Summer dribbles down the windows
a pathetic shower of rain hardly worthwhile
and winters memory carved into the soul
a reminisce of a demented witch
hitched up skirts kicking the windows
comes back to visit a summers daydream.

My distant aunt is
Getting hitched. Isn’t that sweet?
I don’t know her.

Shalini Nayar
© 2004

i was there with the locked up free
they stared straight through the bars at me
the gate was open
no one had to stay
they spoke of church in exchange for food
lights out with 50 smelly-*** bad moods
i saw it superseded rude
so, i walked down and ate the trash
i had no church
no shame
no cash
the garlic bread was free
the sweet rolls weren't for me
so, i walked back down to the dead-soul church
to find a name i could besmirch
with lust, debauch, an empty purse
she told me she had her own room and bath
we tried to pull one on the *****
said that we were legal hitched
she asked for proof and I.D.
we didn't have a thing
that ended our sad little fling
goody gumdrops ain't gonna get my ring
grab my gear as i walk i sing
i know the words to everything
if i happen to forget
i'll make up better ones you'll bet
raised my sign and i raised my thumb
hoped a car was gonna come
sat there in the Yakima heat
sign propped up next to my feet
a nice redneck stopped and said
"have a seat"
he was welfare office bound
i was just a broke road-hound
waited for him in the shade
told him jokes for smokes
he made a good trade
got dropped off at an angry sunning truck-stop
flew my sign
one eye out for cops
a white guy in a small red car
pulled up and said
"i'll go that far"
soon we broke down on the road
i was sure my luck would soon implode
instead we put our heads on think
we woulda fixed the kitchen sink
but waters last to beer when i drink
we got some bolts and ******* 'em on
before we knew it we were gone
he got a smile
i got this song
then we hit Seattle like a ****
nothins' right if ya don't know wrong
NOTHINS' RIGHT IF YA DON'T KNOW WRONG

i believe in a thing called love,

in toxic oxytocin tears and

jagged daggers of emotions

that hit hard and quick and deep

leaving lovers dazed and aroused

on kitchen tiles and sticky dance floors.

i do believe in love, i do,

in blood filled love potions

you put so much of yourself into it

that she just has to love you

she has to, she must,

and she does, she does,

ugly crying but ****,

for you, all for you,

please just hold on

she pleads -

mucus filled tears cascading down her face,

*******,

thighs,

pooling on the floor,

making the doctors both cringe with disgust and

simultaneously lean forward with interest

swaying in non-existent breeze -

and you die with your first kiss in your fist

and a piebald smile that splinters her inside forever

but i guess that isn't your fault, right?

i do believe in love, i do, i do,

in unfettered devotions

in ****-that-guy,

the quality relationship improvement show,

because you want to be a lover

but the guy ain't right

so just make him up

and use a real guy as his outside

you love him sanded, smoothed, buffed, painted

with rims and an inexplicable 48 inch lcd screen

you'll officially get hitched but don't cry

divorce is common and either way it doesn't matter

just look pretty and make sure to squint.

i do believe love, i do

i believe in

poisoning yourself for Juliet

rather than taking her pulse

to taking dear John's heart and

jumping on it happily

because you love him sooooo much

but like, the world has conspired against you,

not with guns and bombs and videotape

but with, like, freely made decisions,

peer pressure and jagermeister  

his blood makes pretty patterns on your

milk white thighs and i guess that

he sticks around for the show

oh boy, i believe in love, i do, that

6 and 9 aren't meant to be together

they just fit, that

there's no place for 'pure' in love cos it's all

pain and *** and spit

as for 'star crossed lovers'

the stars are always crossed

else eclipses would be boring and

each lost lover on a course

i do believe in love, i do,

in the sweetheart who lispes

licking earlobes and bottom lip biting

of metal snakes, happy fates

and piscean traits,

exuding high fructose glucose syrup

instead of saliva

so kiss them carefully or you'll

sugar high and sugar low

and sugar crash and burn

with every cosmic turn and

oh, i believe in love, lovers, oh i do, i do,

in the swirls of black and white that

play ying and yang

that kiss and grate and fornicate

forming a pasty grey

declaring that their grey is the

greyest, greatest, gayest grey

i do believe in love, i do,

bridezilla has destroyed new york in the

quest for the perfect dress as

otherwise her,

sorry,

their,

day will be ruined

milan and paris are shaking in their loius vuittons

praying they will be passed over

oh anna wintour,

just one more working day

please let the cake be next on it's list,

deliver us, oh lagerfeld, from

polyester blend shrouds in hideous off white,

amen.

but yeah,

i do believe in love, i do,

in philosophers that never tire

who'll be debating whether

kpattz, robsten, or my name for it,

sorry, them,

pattenwart,

really love each other

or are merely feeding off the media **** storm

to soothe their fragile bodies

and appease their shiny deities.

so yeah, i know what it involves

every ingredient labelled and shelved

sampled and sicked up and

given 5 star reviews on amazon

with words of advice

and i do believe in love.

i do.

oh, i do

so friends,

hold out your bleeding hearts

apply some anti-skeptic

your wounds will heal in 30 days

give or take a century.

