jamie

jamie Dec 2013

Untitled

i am slowly drowning in my own skin as the days tick by. /// (sun. rise. set. rise. set. rise. set.)
i have forgotten the feeling of being burnt by a candle and i am getting sick of being left behind on motel walls and left under tongues. haunting breathing and missed airplane flights remind me that i’m alive, but all i want is to be left in a puddle to fester. inhale. exhale. i wish human bodies were transparent so we could see exactly how important each ***** is. maybe we wouldn’t hurt ourselves anymore. children laughing echoes in the rusting playground and we sit around the candle to watch it burn out. the birds make me wonder what its like to be free. every cell aches for that mysterious feeling and i am a sixty page poem on Dead People. is there a word for feeling every vein clog up and body shut down? across the street lies a chained boy writing about smoky eyed girls and heavy pockets, and right down the road there is a curled up girl thinking of flower stems and smudged paintings. we gargle the ocean and continue listening to the violent waves.

“I just want to be free” whisper the spinning planets

jamie Nov 2013

one word

ast night i looked into your eyes and felt the ***** of your blue orbs. your finger on my lips smells like peaches and strawberries, and the knife you plunged in my back bled in hues of orange, purple and red. about a month ago i sat by the beach reciting my written poem while gargling the ocean foam in my mouth and feeling the horizon twitch behind my eyelids. July was pale with throbbing angry blue veins while November was a green tree brimming with life and pink petals. when mom and dad fought i could feel every stinging crack on my skin, slowly wrapping around my neck and jamming my oxygen supply. the flowers you gave me are rotting on the bedside table― some nights it moans and groans and other nights it whispers unsaid words from your cemetery of a heart. i want to turn into a pile of ashes and be swept away by the wind. i want to slide down the curve of your spine and watch your goosebumps form. i want to stuff you into a glass vase then fling you down a skyscraper. i want to entwine all your senses together, then maybe you’ll stop calling me insane because that isn’t my name.

frantic unedited post on synesthesia. pardon the errors if any.

jamie Oct 2013

Places {1}

churches―

where cracks on the ceilings are more than construction accidents,
whose floor has seen more discarded invitation letters than dustbins.
the out-of-tune ***** is where the nameless ghost resides
(the one who roams the halls whispering quiet conversations) /
the carpets are imprinted with bruised knees indentations,
the mirrors, with sobbing hunched figures reflections,
and the cement that echo wailed prayers muffled by layers of epidermis and cartilage.

hospitals―

where red stains on the walls are more than careless spillages,
whose rooms have seen more regret than those in Court.
the morgue holds motionless bodies ice cold to the touch
(those who are in line to enter Heaven’s gates) /
the waiting rooms are filled with wilting flowers,
the beds, with saturated salty tears,
and the emergency rooms that cradle desperate On The Knees begging and gasping heartbeats.

jamie Oct 2013

who are you?

when people meet strangers it’s only normal to ask “who are you?”, and the next sentence verbally put out will be what they call First impressions. when people meet strangers it’s only normal to ask “who are you?” and then what do we say? when i was 3 and in my pram i answered “i’m a girl”, when i was 8 and at a dinner with my mother i answered “i’m her daughter”, when i was 16 and at a party i suddenly found the words choked in my throat.
who am i?
that night i went to bed with crawling skin and whispering thoughts armed with hydrofluoric acid that nibbled away at my soul as the clock ticked by. painful seconds, minutes, hours passed, and i decided i couldn’t. that night i spent the remaining hours sitting in front of my mirror manually taking myself apart like a jigsaw puzzle that seemed to fit but never really did. there i sat, in the heavy, thick atmosphere of confusion, anger and suffocation.
who am i?
i arranged the pieces of me neatly on the silver tray― the oesophagus with years of corrosion by food that i reversed back up my throat so forcefully i made gagging look professional; the horrifyingly thin skin on my wrist with the twisted definitions of Art i thought would release the emotions in me. is there a word for putting back a shattered sculpture only to throw it down from the twenty first floor? is there a word for being forcefully submerged in bitter water and trying to breathe, only to realize you can’t? there is only so much you can lock into twenty six letters, but this is not about me.
this is not about me.
this is about the people who have lost grip of the kite strings attached to themselves and can proudly declare “I am a lawyer”, “I am a doctor”, “I am a teacher”, “I am an artist”, “I am a singer” but can not convince themselves about their empty eyes. this is about injecting those already stained with insecurity with self esteem, pouring emotions and feelings into their hollow shells of bodies, only then can we shrill with satisfaction “I have contributed to the world!” this is about dreaming of a day when people are asked “who are you?” and the answer will come flowing from deep within unlocked ventricles. we will refuse to be contained in blurry, grainy. colorless film with faces blended onto one another.
this is about dreaming of a day where mirrors are looked down upon and weight is merely a number.

meant it to be performed as Spoken poetry

jamie Oct 2013

Parts of Me

i am

i. made of convergence of words, stems & ink.

