dummy

I sold
self-confidence for empathy
ambition for ease
and now I complain of my own mediocrity.

oh, but it hurts

curdled

Tell me again
As I sit
with my knees pulled up to my chest
with my chin on my crossed arms
and my eyes on my unpainted toes
As the stars move across
from one end of the horizon to the other
As the smoke drifts lazily
curling up from the tip of your lit cigarette
and from your pursed lips
As stray breezes
tug at washed clothes hung out to dry
nose at the newly shorn head and the baby curls
slide across my back and make me shiver
As extremities freeze in the cold dry air

As I tell a stranger things never put in words before
and as someone I know not seems to know me
anyway

Tell me again
What am I doing here, exactly?

lunchtime requests

Wish I hadn't
Said I wouldn't
But what kind of girl
would I have been
saying yeses to kisses?

clumps

hot evening baths
and tears in the shower

standing in glaring fluorescence
with wet hair, fresh washed
before red mirror spotted with
blood of dead mosquitoes
big blue scissors
in one anticipating hand
quick, clutch handfuls, snip snap
floor littered with clumps of curls

barefooted
spinning sufi style till
whirling reeling giddy

clad only in
sweatshirt and damp towel
Jefferson Airplane
in the middle of the living room

drowsy days

Meet new people and babble
Laugh as they tiptoe around
so-called sensitive sensibilities
Push back where it tells
Tweak and prod till satisfied
But afterwards wonder
And wish i could ask them
was it good for you?

Stand at bus stands
Waiting for rides
Watch the sky turn to twilight
the world steeped in deception
Feel the world slip surreal
through my fingers
Let the throbs in my heels
take over my tired head

Think of duplicities
And lies and pretenses
Revel in guilt and complications
Find perverse pleasure
in placing the blame
on the right person.
Me.

schoolgirl

uniforms
the shirt, white striped grey
top button undone, loose tie
the thrill of exposed clavicle
nails pared short short
clear nail varnish and flouted rules
hair in buoyant ponytail
flip flick fly
gray a-line skirts swish
half an inch
above knees, above sleek bronzed legs
trim ankles shod
in neat white socks
artistically folded scrunched squeezed
the white white canvas shoes
that sense of possibility
and the pirouette and the twirl

and suddenly i remembered
how fabulous it was to be sixteen

would you?

Wasn't expecting what I got.
And I've forgotten what I'd thought.
But was it fair to press me so
Merely because you had to know?

And now it is I who will wonder
at changes of opinion

ells

happiness is
charades in canteens
compliments from teens
pirouettes and preens
daydreaming of kisses
coming home to roses
unexpected surprises
that's what it is

and i bite my lip
to keep from smiling
what did i ever do
to deserve so much?

birthday haiku

Surprise compliments
come at unearthly hours
bringing hot blushes

flirt

In the company of boys I find myself
Not all of me, oh; not really me, no
Just a fascinating, interesting, captivating creature
One I rather think I'd like to know

all lies

And then I use
my youth as excuse
to get away
with the things I say
Young and foolish
I mouth with relish
For I do not
Give a thing much thought
Did I hurt you?
Just something I do.

insecurities

And yesterday I asked someone
what he thought of my poetry
and I watched him as he read it
and in his face I tried to see
what he was thinking

and when he looked up at me
before he said a single word
in his eyes I saw my face
and then I stopped hoping
because that face I know
I've seen that face before
and whatever I've felt or thought
that face I've always lied to

shirking responsibilities

I am heavy excuses
I am stifling lies
I am sweet distractions
I am people's eyes

I am my burning shame
But I say it and forgive it
Is that right?

artistic temperament

Voices shrill and talk inconsequential
People whom you want away
out out away
dead

Madness, my words
are slipping away
with the screaming sounds
the incessant chatter
gossip and complaints
and compliments
and judgements

A grinding need
for pounding sound
to drown out
all the lunacy

Get away from me
My teeth are willing to bite
And my eyes to shriek
I want to write here
I need to write here

Snap slash slap smash
Leave. Me. Alone.

you always know what to do

when it's someone else as needs you




Oh, is no one stopping by?

me, perhaps

Why do I do it?
I have tears in my bones and aches in my eyes
I have people who begin
to mean more than they should again
I have things that don't matter
back in my tired head again

What do they call people who refuse to learn from old mistakes?

instincts

Strange men, and hands on arms
Overly intense attention, and a person's eyes
On you
Conversations where
you are suddenly listened to
as though everything you say
is electric
I cannot understand it
Did I give you any sign to get up so close?

non-confidence

Did you miss me? And would you tell?
And if told you didn’t know me well
Would you contradict, demur?
And convince me, certain – sure
That all the time together we spend
Has made me now your new best friend?

