ticks, unresponsive.
I  still only look for you when all the doors are shut without any windows to jump through,
But even your welcome matt's been removed.
INFINITEabyss Jul 2016
The first night you were gone I drunk my weight in cheap drinks, swayed my hips to music that did not understand me, with lonely boys'     elusive hands around my waist.
As the beat changed and got quite enough for me to feel that you were missing, I moved harder and closer to the things that numbed me.

By the 11th day,my mother did not know what to do with me, I wanted to tell her id become as much a stranger to myself as I seemed to her.But  words failed, I shrunk within myself,  maybe I wasnt a person anymore

On the 24th day I remembered that I was still 24 and should be dancing, should feel more alive,so I took to the persciptions that numbed me enough to feel I had the world ahead of me or atleast in that moment?

I watched a documentary on force
Fed women in Mauritius, by day 30 I wanted nothing to touch my lips and fill my belly, and you tried.
              
Day 58 found me cleaning the house, I took a shower that did not consist of standing under running water, I combed my hair and oiled my scalp.  I called friends back. I also folded at my stomach once more and i was back at 1.
                                
On day 89 I tried, I felt alone, what lingered below the balcony no longer scared me, I woke up to wine, I smoked too much, stumbled in my family home at 5 in the morning. I stopped drinking in the mornings.
Its a game of hide and seek
INFINITEabyss Jan 2016
You wrote to tell me youve been thinking about me lately
Since the star wars movie came out
Long gone memories of Me draped in my black darth vader t shirt   *** in flashes
You said youre happy but wander if I think of you.        


after us I played james by camera obscura 10 times a day till your name didnt leave me breathless and broken all over again    
Some things dont mend
and I now understand why you're so scared of growing old  
And I understand why youd leave posted notes all around my house
inside jokes
Found
Are hard to forget
I get it
That You could love her and him and them and they and still love me
So ill play that song one last time
                 it doesn't hurt
INFINITEabyss Nov 2016
I'll move back
Then I'll belong
Where the land is beautiful… the streets are as clear as  Lazarus' soul
There I’ll meet my maker, the mother land.
Where I'll belong.
Hold conversations at the top of her hills,
But I’ll come with unwanted baggage, sneaked in from the airport- from a foreign land, to my father’s home,
The luggage is questions, its analysis, its rights, it’s not knowing I have a set place in this society
The land will try to beat these things out of me
you can love a place and have it break your heart all at the same time every time.
INFINITEabyss Apr 2016
The things you seem tethered to... that connection will be lost
In the best way, itll be natural in the way it was always meant to be
Seasons will tangle and untangle into eachother like the loves that come and go in peace
Youll stop hitting that unforgiving brick wall
Cause you will no longer turn your back to change
Youll run to it, understand it accommodate it, let it do what it must do to you-  
root you further into yourself
See, you'd been seeing it all wrong, its not a colonialist, striping you, leaving you bare.    
Stand in the rain, and say amen, its beautiful its happening. so it is.
Post rain, when all the creatures sniff the air, Youll smell love coming in, go slow, stick your hand outside that window and let the sun make love to your skin, call it what it is this time. And perhaps they are the sun.  Drawing you out of the shadows, reminding you that its never too late to live the lives you always wanted to,   you can go back and forth and you will remain constant. Anchored.
Post-rain, with you the grass is greener, you are enough for everything that surrounds you, and You take no credit.
Its like. Its like. Its like
I wrote you to life
INFINITEabyss Oct 2015
we meet at your favourite market- the colombia flower market
ill never understand all the random sundays and countless hours we spent pacing up and down looking at flowers
there's a melancholic mist in the air this sunday
we know it's going to be the last sunday we walk down that road holding hands for some time
but we wave it away with laughter and dig deep into pockets of 'remember that time...'-  that we've saved up over the past few years

i'm terrible with approaching goodbyes- but you know this and you are good to me.
At the stall i look for something else to channel my frustration into,
seated on the ground i say 'we should have gotten the beetroot salad'
you say, 'you shouldn't leave',
and i cry,
and you hold me,
and at this point it's like trying to hold water in your palms with a scorching hot earth beneath your feet,
i melt into you,
i ask you if my heart will eventually stop hurting, if ill be ok.
'let's give it two weeks' you say-
a firm believer in your two week theory passed down from your mother the first time you had  your heart broken that you now apply to every and anything, i nod in faith.

At the bus stop, dread lingers between us... that same melancholic mist hovers, this time it can't easily be waved away.
Your number 47 bus is approaching.
You kiss my dry tear stained lips.
INFINITEabyss Sep 2015
There are bruises on and around thighs from the last time the two were tangled together
not to be seen till kingdom comes, maybe, but there are places pressed upon on  skin that ache and it's him

aware that in a given number of days they will fade-
then the physical proof that the two once touched is gone
and 'seeing is believing' is becoming such a go to slogan

tried to breath in bravery at the station
the body is always sure to let one down because there went the tears
stood at the escalators and remembered a forgotten kiss, was too busy feeling and holding one body into the other, trying to commit scent to memory
so that it could be called on later as a remedy

seated on the train, 6 pairs of eyes at the opposite and queue sobbing,
sobbing for things yet to happen,
selfishly sobbing,
sobbing because what is next for anything is unknown
because you felt like the closest friend.sobbing.
sobbing because for a second this could have been mistaken for home
there are things that escaped the mouth that had not been told to others like you,
and see this 'see you soon' felt like a wolf in sheep's clothing like it was actually a long goodbye and it meant the connection would be lost
maybe not immediately but gradually, and aren't those the most heartbreaking, the things that sneak up on you
or away from you

On a last bus back with red eyes, head tilted against window,
it is like the universe made fun of this
a soft warm sun kissed this face, almost jabbing at it...
       'hey... what are you so sad about'
INFINITEabyss Jun 2016
Ive been meaning to write,
Ive been meaning to write.  
But then again there's always someone ive been meaning to write. Theres always someone its about. I open my gmail but most days I dont know where to begin. The card I left you in august just before the leaves turn is still word.
Ive been meaning to write you,
to tell you life after you has been like a bull and some times it is calm, other days it is dragging me in the mud.
When I open my laptop to write, it feels like maybe im running back into a burning house.
You know me darling ive never been good at knowing when to let go.
you know me darling im an open book with a padlock.
What would you think of me. Would you still think me great if I told you that sometimes I held my tongue, that sometimes I held sharp objects alittle too close for comfort.
"It was a long time ago im not that person any more"
"Ok its just I know cleo used to... so if you need..."
"No I could never be that person again"
But sometimes life is a bull that drags you in the mud.

— The End —