I look at you and I see your skin
is the colour of snow
and I look at me
beside you
and I see my skin
is the colour of sand
and I see you
beside me
and me beside you
snow and sand
sand and snow
both temperatures on the extreme ends of a Fahrenheit
But the air I vent is hot
and the air you vent is cold
I rise
and
you descend
and we come together
somewhere
midair
otherworldly
my atoms fill the spaces between yours
and your atoms fill the spaces between mine
our particles
interweave
and
intertwine
we solidify and
together
softly
we come to rest

I've Never Loved You in Paris

I've developed a sense of embarrassment of the words I write about love because I feel that I have somehow outgrown it; which is stupid and not true. I'm publishing this because I understand that it's not right to be ashamed of how much you are able to feel and how strongly you need express it; it's fine if you feel strongly...
Contrary to what I have been told before.  

So here goes..



I've never loved you in Paris. 

On a map there's pinned
all the places
I've loved you 
in
but never in Paris.

in old towns where 
cobbled streets had you strolling 
by my side.
and a man 
who played 
you are my sunshine
and 
you were my sunshine 
in a green line tunnel. 

in big cities with wide streets
in backstreets
you would kiss me 
in big big cities. 
behind buildings 
and in between
you kissed me in
Köln.

along shores of Mediterranean blue
and you
and me 
together
we lay on the green grass of many parks.
Jardin d'Anglais, Geneve
in May.


but not Paris.

a coin hit
the pit
of the Trevi
and 
that's where I
last had you. 

I loved you once
by the Thames
and another by 
the Rhine
while staring at mountaintops 
in Annecy
and
in Spain 
by the sea.
in front of me is
the Notre Dame
I cross the Seine
listening to a song
I've listened to before
while loving you still
I walk by the Seine 
and wonder
what it would have been
like
to love you
in Paris. 

My head is only there to receive
and not to store;
I am training it.

Through very simple instructions:

like the 
destruction
of a five year
friendship.

The collection of
albums from family trips
since I was
ten;
they all have
been
lost without lamentation.


And when you're
done
with a day so good,
don't
rest your reminiscing head on a pillow.

Wait for sleep
to bat your eyes
shut
from a world
that would
eat you in the rest of your nights.


And best of all,
is the eradication
of a love
that once
was
through
disclaiming its cause.

What you
have to do
is so
brutal;
you
deny
the
love
you felt
and
you call it something
else.

Gullibility.


Barricade yourself.

Obstruct
and
destruct
every emotion that hurtles
your way;
it will
crash.
The shrapnel
will not tear you
down
your skin will not
sore
the walls are
high enough
to keep you
safe
and
sound.

Never again
will you be
bound
to a person
to a thing
to a feel-
ing.

But the saddest
part of
leading
life
dispassionately
is that
at times
you will be
lonely
and you
will
rummage
in
your head
searching for
companionship
and you will
find

nothing.

On Neruda

You asked me why Neruda shall stop loving her

                      little by little,

                      if she, 

                      little by little,

                               stopped loving him. 

We deemed poor Pablo just another casualty of unrequited love and left him to love her in the rest of his poems. 

And as you,

        little by little, 

         stopped loving me. 

I,

little by little, understood what Neruda had to say.

Loving you rendered Poetry a slow and wholly painful experience. 

Because I loved you and sometimes, 

                                     only sometimes, 

                                      you loved me too.

Why couldn't you love me always.. 

And when he wrote the saddest poem of all, 

                    that night,

                                     I could feel his pain puncture my heart

                                  and I understood that Poetry is vandalism.

Because she broke Neruda's heart and the hearts of the already broken-hearted who read his saddest lines and loved what they do not have. 

And I started to write the saddest lines myself, because that was the only way I knew of that would let me keep you. 

So I kept you in lines like:

If time were to stop

this very second

and earth did not

chase itself around

Only then will

I replace

all the yous

in my poems

and leave the Is 

to stand tall

and alone

and I would

finally

stop 

needing

you.

Just as Neruda kept her for him and you for me and

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly.
I love you because

I know no other way than

this: where I does not

exist

nor you.

You may have forgotten me but
I have not stopped looking for you
because I have not yet
stopped loving you,
little by little. 

