suspiciously i
creeped into my head
to see what it was hiding
from me.

there i found
a box full of dreams
hid away from my
heart-
my cruel, cruel heart,

afraid that i may
discard it the way
i threw away
everything else.

**

i have longed to write. longed, to give in to this desire to burn every flaming thought into reality, to seek clarity, to learn, perhaps unlearn. i write not a song, but a lament. i wish to forget what i must remember, to do what i must not do, to destroy what i have kept for all this while. i am looking up while stepping down, looking up, while falling. i don't want to fall. i want to reel myself in, but at the same time, lurch upwards and fly. i am reeling myself in, yes, and i am lurching upwards, true, but i do this with no soul in it. i do this like an empty shell riding a wave.

**

everytime i have wished to write about my own sadness, i have managed to twist it into a story, to attribute it to a stranger that never existed except for in my own head, in my own heart, in the imagination that has stolen from me, all i ever had. i have created them, to hide me, i have lied, to disguise the truth. i don't wish to write a story today. may be tomorrow, i will erase this, or even hide these words behind some man with an obscure name that has come out my ocean of a head. this is the story of my life, and i don't think it is worth writing.

**

the neem leaves are turning yellow. they know that they must drop, that it will get cold. they imitate sunlight, take up a beautiful golden, shine for the last time underneath the pollution and fall.
this is autumn. the air is nipping. clawing, even, and i refuse to give in. not yet. for it is still warm. so am i. but for how long?

**

i am turning inward. turning to water to scream into, to let my frustration out on. i sing to let go, and i sing with my soul. these are the moments that i have for myself, and these are the moments i love. i read, but it has been a long time since i have read anything that i truly felt like a part of. like the audience that is enraptured, trapped in a world that is not my own, but feels like reality. i yearn for that escape, and i don't know where else to find it.

**

the criticism makes it worse. i pretend to enjoy those long talks with people who tell me exactly what it is about me they hate, and all those things that are wrong about me. i laugh it off, and pretend i know what i am hearing already, affirming their opinions. all i want is to hear it, so that i may assure myself that what i am thinking is right, that everything about me is wrong, that everything about me is wrong, that everything about me can be worded into a few people's ideas and beliefs, and i don't want to defend myself, i want to tell myself that i am the deluded one, and these talks only confirm my beliefs.

**

from what i read today, the self is easy to rebuild, and from what i remember of the rest of it, this rebuilding is like a narcotic (courtesy shalimar the clown that i decided i would not read but fell into). but what i read today gives me hope. that it is probably not difficult for me to undo and redo myself, that i can be a different person, perhaps pursued by the ghosts of some of my actions but untouched by their consequences.

hah. even saying it like this sounds silly.

**

He said no.
In not so many words.

He said no, in no words at all.

i thought i'd stop
and say hello.

i turned around
and looked for

you,
your deep, easy laughter

impressions of your feet
that i know so well,

your lanky silhouette
against the sun,

but you were gone.

i waited last night,
for those words to come,
pretending, ofcourse,
that i didn't care.
fiddling with my papers,
running my fingers
along the rim of my glass,
tracing drops of water
that melted in the heat-
losing hope slowly,
trickling away in patterns
along the aging wooden
table.

i wait still,
with your answers in my head
playing on repeat, like some old song
that harped on everywhere,
though a squeak in my head
tells me they're gone, now,
those words,
and only silence lingers
in waking sunshine
that slips through my fingers
and into
space.