at 26 years of age
i am just now
discovering who i am

i spent 19 years of my life
hidden in the darkest
parts of my own mind

numb to everything
numb to everyone

at 26 years of life
i can sit at the table
not wanting to starve myself
for weeks on end

at 26 years of life
i finally like who is looking
back at me in the mirror

i can finally s m i l e

nine months ago
you broke my heart
shattered it into pieces

the can't eat
the can't sleep
the can't think

the gut wrenching
stomach churning
kind of broken heart

i had promised myself
after a week
of the nausea
that i would never
feel this way again

i would laugh again
i would be confident again
i would get my eating disorder in control again
i would learn who i am again
without you mixed into my personality

but most importantly
i would enjoy my life again

thank you
for breaking my heart
nine months ago

i finally like who i am because of this

I can say it now,
I officially feel it,
I am a coward.
No good reason either,
For am I not knowledgeable,
In how to approach a beautiful person?

Yet,
When I wanted to smile towards you,
My face could only freeze blankly,
If you saw or not wouldn't have mattered.
The only thing was for me to do it,
A physically attractive person,
Someone who,
(Mind my language tis the best I have),
Forced the back of my tongue to swell,
So that I may not breathe,
Not to produce a sound,
Not for thought to escape,
And apparently,
Not for any emotion to show.

A coward that is what I am,
Never able to fight the weakness,
Yes a weakness,
Yet one that holds me,
For whenever I see a beauty,
One that my mind goes...
Well,
Bonkers for physically,
But then I face this wall,
Maybe I'm allergic,
That's it!
Just because I freeze around,
Physically attractive people doesn't mean,
I'm a coward,
It means I'm allergic,
My reaction is my swelling tongue,
But with all these beauty's,
I may need a cure...

i thought I could
sink myself
in fake emotion
that it would
drown everything out

i thought maybe
enough fake words
to the world
would make me
forget all the numbness
life has offered me

i never realized
til now
at 25

i am drowning

within silence
within myself
within the pain of my past

i am d r o w n i n g

after you ripped my heart
straight out of my chest
i swore that day
that i would
never
ever
care about someone
the way i did for you

i promised myself
i would never
trust a man
the way i did for you

but then he came
into my life
so unexpected
so gracefully
so delicately

now here i am
almost a year later
trying to fight that
promise i made to myself

a g a i n

Letting go of the fond touch
Which once we embraced
The knots undone sadly
But much of the memories praised
O'Mother of my existence
I still can't let go of your hand
Clunghed on tightly
This grief, I cannot mend

Here I sit alone, thinking
Why must a life so beautiful end
When we just found the reasons
Of how we must take our stand
Dear Lord, ****** this feelings
From my piercing heart
I don't know about death
But I wish I could be a part

Never had I imagined
A life without you mum
Life almost feels like a burden
Most times am just numb
I speak to my shadow
Thinks I cannot tell anyone
You were my adorn listener
But sadly, you are gone...


©Seema Sen, 2021

I'm standing close by a river of rhyme,
where words cascade, in endless pantomime,
each line is a ripple, on the rugose water's crest,
but the chaotic current seems a randomized mess.

I see waves of words riding swells of sonnet,
into concrete verse, only to crash upon it.
There are dark plaintive whirlpools of elegy
and swirling haikus kissing off sharp envoi.

This river of rhyme could wash me away,
with its desperate currents of poetic dismay.
Its sensual verses can become a toxic wine,
oh, God, don’t let me drown in the river of rhyme.