A friend attempted to break me

Took a love of mine from under me

She won't approach me now

I smiled when I saw her, just yesterday

She packed up her things and left

I deserve better.
I deserve better than half eaten words,
Casual, passive glances when I enter the room.
I deserve more.
I deserve more than your lack of love,
Your empty words; the way your eyes look
Away when you utter those words through
Licked lips. Wetted to prep for the lies.
I deserve me.
I deserve me, and no one else.
Only I can love me like I've never been loved before.
So here I am. I'm doing just that.
I never said I needed you,
Just that I loved you.
No one really means what they say
In the heat of the moment.
So, I deserve better. I am better.
lmt

She dyed her hair purple,
though not all of it.
She wanted to keep some of herself.
She didn’t want to erase everything.

She dyed her hair purple,
leaving some of that mousy color.
The purple was violets
like her favorite flower.
She was shy,
but now she would look bold.

She would stand out amongst the clover.

She dyed her hair purple
and bought all new clothes.
She donated much of those
childhood remnants
and took a trip to the thrift store.
She searched through the past,
through the castaways
and found her new image.

She chose how she wanted to look.

She dyed her hair purple
and tried new things.
She went on walks through the woods,
laid in the hammock at night
to watch the stars,
to catch lightning bugs
in the summer,
to draw in the sunlight,
to read in the grass,
write down the stories in her head,
and dare to be herself.

She dyed her hair purple
and kids at school thought she was weird.
But she didn’t care.

She dyed her hair purple
and her parents didn’t like it.
They thought she was going to do bad things.
But she didn’t.

She was a flower child,
a child of the night,
and true to herself.

I feel.
As if I could dive into my own darkness.
To see how much light is left at the bottom.
To see how much love I have left.
Do you know what I have found?
It the pit of the well that is my despair.
Do you know what I have found?
A tiny pebble.
So bright.
That it could save us all, from the night.

«So teach ******
a thousand romance
and play, and sing,
and dance?

no one will ever
understand.

Go tell ma'
i cant' pay the rent;
Go tell ma'
these are twisted sinews
from a tiger heart:
Go tell ma'
my life is only fluff.»

Dreamin' is free?,
don't tell that to me;
I've spent awake
my time in bed
so tired, I've lost
everything I had.

The only thing I’ve ever been able to see without squinting through bad eyes has been ugly
and stupid
and worthless
each adjective another bullet to the body of someone who is already dead.
I left the bullets where I thought they ought to be—right where they were—lodged between vital arteries and anything dangerous; they were equally acidic beings occupying the same profane space.
I allowed my skin to grow over them as much as it rioted.  
I wanted to remind myself that they were a part of me now
that the least I could do was let them be
the way I had never been.

I have always been a non-believer,
naturally a very-much-believer slipped into my line of fire the same way the sun peeps its shy face out of grey.
But it took more than prying me out of my pad-locked shell to make me a believer too.
It took swimming the length of the ocean to find me in my shell first
then slaying the eight-legged monsters that shielded me from all things good
and every time I unwound the bandages in front of you that encased my wounds
inflicted from the sour tentacles of the beast you had to fight away
I expected the sting of your fingers fresh with sea salt to sting like hell
but you would remind me of how often you wash your hands
only not after touching me--
never after touching me.
I wasn’t familiar with the smell of flesh without it being doused in sanitizer;
The mess of my pain was just more dirt on their skin.

You were my savior
the only hero ever willing to carry a dead body with the same caution as someone who could still thank you with their lips—not cold.
You were red wine and I was holy Sunday
gnawing at the body of Christ
but you learned how to consume me still
without just swallowing me whole
instead savoring even the most overbearing bites of me that reeked of its expiration date.
You taught me how to let myself be consumed by something other than ugly
and stupid
and worthless.
You taught me how to let myself melt in the warm safety of your tongue
that vowed to speak of only sweet things.
But trying to recall that lesson was quieter in my ears
each time I urged myself to complete the daily routine of supplying you with a special pair of scissors
expectant that you would dig deep into my body
like everyone else always had
knowing that the gashes you created would heal slower and leave scars uglier than scars inflicted by the hands of anyone else.
I pushed my already-open cuts in your face
shut eyes and gritted teeth
awaiting the familiar feeling of the people you love
making their marks
in the center of your back.
But I watched your mouth form something that I didn't know could sound soft, something like "n-o", the first no that ever sounded as sweet as a yes.
No new stab wounds,
no tearing of tight flesh.
All you did was re-stitch me.
You caught my blood in its vanishing act.

With every stitch I watched as past words lost their dictionary meanings
ugly: beautiful
stupid: smart
worthless: worth it.
You drug me out of my grave and took the time to dust me off the way no one else had
hushed the knives in my own hands dripping in my own blood to fall to the ground
spoke the magic words that opened the gates of my chest so that you could squeeze the life into my heart again.
You took the eyes from your own skull for the sake of making a better scenery out of myself.

I don't have to squint anymore.
I can see "worth it" taking form of "worthless" miles across the street
and as you place your petal hands on my head and tilt one last time
I am watching myself do the same.

The other day my sister lamented that she did not look like one of those white, blonde, blue-eyed beauties on television.
This struck me for a number of reasons mainly for the fact that we are Indian girls who are neither white, blonde nor blue-eyed and it is physically impossible for us to be like that because it's coded into our genes.
Why then did my sister want to be so much like these beauties that she could never look like.
Why then did my sister want to change herself so much, change they very coding in her genes, change the very fabric of her body?
I was not able to respond to her at the time but this is my response to her.
Society's standards of beauty were created by entrepreneurs looking to make a quick buck.
They market such celebrities as beautiful and, through subliminal messages tell you that if you do not look like them, you are ugly and not worthy.
And it is so easy for them to do this because of the Westernisation of cultures all over the world.
Go to any supermarket and the first things yo will see under the beauty section are bleaching and whitening creams.
It is true that these white, blonde, blue-eyed beauties are stunning, gorgeous.
But why should their beauty mean that you aren't beautiful?
You are the culmination of years of evolution,
the stars have been planning your arrival.
Look at yourself in the mirror,
Stare into the dark brown irises of your eyes and understand that they are like pools of chocolate, understand that they are the colour of the bark of the tress understand that they are beautiful.
Caress your brown hair, run your fingers through it, you are beautiful.
Look at your caramel-coloured skin, don't you just love the colour? It's deep and sweet and beautiful.
Your body, the vessel of your soul in beautiful and every step you take is magical and your voice sounds like a bow playing perfectly on a violin and your laugh ringing out sounds like wind chimes in a light breeze.
Don't you understand?
You are a ******* masterpiece.
Don't treat yourself any less.