Copycat

Pages torn off notebooks
Backs of receipts
You collect them all
Write poems on them
Words about exes
People we don't know
Emotions I haven't
Ever felt in my life

You write word after word
For whom I don't know
You collect them all
In drawers and boxes

When someone asks you
What have you to show of your life
You have all these poems
Written over the years

But as they read them
As I read them
All I see is
Words belonging to another

For what you have to show
Of your entire life
Is after all
Words copied from another

Relief

After everything had been said and done
And there was nothing else left
To say and do
I turned to look at you
Expecting to see in your eyes
Anger, exhaustion, hate
But all I saw was relief

You were relieved to let me go

Grief

You asked me why I hadn't written anything
And I told you I was grieving
You told me that grief was what
The best poems are born out of

But three years ago
Nearly four
It didn't feel like a time to sit and write
Because the only words I could think of were
She's gone. She's gone. She's gone.

Was I to write about a grave covered in flowers?
Because she didn't have one
And even if she did
It would have been to freshly covered for flowers to have time to grow

Was I to write about the loss I felt?
It had only been, what? 24 hours?
I wasn't even past denial
By then

Was I to write about how everyone felt?
The disbelief? The fear? The unbelievable sadness
That filled us all?
How could I when everything that had happened, every word I heard, every face I saw
When it all felt so unreal?

You told me to use my grief to write
To put all my thoughts to words
To make poetry out of it all
But you forgot to see that
This grief had left me so emptied
I couldn't even think straight

Repeat

Who'd have thought that five years later
I would be once again
Stuck on repeat
With this goddamn song

Five years ago, it felt like something
I'd want to hold on to
And now, it's the one thing
That's keeping me from drowning

Haircut

Until you cut your hair
I didn't realize how sharp your beauty was
Your eyes were slits made on your skin
Your teeth could tear through anything
Your nose was pointed
Just like your chin
And maybe for most people
There was no beauty to be found in your face
But behind that sharpness that put blades to shame
There was something so soft and pure
That made me too afraid to
Reach out and touch you

Shut up

Sometimes
When you talk
When you just never shut up
I want to get a needle and a spool of thread
And sew your lips together
Shut your mouth forever

And sometimes
The only way I get to the end
Of yet another one of your rants
Is imagining in great detail
The needle
The thread
I will use
To sew that damn mouth shut

Thank you

I can't remember what I was doing at the time
I can't even remember what time it was
During the day, I think
But it suddenly hit me that perhaps you had left
My mind
Finally let me free from you
From all those memories of you and I

And if this is it
For us
Then thank you
For this freedom
I so badly have been in need of

Thank you

Beanstalk

It’s like a creeper
This unhappiness
A creeper that grows overnight
Like Jack's beanstalk
It grew roots
And spread its branches
Inside me
An unhappiness
That is now just a tangle of branches
Growing and growing
When will it end?

A little while longer

You were supposed to be here
For a little while longer at least
Until I figured some stuff out
You were supposed to be here

Intimacy

I’m craving an intimacy I’ve never known
I yearn for a shoulder to rest my head against
A hand to brush against mine
Someone to just be with
And be in love with
I miss an intimacy I’ve never known
One I may never know

A boy I used to know

You've become

That boy I used to know

Who would have thought back then

That you would be reduced to that

A boy I used to know 

You

What I liked the most about you
Was that I didn't have to pretend
You let me be exactly what I was
You never laughed at my insecurities
Or fears, as absurd as they may have seemed
You never grew tired of listening to me
Rant about one thing or the other
You were there for me
At eight in the morning
Eleven in the night
Time didn't matter at all

What I miss the most about you
Is how you would pause before you spoke
Those few seconds of silence
Between everything that I said
And everything that you said
Said much more than the words
Either of us chose
Now
I rarely finish sentences
And people always interrupt
There is no silence
That lets me say what I need to say
Lets you say what you need to say

What I hate the most about you
Is that you left.

Surrounded

By love
I'm surrounded by love
And it pains me that
I cannot participate
In the game of loving
And being loved
That is going on around me

Cigarettes

You smell of cigarettes
No surprise
Since you smoke all the time
I still remember the first time I saw you
A cigarette between those lips
I so wanted to kiss

And five years ago
If we'd met five years ago
I'd have been repulsed by you
You would have reminded me of death
And sickness
Those images of charred lungs
Cheeks with massive holes in them
Images in our science textbooks
On cigarette cartons
The health risks of smoking
You would have reminded me of them

But today
I don't care anymore
I'm no longer repulsed
So I take a deep breath
Inhale that smell of cigarettes
You carry around with you
I want to fill my insides with it

I want to walk up to you
Hold you
Kiss you with all I've got
But then leave
Because I can never love you
Not now

