Tara India

Tara India Dec 2014

Burning as the smallest star
I tried to be the moon,
To reflect your brilliance
My pure, fire-hearted sun
But I must burn myself,
Weakly, in my own destruction
For I have only ever known
How to set myself alight
Dark flames, burning out
I am easily covered
And like the stars
Once you truly see my light
I am already dead and gone
I am as dust, striving
To implode and remake myself
Some nebula, some galaxy
Dies with me and again
I create myself anew,
I was not born to daylight
To reflection or true brightness
I am the dark
It is all I know, and that
Is why to burn in safety
Will never be my destiny.

Tara India Dec 2014

3.57am

I’d rather know my head was aching from
***** than all the reasons you left me. That my
throat was burning from polluting my lungs
instead of crying out your name. I’d
rather believe that the tears
staining my pillow at night were caused by
forcing myself to bend over the toilet bowl than
by longing to feel you wrapped around
me as I lie incapable of sleep. That the reason
dreams escape me is starvation and
not a restless longing. I wish I could
fool myself into believing I’m shaking from
nervousness all day instead of from
the absence of your eyes.

I keep tricking myself into thinking I weep
from pain and not from love, but
every razor line is nothing to knowing that
love was not enough in the end. That I
held everything in my hand and let
it slip away, as the days now fall from me because
you are gone. If only I could blame
hunger for the ravenous cries of my soul.
If only I could convince myself solely
malnutrition and winter’s chill raise goosebumps
on my skin.

These partial truths make it easier
to forget I am so consumed by a desire
and desperation that will never be satiated. I
will never again feel whole. And I can
let smoke fill my mouth until I almost forget
the taste of you, but it will never
replace you. I can’t even say I started
drinking when I met you, or that I wasn’t
already in the grips of sweet demons. But
losing you sure made it easier to let them
dig their claws into my heart, made it
easier to turn my soul into ash and parade myself
as some poor degenerate being, if only
to forget how empty I am now. It sure
as hell made it more necessary.

Tara India Dec 2014

As if I could see myself.

Wasted on you are all the glories
Of a world you can only see
In monochrome and silent film
The lights are dull and weary

In greyscale you wander on
The blue sky goes unseen
Or unnoticed by your tired eyes
Head down you walk uneasy

Even your smile is a ghost
Never quite reaching your eyes
Vanishing as soon as they
Stop looking and you huddle inside

Your fragile shell and a mind
So worn down and tired
I hear every laughing word
And I know you are a liar

Or if not a wasted talent
The greatest actress alive
You can never break the glass
But keep pretending to be fine

Immaculately dressed just so
No-one will give you a second glance
You are so scared of everything
You won't give life a chance.

I spent most of Friday writing and this came to me - if I could see myself from the outside, step out of my body, then this is what I would notice and want to say to myself.

Tara India Dec 2014

Of my own reflection.

I am bone-white
Am I your skeleton
Or the ghost of a thousand
Pages torn from ivory books
Do you dare touch me --
Will I start to flake
Or crumble into chalk
Powder to be scattered by
The winds to the sky

I am coloured in
Or at least heavily painted
Into the tones of
A girl who could almost
Be real in the daylight
And my ostentatious use
Of lipstick slashes
My skilfully covered face
I am a walking mirage

In supplication I stretch
Cold hands to you
Or to the careless sun
I know not what I seek
Or if it even really exists
I walk in life like
Everything is certain while
I crack inside --
My mind is fragile at best

I am invisible
Am I your shadow now
In the dark I am
Completely indistinguishable
So weak is the fire
That once blazed in
My now glazed eyes
I have been entirely drained
I am my own vampire

I am the winter
Or at least a wintergirl
Ice forms my still heart
Or maybe it fills
The place where a human
Heart used to beat
Fluttering like robin's wings
Avoiding the snow --
I let the chill consume me

I am the best example
Of how you can waste a life
Of time unwisely spent
And all the wrong
Choices are embodied in me
Watching the sand slide
The hours slip by
Through my quivering hands
I am out of time.

