Sleepless on the Horizon

Cold cornerstones of this city

Are not a comfortable perch

The wind renders me invisibly disposable

and my heart in its desolation lurks,

waiting around street corners

For the first available turn

to declare its existence

Sleepless on the horizon,

purple, awake insecure.

Scraped bucket bottoms

To catch subway trains

Speeding against the concrete breeze,

Leaving behind specks of urban rapture

I’m running past my feet

Scream into the silence

Where no one listens

As Life bites at my heels

As Life bites at my heels

This world is not my home I know

Despite this I confess

This bruised beating heart needs its hope

In the assurance of eternal rest

Between the parted lips of heaven and hell

the water is so blue

Grant me comfort underneath the stars

A teardrop closer to you

A teardrop closer to you

Nearer my God to Thee

I’ve finally reached the shore

Borne all I could

I paid the price

To leave this body here

To be baptised

in the crimson of the sunset sky

Cleansed until

My tears were dry

No longer

Sleepless

Sing lullabies

Sink safely down to sleep

Sink safely down to sleep

Sleepless on the horizon

Your eyes they search for me.

Your eyes they search for me.

My Name is A Form of Resistance

My name is a form of resistance
Against the anglicanization
and exotification

Of a body and a struggle

You don’t even have the

Syllables

To comprehend.

My name is a form of resistance

Because my mother

Named me for my Homeland.

She named me

to belong

No matter where

my feet would find me.

My name is a form of resistance

Because I was blessed in birth

To embody an oral history
that was kissed to my forehead
like a prayer
joining

Air and Earth
to Flesh and Blood.

My name is a form of resistance
Because it means hope and aspiration

in Sanskrit

across the Crimson scars you have left

on the faces of those

who have tried

to Rise.

My name is a form of resistance so

just because

You cannot pronounce it

Does not give You the right

To dismiss it

Or erase it

And then make me feel like

Suddenly

It doesn’t fit.

Because I respond to my name,

Battle cries,

I take charge in my name.
I am blessed unlike those

Who don’t need a face and story

To ground them to a history they see

Everywhere

I am visible in my name

So no,

I don’t have a nickname.

For I will not shorten

Or adjust even a bit of myself

To fit the capacity

you have

To stomach Me.
And my nine letters

Can spell

more defiance,

more passion,

more fire

than you will ever be able to extinguish.

My name is a form of resistance

because I was named for a purpose.

And like all things that have a purpose,

I will not rest
until mine
on this earth
is fulfilled.

So I will tell my stories,

I will them for they need to be heard,

And I invite pride to come into the hearts

Of those who wait submerged

For my name is a form of resistance.

And in it, I am empowered,

Loud, and clear.

i can't fuck up

this post is titled 'i cant fuck up'
because "fucking up" is colossal
increasingly irreparable, you become irredeemable,
your damage becomes a mess somebody else has to wipe up,
and that's not cool.

you see, the point i'm at in life
is where my first pay cheques came in right next to the pieces of paper that
claimed payment for the costs of my existence on this earth
tuition, phone bill, books, health insurance, transport,
i started to pay my way through,
so much so i started to feel ashamed when 
the hands of my mother and father had to come bail me out again,
hands that had so far cleaned up my mess, wiped my scraped knees, 
and cuddled my 6 year old frame.
hands that tell so many stories 

you're always happy to help, but
you can't cheat the way age, stress, unhappiness
has carved its way into the lines in your face,
or how they have all carved their initials into
each mile that separates us.
you're not so happy when i don't try though,
when i don't think things through,
when i make costly mistakes i probably could've avoided.

see mom and dad, when you're mad
i don't even need to look at your faces, 
i just need to look at your hands.
your hands flailing around, 
your hands slicing the air, 
your hands poking invisible chests, 
your hands shaking shoulders that don't exist. 
your hands become fists, of frustration desperation
wrinkles that come early, lines of deliberation 
within whose spaces i colour in little moments of 
absolute question 
at the situation 
you are in, 
why am i here, lord? 
why do i have to deal with this?

but when you look around
and you realise that no one else cares, 
no one else will listen or be responsible
for a life that is not theirs, 
you wake up and shake the doubt right off,
you can't fuck up... otherwise all is lost.

so you hold your head up high and you polish my shoes, 
you iron my school uniform and you prepare my food. 
you teach me how to never be in someone else's way, 
never to be a liability or an obligation,
and to always be welcome wherever i stay.

you help me spell the word responsible, and teach me most of all, 
that the expensive life you have so carefully tried to protect for me, 
is always and has always been my own. 
there's careless and then there's carefree 
and me stuck between the two. 
trying to find the balance between having a stick up your arse 
and choosing to have nothing to do. 

i'm too aware to waste away my days, 
i'm too wide awake at night. 
i cant sleep i toss and i turn,
because i know i need to fight. 
i need to invest in my own life, 
and never forget my parents' sacrifices. 

no matter how disillusioned i get, 
please let me never forget where i come from. 

i can't fuck up, because i don't want to. 

i can take care of myself that much.

not a hybrid.

just when i thought something was finally going right, that i was figuring something out to get a little closer to what i wanted to do with my life, the clock stopped. i don't know if i can stick to my perfectly manicured plan. right now with school, i can see only two classes where i really feel the time i spend is returned with decent grades.

sometimes the stress i deal with is standard. i feel like everyone's being challenged and i shouldn't complain, just get better at what i do. i don't  know whether i'm justified when i realize i'm not cut out for something. i feel like going into law maybe the right thing after all. and then i get worried, because maybe i like it only because it hasn't bored me yet.

the lack of motivation, the loss of motivation that i've been feeling lately is so worrying. there are days when i've had things planned to do, things that i have needed to get done so i can take it easier later on, so i can comfortably meet my deadlines. i don't do anything those days. i just wile away my time, because even the thought of starting these papers, writing these long essays freaks me out. i doubt every word i type. i criticize the substance of my thoughts even before i complete my sentences.

maybe that's why i never finish my sentences. like a cold gust of air, rushing through you in between the holes that form between your arms and your sleeves, the warmth of my body fades with every millimeter of skin that curls in antagonism toward the creeping feeling that i'm going the wrong way. i'm saying the wrong thing.

it's so easy to make excuses. but one day you run out of time. and you end up feeling so hollow inside. you question how good you are at everything, and your fatigue you cannot hide. you've become a danger to your ability to live and thrive. scraping the end of the bucket, it feels like i could have definitely done better.

relief. relief, so much of it i need. how much i deserve? this don't ask me.

'no sound but the wind'

lashes of multi-coloured light
sirens that deafen you
that separate our rational senses from colliding
into submisson.

you can't hear yourself over the sounds of those screams.
quieten all around us, please
don't lose yourself
in the need to survive here
it isn't such a cold town.
it isn't such a cold town.

i'm banking on the sunshine
while i'm getting drenched by the tears you cry
late at night
when you miss his arms.

i'm fleeing from the train that rushes right behind me,
the train that's coming to get me to send me back home.
it's a war out in our minds,
but i don't want to be separated from you.
why don't you see that behind your clenched teeth,
it's okay to show me you want to cry?

why don't you see we all need to be laid down.
we can make this home.
we can mend ourselves.

"I"ll help you carry the load,
           I'll carry you in my arms."



No sound but the wind by Editors