Let me tell you the story of a girl


The first six years of her life:


She grew up knowing no one but her mommy
and daddy
and little tiny brother


Her mommy and daddy really
really loved each other.
They both brought her up
learning that each night
before you go to bed
you have to kiss both your mommy and daddy
goodnight


One day her mommy and daddy had to catch a flight
and leave her and her tiny brother with their granny
who wasn't used to kissing her own children
before they went to bed


This little girl's mother
when she was little
instead of having a mommy
to take care of her
she had a nanny
that would tuck her into bed
and give her a peck
on her little forehead


This little girl then learned
that her daddy grew up
without his own mommy
and that when he was fourteen
his mommy had to leave
because something very mean
invaded her body


Then this little girl
grew up some more
and met her very first
friend
whose mommy and daddy's life
had to come
to an early end

This little girl had a friend
who was a boy
and both their mommies
talked a lot
One day his mommy's
eye
was black
and this little boy
left his home
and to this very day
he never came back.


Now this little girl
whose parents had taught
that the world was made of everything nice
she started to doubt
that little thought
and that everyone's friends
had two parents
and love
was not
what everyone
was brought
up with.


So the little girl,
our little friend
was once good at maths
until high school algebra
dragged her into a most perplexing world
of Xs and Ys



and that was the sort of change she could handle.

Until she started to ask why

Why was everything changing so fast



This little girl kept growing
and seeing
all the good in the world
as it went by
and waved
goodbye


For years
She watched as the sky
told her that she'll never live on a cloud
and
she saw her mother scream
and her father cry
and

she had her first bad dream

and in high school she failed her 

maths test

and 

her best

friend

was in blood

and she held her hand

in an ambulance

and suddenly

everything

didn't seem very nice

when she was in a room

that was very very dark

and someone had just died

and she couldn't cry

This little girl

who wasn't little anymore 

watched the world change

and it wasn't as easy to handle

as those Xs and Ys

and she always asked why

Until one day

she got very

very angry

and smashed a plate

to the ground

and a remote control 

into her not so tiny brother's

head

and there was blood

and she laughed

and had no fucking clue who she was

at this moment

the world was no where

near nice

Let's draw this little girl
in our minds
and put hair over her head
and let's call her she
She is me.

She is me
and she used to
run and kiss her mommy
before she went to school
but now I don't tell
my mother how
much I love her
anymore

and she used to love
so much
and I
have no clue
what love feels
like to you
because to me
love used to be
this drum
that beat
against the walls of my heart
that robbed me
of sleep
at night
and now
I sleep like a baby
because love
stopped striking
and the beat
is dead
and
every night
I crawl into bed
and
whisper to the sky
and wish
that I'd be
this little
girl
one
more
time.






     

A Compilation of Things I've Been Told

I remember being a little girl in a big family. I was the only one of my age and I've been told that I was quite the extraordinary child. It still brings me pride. Now, I remember being a little girl and listening to a lot of talk from mighty big people. They told me that I was the wisest person in a room full of grown-ups and they told me that I needed to cut back on chocolate and potato chips because my belly was getting bigger.

Then I started school, my mother made sure I had a sufficient supply packed in my lunchbox for break-time and I liked those sandwiches she gave me and I really wanted to make friends. No one liked me because I spoke too much and said things that weren't necessarily true in nature, but they were rather interesting. It didn't matter anyway, because they decided to make fun of my chubby cheeks. They told me that they didn't want to be friends with me.

I grew up some more and I was always one of the smart students in our class. Our English teacher wasn't the nicest person alive, to me at least, I took it that she didn't fancy me much because, to her, I was the second smartest girl in class. One time, I was engaging in friendly side-talk with the smartest girl in class and the teacher caught us. She looked at me and told me that she was extremely disappointed. I really hated her.

By the end of that scholastic year, I was in four plays that were to be performed in front of all our parents. My friend's mother walked up to me and said, "Now we know where you'll be in twenty years."

Today, I am a Theatre student.

More time passed and every family gathering was a four-hour medley of, "you'll be something big one day," and "you're a pretty girl but you'll be prettier if you just shed twenty pounds off."

I've only gained weight.

Then I turned eighteen and remembered all the times my grandmother told me she loved me and I started wondering why someone would say something they don't mean, so I just stopped telling her that I love her back.

It really hit me when I turned nineteen and a boy told me that I feel strongly about all the wrong things. He said it as if feeling strongly is a vice that I would be better off without then he smiled at me and I felt like a little girl again and he was a mighty big person.

I felt strongly about him.

Now, I've been told a number of things and some of which I cannot mention here because someone will read them and they'll either call me to apologize or elucidate and I've heard enough.

I don't have much to say now, but I remember being told that I'm good with endings; writing them.

