Poetry
poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence ~ Audre Lorde
Loss was found
You would have thought with something missing,
things would feel lighter.
I mean, yes, I lost weight,
But I had more on my mind.
You would never have seen me leaving my house
without my headphones on.
Because I knew only music could drown out
the wind whispering your name.
And I didn’t want to hear it.
In every 'how have you been?' and 'how is everything going?',
I experimented with how far I could stretch my answer from reality.
I didn’t want to say my time was being taken up attending
the same funeral of us, a hundred times a day.
That I was and still was the only visitor.
I kept people at a distance,
I didn’t want anyone too close.
Because I didn’t want people to catch
the smell of death from my clothes.
There were two of us but only one was mourning.
Each morning, I awoke in a cemetery,
trying to bury all of the 'what ifs' under the surface.
But every tear I shed watered the dead.
into full bloom and more grief resurfaced.
So I tried sowing new seeds. I really did.
Wishing for a new garden to grow.
I would stand there weeping into my watering can.
But I realised my watering can can’t
grow miracles, though.
I thought I could gain muscle trying to bench my thoughts.
But the only thing I strengthened was my muscle memory.
I could lift ten extra kilograms at the gym much easier.
Because nothing was heavier than my thoughts.
To lighten my load I was told to focus on myself so
I would race laps in the park every day by myself.
And I would still come second.
I was doing everything I could,
But I could never outrun my grief.
And it brought me no relief to see
The seesaw we used to play on and so perfectly balance.
I should have known you were leaving forever
because your absence nailed my side so far into the ground.
I was so low I could only look upwards.
You were so high, you didn’t look down.
Or once, when you did, you couldn’t hide your smile from the sky.
I didn’t need to be reminded that you were doing better without me.
So I unsynced our pictures from the cloud.
But it still rained and it poured.
I stopped using umbrellas because
the rain followed me closer
than my own shadow did.
So I unfollowed joy and love on social media.
I would scroll past happiness and delight.
I would double tap on sorrow
I would refresh but be stuck on
the same loading screen every night.
And I’m silly in that I would fall asleep
watching it load only to wake up to
“page still not found”.
You would think with something missing,
things would feel lighter.
I mean, yes, I lost weight.
But I had more on my mind.
Watch Kavita’s reading here.
As this letter of autumn leaves
As this letter of autumn leaves
I wrote this with all intention, knowing it would find you.
Consider this hand-delivered, without stamp or address.
For here it sits in your hand, and I hope the message envelops you.
I sense the unyielding strength of your core. Without words,
your grooves expose the tales of a thousand wretched storms.
Yet against all odds, you stand unwavering, even.
And all your ambition branches far out beyond what gives you shade.
But separate from you, are the leaves.
And I see you are learning that leaves are as beautiful as they are temporary.
Everything that isn't you is the seasons.
You can love any and all of your leaves so much.
But even your favourite leaves will come and leave with each season.
But please know, none were meant to stay.
And I hope it is through watching your own leaves fall.
That the message lands, that you don't need to fall with them.
Instead, you let them teach you how to let go.
A tree without leaves is no less than a tree with, you know.
And leaves fall to pave paths for new growth.
It is only a matter of time until you sprout new leaves again.
And you will adore and mourn them through every season.
My wish for you is that you always remember you are the tree.
The one thing in this life you need to keep coming back to.
It will be the greatest thing you ever did.
For in your search for what is constant, you have always been it.
And like this paper derived from fibres of trees,
this message embodies the essence of you.
So as this letter of autumn leaves,
I hope to return you to you.
The Secret of the Ink Pot
The Secret of the Ink Pot
You dropped me into a pot of ink, with such impact
that it spilled out all my secrets. That stained and bled
through every fresh canvas a new day would offer me.
I left traces on everything I touched because my
fingertips were smudged
with darkness.
I began treading ink after hearing it try to convince my lungs,
it was harmless.
To such depths of nothing made me realise the colour black
isn't even the darkest.
The ink trudged along with me through every landscape
that I tried to escape to.
My footprints would tattoo all moments of joy,
in a way that I would never choose to.
Though, it took me a while to realise, the ink
that once threatened to drown me
was actually filling all of the empty space inside.
Fortifying me and making me whole.
Ink became the bridge I would draw
between silence and expression.
I learnt that living through hell is but a reminder,
that there must be a heaven.
And ink became a badge of honour
for the reputation you couldn't stain.
This pot of ink was not my downfall,
it was simply my awakening.
You're not asking for the moon
You're not asking for the moon
However the moon shows up,
it is always seen as "the moon".
