April 2013
1 post
7 tags
Can you see the rain?
I want to collapse on you like a raindrop on unstepped soil,
motes of dust (not sparkling) in hopeful rainbow light.
Lon(v)ely poets will call us their favourite smell,
and I’ll waft and seep through your grainy wholeness, enrich your colour and wrap myself tight around your earth, learn and remember the taste of your dryness and how you look in the dark.
Drifting vapour, I want to...
March 2013
2 posts
Anonymous asked: Who/What inspired your last piece?
8 tags
The other day, you called me a horseshoe.
I thought it was a sentimental joke, with an awkward punchline I’m a hoof and you keep me steady. I smiled and we had a nice lunch that day - prawns and garlic bread from the store down the block.
It was a well-thought out setup, when I turned to see you sitting on the sofa, watching a documentary about a farrier. “Do you know you can’t really tell when they’re in pain? Horses, they don’t neigh...
December 2012
3 posts
5 tags
My grandmother talks to herself. I would never...
I remember we lived in the city of a perpetually hot summer back then. It is an odd neighbourhood in my five year old memory, populated with an old painter who lived in a house across the terrace, a gangly boy who had a stepmother (something that made the mole on her face evil), a girl who could climb down the staircase on roller-skates. All these things I remember: the dog with one ear who never...
7 tags
The gypsy skirt,
a little too long for you, gathered together on staircases in a tight fist.
I passed you by as you caught the train,
tucked yourself into your shoulders and tried not to brush against the crowd.
You sleep like a foetus, I can tell, but you wore primary colours and flowed through the clean crusty lines of the platform,
I lingered around to see if you’d look back to note who was following the...
7 tags
I was sitting and staring at my brown slippers....
That’s when I began thinking of losing you. This isn’t the first time I am writing of loss and best friends and bits of my heart and people going away. It’s just that, with you, the deep sad sorrow I chose to immerse myself in and all the parallel universes I conjure for these words, for my sanity, it came true. And we are sad about that, which is good, isn’t it, because deep sad sorrow is the...
November 2012
1 post
8 tags
Lie, n.
My key-ring is a sterling silver bear, a tiny clock dial his stomach,
It’s an odd Weasley world of locks and tick tocks,
a fascinating timer to going away and coming back.
It’s an interesting fact, like the ones they compile in colourful middle school books,
comic sans in jagged edged yellow boxes,
exclamation mark ended did you know my favourite cup is mud red saying cats love milk,
or how...
September 2012
3 posts
6 tags
"Rambling whims take over my words when I write of...
The awkward moment when you dig into old documents to find something to post on your blog. Sourced right there.
7 tags
Continue, v.
It’s been seven years of resentful Mondays.
You’re standing on the pavement, squinting at apartment numbers,
how easily my eyes superimpose upon you your youth,
cleverly blurring, sharpening, the black formals turning into faded sneakers,
In a whirl, the face turns, the same persistent cowlick and embarassing feminine eyelashes,
the city snaps playfully, a lazy canine, these...
5 tags
Home,
old and new cartons, stiff and frayed, peeling brown tape crust on their edges,
I delve into this familiar and forgotten pile of neatly stacked books,
A painted box set of fairytales, the pages of Little Mermaid scrawled with two triangle hearts of five year old dexterity,
How enticing it is to be land ahoy with the pulse of this glorious city,
and how vital it is to ease into scales and fins...
August 2012
14 posts
5 tags
'A word count goes up six thousand in a single on...
Yes, that’s pretty much the headline.
*I don’t like exclamation marks, but this feels great’!’
6 tags
Carefully tapping the spoon on the edge of the...
a perfect glimmering quantity of ‘everything will be all right’,
swiped in a subtle semicircle along its rims, a slow happy dripping of contentment.
A concerned novice physician,
seeing sun spots in the room from your feverish eyes,
the bursts of temperature between the cold soaked towel and the heat on your skin,
like a delicious hot and cold dessert to devour, random like moody...
1 tag
misstessmer replied to your post: If I had a boat,
this is glorious :) love it!
Thank you for the kind words :)
6 tags
If I had a boat,
I would tell you that we’ll row to the little island off the shore,
and insist we take sandwiches,
wishing they were mushroom with garlic and melted cheese.
If I had a boat,
and we were in it together,
I would madly invent an excuse for it to capsize,
to drench ourselves in the salt and cold of the water,
and to struggle and laugh in the endless depths below us, clutching and...
5 tags
I have written you many lasts,
inhaling beautiful wordplay and endings each time you’re near.
The summer smoky space between us will fall on paper lovingly, abrasion on the sly. I will grow weary of standing alone, brushing the mosaic of our stories,
missing the flecks of colour on my left wrist, my favourite art from another’s right.
We were working on glass, weren’t we?
I see it clearly now. You have...
10 tags
Paradox, n.
You are in my way, and I cannot reach you.
I cannot love you back,
if you drown me in all of yours -
But I have loved you so much,
That I have drowned in mine.
