Find me tearing violets, my love,
in a manic daze; I am running out of softness and daylight,
like winter’s cruel hours


“but I will crown your hair with these torn violet tiaras
and your soft throat, twine with woven garlands”


and I will dig into my tongue for the remaining metaphors
beneath the bourbon, until odes drench my lips,
I will stitch my wounds shut and ready for your apricot kisses —
I ache to be kissed away,
to waste away before your sun-speckled eyes
like a tiny fae in your flower basket, I ache to settle
in your dainty hands,
in lithe fingers lost in my wind-blown hair.


My November, my gentlest love,
how I breathe you in like my grandmother’s letters —
how you consume me
in curious ways
and for the first time, I am not afraid of the softness
buried and warm inside my bone marrows.


Tell me, darling, will you stay?
Will we stay
this time
for more than a kiss?
Will we linger longer
than silhouettes in a dream?

I am clueless as to how I have dug a hole in this concrete ground, 60 feet deep. The dust I’ve been choking on does not bother me no more, layers piling upon my lungs like snow upon an exposed carcass. The slightest upheaval of my chest and tingling in my lungs reminds me that I still breathe. I’ve met scaffolds of bones down here. As I stare into their hollow sockets, I could never figure if they were ever esurient for something I held. They taught me how the ocean is never blue but only a de facto reflection of the sky. They said many mistook the sea for the sky, but never once mentioned the salt that contaminated their lungs-  the impetus that drove their feet 60 steps into the waves. A reconciliation it must have been. I doubt it made any difference, when their hearts were bleeding out; a pity it doesn’t make it any lighter. Down they sank.

I wonder if I mistook these soils for the sky. As I looked up, I realised that the sky only seemed further away. There’s something peculiarly comfortable down here, the little bumps on the walls and contours of the craters looked like jawlines of a new-found friend. The sun is so blindingly high in the sky. I preferred how sometimes I could see the man in the moon- shadows cast by imperfections on the moon’s surface. In the vague moonlight and scrawny silhouettes, the fact that the moon always has a dark side makes it tangible a thousand miles away. Sometimes, I lay on this wooden receptacle discovered upon excavation and gaze at the empty skies with my friend as he tells me what lies outside this trough. Happiness is a pack of hungry wolves and when they are done, you are left with only your marrows. I see things clearer down here, than above where they are smothered by smoke from the trees they burned to the ground. Sometimes the skies are dark with no hint of dusk, sometimes the sky is filled with white nebula; but most of the times, the days are shorter than the nights. But it never gets any darker down here.

I figured I could never mistake this hole for the sky. I was just chasing these broken pieces like I used to chase happiness. I have no idea how I’ve gotten this deep while trying to pick up these pieces that I don’t recognise. But the struggle tells me it’s real, and the pain keeps me awake. They say if you spend enough time with someone, you will fall in love. I guess that’s what happened between sadness and me.

I’m staying here.

Cutting through devils flesh, bones and marrows,
Healing sorrow, it's wielders never cold or shallow,
All Divinity or Nature destroyed is healed and harrowed,
Behold, the gift of the Goddess: The Sword of Shadows.

Despite cold hearts making our world a burning hell,
Despite many angels, light bearing souls, who somehow fell,
Despite those taking pleasure from greed, envy and sin,
Warm Hearts realize The Goddess is indeed our kin,

Despite endless waves of lives and death,
Despite moments when even good has lost life and breath,
Despite the sinuous evil and creeping dark,
One receives his Sword when Healthy with Halo and Heart.

For a Sword Bold of times Old, your heart must stay warm,
Even when anger for a purge starts and your mind 's a storm,
May every plot against Humanity forever fold or foil,
A Sword waiting for you, end all turmoil.

With Knowledge gained either thought the art or craft,
Sword of Shadows, Avenging all pains, even future and past...
Only tears shed are that of Love and Joy, no remorse,
To allow our dear Goddess in our world, All rejoice.

A Sword of Shadows for Hearts Brave and True,
Our Goddess Loves all, and has Sword for you.

I think of that green eyed
jealousy eating your heart.
The bitter pill that slides down your throat into your stomach acids. It rattles like dried peas
in a metal tube. Your fingers fret strands of my hair and I wince in agony. I am desperate to be held by another. To mix in with the marrow of their bones. But you are emerald and full of poisons. Spreading a plague of pitiness. I hold your hand in mine, still, but I pray for broken bones. Fractures. Splinters. Nails ripped clean off and blood. Thick, warm blood.

Thus reconfigured the party covered the first two days of the journey with speed and ease. As evening approached on the second day it was clear that a village resthouse was to be favoured as its owner had ridden out to greet his illustrious guests. He assured the party of complete secrecy, their valuable horses to be his special concern.
​   Away from the palace Zuo Fen set herself to enjoy the rural pleasures of an autumn evening. This time of freedom from the palace duties, from her Lord’s often-indiscriminate attention, she valued as a most generous gift. She composed swiftly a fu poem in gratitude to her Lord’s trust and favour.
 
