Uncle

by | Jun 3, 2024 | Poetry

from a hint of petrichor on its collision with the dirt,
to a mumble in the streets and a damp sidewalk,
i conjure your memory.

i imagine you, only a boy enslaved in the body of a man, as he guides his niece down a memory,
hauntingly familiar.
in awe of unscathed innocence, gently observant of its course.

a strange joy conceives a moment, ignorant of consequence,
soiled sandals didn’t spare her toes, the tips of her pants bathed in rain,
all five of her fingers manage their way round one of yours.

you yearn for the youth age deceived you was absent,
there was a wisdom laced in her crooked vocabulary,
you loved her a little more,
when you saw yourself in her blithe.

Mother

by | Jun 3, 2024 | Poetry

she told me i look beautiful when i cry.
flushed cheeks of velvet and puddled eyelids,
did i really look beautiful mother?

at my feet saw an orbit of tears pooled beyond a horizon,
the pale waters distorted, but i finally looked like you.
to watch my reflection in the foreign symmetry of your face,
left me bewildered.

did you, too, find a twisted solace in quiet cries?
mother, how don’t you see that beauty you found in my sunken eyes,
to see it for you?

the gutted feeling of seeing the strongest person you know refuse to surrender to her pain, when she too, taught you the beauty of release. a concept introduced to me by my father talks about viewing conflict with people as mirrors, as reflections.

Dream

by | Jun 3, 2024 | Poetry

her toes tease the pull my feet lay idle on.
i am drawn by almond clefts that claim eyes,
saw a scene i can’t recall.

i want to touch her, is she soft?
or are her fingertips calloused with the earth’s dirt she doesn’t bother shed?

i crouch to her level, fumbling for a dialogue that can gauge her attention,
undivided at the skies instead.

i wonder then perhaps, does she find me beautiful?
she doesn’t hold a gaze to my face,
maybe I am unimpressive then

my hand grapples a weight latched to my chest,
but is catching cloth that clings to trembling skin.

i am terrified of you,
till dainty fingers lace themselves around mine.

i want to hold you,
i want you to like me,
we can’t.

then i wake and she’s gone,
left only at the pit of my chest like residual tar,
because she wasn’t meant to be here.

she was destined for the beautiful part of a daydream.

this poem captures a moment in a dream where i met my younger self. i found that i admired her but she was indifferent toward me. the more we gained proximity, the more detached she became. it’s a readmiration for myself, when i was so unapologetically me – because i didn’t know what else to be.

Letter On Her Back

by | Apr 1, 2023 | Poetry

in a moment such as this, i entertain a fleeting thought
so dense that i am overwhelmed.
where she asks me to hold her to sleep, and i think i could quite simply die here and not mind it at all.

i wonder why i’d think such a thing, but it’s not a thought to dishearten;
it’s an instance of peace so grand i could settle in it,
limit morality for its suspension.

but she asked me to write on her back,
so i began with this thought at the base of my tongue,
and drew her a letter on her back.

she asks me, ‘are you really writing something?’
i affirm, ‘yes.’

she asks me what it is.
i tell her I’m writing her a letter
but when she wants to hear it i refuse.
i know i’ll confess it to her one day,
but today i’d like it to stay on her skin.