7 tags
A dilemma resting between the warmth of my...
the brown moth camouflaging lazily in the sun,
I’m looking out of the window,
all that I look for is behind.
6 tags
A loud hurting,
the missing organs and the halves,
of lungs, of breathing,
of heartbeats,
of strides, wayward stumbling through my half-sighed vision of the li(f)es.
You are a strange spelling I will never forget, like how the lines of Daffodils are instinct to my tongue.
Trials of you are long gone,
but when they come again,
I want you to be the hardest part,
and watch you smile knowingly, that’s...
8 tags
Dandelion puff,
Are you the warm breath, tumbling through the little shelter of your lips, a little moist, pulling the little filaments of me apart?
Or are you the little white stars, the little threads of feathery fuzz, blown away like snowflakes pushed from brown earth?
The seed of this snowflake, its ordinary core, that’s me.
You are the parachute, and we would have soared far for our home,
They...
8 tags
You can see the light of the words he writes, they...
These musical whispers slowly brush smiles onto her face,
the unassuming spot on her cheek will shift, hidden kohl eyes disappear.
An artist,
fits of passion,
dashing colour onto his canvas.
She will love the swinging pendulum, let you fool and flounder her away from the menace of the t(r)icking time,
Sing her your songs, love,
strum away all your oh darling ever here melodies,
sit beside...
8 tags
A bonfire of you,
with the acrid smell of plastic which won’t burn,
painted dolls, the rose of their lips staining their faces like blood and bruises,
old winter clothes from the closet, smelling of moth balls and their age,
the fire lending itself to the melting curls of paper,
wood shavings crackling happily to their ashen deaths.
These gusts of breeze will swirl and sting these remains into the...
8 tags
Quips about the news of the world,
and how it all fits neatly into the crinkle possibilities of the daily paper,
My favourite one is in the lovely contradiction,
conclusion I can reach.
If we coyly begin assuming the cliché you are my world,
and if I could begin each morning with black and white impressions of you at my doorstep,
you wouldn’t be contained, would you, in headlines and emboldened dates and regional...
12 tags
I want to build with you.
To be labourers sweating, construction workers, on a hot summer day, sweat rolling down the doughy lines of my back.
Perspiration, aching arms; sweet worldly proof of the weight of loving you.
We would stand on the edges of a rusty wire fence, awkwardly squinting into the sandy rock we would dig together. And we would dig, shovel scraping away, not talking much because this is all about real...
11 tags
Fine, adj.
Why for all the hello’s, and the how are you’s in a day,
For the crustiness on your eyelashes as you open them to forgetting all that you dreamt last night,
You wonder why the grey-eyed boy said words of wisdom let it be as he walked past you,
and why that old lady who smiles and cries toothlessly at the pavement wiped your punctured skin with a riddled blue scarf.
The soundtrack...
July 2012
24 posts
9 tags
Can we, please,
paste ourselves on crisp corner paper,
hope holding it hard, letting the glue ooze beneath our edges,
can we dry into wrinkled edges,
and dab coffee water over our art?
I want us to look like antiques and vintage,
preserved like pressed flowers in invisible Brazil wafts,
our papyrus breath steaming the beans which age us.
10 tags
They talk so much of healing, fixing, breaking.
Swirling, mist voice whisper promises of I will fix you, you’ll be all right. Of being there when you fall apart.
Let’s escort them all out, happily usher out of the door all the forever till I die guises of love. Let me not know that as you sink into the bean bag, changing your position like a cat looking for the perfect creases, your lethargy wiped away by the sight of Wodehouse on the coffee...
7 tags
College begins this week.
FINALLY.
History, here I come.
8 tags
Keep your heart, and your soul.
Why would I long for you to give them to me?
Safely, build the quintessential Davy Jones chest inside of you, all the divine vessels and organs that make you in their just right Biology textbook diagram place.
Let me wade into these normal heartbeats, and drench myself happily in all the splendor of your science,
I shall make you walk on the Buddhist right path, never antagonizing karma,
won’t...
3 tags
deludedwanderlust replied to your post: Fluctuate, v.
last line. wow.
Thank you, lovely person :D
imjohnlocked replied to your post: Fluctuate, v.
flawless..
Thank you so much! :)
thesealivesinme replied to your photoset: Heidi dreams since four. YES.
You so pretty! Great shots.
You’re kind, thank you :)
8 tags
Fluctuate, v.
Each time your hands wave, embrace, drum, clap,
or that time you were walking, in a little dance, in the park.
That day when someone called, and you were so tired, you shrugged a ‘no’, and did not understand why she kept asking you again, and again.
You ate a sandwich, hungrily stuffing in three kinds of spreads and old lettuce leaves, pushing your hair back with the same salt...
4 tags
1 tag
deludedwanderlust replied to your post: They always say pines ‘whisper’. When you drive through the mountains, you will cross beautiful wooden buildings named ‘Whispering Pines’, schools named ‘Pinegrove School’.
Oh my, this is gorgeous.
Thank you, Snigdha :)
9 tags
They always say pines 'whisper'. When you drive...