How fortunate to dip this hand
In a flowing stream whose water
Is already touched by the first snows
Know that I shall bring its caress
to the mouthpiece of my Lord’s  jade flute
holding its body with spread fingers
to press to open to close to open
 
The stream bisected the village, a village of stone and wattle buildings, though the rest house was stone through and through. She had ventured on her arrival up onto its flat roof covered as it was with harvest produce laid out in abundance. The colours and textures of peppers, yams, marrows, eggplant, and such curious mushrooms as she had never before seen, all this she gathered with joy into her imagination’s memory.
​      With Mei Ling’s help she then transformed herself back into a woman, though with the simplest of robes over the Mongolian garments of wool she favoured to fend off the cold. Then, after alarming the resthouse keeper’s wife and servants by entering the kitchen, she planned a meal to her liking, sought the herb garden and enquired about the storing of vegetables for the long winter ahead.
      ​As the evening progressed she was surprised to discover Meng Ning had gone on ahead to Eryi-lou. It was a capricious decision born of his wariness of Zuo Fen. He felt intimidated by the persona she had assumed. Here was a woman of infinite grace yet simple charm who in the time it took to travel 6 li had become unrecognizable. Even her voice she dropped into a lower register and gained louder amplitude. When they reached the village he had moved purposefully to provide assistance as she prepared to dismount, only to see her grip the high pommel and swing her leg confidently across her pony and her body slide down the pony’s flanks to a standing position. So as the late afternoon light failed he had driven his horse up and up the mountain path, forcing himself to think only of the route and task ahead. He had acquired the company of a local guide who, on foot, out-paced his horse, but would see him safe down the path in the coming darkness. There would be a moon, but it had yet to rise.
        ​To his surprise the caretaker of Eryi-lou was a young woman, a daughter perhaps of its official guardian Gao Cheng, a daughter Meng Ning considered banished to this remote spot: she carried a small child on her back. He would enquire later. For now, he sought in her company to reconnoiter the decaying web of wooden pavilions, some already invaded by nature. It was then he realized his mistake. He thought himself into Zuo Fen’s mind. Surely she would wish to come upon this place untouched and unprepared by his offices. He motioned to the young woman to come outside, and standing on one of the many terraces explained his error, asked her not to speak of his inappropriate visit, but made to suggest that there was a room ‘always kept for an official’s visit’, that it be swept and suitably provisioned. Her voice responded in a dialect he could hardly decipher. It had the edge of a lone bird’s roosting call. He knew she was trying to explain something of importance to him, but he quickly lost the thread. He could see the faint gleam of the lake reflected in her eyes, hear the snuffle of her baby carried against on her back, and in the near distance he was aware of the village guide admonishing his horse. He bowed and left.
 
‘You are a most considerate companion, Meng Ning,’ Zou Fen said, as summoned to her presence, the chamberlain prostrated himself before the woman he was charged to serve and protect.
‘My lady, you already know I am a fool.’
‘Yes, but an honest fool with a kind heart. You sought my well-being at Eryi-lou, but I think you rightly imagined I might wish to experience this dream habitation in an inviolate state. Let us say you made a dream journey there. No harm done.’
     ​He explained about the caretaker and that a suite of rooms was always kept ready for an official. That was all he would say. He was about to retreat from the guest room now vivid with firelight and rich with the scent of cinnamon, when she lifted her hand to stay his going.
 
‘You are a brave young man to accept charge of my company. I am sure you know how my Lord is likely to remove you from his circle on our return. I feel unworthy of such sacrifice. I did not expect my Lord’s favour in this enterprise, but my words, my application, were clearly persuasive. I feel we are bound together you and I, and we must see our enterprise be the making of a fine poetic rhapsody for the autumn season – something you might share one day with your children and their children. You must understand that I am already moving towards a meeting of reality and the world of dreams and visions. Do not be afraid should I seek your intimate council. I know already you dream a little of my person. You may even imagine our conjunction as lovers. Women know these things, and, as you may have heard, I have tutored your Emperor in the ways of the Pale Girl.’
 
‘My lady . . .
 
Zou Fen reaches out for paper and brush Mei Lim had placed to her right hand. Kneeling on the roughly swept floor, her long limbs hidden under her cloak, she deftly paints seven lines of characters:
 
The autumn air is clear,
The autumn moon is bright.
Fallen leaves gather and scatter,
The jackdaw perches and starts anew.
We think of each other- when will we meet?
This hour, this night, my feelings are . . .
 
‘I wonder how we are to cast the final character?’
‘Not yet, and not here my Lady’. And with that Meng Ning takes his leave.
 
(to be continued)

1405

Bees are Black, with Gilt Surcingles—
Buccaneers of Buzz.
Ride abroad in ostentation
And subsist on Fuzz.

Fuzz ordained—not Fuzz contingent—
Marrows of the Hill.
Jugs—a Universe’s fracture
Could not jar or spill.

If my blood could illustrate,
A picture to the world,
It will tell you the exact state,
How my heart pumps its hurt.

Each ventricle pumps emotions,
Pain, anger, hope,
Up to my brain,
And down to my toes.

Slithering through each artery and vein,
Blood carves my hearts pain,
In my head,
In my head.

Working through each capillary,
It forges anger and rage,
In my bones,
My aching bones.

After its done its work,
It fights back through each valve,
And pours back into the atriums,
Devoid of fury and pain.

It was used up,
Just like my tears,
My wasted energy for nothing,
It brought me no good.
Just more hurt.

