Trembling behind smokescreens

Please still stay in the middle of night when my skin is broken open to reveal craters deeper than on the moon and my ribs have cracked and scars are spilling out from under the seams and you find me choking on the acid from her mouth and I'm filled with  either words or tears and I can make sense of neither; please still be there when the sky refuses to be blue and sucks everything into the depths of its blackness, when the world is clawing at me for all its worth to try to get me to give up when the scars aren't just marks but memories branded and burnt into the skin of time , time that never healed and never lets  me forget , please still be there when the last laugh has died and turned into the ghosts  of sobs that no one ever heard except the emptiness of the world you left to when your heart stopped  because your lungs refused air , please still be there when I am a shadow of myself,  I have watched her love a grave instead of a person , when the stench of disinfectant and desperation hit her like a slap in the face in the cold  white hospital corridor, the only words she would remember were "it's too late,it's too late, it's too late."

"I'm just trying to let go gracefully now "

An age after I saw the sun dance in your hair and your smile light up the sky I'm still barefoot in the desert of time and wondering why. But I'm past reminiscing, past longing, past resentment, or grudge bearing, I'm past wishing for more and contradicting faith , I am no one to erase what was destined to break by time itself , and maybe I was Jupiter's moon in the galaxy of your eyes and you were my sun disguised under human skin and maybe we were inevitable , but we are most certainly not meant to be. And maybe you'll remember me when the wrinkles are etched around your eyes like sharp memories of unhappier  times and maybe I will blur the darkness in your mind in a split second whirlwind of light before I return to the remnants of your past where I'll faithfully take up place , having learnt that resistance will never change fate,  but agonise the bones within my flesh. And maybe I'll light up the universe in your dreams in the few seconds before the sun starts you awake and maybe my brain will never stop playing with your name and maybe my dawn will never kiss  your stars goodbye and we will drift on the tides of time further and further away. And this time I'll make sure not to swim against the currents of destiny  but let them take me ,even if they take me away from you and drown me , I have learn to let go without burning my fingers and I will forever be grateful for this, "I have learnt to love God, it is to live in his Kingdom and call nothing mine."

There is silence in understanding and most of it is because of grief choked inability to speak.

I'm in the middle of transcending into the chorus of the song my soul insists on singing to me in the middle of the night,
My fingertips dry and my brain runs out of ink
my blood runs out of liquid  hate
My subconscious grows tired of enduring my lust and I grow weary of longing for death
I cannot write like I used to
The words on the page shudder and gasp

breathing their last

I wake up clothed in sweat and dreams. The enchantment of the illusion you were, baby.
It was beautiful because it wasn't real
I remember with vivid detail what I shouldn't dwell on
I breathe in the perspiration of your memories , I have
tried unwinding this track; my brain
was not meant for reclining 
And you were not meant to be forgotten
Atleast not by me and I am rapidly becoming a patchwork of crusty memories salted with tears that are too old to be eaten and to heartbreaking to be remembered by me, at this night 2 am  alone.
I want you to know that I waited the twentieth anniversary of the day I was born going against my principles and resigning to heartbreak when I resolved to wait till the next 12 o clock for the person who never cared.
I want her naked heart winding around the songs my listless soul has sung for her I want her
to wake up to a gaping void where I used to be and above everything I want her to regret letting go of me
And above everything and that I want to not miss her like I still love her.

Oblivion beckons

She loved mysteries and so she became one -John Green

What if in the pursuit of making art , in the  wild chase through the woods of burning feelings into paper and calling it poetry, of making the world weep like you wept, in hot pursuit of burning scars like copycat marks into every soul that chanced on a collision course with you, you were turning into the ashes of the mistakes you made but you were too busy searching for paper to record them to realise it ? What if in the eternal drive to make something beautiful out of the mess her world had spiralled into , she failed to realise as her being tore at the seams and spilled her insides to the world that never dared to care and never had , what if the chase for unconditional love slanted her limbs into a twisted destruction of the girl she once was , a ghost flitting through the walls that caged her memories and her demons and eventually it didn't matter which was which because she couldn't tell the difference or didn't want to, it was all the same when the world blacked out into an ocean that was bent on swallowing you and you were broken boned and drunk on the waves of life, trying to stay afloat and stay alive, and there was no light to cling to,no call to save the day , no ex best friend that thought to catch up this particular night, when you longer found being alive as attractive as the alternative , when breathing fire into your tired lungs seemed easier than the air the world was reluctant to give you, what if the during the fight , you began to forget about winning because after everything you lost, losing yourself didn't seem like such a bad idea either.