Or then again, are you aware
Of just how much I really care?
And is all this flattering attention
Just some thoughtful condescension?
Designed to keep this annoying slave
Off your back, get her to behave
With something approaching decorum
By behaving like she’s just a chum?

Oh, don’t you know it’s the greatest mistake to
Talk to me just as you would talk to
Any of your masculine friends?
It misses the point that it intends

By making me feel like I’m someone
With whom you could have a little fun
You make me think of just exactly how
much your company means to me now

When I’m with you I can be truly
Me, and I don’t worry unduly,
I don’t panic, don’t lose my head
Over something someone did or said

When I’m with you, there’s only you
And me, in all the world just two
The two of us, then all the rest
Hmmm. I fear that I’m obsessed

I know I cannot help the way
I feel about you; and if I say
You make my day, my month, my year
I know you’ll leave me standing here
Choking in a cloud of dust
As you run away, oh unjust!
Is it that wrong to show affection
My appreciation of this connection
The kindred spirits we seem to be?
Is it that wrong? Go on, tell me

You are my easiest conversation
Antidote to my isolation
You mess up my mind, my marvelous muse
I’d thought we had something we'd never lose
That would always remind us of things we'd shared.
That all the things you told me meant you cared

But you didn’t even care enough to say
“I’m falling in love with your best friend.”
If you had, I would have said “Hooray!”
And meant it, and not had to pretend

But the things you could’ve said to stop the pain
I had to say instead because you didn't
Pick up the pieces and fix myself again
Because this time you couldn't, or wouldn't
And all these things I told myself
Locked my pain away up on a shelf

But then, oh then, I think again
And would I really have preferred
Some comforting lie, excuse inane
Than wait from explanations never heard?

If you’d told me I was your darling girl
And that so I would always remain
Would I have avoided all that hurt?
Could I have eased any of my pain?

One last thing, and then I’ll go
One final thing that needed to be said
I love you; and if you didn’t know
You must have been blind, and deaf, and dead.

strange days

I stay awake and check my spaces,
calculate the time in other places
Online at two, just to say hi;
And then, within ten minutes, goodbye
Reassess new relationships
Rate and order online friendships
Sit in silence under sunsets and dream
Take my sister out for ice-cream
Drive in peak traffic with a potpourri
of sixteen-year-olds in the car with me;
Sprawl in dingy corners of strange spots
watch relatives down tequila shots.

Play lonesome music and sing along
(if any of you ever needs a song -
music to cry to, come to me quick!
my collection's wistful, eclectic)
Moan at all the crushing misery
of not being as good as I wish to be
Things that cause me acute distress
which will not let me be unless
I manage to fix my poor design
But in the end I have to resign
myself to failure and agree
that this architecture's not for me.

So then I come to blogger again
when I'm in pain, and then again when
everything just gets too overwhelming
and the only way to fix it is the writing
Voilà, and therapy newfound that
seems to work rather better than cat.

gratitude

Do you read poetry, he asked me; and I,
I shook my head no and watched the dark eyes
lose all interest and look elsewhere
Saw the faint contempt and the little sneer
And I went to a fair, a book-fair, a place where
they sold books from anywhen and everywhere
and I bought there a Whitman in memory of a movie
and there I bought nine little anthologies
Elliot Shelley Keats Poe Dickinson
Hardy Wilde Emerson Tennyson
Dover Thrift Editions, emphasis on thrift
And I went home and I read Nevermore and thought
I think I prefer the short stories to verse
And I put the little volumes by the untouched Whitman
and I forgot them as I forgot the boy

