It was never between you and them anyway.

Missing Words and the Phenomenon of Writing

There are words missing from the last poem I posted.

Words. Words that meant something, words that were carefully chosen in the heat of the moment, in the heat of the anguish that I felt, in the entirety of everything, I chose those words to write down. And now they're missing.

I took up writing because I couldn't draw. I've always wanted to draw. I always wanted to make my own graphic novel. A seemingly absurdist story in which nothing happens but at the end of it, you feel like you've aged a couple years, but in the good way, like wine. So here I write. Write and write and write and I've got nothing to say.

And there I missed words.

I once made my professor cry during an interview after my creative writing course. It was inspired by Hemingway's "End of Something". It's something that's always stuck with me. That I made someone cry because of what I had written. Words. I moved with words.

Of course you know,

everybody knows.

Would you listen if I wrote it

in the sand with my toes,

the way we used to?

A Series of Poems I Found on the Back of One of My Assays (2011)

Yes, assays. Not essays. They're not very good but I'll write them down here before I forget them or lose them forever. Some of them, obviously not done. Also, my writing's really hard to read.


Honesty.
My beacon of white light
means nothing in the face
of the sun,
proud and burning,
hot to cold flares, unrelenting,
(?) to try to outshine the
(?) with words created from a place
where no light penetrated.


Everybody's dancing the dance of the rain.
It pours out
and fills the center of the earth,
cooling it down and calming the fury of the fire,
making the soul of the earth
a pathetic apathetic shadow
of a once glorious (?)
with blue green scales.


Through the fire, through the sleet you came
and broke a part of me with you,
as you swam underground (?)
from the catacombs of my memory.
You invaded my soul on the glorious streets of Dublin.


Been away from home for a long time,
living on foreign shores.
The air smells cleaner here,
but I am unsure as to what I am breathing in.


I just wish I could let you go.
Alone, the (?) (?) (?) (?).
Patience is a virtue, you said,
throwing back in my face
all the advice I gave you to save you
from yourself and the fires of hell.
Alas, I've been waiting,
when each second feels like
an entire evolutionary history has gone by,
and I'll be as foolish as the little mudfish,
breathing half air half water,
thriving in neither;
a joke of creature
with (?) (?) energy to breathe.


Over the bridge and under it, one day,
you let your hand slip into mine.

To Quote the Doctor...

The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. 

The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice-versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant.

I felt like this yesterday! It scared me!

On certain days I am not in love

and my heart turns over

                       crowding the lungs for

                       air

                       driving blood in and out of

                       the skull improving my mind

                       working muscles to the bone

                       dashing resonance out of a roaring sea

                       at my nerve endings

Not much is needed

                       air

                       good sense

                       power

                       a noisy taking in and a

                       loud giving back

Then my heart like any properly turned

motor takes off in sparks dragging all that machinery

through the blazing day

                       like grass

                                           which our lord knows

                                             I am

Certain Days - Grace Paley

The Lake

At the lake this weekend, I realised a lot of things.

1. Serendipity exists. I met Hank the cat, whom I had written about ages ago, who I didn't know actually existed. He also liked me and cats usually don't like me.

2. Drinking beer through the day is more calories than I normally consume in a day.

3. Weird things will happen at night where you hear things and nobody said anything. It can get scary.

4. When you miss someone even if you spent all weekend with them, is that love?

"And when two people have loved each other
see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud;
how the black cord makes of them a single fabric
that nothing can tear or mend."

For What Binds Us - Jane Hirshfield

5. The Avett Brothers make me want to cry in a nice way.

 6. Families can be so radically different. Am I supposed to feel at home in both settings? What if I never do?

7. G.K. Chesterton is a clever clever man who I like to read. He sees the poetic in the unpoetic, and doesn't think it shameful.

8. It snowed 4 inches on April 20th.

It's Alright With Me

...You're a surprise.
I've known you long enough —
Now I can hardly meet your eyes.

It's not that I'm
Embarrassed or ashamed.
You've changed the rules

The way I'd hoped they'd change
Before I thought: hopes are for fools.

Let me walk with you...


James Fenton, "Serious"


Happy 25th parents :)

Bad Things to Such Good People

When we were kids 
I did my best to make them proud 
It just wasn't in me 
I could not fly straight to save my life 

Their big success is now their biggest failure 
Their golden child has been dethroned 
Their reputation is now in ruin 
Their tower to Heaven has come tumbling down

And all the while 
The good Lord smiles
And looks the other way

Because sometimes part time jobs are just embarrassments to the family name, and working hard means very  little if you amount to nothing, forever.

Jesus in Student Centers with Pizza

I thought I saw Jesus
walk into the student center yesterday,
and my heart skipped a beat.
It wasn't him, of course;
Jesus wouldn't walk into the student center
holding a pizza,
Jesus wasn't even white.
I must admit, though,
a little part of me
was waiting for his eyes to turn to me,
was waiting for his eyes to burn into mine
and in that moment
I was hoping that heaven and earth would come together,
and I would understand peace.

Jesus didn't walk into the student center
holding a pizza,
but if he did,
would he share some with me?

So this is me reading one of my poems.

Not the best poem, but the one I wanted to read this time.

I hope you enjoy it :)

I smiled at the snow one day

and I realised that it smiled back at me,

all sparkly and glittery

under the full moon that inhabited the dark lit satin skies.

It was the not the middle of winter,

and quite not the start,

that wonder of the end of November

when tart apple pies weren't being baked just yet,

but families would huddle around recipes

written long long ago,

when grandfathers and grandmothers were

young and wrinkle free

and huddled by the fire sneaking glances

because holding hands was not allowed.

And I wondered as I passed by them,

the houses,  not the days of auld,

whether the history in them was the same history

across the world,

whether human life was the same whether on Jupiter or on earth,

and as I walked by a couple of homeless men

sitting under the tree,

catcalling for liquor, you see they just wanted to say hi,

I didn't let them try to do what they wanted, instead

rushed away,

and forgot all about the magic of the snow

as I glimpsed his face in that dirty truck,

waiting to pick me up

so that we could go break bread together.

"Sometimes, I forget she's Indian."

Not white, not brown.

I'm glad I don't have an accent, having an accent means that I can't have friends here. But I like accents. I like the way the tongue rolls around words, so ripe and full of lust and love that centuries have honed into perfection.

Stuck in the middle, I forget that I'm Indian. How can I be Indian? My language is going to die with me, or with some people in my generation. Think my kids will be interested? Think my probably half something kids will be interested in a language that no one cares about for the sake of art? I'd like to hope.

I make food like my mom does, but I'm the only one who eats it. People like butter chicken. Do I look like butter chicken? Is that what my culture is reduced to? What is my culture? Is the whole of India reduced to a food, an accent, a movie industry?

India is a country of juxtapositions, and sweetheart, I have picked up on that and made it my own.