#poetry of the soul
“If ever I lie in the cool grass at night-time it will be to write sonnets to the moon.” (O. Wilde, De Profundis)
“You are different.”
“How so?”
“Look at everyone else. They are merely words while you are poetry.”
-Timothy Joshua.
“Perché forte come la morte è
l'amore,
tenace come gli inferi
la passione.”
Song of Solomon.
Set me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm.
For love is as strong as death,
passion as intense as the underworld.
Song of Solomon.
(1st: Herbert James Draper, Day and the Dawnstar)
(2nd: Michail Lermontov, Tamara and Damon)
“When I saw you
I fell in love,
and you smiled
because you knew. ”
(William Immense Shakespeare)
I want something just like this. Like running through the shelves of a library holding hands, stopping in the middle of a corridor with wheezing, looking into each other’s eyes and falling in love once again, every time.
“Dorian Gray? Is that his name?” asked Lord Henry, walking across the studio towards Basil Hallward.
“Yes, that is his name. I didn’t intend to tell it to you.”
“But why not?”
“Oh, I can’t explain. When I like people immensely, I never tell their names to any one. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one’s life. I suppose you think me awfully foolish about it?”
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.
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.
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
Summer with a Pisces - ishani
I once wrote a list of
sixteen different things,
oh Tommy why didn’t you
want me? Scared that
you would leave me…
but guess what, he
already did.
It’s ironic now,
that sliver of hope
left behind when
you left me in the
dust, that burden
lingering around
for months to come -
and it did.
Tommy who’s the
piper now? While
you’re messaging me
pictures of girls when
she’s not the one that you
want - and I’m many
miles away, drinking
prosecco and smashing
pinot gorigio wine bottles
because the guy that
I wanted was kissing me
and no one else.
I guess I should thank
you for leaving me
well enough to not spend
summer with a pisces, but
learning to love myself
just the smallest amount.