And I read my fiction and loved it and unaware
I loved all the poetry that came my way
Nonsense and sense verse in Lear, Carroll, Blyton,
Kipling, Dickens, good old R.L. Stevenson
All the quotes people quoted and put in my head
in spite of myself, and I still never saw
And instead I wrote free verse steeped in loneliness
And fancied myself a poetess



I will read you poetry, he promised, and quoted
things that set my mind tripping along
unexpected paths and forgotten alleys
voyages of invention and discovery
I would quote poetry, I thought
Till now, I saw no poetry in poetry, no romance
And still I do not see beyond someone's personal story
But I would quote it, just the better
To express myself

Came home one afternoon, sprawled on the floor
Sat herself down with the Anthology;
Complete, Unabridged, Annotated, tooled in leather
of one Mister William Shakespeare
The sonnets! she cooed, and read aloud
The ones that were her favourites.
I would know poetry, I thought
Understand the art not to quote it
but to know if I love it or hate it

Do you like poetry, he asked me, for I,
I love it, and know it and quote it, do you?
No, I said, for I cannot tell
The bad poetry from the good, but I would
I would love poetry, I thought
Read it to know what I'm missing, so tried
I picked up the Eliot and read Prufrock and cried
At the yellow fog and the Michelangelo
And wondered why I'd never read poetry before

penis envy

I wish I were a boy, she sighed
Flagrantly, emphatically so
With balls to scratch, the balls to do it
That pompous male ego

To walk around topless in the heat
Without seeming too extreme
Oh, to be able to pee standing up
Has always been a dream

With no restrictions on where I go
Or how late I stay out at night
The confidence to think that I'm all that
Exploit that superior might

To grunt and snort and hack and spit
To keep all emotion at bay
To have best friends one happens to hug
Then accuses of being gay

Oh, easy camaraderie I envy
That all men seem to share
Even as they sit silent in the sun
Doing little more than stare
at every passing girl, and that
is another thing I'll enjoy
Being the one who's handing out
Those glances that irk and annoy

The sense of humour that you'll find
In boys the whole world over
That tendency to be scatalogical
To be proud of it, moreover

Oh, to be a boy, she sighed
Just for a little while
And to be hailed as "one of the guys"
Wallow in their mad lifestyle

and one for archy

Now, it seems a provable point
That one who truly wishes to
Could concoct rather passable poetry
(use a rhyme generator; or two)

I wonder why it is, then
that no matter how hard I try
every attempt at meaningful verse
seems to go quite promptly awry

There was once a time, I remember
when I considered it uncommon neat
to be able to choose two words
groovy last syllables repeat!

I wrote poems on sunsets and rainbows
and on mean girls; and every time,
when I got to the end of the alternate
sentences, poof! there was the rhyme

Then came teen angst; fear of pretension
dread of hypocrisy (though, if truth be told,
teen angst; teen acne; burning desire for truth,
only came along when I was twenty years old)

See, I’d never been fond of reading poetry
Found it threw my mind into disarray
Found I paid more attention to the patterns
than on what it was attempting to say

Was truly unfortunate, that of late
I have fallen unwitting prey
To the lure of vers libre à la Whitman
Face it, free verse rather made my day

So perhaps the fact is that it’s easier to be
Either flippant, fun, structured; or earnest and free
For I find all too often, for a feeling strong enough
The attempt at rhyme robs the thought of clarity

I guess that’s what separates the masters from the rest
The ability to weave all aspects into one
And though I won’t ever go the whole hog, at least
I can say I tried both little ways, and have done


*thanks to these three people.
for inspirations and such :)

P.S. The next one promises to scan better.

only in my world

don't we love above all others, the people who manage to read our signals the way we want them read?

if it makes you feel better

Tell yourself whatever you need to that will drive away your pain. Trivialise every emotion, belittle every involvement, second guess every action. Invent for yourself all the little lies you can; call the grapes sour; predict disaster. Use past tense verbs and words like useless, never, anyway. Foresee failure, turn the future inside out; see in it all the misery you would care to. Make the past a rosy, perfect memory; put it on a shelf before it’s opened; before the splinter shatter smash. Anticipate, precipitate, weave worst-case scenarios. See the worst in the might-have-been; and see the escape in your heartbreak.
Is the day prettier now?

