dropofbleach

she/her - poetry and perspective like a drop of bleach on your favourite tee - 19

[dropofbleach]

//The Weight of These Chemicals// You know that week before your period where you're more emotive than usual And you're convinced something is wrong with you or someone is plotting against you The latter just turns out to be mother nature's scheme to use you as a punching bag Until you curse Adam himself for his selfishness In putting a word in with the big man up there leading to the creation of womankind Because it's just your period, and more often than not during this time You're not listening to the irrationally rational voice Telling you that keeping the peace is more important than them knowing exactly how they hurt you It blows my mind and my uterus how much control these little chemicals have before, after and during the bleeding onslaught For so long I didn't want to be the girl complaining about a monthly occurrence that I didn't even have as bad as others Replacing calling myself a woman with the word girl and shrinking myself to fit in the spaces I occupy even in a screen I just wanted to say it hurts, and to know that I'm doing this to myself is harder to swallow I may not know when the boat of grief capsized into the ocean of gloom A hot water bag seems to be a dumb life jacket in the grander scheme of things And the dramatics ceased to hysterics If it's all just chemicals, which element do I bunk with till I leave the periodic table?

[dropofbleach]

//Circles// On the 27th of every month I wait for a sign Any obvious sign would be great I'm not at a sea shore, but the message in the bottle never comes When I wanna share these miserable tendencies with the world Is it healing or worse I want to tell you that I still look for you in the rooms of my life Spinning in weeks of circles Pining in half a year's worth of tunnel visions There's a reason you're a 'grand' father Because you were the closest thing to a real father I got I wanna tell you how much it would hurt to leave you at our red gate when we drove back home but really I was driving away (And there's the reason that father rhymes with farther) And how I hate sympathy with a passion but I hate grief more Because you know how running water opens wounds Consumes me like thirsting after its own dry spell You know why it feels sickening to depend on someone else You knew alleviation to my escalation The past is tense like never before I knew that I can use the word 'we' and 'us' with you and never come to an end A cycle of longing doesn't come to an end But then you did I'm tired of missing you I'm more tired of missing me when I was with you I'm tired of making you the object and subject to deject There's a song called 'Windows in Heaven' and I like to think of you when I listen to it I also like to think that there are no windows at all Just open spaces To love me is to make me feel free And every time I doubt that you ever loved me I'll remember you shoved your inhibitions aside to make space for me Even if this is the last time I write to you for a while You'll tell me about that right? I know I'm baiting you to answer. I'll get you one day, you wait and watch Windows or not, I want to know about the view And I wanna know if you put those ledges on what's left of our terrace for me Because you know that all I wanna do is sit there and miss you

[dropofbleach]

A small note

Hi there! There's a whole 19 of you out here so far, and I am more shocked than I thought I would be. An odd number to celebrate at, but this whole deal has its own share of odds to overcome. If you relate to my poetry once, twice or many in passing, you must know you have carried a part of me ahead with you.

Much love, dropofbleach

[dropofbleach]

//Vanity Project//

No one has noticed that you hummed that song a little too loud in your room

Or that you changed your nail polish three times before settling on none

We've perfected the art of walking out of our body just to peek

Into what someone else might catch a glimpse of within us

When we had a birds eye view all along

The finer details catch my eye like an eyelash on your cheek

I see it, I see you

My musings fall to your cheekbones in a smile

Voyeurism at its finest

Why that dressing mirror is called a vanity

I sharpen the tip of the brush as your hands reach for it

You paint a picture of the one who hands it to you

And your eyes are dancing as you ask why I'm still looking in the mirror

You're telling me Narcissus wouldn't have reached into the water to brush an eyelash off his cheek?

I think the story speaks more of longing than love but that's really all on you

[dropofbleach]

//Willow// Lines of text on my phone blur Into the gaps of light between blinds on a window I lean in to watch the sight She laughed outside like a weeping willow if it could God, I love when people smile. It could rain and she would rise It will storm and she will take it Held up by the weight of her own, but she'll own it Turning wallow into that wispy willow Adding that will to the lows Mesmerizing leaves turn Spring is here, and with every winter it gets more beautiful Cherish it, while its here, a locket by my heart A reminder to lock it To feel it while it lasts Contentment in a contraption Enrapture me with the joy of another What else could we possibly be here for?

