Scale of one to ten

Word of the day: Cherubic

of or having the nature of a cherub, or an angel represented as a rosy-cheeked child with wings; angelic

Today,

I feel ugly

And before you say

One's self-worth is not

Determined by how

They are perceived or treated

By others

Know that, on any other day,

I would agree

Whole-heartedly

But today,

Just this one day

I can't help but look at everyone else

Their cherubic faces mocking me

And feel like a minus

On a scale of one to ten

Today,

I don't need to hear the truth

Sugar coated

I don't need to be told that

Things will get better

If only I could bide my time

They've all been wrong people

So far

The right one will come along

Any minute now

Today,

I don't need to be comforted

Or even pitied

Today, I need you to let me be sad

And angry and annoyed and

Irritated

I need you to let me be

Drafts

In my drafts, there sits a poem, for us

Incomplete, like us

Sometimes, I read it, consider writing the rest

Wonder if enough time has passed

For it to be just a poem

Devoid of any connection to you

But years could pass and those words

Would always always always

Remind me of the one night

That was ours

Bilious

Word of the day: Bilious

Extremely unpleasant or distasteful

You once asked me why I was so cranky and I didn't really know what to say

Because this is how I've always been and I can't really help it if the

Universe is just never on my side, now can I?

But a character in a show I watched a few days ago spoke about how

The anger within her could someday distance everyone from her

Leaving her alone, a gorilla in a cage with no one to take care of her

And I would be lying if I said that scene didn't bother me in the least because

Truth be told, I hate how angry and cranky and irritable and unpleasant I can be

It makes me so tired, by the end of the day, to carry all of that in me

Like bile, sloshing around my insides, burning everything it comes into contact with

It feels like I always have my guard up, sword drawn, ready to defend myself

Even when no one's around me, even when I can relax, take a deep breath

And maybe that's why you left, why no one ever seems to stay

Saturnian

Word of the day: Saturnian

prosperous, happy, or peaceful

the consequences no longer matter

we can't afford to think about what follows

we will do as we please

run naked across fields if we have to

drink way too much, hangover be damned

open our hearts, talk about our deepest fears

love and be loved

grab on to those fleeting feelings of joy

and make the world ours

we will turn the present into

one we can look back at fondly

when years have passed and our hair is grey

skin wrinkled, sight weakened

we will complain about backpain and

tiredness

all the pills our doctors have prescribed

down a shot of arrack

-still the best medicine-

and look back at these saturnian days

Roles reversed

Would it have been as easy if I had been the dumper

And you, the dumpee?

Would you have quietly accepted the end for what it was

And left without protest?

fragments

(Word of the day: disjecta membra

scattered members; disjointed portions or parts: applied to fragments of poetry or fragmentary quotations)

they come to me in fragments

words strung together

slowly traced back to you

we'll play it by ear

and see how it goes

i remember very little now

from those times

how many years have passed

since?

they don't need to know

this is between us

the space you occupy in my heart

has shrunk

it was bound to happen

crows mate for life

you know

i thought my heart would be

exorcised by now

there have been others since

so easily forgotten

no feelings

nothing that makes this difficult

but still, you are here

so stubborn

always so stubborn

did you fall

in love with me?

like the smell of cigarettes

that clings to everything

like wine that stains lips

i told you not to

Nubilous (Word of the day)

