sushiela

I see the words appear on the lines that crease your forehead, or the space between your brows, before you even speak out. You’re aged further by the very weight of your thoughts, you turn pale at an image that rests at the back of your eyelids, places far beyond my reach.

I cannot shelter you from those demons. But I can tell you that if you ever find the courage to speak, to say what you feel, I’ll listen. I’ll listen and I won’t judge you. We are allowed be imperfect, and flawed and totally lost together. But at some point, we have to find our way back home.

I’ll take your hands, and bring them to your lips and show you how perfect they are. How wonderful they’d look if only you’d just smile. I’ll touch your hair and brush those beautiful brown locks of yours down, entangling them in my fingers, fistfuls of you. Bringing you closer to me, I take my hand and brush them over to your feet with all its ten toes; to show you that you can walk, your steps are not cursed, and you are not marred by a burden carried. You are not crazy; nothing needs to stay in your head. I will love you through the vulgarity of your thoughts, through the sting in their vulnerabilities and even through this, will I want to see your vicarious raw soul.   

Don’t be afraid to let me embrace you. You will always be free, you’ll always be you. I don’t want to change any of that. I’m here to show you that you can still love this world. There is still happiness for you here, happiness that your age cannot take away. Your wrinkled skin a testimony to the feats you have performed with honesty and sincerity. Your face doesn’t lie. I get it. You are tired.

I can’t tell you how it could have been different. But I can tell you I’m happy it was not, because if it was, we would not be here right now. So please please laugh once more for me, and let me lay you to rest. The one I am thankful for.

sleep well

Listen.

You’re not wrong for enjoying times with guys. Not all of them are going to last more than memories of a good night. Not all of them will ask for your number. Not all of them will talk to you the morning after. And even if they still do all these things, not all of them will keep talking to you, unless fate smiles upon you and you meet again.

You see you’re young, and being young means having a good time without any attachments, and yet having a good time without being reckless. It means exploring your tastes, diving in deeper into conversations, satire and minds you have never seen before, opening yourself up to a myriad of tumultuous experiences that should shake you up from rock bottom, or leave you where it found you.

Don’t try to hold on so tightly to anything. Just be easy and let it go. Enjoy it for what it is and let it go. Do your own thing, explore in your own way. Don’t be limited in your thought and yet, do not be too generous with it.

Having a boyfriend is okay. Dating is okay. Having a casual fling is okay. As long as your dignity, priorities and self-interests are not compromised, you should have a good time. You should be reserved enough to really highlight the moments when you let your hair down. Be economic with your speech, think before you say it and then when you do, speak to make impressions. When you dance, dance wholeheartedly, warm up a bit, and then really push at the boundaries, don’t be afraid to go for it. It’s a dance, it’s making up for what you can’t say in words, or do with actions.

Don’t feel like you’re constrained. Be open. Be mature. Be bold. Your confidence is beautiful and so are you. You’re only as good as you think you are. You deserve to feel good, as long as you work for it. And you are working for it, so don’t be afraid to be assertive, flirt a little and have some fun.

You’re young. You’re young. You’re young.

'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

Racing

Racing I’m running

Swimming I’m sailing

Panting I’m pining

Water I’m washing

Love I’m laughing

But you don’t like to hear me laugh.

My fear.

My fear

My only fear.

Lies in the true true coal of the dark.

A smile captured in a lantern

Illuminates the rest of the night.

But I am the dark
I am the night

I am the black

I stain the white.

I am the bloodred

Like a fountain I flow

Like the sea I move

Closer

Closer

Always closer

To you.

Lost in Ransom Park

I went for a walk

A walk in the woods

Dwarfed by the big brown trees

Curious and lost i stood.

I marvelled at the adventure

I wondered at their lives

Admist the decaying matter

I was experiencing life.

I whispered to them quietly

Asking them to take my pain away

And they replied swiftly saying

They could not make promises

For they only knew that after the night

Cometh the day.

They were far away from the evils of men

And I huddled in their embraces

Was just a little leaf that lost her way

But they knew as did I that like leaves on a tree, no I

I would not stay.

Following the path ahead of me

I walked through the wilderness

Just to find an end

I walked to get out.
Away from it all

But I only paved a road I could not bend.



For it was back to the crevasses of my heart that it led.

A circle in a forest, a halo settling around my head.

Unlocked doors into Wednesday Afternoons

I was a moment on your lips.

I was a part of the sheets.

We were tangled in them.

We were separated

And yet we moved

We gripped

We pulled

Ourselves

All we knew

For all we felt

We never felt

Again.

I was on a parallel shore,

And I was running beside you.

A river separated us

And with a stream you drifted apart

So easily you disappeared into the horizon and I

Was lying against my own

When suddenly a vision of you appeared and

All I knew I forgot.

Just to be with you

I left it all

For a moment

To be with you

I’d forgive

All of you and yet none of you

I’d let live.

This is not psychology

I think time was contracted to run faster as we got older. Or maybe we just got busier, we got heavier, we got slower.

Every day seems to move at a different pace bringing me new things every moment.

Every year seems to whitewash the last, a whole year of inescapable bubbles I found myself in, is pushed to the back of the shelf. Further and further till I have forgotten what those feelings were like.

The people that were a part of my life, the music that filled in the spaces when silence was nowhere around to quieten down the restlessness of a childhood passed from hand to hand.

I’m afraid that as we move into our futures, we lose our chances when we quarrel, when we slur against each other, when we are separated. When we are hurt, we start turning away from the world, we start turning our backs on our parents, and our siblings and we choose to forget them. We forget to take them along to share in our moments.

I know there are some things I need to experience for myself and I will, gladly. Space is something we all crave but at the same time, as easy as we demand it, that’s how quickly we want it to disappear. We try and wish it away, but we still feel cornered by what we have asked for.

I’m afraid that when I look into the future, I won’t see the people I love because I would have forgotten to love them. I would have just gotten angrier and angrier that they couldn’t understand me, how I grew and why I turned out to be the way I am. I forget that I didn’t give them the time of day, I didn’t let them care about me because when they tried, I didn’t explain. I didn’t want to take the effort with them. Instead, I wasted my time with strangers and people that took me for granted. I chose to tell them when they couldn’t care less about me or what would happen to me.

I told them anyway. Because telling them was easier, facing them felt lighter and talking to them, reaching out to them I did quicker than searching for the caring in my own blood.

I don’t want to forget. I don’t want to be detached. We all have to move on. But we don’t have to forget. I want to learn from them as much as I can. I don’t want to have to regret that I wouldn’t know what they’d say or how they’d feel. They are not my enemies. These are people that had lives before I happened. These are people that made plenty of their own mistakes. These are people that tried to be right and sacrificed who they were for me, so I could grow.

Who shut up, so I could rant. Who got hurt, so I didn’t have to.

But I did, I still did. Even after you stood to try and protect me, you didn’t protect me from yourself. I didn’t think it would occur to you how important you were. But now you do, you are what I know of love, sacrifice, pain, and strength.