Devi☆

you are the circles spinning around me

to the smell of soap and cigarettes

and an old country song

you’re humming against my hair.

you are a gutting smile

and eyes that notice everything;

you are the only person who

laughs as much as i do.

my neighbor hung flowers from his mailbox

and it made me think of you.

i don’t really know why i cried—

i only wish we had a mailbox or flowers

or that you couldn’t live without me.

I’m addicted to ignoring these alarms

Through the calm arms and grasp of comfort

Coming from a lie, its chimes and charms

Imaginary head, so long and so forth

I remember now for the nth time

This pop of a bottle cap flying

Piling up this little dune of metal waste

On the floor

Uncleaned, dirtied up

No one asked me why am here just now,

At 10 pm

The door slammed shut and TV is switched on

To the news of some angry man

The tin roof shakes my head

Like they’re cymbals and the rain was jazz

Through it all, the dirt outside

Shakes a bit to the sound of sirens

The sky will clear, I say

the way i was raised

the family i was born to

and every breath i take

it's in every turn of my head

the images i grew up watching

the conversations i caught on to

as a baby still wrapped in blankets...

the grief all around me,

so heart breaking, their eyes wet

i grew up watching emotions

to be catered— and needs to be met...

i think it's the way i was fed

and the way i was clothed

it's all in the way i was mold

to make space for them

even if it meant my soul getting sold

i can't write a poem about it

without rhyming like the ones in nursery

except i didn't go to school then, it's all just imaginary

it's in the way i grew old

trying to make myself smaller

taking less and lesser space

give it all up for their trauma

maybe it's cuz the parents were better off....

not being in the picture

maybe it's being taken care of, by a couple of strangers

it's not as bad as it sounds, it really isn't

some things are just metaphorical

but i really wish they weren't...

now i can't write a poem,

without it sounding like a children's rhyme

it's because i'm still stuck there,

i never grew past nine...

please understand,

To hear her laugh

And soft sayings.

She’ll compare me

To Psyche

Or Helen of Troy.

I love her whispers

Of secret confessions

As she traces figure eights

With delicacy upon my skin.

when I am among the trees, mary oliver (read by amanda palmer)

I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness, and discernment, and never hurry through the world but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, “Stay awhile.” The light flows from their branches.