Betrayal

Last night, I dreamed of your betrayal again.
You smiled and kissed me
As you plunged a knife down my neck.
I saw myself die in your arms.
You laid my limp, bloody body on the dust,
Then kicked it to make sure I was done for good.
My tears woke me;
Brought me back
To a bleaker reality.

Why did you pretend to love me
When all you had in your heart was hatred?
How did you cover its putrid stench?
All the perfumes from Grasse
Could not have camouflaged it.
Maybe it was my love that blinded me.
When everyone asked me to be careful,
I threw my caution to the wind.
And embraced you anyway.

Now, I write poems about betrayal.
A sad, pathetic, needy, wannabe poet.
But no amount of self-loathing
Could have woken me up to this ugly truth-
We are all alone in our struggles,
There is no reason to think otherwise.
So, thank you my friend!
Your absence is a gift
I will treasure forever.

Love Poem #1

The red crowned cranes of Hokkaido
Know the meaning of love.
They mate for life
And dance and cry in courtship displays
That strengthen their bond.
They want the whole world to know
They are happy.
Together.

I know what it feels to want love
When I focus on the shadows
Dancing on my ceiling
As you fill me up with a bit of you
And whisper,’ I love you’ into my ears.

I believe you for a moment.
But I also know the reality-
There will be another naked girl
Lying beneath you some day.
And you will say the same magical words
In the same mundane way.

When lovemaking becomes a chore
We stop pretending too.
You hide us inside the confines of my bedroom
When you are done convincing yourself
That you have given me enough,
You leave.

The sheets smell of you
Even hours after you are gone.
I weep in the shower
For the love I don’t see in your eyes

We are habits.
You and I.
We stopped being lovers a long time ago.

Maybe we were born into the wrong species.
Maybe we will be reincarnated as the cranes
And dance by the lake, in the snow.
And we will say,’I love you’ in crane language.
And we will believe it
Till death do us apart.

Hungry for Words

When I was a kid,
I used to learn words from a dictionary.
Five each day.

I trailed my tiny fingers through the black ink,
Relishing the consonant and vowels
As my tongue rolled around those invisible delicacies.

In love with a distinct sound so much
That I would say it over and over again.
Until I felt it was a part of me.
And I could conjure it when I was in trouble.
Like a good friend who always shows up
Even if you had a fight.

Sometimes, I would read to my dog.
He slept through most of it.

I will not lie
even though I could
If I tried really hard.
But
the biggest love of my life
Is this language I’m speaking in.

It calms the storms in my heart.
Connects me to people
who have their own stories to tell.
And I listen with every inch of my body.
Just like the voracious child I once was-
Hungry for words.

Looking for new ways to string sentences together.
Paragraphs that make me forget to exhale for a moment.
The depths of someone’s love, grief, or rage.
Fascinated by someone’s mind.
Thinking -‘Wish I could write like that!’
A certain kingship stronger than blood.
A love more enduring than any other love.

Loneliness

People do stupid things when they’re lonely. I have been there. I know it. The shadows crawling on the wall are sometimes the only company you have. You’re willing to pay any price to feel alive and present. Your dignity, your body, your pride. But these are not the currencies that can buy you affection. You learn much later that real intimacy is knowing someone really well. How their faces lit up when they’re happy. How their shoulders droop with the weight of their worlds. How you can comfort them by running your fingers through their hair while they rest their head on your lap. There’s no guarantee that you won’t be lonely again. But you’ll always have something to look forward to.

Black/Kuro

Kuro means 'black' in Japanese

Us, Together

There are a thousand ways we fit perfectly 

Like the way your lips feel on my lips,

When you hold my hands,

When I rest my head on your chest.

When you can tell what is going on in my mind;

When I know exactly what you are talking about 

Even before you say it.

You intertwined with me -

And the fireworks that happen.

Even after a thousand times

It feels new every single time.

You waking up to feel my side of the bed 

With your hand to see if I am still beside you.

We walked through hellfire, my love,

And came out unscathed.

It has made us fearless.

We are so clear of the path ahead-

We are meant to be together.

The symphony we create is divine!

Everything else is just background noise.

Multiverse

In one world,
I married the first man I fell in love with
And lived my life thinking that I am not good enough
I slipped through the cracks in the floor
And walked on my tiptoes around him
Trying to stay invisible
So as not to arouse his anger
At the unfairness of having to live with something subhuman like me.

In another world,
I made the mistake of falling in love with the wrong man
But I learned early
To never value the happiness of someone else over my self-esteem.
So, I toiled hard to become someone with worldly success.
But I lost faith in love and in human connections.
I guess I lost there too.

In my ideal world,
I waited for the right person to sweep me off my feet
Sure, I made a few mistakes here and there-
But that did not deter me from believing in the best of people
And the possibility that I too could find happiness.
Like a self-fulfilling prophecy
It came to life
I dreamed my ideal world into existence.
It is possible to have it all
Only if we have the courage to believe.

Or maybe I have lived all these lives
In just one life.
And if you saw me
You couldn’t say which one was me living through what.

The 10th Annual Poetry Invitational at SJMA

Santa Clara Poet Laureate Mike McGee invited some poets to write ekphrastic poems based on the exhibits of San Jose Museum of Art. Ekphrasis is the vivid, often dramatic, verbal description of a visual work of art, either real or imagined.

My piece was based on ’History of Science II’ by Catherine Wagner in the Gibson gallery.

Take a moment to look at the chromogenic print.

For a more immersive experience, please visit the San Jose Museum of Art.