In your face , life.

This tank of steaming hatred jarrs  my bones when it runs through my veins, so scalding and unearthly in its heat, and why did I spend life writing letters apologising for feeling things I was not wrong to feel ,for people who couldn't spare a single sheet 's explanation to me? Why did I expect this city of blackened hearts and  lost souls to save the remnants  of what has become of me when only and only He could ? I have exhausted life giving the ocean to people who refused to give me drops and did it take them leaving me on my knees to finally realise that they were not worthy of me ? They could not hold the heart that had a place for them because the raw flesh scared them too much for them to be able to find the beauty that lay behind the blood and the tears; and make this path I've walked,  mark my mistakes so when I look back I will never make them again , I know them by heart , one of them is a person's face and one of the is the things I said and let the devil know my destination is different than his and dear god let me never be afraid.  Let me never doubt for one day that you will help me find my way after the ocean has swelled up and the flood has washed away everything I became. Let the heaviness of resolution sink into my nerves, let me never settle for less than I deserve and let me never forget that which weakened me to this 3 am rendezvous with dry eyed determination,  to never let the worst of me drag me down from the best person I can be, this girl will never let the world make her feel like dirt again.

These sycophants are bent on carving my bones into the branches of the goddamn giving tree, forever giving and giving and receiving nothing and being happy with the nothings I received  in return for everything I breathed. I used to think forgiving meant I let them use me again and forgetting the one sided bend of a cursed relationship but now I've realised I'm forgiving them and it doesn't necessarily exclude forgetting them. Because I'm not apologising for leaving behind all that dragged me beneath the drowning waves and then  made me apologise for shutting my eyes to the injustice that was done to my lungs.

They will beg you to be there for them and refuse to acknowledge your existence and then guilt you into letting go of the dignity that was meant to be yours and when you finally untangle their fingers from around your throat and walk this road with bare feet on coals that seemed so terrifying to do , you will find it is liberating beyond the last layer of burnt sole, beyond  the last breath of ash and smoke, beyond the last strip on the horizon your eyes behold , liberating,  to breathe on a future as far as you can see with the promise of their absence.

The bitterness of longing for things you'll never have is matched only by the bitterness of realisation of truths you never wanted to be true.

" there's no use trying to fix things that are destined to be broken."

My life has become the song broken heartstrings play off key and out of tune. My words have become rusted orange with disuse and my tongue is burnt black with the sin of misuse and I'm a walking contradiction of the rules I've imposed on myself , the productivity obsessed couch potato and I've forgotten to do the dishes yet again but you haven't forgotten to complain about them.

Oh but to you , I'm always going to be nothing more than an unmade bed, undone dishes and an indecipherable head. You couldn't tolerate a day what I've tolerated for years and you made sure everybody heard when you screamed my faults to the world and you are the designer of scars I've learnt never fade. And I'm tired of the way I still rise to the bait. I can't be sorry enough and yet I can't forgive enough and I'm begging for release, for a sleep that means peace and dreams in which I mean more than the worst parts of me.

I want someone to value me for more than my skin and the thickness of my hair and the shade of lipstick I wear. I want somebody who will care about the thoughts and reflections I make that keep me awake and the writing that keeps me alive at night. I want somebody that loves my flaws and doesn't just accept them, I want somebody to value me and not just my degree and not just my body
, I want somebody to see through the clothes I wear to the soul inside and the scars it bears , I want somebody who can keep me calm when the anger bleeds out of me and I  want somebody who is a reality and not just a six am fantasy.

Haunted

Come every sunrise
I find myself struggling
Fingertips curled in tear stained pillows
Eyeliner messed, I'm in
Naked distress.
My head is a dark, haunted place
And you're the ghost that keeps me awake
I sleep every night
Drunk with thoughts of you
I awaken to your absence.
I have earned myself a lifetime of regret
Exhaled in sighs and goodbyes that were never truly said
The sheets lie crumpled in my bed
the morning sun is unwelcome
Your rejection stings
the wounds you left still burn.
And I am resigned to living
A life unloved.

