disappointment (2018)
impending fear turns into reality.
you didn’t want it
to,
but it did.
expectant smiles
full of teeth and crinkled eyes
fade into the corners of their lips.
the shine in their eyes is dull.
gone.
but you
take a deep breath.
force all the forty-three muscles in your face
to mold into Persuasion & Deceit.
easily like clay.
cheap clay from the 99 cents store down the block.
‘it’s alright,’ you repeat for the hundredth time.
‘it’s not the end. i’m strong. i can do this.’
and smiles reappear.
softer, but from ear to ear.
yet in their eyes, the shine is still
gone.
pity.
something i never asked for,
but is something i attract
like a magnet. something that
doesn’t go away, like a
mother who clutches their child’s hand
when crossing a
dangerous
road.
a simple graph would show you that
when the number of particles increase,
so does pressure.
a common consensus in chemistry.
but the positively sloped line doesn’t show
what happens when the pressure is too much.
the line goes on for infinity, but shouldn’t it show
a glass container breaking into a million shards?
the particles spilling over, uncontrollably. the pressure
slowly
dissipating?
like emotions that have been
shoved into a miniature bottle, with
the lid shut
too tight?
the disappointment saturates the blood in your system.
it has become every fibre of
your being.
you can predict the
pitiful, fading smiles. the
brief hugs that lack understanding. the
i’mfine you croak out with your mouth, and the
butimightbreak you desperately communicate with your eyes.
the fear that someone might see your
fragile emotions
and hold them with
inexperienced, harmful hands, and
let them spill
in the wrong place and the wrong time.
the need to be alone.
‘it’s not a big deal’.
that’s what you’re supposed to understand.
but the millions of brain cells trapped in your skull
tell you otherwise. you know it isn’t
rational, but the future seems
so bleak. achievable, but bleak.
there’s a fork in the road, but the prettier
path you’re so well acquainted with
is no longer
yours.
you prepare for the looks of disappointment
like planning a speech for a wedding. it has to
be perfect. the words have to be
just right. but you can’t show that
you really don’t want to be up there.
the blankets on your bed in your dark room
are inviting.
‘stay with me forever’.
time rolls by, and when
the clock flashes a bright 2AM into your eyes,
that’s when your glass container breaks.
under the blankets.
endorphins spilling onto your pillow
in liquid drops.
shuddering breaths.
shaking hands.
thoughts rushing thousands of miles
per minute.
then
silence.
3AM.
sleep takes you away.
you’re tired.
tired of working so hard
with sleepless nights,
tears laced with
anxiety and worry,
your dream as your morning caffeine.
only for it to be snatched from the
very tips of your fingers.
gone.
fantasy (2018)
it’s heavy,
foreign,
and
uncomfortable.
your heart is surrounded by
unknown hands
crushing each cell
till
they
burst.
cytoplasm
oo-
zing
out.
still under warm blankets,
but in your hands the
added comfort of
aged, yellowed paper.
eyes peering through rimmed spectacles,
darting across the thick pages.
words coupled in perfect harmony.
each letter the building blocks
of a world that
turns your brain into a pleasant fuzz.
sunlight swimming
in salty seas.
squawking seagulls
pecking at people.
then a hand intertwined
with another.
ice cream melting,
temporary residents on
each fingertip.
sticky reminders of
a day barefoot on the beach,
water splashing on their sunburnt skin,
and tender, tentative touches.
the warmth of the page
melts the icicles pricking
your lungs.
oxygen rushing in, trying to make
it to
each
capillary,
flooding your pulmonary vein.
your left atrium might burst.
blood laced with life
explodes from your aorta
racing to each and every end of your body.
numbness?
feeling.
suffocation?
inhale.
exhale.
breathe.
dopey smiles & giggles.
slowly flipping through
a packaged world.
face pressed so closely to it that
you just might find yourself
tumbling into hills of
white sand,
rolling into the
translucent waters
sinking silently
just so that you can
stay.
not wanting to
escape
this
fantasy.
gone (2021)
there wasn’t a particular day that set me free.
much like a prisoner who isn’t quite sure
when their release might be.
but that winter was when the weight was lifted.
heart finally able to dance
to the rhythm
it dearly missed.
yet memories of being locked up still linger.
how can one forget what felt
like
a life sentence?
crossing the road, seatbelts in a car;
simple things take me back
to when i wanted to be gone.
shivers rattle my bones,
so i shake my head to forget,
as though those memories
would
fall down
to the ground
and run.
as though those memories
aren’t a part
of every single breath I take,
each thumping beat within my chest.
if only they were stray pencil marks I could erase.
but they’re stubborn,
like the label on that jar of sauce
sitting in the corner of your fridge.
you can rub and scrub but it’ll never be truly gone;
you’ll always know it existed.
so when you toss it into the recycling bin
you begin to question
whether it can truly be processed and
set away with such certainty
if those small remnants of paper
contaminated
what should have
just
been
glass.
so even though that jar is physically gone
is it really? when you thought about it
for even a minute too long?
sometimes the solid cement
that my feet naively get acquainted with
crumbles into slick quicksand.
threatening to pull me under.
fingers grasping at edges.
desperate to hold on.
like the aftertaste of hard candy
that persistently resides in your mouth,
nothing is truly gone.