Poetry

The Midwife Speaks to the Child She Could Not Bring I have held the threshold open with my hands — the warm and difficult passage, the long corridor between the not-yet and the strong first cry, the letting-go the body understands before the mind does. I have caught the living from the dark so many times the dark has lost its strangeness — it is...

I’ve always been taught to not envy others, to never compare material things. A delightful sentiment, something I’ve been partially successful in. Even with all the sorrow and stress stashed within. However I can’t help but be envious of the happiness that others seem to have, wishing and dreaming joy was something I could reach out and grab.

I appear relaxed and happy, most people like that about me. How surprising it’d be if they found out that’s not me. However unlikely, played this part too long and anything else would feel wrong. I try my hardest to stay strong and never show what’s inside, yet I still find myself wishing I didn’t feel the need to hide.

He stands alone, an obelisk beneath the sun, his hands still blackened from the tar’s old murmur, the shovel, stiff like history, resting at his side. The street is silent now, the fracture filled, its gaping maw of ruin smoothed, a sleek insignificance to all who pass. They will not notice. They never notice— the absence of damage, the absence...

Delicate flowers don't last long in icy, Harsh conditions. They grip on tight to their roots But the cold always wins. Their fragile forms Aren't made to withstand such relentless conditions. Yet, they come back Year after year. I wonder if they're brave Or naive. And what is to be learnt From this perpetual cycle. Freesia, I have so many...

Hello, what does it take to reach you A distant light across a sea of fear and injury I see you, I hear you calling out in vain, for freedom From being so safely estranged Your innocence and virtue taken by a thief Raped and beaten by a circumstance of youth Your only sin being so naive and free You learned your lesson well and keep it...

He passes me, dragging the weight of morning routine, feet lifting possibility; returning home, to sit against the view, and read with spine crescent carved - still, becoming part of the window as the world gathers around him.

That fan on your desk unfurls elegantly, and peacock bone corset hardens breath, solid against my neck. Your nazar eye cast aside - let demons find us, adding red to green and blue. A train rattles outside, the evening theme shifts - in sensations of colour, the beak kneels to taste.

Passing through the graveyard, each section dedicated to burying parts of the skeleton. We stretch into the neck, and through the hand, finger-grasses phalanx around feet. As our bodies close in on the tomb, I read you something found on its headstone: hold me; graze skin, until you reach bone.

The rain is falling just below the stratocumulus clouds, over the trees, over the buildings, over the seas, and even the rivers of the little ducklings, with the rain falling, i can look into the rising river, i am able to look at my reflection, my true reflection, it wavers as i look into the rising river, but that is me, my true self,...

What do you want from me? I have nothing left to give. Yet here you are, asking me for more. JUST STOP! GET OUT! But of course you don't care. You never did nor will you. Am I not correct? ANSWER ME! YOU COWARD! But I guess, I have one thing left. Is that what you are after? But you have already taken my sanity. WAS THAT NOT ENOUGH!?...

pen stopping above paper / a quarter of an inch / trembling mind running marathon wild / millions of miles / panting imagination spurring / reaching for realms unknown / going freer further faster thoughts storming savagely / soaring high / aspiring / forming a circle a goddamned circle why must it be closed