Poetry
poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence ~ Audre Lorde
The grief eater
When my grandfather died
I thought my world would end.
My grandmother, teary eyed
And shaky voiced, said to me
“You wished it was me
they laid in that casket, nuh true?”
I, eyes swollen and tongue heavy
from biting back words, let loose
“He should be here with me now
He should not be the one
Who wanders through these rooms
formless and untouchable.”
I did not wait to watch her tears fall;
I never thought she could cry.
She let a choke-sound escape
but she hit her chest twice
then swallowed loudly
and walked briskly away.
Years on years would fly by and
grief became a muted song
But my words to her would remain
gnawing at my tender heart.
When her memory began to fail,
I prayed my grief-spurned words
disappeared into the abyss like
the fact that the story she was
telling me was about the tenth
telling in half hour or less.
I spread “I love you” (and meant it) over our conversations, like a blanket.
I prayed she held those so close
That even in her now formless state
It warms her and reminds her
Of the little girl she loved so fiercely
that she attempted to take her grief
And hurt and swallow it whole.
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.
The Love Story of our Friendship
Where do I begin…you promised to be here for me to the end… you have seen the good, the bad and the ugly… but you never made me feel less than and felt that you were above me. I remember when we first met, we talked about all our hopes and dreams… but whenever I felt doubtful you always reminded me that my dreams are never as far as they may seem.
You seen me laugh… you seen me cry… you have seen all of my faces and different sides… you always seem to bring me out of my shell… but also create a safe place for me to tell my deepest thoughts and secrets in which you promise never to tell… you know when I have the tendency to put up walls… but I don’t have to be scared with you by my side because you’ll catch me every time I fall… you wipe away my tears from all the pain of it all.
This world would be harder to deal with if I didn’t have you in my life… if we never would have met it would have been a harder fight... but I love you and you mean so much that I’ll always hold you tight… even in the darkest of times you always seem to find the light… make me feel alright… I have so much love for you that no amount of words can describe… thank you so much for being my ride or die.
Escape From Your Heart
It’s hard for you to have your feelings for me escape from your heart… you felt your world change when I got on a different plane to depart… that’s when you started to fall apart… not to a different location, but we aren’t in the same place… you felt like another person would be able to take my place… we’re moving at a different pace… now you fell flat on your face and looking for saving grace.
The way that I made your heart feel with an abidance of emotion… you took for granted my time and devotion… but soon you’ll realize that I’m never coming back and you’ll wish to have a magi potion, to beg for my return… now those tears you cry actually burn.
You can’t escape the impact that I had on your life… now you feel alone because you lost the fight… now you feel the pain you caused, each and every slice… the weight that held me down, now I’m free to fly high like a kite… now you’re left with the bill to pay the price.
You Read Me Like Poetry
The way you read me is like no other… you read all of my pages and didn’t stop at the cover… it’s as if when you read me, you don’t just see black and white but hues of every color… then you add your words of affirmation and it makes my heart flutter… you even read my imperfections and error without a stutter.
You’re really good at reading in between the lines… how you don’t judge the limits that I don’t define… maybe you don’t always understand my rhymes… what they try to describe, but you always try to understand me from a different pair of eyes.
Poetry is an art that varies from person to person… but you always choose to read mine… so in that case I’ll continue to be poetry that you read, I know you’ll always have the time.
Our Unheard Screams
Do you know that plants can be in pain too?
Do you know that they scream and send out distress signals?
Do you know that they too, like us, can feel?
It was true.
But I wasn't talking only about plants.
I was also talking about you,
and me.
About us who have learnt to cry in silence.
About us who have learnt how to bite our tongue for the sake of maintaining peace.
About us who have learnt to dig our nails to our palms than to claw at other's faces.
About us who have learnt to hold the anger within us and silently burn ourselves from within than to sear at another's skin.
Tell me,
have you grown tired yet?
Tired of screaming for help but get nothing but a sore throat.
Tell me,
have you grown tired yet?
Tired of explaining yourself but still, get nothing but blame.
Tell me,
have you grown tired yet?
Tired of bending over backwards to please, yet still expected to do more.
I am.
I am, in fact, tired.