Silk for skin

The fleeting idea of meeting you intersects with the inevitable idea that we weren't meant to be in my mind.
You were the full moon to my wolf, the stars to my empty night canvas , the inescapable sun in my quiet mornings , the dew on the the leaves and the cheerleader on the sidelines,the strength of my being and the the survival of my existence. My skin wouldn't breathe without you and my heart refused to shelter what it should in your place.

Separation was inevitable and prewritten,  I fought wars with destiny and you battled with scars I couldn't see and didn't hear about because we weren't talking , I learnt to grow and you learnt to live and baby, I was still naive .

I still thought we'd learn from mistakes

and learn from it when the ground gave way

beneath our feet and

dear god help me

Realise that you're not my friend. You can't be

You're the afterthoughts I try to forget ,the blackness in the night as it envelops me , the brokenness in the forgiveness I had to concede for the apologies I never received ,you're the hurt in the aftermath of a cursed relationship , you're the devil herself and you almost broke me. You're the bitterness in my coffee. You're the acid in my mouth the memories I breathe when I try to erase you from me you're the fingerprints on my skin in places that shouldn't be that will testify against me and

you
are
a
sin
And I'm trying not to be a sinner.
Forgive me.

Writers aren't meant to swim

We were born on dark nights when the sky was streaked purple and blue and the fire in your eyes has never dimmed since. I was a miracle , you were the only one who could break me. Blood never betrays blood and it's all a fucking fantasy and I'm the delusional dimwit that soaked in it all before the last wave I lapped up absolutely drowned me.
You're beautiful but you're a curse.
And I swear I thought I could save every lost soul drowning on every broken ship that feebly attempted to sail through the curse that people like to call life and after all this time that's the one quality under my fingernails I can't quite scrub out with cynicism: naiveté
And even though I was shown over and over
I was nobody's savior
It still hurt to not save you

It still hurt that I was her 2am call and I couldn't cushion her against the waves

Be her lifeboat , her lamp, her raft
I let her  drown
But it burnt most of all to be lied to by your own being
You can only save the drowning while you're afloat
And my bloodstained lungs let me think it was air I was breathing
And not
Water.

The enjoyment of deception

I need to stop needing you like the leaves need the air and the grass needs the water and I swear
The drunk couldn't love his drink like I've loved your
Mouth
And
What.
A .
Tragedy.
Life has  made us out to be
Chess players with Alzheimer's and soldiers practically paraplegic with all the fucking loving we did it drained us and all I can ask is
Was it real
Was
Any of it?
And when the illusion has drained us
and we are just
Under the choke chain of desire
And
Goddamn it, oxytocin ,
Will you still believe for a moment that
You loved me
Will
It
Matter.
Will I?

Strings attached

Why are we always so inevitably dysfunctional?
My existence has insistently become strings of words I shouldn't have said and memories I'm trying to forget
and
your face
is always in the fading background and I unfailingly
Feel like
I failed
To save you
From myself
From you
.from the insecurity of the 3 am but you didn't
Save
me
Either
And we were both so very sorry and yet so completely
Unapologetic.

Receding into the paths we took like keeping in touch didn't matter , I tried to forget you and you forgot what you were created for and we are both
So dysfunctional we're practically meant for each other
And the bitter irony in words unsaid
Is that we can read each others minds.
I know I wasn't enough.
But perhaps it was because I was made for someone else
I stopped loving you in the winter of the new year and twenty four months later you can still crush me like glass under your heels and
My beloved,
You didn't even have to
try.

"I never thought I'd meet anybody like you."

I did what I do best at midnight. I wrote. I hate my weaknesses creeping up on me like the stealth of this night and the precious precious time they're stealing from me. I detest everything you represent; the ultimate test ,which I feel like I'm going to fail.
There's your dark smouldering eyes and the valley of possibilities between us.
There's my hesitancy and my desire burning into an inseparable collision, locked in eye contact with you.
And there's an ocean in the middle ,of everything that could be that I'm terrified will happen, and still anticipating.

It's midnight and I've been breaking my promises to myself again
It's midnight and I've lost all hope in redemption before the first rays of mercy hit the western horizon to erase my desperation
Heedlessness is choking the humiliation the sane soul in me is supposed to be feeling and I'm still here , breathing. Not crying. But ripping inwardly into a thousand insignificant fragments . Still wishing I was who I used to be .

