Away from the mind

Forgetfulness is a virtue of the strong
man made muscles witness the war to
leaving the old and starting fresh as a bud
forgetfulness is a virtue of the strongest seeds
especially when the wind carries them to foreign soils.

Just because you are taller

Listen to what poets say
especially when they hold your hand
on a far away building, near sunset to tell you simply
secrets brewing. You are special, they say those in metaphor
code their I love yous in similies
but I am dropping roses into your lap
swilling with my emotional babble around you
there it goes
I love you- wait--just because you are taller
it doesn't mean it hasn't yet reached your head
it hasn't yet tickled your being down to your Greek lined toes

or has it? does it really matter what oversensitive poets actually say anyway?

Black Friday

Friday of shame, 

true one makes money to spend money

to make it again, like recycling it is an endless, 

shameless part of being one midst the many, money generating machines

nine to five, life starts after meetings and reporting

and coffee chats with Clive who hates the job but likes the money

and Dan who hates the wife but loves the boss' red heels

hate, love and money are relative things- this said from tongues that taste

rice stewed in holy waters, forgetting that the farmer cannot taste his produce

this Friday I have seen shame packaged in colorful paper-bags

and presented under trees or stored away for further use

Shame, walks the street with bags full 

but doesn't spare a penny or a look 

for the ones who sleep in rags.

Tenderness

excerpt from a longer poem under construction:

When you saw me on the street, a few days after I left you to your musing

you gave me one kiss, on my right cheek

tenderly it landed, like birds scraping morning dew from the branches

but I could smell dust on your shoulders

and I felt the gunpowder stamping itself over my dimples.

Saved from disasters

If I could tell you, I'll start with what saved me disasters
the time of knee scratches and boyish hair,
it was time for football games till dinner
the first marker of my salvation
innocence

it might have been possible that I was spared because
I was born a girl without any expectations
there were no demands of intelligence,
nor aspirations. Sets of pans, stamina and a quick heart
were necessary, stitching and knitting were preferable- if possible
holding my ear out  to the wind adds to my repertoire
for my second savior was weakness

you can argue that what saved me was charm,
an old talisman place by my grandmother underneath my pillow
to ward off the ills of other people,
eyes, ears and insignificant body parts that meant to cause harm
fists and brains and growing pains-
perhaps my grandmother knew what I needed to avoid
for she handed me down, luck

but eventually I might have saved myself, unnecessarily
with soberness I fought off nightly visitors: dreaded dreams and ghost tours
with long sleeves I kept away from the sunshine
with womanhood I warded the evil eyes
and with all this time I preserved my way out of harm
my savoir was myself

one thing still hold me by the collar-
I might have escaped danger, yet nothing saves me
death by waiting.

breaking the cocoon

I will listen to your words I vowed, once I finish my third chocolate
I unwrap and the sound of tearing flushes the noise of the jabber you send my way.
this is how I deal with unpleasant conversations
add sweeteners, it diffuses ignorance and displeasure
flip it over the head- that anger and spank it  toes.

this is quick success, a first tear to the sac around me,
coffee, cigarettes and alcohol seem tempting
but they age by the sip. A thousand lives and visions
reproduce with the sharing of coffee, burning
of cigarettes and cleanse of alcohol
yet by morning light, you can only see
folds of skin crumpling at the corner of a smile or its opposite
another slit to the protective body I have weaved around me
since birth

I do admit I am tired, though ripe as a kiwi
I unfold the dark pips and shake them towards
any willing visitor, any seeder, for the needing
need supersedes growth, ask anyone
when you deeply desire bread, you do not think of your ragged shoes.

but before I turn into another version of the same wreckage,
 taller this time, less tolerant- I allow myself enough room for simplicity:
I stretch longer in bed, covered or uncovered,
then make of art a possibility, paint, draw, write
sing in the shower it is all the same
before I beg for my own salted bread- I move
movement sounds easier when you are light on your feet

I will break away from what I've learnt, I will punch the hidden sacks around my ribcage
 I tell you
despite your inattentive ears
I may sound like a foreigner
but I will shower and rid myself from my accent tomorrow,
when it manages to finally arrive.

