Loud Music

There are times when I turn up the music
loud enough to not hear myself think,
The bed is filled with knots of cotton
and they push against my aching back
like guns through faded bedsheets
but I cannot get myself to buy a new one,
I cannot get myself to leave this room,
to force the slow career of my thoughts
into changing its golem-face that smiles,
sad grimaces of my forgetful making,
I have created monsters and skeletons
and they sleep on my bedroom floor,
ambush my dreams before they find hope,
My midnights are an album of memories
that make no sense when opened
but haunt the mind long after closing,
I forget how to find blankness again
and wear faces that I will leave in a box
when morning comes, it always comes,
although I haven't seen it in weeks,
Mornings are too full of opportunity,
they light my door and mock my inertia,
throw challenges on eyelids as if to say,
"These are not smoke and mirrors,
All of you is broken; your loneliness is."
I pretend I do not know what peace looks like,
that happy is a puzzle I am still solving,
my pieces are missing and I am not whole,
all of me is not a pile of cardboard pieces
I hid under my blanket ages ago.

I do not leave my room but listen to music,
loud enough to fill the empty in me,
until I forget the sound of my name,
I am not,
I am not.

"Yes, you are."

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What I Learnt Outside School

Value Education lectures never taught me
what to do when mirrors become horror stories,
there is blood in my teeth sometimes,
Was I supposed to check into hotels 
and wait for the piano music to stop
every time my house was haunted with music-boxes?
I try to hum in time with the plinks and plonks,
I carry the haunting with me like a bell,
Do not wonder why I am always on my toes,
I step around creases with practiced skill,
I fall a little less often these days,
Sometimes I wonder if that is fear or courage.
I know the number of steps to my bottle of antiseptic,
but forget where I kept the bag of balloons,
I run longer distances without colours,
I collect scars and scabs like spiky seeds,
and it seems a good enough currency.
Sometimes I come across chessboards in the forest
and it took my years before I could look past
the first row of chequered graves,
I win more times than not these days
and cry more promptly every time I lose a pawn.
There was a time when my home would walk away
and I would wait until morning swept under my garden-stones,
I am used to chasing my chimney-smoke these days,
but running is no less painful on tired soles.
I still remember the first time I became religious,
I left my hopes outside the temple-gates
as if only proper beggarhood deserved faith,
my emptiness was the first and last offering,
I will never be able to pray again
and I am no lesser for it.
I am less than the dreams of a future I made
on the riverside of a lonely glade,
I roam bazaars and barter help like coins,
my words are worn with the employ of several people,
this is my wealth and it has the warmth of many hands,
This is my wealth, it multiplies,
and my days are not without strife,
but my mirrors are history books now
and all the blood is fact and preparation.

Image Sources: http://cyanparade.tumblr.com, http://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Scrambled-Portrait/308858/199347/view/

Pain

Pain is your only incentive
to keep broken bones straight,
to watch them heal while walls
invite you to stand atop and
taste the gold of undissolved suns,
nevermind the copse of corpses
at its unbroken unconquered base;
You will bite your wrist when
you hop for copper vessels --
food will cost agony and
you will know economy of breath,
husband the coiling ambition
and remember each mistake
in your flesh -- to err is inhumane;
You will reach dark cities
and captain naïve feet
to stowaway crannies beyond bends
where they may see honey in old skies
on stone floors of a mountain;
You will touch your leg,
remember the price of knowing
the paths you must not tread
and smile at the walls behind you.

Image Source: http://www.flickriver.com/photos/tags/synesthesiaart/interesting/

Regret

The taste of regret

is not bitter,
It will not slake
your throat with needles
when you see flagons
of sunshine to warm
a home not quite made.
No.
Regret will slip into color:
Its orange will pin you
to the sky
for the winds to whisper
the cloying promises
you forgot to make.
You will taste them,
The sugar in those ceremonies
will parch your tongue
until all you search
in dreamy rainfalls
is the tastelessness
of water.


Image Source: http://www.working-beautifully.co.uk/gallery/paintings/players-regret-bullseye-snooker-room-digital-painting

Lessons of Regret

There is longing in my eyes
That searches a cluttered past
Every time it sought to trespass.

But remembers falling fast

Do you see the smoke in my smiles
Or the musty perfumes I hide
Behind the seasons I chose to ride
Without the secrets I now confide.

Hear me then, gentle reader,
Open the palms of my prayer:
Melancholy wafts from odd layers
Into landscapes without surveyors.

Find the innocent laughters,
Their purple is in these stares,
I wove their sweet into my snares,
To make smiles of fire-flares.

Fall into my eyes, adventurer,
I have lost more than I could bind
With the craft of a young mind,
Discovering all reasons to be kind.

Carry my music to newer shores,
It will fall on untouched sand,
My echoes will sear their brand
And make of innocence new land.

I will be the reason for new life,
Relish my poetry like fruit wine,
Draw my relics into undrawn lines,
Make of me a warning sign.

Image Source: Magic The Gathering

Wasted Potential

There is anguish in not becoming,
Seconds pitter-patter on my forehead
Make a dented shell of my mind,
Every vista undresses its secrets and
Reveals the clock-chimes I can steal before night strikes,
Eager to have its meanings swallowed,
But I will be statue admist clay,
My hands will not kiss shapes into opportunity
And make of it legacy,
I threw promises on morning clouds
Before the Sun knew the dead in my face,
Is it any wonder that their dismay
Is so violent in its receipt?
I will be statue and watch rain
Carve pits in my plaster,
I am regret in making,
Gather around and
watch me do
nothing.

Image Source: Saeed Tavakkol

I Wanted To Die In Your Arms

I wanted to die in your arms,

Catch myself tightening my grip,
Squeezing you, feeling your
Body respond.

I wanted to lean over you,
And smile as your eyes closed,
In anticipation of soft kisses,
That always come.

I wanted to wake up with my lips,
An inch from your nape,
And plant them without,
Any aim.

I wanted your eyes to wonder,
How much I loved you,
Every time I brushed away your hair,
A second too slowly.

I wanted to smell the perfume,
Your skin stole from your clothes,
To kidnap me to the nights it was
All that there was.

I wanted you to drink in,
The smiles that framed my silences,
Which remained agents of discord,
Over the phone.

I wanted to lock my hands,
Around your busy waist,
As you pretended to continue working,
With deep breaths.

I wanted to see you believe me,
Even as your head denied it,
That you are beautiful in,
So many ways.

I wanted you to chide my fingers,
For tracing the canvas of your skin,
With geometries that belonged,
To the night.

I wanted you to beg me to stay,
As I already started to leave,
For a meeting I would,
Never reach.

I wanted to feel the pangs of leaving,
That good company often brings,
The bitter-sweet taste that rode,
Our phone-calls.

I wanted you to keep me at bay,
My body belying the lies,
We told the world while we,
Flirted with destiny.

I wanted you to remember,
Each caress, each innocent embrace,
Every chance I gave you to question
Us.

I wanted to die in your arms,
Having known your love,
And the one you loved,
So much.


Image Source: Agnes Cecile