She cries tears of silvery white,
round pearls as white as snow.
To find them you must go
where no one has ever known,
where moon-like jellyfish fly,
where star-like plants grow.
In her crown of pearls,
clutching her gown of mist,
she weeps by a silent pond,
keeping secrets none will owe.
But beware, seeker, beware,
her tears come with a price,
one you soon shall know.
Being me
Is so hard to be
Annoying brothers
Homophobic Grandma
Know it all Grandpa
I can’t be me
I told my Mom
I’m bi and trans
She still calls me “Girl”
Still calls me “She”
Why can’t she see
That is not me
I wonder what the future will bring,
And if my dreams will learn to fly,
If one day I look back and smile,
at all the times why.
I wonder if people will stay,
Or slowly disappear with time,
I wonder if the friends I have today
will still be their when I’m older in life.
I wonder why we fear change when change,
is part of who we are,
Maybe every difficult moment
is just another step too far.
I wonder about the person I’ll be,
and all the things I’ll someday know,
For now I’ll just keep asking questions,
and let life teach me as I grow.
You, the first one I met
Saw you residing by the fading sunset
I never saw a sight so bright-
I knew you were right
Like the sun you shone,
Have I really won?
Surely I have. It’s surreal,
this love feels oh so deep and pure
The allure of your azure eyes
outmatches the widest skies
So tell me-
Do you love me?
Those who’ve caught a glimpse of the ocean before,
Don’t realize how miraculous it is to this stranger outside,
How desperately I’d like for it to be my guide,
How shoddily I’ve crafted fantasies just to visualise,
How enthralling its presence is in my eyes.
They take it for granted because it’s always been there,
But the waves have me smitten outright I swear,
I’ve never touched its shore or the sand on its edge,
Yet the yearning is more feral than anything I’ve had to pledge,
Its roars knock at my door when I’m opulent in bed,
I wish to answer to this beauty before I drop dead,
The salty tears it’ll shed into its abyss in desolate grief,
Will be enchanting for even if they’re brief,
Its sobs shall be hidden by catastrophic tsunamis that arise,
Perhaps their clashing bustles may synchronise,
I envy the fishermen whose profession is to observe its tides,
I envy the little creatures who get to live inside,
The sun that touches it every morning and then falls in at set,
Fondle with it as though handing violets under threat,
The minuscule stones that make their way in somehow,
The extraordinary secrets it holds as solemn vows,
The tumultuous cities made of coral reefs,
And the planktons flowing through emerald weeds,
Its depth is a tribute to contemplate ourselves beyond life,
It carries a sense of forlorn allure and demise,
Oh, please, oh please, would you let me experience its breeze?
Tell me it’s mine to caress and not just something to foresee with ease.
To the world, it may appear as nothing but mere water,
However, to someone who’s yet to be a spotter,
It’s everything bewitching I aspire to live forever more.
There once lived a boy in Willow Lane,
He had always been scared of the sound of coming rain.
Because to him, rain meant people went away,
And left their shadows where they lay.
He kept a box under his bed,
With colourful, faded ribbons, blue and red.
And for every time a person left,
He saved the words which they had kept.
“Goodbye,” said his mother one day,
Then she turned around and went far, far away.
He wrote what she said on a page.
And then kept it softly in a wooden cage.
Then his brother left after the summer break came,
A train, a chimney, one last wave.
“Take care,” he said, “I’ll see you soon.”
Then he disappeared beneath the moon.
His childhood friend moved out one spring,
And left him with a rusted ring.
She hugged him tightly beside the gate,
Then she also left, before it was too late.
He placed the special ring beside the rest,
Then hugged the box, against his chest.
Another goodbye, another scar,
A special person gone too far.
And then one night, when there was rain,
He mustered the courage to open it again.
He spread the words out the floor,
And soon found he couldn’t count them anymore.
There were words his kind mother spoke,
The ribbon from his brother’s coat,
The rusted ring, his childhood friend left,
And polaroids with their corner bent.
