The faithless faith

Moon,
Full-bodied, jaundice-yellowed, sullen-lipped,
Leans drunkenly against the navy-sapphire night drapes,
Heavily-lidded eyes watch the ingrates calling for God in the all the wrong places,
In the pits of humanity where the saffrons and emeralds lock horns and spill sticky ruby-red-russet,
A little girl sits in her grandfather's lap lapping up lore of the victory of good over evil,
She watches, wide-eyed, the old man's old fingers—sinewy, gnarled—playing out the pantomime of shadows on the walls,
Her faith is birthed somewhere between the peeling walls that smell of senescence and a hole-y undershirt surrendered to decay.
This moon
Laughs, sees the cretins’ strife for their holy places and
raises them a little girl’s grandfather’s meager chamber
She laughs, this moon

Moon,
Half-faced, bleached-white, terror-stricken,
Obscured but half in the azure vast beyond-ness,
Her ears puckered as the drums roll hysterically, their manic voices rising to a shuddering climax,
They worship the Goddess, put her on pedestals, dress her in vivid vermillion and glittering gold
A faith that wraith-like twists itself into a noose around the young-spring’s neck,
The appendage she stuck out among the torrid-tangerine barbarians,
Shuddering still from the nightmares that sprouted from their
hands, and eyes, and words, and mouths on her
the men of worship dressed in habits and the men of intellect dressed in power,
Rub their hands and dance in glee as the sprig is cast into the pyre,
Fanned by callous-conniving cahoots and ablaze with slander, disrepute and abasement
This moon,
Shudders, witnesses the black shame of the cardinal celestial being sinking
into the deep, murky blackness with the visceral remains of a thousand springs
She averts her eyes, this moon

Moon
Star-dusted, crescent-backed, pincer-bound
Fractiously pinches the indigo, empyrean domain
Obligated by its nature to stand by, the all-seeing eye, never to testify
The commodity of ‘God’ wrung out and left to dry,
In establishments where godsmen transact, or in other words plunder and loot,
puppeteers shake pillars of faith just enough to orchestrate the multitudes
to crawl out of the woodwork, to ostracise, demonise, sub-humaise a few,
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
In the name of the Creator, the Preserver and the Destroyer,
All the while the chanting goes on and on and on, their essence slew,
There’s no riches to be had in devotion, no power to be had in surrender,
No lust to be satisfied in empathy, no thrill to be had in kindness
This moon,
Weeps, has had enough, so thwarted she retreats,
To darkest end of the night, if only to escape the vicious vibgyor-ed faithless faiths
She fades away, this moon

Not so fast...

Lying flat on my back,
Palms open, eyes fixed on the sky,
Egging on death with such force of life,
That I laugh out loud at the irony of it all

Unyoung-ed

Something's a-coming,
As I face the mirror's judgement,
my jawline blurs and I metamorphose into my mother,
Only, I have reshaped her lines,
Only, I have folded into my own wrinkles,
All the things I have been have found places in my flesh,
Now there's someone else in darkness of my eyes

Something's a-coming,
I don't bend in all those places,
that were warmed molten by the desire to please,
I burn from the edges in, a motley collection of unreadable words
on charred bits of paper; I'm at home in the fireplace,
Like a gash on the lip—painfully pleasurable to bite,
I chew on wounds and grudges and unmet expectations, 
Now there's someone else in the thinness of my mouth

Something's a-coming, 
Winter sways bashfully in the horizon, 
The air holds still; gathering it's cloak around it,
It smells like pandanus flowers and wood-smoke
It smells like a jubilation and melancholia all at once, 
I have forgotten the meaning of loneliness, 
My dreams are bereft of youthful yearning and hopes,
I've become too much of me, or just enough,
Now there's someone else in the stillness in my chest

Something's a-coming,
A tempest waiting to hit,
A deathly still waiting to take grip,
Steady, steady, they go my two steady legs,
Between my ribs there's nothing aflutter,
Only a trudging on of this life's drum beat,
I am ready for this—whether equinox or solstice,
Now that there's this someone else inside my head

  

An ode to a dick

What is it about being born with a penis that makes you such a dick, 

I was raised to be a nurturer, I assure you it isn't an attribute of my second X chromosome, 

What were you raised to be? A hunter? A gatherer? A purloiner of low-hanging fruits? 

My 'no's were sifted out of me early, just like your empathy was ironed out of you,

My mother, she thrust upon me the unrelenting urge to acquiesce,

Your mother, she gifted you her universe, you at the very centre,

For too long now, you have felt like the light, like the source of all gravity,

Let me shatter that illusion just a bit, 

Just like you did my trust, pushing past needs and thighs just the same, 

Penetrating, Penetrating, Pene-fucking-traiting

What is it about being born with a penis that makes you so entitled?