And just slowly,
As the pain and anger dissipates from my system,
And fresh blood is packaged and sent,
From my bone marrows,
It brings along a slimmer of hope,
That this new cycle of blood would carry no more pain.

there is a tourniquet on his tongue.

he is a risqué bloke
with alkaloid fingers,
they are wearing
yellow asylum jackets
yet he calls me
mad-


emoiselle, his, in between the lines
he cuts with razorblades and mirrors.
i find myself in between legs
of a stanza (not standing),
pale femurs and inner thighs
french-kissing into
surpine ampersands
where the first word
is a proclaimed ugly disease    -- perhaps 'love.'
and the other, its escapade   -- perhaps 'tuberculosis.'
but i must be the period:
oxidised bones.  


within the eyes
of a stanza (still not standing)
abides no fancy lines
no avarice for contemplative meanings
there is but space and void
and i've filled his femur marrows
with metaphors
to the verge of the patella.
he writes poetry for me
with a needle
and an eight-ball.



there is a tourniquet on his tongue
and his spine fits my stocking


seamlessly.

In a tiny allotment right next to the zoo
A miniature jungle was planted and grew
The flora was dense and the air became hot
But confined to a tidy rectangular plot
An unthinkable  duo of creatures converged
And it's said that a spanking new species emerged
For a curious beast was reportedly seen
Roaming and munching on anything green

Make haste! Away! It's the Buffagorilla!
A shredder of lettuce and cereal killer
With hooves at the front and hands at the rear
The Buffagorilla is near!

It shambles about at the darkest of hours
On hedges it crunches and bunches of flowers
On daffolil bulbs and petunia petals
With hearty aplomb on a cluster of nettles
Covertly perusing with maximum hush
It can wander through gardens disguised as a bush
No carrot or parsnip is safe in its bed
And the marrows are quaking in vegetable dread

Depart! Retreat! It's the Buffagorilla!
The broccoli butcher and vegetable killer
With ape like features and horns of a steer
The Buffagorilla is near!

So if you hear a mention of butternut theft
Or notice a garden, all bare and bereft
Insure your potatoes for damage and loss
Give the salad a purely precautionary toss
For a creature is roaming the byway and track
With its legs at the front and its arms at the back
And it might be your gooseberries or chervil he spies
So I beg you take heed as I once more advise

Be gone! Take flight! It's the Buffagorilla!
The strawberry napper and cucumber killer
Just hide in your cellar and steer well clear
The Buffagorilla is near!

Hadn’t changed numbers.
A voice bristled in my ear,
said why not then, it’s been years.
Months passed.
An amalgam of frail strained hearts,
smells on pillows we tried to lose.
Chose the boulevard in the end,
gaudy nostalgia blazing
like a forest fire in my eyes.
I waited.
Ran a finger over rails
those skaters we knew marked,
back when something called lust
fizzled between you them and me,
through the airwaves;
the lyrics can still trickle
on my tongue if you ask nicely.
Peroxide-blondes, men with muscles
the size of marrows,
a summer pick ‘n’ mix
lacking in looks, in fine taste.
Went to read a book in the sea
for a while,
slurped up half a pint in chapters
then lost the plot again.
That’s when you came
in polka dots,
a pack of colourful taffy
swinging idly from a wrist,
peanut-butter cups
like lily-pads on your palm.
As if you’d never left,
same number, name, face.
Forgot what goodbye was,
tripped over a lost hello.

i spent too many times trying not to love you, darling, but i know this now: loving you has always been in my very nature — repressed and buried in my bone marrows.

i'm sorry it took me so long to realize this, my love. i am coming home now. ❤️

I’m told that I am too young
to feel the world…

Yet,
I feel every year weighing
down my bones
forcing every archaeologist to second guess
the being they have extricated
from the Earth’s
most intimate parts

every month holding
my head under salt water
screaming in my face:
“Swim!”

every week scratching
at my skin
digging nails deep into
the flesh of my body

every day
kicking my ribs inwards
pleading for them to stab
deep into the things
they have worked
so hard to protect inside of me

every hour asking for me
to give up, give it all up

every minute digging into
my being, my existence
asking for the happiness
I have so long
perfected

every second wonders
why I am
so strong

But the clock has
yet to invert the life
it so painstakingly made
but has realized
the omission in
-DDF

i.

a girl once told me that sad people close their eyes
so they do not see the world anymore,
and that i should count sheep when i cannot fall
asleep and that her favourite flowers were azaleas.


she also told me that she keeps scabs
on her knees, and on sundays
she comes to me with bleeding wrists.


another girl paints artifice out
of artlessness and human flesh. she
has scalpels for arms and a tempest on
her thighs and she lives in the
mirror and when i blow



ii.


on her i understand, through air condensation
and self- anathema, that i am the girl that she  
de-fleshed maliciously herself, slit out of the cardboard
and painted out in artifice and artlessness and


i am the girl that once told another girl to ******* cut
her arm off and i meant it so she would not hurt herself
again because


i am the kind of the girl with scabs on the bone
of her halo, because i believe halos are made of
nothing but cartilage and helium bones, and a heart
as transparent as a vampire and its split opened like a monarch
butterfly, ******* off


azaleas or malarias or other pathogens
giving infants cancerous proclivities and my eyes are
swollen in mauve from divestiture because i know too well


those sheep won't jump over the fence
anymore because they have been ****** raw
in the *** by inhumane prospensity and i understand that


sad people close their eyes because it reminds them of death.




iii.


