musings
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pause for thought – one mistake begets another. A treatise on compulsive lying: how one wears long sleeves even in summer, how one nods along to the rhythmic ritual of “yes, I am fine.” No. Break the glass – this is not just an emergency this is real life. Real in the sense that there…
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Paralyzed and emotionally stunted, poet finds solace in unread words. Sometime tell me it’s wrong to be. Mad, about everything and nothing. Sad about something for sure. If God is real, is this ataraxis, or bad writing? Am I a background character on this ugly stage? The man in a tree costume. I feed, off…
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I bought 22 calendars and stacked them, to see how long I could stand those blank squares, like rooms in a HDB; as empty as drywall. Everything, anything could fit- anything could have. But the pages are glued shut now, lost to memory. Will you be with me today next year? I shudder. How many…
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i. Those fearful,distant words, these hollow,centered wishes; surely in twenty years they’d have expired. But they haven’t. Fossilized, they stay forever: pointed, sharp, piercing, true. These are facts that we cannot change. Bridges we cannot rebuild. Tell me darling how do I tie this rope’s frayed ends into one again? How do I forget the taste…
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keep everything within. pack the corners with cellophane, lung with cigarette. tight thoughts without forms: is whoever my pincushion my religion? what is what? is what is, is? questions without answers. journeys without destinations. sealed tight, that unknowable great, that observing cloud, is but a mason-jar of desperation, that’s swirling, and swirling still, never at…
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In this house of flies I sit with my mouth agape, two-jaw encore to a wake. Eyes wide and white as saucers. Face masked in a glossy sheen. All insects die; yet here I am, still thriving like a beehive. Someone’s fucking shouting again. The queen smacks the back of my head and again, someone’s…
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If I could, I would give myself to some unknowing God, tribal chief, prostrate bone against blood – if it meant that all of you were safe forever. To be kind, this crushing sense of love – it permeates the skin, a henna tattoo. I feel its breath, pressing down on my back, a cape…
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Reminded myself not to talk to you. Not even to look. I’m always reminded that I am not Swayze – and you are not a ghost. That this is happening now. That we are not some formless clay spinning on a wheel waiting to be touched. When & how did we end up this way?…
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My writing adorns the walls of this ridiculous, worn-down circus tent. Fitting, that I’ve mastered both walking the tightrope and cracking the whip. I jump, through flaming hoops I set alight. I am the elephant, the seventh clown stuffed into a clown-car. A churlish charade. Watch. This is the part where I shoot down all the tin-cans and pick the giant…
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“Life is a lot more fragile than we think. So you should treat others in a way that leaves no regrets. Fairly, and if possible, sincerely.” ― Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance Gentle, now. Unfold these shoulders: feel the creases, smooth them out, slowly. Skin meets skin: a tender joining of fragile things. Careful folds,…
ugly stage 