I dreamt you

No you’re real

Still I don’t know you well

Most especially not the way you came

To me in my dream state

How to put into words something

So no-holds-barred passionate

Frenzy escalating at a just-right rate?

Pulsating with need, freed from

Everyday brain-numbing constraints

Delirious yet decidedly lucid

Abrading yet making every ache better

Via ecstatic escapades; exhaltations

In every exhalation escaping trembling

Lips loosened easily–volume rising

With each vibration from you to me

Enough to quake me awake wondering

Why you and why in this unexpected way

Is my subconscious playing dirty

Tricks on me? If I go to bed

And you meet me there

Another go-round would be

Icing on the cake

You returned to me

Recently in a dream

Wearing endearing earnestness

Smile like a secret let out

Wistfully asking me to remember you…

As if I could ever forget…

Even when I want to. Like trying to sleep

Through the night without waking

Again with you nowhere known

To me, alone; you long moved on

Within me daily wars are waged

Against your memory

I’ve lost yet another round

Even reminders of the good times

Bring stinging tears to my eyes so why

Would I want to remember anything?

Maybe one day I will get to a place

Where I can behold a sunny day

And not see your face (making mine

Wet with drops of pain) and perhaps

Not question if it was all a bad mistake

But this heart needs more time to heal

From decimated dreams that once felt

Oh so real…reality still the chill

Churning through my veins

I try in vain to shake

Daffodil Sonnet

The woman at the bus stop didn’t know,

Yet she handed me a blooming flower,

Six petal’d daffodil of bright yellow.

Plant snipped in its most exquisite hour.

Why did she have it? Why give it to me?

She lifted up her hand without a word,

Offering the flower, staring blankly.

My “thanks” very quiet, maybe unheard.

Oh bus stop woman, I’m merely a bud.

Nineteen years old, yet a man only two.

More testosterone now runs through my blood.

My first shot was twenty minutes ago.

I thank you kindly, oh bus stop woman.

A blooming flower for a budding man.

Worm Sonnet

I sympathize with the dancing worm,

Who lives below, alone on sunny days,

Who always hides from the cloudless warm,

Who emerges only when it rains,

And when it rains the wet brings such delight

That all the worms must come to celebrate.

They waltz and groove all through the stormy night

‘Til drying sun seals their dying fate.

I understand why worms love rainy hours.

I was once a puddle stomping child.

Fav’rite songs are louder in the shower.

Rain is something holy, old, and wild.

Under sun, one with humanity,

But the rain brings out the worm in me.

(This is the first poem I’ve written in years, so please be nice!)

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.

Time to heal the broken, it never does - ishani

Hello, and I am not sorry,
this is not a goodbye,
more like a salutation
of a farewell,
this is our little dark age
watch me find light in this
darkness, as I’m sat in the
air conditioned emergency
room, my eyes burning
with mint, wearing a mask
is worse when you chew gum.
Everyone is staring,
it makes me feel intimidated,
I’m used to being the
intimidating one,
the scary one who makes
their skin crawl.
I’m the youngest one here,
well minus that toddler who
has barely been alive for a
minute – he doesn’t count.
This place smells of bleach
and anti bac, and the all too
familiar stench of the oncology
wards all around, I remember you
here, with your
liquorice all sorts that
were disgusting by the way,
but I “liked” them still, only for you,
I hope you know that.
You probably do, you’re my
guardian angel, I believe you
still visit me every now and then,
maybe my clairvoyancy isn’t as
good as it should be, because I
miss you every day.
They say it gets easier as time
passes, but everyday passes
and it never gets easier,
instead it makes my heart
reach out to make me miss you more,
because du er et minne (you are
a memory) it’s time to let you go now,
instead of grasping onto
the smoke of my past,
you need your peace
and all I cause is chaos
all around me.

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.