The library of souls

——————————

This is me-

All my emotions sorted into shelves

Then labeled and archived.

One shelf is for my mother-

Who learned early in life

That the only way a woman could live with dignity

Was by earning her own living.

Her face burned in the summer sun 

When she walked home from the school she taught in

So she could save money and buy us fruits.

Another shelf is for my father- 

Who was stabbed 27 times and left for dead 

By his best friend of 27 years.

Here you can see the memories of my sister- 

Whose existence I don’t acknowledge anymore.

Because I don’t want to explain 

Why I have not spoken to her in years.

The covalent bonds of friendship

Have kept me sane through the years.

Otherwise, 

I’d have fallen apart a long time ago.

And right here 

Is me organizing my thoughts-

All those solitary moments 

I spend overthinking.

Then neatly page mark and 

Color code them in my journals.

But the most complicated relationship 

I have is with myself -

Love, Hate, Love, Hate, Hate, Love

What if I am not good enough?

What if I don’t deserve happiness

For something I might have done

A long time ago?

Then I say to myself-

You are doing the best you can 

In all possible circumstances.

Love, Hate, Love, Hate, Love, Love

Now, take a step back.

Look beyond the wooden frame 

Of this curio cabinet.

(This curio cabinet)

There are thousands of stories just like mine 

(In the corners, can you see?)

Yours and yours and yours.

An atheneum of human stories,

This is a library of souls.

Ad lucem

Exfoliate your identity.
It is not set in stone.
You can wear it or tear it out into a crumpled mess
Along with other identities that didn’t quite fit you.

Your body, gender, set of beliefs and disbeliefs,
Your most characteristic dogma-
Nothing is truly you.

You die a different person
Than who you were born as.
From helpless to capable.
From darkness to eternal light.

A fish tank

(Dedicated to all those who are looking for a fresh start)

We are all living in our self-constructed echo chambers.
Where our opinions reinforce our prejudices.
Step back for a moment.
Look at the vivarium.
On a sunny day, the edges glisten.

Break free from this fish tank reality
Of skewed perceptions and semi natural existence.
Free yourself from all pre-existing notions.
Things that define you-
Adjectives earned and awarded.

Let the universe come to you.
Wash you to a different shore of unbound reality. Sans glass boundaries.
Give up the false anchors that tie you down.
Swim in the ocean
Not in a glass tank.

Absence and presence

I am too old

For 

This game of

Absence and presence.

Nights of intense passion

Followed by

Emptiness that gnaws at me.

I will settle for someone

Who loves me a little less.

If he promises to stay

By my side 

When I am scared of the world.

The Good Wife

What did you expect I will be?

A good, obedient girl who opens her mouth and spreads her legs when and only when you want her to?

Someone who takes your abuses like she were grateful for any kind of attention she receives?

Your girl Friday who keeps track of your unwashed underwear and unpaired socks?

A woman who becomes more invisible every time you flirt with other women in her presence.

A womb for rent- for you to put an offspring and massacre it if it is a girl.

Because your greatest fear is that monsters like you exist in this world!

Disclaimer: SG asked me to say it is not from my own experience if I read it in an open mic 😂

I know you, I see you

Girl,

I know all your hickies and heartbreaks.
Your secret stash of cigarettes which you resolve to throw every new year but keep it for one last drag.

I know how many times you went to the restroom just to cry at your work because you felt incompetent.

Your alcoholic mother brings home her despicable boyfriends who try to grab your ass when left alone. You just thank your stars that you don’t have to live in the same house.

The jealous friend who secretly hates you but who wears a facade of liking you so that she doesn’t have to give up the benefits associated with you.

The world thinks you have it together but I know how fragile you are and how tired you are to have to put up that show. Just because it is expected of you.

I just want you to know that I know you. And I see you. You are not invisible to me.

I am Kali

I was born of the rage of my mother:
To devour the demons that she fought.

I wore their heads in a necklace
To remind the wrongdoers that no evil deed goes unpunished.

I wage wars against the darkness
Even though my skin is dark.

Blood drips from my lips and the scyther I hold,
My lolling red tongue is the cause of nightmares.

But remember-
I was born because all was not right with the world.
Or else my pacifist sisters would have sufficed.

I was born because there were injustice, hatred, and pillage.
And as long as I see those happening
Another earthly girl will take my form
And bring down her fury upon the world.

If you want a lotus instead of a scyther,
Treat her well.
Your mother, wife, daughter, sister-
She can be Annapurna or Kali.

A book of scars - 1

Freewriting about pain and betrayal

Don’t make me say it out loud
Because I know
You won’t hear it through the noise.

Read my lips, hear my heartbeat
Across a room full of strangers.
Does it sound familiar?
Do you remember the promises you made?

A mind is a tricky place.
You remember the things you want to.
And conveniently forget the rest.

But I remember-
Every lie you have ever told me.
Every lie I ever believed in
With every inch of my body.

Like a python coils
And squeezes its prey to death,
You drove the life out of me.

How do you live devoid of faith?
Stripped of the ability
To ever trust another human being?

People call me heartbroken
But my friends know better-
There was nothing left to be broken.

Inch by inch,
It decayed beneath my ribs-
One lie at a time.

Headliner at Caffe Frascati

You are invited to join me at Caffe Frascati at 315 S First Street, Downtown San José around 8 pm on Jan 4, 2018, Thursday. Open mic begins at 7:30 pm. Bring your rants and raves, poetry and stories. 

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For those who missed the event, here is a video: