#99

Wrong out your rights
Wound all your heals
Drown out the noise
Erase how to feel
This second skin
We've settled in
Is better than
Anything

The Better Half

Crawl through mud and ash
Empires long forgotten
To reach
The better half of me
I prefer the tall grass 
And the wind whistling through
But I'm not divided in two
There are open fields,
Mountains of green
Where my mind wanders, and you
And maybe I prefer doors that 
Say welcome 
Even though you never open
Or bat an eyelid
When I sing and dance
Perhaps
The better half of me
Is me

I would like to meet you
But meet you from a distance 
We don't have to embrace or kiss
Like you say lovers did
Off of a postcard from New York stuck 
At the back of your bedroom door
The sailor's hat in the wind
Your hair dances 
Your feet, too small 
Like your hands 
But I don't see the lines 
Or the spilt mascara and overturned 
Eyelashes, the eyes are out of business,
the doors are still and closed 
Even if from a distance 
They seem open and inviting 
So you invite me for a walk
Then say you haven't got
the time to walk this line
And slip like shifting sands from dunes
Of the night, you blow smoke rings
And wouldn't like to sing
Or even gallop to a place
Far away, a city eroding by the sea
to see two walls going by
Across, parallel
Never to touch

One with the fading

When it rains
But the drops don't touch you
you can't seem to see
Your reflection in the mirror
Or in a puddle, the children splash about
Or even in the spoon, in your tea
You stir a storm
But nothing twists and turns
You can't recall when you
Erased yourself from your own page
In the diary of life
From the footnotes of others
The ink has dried
You're one with the fading

Frame

She moves in frames
The photo stays the same
As time goes by
It's hard to recall her name

Waiting in the shadows 
Aching for the pour to stop
In the eyes there's only rain
The heart shelters a drought

She said she'd rather not see
The other side of me
So I locked the doors
And threw away the key

She said one's a lonely sum
If only that were untrue
I need you like breadcrumbs, she said
Once the bread is through 

Flowers

Picture by Shreya Arya. Words by me.

#100

If there were three things I could do today,
They would be to burn
To burn and to burn.

Burn like the sun of a new day that sets the sky alight
Burn like the fires that keep burning even when it's raining

Many things in your life are as cold and stale as a limp dick
And the winter of your youth will never return
So keep burning

Burn like narendra modi just started eating beef
Burn like its watermelon season
Burn like the chillies are fresh
Burn like you were on fire like that one Vietnamese priest on the cover of rage against the machine's first album
Burn like Tom Morello's guitar chords on a pair of fresh strings

Burn like the cities inside of you are burning
And people are having sex on top of cars left behind on the road
And even though there are cops everywhere you aren't following the fucking curfew hours to go home because you'd rather burn

Burn down those who say you weren't man enough
Burn away those that say you're too much of a woman
Burn because you don't need to bow
Burn because you don't need permission

Burn, for you can withstand it
Burn, because your canvas is candid
And though I haven't planned it
When you burn
I won't leave you stranded.

Burn like the streets are empty
Burn like there's no music but
You're dancing anyway
Burn like you're dancing naked
Burn like everyone's watching you like a comet that comes by only once every 75 years

Burn like your parents are away
Burn like your plate is full
Burn like your grandparents used to get high
Burn and carve your name on this world
Forget about who offended you
Write an open letter to yourself
Stop being faceless on Facebook
Trendy on Twitter or tumbling over tumbler
Burn, as only you know how

If there were four things I could do today
They would be to burn, to burn, to burn
And to heal.