Prancing up and down on a giant rock,
she moves yet never leaves her place;
the sun stretches itself like a pencil yearning for touch,
longing to scribble without restraint;
mountains carve a line splitting sky and sea,
spilling orange neatly into the still grey of waters;
she notices a lone fisherman down on his knees—perhaps luck too,
an almost blemish on an almost effortless canvas;
marveling at the distance covered, wondering if he will give up,
she turns her gaze outward, as if to ask:
will he choose to be - or not to be?
and I, watching the light bend over sky and water,
feel the weight of his choice ripple across the distance,
settling like stones between her and me.

-

t for trepidation

whispers of nothings in the dark of night,
lullabies gone awry across the stretch of twilight,
stillborn stories with nowhere to go,
inherit from me, wherever you go;
a hummingbird, two squirrels - Bob & Steve,
begonias, ficuses, all these trees,
greetings that carry the power to free,
all that you ignore, still owes itself to me;
some days wait for silence to break,
some days wait silently to break,
some days are adamant to pass by slower,
but everyday I’m why you have no closure;
unfinished lists, procrastination that won’t quit,
unkept promises stemming from lack of grit,
like an abandoned bookmark in pages you won’t turn,
you’re stranded in the middle with too much to learn;
I’m your daemon, I’ll never be gone,
but I need my own place to calm the fuck down,
until then unchecked, untamed, I’ll roam,
in your heart, bones, thoughts, and everything
like I’m home!

-

that you haven’t conversed;
sometimes it’s the language
of a heart too full to speak;
other times, it holds the
loudest message - one that
you must be willing to hear!

-

the letter d

sneaked into my mind a few days back
without meaning, without purpose,
outlandishly waving its presence in my face;
it crowded my mind with words like
deception, dysfunction, despair,
disappointment, dread, depression,
death, the dying;
and as the dark deepened,
i was reminded of this neat little trick
a teacher showed me once,
‘compartmentalization’, to survive such eclipses;
so i built little boxes in my mind,
labeled with brittle words, despair went here,
disappointment there, dread stayed locked away,
but the dying refused a place, spilling out, unconfined;
some words, I realized,
like certain feelings and people
cannot be contained in boxes,
they seep into every corner, until they are felt,
without limits and without escape!

-

if i die tomorrow
and don’t get to say goodbye,
if i close my eyes tonight
and choose to stay in the dream forever,
should i follow the metaphorical light
instead of turning away from it,
know that i first went searching -
for green grasses and tall tassels,
and fairy godmothers and unicorn babies,
and everything joyous the world has to offer;
know that I searched, truly,
for courage to live and strength to fight;
i would have stepped off the sidelines too
had I not lost faith in the game!

-

Sometimes, when you cannot change for the people around you, then perhaps you should change the people around you!

-

the universe made me its bitch when I tried to take it on with rationality!

-

the thing with ‘this too shall pass’ is that sometimes ‘this’ ends up being the person instead of the situation.

-

they think
I am broken
and it’s their job
to fix me
but I think I am
only a little wonky;
it’s all the wear
and tear of life,
the universe,
and everything
which makes me
stick out like a fork
in a drawer
full of spoons!

-

Some people will always want to be someplace else!

-