Wish upon a star

Once upon a shooting star

A green young lass laid eyes

‘This is how wishes are born’, she said

‘When stars decide to die.’

She dreamt wide and dreamt afar

Of ruby kisses and pale blue skies,

Of buttered caramel on fresh brown bread

And silent chamomile smiles.

A love that holds no bar,

She said, one that brings no lies.

A clear-crystal conscience at night stead

And a sleep that bears no sighs.

As I walk through this stone and tar

Strength to my sinews and thighs

The gaze that knows exactly what’s ahead

Expertly slicing through every guise.

Faith in my convictions, oh yonder star!

And thoughts woven and wise

A lily pad, at death, to rest my head

And to wake up to paradise.

‘Oh dear’ exclaimed the falling star

‘Who painted your wit with lies?’

These ephemeral hopes upon which you are fed

But there are no hands rolling the dice.

You sit dreaming with your eyelids ajar

But pay attention to this advice

Because reality is like the silver thread

Which will close in on you like a vise.

Love is fickle, just because people are

And love isn’t life’s grand prize.

Falling out of love is so easy a tread

Sometimes you’ll be the first to say goodbye.

Your beliefs, my dear, can inflict scars

Don’t ever try to hold on too tight

You will see sickness and stand by death beds

And suckle spirits to forget the cries

Not one path but millions stretch afar

And winding, your true destiny belie

Look at me, helpless in my own fall

So how can I help you survive?

Genderfluid

Someone once told me

To package myself into a little box

Like bits in a computer: 0 or 1

Courageous or compassionate

Mini skirts or oversized hoodies

Star Wars or Legally Blonde

Black or white

Ultimately: pink or blue

And I stop to wonder

Why I have to always be one or the other

If I’m made of the stuff of stars

And starlight can be both a particle and a wave.

Closure

I remember a time when I thought

That how much I loved you would kill me

That I would choke on the unsaid words

And that the ones I did manage to say

Would weigh on my throat like vices

But it’s funny how this feeling seems like a lifetime away

When it was but days since I felt lost without you

Because maybe it’s just infatuation

If I could forget about you when I choose to

How now it doesn’t matter to me whether you’re hungry or sad or just terribly lonely

But what if it was love?

But what if you could fall out of love that easily?

Now that terrifies me more than anything

The idea that some day, some man I’ve called soulmate

Would wake up one day and wouldn’t care if I like my tea with honey

Or if I leave the lights on, because I read myself to sleep?

What if the most genuine things that you thought you felt

The things you promised you’d feel forever

Could just disappear without a trace, without you knowing why?

Because then, then I would know it wouldn’t even be his fault

And that would be the thing that finally kills me.

This is for the first ever patient I got to take care of, who isn’t with us anymore.

What is a last breath made of?
Well, 78% nitrogen, 16% oxygen and 5% carbon dioxide, and water vapour if we’re trying to be specific
But what is a last breath really made of?
As the body tries it’s damndest to survive
But overwhelmed, releases its grip on life
Finger after agonising finger
Do all the hopes you nurtured through life
Saturate that tiny little puff of air?
Or do you get to keep all those dreams tight within your brain?
Because, let’s face it, they’re just dopamine and serotonin anyway
But then, as it all boils down to carbon and hydrogen and oxygen
In dizzying variations and permutations and combinations
It comforts me and reassures me to believe
That your thoughts were made from volcanic dust
And that the vibrations made by your words still resonate
Across the surface universe and always will, trying to find that endless end
That the neurotransmitters that once guided your smiles
Will bloom as timid flowers from freshly rained earth
As your anger becomes blinding flashes of lightning
And your tears become the tiny particles of dust refracting the light just right
And painting the sky blue, red or violet : your whim, your fancy
And then I know what a last breath is really made of
It’s made of a secret code
A code that finally unveils your deepest desires in all their magnificence
And make you rage across this infinite existence
Unlimited, just the way you were always meant to be.

- Copyrighted, Christianez Dennis, April 2017

Forged by the thrumming and whirring levers
She was blindfolded and led through mazes in darkness
And told that the monotonous sheen of metal
Will be the only hue that made her beautiful
And turning side to side, she sees, women like her
Retouching and revising, scrubbing their colours away
And quickly sets to work, to make herself look like them
Her blasphemous thoughts pigmented otherwise
Of Garnet, Peacock, Butterscotch and Orchid
She snatches, iridescent, and hides away
Like butterflies trapped in a polythene bag
And hopes to let them fly someday.

- © 2016, Christianez Dennis, all rights reserved.

When people told me to protect my heart
They didn’t stop to say that it didn’t mean
That I had to stitch the armour to my skin
Until that process was well underway
That now though it guards my bosom from arrows askew
From icy glares and honeyed whispers alike
It makes its presence known, a numbness so exquisite
That now I think humanity’s natural state is apathy
For I know nothing more and nothing less.

To love or to be loved?
Is the plague of our generation
Where something that couldn’t be encompassed
In sonnets born of sleepless nights
And couldn’t be explained
In tears framing reddened eyes
Has now been contained in tiny blue boxes
Of 140 character text messages
And to make or break your chances
With the stranger behind the screen
Matching your lies with his
And pretending not to be keen
As the one that loves less,
That unfairly blessed soul
Holds the reins to the future (of which he doesn’t care much)
And the ones that sowed their hearts
And nourished them with their tears
Have to leave them buried forever
Under fears of double texting being desperate
And so is replying too soon
And if you’re the one who texted first
Oh god, are you a loon?
And the pain of watching them lose interest
Smiley after smiley till it stops
And looking at your reflection, painfully tousled
And thinking, I’ll dump the next guy first.

I’m certain that when you leave this world
You leave behind traces of your being
In the rush of flavour on your daughters tongue
As an original plum parfait recipe
And sultry whispers in your husband’s ears
As your favourite tune on the radio
In your best friend’s lazy thoughts
As a forgotten book recommendation
That she has finally gotten around to
And on every page of your son’s notebook
Curling the ’S’, just the way you taught him to
Your kindness, as your mother feeds the pigeons
Re enacting the times that you did
In the little pearls that mists their eyes
Upon realising the mysteries you hid.

The day you left I vowed to myself
that come what may, I’ll never forget
the contours of your face, the colours in your eyes
the rise and fall of your voice forever in my ears
and yes, life will try to unclench my fist
and some of these nuances I may let slip
yet I will fight this battle against time
draw and redraw your visage until I again know it by heart
someday my skin will wrinkle and my hair will silver
with my bones sagging and flesh pitiful
and even on that day, when my head is out of sorts
I promise your portrait in my mind will still be beautiful.