I stand in the aisle with the spices on one side and the pasta and noodles

On the other and I turn around once and then again

And look at the list that is in my left hand along with my

Wallet and phone that then beeps and it's about what

A protest march, another death in a queue, gas shortages

I don't even know anymore if anything more could go wrong in this

Country that they've burnt to the ground with their corrupt

Incompetent don't-give-a-fuck leadership such a joke

But wait why am I in this aisle with the spices, do I need spices

I don't think so

A trolley first and a person follows, turning into this same aisle

He stops near the sauces, ah yes, I needed a can of mushroom

Canned food is safe, you can keep them for much longer

The canned food is in front of the sauces, mostly a luxury now

We mostly buy essentials, even though we can afford a few luxuries

There is so much guilt when so many can't eat or feed their families

When we are looking at an uncertain future where we may have nothing

To eat ourselves

Just money printed, valueless, the soil on land inherited

My mother walks up to me, complains about the price of fish

A kilo of something or the other

Almost what therapy cost two years ago

I need to go back, have the slime and fog and dust and cobwebs

In my head cleaned and removed

But for now, we walk away with our can of mushrooms

Some vegetables and a loaf of bread

She asks me about dinner and I shrug because talking

Is more than I can manage right now

souvenir

I keep things, this is why my room is a mess

Train tickets I bought to get to work

Pieces of paper on which grocery lists are written

Receipts from restaurants, movie tickets

Cards from friends and family

Coins from countries once visited

Envelopes with birthday wishes scrawled on them

Bo leaves, once green, now brown

Stones and seashells

I keep things, they clutter every surface in my room

And in boxes are all the things my grandmother made for me

Little crochet hearts and bags and pigs and squares

Orange, red, blue, purple, pink and green

Every chain so carefully stitched

I kept them all because these are things she left me

But today, I threw one away that had a stain on it

Burnt it before I could change my mind

A month ago, perhaps, I would have kept it

But today, out it went with a bag full of

Receipts and cards and pieces of paper and train tickets

Years ago, I threw away that one gift you gave me

I kept it with me, long after it stopped being of any use

But one day, when I was cleaning my room

I put it in with some other things in a garbage bag

It meant nothing to me, it has been so long since we last spoke

Recently, I was sorting through a box full of notebooks

Collected over the years, one of the perks of the job

They were taking up space and one has to be stingy with space

And love and happiness and other things

I flipped through the books in case there was something of value

And found myself looking for things I remember you writing

Doodles and words

All I could find was my own writing, barely legible, large, ugly, messy

I remember your writing being neat and small

But perhaps I'm wrong about this

I'm wrong about a lot of things these days

But in the trash those book too, went

And now, I feel like I'm one step closer to fully cleansing myself of you

There are journals I kept during those times

And truth be told, you make an appearance or two

But I can't seem to part with them

They remind me of times, not necessarily better

But definitely different

Strange because journals from more recent times

Notes taken down during therapy

They've all been thrown away

Funny, isn't it, how much distance there is between us

And yet how tied this memory of you is to me

Seven years (Coronach)

Word of the day: Coronach

In four days time it'll be seven long years since you passed

Waking me up at a quarter to midnight on the last Sunday of the month

To tell me you couldn't breathe and it didn't take long for you to take your final breath

And then that was it, you were dead

This is selfish, I know, but what I hated the most about your death

Besides your sudden absence from my life after having you by my side

Since the day I was born

Was the way everyone expected me to be strong

I'd just lost you and it felt like my world was collapsing around me

And people told me that I would get through it because

I'd had that final day with you, unlike grandkids who, by choice,

Had moved to countries that were oceans away from you

And I looked at that wooden casket you were in, closed, so I never had to see

What you looked like when you were no longer alive

And later, you were smoke and ashes, dust

Surrounded by people, I watched you go, never having felt so alone in my life

And now, seven long years later, I still want you here

Talk to the photograph we have of you in the living room

I tell you things and sometimes, let myself cry

Whisper that I wish I could join you in the afterlife

Red, white and rose

Word of the day: Oenology

Reds fill my stomach too quickly

Sitting there, heavy

Staining glass and lips

Weighing my heart down

I focus on my breath

Inhale and exhale

Force myself to remain in the present

Whites are the perfect buzz

Clean going down my throat

Everything looks so surreal

Like I'm surrounded by

Fairy lights and fireflies

In those moments the world

Is just so fucking beautiful

A rare treat, a rose is

Bubbles bursting against my tongue

A little dance of joy

Merriment, good things

Being transported to a different life

For a short while

Sitting on a beach

Sharing a bottle with

Someone I love