Warm

Fifty-one minutes into the new year and I’m still tapping into old habits

I need to be sleeping earlier

My window is wide open, letting the cool smoky new year air in

Everyone nearby is asleep

 

But in the city it’s loud

Taxi’s fill with wobbly feet

The rest trudge along looking for the next spot

Third time’s the charm

 

If you’re lucky you’re already there

Found the spot, found the one

I lie here in the absence of sound

It seems like the absence  of life but I’m warm

 

And my heart still beats

For the first time in a while I feel like I’m fine with the way I feel

I’m sick of this new year, new me bullshit

Why lie?

 

My ability to be me is my responsibility

When and where is my choice, why let a number decide?

My ability to be well is in my control

It’s within my reach

 

Grapes

First impressions don’t mean much but I swear I’ve seen you before 

You peer over as I drive, like you’re trying to see more than I have 

The conversation plays like they usually do, like cue cards 

“What do you do for fun?” A topic from two different platforms 

Common ground is founded on a shaking foundation

We have so much in common, except we don’t

We are not the same, we are not meant for this, go back

Patterns are made as we waste our time, we just run in circles

You’ve stopped ahead of me, trying to pull me forward

Nine years and three months to be exact, it’s not that far apart 

Considering you’re so mature, you must hear that a lot

We get washed away with it, but let’s not get carried away 

Buzzing wasps are mistaken for butterflies, fight or flight

I choose fight, but you stick to me like mud

Your cologne is stuck in my hair, in my nose in my head

You draw everything out to take more of my time, my effort, myself

You make me doubt, forget and scold for the things you never taught me

For things I never learned, but I’ve learned a lot 

This may have taken longer than I had wanted but I learned to get out 

I learned how and when, I learned to be stronger, I learned to protect 

That year was tinted in a stale yellow and I still remember it all

You’re words still linger like a shallow lake, but they mean less these days

The effect of your name has faded, like the scar on my hand 

It’s regenerated, it’s like it never happened

On Impact

We trace our steps backwards holding hands Hoping to spark something from before, like a car

Or a heart that flatlined when left unattended 

I search your hands but feel nothing but empty palms
I search your mouth, your tongue but nothing 

Nothing is left behind from who you were before

I can’t find what I had been looking for

missing for 
I look to you and feel all of the pins that have ever popped any balloon 

In the history of balloons 

We start to run, to gain some momentum

We run, we tumble, we fall 

Instead of laughter a huff of air releases as we land on impact 

Another Day

Every night I pull the curtain closed

An end of another day, the end of another me 
I stare into the late night breathing what the breeze feeds me

The leaves pass on messages from far away 

The things we can’t hear during the day begin communicating again

Using a language we don’t know, or don’t care to know
The sounds signal me to sleep but not tonight

Tonight I brace myself for the days to come 

I don’t know what they’ll bring but I can’t help but hope and wonder

I dream of another me, a me where she calls for what she wants 

I dream that she is fulfilled, that she is safe and strong
For herself and for others
I dream like I’m searching into the future, to know the good 

And to know the bad, I dream to look for the best parts of these days

But 
Perhaps the best part is not knowing 

S.H.S

Tomato slices litter the floor 

Where carefree feet stomped grass down

Socks are pulled high to shield against the cold

As morning mockery comes out in puffs of white

Crafted by Rosie cheeks 

Proclamations of love in the quad

Stolen roses in a lackey band

Tripping on cement on the way to math 
Wifi slows as we enter the dome

Life speeds up from 8:45 to 3

Greasy hats and shoes fill the rooms

Pens scratch notes onto scraps 

The currency here is sugar 

Passed from hand to sweaty hand

You have gum or m&ms? Who cares

Give me some 

Cement Footprints

The suits know a different struggle but not ours
They can never know ours
Proud to admit that mainstream makes our children crazy
Too busy paying for their own under private conservation

This system breeds failure they say
But it’s been twenty years, their words carve the same results
While the next generation grows more lethargic
We grow something different

Actually all we do it grow things

Why participate if no one listens anyway
Trying to scrub out cement footprints on our knees
They see our position as weakness
Contrary we are the most strong, we stand for something bigger

