daddy screams and shouts, eyes burning with rage
mummy cries tears bitter with sage
brother is scared, eyes wide as moons
we all agree daddy has gone through menopause too soon

on our faces, we brush aside this sudden burst
"it's just nothing," we say, "he knows family comes first."
but the sight of him consumed is etched in the air
trapping the three of us in trauma's snare --

his eyes were livid, veins bulged from his neck
pulsing with the viscosity of a lava lake
he burned like blue fire, the kind that burns too hot
destroying everything around it, leaving death-clogged smog

i don't know why daddy is so angry today
till then, in our room, mummy brother and i will stay
i have never seen daddy so angered and flared
so distant with fury, so paralysingly mad

i fear for this family, i never have before this
this fear scares me, so i will make a list
i hope it will serve to place some of my fears
into linear thoughts, before it rains tears

first, daddy has always been holy and kind,
on his chest a cross, you would always find
but as he grows older, with hair turning grey,
with valley-deep wrinkles and memories gone astray,

he seems to forget, that i am human too
with his words, he beats me, beats me black and blue
criticisms and 'bad bad bad' ring through the house
if only he saw, he is the wolf that prowls

second, daddy had been a family man
the kind that spends a fortune flying us over land
but lately, he's just been out of touch and sight
sins queuing outside the door, waiting to enter at night

he seems to forget when i was a child
the cards i gave him, the way i made him smile
but i remember, when his hair was still black
in our family, love and warmth was never in lack

time, stop. return my daddy back to me.
stop this affair, i beg you; don't let age run free.
don't run through your fingers in his hair like that.
don't paint his hair grey, don't make it fall away.

give me the daddy my mummy met, back.

the anchor is gilded with gold, set with silver.
made from the ship's own husk,
manufactured to glide with the frame,
sailing as one over the sea,
braving the storm as a singular essence.
but,
look -- observe the layers of gold
that have settled, rubies and emeralds
adorn. and the ship
is weighed down.

i stretch my hand out over the hull.
the sea tastes more bitter than salty,
more rancid than relentless.
once when the moon was still blue,
and dolphins still sang,
my mother told me
that voyages are made err wind, err sea.
she did not say err anchor, the one
she had made me.

this morning, as the sun rose,
i fell into the ocean.
i swam to its depths
i ran my tongue
over the anchor's hooked end, its pointed arch
drawing a drop of beaded blood from my lip,
trailing red.
the gold no longer tasted coppery, only
my blood did.
it tasted of prettied practicality,
soured security and
sedated success --
detritus the ship had picked up
on its voyage.

i tried to scrape them off with my nails,
but my nails came off.
i tried to bite them off with my teeth,
but my teeth cracked.
the ship is stuck.
and so am i.

tonight, i will dream.
i will dream of my
extended tails and jeweled fins,
embellished with diamonds.
they will cut through
the anchor's chains, threaded with strands of
jaded words and loft.
they will cut through them just as easily
as the ship will knife through the water
once it is freed.
slowly, at first, softly unsure; but after,
with lethal agility
that cuts.
it will cut through the water just as a scream slices silence,
grinding metal against salt,
kneading wood through air.

land will be reached:
the ship docks,
and i
can learn
to breathe again.

there is an irrepressible sadness within me, one that bubbles over the seams of my sanity. it seeps into my bones, weighing me down with corpulence. my flesh absorbs it, and I am turned into rough, dry papyrus; chapped lips, uneven nail tips ravaged with anxious teeth marks. it is a probable impossibility that i am able to pin down the cause of my sadness. it slips through the fingers of my consciousness like how whispers are lost through the branches of trees. I am trapped in a state of unknowing, shackled by the ropes of my own despondency. I try to pretend it isn't there, and that’s easy. but it nags. this sadness is static. it is a grey nothingness, nascent unreality that exists beneath a layer of painted realities. it is as erratic as sparks, as searing as fire. one that I can’t seem to quell.

i, my personality and being, is a curse; where the ability to feel emotion at its most acute becomes a need.

time ticks quickly
          its insistence echoes through my bones

dates mean as much to me
          as raised voices do

and both whizz past in a blur
         the way cars do on a highway
                   because that's all i am, a kid playing in traffic.

i am no more a child than the girl i was ten years ago
         i have, in fact, shrunk.

i have been crushed upon being released,
         wrangled by the wind before i can begin to take flight.

the most enduring thing society has led me to think is that
         i am simply incapable of living.

i am a sad impersonation of the sun -
         shining so brightly for others, though inside,
                  
                   *i am lethal vacuum.