Let's plan our way out shall we?
Maybe we can build a little cottage somewhere in the forest.
Maybe we can live in peace, surrounded with the things we love.
Or maybe,
Let's stop and look around.
Try to listen to those cries.
To the cries that came from others who are just like us.
Let's try listening,
maybe one day someone will listen to us too.
by MG
Happiness Hurts
They say happiness feels like the warmth of daylight seeping in through your skin. Embracing your bones, and turning your heart into a mushy puddle of delight.
They say happiness is yellow.
Bubbly and bright.
They say happiness smells like cookies and cupcakes, and a plethora of flowers blooming between the butterflies in your stomach.
They say happiness is the laughter and smiles you share with your loved ones.
Lingering. Heartwarming.
If so…
Then I never knew this thing called happiness at all.
To me, happiness felt like a dream trapped in a distant screen.
Like the reflection of the moon upon the still water surface.
Visible.
Impossible to touch.
Like scraping a rock with your nails desperate to feel.
Close.
Impossible to accomplish.
You will only be left with blood and mangled fingers.
You will only be left with an aching heart and a hollow chest.
How wretched.
It was merely another thing outside my grasp.
Exist to tempt.
Impossible to get.
by MG
Doll House
Did you enjoy sitting around with empty cups of teas and dolls and friends only you can see?
To be someone you're not.
A princess, perhaps.
Hosting tea parties.
A sovereign over the imaginary.
Playing with puppets.
Our will is their will.
More sugar, more tea.
The party isn't over until I say it's over.
Smile, smile.
Be grateful.
You enjoy this as much as I.
Even when you do not.
How many of you realise you're the puppet now?
Do you enjoy sitting around with empty cups of dreams and promises and friends only benefits hold near?
To be someone you're not.
A commoner, perhaps.
Working towards a goal.
A glorified slave of the unseen.
Playing with your life.
Their will is your will.
More trials, more suffering.
The play isn't over until they say it's over.
Smile, smile.
Be grateful.
We enjoy this as much as they.
Even when we do not.
How many of us realise we're just dolls in a house?
Shh…
silent.
We’re not supposed to see beyond the stage.
Do not question.
Do not seek.
Smile, smile.
My dear.
by MG
for chris
– te quiero
gvgeyui
aloha wau ʻiā ʻoe –
with all of my heart,
i say this (i love you).
i wish i could tell you that.
well, technically, i can –
you’re only a phone call away,
the matter of dialing 10 digits
with my trembling fingers –
but still,
i cannot produce the courage
in my heart
to admit my emotions to you,
and you’re not helping by what you do;
playing that music you know i like while you drive & i ride,
the way you rock those aviators across those deep, engrossing brown eyes,
forget your smile –
it can bring the most decayed flowers back to life.
boy,
you are something.
folks know me to run a little wild,
talk smart & loud, with a smile –
but when i’m around you,
i can’t seem to open my mouth,
and when i do,
i feel like my heart is going to jump out
and run into the clouds,
because you’re just above them –
you are like the illusion they call heaven.
i love you, like people do,
i want to pass the gates and enter your heart, like people yearn to do,
and i believe in you and me being together,
in love, like people do.
i wonder –
am i just a big, stupid ‘ol fool?
by M. S. Blues
The Things We Bury
Hold it!
Bury it deep inside the earth at the back of your house.
The ground will welcome it, wrap it in its moist embrace,
in soil made wet by the rain.
Work quickly!
They are only out for a moment, you may use your hands if you want,
When you are done, retreat from the sunlight.
No!
Don’t turn your back to it…back away, nimble.
You may breathe once you reach safety.
Now my Dear, you are clean.
peppermint
melancholy lingers
like the itch that oppresses dry skin.
christmas spirit is the air,
so there’s no time for frowns and despair,
only smiles and jolly tones,
exhibits throughout the year that are rare.
yet, i can’t help but feel sad,
drown in the lingering melancholy.
for someone like me,
i guess it’s inevitable, really.
i suck on one of those peppermint mints,
while everyone else has fun,
the little aftertaste burns a cut that’s on my gum.
i whimper,
and the melancholy i feel deepens.
sadness is inevitable during the holidays, i told you.
by M.S. Blues
The Clit and the Ears
My clit doesn't function
and never will,
for it’s not down there it grows
but in my ears,
my alter vaginas, the real ones
who know better to take thousands of lovers.
