Red.

A cruel person? I never thought of myself
As painted red. Yet now, I feel it. In my blood.
Red.

So many years of hiding, being terrorised.
Now I am the terror. For just a moment.
To a girl who is already stained red.
Dyed with a blood red spattered knife
She cut my flesh with. So many years ago.

Now I stand and hold my own knife and slice
Her fashionista cheeks. I show how strong I am.
How I now hold the scars of her knife
And many others to the light.

They are as opaque as my flesh itself.
Hidden. Present, yet invisible.

I have more papers to my name. More words.
More red ink ticks. Fewer red ink crosses.
I am better. And I take my own knife,
Calmly. Without hate. And show that I have won.

I sit here and wipe clean my blade, her blood
Staining my fingers.
I didn’t mean to be cruel. I didn’t mean to hurt.
Yet somehow, as I showed myself to be different now
Than I was then, I smiled to myself, teeth between lips.
Painted red.

Red.

A cruel person? I never thought of myself
As painted red. Yet now, I feel it. In my blood.
Red.

So many years of hiding, being terrorised.
Now I am the terror. For just a moment.
To a girl who is already stained red.
Dyed with a blood red spattered knife
She cut my flesh with. So many years ago.

Now I stand and hold my own knife and slice
Her fashionista cheeks. I show how strong I am.
How I now hold the scars of her knife
And many others to the light.

They are as opaque as my flesh itself.
Hidden. Present, yet invisible.

I have more papers to my name. More words.
More red ink ticks. Fewer red ink crosses.
I am better. And I take my own knife,
Calmly. Without hate. And show that I have won.

I sit here and wipe clean my blade, her blood
Staining my fingers.
I didn’t mean to be cruel. I didn’t mean to hurt.
Yet somehow, as I showed myself to be different now
Than I was then, I smiled to myself, teeth between lips.
Painted red.

You stand, strange in London’s harsh glare.
Small flowers drift over your soft shape.
Somehow perfect.

Wearing a bindi, for heaven’s sakes. An alien
To a pinstriped commuter world.
Floating.

Not Indian. You relate to an English pub.
And yet here you smile. Radiant in otherness.
Striking.

You seem awkward. Not quite here. Not quite there.
Bright eyes glimmer. Cotton dances around you
You seem to hide from my gaze,

Now you are one.
Individual. Yourself.
Alone.

Regular Journeys

My compass seems tied like lead weight around my feet,
Telling me to walk further. Climb still higher. Yet the weight
Seems weightless. Endless freedom tied to my back
Like the cheap gauze angel wings of a little girl.

My feet ache, tired, a weary walk attempting to escape
The real world. The real places of my life. The school,
The kitchen, the Starbucks. Escaping from regularity.
From obligation. The real world hiding its face from mine in its shame.

Trees cower in the heat. A golden shimmer
Seems almost transcendant. There is no escape here either,
Besides the war outposts and ancient concrete gunposts.
I fear finding a dead man.
All metres away from Mary Magdalene.

Religion and war hiding together. Alone.

Suddenly, a moment where even this strange world
Decides to hide its tired face. Yet, this is not a real world.

A place where religion hides from the sun and yet is in its centre.
Flame heat mutates into frozen arches, strange monsters
Beaming down with glaring faces. There are no houses. No reality.
You walk here. You may only walk away.

Dry grass laps against stone walls. A door turns to the face of a
Dying God. Slowly He falls. I watch. The gargoyles stare deeper.
I smile. Somehow, death is warmer, magical. I light a candle.
Try to resurrect the dead Gods. It doesn’t work.

Yet I see higher. The dome, beautiful. Alone.
Stunning in its solitude. The arches defy anything.
Weak. Yet strong. A place of opposites. Of hiding.
Of fear. Of disguise. Of life.
A place of dreams.

Language

I’m writing, aren’t I? Writing in the language of my endless youth
That continues into my strange everyday. I think with my tongue,
How to move and give grace of speech. My language.
Like I own it. Yeah right.

Try to teach it. A whole new language that seems to have no point.
No reason besides to confuse, to complicate.
Just learn to speak it, damn you!
Apparently I just built a dam.

It all looks so easy from the video. The smiles and happy faces
As they all understand. Strange sounds mutate into words
They suddenly know. I’m meant to evolve them. Evolve myself.

An old language they say. “You can speak, can’t you” they say.
All these people, coming to open a ‘British’ world.
I teach to escape. To close it.
How ironic.

One, Two, Three, Wink.

Stand and be gazed at. You see eyes,
Everywhere. They attempt to absorb you,
Gather you into their arms and strike you
Dumb. Absorb all you know. In a moment.

I’m meant to talk my years into their mind,
Speak away their fears into blind belief.
You must be kidding. And yet, they gaze
Putting their dreams into their glares.

I remember this. I try to think, try to know
Of my years and yet they vanish.

Vanish into nothing.

I’m meant to know something.
I’m meant to understand myself.
And yet, i’m yet young.

They grumble and poke papers into the correct order.
I tell them to smile and they do, only to let it fade
After a moment. I tell them it’s safe.
They reply with panicking eyes.

How can I turn darkness into light?
How can I turn the world around?
Brown eyes blue?
One,
Two,
Three,
Wink.