night wishes

i sit, tired in my bones
and night creeps softly near
there is no one around
but even if there were
there is no one i would
rather speak to than you
won't you call?

i will attempt

my muse walks slow, steady
pausing between steps
to watch the world above and around
he lives in poetry and pineapples
he smells like musk and custard
he sounds like rainbows
he smiles like laughter

ode

I told him, letters
have a special charm all their own
handwriting and overwriting
and words scratched out
and little doodles in the margin
reading between the lines
is the most beautiful thing
about revealing your feelings in words
that's why I love poetry
it lets me say things that
I'm too shy to say in prose

within reason

here’s an odd thought - what if I really am
a happy person? what if cheerful is me?
if it is, I’m glad I was not, for a while
downs give ups meaning

had to try

irreverence is a promising concept
so is persuasion, and that's all I have
to say about that

bumps

two in the morning
firmly i walk into wall
nose and toes protest

collaboration

i am multi-faceted. on bright days i glimmer
rock candy's melted, only diamonds now remain

yay

hope is sitting in a corner
not very silently
she hums sometimes

cut-outs

Old wounds never heal; they only pretend;
and I know all about pretending
See, it was shelved, but still
one wispy what-if will
not let me go, and you are going to
because you cannot bear not to
for now, I wait and one day I will raise a toast
and to her I will say I know

night rides

Are you jealous?
Yes.
What?
Are you jealous, you said. Yes, I said.
Look, this is the part where you're supposed to say "Of what?" Or "Of whom?"
Really?
Yes!
Why does it matter what it is? Or who? It doesn't matter. There is something about everyone that makes me jealous. They all have lives that I cannot live.

in heat

the day promises
coiled springs, swishing slips
my head buzzes, my hands flutter quiver stutter
my tongue lies heavy and potent
my stomach anticipates
still i feel, oh sibilant syllables,
sexy
humm purr hiss

sweetness

i cannot let it go
and it really means nothing
does it?
strange offers and allusions and intrigue
little hums and i cannot make up my mind
more and more and more
and none perfect
but then
i never wanted perfection
i only wanted broken i could fix

validate me

tell me
what makes me special
what it is about me
that sets me apart
tell me everything about me
that you love
that you hate
a person is more
than the sum of their parts
i just want to be sure
that i am worthy

no idear

and now I begin
to bore myself
doughnut soap-bubbles
make mocking circles

jo

well, i tried to be of lucy maud
but in the end i was of louisa may
and the day will spin

so soon

is hate too strong a word, then?
jealousy perhaps comes closer
resent begrudge envy
and the facade, already paper thin
cracks and flakes and rips and breaks
and all the old insecurity shows
like dirty underwear through shredded clothes
perhaps as pleasant
that taste in your mouth
so familiar
still new
bitter sour rotten
cannot get rid of it

patchwork

discovered a secret surprise
all by my lonesome
and the wonder is how
unworried i have become
the future still out there
and bigger than all of us
but something tells me
all fear is groundless

more cake?

now i'm light like
vanilla
icing
laughing
gleaming glossy
sweepy swirls
dainty frills
full skirted
come dance now
sugar high

sink teeth

I feel rich like
chocolate cake
earthy heavy solid
mellow
moist dark dense
bitter-sweet
sinfully delicious
utterly delectable
bite me

coming up empty

Oh, for burning passion
Oh, for searing romance
For messy outsides
to match messy insides
Am I to settle for comfortable
what's settle?
what's comfortable?
nothing, nil, nix, null, naught, nada
zilch, zip, zero

redoubt

I worried that I liked you
for all the wrong reasons
because you liked me,
because you made me feel
interesting, pretty, special
because you were comfortable
and familiar
because it was uncomplicated
I worried that I liked you
only because
it was, oh, easy to like you
But then I thought,
well,
why shouldn't it be?

doubt

someone explain to me
what this clenched stomach is all about

bleagh.

nothing takes the shine off a perfect day quite as effectively as unwanted attentions from someone you have no interest in.

