A secret burn,
Flower under grass,
The last leaf when all else are gone.
Self immolation
Keep everyone else warm
Burn yourself out.
Tag: Love
A walk
A winter night,
In her eyes starlight
Thousands of years old.
Answers
Moonlit night,
Her question
Answers itself.
Ave
Hello distance,
You’ll always have me
Remember.
Your endless laughter,
Your skin like summer.
Why do you lament?
Just lend me your lips
So I can sweeten them.
Lift your head through storms
At least we’ll have those days
Which went on forever
Like your curls and the depth
Of your light brown eyes.
Tell me your dream again,
No tolls for the emperor of dread
No one has escaped yet.
Tears from Ceylon
Won’t cut through fate.
I’ll remember crimson grins
and flowers in your hair.
Write to me, dear friend.
We’ll see where we go.
Across the map
All the things you said,
It’s not enough.
It’s not enough,
That you have it going on.
Show me your hand
You’re never playing
It doesn’t match your fate.
I feel like silence,
But not when you’re around
I love the way, the day feels today.
Are you afraid
while I look your way?
We should have stayed home.
But now we know,
No forgetting now.
Put some wind in your hair,
While we run away,
Never leave us out.
Hold on, Goodbye
Hold on, you said.
If I knew where we were going
I’d lose my way.
Are we just the weight of memories?
I know what you’re trying to say,
The lost possibilities you still see.
And I’ll catch a cold, away
From your jar of hearts
But you already know,
So hold on, hold on,
The weight of fallen memories
Will keep us afloat
Away from Goodbye.
Transgress
Listen,
You want quiet but you should hear
between your fleeing emotions,
Between an ocean
My eyes will not see what they longed to see
and
your lips will not taste what they long to taste
So why try to forget
When time will make everything seem misplaced?
Girl from Galle
You’d ask why I said nothing
laughing as you do,
whispering in Sinhala.
But when you’re so far away
I only hear a phone,
so different.
Not your laugh while
you lay on grass and
your curls threatened
to envelop the world.
Waiting so long
Look back while the morning comes,
Find your face on the mirrors edge,
Ride the moonlight rays,
It rains while you hide in shade.
What’s that, that stays the same?
What’s in playing with your crown?
I’m staring through glass,
So wear the grey before you fade away.
Poor Rapunzel
Poor Rapunzel locked away in her room, her corner, her gender. Poor, poor Rapunzel. Didn’t she understand it was for her own good? Why are women so blond yaar? We just have their best interests in mind but they never see.
Look at her now. Choking down tears. What’s the point in suppressing tears? She looks so ugly like that. Don’t even get me started on how annoying the muffled sobs of girls are. Why is she ashamed? If she was a boy we wouldn’t have let her cry. If she was a boy all these problems wouldn’t be there. Now who will marry her? She looked like a cow, but now she’s a buffalo.
What is this short hair hungama? Doesn’t she care about her looks? It is not Indian culture. We’ve lost our standing now. All the neighbors have seen. They’ll say look at that girl; they’ll never come to her wedding. She’s marked. She’s almost worthless on the marriage market now. We let her color her hair. We sent her to medical. But still she cut those beautiful locks.
She’s lucky. She doesn’t understand. If this was Pakistan, no? How much more a villager would have done if she’d gone all over the city after with a boy who, god forbid, might be Muslim. So lucky she is. Anywhere else this would call for an honor killing. She’s lucky a beating is all we gave to remind her of her place, to punish her for cutting her hair. Now we’ll have to find a better astrologer. The family will have to sell a few kidneys, but hopefully we’ll find one of these Americanized boys for her. Some of them like short hair.
But we? We are martyrs. So much we have to suffer. This would never happen in my Grandfather’s day. This would never happen in your Great Grandfather’s day. What to do? Kids these days. We should have been smart and kept her at home. One day a prince will take her and make her his long haired prize, just you wait.
Rijul Ballal 