You leave scratches on my heart,
grazes
from your touch.
They are my memories of you,
souvenirs,
from a place I once knew.
Cobwebbed wisps,
memories floating, light, like
breathes and
gentle touches;
discoloured.
Whole, yet barely;
locked in a body.
An empty substance
so full, rich and
colourful.
First trimester
1
From the usual show of fertility and
my body’s monthly ambition,
I suddenly descend
into the dry dungeons.
2
In an act of union,
something is formed within from fusion-
a spawn, an army,
with doubling troops, by the minute.
3
With this growing infestation,
I become a mutation,
morphing
into the next weapon of mass destruction.
Second trimester
4
I glance downwards to see
that my feet can no longer be seen.
Shopping takes on
a whole new meaning.
5
What do you mean?
I can’t have cinnamon with my smoked salmon?
But don’t worry,
I forgive your lapse in judgment,
6
for what is more important,
is that the butterflies in my belly
I safe-kept over the years
have united, in a single flutter.
Third trimester
7
I swell up and out of 36-28-36,
from a 5 foot 4 hourglass,
to the spherical snake which swallowed
an elephant for dinner.
8
My feet now bright pink cushions,
my hair a nesting place for birds,
and my bowels are
my most exercised muscles.
9
My face is a full moon,
as the tide rises.
I am afraid to crack a smile,
just in case I spill.
Birth
I lie like a globe,
afraid that I would roll.
My body tremors;
hot lava rises.
I lie like a globe,
afraid that I would crack.
Tectonic plates move,
my pelvic trembles.
I lie like a globe,
afraid that I would collapse.
Until one moment,
when with a grating cry,
my gates slide apart,
I erupt,
spilling a river of warm lava
in the sweet throes of labour.
I am a performer. I am a writer. I am born to be free, to express. But now I feel entrapped and chained, all my emotions bundled up in me so tightly like firewood that if a spark falls I would burst into flames.
In sleep; I lie awake. In dreams; I find decay in my soul. And in words; I try to heal.
When I was a little girl, I wanted a unicorn for a pet. I didn’t tell my daddy, for he told me unicorns don’t exist. So I drew a unicorn on my brand new drawing paper block and named him Sharpie.
When I was a little girl, I wanted a best friend. When I went to school I said hi to everyone but they already had their own best friends. My new teacher had said that dogs are Man’s best friends so I decided that I wanted a dog. But Mummy had said that they are smelly and that I could not have one. So I took out my brand new drawing block and drew a brown puppy dog with big eyes like me and named him Brownie.
When I was a little girl, I wanted to run on fields and meadows. Mummy bought me Enid Blyton’s books and the little girls and boys always had lots of fun, sometimes even with their doggies. I asked Mummy why we did not have a dog like them, and she said that the house was too small. And so on my brand new drawing block I drew a big meadow with yellow blobs of daffodils, where Brownie and I can run and dance.
When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a teacher. My teacher was a very nice and pretty lady and I wanted to be like her. When she asked us about our dreams, I said I wanted to be a teacher. She smiled and said I have to study hard, and I liked that she gave me a good mark. When I went home Daddy and Mummy were out, so I took out my drawing block and taught Brownie two times two.
When I was a little girl, I wanted to fly. I saw birds in the sky and I could not understand why we were not like them. If we could fly Daddy wouldn’t have to drive. Daddy and Mummy would come home early every day and we would all be happy like the birds in the sky. So I took out my drawing block and drew a smiling me, Daddy and Mummy. Then I gave us wings so that we could all fly and be happy.
When I was a little girl, I wanted to grow up. Grown-ups seem to have more fun and studying made me tired. I wanted to be like the big girl next door who had lots of friends and who always wore beautiful colours on her face and body. I told Mummy when she came home and she told me being a grown-up is not fun at all and went to bed. So alone I took out my drawing block and drew myself with a pretty dress and lots of friends and we were all happy.
When I was a little girl, I wanted to sit on an airplane and fly in the sky. I told Daddy but he said he had to work and couldn’t bring us flying. I told Mummy but she said it was expensive and that I would get the chance to when I grow up. So I took out my used drawing block and drew an airplane in the sky, with Brownie, Sharpie and me looking out of the windows.
When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a policewoman. I saw one outside school today and all the children were scared. I thought that if I were a policewoman, everyone would not dare to bully me anymore. I went back home to tell Daddy but he was not home yet. Mummy was in the kitchen and said to not bother her, so I took out my drawing block and drew myself as a policewoman and no one dared to kick her or call her names.
When I was a little girl, I learnt about God. We all had to give thanks after recess and go to church sometimes. They told us that God loves everyone and that we are all His Children. But I did not understand why there were still people sitting in the streets with no money and why Grandpa died so early. I went back home and spoke to Aunty on the phone and she said that it was because of karma. I didn’t understand so I took out my drawing block and drew the poor people and God shining happily amongst them and they never went hungry again.
