Have you ever been dancing with someone?
Has anyone made you so brave that you danced?
Feet just a smidge too wide apart,
Waist cocked at an angle too out there,
And where?
In front of people?
In front of a crowd?
In front of an audience?
Has anyone made you so syrupy that you matched your jeans with their skirt, your blouse with their shirt?
Has anyone laughed at you and been better than you and made you happy by virtue of so?
Someone smarter, prettier, crueler?
Someone driven to the future, you left behind as they move ahead?
Just a dozen backward glances before they are a blur on the horizon,
And you are still walking downwards instead of forwards,
Kicking up a storm until the ground loses its form.
Are you buried halfway in a gravel grave, still moving downwards?
Has anyone ever made you brave?
Brave enough to haul yourself out of this hole and onto the road?-
The last day of November 2019,
I spent, with a crick in my neck, and a sore on the side of my overworked thumb.
With a scab on my knee, with pins in my scalp, with hair on the floor.
With the water from my faucet leaking wastefully, but going down the gutter so tastefully, with a trickling sound that is music to my ears when I'm standing in the shower with conditioner in my hair.
I smell like strawberries.
I'm calm.
I'm tasteful.
I'm in control.
I'm water.
Leaking out of a broken faucet,
And going down the drain, wastefully,
But at least I do it tastefully.
I don't matter at all.
Not to you, with hair that smells pink,
Not to you, not until you need to wash your colours away, and feel clean.-
She had been standing on the side of the road for hours on that night. There was no other choice but to hop into the first car that stopped to offer her a lift. The man seemed friendly enough, if a little too friendly, but what other choice did she have?
(continued in description)-
A wisp of cotton,
Touching base in your eye,
Making you blink and cry,
A single tear.
Brushed away, blown away,
You've flown away,
You're a barbet, uncatchable.
You are my balzarine blouse,
The grip skin of my Atlatl.
To make up for the sin of freedom,
In water drowned, in sand lost,
On concrete smeared, inhaled,
Like a deconstructed beard,
Absurd.
To tangle, tie, in summer season,
In spindles cast and crafting cost,
On skin volunteered, veiled,
Reengineered,
Sherd.
Brittle and brutal in its way.-
"To be welcomed. Tell me goodbye should you wish it, but for now, show me your sights."
"Why would I do that?"
"Because you have the heart of a traveler. I may annoy you, but I have never confused you. The way I turn and the ways I walk do not confuse you. In a different time, we could have shown each other around, twirling the floors of the world stage forever, until we finally settled to rest from our dance. But in this lifetime, can I at least have one dance? Won't you show me the sights of your town?"
"Come."-
An entire container of salt heated with lemon juice, sugar and green chillies.
It has every flavour to offer, but never enough drinks of water.-
The truth is that I see you out the corner of my eye,
Even when you're not there.
Your phantom, a spy,
I espy out the corner of my eye.
I let you get close enough to feel like a threat,
Then I glance, without turning, sideways, to show you, your match, you've met.
Track my every move and I will count your every breath,
You will be one step ahead always and I will whisper in your ear, always from behind you.
You may always find me, but in kind, I will always find you.
Haunt me knowing my haunting will blind you.-
Glass.
I handle it with care.
If it shatters,
I will spend many a hourglass cycle,
With a broom,
Like a maid and a witch,
Sweeping to keep the soles,
Of my unsteady, steadfast feet safe,
Or up in the air, ridiculous,
Scared of walking, fly past the balking,
Suspended mid journey.
If I can DIY it,
Make some good from the bad,
Just try it,
Washing that glass,
Using it like a vase for flowers.
Or to store chocolate cookies,
Drink chocolate flavoured lemonade as life sours,
Savour the citrus, recycle the glass, build with the pain,
Wouldn't that finally be the right mix of sun and rain?-
You leave nothing behind,
Because I will not be so kind,
As to let you come back,
To steal away more of what we built together.
You forfeited your rights to it all,
When you left to chase electric weather.
You went flying to the storm,
Part of the directionless swarm,
And you no longer have a home to come back to,
You are nothing, and there will not be much ado.-
Doing the best that you can.
In all your time facing off with the man,
You haven't looked at yourself enough,
To be sure if you're still standing where you left yourself,
Sequestered for safekeeping.
In keeping with this song and theme,
Of accepting guidance,
And receiving only palm print directions on how to scream,
You can look away now.
Look away from your goal of kissing coal into diamond,
Under the pressure of love's stipend.
Life is sometimes about an affirmation of your existence.
About accepting ignorance,
And through borrowed, silently sowed persistence,
Doing as much as you can,
Without losing sight of yourself again,
While keeping your eyes fixed on the game,
Of the man.-