death is a scientist that theorises the
duality of elusive particles in artificial marrows
and mediocre decolourised melancholia in discordance,
it is the finger forced into our tiny vein and
it is nothing but a dream within a dream


but i could care less and this poem
is not about death, it is about how i
like ugly girls and how i'm just sorry
that i do not taste as corrosive
as the bleach in her mouth.




iv.


when people are dying, they almost sound poetic.




v.


i am the girl humanised by ribbons of
flesh and bile and atrocity, and i am the girl who
understands that a 'broken heart' is
nothing but a metaphor for utter
disappointment.  



i am the sleep that dreams long for,
hope for, phlebotomise for
  
and i am bitter.




vi.


i am bitter because i will not believe in sundays
unless one day, fortuitously, the sun osscilates,
in the most serene of all mannerisms, down the earth
and kills us all.


i am bitter because semantics does not authenticate
the abiding human apathy towards death
and all the flowers in her hair.


i am bitter because people only read my poetry
because they think it is about them.


i am bitter because of other horrible
reasons that words can simply not express.


vii.

ugly girls are always prettier
because god loves ugly
girls, because he ***** them harder than the
rest,  and because they know how to
make others feel ugly.

“I am free”
My icy wings tearing through the dark blue sky, the
permafrosted landscape below me getting smaller and
farther away and the Sun, its warm, amber rays glistening
on the horizon, beckoning me with its warm touch.
I look back-
Every second counts
I look back-
I see your cold eyes
Frozen pits of mud, obsidian, sparkling like diamonds and
just as hard.
Body of steel.
No blood,
No life,
Uncaring
Unfeeling
Scorpion.
Froze my wings with your poison tail, your vicious words
covered in sugar, stabbing.
Stole my heart
Oh how frail I was.
I look back-
At the small castle we built, the fireworks, the rose garden,
the old dusty freight, the dim light of the bar where I asked
you to be mine, the bamboo princess (I still have your
pillow), the food trucks and that homeless guy who is
probably dead, the pictures, the mix-tape, the color yellow,
No Doubt, the empty movie theater, the Moon in
Sagittarius where we held each other so close and you
said I smelled of patchouli and that caused me to feel
happiness because it is one of my favorite scents and I
was so glad you liked it too, the warms nights in your cold,
cold room and your hands, your hands…
Will never freeze my wings again.
I look back-
I became human for you and you acted as if I were just
some pigeon or robin or pheasant, you acted
As if our castle
Was made of sand,
Meant to be dissolved.
But how would I know?
The language you speak is all ones and zeros,
The feelings you feel are all bones and marrows
And I am blood
I am skin
I am emotion, Venus
The beauty within.
I look back-
-at you Pluto
Not even a planet
Cold and frozen with eyes of granite
Wires and copper made up your soul
And unfeeling data rules your flow.
I look back-
I asked you how you felt and received
An error four-oh-four.
That process never mattered to me,
Yet always left me craving more.
I look back-
Were my emotions not obvious?
Or were your feelings ambiguous
Intent so dubious
You viewed me as frivolous
Yet you’re continuous
With your cold touch so ferrous
Incompatible
I could understand…
I look back-
Scorpion, you’ll be okay.
As you sit in your world,
All alone, just like you intended,
You let your past rule you.
I look back-
How could we be friends?
Lovers to friends
From seeing the universe inside of someone
To just hanging out once, maybe twice a week.
No, we cannot be friends because that’s just weird.
I look forward-
The Sun has set.
My wings so cold
They’ll thaw and heal in time
And then, Scorpion, maybe we’ll see each other again.

In this cave I'm at home, I am dead to the bone,
my marrows unbloody and my skulls just a tome.

I sink i sink i sink and i sink.
In this muck I dissolve my speech.
Needing no one to breach,
my lair where I grieve. I don't want to leave.
In refuse, I breed.
I broke my own tarsals and I bust out my teeth,
so words cant seep, from a mouth with broken feet.
Tiptoeing to tympanums.

Entrails prolapse from orifices. Pressure delegates my new motions.
I now must hold my own esophagus in my palms.
I now must clutch my stomach from my navel.
I now have to hold all of me in, because no one else will/
can.
No longer under control of anything,
pressure grinds my teeth to nothing.
My organs are liquid metal molten bleeding Ebola,
every pore agony of the lurching of cells,
all at once committing secession ,
against the parts they connect too.

This is proof there is no god.
This is the cave of a sink of hate.
This is soul atrophy.
A trophy of losing your hope when rock bottom was the chasms final means of escape.

Lucifer leaps from my mouth to the sky.
To reign anew.
To destroy the sun,
and show a new light from the rest of the punches in the blanket of the universe,
that,
that blasted sky lamp has always threatened us away from.

we can see peace now.
We can finally be rid of that overbearing street post,
and see that it aimed to destroy us.

We sleep in the cave now.
You and I.
Agony together.

i know a secret,
as small as a lump of cancer and pale
as oessin cartilage, insignificant
as the number thirty one
until the end of december.

i know a secret,
locked beneath the tongue of the demon
inside the piano,


-

spitting out keys, oxidised,
corroded, foul, cut for bone marrows  
and cheap hotels and umbrage and
odium and pathological experimentations.

i know a secret,
decolourised in the shade of red and
no matter how raw you scratch me,
it will never bleed out, not even
for you.


--

they are coming, the surgeons, you say.

they are here to anatomise, to dissect, to ****,
to clean, to find, to ****, to dichotomise, to
divide, to sever, to ****, to ****, to stitch,
to seperate, to hide, to fix, to ****,

to make me sick.


