Blue was your
least favorite color,
but you wore it on
your skin like a trophy,
like it was something
you were born in,
like it was a gift
you were asked
to never take off.
Empty smiles served
as your silver and gold,
as your diamonds
and pearls,
you thought them
very well befitting the
scarves strung
around your neck:
those knitted little
must-not-speaks
that threatened to pull
at both sides if you were
ever to utter those words
that churned the very
insides of your stomach.

Here you are, facing
the mirror that never
quite gave you clarity.
You are anything
but true to yourself.

You spend your days
in a violent haze,
drowning in
your merciless thoughts. In your
head, they’re
boundless as the sea
but they end up condensed
to a single insignificant drop
that lingers unspoken
at the tip of your tongue
until you find yourself
swallowing,
defeated.
If this feeling were a
part of human anatomy,
you think
it would definitely be
a rib cage, for it holds you
hostage;
quietly asphyxiated,
effectively suffocated,
promising eternal safety
to the seemingly undying
ache it harbors – to
the inhales and exhales
of a hopeless entity,
to a Stockholm Syndrome
victim who never
knew any better.
If this feeling were a
part of human anatomy,
you think
it would never be a hand,
for hands always give,
and hands always caress,
and hands always comfort,
and all it does is take
away more and more
of your livelihood,
as it robs you
of your will to breathe.
These can’t be fingers,
you think,
because fingers
are graceful,
and fingers
hold,
and all you ever
seem to be doing is
falling
ever so gracelessly.

Here you are,
chalking your pain
up to destiny.
You are anything
but safe in your skin.

You lie in an
unfathomable mess
of adult urges
and childish fears.
You think your future’s
all written out
for you like a script
you can’t ever change:
Act one;
you are forever
defined
by the shifting of
your eyes, by the
hesitation of your
lips, by the worrisome
longing of your skin.
Act two;
you will always be
waiting for the chaos
in your head
to settle, for the
whispering in your
ears to speak
in a different
language,
a language you know
you’re allowed
to listen to.
The final act;
you will spend
the rest of your
mortality
wishing for a time
and place where
these words
could slide right off
your taste buds without
a life sentence.
And then you will die.

And yet, here you are,
entrapping yourself
in your own version of
black and white stripes.

You are anything,
but you are nothing
until
you admit
that this is who you are,
until you hold your head
up high –     not in pride,
but in recognition,
and appreciation of the
parts of you
that refuse to wilt
away, of the side of you
that refuses to
break at the bending
of your surroundings.
You are anything,
but you are nothing
because you keep
yourself imprisoned
in this shameful prism.
You’ve gone and
confined your own light
inside these hateful walls,
unaware that
all you ever had to do
to feel alive is to
just let it flow right out of you,
so it could pass through
and seep to the other side;
so your rainbows
could set the universe
into color, could set
their depressing grey
into an understanding
shade of
everything
between red and violet.
You are anything,
but you are nothing
until you tear off the skin
sewn forcefully onto your body
for the skin you were born in.

This is who you are.

And better aeons late
than never,
make peace with it.

You say you’d like to buy
a time machine and replay
that year all over again.
You say you’d do it all
over and over, until it’s over,
until it’s really, really over;
until you no longer get the urge
to lay your head on grassy
landscapes just to look for my face
in the stars. You say it’s gone
and we’re different, you say the only
thing that’s still the same is the way
that music in our chest
still plays that old tune when
we’re not thinking; still plays that
song that ruptures us when
no one’s looking.

But you’ve got that look in your eye;
the one that says you’re not
telling the truth. You’ve got that
look that’s telling me not to trust
what you’re saying, that same
damn look that intoxicated me
that day you told me
nothing would go wrong
and I was just a little “maybe”,
rolled in flesh and bones, so
unsure of whether you
would kill me or save me. And you
sang me serenades of “sure”
and “absolutely”
and you stood beautifully on my
world with your flag in hand,
and that was the day I became
your absolute Indian.
You stormed in on me,
and I loved the rain, loved the way
your hurricane spun me around because
I was a dancer and you knew exactly how
to hold me; arms up and feet off the
ground – you turned me over and over until I
forgot
how stability felt like.

“Fly me up into your seventh heaven
and promise me
I’ll never learn how it feels to fall”,

until I fall for you.
Until I fall for forever.
Until every step I take is another shard
stuck in the soles of my feet.

This is not about you.

This is about me
all parts of me
burnt-out and broken,
perfect and tainted as I am. This is
about the blood
on our hands and the heaviness
in our chests, about the the scars on
our eyes and the stains on
our flesh. This is about
the past that’s been on repeat,
this is about being stuck in a
fantasy. This is about that
broken record
you and I are sick of listening to,
of feeling to, this is about
the desperate need for an unattainable
fix. You say sorry,
but sorry is just another word
I can no longer hear from all the
goodbyes echoing
in my ears; give me sorries in
rays of light because
my eyes have adjusted to darkness
and I’m terrified of how
they don’t miss the sunshine. But you’re
fading and we’re hopeless, and
my fingers are tired of clutching on to things
that are no longer theirs.
We’re fucking beautiful,
but we’re doomed,
and you say
we were meant
to be, but I think
you’ve misunderstood.
You and I were meant to break
one another, meant
to shatter each other’s souls
until there was nothing left
of us that was fragile,
until we were both loose powder roaming
high above the seven seas and the
wild universes.

“It’ll be because
it’s meant to be”,

and I would have agreed
with you before. But you were my sun
and now
it’s night-time, and it’s no longer
you
I long for; it’s the tips of
my fingers
I left buried in your skin.
You say we can get past it,
you say
it’s water under the bridge,
but I can see you sinking
from miles away;
can see your arms
helplessly
trying
to fight the current, can see
your lungs filling up
with water, can still see
that flicker of hope
in your drowning eyes.

