The Head Of The Table

It must feel nice Sitting on top of the world Your tyranny and taunts Promising to haunt Even the ones who've Run to the farthest corners You talk of sunshine and smiles And open shut doors wide Nobody can leave Nobody can hide I cruise the red river Taste frosting and sugar I will not drown in your Hatred and vengeance I. Will. Free. Them. If Killing's What It Takes.

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I wrote your name on rose petals

and dismembered daisies for your sake.

I lit candles in derelict chapels

and pranced about fields in nightdresses.

We sit in parks and watch the sunrise, smoking marlboro golds.

We analyse beat poetry to Arctic Monkeys.

We light candles in a crumbling building, split a subway, clink clear cups of cappuccino and call it dinner.

We kiss in front of churches.

We hold hands on trams.

We run between raging traffic.

We skate in empty parking lots and when we fall we quote Ancient Greek epics.

Fall Out Boy, fall in love, fall down a rabbit hole; my father didn't love me so I sleep with strangers on Friday nights.

We ask the mirror who the fuck they think they are.

Our labcoats are stained with lipstick and iodine.

We take our supplement pills with white wine instead of water.

We fall asleep to sirens and stars, and we don't mind if we don't wake up tomorrow.

What can they say

Us two queerlings

Parked at Mountrye Bay

Exchanging moonstone rings.

Who dares call it a sin

This wave-kissed love of ours

When you tuck my hair in

And kiss me in gay bars.

For Dolly and a wonderful drunken adventure.

Can I lie in your arms with Hozier playing in the background? Its raining and the moon is waning. The balcony has a beautiful view of the city. Its 2am and the neighbourhood's asleep. I've run out of cigarettes to smoke. There's chardonnay in the kitchen; just bring yourself and the flowers. We don't have to think of tomorrow or anyone else. Tonight you can be my Aphrodite, and I'm the yearning Sappho.

The young man that sits opposite me at the dinner table in my mother's house is not my brother. He looks like my Uncle Jerry, Mama's brother. He talks of the women in London like they're exquisite desserts displayed at elegant cafés. He offers to look at my mother's old Ford rusting in the garage. He nods along to Mr. Samuel's bitter remarks about the protestors in Capital Square. When he catches my eyes, he smiles and asks, "So, how's work?"

I feel my face heat up and my vision become more blurry and excuse myself from the table. On my way to the bathroom a small frame catches my eye.

It's me, proudly displaying my masterpiece: my brother wrapped in a silk shawl, thick black kajal badly lining his eyes, bright red lipstick scribbled onto and around his little lips. I was eight and he was three and the entire world was sunshines and choco-honey ice-cream.

I've visited the beach every summer with my family. Today I am here alone but I feel like I've brought every visit in the past with me. I stand on the warm sand. 2008 Mum and Dad are fighting a few feet away from me. I walk to the water. 2009 Mum is looking for a place to feed the screaming baby and Dad is shouting on the phone to his sister. The small waves lap at my feet. 2013 Mum is struggling to put sunscreen on the toddler and baby, Dad has stormed off because Mum asked him to look after the toddler and he's not happy with it. I'm knee deep and the waves crash around my legs with more force. 2015 Mum is crying in the car and Dad is on the phone to his friend who's calming him down. The kids are on the beach unsupervised. I'm back on the sand, flip flops in my hand, walking beside the water. 2018 Mum and Dad are staring at the kids making sloppy sandcastles. They're not talking to each other. I unlock my bicycle and walk it back to my apartment. For the first time I leave the beach with a smile on my face.

She is poetry. She is the ripples in the river when it rains. She is the red bindi I wear on my forehead. She is a lot of things to me, and she always will be. It is what I recant in my head as she grips my hand, digging her nails into my skin, intending to leave marks, intending to brand me as hers. It is what I whisper to myself as I watch her bow her head and the groom ties the thaali around her neck.  

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” ―Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

I wait every year for summer, and it is usually good, but it is never as good as that summer I am always waiting for.

- Martha Gellhorn, Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn; in a letter to Hortense Flexner and Wyncie King

(cloy or yumi's cells)

The kitchen is alive; I am hosting dinner. A leather bound cookbook, passed on from friend to friend mimicking a family heirloom, proudly sits on the counter surrounded by pots and pans with pretty handles. My apron is dusted with spices and aromas of food my guests and I have consumed on days I like to remember. My reflection glides along steel pots as I move along the kitchen. The flowers in the clay vase lightly dip their heads as if in submission. Glowing amidst the chaos around me, I halt to sip a forgotten, cooling cup of tea.

I'm on the windowsill again. Lit cigarette between my index finger and thumb, Bible in my lap: the angel and devil both by my side. I read the scripture in whispers-

"I will fill your mountains with the dead. Your hills, your valleys, and your valleys filled with people slaughtered by the sword. I will make you desolate forever. Then you will know that I am God."

-I inhale and exhale my sins. In and out, until I burn from inside out.

Below me , a child runs alongside a leaf caught in the wind. It will rain again soon.

Bought a new notebook. Will I finally start telling a story and actually finish it?

"When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago."

-Friedrich Nietzsche

Cobbled streets of a war kissed town. Your hand in mine. We swayed through people from restaurant to restaurant. We took polaroids and you slipped them into my handbag. Red wine and cherry cheesecake. Red on your cheeks, red on my lips. Golden fairy lights strewn through branches of trees and potted plants. Just when I thought the night couldn't get any better, a tiny little snowflake danced through the air and landed on your nose. That night, while we made love, Jack Frost painted the windowsills, birches and pine a powdery white. The morning after, I sipped warm tea and counted your footprints walking away from my front door.

It had been months since I'd opened a window and let the cold air grace my abode. I stood on the window ledge and looked directly at the setting sun. Cars with busy people who led busy lives scurried through the streets below me. I expected to feel powerful, and I did not. I did not trust myself on that window ledge. I used to sit and smoke there. Without the crutch that was my addiction, I am vulnerable.