never one to love geography but knowledgeable enough to know of the convergence of twenty six letters, wilted life givers and pigments that forms my skin. you can keep the feather light secrets resting on the petals―i only want the stem, the xylem, the phloem; to support my fragile state. you can be the pigment that stains my skin like the sun rise and sun sets i entrapped from Mother Nature. it is unfortunate the light has lost its way amongst the maze that is my veins, but i can be your light at the end of the tunnel if you don’t mind a flickering hesitant radiator. when you have mastered Taking Things Apart Without Killing, come to me and unpick the threads in my skin. maybe you’ll learn more about the words that latched upon me and if you’re lucky enough, you may uncover a raw portion i’ve hidden away. don’t forget the Lock N Lock container.

ii. held together by creaky cartilage

never one to study human anatomy but interested enough to read up and find out that i am held together by two hundred and six bones. the clavicle cradles liquefied pieces of you and the patella locks to allow the world to rest its burden on my shoulders. the sternum pieces itself and encases the lump of muscle that keeps me breathing, and cranium holds the Boss of my body. you can pick my spine and play it like a flute but please be careful for nothing resides in them. nothingness clots up my veins; nothingness fills the space between my bones; nothingness slowly taking over my senses. your October poetry piece stings me like the harsh winter wind, blows across the land and reduces my cartilage to dust. hold me like you would a newborn baby for i do not take supplement pills and i am the result of several fractured wrists & hips.

iii. harboring galaxies & objects inside

never one to take up Astronomy but aware that i harbor several milky ways and universes among the frantic chaos of every *****. flowers blossom in the crevices of my wrist bones and butterflies and birds of unnamed species flutter around in the comfort of my rib cage, just as pixies and sprites sleep and sing Church songs in the palms of my hands. sequinned galaxies swirl around in microscopic areas and i will expand until my seams burst only for me to bleed gold dust and crumpled stars. these tidal waves inside of my head won’t stop crashing until someone wakes me up to make sense of what i am and the meaning of lif

jamie Oct 2013

The True Confessions Of A Heartless Girl

titled: The True Confessions Of A Heartless Girl

this is not an apology letter and i will not apologize about my words that reek of *****, neither will i express my heartfelt woeful regret for burying what was left of your love under black wilted roses. in September we spent four hours under a tree attempting to bind our hearts and minds but i crumpled them together with the fallen autumn leaves, leaving you staring at the exposed bits of yellow xanthophylls and orange beta-carotene blended with the beautifully bruised muscle. i’m not sorry that your flowers ended in the trashcan with the weeds, but they were crooked and fading. i’m not sorry that the love poem you requested from me was written in the cemetery on the back of your father’s obituary, and i’m definitely not sorry that the first tree i felled in my backyard was the one with our initials carved in your pinned dead heart. call me heartless, but this will clear up everything you were ever baffled about. i am heartless. no, not that type of heartless. i am literally heartless. in my chest there lies a chest of drawers which used to be unlocked and filled with human traits but somehow along the way i think the key to them ended up rusting in my bottomless pit of a stomach. i won’t ask if you still feel that tingle in your spine when my name is mentioned, but did the letters from her burn prettier than the ones from me? did your last name fit her better than it did with me? did the last petal you plucked ended with “she loves me”? i know she smells like honey and roses but i’m not sorry that i smell like roadkill and expired cheese. now it’s December and i’ve changed my name to Hollow then repainted my skin with cut out pieces of eulogies. once upon a time i was actually a teen girl with hummingbird heart beats and red apples for cheeks, but as of today i am completely out of touch with this world, painting nail varnish on cigarettes and tucking in tulips with the weeds. her sad words may be written on textured paper but mine will stand up and punch you in the eye. most of the time we learn that you have choices in life, but all i ever know is that for every big leap you take you’ll end up with a splintered bone and it’s just like writing your life story in permanent ink. maybe one day the ocean will freeze and you’ll find the hidden message in your coffee, but this is not an apology letter and i’m still not sorry for scalding your skin with a hot iron rod when we were twelve years old. see you in the pool of regret; i won’t be there, since i’m lacking a heart.

jamie Oct 2013

The Cemetry

i am terribly sorry for this horrifying sight you see, for the caretaker has recently joined the residents and the grass has almost no manners at all. i am also terribly sorry for this deafening silence you hear, for everyone is either lonely or sad and no one bothers to speak or sing. everything here has been reduced to dust, and just let this be at the back of your mind―everywhere you step there is someone underneath. repeat after me: This Is Not A Pun. i remember telling you about how no one ever noticed me or gave me attention but you silenced me with a withering glare and a no-one-cares-about-you lecture. it’s kind of funny each time i think about it, because i still stay by your side desperately inhaling all your methane filled words. if you’re looking for warmth and happiness then you’ve knocked the wrong door, because over here i have seen more regrets than in prisons; more tears than in hospitals; more bruises than in kindergartens. the stars in the night skies here hang limply on their hinges and there is nothing romantic in the way someone appears holding a bouquet of flowers. here is a girl with cherry blossom veins on her wrists, and there is a man with breath like the stinging October wind. everyone is a puzzle piece except that there is no picture to form, and we are all connected by intangible threads. in the most poetic way, everyone here is part of a poem, some rhyming, some free verse, except that there is no end to this poem―new additions. every month, a new spot. under the tree; next to the bench; these are the souls of people who scrape their knees in the empty forest but want to be helped up, an- OH, by the way, if you hear whispers and see movement from under the leaves, it’s not a hallucination. What? Didn’t I tell you?

Welcome to The Cemetery.

there is no clear message so to say

— The End —