its golden

do you ever wonder if you could silence me completely?
   if i should run out
of words to say, one day
   if you could make me gasp
                        make all the words in my heart--
                    







(perhaps, one day, when you kiss me.)

sword clash

i have been fighting for the longest time
enough wars to make your hearts break

                  [dawn and dusk
                        mother and father
                   sibling and child
                          ; the darkest of all crusades
                                 the most righteous of all jihad ]

   i would fight a thousand more
                         a thousand more

                                  if i could fall like a star
               or angel
                             (there isn't too much of a difference; both are so far away)

       into you
                        ; my home.
                  (heaven,
                                 jannah)

you will always be alone and then you will die

I breathe and live and want; they call me 'whore'. 'Prostitute'. 'Bitch'. But I've never gotten paid and I don't hate anyone for it. I get what I want, and that's more than most girls can say.

Your stupid trailer is freezing, or I am, and I'm hungry again. I'm not above begging you for something to fill me. It's been three days. Baby, your pity tastes disgusting, but beef jerky's all you've got, so I'll take whatever you let me take.

Whatever I want to take.

You're in a cage and there's the stink of testosterone and blood and fear as you tear into other men like tissue paper. Like Picasso, you paint the walls and floors with red and linoleum and intestines before you sigh. I don't want to be here, anymore, I whisper, lost to the jubilant screams of your crowd, but you hear it anyway. Amber eyes rise to my green, suddenly shifting into my own, like you're saying me too or I'm gonna eat you alive.


I can be content with that.

Innocent. You want to keep me innocent, but I've got voices in my head telling me that I'm a sinner, an insult to God, to take what I want because it's mine, I'm no good, I'm better than anyone. And maybe, baby, it would shock you to your bones to hear what I've got in mind. I want to crawl into your skin and take you from the inside out, claim your heart with my teeth and grind you into the floor with my hips. I want to run my hands through your hair and bite you 'til you bleed (for me, again; this is getting repetitive, isn't it?). Have you dreamt about it? I hear you in the night, low voices and hitching breaths -- do you think about me?


Do you?


I am you and you are me, and nobody is a victim here.



(There's this line to this poem, and it's the one that thrums under my skin whenever I'm with you--)


I'm in a car with a beautiful boy and I feel sick to my bones as they creak against my skin because he's not you, and I want you. When did I get into this? When did you love redheads and propriety and tameness and when did I let you? When did you push me into ice-cold arms and ice-cold smiles and expectant hands?

Is it because I can't tell you I break everything I touch? They shatter and wither and die in front of me, you know, and there's nothing I can do about it because I can't let go. Not ever. Because you can't just sink your claws into someone and wait for them to shove you off, not when everything hurts more on the way out than in. Not when I want your claws and your everything, to compress it with the depth of your voice and the heat of your naked skin and swallow it so it's mine. So I'm happy -- so what? There is no excuse for this.
    (--you wanted to be in love and he happened to get in the way or--)



The road to happiness is the most misleading thing, the cruelest kind of ideal because it makes you put up with so much shit, baby, all for the sake of happiness. Happiness, they all tell me, like it's some kind of state and not a thousand moments strung together, not the high you run and reach for in life, not little presents from life to you. As though it's just another goal, another thing on your to-do list as you sit there in a pinstripe suit and briefcase and affairs with a secretary.


You make me happy, whatever that means. For what it's worth.
(--a man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river but then he's still left with the river or was it--)

But you're always angry, you keep trapping these tornadoes under your flesh and it's not good for you, baby, to keep her from all these disasters. Sometimes, two people fall in love and it's tragic, it is, but sometimes, two people don't love enough and that's even worse. You've got tornadoes for her, hurricanes, blizzards and a dry, dry desert but she's a city of angels and sky-high towers and I'm gasoline and messed up wind patterns and the sun. You blame me and I take it, because you make me happy and I grew up in Kansas and I'm still stupid enough to believe in yellow-brick roads and evil, redheaded witches and a happy ending.



We're a terrifying, dysfunctional tricycle and I would have it any other way than this. Please.


And we're standing on the edge of a cliff, and we've both got choices to make, baby. But not really, right? I'd move mountains and cross oceans for you, but you'd die for me (and that's the worst part, it is, it is; it's not romantic like in the fairytales, having someone's life in your palm like that).

