Harley and the Half-Burned Rage

I hope your badge is still intact, The one on your Harley jacket, “Sex Champion.” Bold. Confident. Delusional. You wore rebellion like your tattoos,
Etched over what you no longer wished to keep. Defiant smiles, Smart-ass remarks. But the day I held you, Your whole chest collapsed into mine, And for a moment, I felt the weight of every forgotten dream and heartache, You'd buried under all that protective armor.

Still, I hope it makes you feel like a man,
Even though your idea of seduction
Was mouths full of fire,
Crawling on bare bruised knees,
Treading through the river of desire,
Only to wake parched,
With desert dust settled at the back of our throats.

Riding on carousels teeming with mindless games,

Spinning in circles and circles and circles. You called it love.
I called it hunger.
You dressed silence as mercy,
Hiding all the ugly pettiness
Beneath your oh-so-polite exterior.
And the cruelty in how softly you sighed 

as you unbuttoned my soul that night.

You said sex wasn’t the point. Until it was. Until that was all your tongue-tied cowardice
Could muster in the face of my unburdening. As if love were something to ration. As if my body could be borrowed, While a “no vacancy for the heart” sign Hung quietly at the foot of your door.

No, I wasn’t perfect.
I left, over and over,
Trying to drown my own feelings
In floods of indifference,
So it wouldn’t drag me back,
To the tender awakening, I discovered in the safety of your hands and lips, A place that now only echoes,
With the resounding desperation of my own voice.

Still,
I don’t regret how I showed up with an offering. I twisted myself small enough to fit into your palm,
Even when it felt like pouring gasoline
Onto my own wounds,
Ready for the burn and the wreckage,
If it meant you'd find
A safe landing right in the middle of the smoke. But I stopped setting myself ablaze When my love shriveled In the cold carved out By your apathy to my pain.

You were my softest war. And somewhere in you, I hope it still echoes, Not my name. Not my perfume. Not the way I kissed your nose. But the way I never made you feel small For being so afraid, To hold things, You had no idea how to love.

This is the final uprising. The mess I won't tidy.
In the unfinishedness.
The parts I’ll never send.
The parts you’ll never read again.
This is the ending:
I no longer bleed color for a world that never illuminated mine. “I carry fire. And I don’t hand it to those who only want my light and can not offer me any warmth.”

Letting the wait pass

Level me with your eyes. 
I'm still waiting for you to break down 
These walls of silence
Maybe there are fragments of broken dreams, 
Caught in the chasms of my soul, 
A little bit of you 
And a little bit of us
Blurred eyes and blurred smiles
This missing still tastes like your lips
My steady breath on your chest 
This was not loved, no, 
Only a glimpse
There was a soul like mine. 

I wish you love

I might have been one of many women in your life, but in seven years, you were the only man I truly wanted. 

You were the slow flame kind of love. There were no sparks in your presence, only the warmth and comfort like the gentle heat of a hearth on a cold night. And oh, the mouth full of kisses. For all these years, I didn’t realize that my version of normal was like holding my breath under icy, dark waters. Kissing you felt like finally surfacing, taking in a deep, real breath. I had forgotten what desire rushing through my body felt like. Maybe even the feeling of being wanted. But I don’t really know if I ever knew the latter.

I had hoped we could find a way forward, even if only as friends, because our connection felt genuine, and I wanted to keep you, the person you are, in my life. I really did adore you. I didn’t need to be in a romantic relationship to do that. But the minute you felt I was infringing on your freedom was the minute you threw me out. Every request I made was seen as an attempt to control you. I always had the sense you saw me as a competitor, someone to resist, rather than an ally. 

I told you early on that if you ever wanted me to leave, all you had to do was say the word, and I would. Yet, you kept me around while you sorted through your own feelings, slowly ghosting me in the process. I just ripped the bandage off once you told me “don’t get attached”. 

Honesty may sting briefly, but it’s the mixed signals that leave lasting wounds. The hurt was prolonged for both of us because you chose apathy, ambiguity, and distance to shield yourself from discomfort.  If there was not a single thing about me that you felt you wanted in your life then we simply weren’t compatible. No judgment. I wouldn’t have tried selling myself to you so you’d keep me.

