I wrote when I was a young girl
and each entry ended with
“It was a good day”
because it was
and tomorrow was a present
wrapped in ribbon
I dreamt again
that I was swamped by customers
ordering drinks I cannot make
and food I cannot translate
while trying to keep everyone happy
while sneaking away to read
the diary of eight-year-old me
to puzzle together why she became
the lost waitress
My diaries had dainty locks
and charming keys
for little hands
They are in a box
with yearbooks
in an attic
full of cheap nostalgia
I wrote my sentences
in pencil
I cannot feed and care
for all the caged animals
(there are too many per cage)
The floor never promised
to hold me
I once collected pencils too
and grouped them based on
popularity
I didn’t have friends,
I had unsharpened pencils
and erasers that came
from vending machines
I learned to fill the quiet
and danced in negligee
to David Bowie’s ‘China Girl’
When his voice broke,
I felt his falling
and stretched my fingertips
high to a popcorn ceiling
“It’s in the way of my eyes!”
translate love into food,
into money that matters,
into health that lasts,
into substantial living
not the charade of wealth
that floats away
on crimson wings
I am still here!
Alive is more
than a five-letter-word
I don’t know the birds
I don’t know the rocks
I didn’t know how hard
life would get
until I was in the middle of it
He sits at his stump-desk
as though the forest appointed him
keeper of its minor truths~
wire-rimmed glasses catching the low light,
plaid bowtie knotted with intention.
The wooden laptop waits,
open to whatever thought
the morning has not yet named.
Coffee steams beside the inkwell,
papers scattered like fallen leaves
he has already begun to translate.
Even the landline, absurd in its presence,
seems to understand
that calls here are rare
but always important.
The uncracked pecans rest beside his papers,
not symbolic, simply present~
a reminder that some work
starts with the smallest,
most ordinary labor of the hands.
He studies the papers strewn around him,
each marked with the faint trace
of earlier attempts at order.
For a moment he simply reads,
letting the work tell him
where to begin.
Touched by Spirit, we transform,
blown away by a bliss storm
but cannot transmit the mist,
which we chose not to resist.
Outwardly we look the same,
so can lay no claim to fame
but nodes within body urn,
metamorphose as they burn.
Grazed by divine magnetism,
we go beyond every ism
and yet we cannot translate,
this hum that does not abate.
As God’s direct transmission,
imagine bliss ignition,
that continues to renew,
with each life breath born anew.
The path kundalini takes,
our conditioned beliefs shakes,
as direct truth known by touch,
on relinquishing thought crutch.
Scriptures are both wrong and right,
for who can track flight of light,
surging forth from deep within,
causing worlds around to spin?
Hoping all become aware,
driven by love, we do share,
though this can only be known,
when we go in and atone.
BOIMA.
Pelo e rwalego meloko,
Mogawo wo o sa fetošwego ke nako.
O wa ka mangwele—
fela
wa se khuname!
Botiipane ke matlaka
a go gana go robega phetšong;
Lenganego ke kotse e tiilego ya sebopego,
e sa letlanywego ke tšhošetšo.
Boima bjo—
bo go tlema fase bjalo ka thaba,
gore moya o se ke wa go tšea.
English translate
HEAVINESS.
A heart carrying whole generations,
An unyielding stance against the drift of time.
You fall to your knees—
yet
you do not bow!
Stiffness is the dry stem
that refuses to snap in the gale;
Starch is the crisp, unruffled shield of form,
unwrinkled by the threat of collapse.
This weight—
it anchors you deep like a mountain,
so the wind can never steal your breath.
I thought
I was shouting into the void
holding my brush
dropping my colours into the canvas
listening to voices
memories
traces of longing
moments in time.
No magic wand
to wind words
and speak my feel and thought
Spellbinding are my brushstrokes
they are my language and song.
Forget me not
See me
an Artist
call me.
Step into my world
need not know how I translate my word
Just see, till you lose your senses
Ascend and leave behind all the fences
Touch what makes your spine clutch
Feel, till no ground under your feet.
Then respond
reach for that bond
and learn
“Being seen matters”
Offering the gifts of the heart matters
Oozing audacity and joy
truly matters.
My fear might not disappear
but I am here
on a journey of no compeer
unlearning
understanding
embracing all that makes no sense
“Not knowing what to do next to grow”
Forget me not.
Besma
July 13th, 2026
Inspired by Zoe Davey's painting "Forget Me Not"
Ekphrasis Form poetry contest sponsored by Silent One.
