Friday 25 November 2016

Amāvāsyā

I woke up half an hour late today
Hit the snooze button
And went back to bed
I don't remember what my alarm clock sounds like anymore
Your patient voice no more echoed in my ears
I was never a morning person, you see
How could I ever be
The crescent moon lay inside you 
And you lay right beside me
Your mornings started way too early for me
Your angelic voice would hit me like a serenade, too sweet
But instead I'd pull you in
Wrap myself around your brilliant light
In my dark bubble as you tried to break free, giggling


I woke up half an hour late today
Dismissing my alarm clock into background noise
Waiting for my serenade
Until I was jolted up by reality
Your mornings now will still be too early for me,
Just your mornings now will never be for me
I will still never be a morning person, you see
But wake up just the same
A little too late
The remnants of that moonless darkness
Shaped like you, stretched across my face
I will lay in bed all by myself
For a little too long
As your voice slowly becomes a distant memory


I woke up half an hour late today
And stayed in bed
Until my memory brought
That sweet serenade back into my ears
And pushed me off the bed
But one day I will learn
To wake up to myself again.

Thursday 24 November 2016

Beautiful Lies

When your thin lips
Break into a goofy smile
Touching those warm deep eyes,
Like the ocean on a June afternoon
Just right enough to dive in,
It feels like the sun breaking from the clouds,
Shooting rays of silver light
Upon a once grey sky.
When your broad chest,
Like the cliff the waves of my ocean come crashing back to,
Engulfs my smallness,
Like a warm blanket
On a January night,
It feels like cold water
Being pumped out of my lifeless lungs,
Turning my lips pink again.
When you rest your plump nose,
Like the plush pillow my forehead loves,
Against mine, looking down
Into my hyperventilating eyes,
Like the break of dawn
Upon an enraged stormy night,
It feels like every atom in my body
Is pausing and meditating,
Finally resting.
When I put my hand against your heart,
Like the universe containing galaxies after galaxies,
Your hard chest with mush inside
Becomes my home,
One I cannot let go of.
I will soon run out of similes and metaphors
Just like I will soon run out of longing and sighs
Because time, my friend, heals
Wounds that eyes miss,
That science cannot reach
And time, my friend, etches each memory onto the brain
Like scars on skin.
But as long as I haven't run out of time,
I shall not stop
Painting your picture beautiful in twisted words,
A little different each time
Like pink clouds on lilac sky.

Tuesday 15 November 2016

Greens to Greys

I am of the kin
That grows up switching houses,
Filling them up to call our own.
In the same city, for five years
I had five homes.
Every time I'd leave,
I took a piece of it along.
The peacock feathers 
Shed in the backyard of one
Adorned the next,
Mom's hibiscus from one's garden
To another's walls.
My mere lifetime became a museum
Of doormats, lime paint and echoes in empty rooms
That reside safely 
In each of my bones
Like relics preserved,
Too precious to be displayed.
But I saw in movies 
And I saw in my grandfather, 
People I never understood
Who left pieces of their bones 
In homes,
Their hearts inside bricked walls,
Light wrecked to darkness
Like the concrete fours they lovingly built-
Until now.
Only my home is not guarded by brick walls
My home has no walls
It is vast open lands
That smell like freshly cut grass,
Clean air and chilly winds in September
My home looks like lush green forests
Residing April blossoms
And wide endless roads.
My home is not guarded by tall walls and wrought iron gates
It is guarded by greens on chests,
Combat boots,
Heavy metal on shoulders-
Infallible during mere earthquakes
That simple floods cannot corrode.
My home is not grey or white or yellow or pink
My home is green through and through
And for the first time in eighteen years,
I have been rendered completely homeless.



Epilogue.

Sunday 31 July 2016

Halo

If buildings reside
strange silences
and rains echo
in flooded streets.
If the faces around
are no more familiar,
please remember
you will always have a home
to come back to.
I will pray, everyday
that every house you enter
gets tinted by the hues
of your love and warmth,
that every soul you find
gets brimmed with the charm
every crevice of your being
is well versed with.
I will pray, everyday
for your happiness,
and for others' around you,
just like I found mine.

Sunday 24 July 2016

One Way

I love you
To the moon,
But never back
Because once I finally have
The two things
That engulf my soul,
Why would I want to detach myself
From the only world I have ever known?

