#long poem

plastic
straight, good posture
white and abrasive as baking soda
thrifty, ideal of motherhood
hosting new years parties and other
get-togethers for the kids while sipping,
socially, of course, a margarita,
she buys her children, ruddy-nosed
devils, gifts while their friends stand with empty hands,
letting those other kids,
kids with empty pockets,
sit to the side,
and know their place.

steel
another mother she
drives thirty miles to pick up a daughter’s friend,
male, lanky, and for cops
the wrong color at midnight
from a gas station in the wrong part of town
which is really just code
for poor and less white
and she takes him home to
sleep on the sofa
gives him hot tea
and in the morning pancakes with eggs
she doesn’t ask about the bruises
on his forearms or his heart
she just feeds him and drives him
to the library with a sandwich in old Tupperware
he doesn’t need to return
although he does with a thank-you note
and gratitude in his heart,
despite all the bitterness around him.

-a tale of two mothers, Kelsey Ray Banerjee

All the reasons why - ishani

1.who can handle someone who can’t handle themselves?

2. i spent nights writing about you, but you were out with a different girl.

3. i can’t promise that i’ll be spontaneous unlike her.

4. i bet she doesn’t pinch her skin between her two fingers. 

5. does she hate everybody because she thinks that they hate her too? me too.

6. i can’t hold a perfect thing without watching it fly away.

7. she looks hot in a bikini. i don’t.

8. sometimes i’m scared that you’ll leave me like the rest of them.

9. you dream about her, nightmare about me.

10. i bet she doesn’t care about what everyone else thinks about her.

11. i got drunk wishing that you’ll message me back.

12. i got too faded enough to message you twice in hope that would message back.

13. i hope you know that i showed you my bruises just to impress you.

14. i loved when you called me an alcoholic – even though it sounded patronizing.

15. i’d be lying when i say it didn’t hurt me when you didn’t like me - even a little.

16. see me write a list about why you can’t love me like how i could love you.

Motion - ishani

I’d be lying if
I said that it didn’t hurt me
a little bit when he just
wasn’t that into me.
This is becoming a circular
motion of all the reasons why
no one can love me.

To build a home - ishani

I’ll build
a house out of
the ashes that you
left me with.

Skin deep with reality - ishani

I wonder when
these fantasies
start living up
to reality …

… but this
is all of the
fatalities faced
by being an
escapist of this
reality too.

Pillow fort - ishani 

let’s build a house
out of blankets and pillows
it seems like the perfect
place to hide away from the
world for just a second now,
but just wipe your feet at the
door before I let you in.

My perfect women is for you too - ishani 

Dear Michelangelo, 
I’m writing to ask you 
if you could sculpt out my 
dream appearance, 
I’d like to start out 
with my body shape, 
a flat stomach and thin waist, 
wide hips and muscled legs, 
thin arms and less broad 
shoulders and collar bones 
as sharp as a knife. 

I want to stay the same 
height, not any taller than 5″2 
it’s better that way,
because no one would 
expect a pretty little thing 
like me to fling a body 
across the room - yet 
there they are. 

I would like to differ in 
skin tone, as much as I 
hate to admit - I want to be 
white, because why in this 
day and age, do people 
see colour as a barrier to 
“social norms”, what is it that
white people can do that 
coloured people can’t? 

I’d like to change my face 
too, a button nose, similar 
to mine now but with a slope 
and no bump, plump lips too, 
pretty pink, with a smile 
that shows off a set of pearly 
whites with a crocked tooth, 
not perfectly straight. 

I’d keep my thicker eyebrows, 
and my hair too, but take 
away the puffy eyes, 
the chubby cheeks, 
the undefined jaw, 
replacing it with 
defined cheekbones and 
jawline sharp, and long eyelashes 
and slow growing facial hair 
that I don’t have to wax 
every week.

Dear Michelangelo, 
we have now designed my 
perfect woman, tell me 
how much she costs, 
I’ll pay it all to be her, 
because she is my perfect 
and I am not. 

Miss rough guy - ishani

To the daughters of this generation - ishani

Do you remember when your
mothers would say ‘this
is how girls end up dead’?

That I’ve been trying to
stay alive and not be killed
my whole life.

Maybe it’s time we fuck
the patriarchal society,
this man run world,
because this fucking queen
wants to walk alone at
night, with my hair
pulled back and headphones
in my ear, because
“I’m tired and angry but
somebody should be!”

pana ne vom intalni din nou - ishani

my skin is crawling,
my stomach clammy like
all things anxious,
like I’m about to throw up,
but instead I’m all funny,
maybe like bubbles blowing up,
in the epitome of my abdomen,
I’m not sure why,
this shit is vexing me,
it’s 11pm too,
seems like my new favourite time,
just to lie awake and do nothing,
close my eyes and try to drift away,
can’t think of nothing new,
so instead I wrote a poem;
It doesn’t have to be good,
but is poetry ever perfect?

More like a stream of
consciousness strung
together in sentence that
sound pretty, add in a rhyme or
two, like my story of
the old man who refused
to sell his lime to a boy
called dan; dan
didn’t have money,
well only two dimes,
but it seems I’m only
on a tangent now,
I’ll take this as my cue to go,
not forever,
it’s only a goodbye for now;
until we meet again, my friend.

maybe i’m a hypocrite that i want you to remember me when i forget you - ishani

Do you think about me the
way I think about you when I’m
lying on the floor, in my bra and
pajama bottoms, hair down?