Nothing needs coming in,
not even an earbud
brushes.
Good chords suffice
with the right beat.
Out, out, bloody mucus, bloody men.
Better fuck my Music
than fuck myself up yet again.
This poem has also been published in Tentacle Poetry Vol. 2, a quarterly poetry zine published by Peel Street Poetry, Hong Kong, in October 2021.
Dear Mom
Dear Mom, They keep me safe here It’s not worth knowing that They’ve chopped my hair I look like a boy, now But My flesh is fragile, still At night
Dear Mom,
They keep me safe here
It’s not worth knowing that
They’ve chopped my hair
I look like a boy, now
But
My flesh is fragile, still
At night
The cold water freezes my nerves
Do I have a choice of not washing their dishes?
Had not my bruises remained raw,
I’d have waited to write
Their ointments are
Guarded by grandeur
Even when my blood
Shrieks out of my skin
Even after all,
They keep me safe here
Blue tutus and pink cleats
A stranger stares back at me when I look at the mirror. A scar I don’t recognize. Yet I know very well. A stranger looks back at me as I was up and stare at the mirror.
A stranger stares back at me when I look at the mirror.
A scar I don’t recognize. Yet I know very well. A stranger looks back at me as I was up and stare at the mirror. Movements following mine, and somehow it’s different.
A frown in place of the smile I try to muster as I glance at them.
Their hair, cut shorter than what is deemed normal for someone like me. And I am jealous.
Jealous of the fact that I can’t stand mine to be long,
And yet, if it were cut,
It feels like something is ripped out of me.
I wake up sometimes, and the stranger is gone.
But I still don’t recognize the figure in front of me.
So familiar, yet so odd.
They smile when I forcefully smile.
Which is a plus. I think.
And they have that aggravating hair.
It’s bearable to look at.
I don’t throw up.
Which is a plus.
I wake up in panic.
And I can’t breathe.
I can’t see the stranger or the familiar figure.
And I feel like my insides are being turned.
Where are they?
It’s terrifying. The idea of them being gone.
Why are they gone?
When I can’t find either of them, I feel like vomiting.
A sense of despair clings to me as I stare at the blank mirror.
No one is staring back at me.
It feels like my lungs are filling with water, and I am drowning. Drowning in this nonexistent sea.
Trying to float, and yet I can’t.
Because the more I try, the more I feel like I am sinking.
Sinking with a heavy nonexistent ship.
And all I can hear is static.
Numbness all around me .
Making me wish I had drowned.
These are the days I avoid mirrors.
I avoid the color blue and the color pink.
Which makes me feel like I’ve been hit by a train.
Except sometimes it feels like a train is a lighter punishment, Compared to what I feel.
It lasts days, before the stranger comes back.
And I don’t know whether to be elated or enraged.
Excited that they’re back, that they are there,
That I don’t have to do this alone, or angry.
Angry for not being normal.
Despite feeling relief that they are back, I avoid the mirror for days. Before I can get comfortable with who’s staring back at me. Features different from what people call the norm.
Yet blinking when I do.
Brushing their teeth when I do.
And it takes days for me to get accustomed to it.
Days to not look at him and shout in anger and frustration.
Because why do they get to be like that and I can’t.
Yet when I do get accustomed, he is gone.
Gone like he was never there, and is replaced with her
The ‘normal’, yet unfamiliar face staring back at me.
Dead, soulless eyes.
Eyebags for days.
Sporting the same defeated look I do.
And I don’t know whether I should burst into tears,
Because finally, it’s kinda normal.
And yet, the look she gives me makes me feel disgusted.
I don’t like her. And yet I am glad.
Glad she’s back, and I’m normal.
But I’m still in that void, a dark void.
Filled with unopened Barbie dolls and new soccer balls.
I’m still chained to that void. Unable to move.
The strangers pulls me to him, but I am tired, tired.
Too tired to move, or eve breathe by the time he gets close to me. She drags me back, but I claw away, or at least try to.
