Graphite Reflections

𝓕𝓻𝓪𝓰𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽𝓼 𝓸𝓯 𝓽𝓱𝓸𝓾𝓰𝓱𝓽𝓼 𝓫𝓮𝓷𝓮𝓪𝓽𝓱 𝓸𝓫𝓼𝓲𝓭𝓲𝓪𝓷 𝓲𝓷𝓴, 𝔀𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓮 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓪𝓯𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓶𝓪𝓽𝓱 𝓲𝓼 𝓼𝓽𝓻𝓸𝓷𝓰𝓮𝓻 𝓽𝓱𝓪𝓷 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓺𝓾𝓪𝓴𝓮. Hello! Daydreamer and aspiring poet here. I'm into raw metaphors, psychology and surrealism. Presenting an incomplete archive and portfolio, where shower thoughts and random midnight musings find a home.

[bloomingobsidian]

A little sketch 🌱

I love Jane Eyre.

[grozat]

the long winter evening

[thats-a-cat]

that's a cat ✅️

[bloomingobsidian]

A recent piece.💜🎀🔮🎆

[bloomingobsidian]

Somehow it doesn't feel right. I know, my sandals squeak a bit too deliberately against the pavement and plop-plop-plop in clean, quick snaps, but maybe ... they're not looking at me. ... Powdery grassflowers sprinkle my oiled hair. I must purchase the magic shampoo at a (convenient?) store. I realize my glinting embroidered salwar is a bit too short, but maybe they'll excuse my ignorance.

But it don't look right, how they stare here. They look, not confused, But as if, perhaps, they are scared. Strange writings feather out in snaking scribbles on their white walls in red, blue, aquamarine. If father were here, he could have translated the prayers they write.

It still don't seem right for these gilded glass bottles That idle in the corner Still have nectar in them. Has no one taught them to never waste? ... Education and opportunity, where are they in this city? Where do they sell these coveted resources? These long-legged and mustard-haired girls must know. ... Oh, perhaps not, for they are fanning their nostrils and forming upturned moons on their foreheads.

(Abba, what'd I do wrong? It's not your fault, Ma. Look at your feet.)

If he were here, he would help me find this guesthouse that's running away from me, take me to the freedom they boast of.

It's here, isn't it? It must be, for they have promised me my future.

[bloomingobsidian]

Extracts From a Bloodstained Notebook

Click. Crash. Quiet.

Your heart is the wingbeat of a butterfly.

It ticks like a bomb; counts seconds to detonation.

Close your eyes. It’ll be alright.

Click. Crash. Breathe.

Each inhalation is burning kerosene down your trachea.

A hitching revolver click as you wait.

Wait for the next hollow echo to go off in you. You beg for it.

*

The sewer beside your tent smells like death.

The smell that makes your eyes scorch and melt down your cheeks.

Rigor mortis takes sleep away from you with stiff, curling fingers;

keeps you awake, alert, so you can listen for screams in the throbbing silence.

The UNICEF solar lamp glows electric white. Your brother sleeps beside you.

A mosquito hovers like a drone: predatory, dangerous.

It hunts for blood, like the men with the guns.

You cry for him: his rubble-blackened forehead, his buzzing breath, his singed shirt

bobbing with his turbulent chest.

You shift his head farther from the spider-veined blood

drying on the IKEA rug you dragged from cemented intestines.

Carnage prowls silently; gives him blood for flowers, airstrikes for air.

Pulse flatlines instead of sleepy melodies.

You hold his hand. The gauze on his index is mossy and damp.

*

The azan sings to the graveyard of concrete and mist too dark to be fog.

Dawn drips off in velvet folds from groaning, disemboweled buildings.

Baba would lay out his prayer mat right now; stand in submission. Thank. Repent. Grieve.

But he bleeds like everyone else. See, there’s his blood on your made-in-China stuffed bear.

But he took his voice with him.

*

You try to be pretty.

You paint your nails the colour of happiness. Yellow. But all it reminds you of are UNRWA water jugs.