I am standing on the edge of a cliff and you're by my side, lingering in the peripheries, lingering in the darkness, until I kiss you, isn't it? I kiss you, mouth open and warm, and slide my hands across your chest, your back, and it's supposed to fix everything, isn't it? A kiss is supposed to wake you up, isn't it?


Isn't it?
   (--love, too, will ruin us.)

exitus acta probat

onceuponatime.

You're afraid to fall asleep.

You are, you are, even if you try to tell Mum otherwise; you're afraid of the monsters and half-spider half-lion creatures twining around your legs and sinking fangs into your skin. You're afraid of the dark and you're afraid of the shadows and you're afraid of the way the sky goes green and blue and orange and purple in the shift between night and day -- terrified that the sun won't be able to chase the dark sky away, one day.

But, though you try and try and try, you fail each time.

And you sleep.

i.

You're awake -- or the dream equivalent of being awake -- the dregs of your consciousness and the fabric of your dreams ghosting around the edges of your body, like satin and silk and cobwebs. There is a boy -- there is always a boy, even in places that are yours and yours alone -- and he has the greenest eyes you ever did see; shining emeralds in a sea of disheartened greys.

"I am Adam."

"I am Eve."

He stares at the length of your neck, the swell of your bottom lip, the curve of your breast and sneers. Flushing with shame and disgust, you want to wrap the dream tighter around yourself -- keep this other out; chase him away with the sun. But he won't go, you know he won't, though how you know will always be a mystery to you.

Still, you can't help but stare at him from under your stupid girl-lashes, grey, cut-glass eyes reflecting his green perfectly.

...

You're awake.

ii.

"You are a very pretty girl," he says, demands, even as you shake your head. "You are." he insists.

Teeth sink into those girl-lips of yours, "well, you are a very pretty boy."

"Yes," he laughs, like gravel and dirt and whiskey, "yes, I am."

You shiver. He gives you his jacket.

You give him pink ribbons for his gold-spun hair.

iii.

"Your skin is soft and warm," he frowns, "mine is different."

He offers his arm to you, pulls your hand to run along the heated flesh from arm to shoulder to chest to hips, and over again. You frown, too, pulling your hand back.

"You're a boy," you argue, "you're not supposed to be like me."

"That's stupid. I want to be pretty, too."

Huffing, you pull off your white dress, press the bundle into his arms. "There. Now you'll look like the prettiest princess of them all."

He gives you his faded jeans, torn by the knees from overuse.

iv.

"Your hair is nice," you mourn, running impatient, jealous hands through the golden strands, "it's so very nice. A girl would want hair like yours."

He stares up at you from your lap, one hand fisted in the green grass, the blue sky catching his emerald eyes, sunlight beating down on you both. "Why would you want that? Your hair is lovely and long. I want hair like that."

You pull out silver scissors, and fear flashes through his eyes; like he's made a confession and you are to execute him for his crimes. But you simply bring the silver to your own hair, and snickt, snickt. Bring up the strands, press them close to his, and whisper by his ear, "you can, you can."

v.

"I want it," you demand, hands on his chest. He looks up at you in surprise, mouth falling open. "Kiss me. I only want a taste."

So he does, pressing his mouth against your own, sliding his tongue against your own, teeth catching on lips. Chests pressed together, skin burning, burning, burning--

--When he pulls away, you both laugh -- him like windchimes, and you like gravel and dirt and whiskey and the secret things people do in the dark places of a bar.

vi.

"I am Adam," you say, with gold-spun hair, frayed jeans, and an angular frame, voice low and drumming.

"I am Eve," she says, with ribbons in her hair, a white dress and whimsical voice.

happilyeverafter.

You're awake, finally.

snow angels

i'm drawin' little snow angels
on your frosty windows

you've got the A/C on high
and the radio's nothing but static

each raindrop thuds against my fingers
and my pulse, in venn

your misty exhalation brushes across my bare legs
little ghost kisses as you switch the dial from FM to off

i burrow into my cocoon of cotton and candy and cutting words
and flowers and elegance and dior flood the air

your lips, as red as my eyes, press thin to stop a litany of my name,
and a little golden shackle, glares at me.

burnt opals

liquid sapphire drips away into
a blood red ruby
bevelled burning opal
(dips and furrows darkened
by the opaque night)
sneaking down to meet
jagged jutting topaz
rays tumbling over each other
to press fleeting, shy kisses
burning opals
illuminated.

