stjules:

a thief wrote this as a confession to their crimes

i steal their lines as i wish to steal their voices. i covet it, the music they make.

i dance to myself, open my mouth to myself in the evenings just so i can trip on my shoes and bite my tongue off - its a bad habit.

i take their lyrics and bird feed them to myself.

no you dont get it, i live like this, i live like this, i live to whisper-sing the lines other people have written for someone else, i murmur them to no one (nothing) in particular yet i feel these love songs more than the authors felt them. i have never been in love. its a bad habit,

Deeper Waters

I close my eyes and listen

As the sea churns and surges

I taste the tears I swallowed 

In the spray of her winds,

I hear my anger echoed

In the crashing thunder of her breaking waves,

I feel the coldness I have always feared

Wrapping around my ankles,

Tugging,

Like the gentlest of lovers.

Sandpipers whistle a warning

But I have always been drawn

To deeper waters.

there’s a comfort and a torture in the things left behind:

a reminder you were here;

a reminder you are gone.

love is–

i’m working hard on meto be better at us

love is–

i made you soup feel better ok it’s hot be careful

love is–

just hold me just hold me just

love is–

i need to hear you laugh again

love is–

different for everyone but it is always

everything.

Cold Shoulder

We play this game of hide and seek

Always lurking just to leave

Five missed calls,

Three or seven texts

I’m watching and waiting for my next fix

Winter’s claws are sinking in;

And lonely nights make the shy grow bolder

But it gets colder over your cold shoulder

Than I ever gave this long winter credit for

i couldn’t say their name if i tried,

when there once was a time

i spoke it like a body takes a breath;

i never forgot how to breathe

like i never forgot what a person can mean,

despite how i avoid them by crossing the street.

-“like a body takes a breath”

tw // sexual abuse

a kiss without consent 

is not a kiss you have to count 

when a friend asks if you recall your first 

and they ask how it felt. 

a kiss that left an aftertaste 

of shame and regret, like a scar, 

is not a kiss at all

if it feels like you’re marred.

i beg a God who i often resent

that you learn how to kiss clean lips 

without reproaching your own

for the time someone’s unwanted tongue 

slipped through your mouth,

like a thief slinks through a home,

despite how many times you said no, 

no, no, no.

-“a kiss without consent”

you speak like a ballerina pirouettes

and the world listens like an audience 

perched at the edge of their seats.

you make me want to sing, 

but my tongue slides against my teeth

like a lush clings to a wall

once they forget how to use their feet.

the words tumble alongside my gums

and drop from my clumsy mouth

like an accident, like silverware

slipping through butter fingers.

and like a child gets bruised knees,

i get bruised cheeks,

but you’ll plant kisses where it’s blue 

until everything turns pink.

- “clumsy mouth”

growing up feels like missing aspects of ages you left behind 

on playgrounds with bruised knees and scratches,

in front of TV screens that felt like windows to real worlds,

beneath Christmas trees clutching gifts that Santa left,

looking up to people in both height and expression,

reading comic books about heroes while vowing once you’re older, you’ll save the world too

because even as a child you know there’s good things to uphold and bad things to vanquish.

but growing older is walking past playgrounds 

and watching movies without expectations

and setting up Christmas trees because you’ve become Santa

and craning your neck less but understanding people more 

and still wanting to save the world, but you take on days one at a time instead.

-“growing older”

my troubled mind constantly reiterates 

that i do not deserve love and kindness, that i am nothing.

but my aspiration to heal  asserts that i do, 

i do, 

i do.

so the war wages on,  as i realize i am everything: 

the battleground,  the revolutionary and the enemy.

- “psychological warfare”

#escapril2022 day four. a strange behaviour.

Louder

I can’t hear you.

Your voice is a whisper.

I’m waiting so patiently,

For some kind of direction.

Every time you speak your words,

I cannot hear a single thing,

Only see.

How long must I wait?

Life feels directionless.

Your guidance comes through action.

Would speaking not be easier?

Tell us our purpose.

Living cannot just be for the hell of it.

Maybe that’s it.

There is no purpose.

Things just happen because they can.

And that’s probably more terrifying,

Then the existence of a creator.

Because then,

It’s all meaningless.

Louder

I can’t hear you.

Your voice is a whisper.

I’m waiting so patiently,

For some kind of direction.

Every time you speak your words,

I cannot hear a single thing,

Only see.

How long must I wait?

Life feels directionless.

Your guidance comes through action.

Would speaking not be easier?

Tell us our purpose.

Living cannot just be for the hell of it.

Maybe that’s it.

There is no purpose.

Things just happen because they can.

And that’s probably more terrifying,

Then the existence of a creator.

Because then,

It’s all meaningless.

Privilege

I used to look at others,

Knowing they lived a peachy keen life.

The surface is often nuclear.

The symbol of status which must;

By any means,

Be achieved.

What I’ve come to realise,

Is that these appearances are thinly veiled.

Privilege isn’t a blanket term.

Where one has it,

Another doesn’t.

And vice versa.

There’s struggles within everyone,

Beneath the mask we wear.

Each experience unique,

Never equivalent,

Yet it’s treated as so.

Why do we continue?

To shroud ourselves in a sheer disguise.

It doesn’t benefit us,

Only the systems we live in.

I tried to lift the curtain,

Cuts, bruises and scars on full display.

Society booed me off stage,

Instead of helping,

They closed the curtain.

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.