I can never put up a good fight.
The days I get pulled like a game of tug of war,
Are days I fee like I will vomit.
Yet I don’t despise them, no matter how much it hurts. At least they are there in the mirror and I am not alone.
It’s the days I am left in the middle, all alone, that it feels like
I am sinking and that mud is filling my lungs.
It gets hard to breathe, and I feel like every inch of my strength is zapped.
As I try to look for him and her.
I’d rather vomit, than be alone.
Being alone is scary,
Not seeing them staring back at me in the mirror.
It’s terrifying.
There are days when it becomes too much and all I can do is cry.
Because the stranger is there when I wanted her to be there.
Or she’s there but I wanted him there.
And I can’t do anything about it. I can’t do anything about the sensation I feel
Of wanting to shed my own skin, because it doesn’t look right.
The parts are different.
No matter how much I cry, I can’t do anything about it.
Because it’s not ‘normal’.
But what exactly is normal?
I don’t know.
All I know I is that often times I wake up with a stranger in the mirror, and other times with a
familiar, yet odd figure.
But nothing is more terrifying than waking up and neither is there.
Because if they’re not there, what am I?
I would rather feel like vomiting when I stare at the mirror,
Than feel like I am being drowned by mud.
Hopefully one day I can muster up a real smile to whoever is staring back at me.
And we become friends.
She is gone now
The sight of flour on skin, age spots form an archipelago across your arms. a clutter of dusty pictures and rosaries under your bed.
The sight
of flour on skin,
age spots
form an archipelago
across your arms.
a clutter
of dusty
pictures and
rosaries
under your bed.
Life, you’d sometimes think, hadn’t been that good to me.
Girdles that
squeezed
your fibroid
infested womb—
An old hallowed out
home to five
Barricaded
Against
Life.
You comb
your unruly
hair back;
look uncomfortable.
The look is not you.
I love it when you just
Let it be—
rather than tame it
And look like a scared
Old lady
Instead of the courageous
Heroine that you are.
You still store things
Away
In overflowing drawers
And cupboards
Afraid that one day
You will need
Something
& it will not be there:
What trauma
Gave birth to that?
You say,
I feel your mother
Is doing something
To me—
Like I can’t put my
Fingers on it –
Your hands, exasperated go up in the air
Only to slowly come down
And rest, at your side
Powerless.
We loved each other once.
The nights
I fell asleep
under the
symphony
of your snores:
Uncountable.
Sleeping,
side by side
A woman, and her grandchild.
You say,
Pointing to
A brand new
Press, you say,
Look at that
What my
daughter
Buy for me—
You know what she say?
She say,
when you die
I’m taking it back.
What kind of thing
Is that to say? And you
Schweups at the
callousness of your
Child.
You’ve got:
Two kitchens,
a Toilet
without a door,
social security
checks
deposited
In
Brooklyn.
We walk
down the street
and you smile at
a stranger,
and giggle like
a child...
But wait nah,
you say, stopping,
in a daze. I
thought that was
Nen-nen, but
nen-nen
die long
time now...
What is happening to me, you ask?
& no matter how
hard I try,
I can not answer:
Alzheimers.
The tears you cry to control me
The privilege that comes with your identity or absence of melanin is the same shade as the tears you cry to control me
The privilege that comes
with your identity
or absence of melanin
is the same shade
as the tears you cry
to control me
the struggle you claim
to comprehend
fails to acknowledge
our experience
robbing us of
our space to heal
when you ask
if I need help
you are doing so
to absolve your guilt
of your ancestors
ask me instead
if you may begin to listen
to my stories
not from the written word
of those who claim to know it
better than those of us
who have lived it
but by delivering yourself
to the lion’s mouth
being a girl is a wasteland
I like being a girl But sometimes at night I try to remember what it was like To breathe without weight on my chest
I like being a girl
But sometimes at night
I try to remember what it was like
To breathe without weight on my chest
The weight of imposed motherhood
Imposed like a visitor to a house
The kind of visitor you don’t want to come in
But if they force themself in
It’s your fault
Because your house is a provocative colour
So you were practically asking for it
So there’s blood running down your legs
Could be nature or nurture
Nature of my body that has pain built in
Nurture of boys
Boys who will be boys
But not all of them
But nearly all of us
Or nurture of beliefs
That what’s between my legs
Says anything about my purity
Fuck purity
Stop associating femininity with purity
Why do we act as if femininity is this soft delicate thing?