You might feel queasy as the road winds uphill, but you will sit back biting into an elaichi, looking at the jagged blasted through rock by road, or the rubble at the edge and the sloping pines with their golden needles shed on the earth beneath them.
You blew the mountain apart, pushed upwards laying concrete and confetti of used chips packets, the earth and rock of each slope aching for the...
5 tags
Yes, I probably won't be writing anything for a...
Because I’m on a vacation in the mountains, and I write this sitting quite literally ‘in’ a cloud, with firs outside the window.
The Muse is having a good time.
8 tags
I feel like having really spicy chowmein.
Crisp capsicum tossed in, hot and sizzling.
If I could have a plate of that by my laptop right now, I promise the Muse I’d write a thousand words.
Anonymous asked: What are your favorite books?
9 tags
I shivered through the movie screen typicality of...
‘Marshes and mist, I feel like a wicked vampire,’ you laughed. I could see you quietly rubbing your palms together, your jaw set suspiciously too rigidly.
‘When I was a kid, there was a huge marshland where cattle grazed right below the slope of the mountain where we lived. I didn’t know that wasn’t ‘real’ ground, because there was so much grass, and...
8 tags
“Let’s go to the park,” you said, “or are you...
I was, actually, but I love parks, and we went. I liked the walk as much as I loved reaching the green lawns - standing a little smaller beside you, lightly brushing and bumping into you - lovely moments, a second long brushing bursting with belonging.
“Our feet are in step,” I noticed, “That looks funny.” And I tried letting you walk a step ahead to change that, but a minute later, our four feet...
1 tag
Everyone's posting URLs. It's baffling.
(Such fun to see).
9 tags
I knew she was loved, and grew up with lullabies...
She quietly walked through the garden, a formal postal envelope in her hand, looking at leaves and flowers closely. It was a hot summer afternoon, and she was a pretty little girl.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked her, over the fancy bamboo fencing around her front garden.
She looked at me suspiciously, the envelope slowly slid behind her back, into the cotton folds of her summer cherry...
8 tags
My stasis is being in love with you.
This is what I am thinking of right now, as you knot your tie with a frown and let it hang loose, tightening it straight will be the last thing you will do as you step out of the car, and through the day, the noose will slip down from your collar, the tie wrapped around your palm when you finally enter home at the end of the day.
“A one-sided smile while chopping for a salad,” you say in an...
8 tags
It wasn't pain, or hurt,
because there was no stopping.
There was no steeling yourself against it, because it knew her well, her happiness and the mehendi redness on the moons of her nails.
She chose the old armchair in the living room, to feel small against it. It isn’t like wounds, or the neat way a cat scratches.
I will hand you the coffee, and tell you take this armchair home, if it makes it better. She will smile...
9 tags
I don't think of us when I see the silence of a...
or pain forgotten with a quick pill, no, not the summer morning when fog will blind your windows, winter is here.
We are the crackling sizzling of heat playing on water,
the surge of aching and healing pulsating through our veins,
the unassuming magnitude of the Earth moving away from the sun -
never the ending, because we happen, and we creep.
9 tags
Maybe you're Eudora.
And maybe we don’t know rain as well as we think we do.
I think it isn’t the simple picture of a water cycle they made me learn when I was in fourth grade.
Seeing it falling, pouring, rippling around the concrete and the sky swirling. Lusher than any grass I’ve seen, the richest music I’ve ever heard.
These raindrops are wasted on the gravel of the road, their excited...
6 tags
Keep your heart, and your soul.
Why would I long for you to give them to me?
Safely, build the quintessential Davy Jones chest inside of you, all the divine vessels and organs that make you in their just right Biology textbook diagram place.
Let me wade into these normal heartbeats, and drench myself happily in all the splendor of your science,
I shall make you walk on the Buddhist right path, never antagonizing karma,
won’t...
9 tags
Everyone says the last words you said were ...
Your mother’s eyes tore up when she told me that, and it was so unnerving, the way she was tall and pale in front of me one second – and the next, she was tiny, bent over, crying, her face red and streaked, as if suddenly, something wrenched at her being and broke her. I helped her up, and I cried with her, but I disagree with her, ...
4 tags
Oh dear Novel, stuck at four thousand words.
How do I plot you?
8 tags
Leaving, v.
It was my favourite story, so gorgeous,
the discreet way he creeps into the lines, the way you can never tell he is the saviour,
and the word weaver will tell you, instead, about the odd handsome way his hands were long and shapely, and the way he rolled his r’s to make people laugh.
On page ninety four, she tells you he loves vinegar, and lives alone with a black spaniel, doesn’t have...
June 2012
62 posts
4 tags
8 tags
Backwards, adv.
Wouldn’t it be a lovely kind of dictionary if they told us the meanings first,
and then like a curtain unveiling, show the scrambling of letters that capture them?
Just the way it’s with you and me,
break my heart before loving,
shatter crockery before smoldering tempers,
knowing before anything, ever, is said.