believe

and the youth will fix the world
what use excuse?
i would rather a bad day that ends well than a great day that ends badly.

honey bee

She will not talk. And sometimes it's the right thing to do. Sometimes you have to flash that glance that says move away step away back off. She will brood and ponder.
cogitate meditate ruminate. Fix it soon my bee. Or come home and I'll fix it for you.

carbon monoxide

slow poison, some of them
choking cloying suffocating
self-assured barbarians
aggressively aggravating
you spin a black circle
say, step over if you dare
retreat to refresh
emerge debonair
take a ball, spin it around
face a mirror, is it achiral?
not in my hand, love
just downward spiral
get blue, get low
breathe it all in
go mood indigo
and then all out again

what am i to you

Placed my heart on a platter
A token of undying affection
But halfway there I let it fall
In anticipation of rejection
Dusted it off, put it back inside
Convinced myself it was broken
So I could play the victim
Use my pain as a token

I sat in my empty rooms and wondered
What could have. might have, would have, should have
Am I not to know?
No one may know
What might have happened
But this I realised
I would have let you break my heart

I wish I had
It would have been
a step in the right direction.

copywrite

despair is ugly
self-destruct is fun
make up your mind
cosmetics for everyone

love

happiness is convincing yourself that you are the best thing that ever happened to you.

lessons unlearnt

From whom did I learn it
the constant second guessing?
the shrouding and finessing?
the weaving of untruths so I believe them myself?
the hiding under layers that no one can see past?
from whom did I learn to expect loneliness?
from whom did I learn to accept unhappiness?
from whom did I learn to flatter and praise?
from whom did I learn to evade and pretend?
from whom did I learn to curb my temper?
from whom did I learn to adjust?
from whom did I learn to smile and bear it?
from whom did I learn to tolerate?

From whom did I learn to lie
to myself

Tell me
so I can tell them
this is what helped me make me.
How strange it is that I do not know
whether to thank you or blame you

out stretch

Sometimes the words aren't enough,
and that's when I look to see
what it is that I have to offer
when I am so far away
from the ones who need me
but all I have are images
that I weave for you
inexpertly

Imagine, I told him
Imagine I'm there
Imagine I'm there right now, like a great big lump of cat, with my head in your lap, so you can rub my head and hear me purr.

And I've offered already
But there is no reason I can see
why I can't play cat for all those who need the therapy.

not quite haiku

hug is panacea for all troubles

waiting games

all i've ever wanted is to be wanted
somebody's special somebody
so much that i let myself believe every time
let go the reins and watch
as my imagination runs away from me
write it sing it drink it dream it
till i hit that familiar wall
where reality rears up and breaks all illusions
so i retreat once more, beaten
slip under my cloak of patience
back to weaving
waiting again

almost have i come to terms with loneliness

hush

the silence is a friend that comes
whether I want it or no
slips gently about me
a blanket insulates me
trips open a door in the recesses of my mind
lets the thoughts bleed out unattended
drip unheeded
puddle unaffected
and the silence is a friend of mine
one i cannot live without
do you wonder at it?

sympathetic

Look
what you hold in your hands is my heart
It isn't whole, nor yet untouched
but it is as it is
and no amount of breaking
will make the next time any easier
Treat it with care;
it is all I have to give
Virgin hopes and fears and dreams
Still blessed with starry optimism
oh, take care, take care
I have but the one
and I need it
to love you

sun corner

Let me sit here, and dream awhile
before all the responsibilities come swooping back
let laziness float languidly around me
and watch the world pass me by
temporary respite from temporal troubles
jolly holiday
panic has let me be
and loneliness is just a muted memory of unhappier times

how beautiful it is to love to be alive

for fu knows who

Baby scuffs her toe in the sand, little foot clad in once-gleaming pink; one sock still white, the other unrecognizable. Up comes little head and large eyes beseeching. Little mouth pouts, "I frowns", she announces. Why does baby frown? Baby does not know. "I frowns", she offers, a little crease now appearing in the sweaty little forehead. She looks vaguely toward where, with shrieks unremitting, her cousins and siblings play in the foaming surf. A little gleam in the eye which fixes now on hapless protectors. Ice cream, says papa, in despair. Lollipop, is mama's noble contribution. Baby treats the proposals with the scathing scorn they deserve. "Wanna play", she decides. "Wanna play in the water." Oh no, baby, no. The sea is far too dangerous for you! A flash of the eye, up comes the stubborn chin. Little lower lip begins to quiver, shining eyes dim with tears, and soon, very soon, pink shoes lie stranded in a little rock pool.
Oh, but baby knows. Baby knows exactly how to get her way.

