pieces of a feeling

(Written 30 January 2023, at 10:28 PM ET.)

someone took a feeling and shattered it.

i'm running around
trying to find
more than two pieces that fit
together

to have a feeling
again.

how broken

(written 26 december 2022, 4:20 am et.)

 
it confounds me that somehow, sometimes,
the past finds its way to the present.

is it reality? or just the wine-coloured glasses through which i view it?

does it matter?

am i not broken enough, or too broken,

for the words to find me?

i wish to drop the carefully

(though unintentionally)

stitched veneer,

like dropping a silk gown

(worn commando)

in a fell swoop.

(i want it to be sexy.)

do any of the constructs hold up?

or is it a brave new world

that i'm simply not brave enough for?

(a friend told me ending sentences in prepositions

is not the crime i thought it was.

maybe that's the answer to undo all my questions.

nothing i ever thought ever mattered.)

Laugh (Listen)

(Written 26 December 2022, 4:00 AM ET.)

Something significant happened. 
The people were uncomfortable, and they squirmed. 
They may have turned,
But they (mostly) stayed. 

They may have prayed (through nervous laughter),
But they listened. 

Were you Christened?
Were you given a name
To carry the blame
Of who you are and will become?
When the spotlight’s on you to stay,
Will you have something to say,
Or will you err and umm?

Breathe, will you?
Take a moment. 
Recall
That fall
You took as a child
That you were sure would kill you. 
Also recall
That despite it all
You lived
And you’re here. 

Many aren’t. They didn’t make it. 

So say the things they can’t 
And the things you want to. 

And, for the sake of all the brittle,
Little,
Dying,
Crying,
Lying,
Lost pieces of us all,
Stall
For a blink
Your righteous stink. 
And listen, not with your gore
Or your sore or their lore,
But with your hideous core,
Through the grotesque door to so much more.
You may find a smile, even a laugh,
In a paragraph
Of grating foreignness.

You are more than most of us want you to know

(for our own selfish greed).
Be the water, be the sun,
And when you think you can’t,
Be, also, the seed. 

the moon, again

(written 1 jun 2021, 2:39 am est.)

i see the moon today,
more than 20 years later,
with renewed eyes.

i am in my new home

(first night here, wouldn't you believe it),

not my parents' car,

and, of course, fittingly,

the moon is half,

not full.

it's a chilly night,

to tell you the truth.

and i haven't showered in a couple of days.

my skin itches and scars from

some autoimmune thing, they tell me.

and i'm pretty sure i smell.

but this moon in this inky sky.

it throws my whole rhythm askew.

i was trying to set up the new place.

cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, till

my hands were ugly.

and searching for tvs and sofas and calculating

dimensions.

but now all i can see is half the face.

challenging me

to stare right back.

your ivory halo will pull me apart.

the nonchalance with which you treat

your companionship with me this first night

in this empty, new, echoing place.

is devastating and perfect.

in half-face defiance to my right.

in silent, asleep breathing to my left.

you will always be my satellite,

and i will always burn

to make it so.

i look older today than i ever have before. 

Strands

(Written 5 December 2020, 1:43 am.) 

in the unforgiving strands of
it all

some frayed edges find

each other

and gingerly

falteringly

incorrectly

wrap themselves

around the other

it hurts

and is ungraceful

and unaesthetic

and to be honest

rather quite ugly

but against all odds

and against all decorum

and against all beauty (and satisfaction)

the joining

holds

at least for now

(no one has seen tomorrow

or so the atheists tell me)

Nakhre

(Written 27 July 2020, at 2:34 am.)

tum aur tumhaare nakhre
zamaane ki hawaaon ka rukh palat dein

Pity

(Written around 16 March 2020, 2:48 AM.)

Oh, what a pity,
That the night
Is the night.
That it is the time of day (or night)
When everyone is comatose.

But to fight (or be immune to)
The coma.
What a revelation.
The darkness, the silence.
Reliving the horrors of the light
In the comforting oppression
Of the dark.

Be awake.
Be alive.
Be with me.

Embrace the night.
Find your sight
Away from the light.