Not just another story I can't tell my mother.

Your fingers reached to the back of my skull.
Your words touched where your hands could not.
You turned out to be my perfect cup of coffee
While I figured why I hated tea.
In your duplex apartment, we went one.
Simply and softly.                          
Very softly and very simply.
The only thing hard were the muted million kisses,
As if we were scared of the walls who might tell your neighbours.
We were fierce.
But in an attempt to leave the creases on our hearts
And not on to the blue bedspread.

We lay next to each other
While our clothes made friendship with the floor.
Between the fire and us and our skin, there was no room for light.
The night itself was like the match sticks that burnt and died.
It burnt because it was about us. It died because it had to.
My mother says there’s no shame in being hungry.
But how do I tell her I am hungry for another person.
Hungry for another soul. Hungry for another heart.
Hungry for another girl.

Until next time

At two thirty in the night

I’m not sure how to get home,

so I’m outside your apartment.

I went for the double beer tour.

And then a few more.

All these years, when you lived

in the parallel world,

So much near but just not close

I got better at drinking

than stopping.

While the emptiness got better

 at being heavy.

So you come down

straight through the window.

Unnoticed, but like that necessary air

I don’t know

how you get inside my lungs,

and replace every corner of it

with your breath,

as if you are the only thing

it needed.

From every angle I look drunk

And you come looking a lot like fun.

Drunk fun is so much better

As no one seems to care,

the trees, the streetlights,

the pavement, the sleeping dogs,

the gates and the gate keepers,

except you,

who keep it a goodnight

until the yawning era.

Because otherwise

it might mean some falling

And you care

how I am afraid of heights. 

Bitter is rather better

There are pains that painkillers can’t kill.

There are muscles you can’t un-tense.

There are scars you can’t undone.

There are relations that are nothing but unhealthy.

There are these absolute strange moments,

with the most familiar people.

Every time I bite my nails, I like to ignore

the meaning in the depth of my teeth.

The size and shape of my feet

remind people of my dead grandmother.

They should know it wouldn’t be easy for her to get to heaven

because they can’t stop looking down.

My eighty four year old grandmother

used to wake up before her memory,

always with the ghosts alongside

that partnered her for twenty five years.

But this morning, she woke up with a sigh

that escaped her body and danced

 in the wind like the white flag.

Don’t think I am like a stuck cap of a bottle,

a jammed window pane that I will open up.

I don’t have much to open up but two hands

with two middle fingers to swivel around.

So when they asked me why don’t I visit them,

I wanted to grab them by shoulders as my reply

However I only said, just out of habit.

My parents chose my name,

my ancestors my surname.

And that’s enough.

Everything else is my personal choice.

Change your mind

You’re standing at the edge of the metro platform

with no intent to board the train but to jump off in front of it.

The platform is filled with all the shapes and sizes of strangers.

If you jump, they will be left with a forever connect with you.

Maybe you've ticked all the boxes in your head

of all the feelings you wanted to feel before you die.

So maybe you’ll jump.

Within micro seconds the train will hit you, smash you

And you’ll be a pulpy mess of yourself.

You might have calculated all the risks yesterday,

But who knows if you’d turn bad at math today?

I have heard that trains move faster thank you think.
So when you’ll jump

Those strangers will watch you fall

and will be able to do absolutely nothing about it.

Some will watch you fall and die. And they will be changed forever.

If you die, you may rest in peace while others won’t.

Your death will forever haunt them, and your ghost 
will never quit following them.

You’ll keep dying over and over again in their dreams,

and over and over again, they won’t be able to do a thing about it.

There must be something ugly about your life that has pushed you so far

that you’re standing at the edge of the platform

but just FYI there’s nothing that’s beautiful about suicide either.

There are many better ways to die.

So step back from the edge of the platform,

let your mind be changed

move way back from the yellow line, turn around and breathe.

If you see a clock there, don’t just see the clock;

do what it does. And keep going.

While you’re going away, think of 
the moment between your jump and the ground,

what if you changed your mind then?