Heaven or Rain

Rain pours down like the fury of an angry God,
As he tries to drown us once more
And breaks rainbows and promises of eternal love.

How could he not
When he sees the joy on our face
Through sin and pain,
As he realises we have no shame.

We are naked and exuberant,
With heads in the clouds –
Joyous reflections in the refractions of sunshine
That shimmer so vividly.

Heaven could not compare
To these moments we share.
You are greater than eternity,
And I’ll take care of you till our hellish end,
My beautiful, rain-stricken friend.

We can dry ourselves by the fires of torment,
Roast marshmallows on pitchforks and torture tools,
And watch the flames of forever
Burn on, and on,
But at least we’ll watch them burn

Together.

Birthmarks and Scars in the Spotlight

Check my birthmarks –
My personal spots and signs,
My life scars, too many to count
But they are mine
Either by birthright, or the attempts on my life.
It feels like I have nine lives,
Four chambers, one bullet
And a cocked hammer –
Pulled back by my stress,
Until I snap, and take that one in four chance
To blast myself in the head.
Although I’m not better off dead.
I’m better off red
In the face, with tears on my cheeks,
Till I’m wet, soaked, covered in sadness,
To the point of breathless madness
But it’s fine, it’s all for the sake of saving him,
That child residing on the inside
Of my heart, working the machine
The way he’s worked his whole damned life,
Putting his own desires aside,
All for the sake of peace and mediation,
Another tough pill to swallow,
But facing the truth is his daily medication

As he carries the same marks,
The same scars, given to him by lovers,
Mothers, brothers, friends and absent fathers,
Who were either there to embrace him,
Burn him at the stake, or neglect him
The way I did when I buried him in the dark
Cold hard ground when I was five.

No, I didn’t want to look at him,
Be him, or free him from his despair,
No, that little boy was going nowhere
If it was up to me, till a point in my life
When I realised that little boy never gave up the fight.

What Will We Tell the Wishing Well

Wash away the wishes in the well,
Ignore what the life lines or stars may tell,
For they are born from ignorance, hopes and dreams
That seek to escape reality, and do not guarantee
What will and will not be.

Although I do know how tempting it may be
To want to see into the days yet to come,
The feelings yet to feel, experiences yet to experience,
The love yet to lose, the love yet to gain,
The pleasures of the future, not to mention
The pain.

Wash it all away.
Leave it
For another day.

Poem: red light green light

The bustling street corners,
Rumours floating through alleys
The woman in the window
A man on the corner
Protection, rejection, a murder
Of crows and other birds
Fly overhead, past street lights
Green lights, I stay
Between the red flags
So I’m safe from the riptide,
The quiet pressure of pounding waves
Pulled along by her presence
Up there in heaven, the moon
And our many memories,
Times together when
We thought we would be
Forever and a minute
Passed before we were reminiscing
About what could have been,
Though tonight I’ve been
Okay on my own
Thinking about
What should have been
And this is it
The only outcome
For a life split in two
So many times
That I’m okay with being just with me
And not being with you

Poem: do they know

Do they know
That I’m alone?

The bats flying around my balcony
In silent flight, guided
By the sonic echoes –
The smallest sounds.

Can they hear
My teardrops hit the ground
When I can’t stop them
From leaving?

They always do.

poem: we can’t

Hey, can we please start again?
A new sunrise, new
Dewdrops on the flowers outside
Your window where we
Could have lied in the grass, but
Instead we lied to ourselves,
And said:
It was going to be a beautiful day
For us to enjoy together but
This is not our day –
It’s not yours,
nor is it mine.

Of course, it would be nice
To start from the start –
From where it all began, but
Now, we are where we are,
Though at least

We’re still friends.

Even through all the lies –
The goodbyes to the past
And future we never had.
The goodbyes to a sunrise
That would never set on us, together.
The goodbyes to the life
We never had and
Will never have
Because
we can’t start again.

Living legacy of a dead dad

A loveless life, and misery.
Did you expect that
To be your legacy?

I thought I had one happy memory
Of you and me:

I was walking on your feet
As you held my hands in yours,
Although now I am not sure
If it’s true

Because the main way I remember you
Is pale and blue in a wooden box –
Dead, in our living room.

I did not get the chance to know you, in a non-dead state.
I did not get the chance to really know you,
And all your uncaring ways.
I did not get the chance to see for myself,
What a disastrous disappointment you would be, dad,
As a father, as a man, as a husband –
You were everything I never want to be.

So, thank you, dad,
For leaving me.
Thank you, dad,
For your legacy.
Thank you, dad,
For loving me in your way…
Hey,
You know what that looked like?

You would come home from work, and breeze past me,
When I was so happy to see you,
As you never even said goodbye in the morning, no,
You did not want me
Or my affection, my love –
So unfamiliar to a soul that had given up,
No, you only gave your attention
To your newspaper and your regrets –

You know what?

You made no difference, alive or dead.

I don’t even think

About the life we could have had.

Marionette and the Moon

When did these strings
Take a hold of my heart, skin and bones?
I am the marionette,
Dragged onto the stage
With my bleeding knees –
Mascara streaks on my cheeks –
The performer of no story at all,
With black tears that do nothing
But fall.

A single spotlight
Fixated on my eyes,
And my ambitions,
My hopes and dreams –
Are they
What I made, or
What was I made for?

I am no Atlas,
I was not made to carry the world,
Or the sky, I
Was made to be like the moon,
Because
When I see her late at night
When I’m all on my own,
I see myself just like her:
Scarred and alone.

Poem: Ash of the Past

Lay me in the dust of death
A vague disconnect
From the blood on my hands
In the drowning discotheque
Music pounding in my head
To the beat of how things used to be
With our drunken songs
On dimly lit city streets

The sheets on my bed
Still carry your ash
Where I sleep
And have my fitful dreams
From which I keep waking
With tremors in my hands
And an unsteady breath
That escapes my lungs
And leaves me here
Laying myself down in the dust of death

Escape the Night

Escape the nightlife,
The empty promises,
Endless dances around the truth,
To the beat of off-beat, out of sync hearts.

Join me under the stars, my dear.
Let’s look at the clouds
And appreciate the company of the moon,
Far, far away from the madding crowd.