Is it what makes me, a  cunt, such a sucker for punishment? 

A cunt you want to fuck, a cunt you want to fuck with, 

Another planet to orbit you, another cooing breast to nestle in, 

Another salve for your peach-like ego, 

Another glutton for a life of servitude,

Serving you, who is 'blessed' with a penis

What is it about being a penis that exempts you,

From all those shackles that have disfigured my body and mind?

Who burdened  me with shame? Who acquits you of all blame?

What gives you the right to ask me to hide myself, when you are the monster that hunts?

Hunts in the night and in the day, on the streets and in my home, 

from my bedside and from the unknown, from childhood to menarche,

What gives you authority over the clothes I wear, the choices I make, the thoughts in my head, the words that leave my mouth, the colour I paint my skin, or the way I sin?

You say you want to protect me? You say I need you to live comfortably? 

You say I need a thing with a penis?

Save me your #notallmens and your repugnance,

Save me your disdain and your benevolence,

Save me your pity and your chivalry,

You weren't born with it,

You don't need to be more man,

Any more than I need to be more woman,

You'll only be a prick with a penis,

Unless you can step up and unstrap that,

Unless you can be more than that,

That thing that makes you  a dick with a penis

I woke up last night at the witching hour,

Neither with a jolt, akin to the plucking of an unwitting, un-ripened fruit,

Nor gently strirred out of slumber, like a cloud unveiling the moon,

When I woke up last night, it was as if I had been awake all along,

I wondered what had woken me; I wondered whether I had been asleep at all,

Yet, here was the fresh memory of my subconscious gestating within the soft folds of slumber,

I could almost taste the warm tones of its tranquillity;

I could sense the flutter in the exhilaration of its dreams,

I could still slide into the longing of its afterglow,

But here I was, a-woke at the witching hour,

What woke me, I couldn’t say,

It could be any number of things, a multitude of reasons,

Like life flashing before my eyes, so did the permutating possibilities,

They didn’t matter though, these reasons,

When I woke up last night at the witching hour,

Neither jolted, nor gently stirred,

Lying awake in my bed, still as the stillest of nights,

I knew,

Once I was asleep, and now sleep had left me,

So was I once in love, and now love has left me...

Jasmine Stains

 

My hair smells like jasmine,

From the wedding I went to last night, 

When I tethered my untameable hair with flowers,

I will never be a bride again, I will never be a wife again, I will never be tied nor chained ever again, 

My hair smells like cigarette smoke, and as I stood in the rain, 

Draped in silk, and grey clouds escaped my red lips,

A man told me that it was erotic, which he thought was a compliment,

They ask me what my husband does, 

I hate how defensive I sound when I say, "Actually, I'm a single parent."

In case you were wondering, 

Their ‘Oh!’s are the colour pistachio puke, and taste like discomfort,

I can see the question in their eyes,

"Which D was it - death or divorce?" 

They wonder which is worse,

Once the faces told me,

"Leave him; he doesn't deserve you;

You don't deserve this pain,"

They didn't mean it of course,

You see, leaving is not a woman's prerogative, 

It does her well to cast her eyes downwards and dye herself in fragile feminine forlornness,

I have a reputation these days,

Of being a seductress, 

Of being a temptress, 

Of being a skank, 

Because the tattoos on my body, 

Because the promiscuity of my skin,

Because the debauchery in my eyes,

Make a man consider leaving his wife, 

Make a man fall infatuatedly into my arms and between my thighs,

Make a man an adulterer, and what he does with me will only ever be illegitimate,

My reputation makes no allowances the state of my shattered heart, 

My reputation disallows the consensuality of this 'seduction',

My perceived immorality does not deserve the same forgiveness as his,

After all, I'm collector's item, a crown jewel, 

A dusty curio on a dustier shelf,

That thing between my legs must have no will of its own,

A thing to be protected (read possessed), 

Or a thing to be prosecuted (read persecuted),

My father says, it's irrelevant whether it was the leaf that impaled itself on the thorn of if it was the thorn that pierced through the leaf,

The damage is always bourn by the leaf alone,

The leaf being a 'woman's character', 

The thorn being any of the ample barbed fences on which a woman can impale herself, 

I've thrashed against so many fences that I am now a sieve, 

All light passes through me, in and out, 

It's pitch black where I am, so forgive me for lighting a fire, 

There are as many 'type’s of woman as there are grains of sand by the sea,

I'm an ocean of unknowns to you,

You are not eligible to name me,

My flesh is on fire, with smouldering sexuality,

So unless they want to fuck me, they absolutely hate me, 

And even then they don't like me so much, 

Desire is a man's turf, right up there with moustaches and Adam's apples,

I'm the apple, I am the snake, I am Eve, 

I am the vibrator nestled between flimsy, cheap lace underwear,

I am the shame, of saying I came,

Though it's not even funny how much I didn't! 