The expiration date licks your nailbeds. Still raw. Exposed.

One of the reconnaissance balloons is watching—

a lidless eye that follows children into rubble.

Graceful, unflinching.

You’re not the god of me. Spite is bitter on your tongue.

Fighter jets unzip the sky; crack it with thunder of their own.

You wonder if they know about the cardboard headstones.

About the prey that crouch in the dark.

About distant bloodblooms that sing them to sleep.

About the shrapnel lodged in Ummi’s thigh.

No. They’re not human enough.

[bloomingobsidian]

Questions that Paint the Picnic Table

we speak in monologues, creating frescoes that dance across

the peeling picnic table between us. somehow her lips still swell in a way

that makes the afternoon sizzle seem like a mild 20 degrees.

she hasn’t licked clean the gloss that paints her mouth, and somewhere i wonder

why ive done so already (maybe she uses maybelline?)

i don’t know, and i forget it (probably maybelline – shut up, you creep)

i don’t really think much of it, but she pops her coke can like flicking a switch

while i struggle with my uneven nails. its not much of a surprise, because shes

better at everyth – i haven’t had much practice. sometimes i wonder how her hair

hasn’t been ironed to her skull, oiled so that it caught fire. no, it still looks like whipped cream.

sometimes i think how her nails crescent into pink land and white sea, while mine

zigzag with uneven borders. i wonder why i smell like petrol while she smells like washing powder and pennies

(me strangling my hair to make them curl like hers)

i wonder why my flatbread thighs look less human that hers.

we both weave monologues but im not human at all. im questions that can hide well enough.

[bloomingobsidian]

Suburban Struggles

i.

 She knew she shouldn't have said it. Hot words that spark on a splint, grow wider and fiercer, catching on her clothes. She never spoke without setting off the monster and its drunken growls. She was the keeper of the flame. But it rounded in on her with its teeth bared, if she dared to say a word.

ii.

She believed in the vending machine's ghost. It was present, creaking with cogs and gears. Sometimes she wanted to feed the screwdriver into the glass. Break the spirit free. But she only ever got a cold Pepsi from it. The can would end up on a dusty bus stop bench, waiting crooked. Just like her. She blinked. The sun was oily and red above.

 iii.

 The shower baptized her, but she only worshipped the shampoo bottle. It echoed, hollow against her splayed palm. This game never got old. She smeared loose strands of hair onto her greasy abdomen. Gave it a mouth and eyes. Now it could unstick its hungry jaws, show the world the gaping pit inside her.

 iv.

 July was sticky, gluing her to everything. The air velcroed her feet to her shoes, her lips to each other. The pavement blossomed crumpled tissue, Kleenex packets, discarded memories that curled in the heat. She spat. Cigarette butts were unearthed worms and crickets sang, hiding in the bleached grass. One was on the pavement, and look, it was broken at the neck.

 See, you only scream when no one sees you.

v.

Religion was in memory. Memory that churned in guttural clockwork beneath her skull. The present peeling away into a hypodermis of the past. A loop of gleaming Christmas lights running endlessly in her mind. Colours turned to the bright skin of gift wrappers, to snow, to the face that melted away mid-heartbeat. Gone. And suddenly, the lights were dead hummingbirds strung to a wire.

 vi.

 Self was a fraying thing, her body a blanket to hide but not to warm. She was obedient fury, her spine and smile rehearsing joy. A fluke, she was --- a twisted coke can. She scribbled down her blessings on a sheet of paper, but it dissolved in her jeans pocket as it churned in the wash. It felt more like a cleansing than a sacrifice. Either way, the mouth will have its fangs.

[bloomingobsidian]

Reflections on Misallocated Faults

You stand in a bathroom that breathes; it exhales fog that muffles your name,

but it’s all your fault. Why did you shower with bubbling water that scorches?

With water that curdles all your faults (into what’s it called? Precipitate) and all that carnage

into papery, swollen patches that bloom all over you? All your fault, all your fault, can’t you see that?

