I: Cinnamon and Clove
Sweet child, it’s ok,
Let heal.
Let cradle this soul,
A tortured, scorched corpse.
Let scream,
Raging starvation,
For the childhood deprivation,
Emaciated still.
Sever these ties,
Relinquish this skin.
Peel back each layer,
Visceral. Agonising.
So long you held on
To hopes and prayers
Not a soul nor sound
Only whispers, here, I’ve found.
this deity you imagined,
Has long since faded,
perhaps never existed.
Never visited.
nor to be trusted.
Sweet child come here.
Hate grips you, it clings.
Massacre the old body,
The one you’ve held dear.
Synchronise your souls,
Allowed to become whole.
the toll this has caused,
greater than known.
Hush my sweet child,
Have hope for yourself.
Speak softly of yourself.
This, the greatest gift to yourself.
II: Lemon Verbena and Sweet Cicely
A soul so untouched,
Unmarred by the years,
Of duality and confusion, and so many tears,
This face of yours so filled with joy,
no second mask, no secret ploy.
Where souls have trampled this barren earth,
Scarred by the wounds of traumas passed,
You’ve planted the seeds of graceful mirth,
beacon of hope, tethered since birth.
However my dear, what a burden to bear,
To absorb this pain, with invariable care,
Release yourself now,
This nonconsensual entrapment,
True freedom lies in selfish advancement.
III: Blood Orange and Ginger
Let me soak myself in your aura.
Suck the poison and rot and infection,
A pathology to this pure soul.
Perceived alone,
Sole.
Please don’t be in pain, my love,
It was worth it all, you see my love?
In this meaningless, absurd world,
We had found each other,
Our love, unfurled.
Each other, stagnating infection.
Each other, triggering reflection.
Mirroring,
Our eternal imperfection.
I always, a skeptic of the stars, my love,
Though this, a spiritual symbol.
A fateful collision of energies.
A synergy, absolutely.
A love so enigmatic, but felt so truly.
Together, forever, an infinite bliss.
So much deeper, than a lover's tryst.
Of relief, unburdened, released from ache,
Deeper than the highest stake.
For my love, I have never had love
So blissfully felt.
In your presence,
I eternally,
Melt.
I whisper to you now, my love,
Heart thudding, fragile recognition.
Not so furious now my love,
But understanding this pain, a precise incision.
For now, we part ways my love?
To see you this way,
Us, we, this; not the same.
For the stars may have aligned so perfectly for a time,
Our palms intertwined.
Your arms in mine,
A day without you, terrifying reality,
I thought we were destined, aligned?
Perhaps now, temporarily.
We must leave us to find,
To find, to sort, to calm, to cry,
Granules of sand, slipping slowly by.
You said you would never leave me behind.
I gaze to you now my love, with love.
For you opened something within me so pure,
Infectious, stripped raw,
Left vulnerable, nude.
But, we must part now my love,
I am releasing you my love,
As this love,
But always loved.
My love,
I will never forget you.
But you are not mine,
And I not yours,
Though always our first,
With love,
IV: Peppermint and Star Anise
Limbs protruding, a silent exhale,
The body plucked and twisted.
Bonsai tree still; overwhelmed and overpowered.
This glasshouse jail cell,
Figures looming in the watchtower.
A shallow grave of dust removed,
Solitary landscape, winds intrude.
Seated neatly - silently pleasing,
eyes vacant, subservient teasing,
Amongst the dirt and grass, and decomposition,
A stark juxtaposition - of light to weeds.
Unmoving; paralysed? Injected with fear,
For sheer movement, lest escape, is met with tears.
Someone hush her, dress her, caress her - be still,
Seated, shallow grave,
Bonsai tree fulfilled.
To be twisted and maimed and pruned for eternity,
Obsessively observed and surveilled, no pity.
This silence, an illusion, within her much harsher;
Bonsai tree rotting,
Roots dying; leaves greying.
She screams and screams, begging emancipation.
Hands clasped together, desperately praying.
Where is unknown, skies beyond barren.
This shallow grave, a solitary grave.
For this bonsai tree starved.
Soulless; carved.
For this glasshouse a cling wrap that suffocates her still.
Comb the dirt over,
Now bed and blanket, within,
To wilt.
These were some poems I wrote as a reflection on love; with my body, with people, with parents. To be loved, or to be deprived of it, is one of the most transformative experiences on this Earth - it’s what motivates us on the most primal level and what inspires us in the most spiritual. All the people that have blessed me with their presence have impacted me profoundly. These poems are an ode to them.