Time slips by

Time slips by in an instant, but I still
Remember the way to your parents’ place, the feeling of
Seeing you pull away, a couple of tears marking your face,
Trailing past pathways, memories, the scars you would rather
Scratch away, but I thought you were beautiful either way.

How could you be so effortlessly attractive to me,
Brushing your teeth, with that little shake
In your hair, whilst your tired eyes looked into mine?

Did you know?
Did you see?

The gears turning in my head, as I tried not to jeopardise what
We had, but I couldn’t lie, not with words, or with
Goodbyes, no,
I tried, but time
Slips by in an instant, and I
Still find reminders of you –
A word, a hair, an inside joke that we wouldn’t dare
Share with the world.

I hope you know or knew that I
Do care, and I did care, though I don’t know
If I will care when time slips away,
And the hair that frames my face is a shade of
Melancholic grey… but for now
Let us mourn the love that we could have had
For every future yesterday.

green and unknowing

Do you think I couldn’t see us
In the blues and yellows
Of yesteryear, when
I saw you more often than the clouds in the sky,
And we would greet each other more frequently
Than we would say goodbye?

Alas, one essential colour was missing
To create the colours on the rainbow.
The colours on the spectrum
Lacked life – red
Blood that I remember so vividly:
Draining from your face,
Except for your eyes,
Looking into mine, bloodshot
And heartbroken, God,

I see you now
Left behind
Drowning in the blues and yellows
Clinging onto an idealised memory
Fragmented pieces of me
That drag you down
Deep into the sea
Deep into
The blue and yellow fantasy

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.

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.

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

Another poem about love, death and whatever is in between

A moment’s respite
From mindless melancholy
Bones barely breathing
A crushed carcass
Buried by the weight of a silent generation
The prophets that foretold
All that is known and unknown
The coming of hell on earth
A thousand years of glorious madness
So, ravenous vulture with your wings,
Nocked bow, an arrow
Pointing at my heart
Oh, it’s the excitement of love and death,
Self-hatred and pride, legacy
And oblivion
In an empty sky
Where the stars are not welcome
And the sun does not dare show its face
It is the night
That never ends
It is the night
That gives me this gift
Of a moment’s respite

Certainty: Death, Love, and Everything in Between

Late night surround sound
The city lights in my mind
Explosive thoughts, touches
Heart, body, mind, in ecstasy,
A sensory overload that leaves me
Reeling, dazed and melancholic
For days, but I chase
The high, the feeling of being
In love – in love with an unobtainable being,
A serving, a portion, an abortion of love
It had a foundation but that’s all there was
Deleted fetus turned off
By the machine, that hides
Behind clouds, doubt and indifference
All around, as my thoughts disappear
Into the loud, late night surround sound

Tag: melancholy