Writing home

This is an excerpt of a full published poem:

What can I tell you? You have always been bigger

wilder, stretching beyond my ink and papers.

Every time I try to write you

Photographs jump in my head

Little devils masked under ‘ideas’

It is then I pause in fear

I fear not you: but my eyes scanning you

I fear not you: but my  grammar failing you

Because every time

I hold the pen

You get to the core of my head,

Every time I press on the pen, it bleeds.

you can read the rest of the poem here.

My culture, my world

Dear readers,

It's been a while without any direct contact from me. I have been meaning to give a massive shout out to one project that I am very passionate about because it contains a lot of my culture and heritage. The project is a webmag/ blog that aims to introduce the world to the culture of the Middle-East and it is called Infita7 (Openess). I am incredible lucky and grateful that the amazing team has recently published a few poems for me. Please feel free to check the great work here:

http://infita7.com/

Mystery of the Gondolas

Pour out the air, juvenile child- labor

it is the time  for the bridges of sighs and the bawls of the Gondolas of Venice

the time of nude culture has gone past us and while you, juvenile- labor

the tourist eats your bread, feeds the rest to the pigeons.

It doesn't just happen here in Venice, this is universal

how money turns into bread, into puffy hot loaves that are consumed by travelers

while you crush your hands on the boat's handles and pedal door to door for the swallow's milk

impossible possibilities on the wooden planks of the Gondolas

this is the world through a glass, recycled for you: other's leisure

You watch, simple. What you know floats down and sighs, the bridge is proud of its name

even your language feeds on water, my child. Water fills empty stomachs but leaves room

for the later hunger at midnight, Europe time.   The sun is closing its eyes, this is your last mystery guests for the day brown-eyed you'll forget in the morning

What can you do for the mystery of tomorrow's bread but imagine Venice, the night

you, a sole loner on the Gondolas that sail the same waters to a corner mattress named home.

image found on Google. 

Side effects

The mud stays these days
it makes its way upwards, a centimeter each day
it has reached the foot of the houses, made its presence known while the city sinks lower
into its claws. Earth smells prudent yet it reeks mud, a sure sign to the end of times.
It doesn't change much at the playgrounds,
there is less grass but not enough muck can curb feet from playing
 the lost boys, march onward to mud they will return.

In the last three months they have seen an incredible rise
in dirt and water, inseparable. There isn't enough dirt to seed,
there isn't enough water to sip, one seeks the tops of trees these days
only leaves cup their hands to save the drops
for the competition of birds and boyhood
There's an abundance of unwanted  material:
there's leftover sand from the shore, brick  and shredded windows, the stench of iron remains
but the lack of basics is essential:
the city is grey and brown

The faces are grey and brown,
no interludes of rest,  wood and ashes are the same
wood makes ashes and ashes blend in mud, to cement the bases of houses
and the foundation of the hungry, cold faces of children
roaming the fields for sunshine and for hairdryers
they scavenger the grounds for heat-
their faces have colored, grey with clouds and brown with mud
it is not just rain here, it is the end of times
and the boys with grey shirts and brown faces still play
to mud they will return.

Mud is a side effect of rain, of summer's typhoon after the bombs. Moments past the smoke, you see the screams and the bodies. You notice the rebel, the rubble but not the clouds with bellies of rain.
I certainly cannot foresee the forming of ash, slowly
nor the brown faces drained
I see blankets for roofs, and hear tin clanking
refuge and alternative homelands are another side-effect, of the eternal floods
 tents that are perched here shelter the children
from possible pain.