Thursday 14 July 2016

tacenda

You're my midnight thought and my midnoon trance when I'm lost in that midnight thought.
You're all I think about when I don't have anything to think about and you're all I think about when there's other things I should be thinking about.
You mean the world to me and the world means nothing to me when I'm with you.
Your embrace smells of my favourite cologne and that faint smell of sweat and your embrace smells like the home that I always imagined to have, but never really had.
I've switched houses to houses but this is the first time I've finally stepped into home.
Your love overwhelms me so much that I often find myself crying at 3 am, wondering what great things I did to have deserved you, while at the same time wondering if I truly deserve you.
I don't know what this feeling inside my heart is. It's warm and it's heavy that leaves my lightheaded and fills me up and consumes me with something that I don't know.
What I know is that when I'm snuggled deep in your arms, getting high off the smell that I'm now way too familiar with, and look up to catch you looking at me with your deep set, warm and kind eyes, I see unconditional and irreplaceable, pure and absolute love.
You're mine and only mine and while I may be skeptical and cynical of the future, I still want to risk it all and confess that I sometimes dream about our forever.

Friday 8 July 2016

02.07.2016

I am on a mission tonight
To tell you how much I love you
Because it’s been far too long
Since I crudely drew that shy uncertain smile
That breaks like dawn
Upon this moonless dark night.

I am on a mission tonight
To speak to you in words I do not know how to utter.
I want to sit with you,
Hold your warm hands, like your heart,
To my heart,
Pour out to you
The things I could not have uttered.
I want to gaze into your deep kind eyes like, your soul
And watch them unravel my soul.

I am on a mission tonight
To brand your eyes as more than just deep,
Your soul as more than just kind.
I want to bury my head into a dictionary
And circle every word red
That reminds me of the magnificence that your magnificence is.
Red, because it is your favourite.

I am on a mission tonight
To talk to you
About that one movie you saw as a little kid
Which still echoes in every corner of your grown body.
I want to know you,
Know the dreams you had but gave up
Because ‘reality’ finally caught up to you
And know the dreams you had but never gave up
Even when reality managed to win the race.
I want to untangle you
Knot by knot, piece by piece
And see your bare soul,
And just. Keep. Looking.

I am on a mission tonight
To count the number of moles that encompass your beautiful body
Like stardust on a flawless canvas,
Like they are galaxies etched onto your perfect skin.
I want to memorize your stretch marks, your scars and their stories.
I want to learn
All that has made your body
Yours.

I am on a mission tonight
To lay with you
Under the stars, on wet grass
And find every nook and corner
Every untouched contour
And envelope it into mine.
I want to hold you,
To comfort you,
To caress you,
To ease your mind.

I am on a mission tonight
To do all the things I cannot
On this dim 3 am night.
I want to immortalize you
So that men for decades to come
Will whisper this sweet serenade
Like nothings into the ears of their lovers.
I want to make you
The epitome of the power of ink.

I am on a mission tonight
To make you my mission
For the rest of our lives.


Thank you Kyle Louw for helping me polish this.

Wednesday 29 June 2016

I, the Eye

When I was thirteen years old
I became obsessed with tornadoes.
I'd sit at that boxy old screen
For hours, as unsatisfying as they'd seem
And marvel at how beautiful
Such a destructive phenomenon could be.
She was tall and slender
And could run hundreds of kilometers an hour
She had her feet on the ground
But her head in the clouds
She was beautiful 
And she knew how to make
Everything that came
In close contact with her,
Hers.
She was everything that I wanted to be,
And everything that I could not be
But what enchanted my little self most
Was the fact that even after having so much go on
She'd still have a safe place
Buried deep inside her soul
That belonged to her and just her
A place that no one could see, touch or enter.


When I was fifteen years old

I became obsessed with becoming a tornado
So I ran everyday hundreds of kilometers 
And became taller and slender
My head was in the clouds
But gravity, 
Oh that bitch kept my feet right on the ground.
I was beautiful and everything I touched
Turned into gold
I learned the art of convincing souls
That I was tall and i was slender
That I was beautiful
But what I forgot was the place
That was supposed to be inside my soul.
I turned everything to gold
But soon lost hold
Of where I was supposed to be,
Who I was supposed to be.
And so to fill all those places
I slowly lost my mind
Chasing mindless faces. 

