It feels like friends smiling in our home
To love someone so much
Who finds her shelter in my arms
No matter how deep the dust in our eyes
Or the fear in our minds
The future is never enough to believe
But a moment of love is forever

We were not born fighting
But we know how life can be for others
We try to think about the life in our hands
It’s hard not to think of ourselves
My children tell me they love me
The older they get the more they know
A simple man makes life simple for them

We try not to be afraid
How much worse can life be
We will not let it divide our home
Who could love like those who survive
People look down on us while they play
Our hands carry the shame they assume
But we built our cribs with those hands

We don’t care which side of the line we live
Mother Mary carried her baby across
They tell us how we should live our lives
The love of our people is too strong for them
We don’t know why they hate us
The poor never write the history books
They can only pray for mercy on their souls

You and I have fantasised
About too many golden sunrises
And yet we always sleep through dawn
Always wake up seconds too late
When grandeur has faded into familiarity

Our bodies are bruised
From all the invisible rocks we have hurled at each other
Our lungs tired from breathing toxic air
Our ankles sore from dragging chains
My fingers are covered in papercuts
From the edge in your voice

We have handcuffed each other
And put leashes around our necks
Confining each other to this birdcage house
Afraid to be the one that has to watch
The other fly free

Yesterday I tried to find the movie stub
From our first date
And instead found my pockets
Stuffed with fist-fulls of receipts
For things neither of us bought

Like the black hole in our bed
That occupies centre stage in our polka dot bedsheets
It swallows the words we speak
And refuses to let them echo
How many conversations have we drowned
With alcohol and tears
How many keys have we thrown away
To lie in a mound ten feet tall
Keys that could have opened the doors
To our secret stash of confessions and apologies
That could have saved us
On the nights that you wrap your arms around me
I can feel your body curving along the edge of the hole
Trying not to fall through
Determined to maintain miles between us
Even though I can feel your breath on my neck

Our living room is covered with pictures of strangers
Because we are afraid of stapling our own faces to the walls
Afraid of calling this prison a home
Afraid of making what had started out as temporary
A permanent affair
So instead we crawl from day to day
Skipping each sunrise as it comes

generous  teeth wide
the breath of her breath now
I see dimples too

We are elaborate animals made of wood
earth, flowing like water into the veins
of the sky.

The sun being a fist of lava, and the night
being an enticing molar—we are
a succession of tides, being swallowed
by successions of day; and how beautifully
we wilt in the presence of joy.

The moon may be nothing
but a luminous
stone

and to eat the poetry of it
is how one chokes
on love

but the romance of morning
is that if by midnight
you are alive, that is joy.

I don’t care if I lose
Even if it never ends
The feeling remains
Though I blame myself

If I was driven to you
It had to happen then
I watched you walk by
I thought I was involved

The wrong side of a shadow
The wrong side of your heartless eyes
I don’t know why the sun doesn’t blind you
You blocked me from love

I’m strong enough for life
But I’m not getting away with it
I try not to notice the falling rain
By crying only in the shower

The wrong side of a shadow
The wrong side of what you see
I don’t know why the past doesn’t blind you
It only tries to do it to me

when a boy shows you his hands
bare except for the dust
he’s begging you to look past
take them in yours.
squeeze them once.
twice.
say without speaking
that you understand that the valleys
in his palms were meant to cradle
shooting star wishes
that he’s allowed to still hope for.
when a boy shows you his eyes
of milk and crimson and melanin
a bloodshot vein for every night he can’t sleep
let him shut his eyelids.
say without speaking
that you understand that the black hole pinpricks
of his irises hold more than the universe
should allow.
when a boy shows you his soul
shivering but still working toward friction
iced over but still working toward melting
let him come to rest next to yours.
say without speaking
that you understand that he is lonely
and that his silence speaks volumes
and that you kept his treasure close
because you love him.
when a boy shows you his hands
show him your hands.
when a boy shows you his eyes
show him your eyes.
when a boy shows you his soul
show him that
this is a comfortable place to rest it.
when a boy shows you the hardness that shaped him
show him the softness
that you have in store.

Miles away I see the crowd
You amongst them
Venging so proud
Laying dead are few
In blood slayed pool
Someone out there knew
You're not an artist but a tool
Someone to banish the wrong
It took time so long
The shadow caster
Of the ravishing past
You the death master
Disguised as the pastor
Has done the dark deeds
Laying away as the soul pleads
No mercy, no love, no care
You forgot the bonds we share
Now you have become a dark soul
So cold, so bold, with ego you hold
Your head up high
Far away, I wave you a goodbye...

©sim