i.
fuck him;
you miss him sometimes but
he isn’t worth it. remember,
sometimes you missed him
when he was here too.
ii.
you know, I never cried over
the boy that broke my heart,
I think I was too surprised.
iii.
you have a room of ghosts and
a wardrobe of skeletons that
convince you that you’re scared
of the dark, until one night
you wake up and it’s 4am
and there’s a storm
outside the window, but your
heart is steady.
your heart is calm.
i.
‘you’re late. again.’
I smile in acknowledgement of my
chemists worry, of the time he took
wondering when I was coming to
collect my medication this month.
‘you can’t starve your body like
this, what if something happened?’
we bonded over his mother and I
having the same name and now
he worries when I don’t come
on time (every month). ‘I’m really sorry’
ii.
people are always moving in or
out of my building, the stairs
rumble with the effort of keeping
this four storey building together,
like lovers that know they should
leave, this building attracts the
hopeless and the hopeful together.
iii.
‘I have feelings that are in your
direction’, I tell the boy with
blonde hair and kind eyes.
tomorrow maybe we will hold
hands and I’ll put my head in his
lap, or maybe we will stop this
journey before it gains any momentum.
iv.
the world is moving so fast,
and yet, I feel so small,
so insignificant.
i.
it’s been a year darling,
what are you doing here?
ii.
he has kind eyes and a gait that
is unsure, uncertain but fills me
with a steady reassurance.
iii.
i am finished with feeling wounded,
it is time for the scars to heal and
the sun to shine bright on me
because i deserve it. i deserve a
love that is unfaltering, unwavering,
full of earnest and true intentions.
iv.
life is complicated, our hearts cannot
always conquer, our hearts cannot always
go on.
v.
what did you expect darling, that i would
be waiting? it’s been a year now,
leave me be.
It has been a year since I posted on here, I am so sorry! I’ve been keeping ‘the ordinary life of Saloni Chamberlain‘ up to date and severely lacking here, I’m so sorry! I’ll do better, I promise.
hello new boy with eye lashes that reach for the stars and a heartbeat that sounds like my favourite song.
hello boy with feet itching to travel the world and a taste for the unknown.
I can feel your energy invading
my cells, I can feel your change
in my mind and your warmth on
my face like the sun.
remember when we thought we were
going to conquer the stars? do you
remember, we were going to be stunning
but we couldn’t remember the journey
from mouth to plate, hand to feet.
we chose the way our elbows, knees and
hips felt under our clothes like a secret
over the strength it took to fight the world.
there was going to be a day that came, when
we wouldn’t care what heaven brought down upon
us because we believed, but there were demons
darker than night with hands around our throats.
before the cliffs crumbled and the oceans broke
all of the dams, we were going to bring down the
stars; we were going to bleed black and blue for
the right for our voices to be heard.
(remember when we thought we were going to
conquer the stars?)
i could dream, but i wouldn’t.
breathing against your shores
of ice and the howling of the rain
against my eyelashes.
i could scream against the silence,
i could beat my fists against an
ocean that would keep on drowning
as the world kept on spinning.
i could draw in the whims of the birds,
bees and angels of a neverland that
i’ve never visited. i could breathe, but
i would choke on the weightlessness.
i could die, soak my skin in the wishes
and lies, breaking in my skin like leather
shoes. but i wouldn’t, in case i left a scar
battering against the hearts of the world.
i could live, but instead i’ll move slowly on.
my doctor closes his eyes when he
sees me, taking my blood pressure
and listening to the various ways
that i’ve let myself down again.
there is a boy who lives in my dreams
wishing that i’d get well, he blesses the
sneezes and forgets to care sometimes,
most times. we’d do nothing at all but
scribble our thoughts across a discarded
napkin or envelope, brushed with dust
and what once was, history.
there is a howling in my wrists, wheezing
when i smile, brimming with hatred and
the desire to watch me drown.
i avoid corners and shadows, because they
might engulf me, they might strangle the
thoughts of stability and the smiles that caress
in the sun, in the daylight.
goodnight sleepyhead, i’ll wake you when it’s
over.
three am, teeth gnashing and
clashing with silence. whispering ghosts
and ghouls might gossip but our ears
can’t hear tonight, our mouths can’t care.
fucking like we were dying, breathing
like we were trying not to cry. wear me
out like your favourite pair of shoes,
cling to me like clothes caught in the
rain and the night to the moon.
break me if it means that you’ll see
why you love me again. break me
when you feel like you can’t see your
way out and i’m all that’s left, an anchor
keeping you grounded (holding me back,
he whispers in the dead of the night).
holding onto you like stars and gravity,
earth and suns.
sometimes,
i breathe against
the ocean and
i cannot exhale
and i cannot swim.
i am sinking, so
eloquent and i am
drowning, hands
awash in blood,
because i cannot,
i cannot.
(i am mouthing the
words, teeth clinging
and breathing fractured
under bedsheets.
i am sinking)
because i cannot swim.