You traced your name onto the mirror, your fingers trailing letters into the mist,

mirror that no longer knows you, mirror that’s murky and brumous, sweating because

its forgotten you and its forgotten your name.

You flinch as the door handle rattles, because you’re scared of the hand up your skirt,

but it’s just your mom handing you the towel.

*

Four hundred thousand undone hair ties, you think, as you throttle your wet hair into

a ponytail.

(400,000 women have been assaulted this year, says Wikipedia)

You asphyxiate your split ends, because you feel destructive, as if you could

annihilate all those men that kiss death in its nicotine-barreled mouth, imprisoned between

the V of their fingers. The V of your shirt was too wide, and it’s all your fault, can’t you see?

All your fault, all your fault.

*

You were taught to say ‘thank you’ if someone gave you something. But you were never taught to scream. The girl who wore the pretty pink dress at the park that day had said thank you to the ice cream lady. She doesn’t recognize you anymore. Because you watch kernels pop in the microwave and wish they were heads and sledgehammers. You press ice cubes onto your chest, try to burn away fingerprints that found your ribs, and you are ablaze. You press that sharp bit of your geometrical compasses beneath your nails and you remember to say thank you. You told the little girl ‘please’.

Please don’t.

(go out at night alone)

*

Twenty thousand pairs of socks that lie on musty beds.

(Twenty thousand teenagers…)

 They don’t smell like sneakers. Yours smelled like a kerosene-fueled bearing of flesh, but you didn’t know whose it was (his or yours) because you fought viciously. You crucify the girl you once were. You bury your diary deep, deep underground. You slice up your old snow white costume with scissors, letting your tears purify the parts of it your fingers touched. It deserves a burial you’re not sacred enough to give. The halo of mist on the floor that framed your thighs disappears as soon as you stand.

 (you are forgotten)

*

You are resurrected. Metamorphosis; a girl reinvented. The girl that carries a pocketknife with ‘thank you’ engraved on it. Where there was once skin, now there are blisters. Blisters that you share with thousands of girls that wore a wide-V shirt but forgot it was nighttime.

You haven’t seen the sun rise since.

[bloomingobsidian]

Jeans and Atomic Mass

Citrus perfume, sweat, and detergent.

She wakes up for them.

Her duvet smells exactly like that.

Summertime flatness

and echoing silence

during the neighborhood afternoon,

bicycle rides with her,

rumbling across gravel.

Tacky, buttered hair

in galaxy swirls

against misty skin,

dandruff blooming like wildflowers.

She keeps trying to insert

Rubenesque

into conversations

—a new word she's learned.

Her Levi’s jeans

are too tight around the waist,

but it’s not exactly the pants’ fault.

Her weaknesses hold her

in a foil-wrapped embrace,

crinkly and sensitive,

like a throbbing wound.

She doesn’t understand

why they thought

carbon-12

should be the benchmark

for atomic mass,

while sleep waits

at the periphery of her consciousness.

She wonders if she’ll wake up

once she closes her eyes.

Nope. Push that away.

Her toe sears

as she jabs it into the cold bedframe.

Why did it have to be carbon?

Papery marks streak the corners

of her mouth.

Sunlight is flowing marigold.

You see her face

warped in the window,

dawn sculpting her angles.

She’s you.

You tell her,

I need to ask my chem teacher about something.

P.S. I did wake up.

[bloomingobsidian]

Moonlit Vermilion

Trainers whine

in a scratched-record twang.

Your sweat licks at your shirt,

metallic and wet.

August paints the air in dense folds

as you wade through it.

You walk//neither from nor to//somewhere.

But you are walking. Away.

From smashed whiskey bottles

that look strangely elegant

when there’s blood at the edges.

You’ve always looked good in vermilion.

Was that you, or are your trainers actually talking?

They look like wine-pearl sequins on emerald silk.

That’s probably you.

Oh, look. On the pavement.

You hunch over.

A kitten.