I lean to one of the grey faces, a child of four years of typhoon,
I ask him his wishes for the new year. He smile and points to where the mud cements
three walls that are left standing against the wind
Here stands the foundation of a house
didn't humans first build their houses from mud?

in front of my eyes, the lost boys rescue an elder from a fall
in a pond of sweat and poking screws, I avoid the man's eyes
instead focus on the blob of brown on my red boots,
I am dirty for my lack of movements, who cares?
to mud we all return or possibly to ash, eventually
Is there someone looking at us beyond the grey?
who closes the open taps in heaven
when the angels weep for too long?

On stopping my writing to you

What if my first writing was a lie

the very first attempts at cursive, jokes of destiny toward

happenings I can no longer hide or paint over with a thick brush

thick colors, maroon and ocean blue over the damage that leeks from images

hues deeper than I can understand at a fragile age

it is a possibility, don't you think that rocks cannot stop bleeding

the way stitch-and-needle. Sewing is a way of reattaching

two ends of earth together, like bridging gaps that become without question

definitions of lack.This technique has been tested on punctured intestines too

I have seen the news of you. This sewing is too good, it works unlike my Teta's,

my grandmother's advice; she rubs olive oil on three-inch wounds,

olive oil has been her plaster, words have been mine.

No, you cannot rent my pen to write pages of lament and eulogies

to your bullet-holed poppies, and to the wheat crushed under foreign boots

when such delicateness dies and you chose the sword, all mightier

don't crawl back to ask for a pen, brittle or red with fury

Me and my pen,we are free of you, only because I chose my distance

I shall stop in instant my failure at addressing you in writings,

I will burn the letters, destroy the pictures and stop listening to the radio

like I can't because it is beeping an end of another life,

another house crumbling like a five year old's Lego, and a family is in the rubble

 as I head towards my classroom to learn how to write

you, worst is Teta's olive oil burning brown, going down the drain

what's happening to me?

I don't want to know what happens to you.

I live you, eat you, preserve you and now I want to revoke you

the way a body hisses at poison. I am tired because I know you deserve better

and I know I can no longer make you beautiful, make-up doesn't hide disasters

Well, maybe I need sleep instead of these ramblings onto cropped ears,

Maybe this is another lie I try to cover the only way I know

with words.

Winter wishes

I want the sunshine in winter,

I know I am asking for much, it may not serve me

I want a wave of warm glow

cracking my cheek like it's a piece of bread, searing .

I want a summer's sun across the clouds.

and I am greedy,  I request daylight , flowers that bud with dawn

and children on the fog-free street corners.

In sunshine, I want to walk with you through the woods

howling with vixen and moss,

with its laughing brooks and blossoms of lilacs

towards the meeting of our feet

towards where you rest to watch my shadow dance

I want the rays to hit your head,

reflect our common ground,

you will see me beyond the covers, peeling

my other skin. My skin can become your blanket,

this way I can wrap you around my finger and pull to pain

you, the loose thread of the chain of light.

I want to follow you,Theseus into the maze

again towards the sun, once more

I want to be the ball of thread and danger that pulls you back

to safety.  I want a clear sun this winter

after the clouds roll in,  too many twigs and sodden leaves

 gather near my window. For minutes, they become flesh and blood

you, or similar the warmth I need, even if these twigs

like the phantom winter sun are a stone's throw across my desk

I want the eye of the sky,

the father of the stones, the mountain where you lie

unhinged by the wind that ruffles your head and blows notes

blows notes and sounds into my deaf left ear. 

nightmare

lately I cannot sleep

there are unusual objects and subjects falling down into my dreams

like last night, there were sounds of fire consuming what it could.

Rage and darkness, it was a case of hysteria and noise 

inane

the buildings like cardboard were at my feet. there was a blond baby

in my arms, he was crying.

 I felt his warm urine trickle down my arms as I warmed his nose

 even if it was a warm November.

Babies need warmth in all forms.

I shut his ears, but there was blood,

 and there were members of my family all grown,

frozen in childhood. and there I was at the end of my bed, gasping, trembling

these nights I cannot sleep

when and if my mother answers her phone

the first question I'll ask her will be:

mama, when will I stop seeing?. when will I start to sleep again?