Love, at its core, embodies forgiveness. It takes a lot of willingness and grace to accept our own mistakes and those of others. It demands even more bravery and vulnerability to build meaningful relationships. I am not claiming my actions were perfect—I own my mistakes. But you never seemed capable of offering or accepting apologies. You chose to stonewall me. 

The real tragedy for me is your denial of your feelings and avoidance of accountability, as if you couldn't bear the weight of your own truth. You didn’t need to tell me you had feelings for me, only to retract those words days later and express interest in other women. Then telling me you changed your mind. It felt cruel.

I saw your doppelganger one day. The man was playing with his little daughter, his wife by his side. I looked at them, and only a duaa came, that you have your own family - the love and security of belonging somewhere with someone you love and who makes you feel loved.

I also had a dream where you were laughing, a belly-full laugh, exquisitely happy. 

I know that no words could convey more of what this was than the silence between us. The truth is you were barely ever curious about me or my world. We were momentary guests in each other’s lives. Jahan ho, jaisay ho, I wish you a beautiful life.

Call me love

I'm throwing up my hands. 
I don't want this war
Don't let me leave
Stop. 
I'm throwing up my hands. 
Waving the White Flag
Stop 
Please
I'm throwing up my hands
But you were already long gone. 
You used to taste like love
Left out in the cold too long, 
A beating heart 
Murmuring its way to death 
The last glimpse of me in your iris, 
Shoulders rolled in
Feet turned away
Were you really there?
I miss you 
Never covered the years that got lost behind 

Still a stranger in familiar crowds 
Moving through cities 
that don't know my name 
But you can call me love 
I'm the forgotten 
Just like her. 

You were the reason

This city and I share a heart,
Your absence forever wandering through the streets 
Silence follows me around without footsteps 
Forgiven, all human sins. 
Except our love story
Heaviness holding my tongue down 
Do words give my missing you away? 
The empty spaces,
Shroud my despair in a solar-powered smile, 
Praying on Temple steps 
To a God, I cannot find 
To please keep you safe. 
Still looking up at the sky 
Knowing that it holds a roof over your head. 
Pushing the world back
With the strength you gave me
Let me find the love
I loved you with 
A reason to be alive 
Stitch it piece by piece back in me 
Reveling in the beautiful colors of this broken mosaic of light. 
Let me find the love that I loved you with 
For my own mortal time.

Winter's solace

Hand me a sunshine of solace
Im stitching the hems of my soul
Looking for places
Still nowhere to go
Simmer me in silence
With the sound of my heart beat in my ears
Barren landscapes
Something always refused to grow
Searching for a mirror
In faces that had no eyes to see
Tracing fingertips
In hands that can not hold
The world keeps on spinning
Erase my existence
I was never really here
Run up to me 
To tell me you'd want me to stay
Long after I've faded from your memory
The butterfly's wings on the wintry wind
The color in the dull gray sky
Sometimes this is only what it means to be alive.

Who we are

Someone said, "You're a really tough woman". I held back from saying, "I wish I didn't have to be".

Tenderness and love. Give me tenderness and a place to rest my head. When the lights turn dim, a hand to hold. The warmth that I don't have to do it all alone. I have all the magical solutions to fix the punctures in my deflated world.

My sister telling me, "You had it the hardest".

Recalling my ex kissing my forehead saying, "you were the scared little girl who everyone failed to protect so you turned into the woman no one or nothing can break. I'm sorry, I hurt you". I've built a throne made up of all the sorries I was not there. Carefully collecting them from every corner. Then burnt down my kingdom.

Fear. I have gulped it down all my life. Look straight at it in the eye. Everyone building rainbows to stop it from creeping in me. If only I was allowed to be scared. With safe hands to shelter me. Who we are and who we become. In the absence of mercy

If I can take one more hit, I can take my life

If I can take one more hit, I will take my life

Take it, take it

Swallow it down

Shove it down

These bruises will heal,

Until the body refuses.

Purge out all of the bullshit and their philosophies. We are still standing as a sign of some of sort twisted victory.

Who we are and oh god what have we become.I am not a lover, I am not a fighter. I am only a human. Heart thrown to the ground. Smashed to the floor. Here's a piece left of me. Take it. Pick it if you want. I have no use or need for it now.

But, in my silence, that little girl peers at me

When I look at her, she smiles and runs to my arms. Her first home finally of safety.

Who we are…and..in the process..who we become.