know-how

my grief is a know-how 

because I’m too proud, too smart, too good

at everything, to come to terms

with not knowing how to lose you. 

•

I wear my smarts by the hospital bed

and look up all the time. make sure I 

hold my breath, when you hold yours, 

heart terribly knotted, until you exhale, 

and the panic dissipates (for now).

•

a pity, indeed! but only 

that for all my talents,

I suppose I still cannot hack grief.

but fret not:

•

grief and logic can walk a parallel line,

for how hard can walking on a tightrope be?

first, I hold my core steady,

•

then, without warning, I am four flailing limbs

as balance becomes a stranger, but

somewhere between brute strength and

desperation I manage to keep from falling.

(though hardly skilled enough she is

to keep the lines from blending into each other)

•

I am haphazard, then altogether 

obnoxious in proclaiming that 

grief is my know-how

(for knowledge is much easier than practice.)

Ferris wheel

I watch the world move on a Ferris wheel, where I stay but am not bound.

This self-imposed confinement is meant to be a joy ride;

I got on with all my friends when I was still, just a girl.

My big dream was this view, on top of the world, together,

My sacred lovers safe and close by, the winds no longer blowing south.

Now my sacred lovers are safe. But long gone to a faraway place.

It seems that somewhere along the way I made a silent promise.

Somewhere along the way, I mistook this resting place for home.

Now, my memory is faded (I know no place after this).

Now, I am alone on top of the Ferris wheel (I am scared of loneliness).

Was I always scared of heights?

paper parade

i could anger the gods for you

i’d dare pit myself against them,

if that’s what it took to make you happy.

so i do,

like a gentle puppet in a gladiator fight

and i am ripped into pieces.

the audience roars,

they think this is noble love.

i paste myself clumsily back together.

so the days pass, and there are new puppets

scraps of people i love litter the ground

as you watch from your high chair

test all your lovers with the life

they do not fail to lay,

and in spite of this paper parade

in spite of the people who love you

in spite of being king,

you stay a cloud of misery

and my heart breaks again.

winter mornings

On winter mornings my body aches, and sadness never leaves my side. I wake up, joints sore and skin flaking and think that maybe things will always be this way.

On winter mornings I scroll on my phone as soon as I wake and do not sit a moment alone. The fear is confrontation, my solution is to stay dazed. It does not make me feel alive.

On winter mornings I am numb. I feel restless and paused but on summer mornings I am too rushed. The humidity a claustrophobic sauna in which I am suffocated and sweaty. My mind runs 8 marathons everyday.

So I live waiting patiently for autumn, desperately seek my 3 months of solace where things fall together, rather than apart. Where I think kids are silly and love is kind, that the sun is an embrace and the wind, a kiss. And I am certain. (surely every moment after this will feel amiss)

Portrait of you.

I paint you in my mind.
Portrait of mixed mediums,
Oil my favourite in the way it blends and glides-
Takes forever to dry as though a reminder
That mistakes too were meant to be.

I keep coming back to you.
Adding little details to old memories,
Already hazed and unclear
I keep coming back

Pretending things could change.
Like you weren’t already my artist’s pick,
Like revisiting this portrait would change
My old strokes, and turn them new.

my old love, my apologies for
all this dilly dally. it is time.

i sign my name on this finished piece,
my proudest work – it is fine time I let you go.

dumpling soup

The first time we met, you spent too long deliberating what to eat. I stood in line, a modest two person affair in the 24 hours Chinese place and offered, “I like the dumpling soup, if you are yet to decide.” You were startled, of course. This was not the part of town where people talked to each other. You told me, much later, that you had thought I was kind. Because you were anxious and really could not make up your mind. I had thought you a nuisance, spoken out of frustration because it was 9pm at night, I was exhausted and still waiting in line, and you were there, taking up time I did not have to spare. Funny how perspective works.

The next time I met you, you placed your order of dumpling soup on the table I was sat at without asking, smiling like I knew you, and took a seat. You took my silence as consent and introduced yourself, no demand for me to do the same, just an endless slew of questions without waiting for an answer. I did not speak a word, but you took no mind. Perhaps you were enamoured with yourself, I thought you might go on forever. It did not seem to bother you that I did not care. I finished my meal, picked up my tray and left.

The third time I met you was a month later. I had gotten off work later than usual. I found you drunk and retching at the sidewalk of the entrance to the Chinese place. Nothing in me wanted to help you, but we were not in the good part of town, and I did not want to wonder if you made it through the night safe. So I helped you up, and brought you back to my place. I did not have a couch, so I left you on the floor with some water and went to bed. It was summer, you would not freeze, and this floor was better than the sidewalk at the very least.

You were gone the next morning, with hardly a trace that you’d even been at my house. You did not leave a note, I really did not care. I had taken you home only to ease my conscience, in case you wound up on the news dead the next day.

Maybe I should not have bothered, because I saw you for the last time the next day: you had wound up on the news dead anyway. Something about some scuffle, something about some men, I did not care for the details but I found myself still mourning your death. Not because you were a friend, but because you’d seemed like the type, who would make it out of here someday.

cotton candy skies

i saw the clouds peak pink

and fold themselves over,

pillowing a grand ascend.

i, a child, peered from the ground

my tiptoe clumsy on bare feet

rooted in earth,

realising for the first time

that the sky would cushion

my anti-gravity perception

should it ever fail me,

should i ever fall.

Mooncake.

Pruned hands with plum coloured nails,
Folding gentle tides of dough.
The chopsticks pick
A gentle wave, of lotus paste,
Then into the mould it goes.

Out the oven, wrinkled, tender skin holds
A saccharine treat. Gently sliced, it is gifted,
To the sticky palms of kids,
Licking every last remnant
Of sweetness off their lips,

Pruned hands with plum coloured nails
Laughs when I make a mess,
Delicately wraps crumbs in tissue paper,
Tells me I look pretty in my dress.

On this night,
The moon is high and lit,
Her rounded glory tells a story
Of love and harmony.

The high tide rolls in,
The cycle is complete:
A promise that ends
Are too, new beginnings.

On this night, I’ve seen the moon
Come and go in full bloom
So many times since.
Your smile lines etched
In memory. Your love
Newly absent. Mooncakes
Taste too sweet but fail
To compensate, losing you.