Neighborhood

In a little street, in a small town lies a row of houses
made with red bricks, long hours of studies and nights of laughter
in the houses, little rooms that have  minds of their own
a light goes off somewhere, another goes on
a laught is heard in one house, another sheds a million tears
some asleep, others awake
 this is how the neighborhood lives
I live on the sixth house that rises late and sleeps late and eats late
and is two hours behind the ticking of the clocks and the rush of the universe
I share the house with a thick-haired boy who has music for breakfast
and beer for dinner. He is my neighbor.
Like our house, we never cross paths
I am a late riser, I keep to notebooks at night
and light sleep in the mornings while he keeps to cooking
but early sleep, like a grandfather in a rocking chair.
There's a boy in my house that I do not hear
breathing, or laughing and I do not dream of hearing him crying
maybe the sounds I hear at night are just my own,
weaved from imagination to who could have been walking the planks of my wood and Gibson house
would it be the boy? or a trace of the man he grows up to be?
it might be the man in him I refuse to look into;
there are clues everywhere, the beard he has, the xl t-shirts, flipped out and piled into the wash machine or the smell of man deodorant around the mail box.
Seeing is believing and I need a proof, but I know this man exists and we are bound to meet
once more.  I only see him when there's smoke rings
because certainly one house is burning down

Today is not for poetry

Today is not for poetry,
it is for the mundane habits
like long sleep, procrastination and worry
and ailing health at eighteen, today is the day of growing
pains out of the back of sandpaper
it is the same proposition for anything
other than the creation of words out of sand
like sandcastles and stones, you pick them out of your fingernails
these creations are fragile,
these are things that can be easily washed out
with salt, vinegar and a little bit of water for the wounds

today is not a day for poetry
because poetry prompts the creation of beauty
and I wake with a disaster each day
fresh like cream it piles up
mounding like a snowball at the back of my head
my lack of passion is a disaster in the making

today is not a day for poetry
it is for my earthy desires,
for making a meal out of old spices alone
today is a day of celebration of givers of joy
like chocolate, and dance and reading
but today is not a day for poetry because
poetry comes light and goes heavy
the same way a rock falls into a pound
falls light on itself, falls thick on the murky waters.

Dreamcatcher

Allow me the weight of your dreams,
sleepy head. Hand over the details,
the sounds, the colors and the fury
I am watching over the quality of sleep
and the clarity of the vision. Hang me onto your wall
like a lucky charm, like the picture you hang round your chest
hang me above your head, near the window
where the breeze will ask the bees to join your dreams
wrestle with me way after dawn, and dust my hollowness
send a thrill down the feathers and the beads, holy totems of my ancestry
you have given me mind to filter your dreams
I care and I will,
 I promise
I will rotate around myself, tangle all the horror of the universe
in my stomach, let it rise like bile
 for you to sleep soundly in the clouds.

Fireflies and a man

Don't I, pray living bug?,

he asked the fireflies that grazed by the windowpane one evening

he heard no answer

sure, for winter is a wonder.

Speak no evil

Nothing disturbs a woman's loneliness more than a cry
into her being,
levitating out of her, like a distant sound
growing, gnawing around her
They say women are tongues on a roll,
bordered only by a set of lips, a set of thick ruby red painted lips
to them, she's preached womanhood
said  that a woman is more than body parts
more than a negation or a rush of fantasy
and simply a woman is not made by her tongue
rolling in and out to cause injury.

he, the master of tongues hears her,
once, twice, he ignores her
She knows the most destructive weapon is another human
or parts of humans at least, the unthinking brain
the unbent tongue have put her in the hot fire before

you cannot escape what you create, she's realized too late
but you can stop speaking evil
when you quit inviting the devil to tea
 under the arches of your house.

