Leave Her to Her Lake

She hops onto the next relationship searching for something more real than a conversation with herself. She’s not afraid of being alone. She’s afraid of what the little ponds in her mind whisper, that she’s forgotten. She lets men confuse her when she asks them, “What are we? And why can’t you love me?” Their responses turn into half thoughts like “oh darling. Darling. Look up at me. Come here,” and half kisses that taste like the mall’s orange chicken, deepening as if there’s more depth in a kiss than in words he doesn’t want to say. He knows she’s smart enough to protest or leave if he says any wrong thing, so he tugs her to him by the small of her back as if actions tell all. She allows him to lock her on his lap. At least here, in this swirl of unsatisfying answers where he emphasizes the beauty of “grayness”, she doesn’t feel forgotten, even as she’s slowly forgetting what fullness feels like when entangling with company that convinces her that “grayness” is her place in their life.

She stays here even as she hears echoes of every boy that’s ever given her everything, proving to her “grayness” doesn’t exist. But even then, his half kisses feel rich enough to make her feel wanted. And wanted means she isn’t forgotten.

She has dreams of addressing her own mediocrity, the mediocrity that led her here.

She has dreams of walking to the lake that is somewhere deep in her mind and nurturing it. Maybe nurturing this lake means leaving the lonely lies she’s told herself. Would she really continue to answer to this? Answer: “Is my own company so horrid I can’t entertain it properly? Wouldn’t I rather feel lost alone than to navigate with someone else’s compass?”

She is not Aching

Shadow Poem to “She Leaves Like”

She is not Aching

For home where snow does not fall and wind is not cruel,

Where branches of pink petals rain like jewels

And too many feet busy the stone streets searching

For pretty things, pretty people for whom she is not aching.

 

Here she is, standing still, her boat docking and rocking itself.

That small golden lantern dims like it is lost

As she plants weary feet on sinking black sand.

 

She is not aching for the warmth of seeping guava tea,

A mother that knew her at the first sight of unhappy,

Pink petals that fell on brown roofs, now burnt to black

Like the sand and silhouettes of mountains and temples

That encase her now, edges to the ink she lacks.

 

She may never fear temple-sized serpents

As much as she fears humans

who make shapes where they do not belong.

If they had left her and her people alone,

Then she would not be leaving and aching so alone.

 

It is not her human condition to chase an offender this far from home.