---

i may as well be sick.  


----

i think i may as well gut out your stomach
and tie your pretty ileum into a pretty
ribbon, to a pretty street lamp,
and make you walk in a straight line
until you die, to show me
how much you love her.


silly boy, getting to her heart
was an easy as a six point
four centimeter incision.


-----

i was the faire semblant and  
you were the toothless protagonist
of some drunk playwright's
filthy dream, they gave you
gloucester eyes.


euthanise me, i want
your ugly face




------

to be the last ugly face i see.

You call, I come
- surrendering the fight-

how can one fathom life
so far from your thoughts
as pieces of the sun
- kisses wither in time-
and sieving memories soften
the fall

-you are my demise-
sweet harshness striking in calm
stripping marrows in early dawn
-yet you cannot will my will-

A paper weight holds
down the heart – and all beneath
slowly dies
-petals arched in the sun-

And yet, you call, and I, well I…
just want.

ix.

when you were eighteen
and i was fourteen
you handed me a blindfold
teethed with razors
because you say
truth is schizophrenic:
                                                                                 and angels are anemic
and my eyes are sweeter
than pomegranate
but your poison did not stop at
fairytale apples or lazarus
or hellish flowerets,
it re-mastered
left its tar around
your marrows.

iii.

when you were twenty
and i was sixteen
you gave me a Glasgow smile
on my tongue:
                                                                                like the pale harlequin
so i could bleed solace
and sympathetical commiseration
through every word
when ever you needed me

wheil you emitted a rosary
that encircled
clavicles, threading it to a hole you manifested
inside my sternum
because you belived
a heart was not neccessary
if a doll could
love with fingers

*

now you are ten years old
and i am seven years older
you ask me to write a poem
about you and artistry
but i am waiting
for the aestheticist
beside the violet car
with one ear and
debauchery

licking my fingers
and biting off your nails.

I'm a killer, cold and wrathful
Silent sleeper, I've been inside your bedroom
I've murdered half the town
left you love notes on their headstones
I'll fill the graveyards until I have you.
Moonlight walking, I smell your softness
carnivorous and lusting to track you down among the pines.
I want you stuffed into my mouth
hold you down and tear you open, live inside you -
love, I'd never hurt you.
But I'll grind against your bones until our marrows mix
I will eat you slowly...
Oh, the horror of our love
never so much blood pulled through my veins.
Oh, the horror of out love... never so much blood
I wake in terror, blackbirds screaming
dark cathedrals spilling midnight on the altars
I'm your servant, my immortal
pale and perfect, such unholy heaving -
the statues close their eyes, the room is changing
break my skin and drain me.
Ancient language, speak through fingers
the awful edges where you end and I begin
inside your mouth I cannot see -
there's catastrophe in everything I'm touching
as I sweat I crush you.
And I hold your beating chambers until they beat no more
you die like angels sing...
Oh, the horror of our love
never so much blood pulled through my veins.
Oh, the horror of out love... never so much blood
You're a ghost love, nightgown flowing
your body blue and walking along the continental shelf
you are a dream among the sharks
beautiful and terrifying, lit and restless
we dance in dark suspension.
And you bury me in the ocean floor beneath you
where they'll never hear us scream
Oh, the horror of our love
never so much blood pulled through my veins.
Oh, the horror of out love... never so much blood

Flesh, flesh and
bone

the grave digger
clawing away at
the dirt

a shovel first
then hands

years of nail
biting offers the
earth a home

under his skin,
I am not one
to sift

patiently waiting
for old coins
or gold

the broken skull
of a cat, a chipped
molar

that belonged to
a father, forgotten
in the yellowed papers

of time. Skin,
skin and bone
I died a year ago

hollow, rattling in
the fist of my
mother

white sheets that
wrapped my
limbs

are pulled tight,
a half ghost
human shaped

my mouth is wide
with the Earth,
taken in and

****** like a plum,
skin and flesh
swallowed

whole. There is
only bruised
fruit on the

funeral table. As
the grave digger
claws out my

hole. My first
fixed home,
a house of

soil and acidic
tears. Minerals
and salt

mixing like the
marrows of
lovers

buried in the
ground. I will
never leave

rotting, skeleton
shaking, the deep
breath before the

plunge. A war
lost, my final
hour and I am

home

Few lines Inspired by lyrics from Ludo & Imogen Heap.

What’s this?
You don’t understand?
Let me explain; let me fuel your mind…
Let the memories you so quickly shut out turn on the lights.
And as you sleep with soundless dreams
Do not underestimate me!
I will push and shove until I sink through your skin…. grinding against your bones until our marrows mix.
As you can see, I was not ready to let go.
You didn’t notice?
Yet you couldn’t wait to slip through the cracks of us.
I was so wrapped up in you, oh so much tighter than your drugs ever were and ever will be.
Trying to show you how much higher I could take you.
You always liked taking chances, take a chance on me!
No?
I guess second best is always okay.
I guess all my dreams that now sit at the bottom of that stupid tide pool, are there for an eternity of resting.
While the shattered pieces of us cut me with every “could have been”.