Five commands to make you listen

Wave to me from your side of the ocean
I'll send the starfish your way
they will guide you to treasures,but I will drown you near shipwrecks
it's more interesting to see fish making dreams
into bits of wood

Tell me of the ink smudges we leave
like footprints on floorboards, I promise I won't clean after you
or after us, there's evidence in steps
only clear when we look behind or ahead
if we look at all

Draw me missing one body-part,
an arm, an eye, a heart. Don't fear cutting me on paper,
I've handled worse scars, I've handled the jab of a knife on my kncles
and I was prone to being drawn
in the dark

Teach me how to act abnormally normal,
the way a smart advert stuns you with its shimmer
that exaggeration of regular needs:
 bread, salt and butter
I'll return your lessons by showing you how to survive


Allow me to nurse you by the gazelle's milk
sweetness in your stomach, stolen from a sitting antelope's pride
leave me space to speak to you from a horn
or maybe even a trumpet, like the heralds
maybe you will then hear
the punctuation in my speech.

The option

I will stop saying you are absent
because I am calling to a rocket
when I smell the exhaust's fumes

wasting away like youth,
like the ends of the earth
chiseled to its core- that's what remains
in conversation and passing greetings

I promise to stop reaching for the shallowness
Maybe I should stop sending you mail
maybe I should stop coloring my world orange,
the color of missing, the hues of the leaves that crunch
under my head when there's only you inside
on a windy morning

Maybe missing is not about degree
maybe we cannot measure how much one
of us misses, or if one feels absence at all
perhaps measures are set for things, non-human

and because missing cannot be measured I leave it in your hand
the only weapon I've been holding against your warm palms,
the option to reach out for mine.

Seeds

When the farmer throws the seeds
he knows, with his heart of hearts
that his reaping might be halved,
by weather and by animals
and by the seeds' will to grow or shrink
like the farmer, I know
not all the seeds I plant will grow
but I still plant and wait
for the answer to blossom
when in season.

On winter's early afternoon

I'll begin by telling you this:
there's something you cannot unveil about me,
It is true you've seen my face before
but you cannot remember where and you know it
I read you by the flicker of your eyelash.

I'll tell you this, I looked after you
when you were hung over, head in the bushes
searching for the end of a cup,
you were busy with a berry to keep the haziness at bay
because you only knew few cures to life:
your feet and your mouth.

I was not sent after you to fend off
the rocks that fell your way
I lifted them because I needed to walk straight
and leave no trace of feet, nor breath behind
the walk you took was yours, pure.

I walked away from you when it rained
I couldn't handle your shivers, like a little bird's
nor your homeless sighs, weighing the drops against
your bare shoulders was not my pleasure
you covered yourself up for fear of melting like sugar-cube in tea
and still you squeezed my heart with thunder

I followed you one book spine to another
and one reading after sunset
I got close enough to pinch your arm,
I needed to feel that you were less than a mirage
but you mistook that for a bee and summer's young love

What happens when I tell you what I'm truly after?
would you run if I told you I was the huntsman
who chased down the trail of your treads
by your shoe size in the snow
not for a heart or a kidney,
but for ears, soft enough to hear
a bed-time tale before it gets dark
on winter's early afternoons.

In my weakness

I.

It is apparent, the breath you send after me

marked like morning dew, pearly like sweat

it comes off you without second thoughts

I can tell it is your only weapon, you are the first and the last man

standing

Weakness isn't your strongest feature, not one you'd admit to

don't hide it, it is sweet- you grow on me,

despite time weaving its claws into the folds of your face

I know you since birth

You will never admit you care for me,

You watch me, I feel it

the gaze that lands on my shoulders, yours unedited.

II.

I don't know if it is boredom or if it is your word

Be

your first, that becomes me

the human out of the details, add water

deduct salty tears, but raise enough space

for other body parts to grow like shrubs

save space for figures of speech

to line letters and create scenes that look

like the beginning, the middle and the end

of a long series of chapters, heading nowhere.

III.

Is that a bruise you ask?

is this a scar, tell me. You demand answers

to shapes I don't even notice myself

because I cannot look at my shoulder blades

when you can.