and liquid sapphire drips away
                                              away
                                                      away
                                                                                                  away
as blood red ruby
floods the sky.

smitten

there's a milkyway pooling

in the indentations of my heels

and the air's a little thick with lust,

                                     with static,

                                     with stardust,

the back of your knees bump mine

and there's a thunderstorm gathering

in the small of my back, twisting tight,

your face embraces mine like an old flame

warm, incandescent and affectionate,

and if you're blushing,

                 well,

                        we can always

                                     blame it

                                               on

                                                   the

                                                       damn

                                                              good

                                                                      beer.

string jupiter

do you know?
                      do you know where you are?


you're here:
                  in the breathy exhalations between my words,
                  in between each line of this novel i'm reading
                  in the little spaces between each electron and nucleus


the memory of your voice
                                        petals pressed on my cheeks


and if your hands fit against mine
                                                   like pieces from different puzzles,
then, well, baby,
                         i won't be the one to mention it.


it's all these names that spill from the column of my throat,
                                                                                       your personal fountain of youth,
keeping you young in this world after it all
                                                                c r a s h e s.
love, heart, mine, sweet, beautiful, angel, 
                                                                  tiger, rose, sayang, amore, more, more more.
no one
           else
i'd
    love


and you're my michael, the prince of all my heaven's,
                                                                                and i'm in rapture.
you're my lucifer, the prince of darkness,
                                                             and spill those slick, sweet secrets from your silver tongue onto mine.

shut up
           i'm almost done


you drive a shiny sleek car,
                                         and i couldn't be bothered to get a license because
there was something about roads,
                                                   and good intentions,
but i can't see past our emerald city,
                                                       we were never in kansas, dorothy.




how do i forget you,
                               when you're everything?


tell me that i'm not the only one
                                               that's swallowing this sea up whole
that's drowning from the inside out.


tell me that i'm not the only one
                                               who's so in love it makes you sick
and it's blood and orange and useless little love poems,
                                                                                 curdled up on the blue floor.

tell me that i'm not the only one
                                               who's miserable


i'd string jupiter around my neck,
                                                 and it would kill me quicker than you.
a whole year,
                     what's your poison?


it's a sunny day out,
                             well, i'm watching through blue-tinted windows,
and yeah,
               yeah, baby,
i fucking miss you.

flying colours

i think i'd like to make you a science.

at least then, i could recreate p e r f e c t l y the blue of your eyes,
                                                                        the gold of your heart,
                                                                              the tornado of your thinking.

i think i'd like to make you a math.

i could recreate a c c u r a t e l y the angle of your strength,
                                                       the slope of your shoulders,
                                                             the factors of your soul.

i think i'd like to make you a song,

i could recreate e x a c t l y the depth of your voice,
                                                the shards of your ego,
                                                      the glint of your sincerity.

i think i'd like to make you into something

quantifiable,

measurable,

tangible

but i'm glad you're not

this way, all these moments are frozen

just for me.

flutter

you're so close that i think that i could just s

                                                                  i

                                                                    n

                                                                      k

into your alabaster skin; so that the blue

of your trainers pools an ocean around

my feet, so that the beige of your trousers

melts into me like cream on coffee, so that

the red of your shirt spreads like a blush

across me.

and now i ask, how do i tell you?
there's silver fire and gold ice in
eternal salsa across my skin; all
that from just a smile.

how do i tell you?

my mind is in a perpetual autumn; 

monotone,  sepia leaves falling to the ground,

gathering up like gold dust,

or just plain old dust.

all it takes if for you to leave the room,

and it all disintegrates, you know,

all those beautiful, effervescent thoughts i have,

thoughts i could sew into stupid little love poems.

you're so close that i think,

butterflies will fly o u t of my mouth,

instead of the words i should be saying,

with the way you make my p ul s e

flutter.

almost-burnt apple pie

1.
so, there was this car. it was a nice car. black. sleek. handsome headlights.
      the only reason i liked it was because the
      thought of you driving it gave me shivers like
                                                   i'm in a personalised winter.

2.
i think it was your eyes that i fell for first, but i won't tell anyone. if i was more poetic, i'd say shit like how your eyes had all the days i pretended to smile and all the nights i cried in them. but i'm not. to be honest, they kind of remind me of my ceiling back when i was ten, the one with the stick-on glow in the dark stars on them.
                      i f
                          e
                             l
                               l for your eyes first, and your soul second and yeah, i can be pretty poetic.

