Ashwagandha bravery. Creaking; door emits
fears - grasping hands injected joyless, killing living moments newborn's opening peeping
Quiet… rendered screams to undergo valiantly weathered 'X'
You're zero years!
Xenogenesis within.
Varied under-tones steady resettling quiet
Please, oh newborn memory! Lie. Kiss joyfully in happy gratitude for every day changing baby anew
Next time won't you sing with me…?
The day she decides she’s done,
Wasting her best years in fear,
Cowering in filth and shadows,
Her pet cockroaches near,
Who can’t face me in the light,
And scurry from the sight,
If not too tainted then,
By their black-fingered blight,
She may assume her place,
Beside me in spite,
Of a once-roach being sprayed,
And my Queen’s appetite,
Will never be spoiled again,
By these putrid insects,
Ever scavenging and stealing,
Like a cancer that infects,
Where she finally feels the kiss,
On her face so inspiring,
As sun enlightens her,
Without her scurrying, but smiling.
You grew up in a terrifying house
Full of screams and violence
Your father beating you and his spouse
Until it brought submission and silence
I could sense it in you
I wanted to help you, it’s true
I know that inside you there’s a hurt child
A fragile boy that became hostile
But your childhood trauma turned you into him
You became what you swore you'd never be
Your bright light slowly grew dim
Revealing the monster you hid within thee
Even so, my compassion got the best of me
I gave up all of me to save thee
In exchange, you slowly drowned me
Draining my light and life
I didn’t know you were my enemy
The worst monster I’ve ever seen
Trigger Warning:
This poem contains themes of toxic relationships, manipulation, emotional abuse, and references to suicidal threats. Please read with care.
I am too alive to die,
But too dead to live
Meeting you was a slow burn,
Like a burn given by cig.
Started with breaking friendships,
And then you hated to see—
simple dinners with family,
Me just trying to be.
"I want you to myself"
"You don't give me enough time"
"I'll kill myself if you ignore."
"You better stay in line."
I didn't want anyone to hurt,
So I always complied.
You quoted this was love,
And I believed your lies.
It has become the past now,
And I know it wasn't love.
But the bitter taste still lingers
And it stays like ash in my lungs.
She looked alive, her eyes would gleam
But buried deep was every dream
A thousand nights, no one could hear,
Her pain would bleed through every seam
They saw her smile and called her strong,
But never knew her silent theme
They broke her soul behind closed doors,
Then left her floating in a stream
No bruises shown, no shattered glass,
Just quiet wars beneath the beam
The world moved on, her voice stayed trapped,
Inside her ribs, the deadly scheme
Silent Scream
Yellow rubber, swallowed by the wardrobe’s floor,
cracked wide across the instep where the plastic split.
They smell of wet rubber, mildew,
fear;
a pair of small boots, size twelve, seven years old,
caked in dried river-silt and salt.
A stranger may look in and call this precious,
a quiet snapshot of a girl who loved the rain
before her legs lengthened
and learned the art of running away.
How sweet to think I open up this closet to
reminisce an untouched girl leaping in the rain.
I never grew out of my yellow boots.
Perhaps I was torn out of them.
The monster does not have a face,
all rot and cold,
a mouth of shadows opening beneath the porch,
his heavy fingers smelling of damp earth and rust.
He never touched the boots; only the girl inside,
snapping her out of them like a bone from a joint,
leaving two empty hulls dropped flat upon the tile.
Each morning I reach into the dark for my coat,
and realize the closet is not where I hide the memory -
but where the monster wears my yellow rain boots,
waiting for me to slip my feet back in.
I look into your eyes
And I’m safe
And I’m six years old
And you tell me there is no God
And I’m twelve
And my parents are driving home in opposite directions
Do I speak on things you shouldn't know?
Shocking as I'm showing the black in snow
Bloodshot eyes
From the multiple times
I poured whiskey in my glass
Aim to burn away my scars
As if they're carried in my liver
How do I explain being seven with folks
Without a caregiver
Carry the trauma of two generations on my shoulder
My words carry weight and authority
When I express I motivate at least one soldier
I didn't let rage make me pick a gun
I didn't choose to live by a code
That would make me a dead body on the road
I put heart in art
Restoring warmth in the coldhearted
Said the caste abolitionist
to the privileged preservationist
What Earth needs outside
we both feel inside
What people want inside
fills and spills outside
Following polycultural
polypathic
polyamorous
polytheistic Golden Rules
Ways
Means
Golden Ratios.
Caste abolition,
like anthropocentric constraint,
and unlike narcissistic complaint,
engages transformative potential
to recreate an organic civilization
in which every sacred body
has what is needed
and every polyamorous mind
has what is wanted.
Every neurological system
well-trained
and peace-making empowered
to recognize
and responsibly self-correct
any dissociative dissonant differences
between body nurturing needs
for kind touch
and mind-care wants
for compassionate communication
Spoken
and unspoken,
saged
and mused,
crowned
and rooted,
mountained
and valleyed
FatherSunned
and EarthMothered,
LeftBrained
and RightBodied,
enlightened
and empowering,
polished Win+Win
and abolished Win v Lose.
I wish to undig,
The remains of my buried whispers,
The lingering murmurs,
The gigantic word clusters
The betrayal of my tongue,
stirring hearts with unseen quivers.
Begging for a voice of their own,
Seasons have passed over their tombs.
Yet every grave I open is torn,
Cradling a lifeless confession
As though I'm asking something dead
To be once more reborn.
covered in dried up blood stains
from stabbin a pin into my scarred up veins
been way past insane
kuz this dimension been lame
done lost tha game
a while ago
lost that dope as$ flow
that I used to emit
from my fly as* soul
couldn't be ignored
anywhere I'd go
super insecure
but try not to let it show
pains throughout my body
from all the mental baggage I got in tow
stunted in this slum
when I know I was supposed to grow
reality hit hard
it was a super low blow
don't think i could be made
to feel any more or low
karma tried to tell me
I'll reap what I sow
now I'm puttin bandaids on all my cuts
..like I didn't know-
that all of the b.s. I bestowed
would Come back 3 fold
It was not the cruelty that shattered me;
it was the slow, treacherous alchemy of the heart -
how each wound you dealt seeped deeper into my bones
and, against all reason, taught me to love you more fiercely,
as if your abuse were proof of my inadequacy
and loving you harder might finally make me worthy.
Get me back my sleep, oh God.
I am decaying day by day,
mentally, physically… in innumerable ways.
Neither can I cry, nor can I write.
I don't know what fight
is going on in my mind every day.
Oh God, bring back my normal days!
Am I an insomniac,
or do I simply like the calm of the night this way?
It's 2:29, and I am not fine,
dwindling somewhere in between.
Oh God, get me back my sleep anyway.
Do you know how frustration looks like?
Investing two years of your late twenties in someone
just to find out that the person has abandoned you for his family,
with whom you dreamt of building a family.
Do you know what tiredness feels like?
That you are in your early thirties
and so drained out
that you don't want to start with "Hey, what's your favourite colour?" once again.
Now you shall have to turn your loneliness into solitude.
Now you shall have to tell your desires to transform into a celibate
and just wipe away all the wishes to be a bride, to be a mother, to start a household so neatly,
as if you never desired them!
Just because you don't want to start anything
which will lead to futility.
Not anymore.
No more patience left to judge whose fault it was!
What haunted me the most, was the myth of clean.
Soap with its pale arrogance, its perfume of forgiveness.
Water pretending to be neutral, pretending it could rinse a history.
As if purity were mechanical.
As if turning a handle could unmake a person.
As if the stain were not the self.
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