Poetic Justice
Your body language speaks your name. I have only my words. I’m a bundle of all things that hide inside “I’m okay.”
How do I tell someone, you broke my insides, left a gaping void when you kicked me away like I didn’t matter and it took a lot for me to cover up those holes but now you’re back, there’s no room for you in my life because I did the job of covering up so well, I always do everything well but you never noticed until you needed it & I wasn’t there & you’re back wanting a place in my life & you can’t have it?
How do I say all that with one body?
You shrug or look elsewhere; it’s done. I can only make some things go away by acting like they’re over already & then, like they never happened. But angst becomes real when it has an audience. Even vicariously, by its very relatability, a piece such as this, becomes your story. I realise the telling of it has pried loose stuff caked to the floor of the dark corners of my mind & put them into a feature film. The unmanageable past is back to torment me out of the optimised bits & bytes that make up my life.
You clear your throat & just like that the feelings vanish. I become all the words that went missing. I turn you into deep, lasting emotion. The kind that leaves burn marks. That turn into scars. That turn into art. I turn you into paper planes & poetry. I mix in a potluck of poets, all carrying their own brand of poisoned emotion. We make our own ghosts, call it creativity. We are the faultline in our scars.
The ivory you stole from the elephant in the room, you fashioned into a weapon. I’m walking around with a knife called YOU, embedded in my heart & stab wounds like your words-sharp, clumsy, uncaring. They turn to blood & ornament my skin as I melt them with tears & with love. Your body language tells your story. Lies. Lies.
But you never learnt that words & weapons, like animals & children go easily to those who hold them gently. That’s poetic justice.
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#IWear: mythology themed makeup for @alphabetsambar #LitLab-Mythological Musings
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: BANG BANG: Nancy Sinatra
*Read my other Love Poetry. Or listen to it.
(On Instagram)