When I was seventeen years old
I became a tornado
Only this time, someone found me.
He was the only one 
Who dared to come any closer
To she who was tall and slender
He let me bleed onto him
While everyone was taken aback by my enigma
He woke up nights with me
When all else thought it was time for my slumber
After years and years of chasing gold
Amidst all that went around me,
I finally got a hold 
I found that place inside my soul.
When I was seventeen years old,
I would still run 
Hundreds of kilometers an hour
Only this time,
I found my pen and my paper.

Wednesday 18 May 2016

Out of Sight

The first time
Your hands found my waist
The grip of your fingers
On my skin
Made my heart tremble
And my knees wobble.
My mouth gave out a whimper,
My lips agape,
Found yours.
You felt and saw
My body boomerang,
But what you didn't was
That while you were lost
In ardour and adoration,
All I could see
With my closed eyes was
Him.
The clutch of his hands
Crumpling the thin fabric;
And his lips
Pressed against mine.
I felt his breath
On my chest
And his hair
Tickle my neck,
While you caressed
And craddled me
Like he never did.
I know I could've stopped,
And I should've stopped.
But had I stopped,
He would've stopped existing.

Tuesday 17 May 2016

Renaissance

The warmth in me
Had wintered
Like the face of earth
During January-
Barren and lifeless
Because of the sunless sky
And the dry,
Callous gusty winds.
But you, my early March,
Have sunshine radiating
From every crevice of your body;
Your deep seated warm eyes
Ignite a spark inside of me
That had long been extinguished
By cold, loveless hands;
And every time your arms
Wrap around me securely
And your lips take mine,
A spring breaks within me
With colours
Learning to flutter again,
Bringing back to life
All that was
Once dead and gone


Monday 14 March 2016

A Stellar Phenomenon

I would like to thank the Universe
For choosing to unite us 
And give me this
One beautiful year
Of the beautiful
Eighteen years of your life
That you have yet lived.
The years I missed,
I spent in search of you.
I am sure of this
For when I look at you
I can feel, remember
Stars colliding-
A sense of deja vu,
A distant memory I cannot quite recall.
I feel complete,
Whole
Like this entire life 
My soul has conspired with fate
To make mistakes
And take bad decisions
Which would only
Inch me closer,
Lead me,
To get to you
And now that I have, I can only hope
That we become unitary,
Separate to the unaided ignorant eye
But burning brighter, together, as one.
For it is vain
And it is futile
To let go of something
As beautiful as this, us 
When we have collided against each other
To emit the energy
As great as that of all others combined.
And this exotic anomaly
Is so rare, so pure
That they find it difficult
To comprehend 
This cosmic shock.
Through the force of gravity, my love,
We merge into a larger unit
But quietly so
And while they chase after us,
We will be enveloped
In our own blanket
Of space.

Uncompleted

We can make
A list of things 
We need to complete 
Together
But we need to be 
Together
To complete 
This list of things.
It's these future promises
Imprinted on my brain
That incapacitate me more 
Than the memories 
I will be leaving behind

Views From My Balcony

I wake up every morning
To the Sun
Cloaking away the dark
And it lights up my day
His sundry colours
Spread across the sky
Like a rainbow that wasn't,
Completely oblivious
To those besotted by his enigma.
Every time he sets
He would leave me transfixed 
On his blush and blond,
On his bittersweet glow,
Like water colours
Splattered on a cloudy canvas.
I would stand back
In awe of his beauty
Craving to be near,
To steal a touch
Or a quick glance,
Waiting for him to turn
And envelope me in his light
Surround me in his grandeur.
But then every night
He would kiss the Moon goodbye
Before leaving
And darken my world

Tuesday 2 February 2016

The Mermaid In The Well

This is a tale
Of two girls
One sane
The other insane
She dug her well
And jumped in it too
But then she came along
And helped her stay dry
She clung on to her
Like a jacket that saves lives
And made her realize
That each well she digs
Wouldn't be the last
Yet she would do just fine
And now she knows
That every time she jumps,
There will always be a rope
To help her out, alive
This is a tale
Of two girls
One insane
The other her sanity 

Thursday 21 January 2016

Tug of War

Ink scrawled
In crude hand
Across bloodless leaves
Bound in black leather
Were my salvation
I was a diary girl
Until you came along
And I spent my time
Pleasing you
My me time
Was also now yours
Just like everything else I had
To keep you part
Of a day
That wasn't really mine
Any more, anyway