Take a second to listen to the words I’m saying,
that’s all I ask.
If you’d just hear me out,
if you’d just please concentrate for once,
you’d hear that ticking begin to slow, and
you’d see that last speck of sand
rushing into the other half of the hourglass
to find its final resting place.

This, dropping unguarded
and uninhibited,
falling with only maybe-nots in mind
this is the hope I had for us.

This, my love,
my lost love,
this is the end of our time.

Her raven hair bewitches him again.
He’s fallen victim to her magic time and time before.
Her eyes like wands sultrily casting spells upon his limbs;
“I love you”, she says.

He thinks it, too.
He wants to say it because it’s true.
But a thick layer of pride covers his lips
He slightly pushes her away when she leans in for a kiss
It’s hard for him to do, but he does it still.
It’s something he does against his will.
Stay calm, he silently scolds himself.
He’ll have to get to the bottom of this.

But she touches his hand and her skin feels wrong
He’s seen this coming for way too long.
He sees it in her eyes,
He’s right, he knows he’s right.
She’s done it again, that fucking bitch.
He knows he’s never wrong about these things.

“You were with him, weren’t you?” he asks condescendingly.
He smells him all over her smooth shoulders,
Her soft hands,
Her perfect fingers.
He smells him on her breath.

She stares daringly at him.
“I love you.”
She repeats.
But he shoves her away,
How dare she say that to him again?

“Why won’t you tell me that you love me?”
She plays the wounded victim so perfectly.
Her voice cracks and he sees a layer of tears coating her eyes.
They fall down her cheeks like little balls of lies.

But he’s not falling for it.
He’s not falling for her acting;
Her rehearsed lines and fake crying.
He’s not falling for her lustful hands.
This woman should be on a stage,
Not here in his arms, he thinks
He is not a fucking audience.

She’s waiting for a response and her body’s shaking
He’s too used to her obvious faking.
“There’s no one else in my life.” She whispers.
He wishes badly that he could believe her.

He loves her with all his heart.
He’s loved her from the very start.
He loves her chapped lips,
Her bony hips,
Her bitten nails,
Her dark eyes,
Her freckles,
Her dimples,
Her graceless shoulders,
Her scarred back,
Her naturally rosy cheeks.
He loves her, so why does she lie to him?

“I’m not greedy for wanting you all to myself.”
She’s giving him that blank look again.
She takes a few steps back from where he stands.
His anger’s building up from within
He hates the state he’s in
But he’s angry and his trust’s been broken
And she’s still giving him that same damned look.

“He’s a son of a bitch for taking what’s mine.”
How could he let it go this time?
She’s quiet, but she’s seen his wrath before.
She tries to talk but he doesn’t want to hear it anymore
She has to pay for this, he thinks,
She’s broken his heart.
How could he be too blind to realize she was this smart?
He’s been giving her his undivided love
Has what he’s given her never been enough?

He grabs the object on his right
A red vase she bought the other night
There’s ten red roses in it from Valentine’s day
He’d surprised her with a whole bouquet
And now they’re flying all around
And one by one, they hit the ground.

She loves him to death.
She knows that because she’s seen it once or twice before.
She’s gone back and forth between life and death so she’s seen it all.
He’s all she knows and he’s all she loves,
He’s all she owns and all she trusts.

She can’t live without him, she’s sure.
But can he live without her?
Sometimes it seems that way.
Because he keeps breaking her heart,
And still she stays.
He’s her home, her light, her one true love
He’s her heaven-sent treasure from up above
He’s hers and she’s his, it’s always been that way
So no matter how much he breaks her, she’ll always stay.

Yes, they’ve had bad times, but most of it was good
He is an amazing man, but he was just misunderstood
So she’s never leaving, this is where she feels at home
And she doesn’t mind the scars and broken bones
He loves her, he’s said so, so she’s sure.
He’s an angry man, but he’s the only thing that’s hers.
Besides, people have always said she was strong
She’d hate to have to prove them wrong.

She loves him to death, yes, she was willing to die;
If that’s what it took to prove to him it wasn’t a lie.
And she’ll take a beating or two if it meant he could trust her again
So when the glass hits her head, she understands.
And now shards are falling to the floor
And she’s still standing before the man she adores.

He’s not a monster, she knows his love for her.
So she’ll try to quieten her sobs until it was over
Their skins are colliding, hers breaks with his touch
She never knew her skin could fathom this much
Whatever part of her he holds crumbles from the outside in;
And now she’s face down on the floor, glass penetrating her skin.
She closes her eyes and takes it all
If he’ll feel better after this, then it was worth the fall
She just wishes he would believe her when she says
She’s never slept in anyone else’s bed
She’s never looked at another man before
She knew they had something she couldn’t ignore.

He loves her to death and his heart it aching
And as he kicks her, he can feel her bones are breaking
He hurts, but he knows he’s right about this feeling
And now she’s right before him, kneeling;
She’s not begging or screaming, so she must know she deserves it.
She’s not putting up a fight so he knows he’s right.

She’s gone and broken his heart again
And he’s gone and broken her bones again
He loves her to death
But is it his death or hers?

He stands over her like a tower
He’s always had all the power
But tears are falling from his eyes
His tears are taking him by surprise
He’s shocked by the sudden rush of emotion
His tears are flooding out like an ocean
He falls to his knees and holds her hand
Why she keeps hurting him, he’ll never understand
And even though she tears him apart, he’ll never let go
And he realizes that’s something she already knows
And even though she’s a liar, she’s still the one
And without her, he knows his life is done.

“I’m sorry.” Is whispered and barely heard.

“I’m only human. There’s only so much I can take.”

 

© Copyright 7ala Abdullah