haiku for the mo

the edge of a cliff
she stands, silver; moonlight bright
arch, and spring, and splash

tormented seeking freedom
in motionless pool find it

not as good as cat

So I held out my hands, palms upwards. Helpless, hopeless, with that mocking aching band around my heart. And you took my hands, one to each of yours, linked fingers and squeezed. Slipped an arm around my waist, palm against the small of my back. Tilted up my chin and said, smile, little one. Kissed me and whispered in my ear, you will be fine.
Took me for a walk by moonlight, my arm through yours and my head on your shoulder. Smell of wet earth and sounds of traffic in the distance. Bats and birds and stars and moon and breezes and sighs. Companionable silence and music in my head.
What? Imagination is good therapy too.

butterscotch tuberoses

I want someone to take my hand
without consent
and lead me away, spin me around
press me up against a wall someplace
fusty, musty, dusty
kiss me within an inch of my life.
I want to be dizzy and breathless and weak at the knees;
to never be able to think of it without
a blush on my cheek
and a laugh in my eye
This is what I want, love
now tell me which of you will be the one
to jump my bones

for the star

It's a sphere. Seed pearl begins on unoccupied space. Feed the beast till it rages thunderstorms. Say; this I let go, and this, and this. All out of me, leaving placid calm. Swirling expansion to great glowing glass. Lift it up high, the gleaming globe.
Leave go, leave go; watch it smash crash tinkle clash splinter shatter splash.
Glimmering shards of liberation. Laugh, and say, isn't life fabulous!


Unbreakable is such a negative term.

fulfilling obligations

i breathed it all in
inhaled to outer extents
dreamed it
bubble expanding, threshold reached
ruptured quietly
fractured softly
leaving me to retreat
to silence, to recuperate
hush, my darling
i am trying to hear myself think

dinner party

She uncurled lazily, fuzzily, like a blue-clad kitten.
The light had grown dim and the conversation had muted to a low buzz interspersed with little annoying whines whenever someone tried to make a point. She sat on the floor at his feet, her head on his knee, and gleaned.
Intelligent conversation for grown-ups, she thought. Politics in semantics, culture in cypher. Nonsense. Why are adults so eager to say things with the least possible content using the most bombastic language?
I always believe six impossible things before breakfast, she thought, to paraphrase.
And then she smiled, a little delighted grin, at the pure deliciousness of it.

He slipped down to sit at her side on the floor, his arm across her shoulders. He brushed his nose in her hair and tickled her ear with his breath.
What's so funny? he asked.
Nothing, she said.
Everything, she said.

ode to sleep

And slowly I begin to smell of exhaustion, a bittersweet acrid odour redolent of sweat and dried coffee. The curls are damp on my head, soft hints of feather pillows. Then the bleary, burning eyes seem as much a part of me as the aching head and there’s a tightness across the back of my spine like stretched rubber. My head is a weary mass of thoughts that jumble together in little clumps and snarls and poetically unravel themselves into sweet ideas that slip away in airy swirls. Every movement is adagio, and the achey strains of Nick Drake and Fiona Apple woo me until I can see my bed again.

little things

He held out his arms, and she slipped into them like a wraith; silk over marble, satin over stone.

Then he tilted up her chin and kissed her, and she thought of how he tasted like coffee and bitter chocolate.