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'll have to end this on a rusty note.

Barcelona

She's big. The smaller parts of her are my favourite. I got lost in them several times and even though I've been there several times before I still get lost because somehow she leads me through her wide and narrow and big and small parts and every part. She's big and she shows me around every bit of her and when you think you know her so well, so well, she brings you to a new part that is as charming as the rest of her. She's infinite; she never rests; never sleeps; never stops. She is always.
At night, she dances and sings, and it's almost as if you are caught on camera and the soundtrack's there, it's always there and you have no idea how she does it. When she dances, oh dear god, it is beautiful and everyone around her dances along and sings along and you are caught in the magnificence of it all; of her.
It's amazing how she can make you feel there; unconstrained and unrestrained and light on your feet and happy. She makes you happy. She makes me genuinely happy; just being with her.
I like her when we wake up together and rise and shine, here's a new day with her; we can go to the beach, we can walk in the street, we can sit and watch people cross to the other side and wish we were them.
She's helped me find something; an untamed passion. I feel a bundle of things when I am with her, I cannot describe it. When I move in her she moves in me and I forget that there exists the rest of the world.
We met in 1995, and I was born in 1996. I've seen her rain in August and drown in November, I've seen her hot in July and I've seen her every month of the year and I love her in all the ways she can be.

I sat on a table of
old friends

and old conversation and

five years ago

I am not today who

I was

Five years ago.

But the conversation

five years old

without a speck of

difference

and I 

stained 

and 

tainted

by a hundred million

specks 

of it.

The conversation

took me

five years back 

and it was horrid

and scary
and all too familiar.

It reminded me

of my

failure 

in Love

and 

Friendship.

Because 

I

would have 

laughed

would have

spoken

should have

fallen in

Love

by now. 

I would have laughed 

would have talked

would have

conversed 

And caught the words 

in 

and tossed them

Out.

And

back

and forth. 

But today

one word slipped.

And went the other.

Followed by 

another.

And I remained

Quiet.

Dear Stranger and Friend,

Dearest Reader, I find it an obligation asked of me to report to you in moments of strong feeling and this is fortunately and unfortunately one of these moments. I must speak to you about my weathering body. I must speak to you about my nightmares. I must speak to you about my lack of feeling and you must help me. Do not make fun of my words, because they are my only weapon and they will help me fight; had it not been for them and you, my friend, I would have given up. 

It started in the middle of the night when I had been lost in a dream and could not find my way home—the first of a series of corresponding nightmares that would follow the nights ahead—I could not find home and home was not there so I stood alone and felt my body push against the ground in the most painful way and it sank into and through the ground until I could only see the remainder of me: the fidgeting tip of my index finger trying to prove that I am. 

I am going to get through this. 

Since then I would wake up to days that would end in nights of the same homeless terror. 

I might have mentioned it once or twice before that I seldom cry because of some absurd reason that I have yet to find out. Nevertheless I have cried once not so long ago and a tear made its way down my face and through the crack that separates my lips and it tasted salty and not mine. I cried some more and licked the drops off my lips just to render them familiar, otherwise I would be excruciatingly confused at the moment.

Stranger, Friend, Reader, bear with me and be a good example because I cannot bear the company of those I love anymore and I do not know why. I crave and care for the agonizing thoughts of the night that would wait until the first sight of light to leave and return when the lights come off. 

Should I not sleep then? 

Should I leave the lights on?

I catch myself yelling at the faces of those I care for, for reasons unknown to my mind. 

I catch myself throwing away love for reasons unknown to my heart. 

Dear Stranger,

I do not recognize my mind, I do not recognize my heart.

The only thing I recognize at this exact moment is my writing because the repetition is familiar.

I have cried for help here before.

But not this desperately.


Dear Stranger, 

Please.

One Heart

Be it that one heart is burdened in sleep

In time of peace, one heart finds himself without peace

On that occasion: Where must one heart be comforted? 

Be it that one heart is burdened in prayer

In time of need, one heart kneels and kneels and kneels

On that occasion: When must one heart be comforted? 

Be it that one heart is burdened in love

In time of weakness, one heart remains blighted

On that occasion: How can one heart be comforted?

But one heart is weary and sleepy and sad

So one heart finds a hiding place 

Stays there forever 

Lest he burden another heart

But it appears to be that one heart is burdened always. 

And dear, dear reader,

In the end it is a sad fact that

One heart discovers the saddest 

And most uncomfortable burden of all

And it is that one heart is burdened
Most

Whilst
Alone.