Tara India Dec 2014

Unfamiliarity.

The muscled, runner’s legs
Extending from under clothes I
Hardly remember buying and
When did I place those
Ink spots upon my skin

When did I grow my hair
Till it stretched past these
Shoulders I used to hate
And can I be sure that
My soul resides within

This image, in her bold
Sunglasses and lipsticks and
With more makeup upon
Her face then I ever
Remember learning

All her jewels and flowers
Are confusing and so
New to me even though
Supposedly inside her frame
My essence is churning

I look and wonder when
I became such an enigma,
I am some people’s idea of
Beauty, and other’s may
Find me stereotypical

What is this body shown
Through a camera lens, is it
Really mine as they profess
And now as I analyse
I feel so miserable

I am unrecognisable to my
Own eyes, the mirror is
Baffling to these irises that
Search for familiarity
And I long to feel at home

Inside this corpse I reside
Supposedly, or maybe just
Confusedly, I move its limbs
I manipulate it and try
To reconcile my visual show

Yet in a photograph I do
Struggle to pick out myself
Whatever I expect, these eyes
So empty are not it and neither
Is this uncertain smile

This breaking hair and the way
I pose to pretend I’m
Absolutely fine, thankyou,
I don’t expect it and really
I just don’t know why.

Tara India Nov 2014

Love will tear us apart.

Although I long to be held so tight
I see stars; and your arms at night
Could hold my pieces together
Could patch the cracks, keep me
Afloat and standing, shakily
I cannot ask you for forever.

Do not hold me like I want
You'll cut yourself on my hipbones
The razors; my chest would bruise
You as you try to fix me now
Do not love me; I'd pull you down
I could not ask you to lose.

I long for your arms, I miss
You giving me life with your kiss
Breathing fresh air into my lungs
Expelling the poison I hide within
I'll burn you, hurt you, if I begin
To steal your life just to be young.

Although you want to save my soul
And piece me into something whole
Do not caress me as I crave
I'll ruin you; my bones are sharp
There's a hole in my stuttering heart
Maybe we should go our separate ways.

Tara India Nov 2014

Midnight.

The night time inspires my honesty
As it inspires my madness
My demons face me with burning eyes
And I spill my secrets in
A true voice which only emerges at 3am
I understand everything in the dark
I know why you’re leaving again
I know why I can’t do anything these days
Why the world is such a terrible place
Why I am such a poisonous being
That not even those I love can tolerate me
Or love me to the same degree
I know why I once exorcised my heart
I wish I had never reinstated it
I know why I’m addicted to things
That seem like insanity to you
They take the pain away for a bit
Of loving and losing and living
Eternally abandoned and betrayed
Of never being the right decision
I know I’m never good enough
By night I can understand it
But that doesn’t make it stop
So I grasp my demons by the hand
Anything to escape these visions
Of hurt and loss and a life wasted
Of the hands that held mine
Of those who crushed me into the dirt
And left me to die or carry on
Worse than before and now under starlight
I see why I am so **** trapped
Once I fix upon something I cannot give up
I suppose that’s why I am still stupidly
In love with you and who we were
I let myself believe I could be forgiven
But now alone I watch the moon
I know why I’ve been cutting up my skin
And numbing myself in any way
That would help me escape
Just a little respite from the crushing deep
The sadness I bear as a cross
Carried heavily upon my fragile back
I know why I let demons into
My lungs and breathe them in willingly
I know as I sit in the dark
I am a plague upon this earth
I am a tornado spinning so recklessly
Through life that I devastate
Those who dare to get close to me
I know why they all leave me in the end
I prayed you would be different
For a while it seemed I was living out
My heart’s desire but I am alone now
Once again my only company
Is sickness and devils and destruction
And I understand it completely
But I still burn and ache from it daily.