Ironic

Because five years ago
My heart was yet to turn to stone
I was still capable of love
And I would have fallen head over heels
In love with you

The art of not writing

What I love to do:

If there's one thing I truly love doing
It's to write
The scratch of a pen against paper
Recharges my batteries
The clack clack clack
Of a typewriter, keyboard
They are the air I breathe in
I take out my notebook with a sense of pride
When people tell me they can't remember
When they last wrote something
Because to write is to create
Letters unique to me
A page filled with squiggles
To be found nowhere else


What I'm good at doing:

I have stories built up in my mind
Like skyscrapers displayed on construction sites
That are nothing more than empty land
With a worker's hut in a corner
When I can't sleep at night
I build these stories even higher
I know them from beginning to end
But I can't write them
They don't pour out of my fingers
Staining paper with ink
So I close my notebook
Hide it because I'm ashamed
Ashamed of its blank pages
Ashamed of the unused pen
Ashamed that I've mastered
The art of not writing

Quiet

I want to reach out
But I don't know how
So I swallow my words
I choke on them

You think I don't care
Because I never ask
But can't you see
These words are stuck in my throat

I want to tell you
Everything you want to hear
But I can't move my lips
My mouth is so dry

You wait for me to speak
But your patience runs dry
So you walk away
And I choke to death

Roses are red

As songs from before I was born
Play on the radio
Celebrating love
I find myself missing a boy
That isn't mine

headache

All the pain

That courses through my body

Has now formed a clot

In my head

The pain in my knee

And ankle that makes me wince

When I walk

Has now formed roots in my head

The pain in my wrist

That comes and goes

Making me consider a career

In anything but writing

Has found its way deep into my head

The pain in my chest

When I over-exert myself

With exercise or walking

When my lungs tighten

Begging for air

The pain that stabs at my chest

Has crawled into my head

All the pain

That courses through my body

Has now formed a clot

In my head

It has come to a standstill

And every movement

Feels like a stab right through my skull

Loud noise

And bright light

Feel deafening

Blinding

I was to cut open my skull

And remove that clot

Before it

Bursts

Present

You have become the person I write for

Even though you are no longer a person I love

Temporary

For the first time in a while

I'm happy

.

This is not the kind of

filled-to-the-brim happiness

that'll have me

running down the streets

with a dozen balloons

tied to a dozen ribbons

This is not the kind of

in-your-face happiness

that reminds me of

sunflowers and sunshine

so much yellow

warm

the colour of happiness

This is not the kind of

all-consuming happiness

that spreads like a

juicy rumour or

common cold

it's not contagious

my happiness won't make you happy

.

No

This is a different kind of happiness

.

This is the kind of happiness

that only shows itself

in a smile that is no longer forced

This is the kind of happiness

that fills me not with butterflies

fluttering about, but a calm emptiness

This is the kind of happiness

that makes me want to hold on to it

for as long as it lasts

The clock is ticking

Hurry now

We are running out of time

To say I love you

And later, fuck you too

We are running out of time

To fall hopelessly in love

And then slowly

Fall out of love 

Hurry now

Before it's too late

And we never get to finish

This thing we've started

Hurry now
We are running out of time
To go from strangers to lovers to enemies
To strangers once again

Sunday morning

It's a Sunday
The last of the month
The sun only rose
An hour ago
For now
Everyone else is asleep
Except
The birds outside

I love these moments of quiet
When it's just me
And a cool morning
They can fill me with a strange energy
Make me hope
And dream
I have faith, during these moments,
That life will work out

But it gets so quiet sometimes
That my mind gets too loud
Then I can't hope or dream
I can't focus or think
I can't feel that quiet content that comes with such
Sunday mornings
All I can do is to
Let the sadness in
Let it embrace me
Be one with it

Roses

He drew on me
On my skin
He drew roses
All over me
He said they made me
Look beautiful
He drew on me
On my skin
Roses
So many of them
He drew on me
On my skin
With a blade

Familiar

Ah this sadness

So familiar

Settling down

In my bones

Blood and flesh

When I least expect it to

Like a suit of armour

But

Instead of protecting

Merely weighs me down

Blocks out

Sunlight

Fresh air

This sadness

It's never gone for good

Desperate

Why do we talk about desperation
Like it's such a bad thing

Like it's sad to be desperate for some love
To yearn for someone whose hand you can hold
Someone to love
Be loved by
Why is it so pathetic
For someone to be so in need of
Some love?

Why is love okay as long as you aren't looking for it
But have already found it
With your public displays of affection
Timelines full of your posts
Images and text
Reminding me of
The love you have found
But the love I can't look for
Because it'll make me seem
So fucking desperate
And sad

Why do we shame people
For wanting this one little thing in life
Hoping for a future
As short as it may be
With someone
They are told they can't have
Who is way out of their league

Why do we laugh at people
Who just want to be with someone
To share a bottle of wine with
Get a little tipsy, count stars with
A warm body next to theirs
When they wake up in the morning

Why is it so bad
Pathetic, so sad
To be desperate for a love
They've never known
Or once had but lost?