Whether it appears as whole,
as half,
as less than half,
or barely at all -
the moon is no less "the moon".
So why, through all your phases,
do you think you're any less you?
lemonade
slathered with sweet oils and fruit butters my skin still pulps in the winter winds. i have a life full of simple pleasures. the body, a terribly incompatible temple to the mind, and not enough lavender to soothe things. bowls of soup and piles of clean fish bones, clean unfolded clothes, all well and good, yes. yet this soulless osmosis cannot be stopped through only these means.
how to break an awkward stare with a kiss,
to move from hand-holding to starry-eyed copulation. from liking the band on someone’s shirt to a deep, nearly unheard of intimacy. how to fall in love with oneself by affirming that it is okay to weep.
let’s just start here.
the body: a heavily armed, and sacred room. its incongruencies are only perceived.
put the mind on the table.
but do not poke it with that stick.
sing to her, softly.
sing to her.
PRIMARY COLORS
i. red
is splattered everywhere like paint—only it isn’t paint. like monet, he was a painter. but while monet used nine, he used one color exclusively—red, the color of intensity. great artists squeezed paint out from tin tubes but as for him, beat blue and broken, he squeezed paint out from his faintly beating heart. chest heaving, the coppery tang still sharp in the air. with shaking breaths and bitter tears the boy carved out red lines, the beginnings of his masterpiece damaged by design.
he slaps brushstroke after brushstroke down, spilling blood in the water for the sharks of reality; wildest of red petunias and poppies bloomed as he painted them to life. all these artists had their paintings sought after, cherished—oh to be valued like monet, immortalized as impressionist of sunrise and van gogh, exalted as expressionist of the starry night. as for him, scabs and scars formed over his broken mind, marring the heart of his art—red paint. after every time, he wonders in bitter amusement how it is possible that he is still numb. in silence he wished he felt a little shred of life, enough to hope that he is worth something. in agony he asks himself over and over and o-v-e-r again—
what is the dead artist’s effect?
ii. yellow
like rays of sun sparks stream out from her—golden girl is all she is. society says that laughter is the best medicine, so she blinks blindly and laughs with wild abandon; perhaps she can cure herself.
everyone’s golden girl by day, mere faceless facade by night. she is a fake, a person she cannot recognize anymore. she is pyrite masquerading as twenty-four carat—worthless, but with an appearance that fools people into thinking she is so much more than shiny fool’s gold. what is the meaning of the color yellow? she searches to no avail as the same words smirk at her, mocked by “yellow is of hope and happiness.” yet tucked away, in small letters like a suppressed whisper, taunting truths seep out: yellow is a symbol of [her] cowardice, of [her] sickness, of [her] betrayal, of [her] madness. slowly, slowly, the golden—no, pyrite girl—shatters away against the hammer of life, smiling and laughing as she descends (alone) into her spiral of yellow. unbeknownst, she is screaming at society all the way down—
why can’t i be happy, too?
iii. blue
rolls down his cheeks, large droplets of what the heart craves to say but cannot put into words. a slight sheen forms across his eyes, glistening like morning dew formed from the frigid, apathetic touch of night. crumpled in the bathroom, he clenches his fists until all his knuckles have been cracked thrice-over, until the pale-blue of his veins threaten to burst through his paper-thin skin. crumpled against the scratched wooden door, he lets his shoulders shake—irrepressible hysteria. crumpled on the laminated floor, he presses his face to the ground, a puddle forming on that swollen, water-damaged corner from all the past times he was in this exact same position.
and then he scrapes the tears off his face with his nail-bitten hands. he peels off his salt-soaked skin. he glues an unblemished one on, preparing to tell everyone not to worry about him because of course he was fine, why wouldn’t he be? because he was just not good enough, because he was undeserving of their concern. but as he walks out with the blankest of faces and the most neutral of expressions, he is still begging for an answer. knowing that today is another day of hollow hopes when he asks in vain—
when will i really be enough?