Leaving the fountain city

And sometimes when you leave someone, you leave a part of who you were with them. And sometimes you don't have a choice anymore because you abused the number of times you were given one. And when you leave you feel like you're taking a million pieces of a million hearts whose paths you've crossed and when none of them are any the wiser you wonder why you feel your missing parts so acutely.  Perhaps it will fade to a vague seemingly displaced hurt in places I can't reach, only time will tell the seconds I've counted that I wasn't chafed with regret and burnt black with sorrow.
Today was the first time I wept when I was leaving a city and for the life in me, I couldn't explain why.  Perhaps it was the people I was going to and their pain which is so real, it diminishes mine to almost nothingness, and perhaps it was the people I was leaving , we had never been together like this in at least seven years and sooner or later your blood will connect you when words cannot fill the gaps and you understand each other because you sigh together and you smile together too. And overrated words like I miss you too will never be substantial enough to describe the intensity of what I feel so I bridge our communication gaps with shiny eyed smiles that i can barely hold on to like the fragile grip I have on my emotions when we embrace. I will ache for you and this time we had together .

"You remind me of everything I want to kill you for. "

You burn like an insatiable fire across the forest of my existence , consuming and hungry , leaving nothing in your crazed desire to shred me into the destruction you want to make of my fragile bones and the heart that only ever had space for you . There's ash underneath my fingernails and their protests have made your back red and angry. You're out of control in the way a speeding train is ,you're destined for disintegration in the worst kinds of ways and you're deaf to me when I speak and you accelerate. You've left marks on this body and scars in memory I can never undo and you've ripped my heart up enough to never be erased.
You've insistently consumed my being since day one .
You're deluded that I've forgotten you , if you only knew how difficult you've made yourself to forget.
I love her so much I break on the inside a little bit everyday .
I want her to find god so badly my hands shake when I pray for her.
I want her to find god so badly tears are ripped from my throat with the unyielding force of a heart too small to hold everything I feel for her.
"I love without thinking about death " someone told me once , and I didn't understand till her.
My fingertips smell like you . My brain is a confusing altering state but it never breathes without you,  you've infiltrated every niche of my mind.
Everything I've written for three years has been about you.
I love her enough to find her, but she doesn't want to be found. In this junction of space and time I've  learnt to not call her mine.  In this paradoxical existence we dance around the truth we fought so hard to counter. But have you ever tried to rescue souls that were committed to drowning ?
It is hard.
It was hard.
Nobody ever said it's easy to get out alive. I wish you'd stay for Him. And I wish you'd stay for me. I wish you'd text me somedays and somedays I wish you could see how I've been burnt by you . Chafed and cut up and god how badly I want to save you from yourself it makes every wound reopen and bleed from the same scars you cut open in me and I'm bullet ridden bending backwards and you're unrelenting.
You think you know who you are but you're not the person you are capable of being .
Your sins don't make you. Your weaknesses don't define you. You are so much more than your mistakes.
I wish I could make you tear these  pages and rewrite the story that was always meant to be yours , which you haven't lived. I wish I could make you reclaim everything that was yours back,  and fight the demons within your veins . I wish I could bring you victory against your weaknesses.
You will always be perfect to me.
I wish I could take this bleeding hurt away from you and obliviate it.
I ache for the peace that comes with innocence and I want you to have it so much it cuts me up.
I wish I could save you from your own self  destruction.
I wish for so much it hurts to think about it.
Please  don't get lost.
It hurt enough to lose you once.

Burn scars for memories

I want her naked except for the gold chain.

She said I broke her heart. I'm sorry I ruined her. I didn't mean  to leave scars, I was trying to fix her and she slipped like glass from my hands.
I think I got cut , too.
I never thought it would still matter three years down the road.
I never thought she wouldn't be okay .
What if I told you everything I've written for three years has been about you?
I was fixing my heart until January and still reading your name between every line. You're the full stop to every untold story , the reason I can't walk into self ruination anymore. Because you left scars where you taught me lessons and I learnt that pain too, could be a memory.
I can still smell the way your mouth tasted and your fingers felt against my soul.
You've ripped me apart and I've clumsily put myself together with hands unused to picking up pieces of myself . All it takes you is the pull of a thread to undo me and I'm not bulletproof anymore.