[dropofbleach]

//Gore// Breathing fish scales scrape up to my throat from my core The mercy of gills on a linoleum floor A strange whisper, "You know I want more." A clear indication of what I can no longer pour Crave the broken bodies of the sore I don't want to be the skeleton washed off the shore Drop the act and the rest I'll deplore An agony of my own creation that I can't control Could it be any more sickly sure Frothing foam at the mouth the only metaphor Weeds fidgeting among lily pads a sorry place for a war I can't even see who I'm frightened for As I continue to choke out on this linoleum floor

[dropofbleach]

//Small Spaces// Today I feel small I feel my bones crack inwards as the cavities echo the sound I suffocate in the lonesomeness of the hungry tired I leave food out everyday and the bowl is empty when I come back And yet I have no receipts to account for the fruitfulness of these actions The sadness had a home in me when it left And now no one wants to clear out the furniture So I might as well use it I sink into the depths of cushions but it's never warm enough The blues are on the opposite direction of the yellows on the colour wheel before I could tell them apart And I find myself rereading the same books on the shelves I wanted to fill this space with sunshine and laughter but cobwebs are tricky things Today I feel small because cleaning is easier than filling up the empty spaces There wasn't supposed to be anymore left to cave in I'm all alone And even the pain isn't here to fill the room a little more Tomorrow I might feel bigger And the spaces might make me miss it all more If I let go of the sadness and anger then where do these words go with them And how much of me will really be left?

[dropofbleach]

//Lost love// Tucked in between many a 'are you sure's' and 'take care's' I love like roots Creeping downwards and silently holding myself and what I know as together as tightly as I can The pandemonium of middle school math horrors come to life With the ease of calculators in your pocket They named missed calls after me, and should've named alarms too I also love like getting to the root of issues Flipping through solutions before we get to the climax of every story I love like the bark worse than the bite The terror worse than the fright A stickler for right and wrong, fickle undertones of rainbows I'll be there for you, but I might leave like the night Be back before you see me gone or only notice my absence I love like a flutter in the wind Handbooks of pressed leaves that have been forgotten by their birthplace But carry their message nevertheless I house them in a sanctuary where I keep our conversations A greenhouse we tend to till forgotten Sometimes, we forget I mean every hug I give, because there was a time I didn't believe them Clutching at time is my Olympic sport Light shoulders and palms to rest this love in The seasons have arrived like the Frosts and Wordsworths of the world conspired A heartless exterior implies the space of something there once upon a time I hope you know that these days, I'm planting seeds within

[dropofbleach]

//Sharp// To write in a way that will summon all the attention to itself And none to myself at all To want for nothing more but words to be read, recognition be damned Is this the writing I should aspire to? Wouldn't I hold myself to the most virtuous standard if I wrote solely for a bigger cause? All for one and one for all we can pen But at what cost does art begin it's genius When it is recognised or when it is known? If we create to communicate, and communicate to connect We connect to feel, and feel together Like a syringe pulling from skin pulled taut We draw from the world continuing around us to light something within Mustn't we give back in return to the sharp prick?

[dropofbleach]

//Child's Play// I miss the kinda eyelashes and ladybug wishes That can only come true to glitter nail polish on pudgy hands Wobbly teeth and stardust I wanted magic so bad my childhood's became an illusion Peppered stars as the moon chases us home Nostalgia of the love-hate of pink and frilly skirts to twirl my imagination in Swirl like lollipops and cotton candy clinging to tongues Don't let go The embrace of adults never answering all your questions and digging in sand pits for more To being Santa when your parents slept in Hiding in metaphors isn't too hard when someone isn't seeking Someone tagged me it and I never ran after another Fluffy pens and fountain ponytails Barbie clips got nothing to do with the frayed knots of these ties Teach me how to pop a helium balloon at a birthday party and I might give you a friendship bracelet to lose The courage you don't realise as you do all the things i want to do I liked the mirror mazes better than haunted houses Seeing outward than inward was always child's play.