by Isabel Gan
Untitled
I find it hardest to write
When I’m happy
When my emotions are stable
Chemically balancing
Stimuli vanishing
Feeling much less like therapy
And more of a challenge
One comprehensive mountain climb
Melancholy is a tonic
That only the sad comfortably stomach
Makes the jolly man vomit
Maybe it has to be this way
Maybe I must
Absorb myself
In it’s state
Maybe by ruminating
Too hard
The happy would erase
I fear to dissect it
Lest it turns to dust
And I adore it too late
There’s a transparency
In those windows
Riddled with mildew
That the happy glass
Doesn’t have
It I struggle to see through
I wish to able to to find
Inspiration
In sunshine
In rainbows
In faerie gardens
In flowers that sit in pretty rows
But I only know how to really
Talk
Speak
Voice
Debate
Pain
And how it freezes you
How the downs in life
Reduce you
Like a jeu
But produce the best in you
Too
I want to swing from rafters with glee
And write about these things
Unapologetically
But the human in me
Sees happy as
Defeat
As far too neat
Not abstract enough
Not deep
When I’m happy
My grasp on language
Simply retreats
Maybe I’m stuck believing
Torment is living
And contentment is giving in
And that’s why these happy states
I don’t stay in
I can’t hold my happy too tight
Or like a butterfly it just might
Fly far far away
Out of my sight
So I keep worry to the side of me
And despair in my pocket
So that when I’ve lost it
That joy
That harmony
When from it I’ve been accosted
I can slot right back in
Back into the gloomy
Semantic glory
I know best
The safest kind of nest
And lay my writers block
To rest
by Forest
The Fall of 2024
Today I tried to write again, but my mind is empty and
So are my hands; I have spent them all away, on
Blouses just to prove that I lost a couple of pounds,
And bits of some things to show myself that I have more
Than a couple of pounds—my mind is far, far away, and
Yet—but—so—and—half of me has been here to bear
Witness, to bare what is left of me before it all chips
Away, a way to remember the words I have used only to
Pour the ink all over the curves and blur it all back
Together, but at least this is what remains, and what is
Left of me, the last bit of common sense that I will
Never use, from the beginning to the present end.
I am still young, I tell myself, and there is still so much
Time left in the world, all of it, time enough for only
you and I, in the lateness of the morning and the early
Beginnings at the end of the year, but every candidate For my affections brings this old feeling that only you
Bore, by land or by sea, whatever it is, there is still
Distance by heart or by proximity, so I keep ringing up
The couriers and reminding them of my free shipping,
I keep calling you up so you know that I am living, who
Cares to live if it is not for your love? Spill that apathy
From my lips to your faithless country, spit that venom
From your faith to my fate, let it go every time we touch.
Today I remind myself that I am a writer so I must write
But I have given all my words away to the garden of
False fairies and godless gnomes, I claim it’s charity but
I truly only need a facade of generosity for my vanity,
I let myself believe that I have kindness in my heart, so
I may put myself to sleep in the belief of my purity,
You have robbed me of my sentences to string you
Along, now there are no more words to fill up a meaning
And there are no more syllables to make up your song,
You have judged to sentence me to a silent misery,
If there is some regret in you, may it chain you to every
Inch of the servitude that I once volunteered for you.
I carry with me my words and our noises, I recite it with
A couple thousands steps along the way to put me in
God’s way and to my own ease—if physicality is your
Intimacy then you must be as pure as the Madonna, if
Words are my intimacy then I should be as filthy as any
Other smut on a whore, but who are you to fall to your
Feet and declare yourself my friend? And who is he to
Turn on his feet and become a heartless foe? Call it
What you want—whatever lies you may tell yourself
And wherever your heart belongs, whoever you are
Holding me now in your hand, I know a thousand
Poems cannot save me anymore, more than ever before.
by Leya Kuan
You are Just a Friend
Every lie you tell me belongs in Heaven
and every shred of truth can go right down to the depths of Hell—pour it out of half my soul and fill up your cup
Just because you are just, just because we only are just,
You make me nineteen in the same way you are, you
Bring me back to the childhood I lost when I was fifteen,
Stop the time and stop that man! Stop it all at the line,
Can’t we just be alone with no other entity to prey upon
Us? Can’t we be left alone on our own without a prayer?
Maybe I will never be her, I cannot love you because
Someone else got to get to you first, but there is this
One beating in my heart that I cannot put to a feeling,
But how nice that she got to hold you in her arms and
Declare that skin hers to feel to a fault, I get to hold you
Too but without a word to hold me accountable, even if
I am content with this worthless warmth, Winehouse has
To warn me some waiting urgency, that my heart will
Break for you every time, just because I am/was not her.
And as much as I dream and delude myself into
Believing I am some film star with a camera trailing my
My lines and my moves, you will remember that certain
Part of me that no one else will bother with, no one no
More, the more I feel, the more I would like to forget,
I write this in my underwear, I do not let you look
Under where my truth leads to, there is nothing more
Than what meets the naked eye, I am so predictable that
Everybody already knows, everybody talks as if they do.