My tongue is drugged from a decade's worth of answering,

"What's for dinner?"s and "Where is my ________"s,

I'm more than the answers to these questions, I think,

Yet, I've got generations worth of guilt in my soul,

For being too busy, for being too free, for having friends, or not having too many, for indulging myself, for not indulging some significant other, for not knowing how to be woman enough, or being too much of a woman, 

Damn! I'm more than this guilt, 

I want to put down this burden; I am exhausted from carrying it,

I'm got boxes, and barrels, and tanks full of anger, 

I've got the superlatives embellished with expletives of this anger,

I've got screams, I've got battle cries, I've got bellows that rot from this anger,  

And I try to summon my inner duck,

And let it all roll off my back,

And all I'm getting is my inner wolf, 

And my haunches are raised and my knuckles are white, 

And I hold tight on to my little girl's hand, 

And promise myself she will be stronger than me,

And promise myself that this stain on me is not something hereditary,

And I tell her, 'Baby, house doesn't always win,

Not if you refuse the oldest game ever played,’

My hair smells like jasmine,

And smoke, and soot, and thorns,

And lace, and sweat, and perfume,

And spices, and blood, and milk,

And paper, and dirt, and tears, 

And all the things that make me much more than what's between my legs

And now that it's done,
All I have left of your love,
Are the dregs in my soul,
And the bitter aftertaste of crushed hope

So many songs sung about you,
Poetry that blushed pink only for you,
The skyscraping claims, the conspiring whispers of your name,
They have all been in vain,

Now they ask me, 'What happened?'
I shrug and say, 'It didn't work out',
It betrays you, me, and what we used to be,
To have these years reduced to those words,
Four words that replace three,
'I love you', 'I love him', 'We are together'
All gone and now,
There are no words, there's only pain,
And there's the fear that I might never love again

Purgatory

There are so many definitions of hell,
Mine's wondering if you'd have fought harder,
Had I been someone else

The things we do,
Just to be held by someone

I'm not sad,
Only how the eyes sweat,
From this heart's toil...

Subterfuge

A spectrum of human emotions,
Red was never my colour,
Moth to a flame,
Along you came,
Now you've gifted me anger's hue
All this red will dye my heart an icy, cold blue

Frozen crystals on the cheeks,
Sweat trapped beneath cold skin,
Warm memories escaping vapidly,
Red help me be whole again

What's love but this life's inferno...
Abandon hope all ye who enter
(In the least, note thee thine nearest exit)

A day for love they say,
I look through photographs,
From time long gone and gone again,
I gorge on self loathing feeding
On the ruins of my self,
All that was once shiny and good
Has been plundered and lost
Worst kind of gambler and chorincally irreverent,
Ive bet it all and lost it all,
Around the curb you'll find me,
If you look carefully, and see past the grime,
Take a good look - say oh how the mighty have fallen!
It's a day for love they say,
It eludes me, it eludes me in every way

Some day, not far from now,
You will lie against the softness,
Of a woman's breasts and whisper
to her the things that I did to you,
And she will hold you like I do,
And think that she will be different

A buzzing in my ear,
A voice that says, 
'you could end this'
'you don't have to keep going'
'imagine: never having to open your eyes again'

I swat at it, hastily chase it away,
No, not when there are small hands,
That need to go around me each night
Swat, swat, swat, swat them away

But I acknowledge the buzzing,
I see it looming around me,
Tempting me with the thought of release,

I could sew up the tears of course,
But it feels like old, worn, fabric,
It's split everywhere, gaping mouths,
Open in eternal despair,
Where do I begin? How do I pack it all in?

What's inside is too large to hold,
It pushes past toad eyes,
It saturates and exiles each hair,
It seeps tellingly into the skin,
It bulges into layers of excess,
It threatens to rip, it promises a kill

I hear the buzzing,
Maybe it won't kill me, maybe it will.

Thespianism vs Hystrioncs

Dear diary,

I'm pretending to be happy,
I'm bringing the fucking sunshine,
I'm shitting them fucking rainbows,
I'm dancing the twisted foxtrot,
I'm reining the torched up lowlands,
I'm biting the cursed red apple,
I'm lapping the withering daylight
I'm winning the voluptuous nothings,

21 days makes anything a habit,
I may be losing my own fucking bet...