For those fortunate hearts
Who ignore the feeling
And for those unfortunate ones
Who impose the feeling
You'll know.

It is like forgetting the lyrics
Of your favourite song.
It is like having a cough
That just won't give up.
It is like every punch in the face
You've ever had and will ever have.
It is like forgetting midsentence
The last line of your essence.
It is like not being able to draw
What seemed perfect in your mind.
It is like the feeling you get
When you are strucked by the wind.
It is like spilling something
In your favourite shirt.
It is like a deep ache
You can't locate.
It is like loosing the last piece
Of a 1000 pieces puzzle.
It feels like falling
Without an end nor beginning

If you love someone who won't love you back.
You'll know.
It feels like everything you can think of.
Except for being loved back.

i am grateful for our silences                                
thankful- that we can just sit together
comfortable with not talking, no pressure-
no need to think
of intelligent things to say
we can just sit back
and watch the sunlight play
hide and seek with the waves

its nice
how you can listen to my mindvoice
and complete my self-talk
and interrupt my thoughts
and ingest them with yours
like a seed
that breeds and grows and merges
symbiotic with mine own

and if ever we talk
i love how we can stop
midsentence
and then when we meet
after years of separation
pick up exactly where we left off
without missing a beat
get right into it

-Vijayalakshmi Harish
  21.09.2012

Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish

A boyish smile, a frivolous response, lips grazing my neck
Put on a plaid shirt and I’ll take mine off for you
Never ever never ever never ever ever ever
let your pride win
and we can set to sea in a canoe until you can let me in

I’m a sucker for sad eyes. That’s the compassion.
Pair those with thick-rimmed glasses: I’ll believe anything you say --
And I had a puppy once, so it’s a natural reflex to fill the bowl with water and affection and treats of all sorts.
My heart gives and gives and runs dry and quits
My heart quits and quits and floods with isolation and goes back to giving;
giving
giving
Tell me I'm living --
square one, I’m a hamster
You know, exasperation shouldn’t be as normal
as brushing your teeth
But then again, we’re all supposed to floss everyday and I always seem to forget to,
like Well-Being in general as my heart
gives and gives and dries and quits and gives and quits
and quits and quits
on everyone else that exists

You know,
I don’t want a man that fuels a petty cycle as long as a noose wrapped around my neck
I don’t want a man that shrugs off pain because he’s a man
I don’t want a man that eats his feelings or drugs his feelings or explodes his feelings all over the bed

I’ll desire disregard
and not long enough kisses that cut off like a woman’s water breaking midsentence.
A rocket,
An earthquake
I’ll want a fading away so that I can feel like I want something
& I’m a sucker for freckles and hard rock abs and defined biceps.
& british and french and irish accents.
& most of all, a man that doesn’t need me, or even want to see me
all that often

the space to contemplate
Am I Enough
The waver between
I want to be Enough
I don’t want to be Enough
I want to be Enough
No, I don’t want to be Enough
So I can want
Want
Aspire
Dream
Desire
Live in ifs and buts and maybes, dazed like a complete and utter
cliche

I don’t want a man that gives me a purpose
I don’t want a man that gives me flowers
Okay, I want a man that gives me flowers
and chocolate and good morning kisses and his time

I don’t want a man that snores
But he’s allowed to snore
I don’t want a man that cringes at a menstrual cycle
I don’t want a man that lives halfway across the world or a man next-door that lives in his head 24/7
I don’t want a man that punches his pain through walls
Or mirrors
Or ******* or dickwads or ******* faces

You know,
never ever never ever never ever ever ever
let your pride win
and we can set to sea in a canoe until you can let me in
if you let me in
and I can let you in

I don’t want a man that won’t let me in
I don’t want a man that won’t let love in.

We’ll try to answer
The unanswerable paradox
Of tragedy and pain
And attempt to explain suffering.
Why ****** wasn’t born with an incurable disease
And why Anne Frank
Couldn’t have just held off
For three more weeks
Until Liberation.

These questions make
the world become poetry.
And we who ask them
become the world.

Inevitable losses contrived from the actuality
Saying goodbye to the ones that we love
Letting them go
Before we’re destroyed
By the inevitable suffering.

I am a grenade.
I am bound to explode.
Fatalities by the dozens.
Even more wounded.
PTSD for years after
I will leave an emptiness
In the lives of those I love
And those who love me.

Life will end midsentence
Before I have a chance to explain
Or say goodbye
Or say I’m sorry
To those who never got the chance.
Because I knew I was a grenade
And I loved them too much
To even be
One of my fatalities.