In the long run our visions may be smaller but worthy of the divine
Like one of Dali’s paintings; made with horror and intensity
But balanced with beauty and distinction

Trying

When it was my time the doctors told them I wouldn’t make it
They said I wasn’t ready and that’d take my mother with me
I proved them wrong, careful not to break it but when I did
It all happened all so quickly

Two and a half months too early, a kilo, half a quarter
I was barely a person but I made it my life’s mission to become one
Trying to prove myself since birth, prove them I was worth it
To make sure I would become something, that I could really do it

But I never achieved much, not much more than the mundane
But I did it, except with some troubles along the way
But I was quiet, I did what others told me and I did it, I made it all the same
Where the others started better, I made sure that I did it

I wasn’t as fast but I made sure that I kept up
I never understood as well but I pretended that I did
Fake it till you make was my motto, except all I did was fake it
I stayed standing and played the game to save grace

I brushed myself off when I was beaten down and laughed at
I got one because I thought that’s what you do when the time came
Time was wasted, empty tears fell as I tried to understand why
I know now it takes this long, just this long, which is not that long
To understand that being not the same was my greatest accomplishment

Neon Lights

The bass draws us in from the dark corners, the spotlight creating darker versions of us
Buzzing from the sting of cheap tequila we collectively sigh as his lips hit the mic
Weeks of un-originality are replaced by one night of them under the lights
Then the swaying starts, it pushes and pulls without a definite direction

Scattered powder and pills make trails from across the bridge, down the alleyway
Through the courtyard without a roof where the rain fell
Cigarettes smoke from cigarettes that aren’t ours fill our lungs
Old perfume and sweat embrace like a stale hug from a lost friend

The beat pumps and flows through us, our hearts working as one
We breath together as a single unit as the energy builds and churns
We pool together as the light closes in for one single moment
Treading on toes to get a closer look, just a little closer

Behind, a mad hatter in leather offers a favour, shots or something
Whatever you like, I’m buying, for you and your friend
Politely decline, we’re smarter than Alice, it tastes sweeter
when you’ve earned it yourself

In the darkness we are free

From a Fit Feminist

While some prefer to unwind by bounding their bodies down
I unwind by pushing myself by body to its absolute limits,
While you watch the same situations on rotation and dine on the refined
I warm up, I force my blood to go my way and I train: every muscle and every joint
Some ask me why? Why punish yourself? Treat yourself to the luxuries
You deserve it, you’ve earned it, after sitting for eight hours, sit for another five

If you continue to mistreat with the pleasures you assume you deserve
The confusion you feel now becomes fear when the white coat says, ‘no more’.
Feeling cheated by all the time and energy you decided to preserve
The sound of that familiar wrapper becomes replaced with the jingle of the pills bouncing around in your plastic cell; staring bleakly at the mundane future in store

Your perception of weight and fat is a miscalculation missing any facts and figures
You see me through a tunnel of self doubt and misguided information about the human body and it’s function. Your ignorance may be tolerated by others
But it won’t be tolerated by me. You see we have very different understanding of the world life: it could mean a flaccid day, grinding to the will of the greedy but I choose to see otherwise

I choose to savour my hours; those hours you mock as useless and unnecessary
Each second is a rep contributing to greatness, with each rep I grow stronger
I train not to assume the skin of how society thinks it should display me
I train because it makes me feel powerful; as a human, as a woman I gain power
You have no say here. While you tell me that eating a well balanced diet and caring for my body is ‘unnatural’ my response is only to hold up a mirror

Drowning

My mother used to say that we were all the same

All people should be treated equally

At four-years-old I knew better

School and home seemed like two different worlds

I thought I had learned a different version of English

Two different languages, two worlds, two of me

I was swimming against words and laughter

I needed to be stronger than everyone else

I started to chip away

Forgetting my language at school, misplacing my words at home

No one could understand, so I stopped speaking

Their jokes were lost on me so I didn’t laugh

Too hard to explain, two embarrassed to tell

I changed my stories to make them understand

I started to forget why

I started to forget me