And when she rested her head on his chest and heard his heart beat, and felt his hand at the base of her spine, she felt the tears start to her eyes; and suddenly she was absurdly, utterly happy.

six degrees

Then I stop, and suddenly
I'm thinking about it again
Catches me unawares as always
clenching of the stomach, constriction of my chest
I can think dispassionately
if I think deliberately
but this catching round corners really gets my goat
what gives one such power over me
that every association leads back to one
stupid question
No one gives anyone power over yourself but you

unarchives again

(Mar 16 2006 Thursday)

one
No one's infallible, me more than most
Yet incompetence makes me cringe
as does inefficiency
But I'm nothing if not fair
no, really
I can say nothing unless
I can say with perfect honesty
that I have done what had to be done
Hypocrisy is no god of mine

two
Admiration is sweet
whatever form it takes

stupid old man
You play dirty and get personal
That's not very well-bred of you
chauvinist and bigot
Narrow-minded stubborn stuck-in-the-mud
old man
Can you not see anyone else's point of view
for once
Can you not give credit where due
avoid taking it all for yourself
a single time
Respecting others is not a crime, nor a disease
The things you say are not funny
All they serve to do
is to demolish, bit by bit,
the last vestiges of any modicum of respect
I may have had
for you

questions from the unarchives

(Mar 08 2006 Wednesday)

one
How powerful is shame
It can take the strongest of us
make them cringe
Guilt is a hard mistress

two
And sometimes I forget
to remind myself
to smile

three
And once more I try
shy and demure
hesitant lest I say
more than I would say, more than others would hear
Gingerly step forth
with the yearning for acceptance
that it seems I will never lose
And when overture is repulsed less than vigourously
up rears the hesitant head
bolder and bolder
till, alas, again, once more
I go too far
I see it. stop
Once bitten, twice shy
Did I not hear the day it was taught?

four
Is it too much to ask, then,
a friendship based on
nothing?
Just two kindred spirits
who take pleasure in company
Why must it always be
a business, a team, a permanent
never to be tampered with?
clique
Why pigeonhole
a human
harsh cruel stupid stupid stupid
I cannot be only one
I am many and varied and divers
I will not have a cage
And hence, I will be, as always, lone
alone

five
Why must I be
hero worshipper
when there is never the slightest
hint of encouragement
Why always need one to put up
on a pedestal
to validate me
unworthy, both of us, to the posts I would endow
Where is the honour
in fawning worship
Why reach out only to be spurned
Why can I not see myself independent, only alone
Why shun those who would befriend
Glutton for punishment
Never imagined I was stupid
Yet how dense must you be never to learn from your mistakes
Recurring themes are a drag, still you insist
on finding out that it is true
that fire burns every time

six
Why must there always be
a hundred facets of me
and no one to see them all, to love me for me
not even I
Myriad moods, one for each, turn and turn alike
Oh, it's fun, never fear
Still it grates
Cannot always suit myself to what another
can understand and relate to
Do I unnecessarily complicate
what is simple, straightforward
cannot help being
what keeps others happy
I like making others happy
Is that a crime
So hard to know what I really want
Easier to live vicariously
Safe as always

jealous

Tell me about your girl

do

tell me about her crooked smile, her shining eye
the turn of her ankle, the swell of her hip, the curve of her spine
tell me how her laughs gurgle
tell me of dimpled elbows and pointed chin and quirky eyebrow
of her hopes and fears
tell me how she rests her head on your knee when she’s tired
how she sits at your feet when she dreams
how she chews her hair when she tries to think of a way
to tell the truth without hurting somebody
and how she does it when she lies
tell me how she always knows how you’re feeling
and rarely what you’re thinking
but always finds a way to make you high
how she’ll annoy you no end, then turn around and make you fall for her all over again
tell me about this girl
or even just say
that you love her
and I’ll be her for you,
for you I will

yeah, you

I realize that you have your own life to live
I do
The incessant reminders to you
of my existence
serve no other purpose
than to keep me aware of yours
Perhaps this is what they call obsession

stupid teen angst

This is something I have to deal with on my own
But I find I cannot
It is not fair to leave me to clean this mess by myself
Let it only be said of me that I make not the same mistake twice
and I will be satisfied
Yet every time it is the same
Tell me why I had to invest, and I can fix it; I can
I can give it a try
Can you not touch me, any way at all?
Will you not vouchsafe a word?
You said nothing would change
Liar
Everything has changed