[Boom]

As always,
read aloud
and enjoy.




It’s been one month,
30 days since the last time they touched.

I mean sure,
   hands’ve been held, lips’ve been locked, heart beats counted,
   armpits tickled, eyelashes licked,
   backs rubbed, hips hugged
   but

It’s been one month,
30 days since the last time they touched.

720 hours of smiles and telephone conversations and ticket stubs and flowers and mixtapes and tree climbing and
   waiting for the other to finish showering before the night begins and your recite again
   the smiles and telephone conversations and ticket stubs and flowers.

43,200 minutes since that night.
That night that night fell softer than
   eyelids overflowing with sleep.
Finding no full moon to mask,
The thin cloud cover sat in the sky
   like gasps passing lips slightly parted,
   like abandoned similes left suspended midsentence.
That night his house was
   cold as a corpse,
   empty as an elephant skeleton,
But between the two of them
They managed to salvage some warmth.
That night they whispered three words to each other
   through sheets of white linen and teeth.
Three words,
   the culmination of all they’d shared thus far,
Three words
   worth more than any that’d follow

In the one month
30 days
720 hours
43,200 minutes
2,592,000 seconds since the first time they had ***.

Yes it’s been one month,
30 days since the last time they touched.
A full moon since they made love,
******,
Poured the night’s libation into her drawing salty emotion from sincerity’s well giving back blood running blind turning brown against white cover down where three words were loosed from lips translating the *****’ leaning into one learning from the other like lusters slipping in and out of fun like lovers finding oneself in the other.

But time can’t count all the ways things have changed.
And time can’t stand him standing out in the rain.
And he can’t remember which hit him harder,
   her lips curving to form that big L word or
   her hips arching to meet his.
And he could hardly discern pain from pleasure and confusion swam in their hands until paralysis overtook their power to put a stop to it and he finished before she could fish up even a single coo but that didn’t matter because he was in love and loved in return and all the sudden the Beatles are making a whole ******* lot of sense because

It’s been one month,
30 days since the last time they touched,
And he doesn’t give a ****.
He’s just happy to be in love.

The last time I kissed you

I could taste

The burn I left on your tongue

From the time I kissed you

Before that

It was small and pink and blistered

It was the kind of burn that never goes away.

I gasped and said

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean-“

You stopped me midsentence and said,

“It’s okay, it doesn’t hurt. I rub off of some people

The way a match rubs off of a rough surface.”

We swam around our fishbowl of silence for a while

Until you mentioned the time and how

You had to go back

To work.

We parted ways,

Me in my secret pride,

You in your unpublished pain.

I quit a lot of things that day.

I haven’t seen you since.

While watching Nick Jr.
At 3 AM,
I realized,
That I should comply,
the best word out there,
the one most up to date,
top of the line,
descriptor of how I view this,
that a person,
On that personal journey,
Has the ability to take things,
as they come,
The right to comply and accept,
subtle resistance,
sparks make in the dark,
or complain and argue,
With our fair lady Reality,
Our comfort zones snug in the couch,

Softening our undersides,
cradling our egos,
tingles of nostalgia tickle the nostrils,
A temptation of non-timelessness,
Themes have evolved,
While evolving the themes decreased,
Sensation dwindled,
Mankind found daily interaction difficult.

Rallying in treasured desert halls,
Painted absurd pink propaganda soliloquies,
Fill the hall,
Shut the door,
See it all come down,
The exhaustion,
The living nights,
Scarred Skies,
Makeshift holes of the soul,
Realign and try,
For the love of God; try,
Better that your tethers are secure,
It makes the construction workers,
Safe; all up there,
Cold as can be,
Shivering at 100° desolation,
moving like creme statues,
Up there,
That tie to the platform
Preserves the sonder,
That fact that,
Someone is up to what they are up to,
Paranoia shouts find out,
Passivity says let it be,
midsentence it all makes sense,
tat the net of being,
flies along the bleating radar,
the seismic adventures of man,
Trampolines collective consciousness,
Floating together in the void,
Finding our footholds,
our tethers,
they are our feathers,
ironically,
the bonds that
caress in segments,
the grand confusion of time,
the singing buffoons in the void,
the crazy madmen we all are,
daily psychosis pills,
Excrement recipient,
that moment to moment,
preservation of existence,
Seems everything is going to hell,
in a hand basket,
yet the cave blares within,
a source of nihilistic capitalization,
Banging infants in Foot Lockers,
It should outrage,
All that progress is accomplishing,
segregation,
The isle of a certain strain,
The mental stimulants are similar,
they age appropriately,
it is comparative,
that we all understand,
Complying,
Sizing up and making the gentle leap,
In the wake it wouldn't mind,
if the time was right,
when you're ready,
then the exchange may happen,
A future can be fathomed,
Braving the Unknown's womb,
Past and present collide,
They lie,
Side by side,
like tin soldiers in the mud,
Anguish,
What fortune lies on our sidewalks,
What can be said,
About O so crazy madmen,
As they contort in the Unknown,
What is the amount worthy,
Assessed in some lab,
Looking down the lens we'd assume,
Kerouac atoms abound,
the Samsara principle,
of all them principles and none,
because we fraternize,
we tempt the fates,
Gerald said,
We exist in the scripts,
we sing on the shows,
we don't accept or comply,
we should look around,
and see Others,
A renouncing of old habits,
Don't call me a Dadaist,
*******,
I'm into the  primitivism,
in respect to our attention span,
we have a grip on ourselves,
almost,
Fatalistically we are born on the,
crest of a wave,
eternally throttled by chaos,
when the wave sank its teeth,
into the sands of the immediate generation's side,
That reins are there,
Now more than ever,
I guess we are too far gone,
That's what those fanatic fatalists think.

