no one lives here

if i find anything to be true, i will let you know. "someday i'll find the right words, they'll be very simple." - jack kerouac

[oncelia]

feeling extremely haunted right now

[oncelia]

i need to do something other than ache

[oncelia]

but how?

[oncelia]

but what?

[oncelia]

alas, i am unhinged

[oncelia]

so these are all the places we would have kissed had i not been a fool?

so this is the splendour that calls me by another name.

[oncelia]

i can only love while lying

[oncelia]

i need to do something other than ache

[oncelia]

but how?

[oncelia]

i need to do something other than ache

[oncelia]

i am covered: entirely in your sorrow,

entirely in my own demise. the path i built

to lead me nowhere still leads me nowhere

and still, my mouth hangs open in surprise.

still, i seek comfort from you,

seek comfort til i am dripping in another's sorrow -

it takes a moment for me to realise that it is not yours.

not yours, no, certainly: it comes from inside of me

though i do not know who it belongs to

[oncelia]

i have returned post-trauma!

seized the beasts from the rain

and disemboweled them.

no more tongues, hooves, pupils

to dilate. no more shining lights

and iodine and smelling fear. i have plucked them

from their homes, erased their teeth,

been acquitted. after all, why not me?

after all, this is a trial. they made that clear.

these are trying times. you made that certain.

you placed me on a white bed, you cut me

and walked away. you confirmed my name

before doing any of it. as though sleeping in front of you

isn't the same crime repeating itself.

as though you cut the other one any differently.

as though my birthdate, clarified again and again and again

by my only tongue

with only my mother as a witness

might change. and maybe you hoped it would.

and maybe i would pay $200 to call you what you are --

maybe the violence of my father does have some use

after all.

and maybe i can find you by searching for a previous version of myself,

or is she tainted too?

we can both play the same game, both choose not to fear

the consequences. both be guilty at the same time,

one of us less so than the other.

maybe you have exaggerated your ability to walk away,

but then again,

maybe so have i.

[oncelia]

i must tend to this garden

whatever in it blooms

declared by some god

a giver --

a woman who grows things

until she is overcome with what blossoms

a woman who will not pull out the weed

not even when it outgrows her home

not even when her body is sprouting leaf and vine

and the repellent sits on a windowsill

not even when the god finally comes back

to say she is free

to say the overgrowth is past tense now, there are new homes

to inhabit

new gardens to grow

no, the woman will never

stop tending, and after all, what is a woman

without being tender? at least, she knows this is what they will say

and if she abandons what she begged to grow?

what they demanded? what they said would one day be beautiful?

perhaps she would not be a woman after all

she thinks, maybe womanhood can cease

at some point

if you stop letting the infection spread

or maybe it's the other way around

maybe being a woman is to hurt

to let the vine grow

and grow

and grow

scared to stop watering it

in case it is all that is left

[oncelia]

i have no more words! they are gone from me!

[oncelia]

the lobotomy

i write my poems and leave

the honey is dripping down my sleeves

and everyone has touched them

mouths opening and closing it is a

tragedy for them to be wordless

raped of all trauma

mannequins for peace

but i am her frontal lobe twitching on the floor

——– i make sure she remembers.

[oncelia]

in the white snow

there are some places where a lack of hunger is worse than starving. for example: in the white snow where i lost you. children have planted berries there. they walk past after school, their eyes scanning the ground for new growth. i don’t tell them how this lack of light stagnates movement. they think that life can persist wherever life persists. they haven’t been outside of the city. there are a few things i have learned: absence becomes you; she doesn’t move over when something else arrives. when children speak, they are always telling the truth. humans remember the way light hits their furniture, but don’t realise until the house is empty. the sun sets exactly where you are gone. the biggest misconception about loss is that it empties you; i am so full.

[oncelia]

the two of us

i say your name and it becomes a poem on its own. even when we aren’t talking, there is no lack of language.

[oncelia]

heatstroke

if you could wake up and ask me anything maybe the questions would bruise or maybe your tone would transplant the trauma.

on the mattress: i’m licking an icy pole and practising: i am getting better at being asleep. i am getting better at pretending to dream.

in the evening: the questions flee. i am starving, i am sucking out the seeds of fruit. i am asking if there is such a thing as sorry enough.

i am telling secrets to other girls. i am asking cousins what they know. i am praying god won’t give me a sister. i am careful of my aunty’s truth. i am watching my mother to see if she moves the same way i do. i am studying genetics. i am finding out this trauma is hereditary.

i am wondering: how can i hurt so much that it never happened? how can the daughter of a god learn to talk???

i am big and small, i am hearing! i am someone, i am named, i leave bruises, on the other side of doors. i get painted in gold, it’s in my blood.

i am sweating, the truth swells and throbs.

i am soothing the beast, telling him not to worry:

my art-form is forgetting.

[oncelia]

chocolate wanted / i haven’t seen you in ages

me and shae walk down my street

at night; there is a single street lamp;

a house with sleeping light

and from there we hear the music,

the wailing ghosts. we are scared

so we run away. jump the fence

and make a pinky promise

never to leave the other’s side.

we’re sitting beside the grass,

resting,

wanting chocolate - freddo frogs and caramello koalas.

then, we see the white light move beyond the fence

and before i can stand,

shae is gone.

[oncelia]

i wonder if i will ever stop thinking of you