3.
last night i had a dream about our car. you know, the black one. we were lying on the hood and pulling cliches like looking up at the stars. and you let your hands take up the space between mine, like shuffling grains of sand, and i dreamt that you told me you didn't believe in wishes. that, if you wanted something, you'd go out to get it.

i woke up alone.
it wasn't a sad dream.
but i was miserable anyway.

4.
i wanted to tell you something. it was probably something important. but my tongue doubled and twisted like a cherry stem or a vine and squeezed the words to oblivion. oblivion keep those words, oblivion can put those words where all the lost people go, where car keys go when you need them, where your left sock goes after the washing machine. i can make new ones.

they weren't important, anyway.

5.
when you're angry, you smile like knives. i wear the pants in this and i like to say that i'm always the one to find you. i am. but you're always the one to find me. and i'm the only one who's lost. your smile cuts apples into bite sized pieces and i don't lament that we're not adam and eve.

when you're happy, you smile like the sun.
we could bake an apple pie life together, if you'd like.

6.
no one's ever made me cry more than you do. 'broke my heart' is too light but 'breaking me' seems too harsh. you make me want to save myself, 'cause you're sure as hell not doing jack, to put on my rusted armour and fight the lions and wyverns and tarantulas curled around the back of my mind, because i could actually be worth something to someone.

no one's ever made me cry more than you do.
it's weird, but i don't regret anything.

fiat lux

god asked me to bow down,

so i did and he said, you are for adam.

in my peripheral vision, you are the brightest thing in heaven, 

and i said, yes. yes, i am his.

trembling palms meet in a palmer's kiss,

and you shied away with each step i took,

adam runs his fingers across my pulse,

and you watch with hungry, thirsty eyes.

my skin feels too hot and too tight,

and i want to burst through in a symphony of light,

so that you'll look at me, so that you'll see me,

even for a brief moment.

i wonder sometimes if you can hear it,

the pathetic thud-thud of my lone heart,

wonder sometimes if it matters, you press a thumb to my sternum 

to leave a wreath of purple flowers and i don't think it does.

i remember the apple tree and your wide, wide eyes,

as your fingers spread starlight across my ribs,

and between my thighs, and your voice, exultant,

gloria patri and you are so beautiful.

beautiful. that's what you are, so bright and pure,

and when i kissed you for the first time,

my tongue snaking around yours,

you tasted like fire and mornings and the sweetest fall.

you taught me to feel, to take,

and the first thing i did was spread myself all over,

your thousand-sun skin and drag out little noises,

with my hands and felt myself roast alive.

i writhe under the canopy of your wings and grace,

as you bless me with your hot mouth in all the most secret places,

throwing my head back, i shut my eyes and pray to soak you in,

the vowels of your name fill up my throat and adam's eyes are green.

my knees burrow in the ground, brackets to keep you grounded,

and my tongue paints a honeyed molass love, and you burn,

brighter than ever, brilliantly,

and eden watches you come undone, silent and salient.

you are the heat of fire and the cool of water,

your words are slippery slick and silver-tongued,

your touch is midas-blessed and golden,

and you are mine.

god told you to bow down,

obey them

and i was in your peripheral vision,

when you said, no, i will not.

and as god turned his wrath to you,

i kept you in the circle of my arms,

and stopped praying, trying to keep you 

from being swallowed by the sea of despair.

horrified, i watched something break,

and i watched my glorious morningstar,

shatter and shine with an impure light,

you turned into lucifer, the light bringer.

just when i don't think i know you anymore,

you stumble in, lips trembling and eyes flooding the earth for days,

and your fingertips mark springs of green and blue and purple,

on my arms and you say, i've never needed you more, and how do i resist?

i told you i love you,

and you brushed off my affection like a snakeskin,

and you wind down my arm, fangs sinking in,

sweet cyanide cider spilling from prayer-cupped hands.

adam's fingers trace my lips,

he walks away, cheeks stinging with shame

and anger,

in the shape of my hand.

michael pushes you through the gold gates,

and held me as hellfire burnt our hearts,

where you are, the fire only serving to illuminate the dark;

you took all the light of heaven and wrapped it around your broken grace.

i trace the red snakes around my wrists,

my lips become crimson with my heated kisses,

on your scars of love,

and if i kiss hard enough, i can almost taste you again.