Death

I have avoided death
Of other people
All my life

When my grandmother woke me up one night
At 11.40pm
And told me she didn't feel well
As her body felt so light
And yet so heavy
Against my arm
Some part of me knew
She was dying
And so I left the room
And looked away
As they carried her body
On a stretcher
I hid from her
I hid from death

When my cat, Johnny Meowing, was sick
I refused to accept he was too old, too far gone
To be brought back to good health
And wanting him to live a longer life
I left him overnight at a hospital
And so when the call came
The next day
That he had died
A small part of me knew
As I answered that call
From an unsaved number
That it was bad news
And so I wasn't with him as he died
And I never saw his body

Two weeks ago
While I was away from Colombo
We got a call in the morning
One of the kittens had been found dead
And I broke into tears
But when we got home later that day
His tiny body
Had already been buried
So I never had to deal with death
That day

Last week
My luck ran out
And I couldn't avoid death any longer
Another kitten was dead
And I had to lift his tiny lifeless body
Which felt so heavy
And place him in a box
All the while
With tears streaming down my face
As I felt death coat my skin
Crawl into me
And go to sleep in a corner
Waiting for the day it would awake
And get me

Hunger

There is a hunger
Growing in me
That I'm ashamed of

A hunger that I ignore
By feeding my body
Food -mostly the unhealthy kind
Work- more than I can handle
Problems- that aren't mine

I try to keep myself busy
Distracted
But that hunger grows in me

And I'm ashamed
Nearing the quarter-century mark
And starving for something so...
Basic? Silly?
What's wrong with me?

But there is a hunger
Growing in me

For love

Not today

Most days
I can leave the house

But there are always those other days
When I can't

I have a wash
Get dressed
And then
Something stops me

I try to fight against myself

But I'm already dressed up
I might as well go
Versus
Are you sure you want to go today
Just doesn't seem like a good idea

And so I change out of my clothes
And come up with an excuse

It was too hot
I was feeling tired
There was some work I had to do
I felt a tummy ache coming on

And they believe me
They believe all those excuses
That hide the real reason of
I just couldn't

Locked

I check the locks
And they are bolted shut
And I check them again
And again
Satisfied
I go to bed
And a voice whispers
'Check them again'
I ignore it
Try to sleep
But the voice keeps getting louder
'Check them again
Check them again'
Until I do
A fourth a fifth a sixth time
And go to sleep
And this time
There is no whisper
That grows into a scream

Depression

Younger, we once were
And so used that word
With such ease
'I'm so depressed'
We'd say
With no fear
No need for denial

And now
I wish I could go back to those days
When we fought for independence
Freedom
Like we were prisoners
When our parents only meant well
And we thought the frustration
Anger
Hurt
Confusion
Building in our insides
Was depression
'I'm so depressed'
We'd say
After an argument
With family

And now
I feel the tendrils of depression
Softly graze my cheek
It's never here fully
And so I never use that word anymore
But it's in the background
A silent observer
And I feel its presence
When momentary happiness
Is cut short by an intense sorrow
When goals can't be achieved
Dreams can't be chased
Work can't be done
Just because

And it's sometimes
Too difficult to leave the bed the room the house
It all gets a bit too much
There is an itch
My fingers
Inside of my elbows
Back of my knees
Neck
I need to bite my nails
And then there's blood
Stings when I mix rice with curry
Just so my mother wouldn't worry
That I have eaten only one meal that day

And it hurts
To take another step
Take another breath
Write another word
It's so heavy
This world

But even this
It's not depression
And that's what scares me
That it can get worse
It's worse for other people
And how do they survive?

Ordinary day

Today is just another
Ordinary day

But somewhere
A man is dying
Takes his final breath
His family around him
Crying

A child sits next to her puppy
Her hand on its head
It rests against her
She smiles
Hums her favourite song

A flower blooms
Bright and yellow
The flower of the sun
A butterfly flits around it
Flies away

Two friends part ways
After years of living as
One being
The one doing the leaving
Looks back one final time and waves

He looks at her
Her skin is rosier than...
Her eyes have a certain sparkle missing from...
He chooses between
The woman he loves and the one he lusts after

He looks at the boy across the room
Looks away as soon as their eyes meet
Blushes at being caught
Takes a chance, looks at that boy again
Their eyes lock, hearts fuse together

She hears the door open
And then close
Feels his body next to hers
Looks into his deep brown eyes
Knows it's over

And somewhere
You smile as she lights the candles
Stuck on the cake she made
As she sings happy birthday
Just you and her

And somewhere
I remember
As I do year after year
That today is anything but an
Ordinary day

Today

Apparently
Today is World Poetry Day
And admittedly
What I write doesn't have
Any resemblance to poetry

And yet
Today
On World Poetry Day
My heart is too empty
Mind too tired
Body too worn out
To do any writing

Tears

You told me not to cry
As if losing the one person
That meant the world to me
Was not worth crying about.