Half-kitten. Half cat, half disintegration.

Half nothing. Half replaced-by-dry-august-air.

You name her Poppy. Not Blood.

Trainers squeal as you walk.

This time, Poppy walks with you.

Away.

_

Written for @inkstay's prompt: the long walk before sleep is rarely convenient.

[bloomingobsidian]

Turquoise swirls with

A honeyed spillage

Of sun

Pouring into it.

Silk folds

Unfurl at my toes,

Teasing the armored

Calluses on them.

The air is briny;

Smells of mineral and rust.

The sky

Is a veil of yolk-yellow mesh

Draping the horizon—

Holding the clouds.

Just like the skirt I wore

When his fist clenched it.

Sour blood on my hands.

Was it mine or his?

I never knew.

Barbed screams.

Blades in my throat.

Gunpowder and shrapnel

In my head.

Now the gulls scream for me.

Waves coax with

Petal-soft fingers.

Maybe they are

The countless tears

Of survivors.

Of girls who have said

I am free.

–

Silk, mineral and screams. Sorrow visualized and verbalized. If you like metaphors and surrealism, I think you'll like my poetry : )

[bloomingobsidian]

Thorns Woven In Beauty

Post #2

[bloomingobsidian]

Thorns Woven In Beauty

Post #1

Short poems that juxtapose violence in beauty. Enjoy : )

[nixscriptum]

[bloomingobsidian]

My flesh glistens, plump and raw,

like liver dipped in wine—syrupy red. Blood’s too familiar nowadays, I see too much of it.

Wiry guitar strings peel from the base of my thumb,

plastic-y skin peeling like pages in a book.

I like to punish myself, because it helps drown the pain.

So I peel.

I wince at the wet baring of layers.

Velcro strips giving way.

Sharp breaths escaping my throat.

I know I need to stop.

I don’t know if I want to.

–

When you flip skin like pages in a book. Blood for printer ink.

[bloomingobsidian]

Only When You're Human

Why is it that we bleed?

Why is it, that even when there’s no wound, no gash,

no throbbing, aching cut,

that our lungs burn and our insides crumple,

our knees collapse, brittle as dried crimson leaves?

Blood on your hands, even when there’s none.

Why is it that our hearts simmer and burn

in a purple, covetous rage;

or our skin boils and crinkles and writhes,

as meandering veins cut red trenches upon it?

Blood on your hands, even when there’s none.

Why is it that a quiet, parasitic black

often inhabits the minds of unfortunate victims;

flickering soundlessly in their eyes, harsh as a rasping scream?

Despair burrows deep into their gut,

infesting their insides as an unwanted presence.

Blood on their hands, even when there’s none.

Why is it, that our eyes lose themselves to an invasive flame

that grows behind them, scorching their delicate insides?

Why do we lose ourselves in a whirl of insanity and despair,

our days swirl and fuse into existence defined by desperation?

Blood surges in our eyes, burning them.

Why is it, that blood spouts from countless speared souls;

impaled hearts resign to the uncharted borders between sanity and beyond;

crazed pupils stare wildly in a daze of unapologetic madness;

smiles carve uncannily onto faces where they don’t belong:

no longer joyful-but joy distorted, unrecognizable

behind all the wrong reasons that bring them about;

limbs flail and bodies collapse in agony or regret—

and bitter respite, sweet relief lie in death itself?

The calmest visage often conceals the worst demons;

many crystal, amber eyes hide deranged ones beneath.

Only when you’re human, can you bleed perpetually,

Ache indefinitely, and shatter beneath the weight of your mind alone,

While flesh and skin, free from flaws,

Hold you up as you steadily deform.

—

I wrote this one when I felt particularly intrigued by the concept of mental collapse. It just spilled out as I sat with my back against my bedroom wall the night before an English exam. The best things do come when you least expect it : )

[bloomingobsidian]

This one's called "Three Days After".

Three days of unraveling stitched together by memory and blood. When pendants wear you just like scars.