You don’t like being touched so we don’t hug. Hugging is weird. Affection is weird but you’ll send me pick up lines like you’re a guy at the bar and I’m the girl you’re trying to take home for the night. People tell us we should just get married ‘cause I know I’ll never find someone who will treat me right like you do. We’d be lesbians, except you’re on the hunt for tail and I’m not into you like that.

When you were 11 and I was 13, people used to think we were sisters because we looked alike. I used to think you were kind of weird (but I think over the years it’s gotten worse) and now your weirdness just adds to your charm. I’m not sure what I was thinking the first 3 or 4 years of our friendship when I decided that there were other people who were more important than you, but I’m glad I learned my lesson. There’s only one person in this world who will sit in my car with me for 10 minutes while I cry and bring me eyeliner without a question and that’s you.

We’re not the inseparable set of friends where we have to go everywhere with each other, be everywhere with each other and be attached to the hip because God knows we’d be so sick of each other by the end of the day but I’m glad we’re the kind to be real with each other and not be butthurt. If you tell me I look fat in something, I’ll tell you that you look worse. We call each other names but we’ll still stay married on Facebook. We talk once, maybe twice a day but we (almost) always pick up each other’s phone calls when needed because sometimes I just need to hear the comfort of your voice. We’re a long distance relationship without the miss-you ***.

I’m not sure how often I tell you this but here it is again: i love you and I’m glad you’re in my life. I don’t like calling people my best friend because it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth but you’re my best friend and it took me nearly 8 years now to have it finally hit because when I’m crying, when my heart is broken, when I’m stressed out, or when I have some really great news, you’re the first to hear it. And probably the greatest part is that I’m not anything less with you.

You’re the kinda chick where you ogle numbers and numbers of guys on end but is too shy to actually say anything because contrary to what everyone else thinks, I know all you want is to be loved for who you are and one day, you’ll find someone who will do that for you. And until then, I’ll fill in his space the best I can (mostly because I’m missing a pretty vital ***** otherwise we’d be mates for life). Sometimes you can be steadfastly cool. Sometimes I’m embarrassed to be seen in public with you. But most of the time it’s both and it’s what makes being with you different from being around anyone else.

Aside from this weird burst of affection I have for you, you’re probably off somewhere getting drunk off your *** and you’ll be texting me the next day telling me how drunk you were last night and I’ll laugh because you’re an alcoholic in the making and that’s just the kind of people we are with each other. It’s just nice to have someone who’s been there through the good, the bad, and the ugly and still be able to call my friend. We don’t judge each other even though you have more dirt on me than my own parents do.

Once gay marriage becomes legal in Texas, I know we’re gonna get hitched and raise some dope lookin’ children while we sit in Jin’s Korean bbq and scrounge for babes and convince them to date us.

Shimmering sudden sanctioning
Surfaces right in front of me
Twisting tomorrow’s tongue-tied testimony
Leaving my heart soaked in surrender
Colossal comb tethering in the hair of my offender
I wallowed in things to come while my whole life was spinning undone
Soothe thyself day to day so I won’t fade away
Internal clock knocks on my heartthrob
I am slipping into each moment
Oh I won’t hold it
I let go and slowly slip, swallowing every drip
This is just the tip of all there is
Reawaken each moment in this
Love lapses through me and I collapse into infinity
Struck by my own understanding
Preparing for divinity’s landing
I fall for it again and again
My dreams melting madness motion me onward
Tangible tussles through thick throats turning toward tomorrow
Sorrow leaks and seeps into the eyes of the blind
While they wait in their own mind
Suckling savage frolics as mankind slips into grayness
And blue lips use so much to say so little
Breaking our fiddle over our knees
Longing for hope hitched pleads
As our craze bleeds onto eternity, spun up into me
Creeping carefully so as not to spill this drill yet again
Letting it crack through the incomplete
Flushes back into the see
Finally, once again we arrive and float away with the breeze

My chest feels tight as a blindfold
wrapped around my eyes, and
when did it get so hot in here?
Turn down the heat, someone, please
get me a glass of water and a bucket,
my stomach is turning,
I feel like throwing up.
Count: one, two, three, four
my heart races, my breath comes
hitched as the sound of pattering rain
outside, where the wind whistles
like the ringing in my ears.

Am I the only one awake?

I saw you look over at me
My arm across your chest
Fingers tracing tiredly
I felt the breath you took
It hitched
I saw you pause when you looked
Right before kissing
My forehead
Your chest tightened
My senses were heightened
I and you know it to be true
That kiss means
I love you

I am flawed,
An inner fault, though I appear whole.
I can feel it grind with each breath,
Glass on glass.

One look and I am young again.
A thousand doubts to build a girl
Who refused to cry
And ran through fields

One word and I am crushed
Beneath half a life of memories.
Layers of varnish, too many to dry
Too many to breathe.

One touch and I spiral,
The fragments descend.
A rain shower reflected in your eyes,
Hot with desire.
A hitched breath that rounds the edges,
A balm of boiling water
On ice.

The shard between us shatters
With your fingers on my skin,
Tracing constellations in my freckles.
It's as if the years never existed,
But the splinters harden,
Crystallised with lies
And growing milky with
things unsaid.

Despite the night,
I grow colder with secrets
That choke me.