Tag: writing

Twisting and turning

The storm that never quits
Turns and turns and twists
Its eye, staring down in the abyss
It dips and dances, pulses and convulses,
Seizing spasms ceasing breathing,
Destroying all till true nothingness exists,
A mind silenced, quintessentially quiet,
For once, till oceanic terrors tear through it,
Waves of exhaustion, white heads rearing so high
That the sky is as blue at night, as it is during the day,
The sun is blotted out, the moon is forgotten,
The storm turns and twists,
The storm eternally persists

Doubt, denial, or some other damned thing

When I left,
Sure, I felt some semblance of relief, yet now, after a week,
All that is left is grief, for the
Empty space in my bed,
Messages not sent,
Words left unsaid, you trace my thoughts, drawing forth
A future we never had, and a past
That was a present, last week, yet now,
All that is left is me.

It was my choice, and it’s one I have to stand by,
I can’t simply put what we had to sleep, or on stand-by mode, no,
I know that wouldn’t be enough,
But I don’t know what will be, or is it as simple a case as
“Right person, wrong time?” but how could you ever be mine
Again, as all my present words are left unsaid,
As regret begets regret,
Thoughts run checked, visions of you,
Dance endlessly in my head.

I just hope we can be friends

Before yesterday

The plate with a pizza stares at me from the shelf,
An axe for a knife, a sword for a fork, a laminated drawing from
Before

The constellations turned upside down,
Orion looked so different from my balcony,
Before
I would search the sky from my mum’s garden,
Before I found love, lose love, found love and lost it and
found it, and I felt like with you I struck gold, with your
Smile, green eyes, easy laugh, your everything that I would hold
In my arms until we’re old, I imagined
A house, smaller versions of us, running around,
Laughing, crying, sleeping, screaming, dying, waking up
Before yesterday,
Before,
Before,
Before,
I split us up, with
Tears streaming, screaming through my head
Your hair, your neck, your smile, your eyes, kindness,
I could be buried in, not cremated, but
I was burning and burning, fire flaring, emergency strobe light, ambulance blaring
Through the dead of night, raindrops on your window,
Wet tissues on the ground, I’m so sorry,
I’m so sorry, het spijt me,
het spijt me, het spijt me, I love you and miss you and need you to know
it’s for us, we tried, we tried, we tried, we
died we’re dying, I can’t stop crying
In your shoulder, heaving sobs, stupid sounds, blubbering shakes, tremors,
quakes, the raindrops pounding in my head,
Everything I’ve said, no regret, god I miss you, I miss you,
Ik mis je en god ik hoop zo dat je oke gaat zijn, het is aan jou,
Your heart is in your hands but it’s a mangly mangled up mess, I’m sorry,
Stinking trash can, almost full, tissues go in, shoes on,
I’m so sorry, we’ll be in touch okay?
I love you, come here, god I love you, ik wil je niet kwijt, sorry
this is confusing, I love you,
It’ll rain a bit less in ten minutes, jacket on,
Holding you, heaving, starving, dying, crying, there’s so much
Haunting me, smiles, sleepy eyes, messy hair, protein shakes that make me cry,
holding hands in the shopping aisle, i’ll always love you
and i hope you do too

het spijt me

Passing

Passing pleasantries
Ignored like roadkill
A plant in a pothole
Drowning in the smallest rainstorm
Living for every bit of sun I can catch
On whatever leaves I have left
Before
A deer eats my head
A car strikes it dead
Crashes into a tree
It collapses onto the street
Where she was about to cross
She now passes
If only she hadn’t ignored
A pleasantry

Tense

Clenched jaw, strained eyes —
The damned dishes are cleaned
By hands, stressed and tense —
I can hear the washing machine
Screaming and crying from the next room,
Alongside the dry, clean clothes covering my bed —
My bed that looks clean but hasn’t seen a clean sheet
In maybe three or six weeks —
I can’t do it all in one morning,
Not when I can’t stop, and I
Go on and on and on, with my jaw clenched
and my eyes strained,
my hands stressed and tense —
I can hear the washing machine

The sandwich and the sidewalk

I saw God the other day, sitting on the sidewalk outside of the Albert Heijn.
A crown in the form of a worn and weathered grey beanie, I thought
It must be a tad too warm, but
He does work in mysterious ways.