IV.

There's a voice in my head that repeats

what someone once told me:

I come from an ape, this ape was a fish

that was a cell at the bottom of the ocean

I might be fishy at times, but I am not hairy

nor senseless or am I?

cool me down like only you know, take off the masks I wear for my moments of weakness

cool me down, don't use spring water

use the sea

the tug of ebb and flow, the coarse salt and foam

For into me is all you know of life and a breath unhinged,

hanging by some thread cotton soft like the beard you developed

while you waited for me to mature, nine-months,

ninety-nine years to perfect

like pottery in the belly of a volcano

you wait, and I disappoint. I won't save you from losing the bits inside,

I won't tell you not to touch my apples

I will save you from counting more sheep and naming names for the animals

what's behind that voice that calls me an ape?

mistaken

he is

the one who says I am not born out of your left heart rib.

This poem was published first on Visual Verse. You can check it here: 

http://visualverse.org/submissions/weakness/

the good fire

I'm here tonight, the sky colors itself
tiny pieces of light, like earrings
like my collection: various and versatile
vibrant with colors. Tonight, the chill in the air
burns my lungs but as I look up, the sky full of color
and sounds. I've seen this show a hundred times
as a child, on occasions. I lit a fire and watched it fill the sky
but tonight, far from my childhood
 a shudder runs into me as  I  remember
some children, who's last smile was the thought
of colorful skies at night
of fireworks. The same live show of fireworks that brought down their roof
things you like can haunt you, the books I read taught me
things you like can steal your breath, like fire at work-
I rest my head against the night sky tonight
careful in my goose skin-
in a parallel life, I almost was a child
who waited for the fireworks into the night
to explode.  

Travel by nighttime

part of a longer piece of work:

If we travel by nighttime,

we'll turn the page on day-light,

my swollen forehead will disappear

the shrapnel over your tongue will not cut you

perhaps it will stop the blood from trickling down your words

and sleep again

There's not a lack of dream, when what you see is a screen of
pitch darkness.

there's significance in pauses, commas and interjections
and black screens in dreams are meant for a rest
from thought, from color and from shapes
deformed by waking.

There's no shame in dreams, no shame in reenacting and
wishful thinking, it's one big act
imagination never harmed its owner
the same way streams never sink God.

There are no excuses in dreams, there are no justifications
snakes talk and humans listen and doors lead to answers
and the edges of an exclamation mark.  There's no need to explain
to me your fantasy, there's no shame in dreaming

Dream then but keep the details
polish them the way you do sliver,
keep your dreams and give me your nightmares
I might brag about the shadows in your sleep-
keep the trail of thoughts because your dreams stop
when you allow others to fall into them
like reality. This is what keeps you thinking
I heard.

when departed

Moved with the wind, we departed

Teach a man how to fish, the proverb said
teach a woman how to sow a button, the old ladies said
everyone left their wisdom for us, before departure
young and vain, we needed to learn how to measure
the heat of water before we fished

I left first,
you objected and I held you back

You left
I objected, but you didn't hold me back

instead, we both wanted to learn to re-navigate the world
witlessly, wireless, like a blind child learning to read Braille
attached to the letter
but we wanted to fall into the traps of safety
 the mother of comfort, the black-widow of worry

I didn't need you to teach me how to fish
 you taught me other skills:
to watch for the season of wheat when it turned gold,
like my hair. You knew better, the fundamentals
You gave me wheat
not to starve, you said
plant wheat, you said
for the seven years of famine in my absence.

Avoiding the stampede of wild horses

I.

Like dusk, it rises steady
the sound of hooves against the desert sky
glistening with leftover rain and clear starry night-I can see it
the sound of tapping, imminent
the wild horses are coming-
dressed in black cloth and turned-back whites
whiter than pearl and browner than burning hay
the horses are approaching
my pens

II.

on the bases of the river, the neighing rests
it drinks the blood of the desert, to run again
young, elixir washing over the horses
wild ones.
When I watch them I wonder
who inflicts the hooves in my language?
who ties the wilderness to my tongue?