When we all know it’s not
It’s a war you didn’t enlist to
A bad dream you don’t wake up from
It’s a wasteland where flowers aren’t allowed to grow
It’s obligation to hypothetical men and hypothetical babies
It’s playing a rigged game
Where your chromosomes rolled a double
So you lost before you even got to play your hand
It’s your body being deemed public property
By people who don’t know you
And being given dead flowers
By a boy who forgot you had hay fever
So you’re crying and you’re sobbing
And you’re screaming and you’re shouting
And you’ve lost your voice
When you didn’t have one to begin with
And all you have left is flowers and no say
When all you wanted was a wasteland and stinging nettles
So you could breathe easy
by Denise
Miles in my skin
These are mine – they are the breadth of the world and the length of my life.
These are mine – they are the breadth of the world and the length of my life.
It is the arcade tickets in blue that now look brown,
And the movie stubs, creased and torn in two
That let me know I was ever there with you.
I have created space in every wallet, every room
To make sure your things were never absent
To cherish our time spent.
Until ‘you’ meant someone new
And I would cry when I found I could create new spaces to fill,
Reminding me of the strength my hands had
To build new drawers and keep moving forward.
Some things I lost on my travels and I am even glad,
(Not having them makes me remember more)
To not carry much with me when I explore.
But tucked away, under thorns and brambles, as often as I can,
I look under them to see if I can find anything more to know about you.
Though you are galaxies away and I no longer see them in your eyes,
It is the moon that recalls our last goodbyes.
And it is a pity I have nothing else to remember that by.
by Hannah
“we’re not alone”
4.10.22
[ i experience ]
a restless synesthesia of sensations
my soul its own dimension
of loosely woven associations
And
nuance
sometimes i think i pay a little too much attention
my jaw perpetually clenched
strained by the daily omission
of ineffable prose
so today i embrace my sensitive observations
indulging in the union of all things
i notice what’s not necessarily there
i talk around and not through
i challenge claims of irrelevance
and forever hold
that “far-fetched” is a cowards favorite word
because yesterday i felt seafoam green
And
this room smells like winter
And
my skin squirms like earthworms
when i see bumpy trees
and that’s the only way i know how to put it
my love language is longform
i let my teeth tear away at the succulent flesh of a cherry
and savor it as i would a lover
picking their brain before reaching their core
the juice dripping down my lips as it fountains from their hips
a delicious mess
i don’t just take note
i see the universe in you
i think in words
i speak in pictures
i feel sounds like textures rippling through my veins
i walk backwards and run forwards
And
i am never satisfied
i am the consequence of an infatuation
prolonged
by a silver tongue
and resulting miscommunications
so it is in my nature not to be straightforward
pheromones released and a love drunk mistake
bore me:
a curse from the cosmos
an /enigma/
to the masses ;
[ [ a living, breathing retrograde
] ]
- A.
Making Up With the Sun
We need to make up with the sun,
Did I do something wrong?
When we talk about the daylight hours that we are robbed of
on our commute home
Is that why I feel so alone?
The coloured houses share in my sympathy.
They look back at me
They know how I want to go so desperately
To see them
To be filled with the same energy
When life is in grayscale
I come back in Picasso’s colour
(Sharp yet soft
A blend of sorts)
Bright and lovely.
Paintings and you always go together.
Merging like oil paints in the caveats of my memory
How I want to be there so desperately
On top of the molar hills of sickly-sweet greenery
How life felt like a 1920’s Weimar movie
A golden era
I think, as I walk back from the station.
Unable to mention how I feel.
Lips tightened; sealed.
Just like your grasp
Loosely tight
Supposedly comforting in the speckled evening light.
Where was I?
Back to this conversation which reminds me of you.
How I predict that you would agree
That the phrase sounds interesting
‘Making up with the sun’
Making up with you
How desperately I wish things didn’t end
When they had just begun.
by Pippa Hill