Have I hit the brain yet? How about the memories? CAN YOU HEAR ME?
It’s been a few minutes, it’s a miracle how you haven’t, with your hideous curse of soundless dreams and silent sleeps. Does it worry you, that late at night, when I get lonely I sink into your dreams?
LISTEN!
You’re always so perfect when you sleep.
Please, let me soak a little deeper in.
We all have something that digs at us, let me dig at you!
Just let me dig too deep and HAVE to stay in this memory.
THIS ONE. I found it!
You promised to never forget this moment.
It’s dusty…
You buried it.
You hid it, and me, beneath electric clouds and a wasteland of pain.
How could you?
How dare you?
Am I disturbing your slumber?
I’m twisting the very wires of your brainwork.
I will make you remember if I have to.
Don’t tempt me.
****.
My new, significant other, has woken up in the bed beside my body.
I should get back.
Just know I’d rather swim in your worst nightmares then bathe in my most pleasant dreams… just to swim with you.
ILoveYou.

See that stone.
He sees that stone.
It's coming down
HARD.
******* you
leaving scars.

Against the glass, you press your face
frosted and forgetful of the hairs rooted
in shame. You kissed that stone-cold face.

Filled with stone-cold limestone
You scratch.
You scratch and lose.
You sin and lose.
You lose and sin by scratching it loose.

Scratch through his bones and
invade the marrows
searching for that familiar face.

    smiling at you.

Smiling and cold.
Stone-cold blood glows. The skin glows orange
and the scars peel off bones.

when i was ten i believed kissing was
only between two people deliriously in love.
when i was fifteen, i believed holding hands would
only make me throw up, and when a boy wanted to watch
you watch him play video games, it was considered
romantic.

do puppies fall in love? for my ears are floppy
for you and my tail hasn’t stopped wagging since
november.
if i could be your jellyfish i’d hover between your
bones, tangling my tentacles through your
mane, stinging you with limp
currents.

i’m wishy and washy, crawling through
tie-dye dreams and licking clean pasta
bowls. i always thought second best was
enough, and when i was eighteen bruises were
proof. ideas were stuck in my brain cells. i bit my lips
until dead skin cells tasted like ketchup.

i’m creeping through your marrows,
gnawing, gnawing, gnawing.
******* until my tongue is lead,
aching for your teeth tearing through
my flesh,

i could be your jellyfish. you told me about one that lives
forever.
i’ll keep floating, if you keep
watching.

By Nabs

Cacophonies of sound, greeted us to this world.

For you, an angry guttural rumbles of disappointment.
Made courtesy of your father, whose glare would make your heart harden into steel but rot on the inside.
For me, was a choking silence that sounds too loud, too empty, too there.
But it was familiar and it was better than being completely alone.

The rain had been coming for a while.
Seeping into the marrows of our bones.
Drawing bitter smiles and bared teeth.
From two strangers that happen to collide with each other.

I want to say it was beautiful, but It wasn't.
War is never beautiful.

You were made from the finest china.
Crafted from ivory, patterned with delicate blue bamboos.
Your bones creaked at night, hollowed because life it self was nothingness to you.
So why would you let your self be filled with hollow?

You would rather let them filled you with glass
Shard of sharp fragment of others, pushing everything into your cup.
You tried to not mind how it gots cracks lining its smooth surface, how at some place it's chipped, and how it always on the verge of breaking

I can see you long for it, to just shatter.

I know I wasn't what you wanted.
I am not made of cotton candy or sunshine.
I am not full of the sweet words you long to hear.
I am not capable of being your light nor your saving grace.

But I can see you for who you are, isn't that enough?

"No it isn't", you replied with fury in your eyes.
"You dont know me", you spit.
"Dont pretend like you do!", you growled
As we battle each day, gritting our teeth and slamming our soul.

The noises that was buzzing in my ears sounded almost like a prayer.

You hated the cracks on your tea cup with vehemence.
At night when you feel asleep, tired from hating the world and yourself, you would dream of a world where you do not exist.
"Please", you screamed.

I find that too painful to know, so I just stabbed my self in the heart.
Bleeding out the warmth I felt, leaving me feeling like winter is coming.

"Do you remember how long this war had raged?"
I asked to you, when a sliver of peace wedged itself between us
You looked at me, and I looked straight back at you
You went quiet, lip pursed, shaking your head.
"There's no war".

It's raining bullets, a gift form you to me.
I cracked a smile, one that so very brittle and hungry.
The smell of gun powder eloped me, and I pretend that it was a hug from you.
I almost didn't catch your whisper,

"It felt like eternity".

The bullets felt more like flower petals, now.

We often dance this odd waltz of our.
Broken parts of our self, steps that retreats, pieces that are incomplete
Yet when we dance, you flashed this rare smile of yours.
The one that you tried so hard to forget because you told yourself, you don't deserve to.

So I wound you closer and closer, wishing that we could meld like this forever.
But forever existed after death, one of the thing we don't agree upon.
And this felt like eternity too, I wanted to shout.
But I didn't, and you walked back to your empty castle.

It's too cold outside for angels to fly.

Some day, I see my self splintered on your floor.
Lying beside your shattered mirrors.
Blood staining our hands as we gripped each other cages.
I wish this would be over, but I know Im lying.

We are caged, You and I.
Shouting pleas and prayer to be let out.
Soul stuffed in a heart shaped box.
Beating against our ribcage.

No amount of clawing could get us out,
for the keys have been lost in the mist.

The day I asked you to abandon your castle,
You got angry until I asked you to move in with me.
You had this awed look on your eyes
When, 'yes', slipped out your tongue.