[dropofbleach]

/Call me// "Call me," she'd say when she was wheeled along the downtrodden path as her family watched on from the gates teary-eyed "Call me," she'd mutter again as the glass doors opened as if sealing the true longing behind the previous time but the only ones who heard it were the receptionist at the counter with the plastic smile and the watchman who tipped his hat regardless of whether those who he met could see or remember his reverence. What always escaped them and would continue to was that her voice would always be too loud her personality unable to be contained within the aged skin of her existence like a burst of sunshine on a cloudy day to someone hoping for rain "Call me," would ring out with more exuberance than those white walls could ever understand to the doctors and nurses who constantly wore their hearts in their mouths and words on their sleeve "Call me," she'd whisper to the girl in pigtails from the next ward over before she ran back again who opened her heart again with an orange crayon a burst of colour among a sea of greys and a smile with teeth as crooked as hers "Call me," she sounded sadder as somebody's son left flowers on her bedside table kissed her on the cheek and asked if she remembered the boy with the blue eyes and dress shirt who visited his mother every day "Call me," she'd said every day until recently to a man with the same blue eyes and a dress shirt as he left for work who made her feel just feel but not anymore. For a while, they were just more words that could not match her grief and she couldn't recollect his scent or his smile when she felt low the years had taken those memories away perhaps for good as recently there was a step in her soul, a shine in eyes that had seen all, and was seeing all again with childlike mirth and wonder and the nurse with the kind smile agreed that nothing should taint it she also eyed the peace that had made its way over into her "Call me," she had begun to murmur to the cross on her bedside table next to the diminishing white pills and a worn-out photograph of a beautiful family

She used to urge her mind to conjure up some semblance to her life in vain but now when she prayed it didn't matter "Call me," became a ritual. To her and to Him. So it wasn't much of a shock when soon enough He did. And it was the only one she remembered.

[dropofbleach]

//Zenosyne (n.) The sense that time keeps going faster// Broken hearts and time have one thing in common They both appear to matter most When the end is startlingly close I like to take my days with a pinch of salt But on certain days the meanings of certain words fall behind And on this rather salty day I'd like to share what's on my mind The first sense of the word broken Is to have been cut, and then cut others when they try to pick you up To reveal, make known of what before was not The second is news to be thrown to caution Words out in the open to be caught With a difficulty of spirit and tiredness that one cannot be without The third is defective, a malfunction The broken you probably associate With that of factories and the calls that their managers probably hate The fourth had to be the lost cause after the third charm The weak one, who put the heart in disheartened The one that the mind often finds hardest to pardon The fifth and beyond, who am I to assign 'Broken' really means Whatever you thought of when you read that first line

[dropofbleach]

//Bones// What happens when your body hates you back? For so long I have cursed, if not shown indifference to All behind what I pretended was self-love Just turned out to be acceptance of what I can’t change And now it bites back The same teeth I have bit down on so often I don’t know how to stop. Now there are just bones And yet I hate when all everyone can see is a graveyard. It’s so empty though The empty some crave and some never want to fill Like a reverse Pandora’s box A ballerina in a snow globe, poised on her little head with a smile It is naturally unnatural Unnatural but stuck Change will cause breakage And everything snapped too long ago to matter now Now there are just bones Where once was the fear of being too much, all manifested itself into this cursed blessing ‘Cos now I can’t take up more space even if I want to I have not been kind to this body. The scars will not be the only witness to take stand Why do I bother asking for mercy from a judge who has only been done wrong? Caring now doesn’t seem to help This ceased to be a bank a long time ago The investment was run-down, and the return policy isn’t too great either Should’ve known better than to mess with the caretaker Aftercare seems less daunting when it’s the only care that needs caring about I am that sharp intake of air when something hits the floor I take for granted all the times death hasn’t visited when I’ve extended the invitation Now there are just bones But bones don’t leave as easy as the rest come.

[dropofbleach]

//Realisations// And suddenly Somehow Just mouthing the words didn't seem enough In the dark The voice rose Creeping as silently as it could From the soles of my feet and the ends of my veins Through the crevices of my lungs and heart And when the sound finally reached my lips The bitter realization that They sounded more beautiful inside of me Yet I continued And one day hoped to satisfy someone Even if that someone wasn't me.