I forfeit you often in tiny moments lingering like age..To a titanic of an opponent I know I will never defeat. You.
You're the mighty unbreakable door, with no handle nor **** to turn, neither knocker or bell to ring. You are the only door that is not a slave to any metal. Not even a cursed object like skeleton keys can force it open and break into your secret thoughts. It opens from one side and one side only. Your side.
I've watched you slip behind your door and get lost inside yourself.. Never taking anyone with you. Slipping through time in a compelling labrynth, hidden somewhere behind those dark intoxicating eyes.  Those eyes that make me often forget what I'm saying midsentence.
The spark to the match of my irrelevant jealousy, driving me to the brink of insanity. Making me restlessly patient for your return from the door and back to reality, or the reality we physically share.
I want to get lost with you, take me through your door. I want to see more than you show, and know all the things you never say. I need your raw unyeilding commentary and this unwanted vail you hide behind lifted: exposing you bare.
I've been stealing bits of you over the years while you were unaware-but it's no longer enough.
I want to finally see all of you at once. Not the glimpses and echos that I have collected and pieced together under your nose for all these years. Like some common stalker..
That version, my version of you, is forever unsatisfying and incomplete. It will never be enough, who you are in my head and who you are when we are together, is only a shadow of the you let me see. I want the version you keep locked up, the one you  never share.You may be content being lost inside yourself alone, but even so, it doesn't have to be that way.
I beg you, stop keeping to yourself. Keep me instead.
Together, we will be the perfect trade.

-Stone Fox

the harder it rains, the more useless the umbrella
the more you need it,
the more useless the umbrella

gone and blown the other way

dumbest thing you ever did in your life
i've done that all too
one dumb thing leads to another dumb thing
such a looped refrain
some dumb things just go together

one dumb thing
then another dumb thing

walking on the busy sidewalks
of chicago the overheard woman
i was watching
was talking friendly to the man beside her
about something he was not interested in
he walked away from her
midsentence

i went home and never forgot that

7 or 8 years later,
i was walking to work in south lake union
IT guy with the too long hair
caught up to me
and complained about his boss

i didn't know what to say
crossing arms crossed tight
conversation dying at the crosswalk
and he walked on ahead
as my hands looked for pockets

one dumb thing beside another dumb thing
such a looped refrain to keep on playing

what does love look like the therapist asks
one week after the breakup
and i’m not sure how to answer her question
except for the fact that i thought love
looked so much like you

that’s when it hit me
and i realized how naive i had been
to place an idea so beautiful on the image of a person
as if anybody on this entire earth
could encompass all love represented
as if this emotion seven billion people tremble for
would look like a five foot eleven
medium-sized brown-skinned guy
who likes eating frozen pizza for breakfast

what does love look like the therapist asks again
this time interrupting my thoughts midsentence
and at this point i’m about to get up
and walk right out the door
except i paid too much money for this hour
so instead i take a piercing look at her
the way you look at someone
when you’re about to hand it to them
lips pursed tightly preparing to launch into conversation
eyes digging deeply into theirs
searching for all the weak spots
they have hidden somewhere
hair being tucked behind the ears
as if you have to physically prepare for a conversation
on the philosophies or rather disappointments
of what love looks like