III.

the burning sand carries the whiff of the jasmine,
the burning sand carries you when you step- fair maiden
careful like the mare, away from the herd- march
Sweep by the river, fair maiden
trail your dress' tail into the rush of the oasis
and be careful of the current, it might grip your hair
as you dangle for water, forgive the sirens
they shriek, their beauty you stole
and left them the power of song
how could they not grieve their loss?

IV.

the night wind blows again, but I find myself
a fair maiden, alone in bed
Who invited the horses into my slumber?
who told them to graze over the remaining bits of my brain?
I do not recall stepping out of the way for the hooves
who provides their wild insanity and for their hunger?
Why do the horses come into my head?

V.

When I asked you that day, if like me you read
the last pages of Black Beauty
you said you couldn't care less. It starts with my love of horses
and your silence, like a disconnected line
figure it is your right,
It is easier to avoid the mound of questions I heap onto you
the same way a Bedouin avoids the stampede of the desert's wild mares
and its untamed horses, unheard to inexperienced ears.
it rests untamed, the words you never spoke
sending the horses wild, behind my eyes.

received, not at birth

She was born with a name but received another
by the change of places and faces.

The childhood road she walked, adorned with trees
and paved with boys was all glistening with hunger.
the boys hunters of  flesh, like mosquito watched
her tidy knee-whites, ticking and cracking twigs of autumn
 she became Daddy long-legs, like a fly, swatted for a good night sleep
she proceeded downhill, the first name stuck to her like a tail.

she gained the second name by a love of chocolates
in the light years, ape-face became her reference
blotched red she knew her options were limited
she wouldn't be receiving roses that Valentine
and chocolate was strictly forbidden
she knew she couldn't change her face
but she could, like her name- wear another.

she became known to her friends as  princess,
because they thought she was now fair
she was bleached beyond repair, whiter than snow
bent into believing life, the same way a child
believed in fairy tales. What was offered, always a happy ending
because when you are not laughing you
are laughed at, it was a circle.

when he came into her life
he referred to her by degrees of cool
from zero to burnt
she hotter than  pizza, but felt cooler like ice
when he changed her name to a status
she bit her red hot lip.

with her name changing so much she, called herself no one
because she believed she was
 the words they said, the names she wasn't born with.

The question

What does one do with things that do not decompose
like longing that comes in the shape of a frequently used
smell?. Irrational, these thoughts.
What doesn't die out stays for lack of purpose, or place
like a whiff of almonds and roses, perhaps it knocks on one's door in winter
to remind,at least me-of the glory that passes on cat feet.
Maybe the secret lies in bitterness' tang  at newness
newness demands a look at the raw core of  elements:
new children with pink flesh,
unopened books and the wave of an old tune's flag.
It is possible to hide what doesn't lean itself to decay
display is the word then, like antique shops and museums
cram them with decay to preserve
memories that shouldn't, horrid nature that belongs
to kingdoms non-human.

but the real question remains: what does one do with the fight against decomposition?
let the fire then
be the answer.

Looking in the mirror

I urged her at birth
to stop looking in the mirror at how God made her
I told her, it is nearly impossible to detect the flaws
because He creates no imperfections
and she believed me, trotting in her pink dress.

I still urged her at teenage
to stop hating the mirror
as she was whole. true, she was sewed with tears, that she knew at birth
but she was  infused with a universe inside of her
and still she broke, little by little
on the missing bits of her
she broke with the bits extending out of her
and she blamed the eyes
and she blamed the mirrors.

I told her when she started university
that she can be anyone she wanted
that things were always in her hand
even if she could not see them with her naked eyes
even if her soul was naked when her body was layered
I told her she can be anyone and she became
everyone she met.

 These days I know her by the walk
by how others look to her in awe
all because she stopped looking in the mirrors
and started looking elsewhere
for beauty.