Patience

Patience could be a virtue

If only I could reach far enough to catch her,

To bring her in with my net

But she is a slippery fish,

She likes the chase, she likes the chase

But she keeps slipping from my grasp, jumping straight back into the deep depths of below us

I’m so tired of your games,

Just pick a side and stop flicking between our different channels

It’s an island mentality

And one I’ve got no time to devote relaxing into

Just get straight to the part where you are within me ，

And I am you

And I don’t have to keep trying to chase your elusive self

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Stockholm Syndrome

Can we surrender

Into your arms?

They seem so sturdy

And yet, I hesitate.

I’m still bruised from the last fall,

When I fell and kept falling, no one catching me , no one to break the fall

I remember;

My body as it plunged towards the wooden floor,

Followed by quick successions of a series of thuds

And how you giggled with a sadistic satisfaction at such sounds,

Music to your ears

Oh how even now, the bruises remain

And I’ve been left with some kind of Stockholm syndrome ,

Craving your terrible bedside manner.

Even now,

When a lull enters a space beside me

I look for your lies to coat me

Just the one coat even, a light colour of false optimism

It doesn’t even have to be a very good one

I just want a temporary fix

To colour in the holes and gloss over the bruises

All in an effort to pretend, pretend

That I’m whole

You’ve been always good with make-believe,

That I can rely on

So bring your game here, please

Pretty please.

The Illegitimate Child

How is that I mourn you,

Having not know of your existence until now?

Your form before me is confusing

And I know not how I should react.

Should I approach you, and dare to acknowledge the heat that you’re emitting?

Or should our muscles tense as we begin a ridiculous dance around one another, all so we may avoid brushing against one another’s existence?

I’ve seen glimpses of you before, but never enough to form a whole picture

Your presence throws the whole family into chaos;

An illegitimate child

One who has finally refused to be ignored.

But what about us, the other family members?

How do we marry you into our past,

As well as our present?

We’ve been told that you were a figment of someone else’s anger, someone else’s pain,

Denied a chance to know you

But now; you stand before me and the whole family, asking to be known

I have no resources to pull on,

No prior experience to apply to this , here and now

So I speak not for everyone, only for myself alone;

I shall not run,

I shall not deny your existence

I agree to stay and hear you out.

I hope you can accept this , what I can give you for now, in this present moment.

I Shall Wait

I’m coming to find you.

I hear you down there, even with your silence filling my ears

My feet click down the stairs,

Their clicks clacking off of the walls to meet the dankness that hangs in the air Until we are met with splashing,

One, two, one, two

Darkness; We enter into her domain

But she plays not an easy game

Blind guesses

And groping for damp handfuls of hopes to find you, to bring you home

I search for slivers of light but she’s not a cooperative guest,

Nor in the most amiable of moods

Still, we continue,

To search and to hope

Until I feel you,

You and your cowering form,

So small in this space

A breath and I’d have missed you

You do not unfold,

You do not speak

Wordlessly, I join you

Damp air sitting between us ,

Expectant breaths muffled down

For they cannot stir you

I came to take you home

But your home is here

I sit and dare not stir, lest I cause your shadow to skitter away from me

It’s a waiting game

You have not joined,

You will not play,

But nonetheless, I will stay

And I will hope

That one day, your eyes may dare to raise to meet Mine

And we can drink each other in.

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The men in black

I feel you all

Walk down together

A thump,

A clunk

It’s taking up

A lot of her air

Long -limbed,

Pokey – eyed

Can you cough out

A response at least,

Or is that asking you too much?

We hold hands

As I try to comfort her pain with a squeeze,

Just one

To try to

Fill in all the missing plaster in these walls

She doesn’t respond

And they walk on, goose stepping

A kind of comical stiffness playing out before us

And we remain in wait

She’ll talk in her own time.

You

Your toothy grin,

Smiles out from the grainy photograph

Your wounds,

Not visible to the camera’s lens

Can I bring you inside,

From the harshness of many years ago?

Can I find enough salve,

To soothe your sores?

Enough blankets to warm the chill,

Left clinging to your bones?

Enough air,

To breathe into your tight, closed chest?

You smile on regardless

Because that’s how you were instructed

By the greatest instructors of all;

Life and her whole crew of harshness

I want to lick you whole again ,

Fill in all your missing pieces

But I, I myself

Am fill of holes and cracks,

Just flimsy sticky tape

To hold it all in place ,

With a prayer and a promise.

Who am I to help you,

When I myself

Am so fractured, so fragmented

And yet,

I stand here

With a prayer and a promise,

Trying to find the parts of you

That I could possible stick together

I tear bread with my teeth

To feed my eyes

Lately,

They’ve been just so hungry ,

An insatiable hunger

Vibrating

From behind their sockets out

I just want to fill you both up

To stop all this movement

And should it cloud your vision somewhat

Then that would be a welcomed side effect

We’re not cut out for this, you and I

For all these sights reverberating back and forth

So let’s lay in the darkness together

And hush the sounds out

Let white light,

And white noise

Take our places

As we sink back

Into the comfortable sound

Of nothing.

Your delicate self

Falls down

Onto my outstretched tongue.

She calls you, inviting you in

To take refuge inside

You are safe there,

Safe from the frigid air

Until your core,

It starts to dissipate entirely

And the cold realization

That’s fast leaving your self

Is all you can hold onto

For these last few seconds .

It was I ,

I that took you in

With my sweet talk

Of warmth and flickering light

But you always belonged

In the cold air of nothingness;

It’s where you always thrived the most .

I allow regret to lick over me for a single moment

Before inhaling it back

To ensure your very self

Cannot,

Will not

Rise up again.

Blue Waves

Blue,

Your undulating rhythm

Calls my name

My toes dip inside oh so tentatively

To tease myself

Into dreaming

That for a moment ,

I could dive right into you

And drink your whole self in

But we both know

That you are an area forbidden ,

Out of bounds for me

And I dare not risk

The wrath

Oh my own cautious self

So I sit here,

Eyes following your rhythm

Longing,

Wishing

That I could override the settings

Programmed inside.

Blackmail

They call you black,

Because it’s your very form

You call back

Lives shatter, lives are torn

White clumpy clouds

Gather in crowds

Convalescing,

Because you’ve just been to visit

I search the air with my tongue,

Trying to feel their dropping drops

Haphazardly stumble into a run

On the runway of my words

Can I recover from your visit,

Or am I doomed to a certain, and yet an oh-so bland death?

You tease the air with your silence .

And I’m used to it.

I don’t like it; but there’s an undeniable warmth