A truce.

One I dearly wished would last beyond time.

I find you breathtaking.
A contradiction of shattered and whole.
An universe caged inside a fragile vessel
And yet you never realize that.

You always said that you are a monster.
One that said I shouldn't get close too, one I should have stop battling.
One that said they should've stop clutching me.
"I'm scared that I've decided to never let you go"

"I wont leave you"

When we lay beside each other,
I would trace your spine down to your back
Wondering how can't you see how beautiful you are?

The way your eyes are warm, despite your insistence that you are a cold *******.
The way your kindness shown through your mercy.
How tender your heart is and how you cannot hate God for chaining you to life.

You hated your self instead, as a form of repentance.

We are always walking on eggshells,
Of boundaries and blurred lines.
Playing skip with each other,
Waiting for the other shoe to fall.

"Why are you still here?", you said while cradling me in your embrace.
"Because I wanted to", I replied.
I didn't say the other reason.
The one that want to say it's because that you do not realize when you cracks, gold will ooze out to fix it.

I closed my eyes and inhale the scent of coffee, robust black coffee with a hint of mint.

" I'll always have your back, no matter the road you choose", I said when you got back to our home with red tainted feathers clutched on your hands.
You stared at me, gaze searching.
I stared right into your eyes, hands poised to knock at your window.
I knocked.

You took off your tattered mask,
I looped my hand around your neck.

"You do not need to shatter your self more just to be perfectly broken"

It's a sick, sick town
Where men have come to rot
As a worm infested fruit
Lying wet and rummaged on the ground

The neighbors with their bent noses
And upturned mouths
Bubbling with the agenda, the filth
Of their smiling counterparts next door
In town fiestas they squalor like
Emperors on roasted pigs, rice cakes
and goat bellies raised and slaughtered
They dine like fine crickets loud
And unconcerned about matters
Which the small town does not speak

Scoundrels of politicians
Fetchig money like leaves from their
Cotton pockets
Oh the election is under way!
Come come there is money this way!
Forget honesty it can only buy
You a rumbling stomach and a hut
Crumbling from debts and frets!

Who cares though
When seventy strides from you
Gunshots sparkle in the midnight skies
All eyes fainted all breaths shallow
And someone's just got wallowed
In a heat of greed and contempt
Poor son!Poor son!
Used to know the wretch
No family?No peso to his name?
Let's move on to our siestas
Justice won't spare us from hell

God has saved a seat for us instead
The church has made its job clear
Seven Sundays and we are but saved!
But the crowd upon
The altar thins like the old priest's head
Gleaming like chalice
In the dimming lights of the Lord
The people look on and yawn
For the gospel has now become
As good as miracle, literally.

The poor remain poor
The sinful prosper
And this sick, sick town
Has its marrows ******
Dry as a liar's throat
And you tell me to love it
Like a sweetheart of brazen days?
Like the grazing stars in the
Blank fields of bluish horizons
I painted with amulets and rockets
with my visions as a child?
And you tell me I was born of a town
About to sweep into nothing along
with the collapse of its people?

By : Nabs

At dusk, I woke up to find that my whole body alight with pain
From the very tip of my hair
To the very tip of my toe
A pain that struck me deep as it is rooted in me

My head feels like it is not my own
Where my thought are filled with images
Where they took every single memories
Just to replay it over and over again

Although it is some specific memories that they play

( I should have known it was you)

They are images of you
Either the way your eyes disperse the light
Glinting with rainbows as you laugh
Or the tingling of your voice when you speak

Or the little quirks that you have
How you scratch your head when you're confused
Or how you tighten your fist and hold it close to you when you are in anger
Or how you look pained every time someone mention your father

Even my subconsciousness was not safe from you
How in the nights you seep into my dream
And how my mind seem to speak your name with reverence
As if you are a saint and i am a sinner begging for forgiveness

Not to mention
My head feels like it know you more that I know my self
How my consciousness remember every single way your body move
How you react
How you never seem to notice how breath taking you are

You do take my breath away, you know
You make lungs constrict
My throat sore and my windpipes clogs
My chest ache

Just from seeing you brush a stray strand out of your face

( No wonder I always choke)

I know now that you are poisonous
Because often you made my mind sluggish
How you made my tongue numb
Struggling to just say something

I feel like I could die from just being in your presence

Some how, I wouldn't mind that

You seem to have taken over the control
Of the beating of my heart
It is not mine anymore
You took it from me

And i'll let you do it any day

How do I not realize that you poison me?
That you attacked me

No

I couldn't say attack when I, my self are a part of perpetrating the crime

I let you poison me with your kindness
And I succumb to it
Kindness is very lethal I find
Very potent

You are causing an infection
Spreading across my heart
Making it rot
The stench is cloyingly sweet with a hint of pain

I think I know what poisoned me

You make my heart a bruised little thing
Banging across my rib cage
Sometimes I can feel it to thump so hard
I wonder if there are fractures littering my ribs

It is a miracle I do not get a stroke
With the way my hearth clenches
Every so often just by a single word you said
No matter how un important it is

There is something growing inside my body and I know I am diseased

I'm going to be erratic soon, at the rate this is spreading

The rate this is spreading

Why

I know you planted some seeds inside of me
And how it is growing in my body
The pain is caused by them
How it is thriving alive, and ******* me dry

******* life out of my marrows
Making me prone to bend and break
To bend and beg
For you, I would do it in a heart beat

Why do you do this to me?