Wolf

To the boy whose message I never replied to

I’m sorry
Truly
It all became a little too much
All at once

You see
At first
I was blinded
By the thought that maybe this was it
Maybe you were the one
It seemed like a real possibility
And I'm just a silly girl
So I clung on to that thought

Then reality hit me
I saw you for what you really were
The wolf hiding beneath the
Skin of a sheep

So I dropped you
Just like that
Even though wolves can be loved
Just as much as sheep are

Cracked

What we think is heartbreak

Is only a crack

Tiny

But it feels like our heart has been shattered

Like a glass dropped

Pieces

That’s what we picture our hearts as

In pieces

But it’s just a little crack

Nothing significant

Except it hurts

Like a blade

Against skin

And once again

There is a crack in my heart

Caused by loss

More and more loss

The living keep dying

And I can’t cope anymore

And my heart feels so heavy

Even with all those cracks

Around the edges

Slowly reaching the center

My heart

Threatening to snap

In half

I can’t breathe

I need everything to stop

Everyone I’ve lost

To come back

Hold me tight

Fill in those cracks

To stop me from

Breaking

Mother

My mother taught me a lot of things

But she never taught me how to love myself

Sugar and salt

I realize now
That what I miss
Isn't you

It's how happy I was
During the short time
I knew you

Maybe it is you
But people, I've learned,
Are replaceable

Emotions
Are a different story
Entirely

After all
There are substitutes for sugar
When I make a cup of tea

But no ingredient in this world
Can match what salt does
To a curry

Fear

Sometimes
I'm consumed by this fear
Rooted in the pain you caused
And the love I still feel for you.

February 14

Yesterday

When I was surrounded by love
That belonged to other people
And was filled with none
Myself

I didn't miss you one bit

And it scared me
Just a little too much

Bad guy

And when it came down to it
I couldn't cut off that final string
Connecting you to me
I had the scissors in my hand
I wanted to get rid of you completely
But I just couldn't
And it wasn't because I wanted you
It wasn't because I cared about you

I'm just too tired of always being the bad guy
Paying for crimes I never committed
Doing the dirty work because no one else wants to

So pick up those scissors
Cut all ties between us
Do this one thing for me
I'm begging you

Wind

Do you know what it is like

To have your heart broken into such tiny pieces

That you are afraid to move

In case you stir the sleeping air around you

And the pieces of your heart

Get blown away

Leaving you forever incomplete

Forever broken-hearted

What did you do?

What did you do to me boy
To make me write so much for you
Even when it's been so long
Since anything happened between us
For anyone to know for whom I write
And it's been so long that
I should be forgetting
Your voice, your face
Everything
Everything
But you did something to me boy
And now I can't forget
Even when I want to

ABC

I'm like a child
Struggling to learn
The alphabet
Because the ABC of pain
I just can't wrap my head around
And whenever I think
I've learned my lesson
Something from the
Deep and raw unknown
Of loss, grief, hurt
Knocks me to the ground
Spits on me
Kicks my sides
Laughs at me
As I struggle to breathe

Why'd you have to leave?

I need you here
To help me out of this rut
This cesspit of pain
That's been collecting since you left

I need you here
To get me back on my feet
To help me breathe
Ease the pain in my chest

I need you here
More than ever before
And my heart aches
Knowing you are never coming back

Distraction

I need someone

-Anyone would do at this point-

To make me forget all about you

Even if only for a moment

Because who'd have thought

The years would pass by

And I'd still be stuck

Thinking about you

Afraid

I was afraid because
He was an adult and I a child
And who would they believe
A little girl
Who could so easily be
Misreading a situation
They were too young to fully understand
Or an adult
A responsible one at that

I was afraid because
I was an adult and he a child
And they wouldn't believe this child
Was old enough to make a woman uncomfortable
Say such sexually explicit things
They would shame me for
Misreading the situation
Making things up

I was afraid because
I didn't want him near me
His hands on me
But he dismissed my resistance
And who would they believe
The significant other
Or the girl who didn't actually say no

I was

I am afraid because
I can't move
I feel trapped
Can't breathe
Everything
Is closing in
The walls
Him
Next to me
His sticky body
Right side
Pressed against my left
And please may it be a mistake
Maybe he's asleep
Maybe I'm taking too much space on this seat
If I say anything
The other passengers
Will they make it worse for me
Breathe in
Breathe out
Maybe I'm misreading the situation
Maybe I'm

I'm just so afraid