we didn’t love each other, but
we loved wasting time.  loved
pretending to be the sun in the
big blue sky, loved dressing up
in stars and charading through
midnight hours, like a summer
love song.  

we didn’t love each other, but
for a moment we could almost
pretend we did. could believe
that somehow we were these
untouchable g o l d e n promises
and we were just trying to make
believe that lies were fairytale villains
we could

--actually escape.

we talk, but we’re not saying anything; we’re
just tracing circles with our tongues and hoping
it somehow it says enough.  maybe if we say
the same things over and over again, we can
make something out of our endless nothing
--but darling, i don’t think it works that way

we write, we teach ourselves to talk in tongues;
reciting words we cannot say out loud, twisting
them into some sort of meaningful display of
the truth.  maybe we’ve been dancing around
our lies too long, making fires out of matchstick
promises. apologies are hard, sure, but it’s even
harder to mean them, darling.  

you can ask me over and over again:
“what is it that you long to hear?”

and i’ll keep saying:
“if you don’t know by now, what’s the use?”

we talk, but we’re not saying anything.
we exchange apologies like handshakes
--and darling, i don’t think it works that way

sometimes you’re so busy trying to mop up the mess of someone else’s grief, that you forget to spill your own tears.  sometimes they dry up and fade away before they ever find courage to fall.  yet, they come to laugh when you’re not looking, haunting the back of your tired eyelids.  

don’t spend your life trying to swim in someone else’s ocean.  not when you’re drowning in your own.  

and yes, maybe they cry louder.  maybe their heartache bleeds a deeper shade of red-- but don’t let it quiet your own cries and don’t let it paint over your own hurt.

and if no one else has told you this, then hear me now--

     1. you’re allowed to feel what you feel
     2. you don’t need anyone’s permission to grieve

own your tears. they have value, even if someone else’s pain has made you believe otherwise.

1.  Your cornflower blue eyes crinkled and laughing, sometimes flashing like the storms you love to chase

2. Your strawberry blond mop that smelled nothing like fruit but instead of sweat and grime, clinging to your brow when you removed that Pepsi baseball cap

3. Easter egg hunts on your birthday, like plastic flowers in melted snow and you up trees and on the roof of grandma's garage

4. Rare compromises that built tree forts or wound up the tire swing until it bounced and whirled its passenger like a spinning top

5. When everything you did, I wanted to do too--whether it was rescuing the princess or flying an X-wing

6. Diddy and Dixie Kong headlocked and tangled in armpits, wrestling for the Super Nintendo controller or for the remote for the VCR until Donkey had enough and made them both watch Barney

7. The laughter of you and your friends from the basement or slipping around the corner, back when I said “Me too” and meant “include me”

8. Games of war crouched behind the couches when the only war you dreamt about was the one in Narnia

9. The cliff in Hawaii over the smoking volcanic ocean water and Mom screaming for you to come down

10. When you push me, like the dominoes you used to line up and watch devotedly as they toppled over, one after the other because sometimes general incivility is the very essence of love.

creating my own
magic and peace
i’m keeping my head
in the clouds--

sometimes i look down
& i can see
all that i find
**** near debilitating.

most things are overwhelming.

i can't help it that
i can be overwhelming, too.

i'm dreaming
of wildflowers
fluffy clouds
across the sky
finally feeling at peace
and lemon cheesecake.

if my head weren't attached
i'd lose it in seconds.

no. milliseconds.

my head is more like
a beautiful bouquet of balloons
i hold tightly with both hands

when i'm doing too good
i get so excited that

WHOOPS!

i let them all go.

and then i'm jumping
like a ******* idiot
trying to gather them all.

but they float away fast
and i'm still jumping
while others tell me,
"it's okay, they always come back...
well, after you f i n a l l y calm down."

but i can't calm down
i lost my balloons.

of course, eventually, they do come down.
deflated and strings tangled
(or missing)

i gather them
try to untangle and repair them
and hold on tightly
with both hands
once again.

A Monginis Cake Shop flex hangs
above a hardware and electronics store
and a man in front of it
speaks loudly into his phone,
trying to explain this his location,
slapping the other hand on his forehead.

Another man, this one on a scooter
going slower than a public transport bus
has his helmet resting in the front
between his feet
instead of on his head.
(Is this blatant disregard for life
or staggering confidence about it?)

An old Nauvari-clad woman
bearing a big vermillion stain on her forehead
innocently spits her paan on a
Clean Mumbai, Green Mumbai graffiti.

I get up to go stand
at the front door
and someone else takes my seat.

They will see a skinny girl
typing furiously into her phone
this very poem.

When you have candles on your cake, light them.
When you have confetti in your pockets, throw them.
When the clouds in your painted blue skies turn to storms,
reframe the canvas.
When you can't take another step, take one more
because soon you'll be able to rest.
And don't forget--to breathe.
Your hands will ache, and your bones will tire.
You will walk away, but you must always
turn back and try again.
This is how you see another sunrise.
This is how your steps become dancing
and your silence humming.
This is how you keep going.