Nineteen and learning.

This pain is blinding underneath my brain like an ocean of stories untold and tears unspilt.  Cracks around the edges, I thought I was okay. Ya habeebi,  tell me , why does it hurt like the last time I touched you and your face burnt my fingertips? Why are their still maps in the burn scars that trace back to you?

You're the last person on my mind and the first person on my dua list.

Why do the scars still bleed when they're invisible to me and I think I'm okay but I'm still a mess and why does it still ache like it did the first time? Why does it feel like the same pain is ripping out of the same wounds and crushing my self assured strength ? Why is this kind of hurt so unfamiliar and unidentifiable but still so very real?

Why are we always weaker than we think we are?

Why will the realisation of the fact that we will never be okay again not come to me with resignation or acceptance?

Sicknesses

Fear, the palpable kind
The truth was always what I hid from in this mockery of my heart
And in the end it was always you
The weakest link in the gold chain
The only scar that still bled
The mark of my weakest moments
And twenty four months and fourteen days after
I'm still running in circles around the cages in my brain
where I'm trapped.
The walls bear your name and your face is the protagonist
in the plot of every dream
And I have
run
out
of
Escapes.

Checkmate.

After so many years
You get a little tired of dancing and dallying
Around the bushes
The incessant tiptoeing of masked faces across the chessboard
The white tiles making the bloodstains seem brighter
The endless words my tongue refuses to articulate
Hesitation
the practiced kind.

I lost you.
Two years and three months ago.
And I've spent that much time minus six months believing you were the same person.
And despite my laughable naivete , I still believed
Until 25 minutes (and a heartbeat less) ago

But  now your words have spilt forth
across this battle zone
And for once they weren't controlled lies
At least now I can stop being mercilessly played
Your mask falls and so does my faith.
Check and mate.

Storms

You were the weaver of words
I was the fountain of pain
We spent all our days drinking coffee that was too sweet
And words that were too bitter

The space between us closed with words we hurled like slurs and fists that moved so fast they blurred
You carried the sea in your eyes
It carried you whole
I carried my grief like the wind chimes carried the wind
You were once the reason for the fault in my faith
The line marking my failed attempts
You were in every unnoticed  detail
The inkstains on imperfect pages
the reason for the bruises on my face
The blood underneath my fingernails
You were the battle. And I never won.
You were the storm raging inside
Blowing these castles I built on thin air
I never won
But neither did you.

For the ones that lost their way home

It's been forever that I've been trying to let go now. I'm beyond telling myself this is a transient phase, this is a resting place and one day I will wake up and this will have passed away, that one day I will let go of the things I loved in you that are gone, and I will let go of you.  

This detestation of your new identity will be the destruction of me, this endless reconstruction of memories, so I can cling on to what you used to be, but it's all a facade, it's all a fantasy. I have to let go of the girl I knew because she longer exists, because she's no longer you.  

Your vacant eyes reflect your vacuousness.  Your effortless blending into the generation of self obsession and vulgar pretentions is seamless. Praiseworthy even.

I'd ask if you were losing your sanity but you're too busy justifying your senseless defiance, your persistent insistence on living a purposeless existence. 

Too busy with your callous words and attention seeking, too busy sowing fruitless seeds to consider what you'll be reaping. I couldn't accept the world of unintelligent words and unspeakable slurs that has become you. The world of easy girls and desperate flirts and hiding behind  makeup layers. Of displaying yourself with ruthless abandon , of forgotten self respect and forbidden interests . Your dismissal of your self worth is disgusting , you're getting yourself hurt and you're unrelenting. Spitting out these words at you, is the least I can do, this loathing of you, and your endless sins is driving me nuts like an endless siren. The tirade in my head, you're not worthy of contempt , you're not worthy of the number of breaths I'm taking to get this across but I believe that inside of you is someone who once ignited something inside of me. Someone who inspired the fire that was otherwise dying.Someone young and smart and beautiful and incisive. and the only reason I'm wasting this space is so you can look back and ask yourself what changed, what brought you this disgrace, what made you this way. Find the answers to the questions nobody asking you because everyone's looking away when you're going astray and everybody talks and nobody cares. And nobody hates you and what you do enough to say I love you, I'm trying to help you, come back to the real you.