When I was a little girl, I liked to read. I spent my time after school in the library and the nice librarian always smiled and said hi to me. I decided that I liked books a lot because they always answered my questions and talked to me. I didn’t know why the children always had to call me names when all the grown-ups said that reading is good. Brownie told me to ignore them and said he still loved me. And so I took out my thin drawing block and drew a library where dogs were allowed so that Brownie and I could visit it together.
When I was a little girl, I saw a man kiss a woman on television. I asked Daddy and he said that that was what grown men and women do when they are in love. I thought boys were gross and told him I didn’t want to be in love with a boy. Daddy laughed and said that I would understand love one day. I didn’t believe him and took out my last piece of drawing paper. And after thinking for a little bit, I drew myself and Brownie and Sharpie. Then I put Mummy and Daddy in, one on each side and smiled to myself. Daddy was wrong. I understood love. Love is love.
It seems so long ago, my dear brother. So long ago when we were just carefree young kids playing around in void decks imagination running free. It seems so long ago, that awful cold December when coldness runs through my veins.
We had a conversation yesterday, my friend and I. She too, lost someone. And it awoken in me memories that we shared. Though you are gone now, you live on in me. Your spirit, your dynamism, your life. And though it hurts to think that you are not around any longer, at least Time the healing balm has worked its miracles. What used to be a crushing suffocating burn is now just a dull persistent ache that will forever remind of a closed wound sporting like a battle trophy the faint scars that once speak of pain.
My experiences has helped me to emphatise, dear brother. Though if I could, I rather not have experienced this; at least not when we are still this young. Emotions and the whole new dimension of the inner world. Mine is just so complex that I cannot even begin to express it. But I can. Only when I see others dealing with the same pain. And that’s when subconsciously, all that was previously hidden rise up to the surface. And maybe this is why I write.
I wish we had spoken more. Somehow innately, I know that you were, and will always be, there for me. Despite not speaking every single day, especially not as our lives steadily took on different tracks on diverging paths, you are still my very first best friend. Nothing will ever change that.
So perhaps I shouldn’t be telling people that I get along better with girls; that I don’t have any idea how to speak to those of the opposite gender. Because that is not entirely true, for my very first friend is you.
the deadly viper's sting the nest of hornets; no more than broken cells of a prison tripping like gaping holes of omission in snaking paths with baffling forks like mirages in the desert and maybe volatile English weather as the endless tales on newspapers skin me like the rough guillotine's noose; the last nail in the coffin Speak instead with tender touch and read me like bumps on elevator buttons shaping me with agile fingers while delicate window eyes tell me infinite shades colouring thoughts and emotions that deceive no more for rhythm of secrets vibrate harmony in waves and beats in blood-hounds' judgement
When snakes mate with white vines on fruitless coal walls Stilettos and Loafers bathe in bloodied lights shuffle-slide sweepingly over stained floors Eyeliner-Heads from charcoal paintings nod to heavy drum beats with gyrating bodies Waxed-hair, Flashy-Dress and company huddle in grape-like bunches as Perfume dances with Perspiration to Alcohol's bitter jealousy Room enveloped in drunken red mist mind and senses in perpetual limbo Enough to find a shadow without (any)body but reflections for company
Eyes follow windmills
Drawing circles into oblivion
Meet Day; sculptor
Of shadows from
Formless figure of Night
Melancholy
Paralysing in time
Delivers souls back into the past while
Bodies age with every passing
Tick
Tock
Let it wash over you.
Enter the entrancing world.
Tick
Tock
Familiar songs
Rewind reels of forgotten movies
Flashbacks-
-hold on to them
Grasp at unwinding tendrils
Hold them up in reverence to
Winds of time
Tick
Tock
Scour like grave-diggers in the mind's recesses
Perhaps in this crypt you will find
The vulnerable girl-child of this
Demonic creation
Tick
Tock
Days
Living in emotions
Nights
Living in desires
I am-
-a victim of my emotions
That I cannot deny
Wrench me apart
a lifeless marionette hanging
by
the
threads
Shredded in delicately lethal claws
Encapsulated in the
Dome of doom
Watch the spiral down
into
the
rivers
of
hell and there
Rescue me (please)
Rafts of tender words and lifebuoy hugs
Keep me
Afloat in the sea of tears and agony
Savemefrommyself
Keep
Me
Away
From
(myself)
Chain me down
Shackle the demons
Burn- set fire to thoughts
Bury- with crude soil of nonchalance and denial
Tick-
(Don't make me care please. It hurts. They hurt. Them and their piercing smiles, jeering laughter and smirking eyes. Eyes that gleam and sparkle with mirth, eyes that speak of...all that I want to avoid. Truths, I wish, were lies and lies, I hope, were the purest facts of life.)
-tock
Who can say that I have been staying in the darkness when I live in the light of my sorrows?
monologicalmuses 