He asked me for some change, and I told him
I used to pray to him, and ask the same.
Dejected, he asked for some food – a soft sandwich, perhaps, as he no longer had his heavenly teeth.
I got him a bacon and egg sandwich
From the bin with all the ‘aged’ produce,
Priced down to celebrate its final ‘best-before day.’
I figured it would be softened, and moistened by age.
The bacon egg combo is a classic combination, like
Man and sin, bacon and egg, man and bacon, and man and egg.

When I walked out with the soggy sandwich, a spark sparkled in God’s eyes,
A few tears on his cheeks, reminding me of the soggy bread I held in my hands.
He said he couldn’t believe I came back and provided him his heavenly lunch,
And he shook my hand, and gave me a hug.

I held him for a moment.

How did you fall so far?
Was your throne,
Your horse,
Your holiness
So high?

The taller they are, the harder they fall, and you
Were on the highest pedestal—my neck would break
If I tried to meet your eyes, your expectations, and now
I see you in your truest form.
You
Wanted so badly to be loved and adored by all,
And in turn you would grant us your conditional love, but
I guess you will have to settle
For a soggy sandwich.

Who knows

Your head found my shoulder,
And we lived conjoined for weeks
On end, side by side, some said
We were more than friends –
One wished, and one knew
We were, but we
Were not –
Would not be what one
Wished we could be
But who knows what,
And these things are still confusing,
As though we split, you
Changed and stayed
The same, and I am someone else
Every other day, though
I could say the same for you,
As though you stay the same,
You’re stuck in perpetual static change –
Unchanging and everchanging,
I loved you, and all your little things –
Your mugs, your painful patience,
Your hair I would find everywhere,
Your eyes when they would stare into mine, so late at night,
Your smile, your lips when they would meet mine, or simply exist –
I would have worshipped every freckle, birthmark, and scar
On your body, and soul, but
You are someone else than the one
I mentioned before,
And in the end who knows
Who is who and what is what and who we are and what we are not

A Peculiar Nature Scene

The bear waits patiently next to the river, with a rather peculiar duck between her front paws, watching eagerly along. With no intended malice, the bear slaps at one particularly silly salmon, which lands on the rocks besides the pair. Although the salmon was quite aware of the nature of things, he gave them a surprising request.

“Well, you caught me now,” he blubbed, somehow, “this might be the end of my salmon life, but please spare my salmon wife.” This was a bit new to the bear, as she had not heard her lunch ask much of her before, as she was an ever-so-hungry predator of prey. Nor did she ever consider the implications of a salmon marriage, before this day. Alas, she responded to the salmon, “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but as I fish with my bare bear claws, I doubt I shall be able to uphold my end of this clause.” Or, well, she would have said this to the salmon, had the duck not swallowed the salmon whole. He quacked. The bear did not.

As for the salmon wife, she was not as fast as the salmon that had just lost its life. She swam, jumped, jumped and swam, until she swam into a large gathering of logs, drifting on the water.

“Damn,” the salmon wife exclaimed, like a fish. “Indeed,” replied the beaver. It was the six hundred and thirty second time that this beaver made this joke this summer, and he was considerably disliked by the beaver community. Indeed, he had been cast out from the community in a permanent exile, which had previously been unspoken of, considering the lack of a democratic system in the beaver community. In any case, he was hated so much, that the beavers figured it out, got together, and kicked him out of the colony. None of this was known to the salmon wife, as she had never met a beaver before. Nor was their interaction of any particular interest. The salmon wife was not interested in hearing about any democratic system, nor did the beaver care much about salmon marital systems.

The salmon wife started, “But, my dear beaver, marine marital systems are of great importance! My salmon saviour stated in the salmon bible that ‘salmon should save the life of their salmon wife, once they are broken upon the rocks by a bear, with no intended malice.’ These teachings must be taught and thought of as truth!” By now, the beaver realised the surreal nature of their interaction. A fish, speaking to a beaver?

Before the beaver could realise many existentially life-changing revelations, the story advanced to the meeting between the bear and the salmon wife. Once more, the bear waited patiently next to the river, with the duck at her side this time. The salmon wife swam, jumped, jumped and swam, and jumped straight into the bear her arm, which was swung with no intended malice. The duck quacked, “wait, wasn’t that the salmon wife? Hadn’t we heard something about her before?”

The bear replied, “Heard of her before? I don’t know, I am a carnivore.”