You do not intend this for me
As I do not intend to succumb in the first place
But intentions will always be intentions
If we do not manage to realize it

One of my symptoms is butterflies in my stomach
How did the caterpillars get in there?
How did my stomach turned into their cocoon?
It does not feel beautiful, the butterflies in the making

They feel like acid and agitation

Now I am trembling

You make my whole body quake
My bone to ache and shake
It is as if you made them corrode,
Maybe that's why my knees shake just because of you

How it will always tremble
How you make my hands tremors
How psychosomatic it is
And I seemed to caught this sickness right to the bone

Maybe I tremble because you are more than I can handle

You with your kindness
Your attempt to become normal
Your fear of closed space
And how you would unconsciously scratch the silvering wound across your heart

Maybe because yours do not rot, you infected me and rotted mine instead

( There is something wrong with my eyes)

As i said, not only that you have took over my heart you also took over my mind

I seemed to still do not mind

My whole body is trembling
My lips quivering
I feel my eyes are watering
I feel my temperature rising

I feel horrible and yet I do not mind this pain
This high fever I am in
Comfort me some how, even if i know that
if I do not get well soon this might **** me

If I do not get it treated, it will **** me

But I am still hesitant to cure it
I do not want to be diagnosed
I do not want to
I do not want to

I am infected

(There's something trying to get out of my stomach)

I am trembling again
And you saw me trembling
You saw me
You smiled, and a snip could be heard

There are a string broken and it might me my sanity

Why do you deny that there was an earthquake
Why do you always deny that
Why
Why

Why do i still got close to you despite knowing
That the episentrum was you

You are a natural disaster
An epidemic
Spreading disease in your wake
You couldnt help it

No one could help being them self

You know I feel pain all over my body
But sometimes the pain felt so intense
That it renders me numb
How do I still exist in this paradoxes of mine

( I fear my liver have stop trying to purge this toxic away)

You make all my nerve go alight
I feel like i am burning
Ashes, ashes is what left of me
I have nothing left of me

You burned me down

But why do i feel so cold?

Yet, I do not mind
Because even as my heart is aching and in pain
Even if my whole body is black and blue
My body is not mine anymore

That was your betrayal, wasnt it?

(At least i still could bask in your presence)
You made me betray my self
(Such exquisite pain you cause me, i want more)
Why do you keep smiling as if you know nothing?

Maybe you do not know anything

(My legs just gave out and I am on my knees)

The poison is muddling my mind
I am poisoned
I already said that
I am trembling again

The butterflies got out of their cocoon today.

They were beautiful, and red with my blood

I still do not mind

You betray me
You causes pain to me
You poisoned me

I still do not mind

You smiled again today
It was like my medicine
I feel like i am addicted
You smile like you were happy with the way i am

I fumble with words now
There is something wrong with my eye
I cannot see clearly
Everything is blurry and tinted

(You said my eyes were beautiful)

I was happy but now I am sick

Why

My legs and hand do not properly work anymore
I feel like someone just pierce giant big hooks in them
Because i keep being pulled
I keep going back to you

My body is not my own, it is infected

You poison me and then you put parasites didn't you?
I was fine
Did you think your poison was a cure?
I did not have anything wrong with me

I did not
Now i do

( I can feel my mind crashing down, it feels like freedom)

The fever is going up again
My words are hazy
My arms taste sweet
I feel disoriented

Why do you need my to be like this?
Wipe that smile of yours
Wipe it
Please

(Please)

I am addicted to you
Your whole presence
I do not mind
What do i not mind?

I am sick, i am going crazy
You drive me crazy
You infected me and you rot me
I still do not mind

(There are tears dripping down my eyes, it is black)

I do not mind

(My heart just gave out)

I just diagnosed my self today

There is a paper thin difference between hate and love

I think it is the latter

I am such a liar

I was in the forest one day,
With my friends and marrows,
All of us were very gay,
We were happy and out of sorrows.

Suddenly my eyes caught a pretty jill,
She was pacing like a hart,
To talk to her was my will,
She made place in my heart.

I forgot all seeing her glamour,
Going to her was my intention,
I was captivated by her murmur,
She turned back realizing my action.

As moon was her beautiful face,
And eyes were brighter than stars,
She looked as she would reside on stars.

Her foot were light and hair long,
And was attrative, too much smart,
To the fairies, she must belong,
And her song touched my heart.

She pointed at me to move with her,
We were advancing an edificeward,
She was too, I was very gay with her,
Touched my heart her every word.

Reaching edifice, it began to rain,
He face turned into full of pain,
Telling her tragedy, her eyes began to rain,
I consoled and assured her to fain.

There she fed me fairy's food,
And her eyes showed love for me,
She sang a song in fresh mood,
Hearing her song, I was very gee.

She refused me to go back,
And gave me a bed to sleep,
I felt comfort when I put my back,
She came and lulled me asleep.

My eyes opened at mid of night,
In slaughter house I found myself,
I stood and saw a horrible sight,
Cut heads were lying and nowhere my elf,

Suddenly she appeared with a sword,
And was advancing towards me,
She didn't speak even a word,
And reaching, she stood near me.

While laughing she turned a bad spirit,
I was about to be slain by her hand,
With God's grace, she was badly hit,
By an angel, she killed and fell on the sand.

(14th February,2006)