[dropofbleach]

//Converse// Life has and will be a series of conversations to be had Speaking in tongues has never been so effortless The warmth of a hand in a grateful palm And the stars that are so far away look like they stuck around just for me That one moment of serenity with wisps of my hair play fighting the wind The air combs through the air like honey A comforting glaze in the haze of the night Every conversation I have ever had has led me to this point One question about the whereabouts of another Carry us to the comfort of ease I envy the forgetfulness of a child while the folly of happy leaves me just as quickly So occupied with connections that the tendrils float away from the roots before they can bloom Creeping up like moss, a blanket of the opportunity I have been offered I choke on different kinds of tears The expanse of all that I can absorb seemed minute, but all that I feel even more infinite These memories have chosen to house in me, and I must give them a home.

[dropofbleach]

//Tongue-tied// I don’t know my mother tongue the way my mother does I feel shame once in a while as I scramble through greetings and awkward disconnect with where I come from But that is incomparable to what my grandmother felt a long while ago When she filled out forms at the bank And didn’t have the same grasp over English as she did of her pen Language for me is art One that I can make in only one medium I’d often hear About how it didn’t matter what you said As long as you said it well enough So I found power in words and practised my luck But I found power because this was a competition all along And with my nose in a book I’d crossed the finish line Never even noticing all the others who were still struggling to tie their shoelaces The word tongue-tied took on a new meaning that day The “good” schools ensured our languages were ranked right alongside our students Second and Third language a mere requirement For a god-like language of the west Chapters of foreign books daring and demanding you to speak their tone Stuttering through someone else’s lines a pitiful task in itself Why bother voicing out one’s own? Even if the words escaped What if an accent gave way for more insecurities? The room for imperfection has always been a small one Mother tongue Was once your mother’s tongue The first language to ever grace our ears Age-old rituals keeping their sanctity holding on to their roots tightly There was no place for stammering for a pandit before a fire Blessings of a bright future offered before we probably even understood their significance An embrace from the centuries of people who have moulded carefully their world and passed it onto others But we made you feel incomplete, unsure and not enough While their very blood runs in you To have been shamed into silence is nothing but a crime Every word that I know You can tell me in three other dialects Why is the shame never in the perpetrator?

They took your pride with all that we will say certain colonizers stole But really didn’t we? They organised the race but we chose to run In every laugh and thank god that’s not us In every grammar nazi nitpick We made sure of one thing That being heard came at a very heavy price for some 

Mother Tongue A mother’s tongue Even if the language of love is universal We finally made sure that no one spoke this one either

[dropofbleach]

//Empty Jars and Open Minds// I tune into the white noise Hoping to see what I'm sure I'll find Open doors like a parachute Wipe my feet on the place-mat of my mind. I dare to hope as my sight wanders I look around trying to find my way I see rows and rows of jars labelled this way and that All labelled with care in the grey. Reflecting onto my path from the jars Colours split through the seams The hues capture my attention to behold them as all that I could ever mean. On looking closer I discover that they are labelled with unimaginable care Every feeling that I could ever feel Had made an appearance caged in glass in this lair. Curiosity takes over as I sift through the jars 'Anger', 'Fear', 'Disgust' and 'Hate' Threaded significantly through others Like  'Compassion', 'Truth', 'Contentedness' and 'Hope'. My feet slip on the sands of time As I try to quickly make my way through I'm searching for what everyone wants most And the Jar of Happiness stares down at me from the last pew. I'm out of breath as my eyes follow it down a chasm I begin to run, but it drifts farther and farther away I watch it float, light as it is My hope makes no difference in it wanting to stay. Assuming that I have nothing to lose, I follow And am barely able to catch it as we fall mid-air I hug it close to my chest as we hit the ground There is no way I've ever held anything this rare. I eagerly unscrew the top Not even registering the concrete that broke my fall I discern the sound of baby's laughter and dancing in the rain Milk moustaches and warm fires, and a mother's call. Confusion litters my features as I peer longingly Into the insignificant significance that makes up all our lives A combination of the brightness of all the different jars Perceive the desperation in my eyes. The jar dissipates into the air And I can't help but cry out All the answers that I've been searching for Was it all for nought? When I find myself back where I started Anger at the world claws in like fire at sea But to my surprise an empty jar Seemed to have found its way back with me

The vacancy is rather unsettling As I dubiously I open it again until I am hit by the icy dawn of realization And I finally fathom that the jar is mine to fill.

The delicate glass casts back my reflection And my mind eventually accepts I can choose to either fill it to the brim Or to wallow in its emptiness.

So the next time you feel less purposeful than usual And a little beat down It's nice to keep in mind That you've always got a jar of your own.