Whatever you want to call me, love, or Leya,
Let me fall in love alone and mend the heart you did not get to break, it is not your fault that my days are filled with you, even worse when my days have no hint of you,
Have you the courage equal to my desire? I clap with
One hand tied behind my back, fingers crossed, in
Anticipation or to relieve me of any red herring you laid
Out for me to trip all over, I could swear that there was
Someone for me to love, another Troy for me to destroy.
by Leya Kuan
A Writer’s Prescription for Unexplained Aches
A large dose of words—
by candlelight and in patterned socks/ to be
found on a shelf within a strong spine/ or passed
through lips/ in song/ chant/ prayer/ apology/ in a
coffee shop with your friend with kind eyes/ cradled
in your lover’s arms/ a large dose of words/ large enough
to fill pages in blue ink/ or overflow your kitchen sink/ repeat
until you see emerald grass and a sapphire sky/ until the night
air is not hungry for your blood/ repeat until the weight of the
world lifts from the small of your back/ until each word lays
a brick for the house you needed since your bones were young
Breaded Chicken Fillet with Egg Recipe
Trigger warnings: implied eating disorder, body shaming
—
One: boneless chicken breast–spineless as you are. You laugh at the shadow of my reflection and yet you loathe yours; you simply cannot bear the sight of your own face dawning upon you. How does it feel to be wretchedly cruel, to the world and to yourself? Two: marinate Italian style. Ride the yacht you cannot afford and come home to your two-storey apartment paid with dirty money. Speak a language you cannot fathom. Call me when you need me, between the lines of “what does it all mean?”; let me ask you the same: how did you mean it all? Ridicule me, please, for not believing in a god that let your most beloved pass as though their existence were disposable. How can you live with it all, carrying the weight of your words like twisting a dull knife pierced into my wound? I make it all about me, don’t I? (I do, I do, I do) If I make this about you, will you forgive me for my untamed wit they all keep chasing me for? Three: eggs. The first crack in the shell is in the image of you crumbling beneath the lightest of pressure. The unfamiliar has always been daunting, hasn’t it? I wonder if you think of me now, between the lines of the poem you so desperately try to comprehend, yet it remains unbeknownst to you. Where has your brain gone amidst all the facade that is your beauty? Does it hide beneath all your grandeur? Four: garlic. Freshly minced to perfection. You do have an eye for it, don’t you? Every crevice of my existence is a sin for yours. All that I am was a pitiful cry for help; the girl meant to be at the back of the photograph—were their preening eyes enough to make a saint out of you? Serve on a sizzling plate. Hot and scorching and burning through your bones. It was debilitating to be known by you. The love I know of now at the touch of my fingertips is a far cry from the grasp of your cold hands. Let me devour what I deserve for it is all mine—none of the food in your mouth is ever worth digesting. I am sorry for choking you with a love you never deserved. I have learned my lesson to not swallow things I cannot fit in the roof of my mouth. All of it now is teeth and gums–a vision you would surely die for. Wallow in the limelight of my glory, would you? The pleasure is all mine.
I will not swallow the mothballs you try to feed me
I am at my softest physically and mentally
and that makes some people uncomfortable
(with themselves).
Statues of aphrodite reveal that the goddess of beauty and love
had some meat on her bones, as do I,
but I know I am not the West’s ideal type.
Maybe that’s why I’m not allowed to take up more space.
Maybe that's why I’m given less room to wiggle in.
My ass and tits have grown a bit
when it happened; I didn't realize that it was sacrilege.
I wonder what Taino deity represents beauty. I wonder what she looks like.
Is her hair long? Does she view herself as a her? Does she think she is beautiful? Or does that assessment come from others? Does she even care for beauty? Or is it just a known part of her?
I’ve gone through a metamorphosis and came out the other end thicker.
Who says the caterpillar must become a butterfly?
Maybe I’m a moth.
I like my softness, it makes me sturdier, and don’t we all need some padding
from the beatings of this world
from the beating of our own hearts
from the beating of the drums that tells you to get back up.
The butterfly is drawn to the flower.
I am drawn to the light
in the darkness.
BLOOD SUCKING SUCCUBUS
You’ve stuffed my heart with empty words
Fatten and full, ripe for picking.
You’ve eaten the hearts of all those before me
But you won’t eat mine.
You’ve bitten, nibble, sucked,
No more than a mouthful
But you won’t fill your belly on me.
Find someone else to roll over,
Crack open their ribs and feast on their soul
Fill your desolate tank of broken hearts,
But you won't get mine.
Not over my dead body
Or my blood-fattened heart.
PENT UP
I wanna rip every fingernail out from beneath
my skin and stick metal screws in their place
I wanna throw punches through a wall
with the temperament of a white man
as I watch the nail slow jam their
way further into my finger, so I’ll
Have a reason.