Before the first tongue
suffered the burden of naming,
the garden possessed
its own onomasticon:
Leaf,
Lumen,
Lark,
and one white rose—
an inviolate effulgence
ensphered in dew.
No creature
contested its quietude.
The bee
Received.
The wind,
that elder philologer,
declined dominion.
Only the hand,
catechised by appetite,
confounded wonder
with warrant.
Then
the stem vouchsafed
its green apostrophes.
One thorn
solicited blood
before blood
solicited speech.
Yet the blossom
Withdrew
no redolence.
Its whiteness,
anamnetic of snowfall,
absolved the very air
that coveted it.
Only at vespers
did the ordinance
become legible:
the thorn
was never
the flower's severity,
but sanctity
Assuming
the grammar of sap—
Creation's final rubric,
lest beatitude,
Misparsed
as possession,
translate Eden
into rubble.
You've been gone so long.
My pen races to translate every heartbeat.
Longing to be together again.
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
Hauling gravel.
A bath filled with seaweed.
Burbles near the stars.
While seeking.
Mental illness is one.
Grappling hooks turned inwards.
Very grave like a bowl of coffee grounds.
Smells ground.
As I grab a speech bubble which can translate anything.
It doesn’t pop.
All I say is-
Gloop.
And the mental illness stoops lower.
It’s in second place, while I’m in third, and guess what? My least favorite movie is first.
Thank you, Jackson Browne,
and somehow "I get the joy
of rediscovering you"
Thank you, Journey,
and I am 'Faithfully'
learning the lines
of the highways of life
"Wheels go round and round
in my mind"
I will "sleep alone
tonight"
this poem of various songs
will not translate
to tangible meaning for you
the men I love
stopped listening
to my poems and songs
I did and didn't write
but continue to dance to
in silk skirts from consignment
stores that make me feel
like a success story
or an extra in a movie
I have quarters to my name,
cheap jokes and receipts
J.B invited me
to "stay, just a little bit longer"
and my "mother don't mind,
and the union don't mind"
and "please, please, please
say you will"
I have half an hour
to be self-indulgent,
and romantic
How long do you have
to play?
Though we cannot transmit the taste of bliss,
through words as symbols we try to translate,
the rapture felt by Divine Mother’s kiss,
tingle magnetic that does not abate,
God’s touch, immediate and intimate.
Likening body-mind as a balloon,
in which sun’s warmth and cool light of the moon,
entwine in heart and joyfully explode,
creating bliss bubbles that makes us swoon,
reflecting thus, let’s sing to God an ode.
thought brew stale is familiar tale
but if the void of silence be our home
our heart will not pale in the fiercest gale
with consciousness mirroring God’s gong Om
life as scripted is in time depicted
wherein in the vastness we wingless glide
nonchalant to outcomes, heart uplifted
aware at all times that God dwells inside
the light that lights all lights always aflame
our form is suffused with bliss magnetism
life’s highs and lows then for us are the same
as we transcend knowings of every ism
commingled with bliss that does not abate ~
such is our vibrance mind cannot translate
each neophyte who has seen divine light
shouts from the rooftops, the sight so beheld
though mere words cannot translate bliss delight
he yet shares his knowing in rhymes misspelled
It starts with a map spread across
the kitchen table,
fingertips tracing the jagged contour lines
like a language only the heart can translate.
Some call it a hobby,
but you know the truth by the weight on your back-
and the contents in your pack.
It is a holy burden,
a physical manifestation of a need
to be smaller than the world but larger then
your imagination.
There is a fever
Qin the rhythm of the ascent,
the way the lungs burn in synchronicity with the calves.
You aren't just walking;
you are consuming the distance,
swallowing the switchbacks
until the trailhead is a memory
and the valley floor is a map you’ve outgrown.
Your boots have memorized
the texture of granite and root,
the specific crunch of shale under a desperate heel.
They say "obsessed" like it’s a cage,
but here, in the thin air where the trees give up,
it feels more like an opening.
You hunt the summit not for the view,
but for the moment the internal noise finally stops-
when the only sound left is the wind
stripping away everything you thought you were
until you are nothing but breath,
moving upward unable to-
turn back.
Sentenced to a lifetime of repeats,
rewind repeat rewind repeat
I see it written on the walls
of my mind
the sentence keeps me caged
like a bird dying for light and freedom
of the open sky of endless blue horizons
but it is only a window of illusion
upon which I stun myself trying to escape
and still it stays secreted away
written in a language I can see
but can’t understand
even the doctors are helpless
with their potions and powders
and endless talk talk talk
please just read it and translate it
and tell me what it says
this run-on sentence I can’t erase.
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