Do you think about me the
way I think about you when I’m
lying on the floor, drunk and
alone, wine in my blood causing
a little bit of trouble?

Do you think about me the
way I think about you when I’m
lying on the floor, high and I
kind of wanna cry, because
I’m so fucking alone?

Do you think about me the
way I think about you when I’m
lying in my bed, and my head down
in the pillow, but I’m pretending it’s you?

Do you even think about me?
Do you even dream about me?
Do you even say my name in the back
of your mind, wishing that you hadn’t pin
pricked my heart with your finger before
licking the blood of the tips with a smile?

I hope you don’t notice my facade - ishani

I’ve suicide inside
of my body, hurting me,
yet I’m finding it hard to leave,
so when it continues hurting me,
these insecurities disconcerting me,
I like to disguise it down into the gutter,
spilling these feelings down like water,
flushing it down and throwing it out,
I hope you remember;
I still want you to believe in me,
even though I am trying to
deceive you, me too.

our platonic world dominantion - ishani 

Sometimes i think that all
my friends hate me, 
or maybe,
i hate myself too much
that I drive myself to 
hate me hate them like 
they hate me too. 

But I wasn’t lying when 
i told you i wanted to 
rule the world with 
them. 

This isn’t what I usually do, at all - ishani

it’s 11pm and i’m all alone, 
i’m no longer missing anyone or anything, 
and it’s better that way, 
but i’m staying up later then usual, 
waiting for a boy to respond to me,
this isn’t like me, at all,
this isn’t like me, at all. 

this isn’t what I do, at all.

Summertime sadness - ishani

I feel like it’s a known
fact, yes  I’m depressed
but I don’t know why I
am stuck like this,
cursed in for a long time.

Yet these words seem to
spill out of my pen and
infecting the pages with
this ebony ink,
but if I wrote you a
poem or three,
would you like them too?

If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all - ishani

I don’t think I was made
for this world, I don’t
think that I belong here.
Maybe it’s pathetic,
maybe it’s not,
maybe it’s useless,
but maybe it’s not.
All these “what if’s”
and all these “maybe’s”
but my mouth forever
tastes like all the things
I should have said,
but instead I bit  
my tongue, swallowed  
them down and watched
as I said everything else
instead.

Lavender - ishani

I undo and pick at my spine,
for no certified reason,
and I want to note that down as a point.

So I find myself asking why –
-why do I write this?

It’s like writing people
hoping that they’d come alive
and be my friends (they do
in ways you’ll never understand.)

but I write them down still,
to forget
the details in the poems
you sent me;
handpicked from
the rose bush
in the garden,
and the lavender bush,
you use to lure me into,
only to sting me
with your twisted
mind.

Can you fix the broken? - ishani 

Could you still
love me even
though I am
a mess?

I promise
that the broken
can love you
the best?

I forgot you halfway through - ishani 


I used to write
poetry – left right
and center
in the notes of
my phone,
so I can carry
them all around
in my pocket, so
weightless too.

But I stopped
because you’re
worthless to
me too.

And so I forget
my rhymes as
I forget you too.

Sweet Dreams, TN - ishani 

I feel tired, 
I’m telling not showing, 
Shakespeare taught me nothing. 

I can talk about 
the hours i’ve laid awake 
staring at the ceiling, 
red eyes, puffy and 
dark rings under. 

The same 112 beat 
circling round in my head, 
a three hour journey down 
the M40; “Little Miss Sweet Dreams, 
Tennessee” just wishing that was me. 

The same 352 pages
beneath my fingertips tracing 
the ink stained words “Yes, why not” Why not? 
If not later when?

The same tune of 505 playing 
on repeat, the beat drops, 
it vibrates through my veins,
like the pulse under my skin, 
the feeling of a hematite crystal. 

“Do I dare disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time for decisions 
and revisions which a minute will reverse” 

I stare out the window, 
unblinking, and unmoving 
for hours on end, and I keep 
asking myself “what is wrong with me?” 

Many 2% drained out, 
shaking legs, spinning heads, 
and now I am thinking “am I 
depressed or just love deprived?” because 
I’m going back to 2018 where I 
live through the love in stories that people 
have written. Alex waited years for Orion, 
and they never did get their true happy ending. 

I imagine being in love, 
then I look at my life and realise, 
I know nothing of the sort 

I’ve listened to the same 808 
beat for years of my life and wonder, 
would it be worth it after all?

I am tired, 
I am telling not showing, 
even though T.S Eliot taught me everything, 
I’m too exhausted to remember. 

I’m sorry. 

Lilies - ishani 

He was like poetry
not in a way you would expect
it’s embarrassing really
how a one night thing can linger so long

But it was like someone
ripped the pages out of 
a poetry book 
built a better man out 
of the ink that I cried
and then built a gentleman

I guess maybe cause he 
looked beyond everything 
I’m insecure about about and 
still thought I was beautiful
and the way he asked before 
he kissed me because 
i was younger than he was; 
“I don’t want to do anything 
you’ll regret tomorrow” 

I didn’t regret anything
other than not going 
back quick enough for you 
to kiss me one last time