All I need is a reason.
I wanna slice open my skin and pull back
Each layer of fat and a muscle, rummage
Through each tendon until I find the veins I’ve never seen
glow through the first layer of my skin
And pluck at my veins until my heart stops,
So I’ll have a reason.
All I need is a reason.
I wanna rip my jaw clean off my skull
then people will finally fucking listen to me.
MARIGOLDS
“You’re worth more than marigolds” but less than your shoes. Footprints left on the petals of my skin and the roots of my mind. Brittle and bruised, picked and used by you. Absent of any light or hope, I’ll wait for you. After all you put me through, I’ll wait for you. You planted yourself next to my self-worth and shouted “Pick me, pick me”. As soon as I took you back, you bruised me. A wilted flower in a pretty garden, no one will want me.
I. won’t. wither.
When my husband turned 70
They gave him a cane carved
with the body
of the red-winged sparrow.
I was left
with dried lily petals
melting into my tongue
as I peeled
hardened skins of summer
grapes beneath my fingernails.
When my husband turned 75
He brought a dancing girl home.
Her name sounded like
"Red-tipped carnation of the West Wind"
She plucked the seeds out of
spring strawberries
with slender twin fingers.
When my husband turned 80
He filled my bowels with
cheap white wine
and forced me to sleep with
alley-way cats.
I shared a feast
of rotting salmon and fishbone
with the blind black
tiger.
When my husband died
Our son carried me upon his back
to the Forest of One Thousand Whispers
He set me beneath the eldest oak
Kissed my spotted cheek and
bade me a tearless farewell.
Still,
My legs entwine
with the roots of the
great Oak, my fingers take the flight
of ten thousand cerulean
swallows
My lips form the
babbling brook of the east meadow
as my eyes turn to
seaglass
beneath unturned stones.
I. won't. wither.
Sacred ground
What is sacred ground?
Is it a ground steeped in rituals —
poured libations penetrating earth
finding routes to ancestors and memory?
Is it a place that holds the dead
or once-dead?
Is it a place where spirits walk
haunted by the irreverent nature
of those with flesh and bone ?
Is this body a sacred ground?
Does it remain sacred if others
have exploited,
treated it like a mining ground
emptied it of treasures,
planted seeds of death –
Left it hollow?
Is this body still hallowed
if no one is there to say a prayer
for its healing?
(my tongue has found no language yet for healing words)
If ancestors don’t hear it’s cries
to find their way back
to this body
to gift it flight
and
grounding.
Is this body still sacred ground if it’s not seen?
My body in your mouth
Baby fat:
To my mother you say:
she cute eeh,
watch har likkle chubby cheeks
and chunky thighs
I could just love har up.
I coo and smile, not understanding.
Pickney tings:
To my mother you say:
yuh never breastfeed har enough,
look how she look malnourished,
mawga bad bad; look how she tough?
I look down at skinny legs,
skinny, strong legs,
skinny, strong, brown legs
that let me run from boys who want to touch what’s not theirs
that lift me up into trees that girls
shouldn’t climb
that make me keep in step with
my granddad’s long strides.
I was confused.
Force ripe:
To my mother you say:
pickney nuh fi get breast so soon
smaddy must a feel dem up;
go get har checked out –
mark my words.
I look down at the bumps
raised higher than welts
nipples protruding beyond the swells
my tears rolled off them
like waterfalls over mountains.
I do not understand my body’s changing
I do not want this change
I squeeze them like pimples
they do not burst
but keep growing like
ripened fruits upon my chest.
I do not understand this change in my body.
Grown:
To me you say:
When di baby due? Di belly look round eeh.
A hope a nuh girl pickney yuh going have –
dem gi too much trouble fi raise.
I look down at my belly
empty of womb –
the site of life
and death.
I look at its softness
the rolls that shake
when I belly laugh
the joy that bubbles up and can’t be contained
the rolls that shake when I dance
when no one’s looking
the rolls that lovers hang on
to for dear life
when riding that high wave.
I smile,
I understand.
my body
that holds me up
it brings me joy
and pain in equal measure
it is a source of beauty
and shame
But it deserves to be loved
every inch of it
deserves all the sweet
and empowering things to be whispered over it
etched on it like a mural.
I reach over to you
I part your lips,
gently at first
(you are surprised)
I put my fingers in
then my hand
I grip firmly on to your tongue
and rip my beautiful body from
your mouth
I understand:
my body has no home there –
there with its putrid lies.
I leave you tongue-less and bloody
grabbing at your throat
missing the way
my body used to sit in your mouth.