Someone please save me because I am drowning.

And the most important thing is:

I don't know how to swim.

During one of my recent internet travels,
I came across a picture of a “minor”,
posing with tinted lips
and exposed *******.
What got my eyes
pinned were the thousand number of likes
by virtually hooting “boys”
and comments by other group of “gentlemen”
telling her how to dress.

HUMILITY: I have been asked to repeat the word
too many times to recall what it means:
the man on the subway cat-called
and accused me of showing too much skin
but instead of fighting back, I smiled
because girls ought to be nice.
I have been taught to survive
by using my body as a swiss army knife,
and I convince myself that
there is protection in being polite.

H-U-M-I-I am forgetting the rest.

The smoke curled up from between his fingers
and he blew out toxic, blurring my vision.
I gasped and wheezed
but I held my sneeze,
I cannot slap him across his face. HUMILITY.
So, I just pretended to cough, hoping he’ll feel ashamed.

I have been trained to flutter my eyelash,
clench my jaw at a whiplash
and business school boys,
who manifest success by refusing to take “NO” for an answer.
And for every time his prying eyes
scan down by body,
as if rating my inexperienced assets on a scale of one to five,
and every time his touch trails a chill down my spine,
I wonder:
Male kindness is so alien to us; we confuse it with seduction every time.

HUMILITY: the quality of having a low view of one’s importance
but, I fail to understand
when did it become synonymous to diffidence;
there is a subtle difference between
papercuts and shattered integrity,
holding hands and chaining souls,
building houses and creating homes,
humiliation rotting down to bones and humility.
HUMILITY, have you spelled it too many times to know what it looks like?

...I know in my heart, you are someone I'm longing for...
....I know in my heart, you are the whisper in my ear...
....I know in my heart, you are the one I'm waiting for...
....and I know in my heart, I've already found you....

I, was the one
whom he was with.
Our glances reminded us
of summer sweat
and silk fingers.
Weaving together
as we both kept
the grasp as we raced.
Blurred laughter,
from one scene to
the next.
Giddy as children,
catching frogs, in
mid summer.
She, was the one
whom I was with.
During the equinox
of changing color.
The brush of leaves
fell, from high above.
As we embraced the
gentle morning.
Before each pupil,
left for the day.
I watched, from two
rows down.
It was the last year.
The last my eye met,
your profile.
That day you left.

Now…

You are whom I was with.
Long ago under canopy,
each afternoon to
climbing dusk.
With our glances,
as you give gesture of greeting.
I can see it in your eye,
that you remember me.

Just falling in the dark,
It feels, light somehow you know...
It started with a stroll in the park,
An innocent attraction to the promise of something permanent...

Just falling down, light headed,
The walls, rich with colour and beauty at first...
It started with a movie and a kiss,
A total willingness to surrender, too tired being alone anymore...

Still falling,
The colour and majesty, the feeling of flying,
All a familiarity now, no change, no initiative...
To grip those walls and stay, to feel grounded to that beauty...

And falling faster, I reach out,
Trying to catch hold, to stop dropping like a stone...
It started when you moved away and this had to be long distance,
But the walls became greasier, oilier, and my palms just slipped...

The rich colour, a jumbled mess,
Of oil, colours, all dripping down the walls like grease..
That was when we became too busy for each other...
I wished the walls could help me out, a stone or two jutting out for me to hold on...

But I fall faster, trying to remember,
Forgetting the solid colours and the light feeling when this started...
But the walls had turned cruel, an elusive mass of stone and grease...
And I hit the ground, hard, painful and broken...

I fell into the pit of love...