i count each of my blessings carefully,

collecting them and coveting them,

and since you left,

there has been a grand total of zero.

my teeth bite the forbidden fruit, liquid lust burning,

and it gives me the courage to say,

i hate you; do not touch me; 

i am not for you, adam.

it should be harder to walk past those golden gates,

harder to leave eden and fall to earth,

but it's not, my morningstar,

it's not.

i left heaven for you,

and the gates of hell embraced me.

a/n: based on a dream and not meant to offend anyone. it's just creative licence and i'm sorry if anyone is offended by this.

we're going round in circles

1.
    i tried to write you a letter once,
       and i felt like spiders crawled out my throat,
    leaving cobwebs where all those words should've been;

        i tried to pass them off as silk,
     and i've never seen you so terrified.

2.
   you told me you were a growing boy,
      and i could feel you under my skin,
   you bloom, flowers of blue and purple,
      spring time love and part-time lovers,

   it is winter again,
     and you're taller than ever.

3.
  i dreamt that i told you what each crack in my skin meant,
      and you flooded me with your liquid kisses and pacific eyes,
  and called me your sahara.

      your eyes are thirsty now,
  and i am still your sahara.

4.
      the sun leaked blood secrets into the sky,
  and i watched the dawn arrive.
      he told me he loved me,
  and all i could say was goodnight.

5.
  you think you're funny
      and sometimes i think i'm the joke,
  i bite your punchline and fall,

      hook, line and
                             sink her.


6.
      you can't draw and i can't sing,
  but i write you love songs with my lips,
      and you make me mona lisa-smiles with your hands,

  and maybe, we don't need to be perfect,
      just happy.

a/n: sorry for the hiatus. exams and personal issues have reduced my muse to a whimpering mess.

bundle of joy

our skin and eyes and lips meet,
in a little bundle of electric blue.

we call him daniel.

jumping in puddles

moonlight's stifled by the choking curtains,
and it's something like love, something like heartache,
that curls around my heart, curls around my thighs.

i think, if i could bottle up all the empty wishes i had for you,
the pacific would look like a puddle.

spiced wine poets

add your syllables to my pentameter,

voice like wine; it's a rhyme in thyme.

strangled moon

your curtains stifle the moonlight,
and no one can see us.

fingers trace sigils of love and protection and mine,
on your cheekbones and wrists and spine.

dusky, dark; an empty sky,
eyes woven with all its colours and brushing stardust on your skin,
blinking, flickering across, effervescent.

you're gone, tomorrow morning,
but only because he wants you to be.

grand staircase

my heart's like a winding staircase,
in an old palace fit for a queen;

it creaks every single time
you walk past me.

block

i let you fill up the silences, whispered words and stuttered sighs,

until there's this e n d l e s s rushing in my ears,

so that maybe, i won't feel so alone,

so that maybe, my screams won't sound so

c h i l l i n g.

and i let you fill up the s.p.a.c.e.s between my words, each i and t

dotted and crossed with your eyes and smile in mind,

so that other memories don't se e  p where,

where i should've apostrophied your name,

to show you're mine.

and i let you fill up the sp.a.c.es. inside my soul, because i 

never knew emptiness could be so heavy and liquid

and viscous and it's better to have you there than that

d-r--o---w----ning me in endless misery. but there's these things lying

[                   in wait between my thoughts and memories and they're                  ]

murky and malicious and malevolent and they look

and awful lot like

em|me. 

but sometimes, there's nothing left to fill, because everything,

everything is you and it scares me because there's nothing

but you where something used to be. and it scares me because

then, then i have to talk about myself instead, a broken sob and

endless crying and i have to write about myself instead, in brackets

as an afterthought or even a post-script (p.s.don'tlookoverme) and i

have to face the fact that i'm so broken i don't think even my

mother loves me.

yellow brick road

sometimes, i think if i squint hard enough,

i'll be able to see a road from here to you

materialise out of the ground. 

but then, i squint

too hard and the world is dark as my eyes shut

and i get too scared to open them again, especially

when i can feel these dark, shadow-folded creatures,

baring teeth and claws and talons and hate, waiting for

me in the edges of my peripheries. 

my love is bright, brighter than the stars and they'll

lead you home. but i am endlessly lost in darkness,

forever wandering, afraid and without light;

you don't
      can't
      won't love me, no matter how much i want
                                                           need
                                                           plead you to.