well i tell her
i don’t think love is him anymore
if love was him
he would be here wouldn’t he
if he was the one for me
wouldn’t he be the one sitting across from me
if love was him it would have been simple
i don’t think love is him anymore i repeat
i think love never was
i think i just wanted something
was ready to give myself to something
i believed was bigger than myself
and when i saw someone
who probably fit the part
i made it very much my intention
to make him my counterpart

and i lost myself to him
he took and he took
wrapped me in the word special
until i was so convinced he had eyes only to see me
hands only to feel me
a body only to be with me
oh how he emptied me

how does that make you feel
interrupts the therapist
well i said
it kind of makes me feel like ****

maybe we’re looking at it wrong
we think it’s something to search for out there
something meant to crash into us
on our way out of an elevator
or slip into our chair at a cafe somewhere
appear at the end of an aisle at the bookstore
looking the right amount of **** and intellectual
but i think love starts here
everything else is just desire and projection
of all our wants needs and fantasies
but those externalities could never work out
if we didn’t turn inward and learn
how to love ourselves in order to love other people

love does not look like a person
love is our actions
love is giving all we can
even if it’s just the bigger slice of cake
love is understanding
we have the power to hurt one another
but we are going to do everything in our power
to make sure we don’t
love is figuring out all the kind sweetness we deserve
and when someone shows up
saying they will provide it as you do
but their actions seem to break you
rather than build you
love is knowing who to choose
           -Rupi Kaur

Can we take a night off?
Can we forget that I didn't pay the bills on time?
that I burnt dinner last night
that the laundry's not done
that the dishes are *****
that the toilet's stuffed up
that the roof is leaking
that we can't afford hot water
that the mirrors are *****
that I'm always running late
that I always forget what I'm saying midsentence
can we forget the fighting
and can we remember
just for tonight
that we love each other?

I dreamed that you didn’t hold back
We were standing in a restaurant bathroom
Dim lighting, black walls, tile floors
You were wearing a blue button down shirt
Your hair was tousled and you had bags under your eyes
You were tired of waiting on me
I let my arm around you, stood on the tips of my toes
I remember saying your name, water falling you with compliments
Overwhelming your insecurities, telling them how I love them
Despite what they have learned to believe about themselves
I do not remember all that I said, however, I do remember the ending
I whispered, "Landon," taking a breath, following it with
"You are so sweet and so bitter, you are bitter sweet. You are sweet because…" midsentence I was interrupted by your lips
I did not see this coming, I never would have had it not been a dream
It was so real it was like I could feel my comforter being ripped off of my body
I was pushed against the wall
Wrapped my hands around your neck
Ran my fingers through your hair
You set me on the bathroom counter top
And kissed my neck like you used to
Teasing in a different light, it was not the same feeling
It was rough and I was scared
Because I woke up thinking about
How you might have done something similar to this
With her

They said you cant put a period in the middle of a sentence.
Can't start a thought with an and or a but.
But I did.
And I think the best place to put a period is wherever it belongs.
Because life has taught me that not all thoughts have a subject and a predicate.
Sometimes  an incomplete sentence ends in a period.
Or an exclamation mark!
And I've known too many people who's voices have been quieted midsentence.
Punctured by others who have punctuated their thoughts with a small and deliberate mark of ink.
Black ink.
Charcoal, the ashes of fire.
And I've known people who have ended their story with a period before having completed their thoughts.
For their energy ran out  before their thoughts had run through.
and a period seemed to them like the only way out.
For they imagined they had run out of paper.
But I put a period in the middle of a sentence because sometimes a sentence is complete when it's imperfect.
Like I am.
and sometimes I put a period in the middle of a sentence because sometimes a sentence is complete even if others can't understand it.
Like God is.

I turned around midsentence
often, and practised humility,
very badly.

he barters with the moon and wonders why
he’s endlessly exhausted

the gentle melody of drifting
heartbeat interrupts my thought midsentence.
it’s three in the morning once more.
maybe i should tell the truth to set you free:
“I have work in the morning”
or
“I have to study for my finals”
except - I don’t want to let it be;
because right now,
tucked under your covers
somewhere in another galaxy,
nothing else is more important to me
than you.


she pleads for sunset and wonders why
the sun climbs with such haste

if i silence the cosmos with my ears to the screen
and my heart on your chest,
perhaps you will realize that
right now,
warmly tucked within your arms
somewhere in another galaxy,
nothing else is more important to me
than you.

frustrating how my traitorous body
desires you to close the gap between us
your lips gripping mine midsentence
yet you walk away

caught midsentence
the irony of speech
can be intoxicating
when deftly wielded