He held each farewell in his hand,
And finally began to understand:
He hadn’t kept the goodbyes or the words they said,
He kept the little boy, he was instead.
The boy who used to wait by the door,
The boy who thought they’d come back once more.
The boy who feared that letting go,
Meant losing everyone he had ever known.
Then he unlocked the chest,
And let the words leave their nest.
They danced like petals, in the sky,
And this time he let them fly.
He watched them slowly vanish, one by one,
Realising that after years, he was done.
He whispered softly to the dark night,
“Perhaps these goodbyes meant the right.”
He closed his chest and came inside,
Having no more memories to hide.
For some things leave and some things stay
But neither have to define your day.
I need a getaway,
Forget my life for just one day,
I’m so done,
Anxiety’s won,
I’ve no room for fun.
I really can’t do this, it’s too much for me,
I’m really not coping why can’t they see?
I’m so done,
Anxiety’s won,
I’ve no room for fun.
Just one night I beg you please,
I’m too tired to pay life’s fees,
I’m so done,
Anxiety’s won,
I’ve no room for fun.
She wore the winter, beneath her skin
Skin that still remembered where spring had once been.
Been there, a garden that was too tender to name,
Name never spoken, yet a precious gain.
Small little silence followed her home,
Home where the walls knew her weight of alone.
Alone she stood, when the angel couldn’t stay,
Stay in the sky, though she begged and prayed.
Prayed for the coming day, to soften the blue.
Blue was the time when the world carried through.
Through each door, dark or bright,
Bright as if nothing had broken that night.
Night taught her grief, had no language or face,
Face she the truth, still walked through the place.
Place and place, her shoulders kept high,
High than the mountains that covered the sky.
Sky still never asked what thunder cost,
Cost of the spark and the life lost.
Lost in mind, others couldn’t see,
See only a woman, fine and free.
Free wasn’t how she felt in her bones,
Bones that still trembled, yet had no tone.
Tone of a lullaby lingered unsung,
Unsung with words that died at night on her tongue.
Tongue shattered beneath every “are you fine?” question,
Question turns into scars you no longer mention.
Mention was something the family had done,
Done was she with grief that had to run.
Run did the river, yet she chose to stand,
Stand in the storm like hills on land.
Land where roots were impossibly deep,
Deep were wounds that grief made her keep.
“Keep her!”, darkness tried, but she had grown,
Grown, yet cracks didn’t heal where cold was sown.
Sown like a seed in the heart of Earth,
Earth knew that ending might still become birth.
Birth of a lady, impossible to break,
Break, though her heart already took more than it was asked to take.
Take one breath, then another, and rise,
Rise like a new bird, in front of the world’s eyes.
Eyes that wept, yet looked at the golden sun,
Sun that still arrived, when her night wasn’t done.
Done was the girl who believed she had to hide,
Hide no more— there is nothing to prove.
Prove she was strong? But she already stood…
Stood strong where the world anticipated she never could.
Could there be more courage… quite more than this?
This is the story of every woman who lost a small foetus, that shouldn’t be miss.
I say goodbye to my pen
She suffocates as she loses ink,
Her blood that I have taken from her
And I don’t want her back
But I want the ink that is gone
Dried onto my skin
Or on pages I will never read:
To not bring myself to tears
I want to write it all again,
But not to fall in love again, not to fall apart again
Because if that is all I need to write
I would rather leave you with no legacy:
I have no talent anymore
I want a pen,
A new pen so badly
I claw at my arm, I bite my cheek—
But if he now buys me a new pen
I don’t think I could ever bring myself to write
A moment, one,
Is all I captured of you.
As a poet, as a painter, as a writer
I have failed in my task of depicting, of pausing
In the moments that I need to.
Now all I have is this poem,
In which I describe your face as you leave,
Barely noticeable in its pallor,
With grey eyes that brim with wetness
Like the eyes you saw in my petunias,
You are a flower at your worst.
And maybe other than that,
I see the tiredness, skin wrinkled like your hand-me-downs,
Your bitten nails pinching the bridge of your nose
To relieve the stress I give you.
A moment, one,
But enough.