1:18

"who wept at the romance of the streets with their pushcarts full of onions and bad music"

[squeakybeaches]

i hate this - the resentment that rips through my lungs, suffocating, impatiently asphyxiating, an anger that’s candyfloss sweet and frustratingly gentle against self-pity traced into bare skin, no cream white carcasses to overthrow but my own self, all grisaille and no identity trapped in a sadness as old as my bones.

prisoner of looking glasses // lei.

[squeakybeaches]

the things that people tend to call dreams are not so simply named, blurred in their boundaries and sometimes loved, sometimes torn to shreds, wisps of which we remember and the rest we toss to the wind. with hands as soft as clouds they touch and stain, leach warmth from the ordinary until we’re all shivering, starving for something we think we can name but recall only as the shadow of another. i wake to this: a dream as vivid as it was murderous, fingers outstretched to grab for things like infinity, immortality, when in fact the longing only resurfaces now. now, when i catch words on the seaside air thick with salt, fingers smelling like parchment, like bark, and i remember the way a dream lands and takes root in reality to make us search for it. in the fjords, i suppose, their falling cliffs slick and bright with white foam and fish’s slime, or perhaps plains green as the word for it allows, brilliant and yet tame in their alcove homes. i think of how summer must look in a lover’s eyes, how bright the smile of sunshine distorted between filmy leaves to touch the ground lightly, spring with its tang of fir and unscented blossoms, mist much like how we obscure our hearts and tangle cobwebs between fingers to suffocate a scream. the dream takes what i know, makes me desire things i have not; it’s greedy, this one, coveting substantiality and fulfilled only by the passage of us, nomads, lost, searching for the way a dream tasted for all our lives and never really finding it, not in this world or the next.

dreams in broad daylight, hunt // lei.

[squeakybeaches]

gently

our heart that is made of flesh and muscle and blood leads us constantly astray, teases us with barefaced lies and pulls our bodies slowly apart at the seams, drowned twice, first in truth and then in distrust of ourselves.

[squeakybeaches]

the ways to feed a heart

i want to love by fearing. i want to taste the way the embers flare in my mouth and close my teeth over it, chew and swallow to feel the ache in my throat as it scorches all the way down; i want to swallow fire. i want to find the things that hurt me and conquer them, to sate this insatiable hunger that eats through me as i imagine hunters do - they stalk the tiger, king of the forest, they chase the lion, monarch of the plains, they sneak in close enough to kill and, at the final moment, lower their sword to exchange for their coarse palm instead and run fingers through matted fur and mane to say they’ve tamed the beast. it’s a lifelong quest, and there’s no other way to say it: i want my soul torn and cut and imprisoned in a love so all-encompassing that i cannot help but return. i want to be chained to a thing i cannot hate, and learn to love it even as the fire smothers out quietly in my stomach. perhaps, in the end, this is only because the final nemesis is ourselves, and even the fearless fear that. to pass judgement on another is easy but making sense of matter and smoke and ideas digested through the same organs that keep us alive, is almost ingratitude. thus, we fight the things we think have the strength to hurt us, when all along the only one that can truly kill ourselves, hilt-deep in the soul is our very own heart that is, however we look at it, imprisoned in our bones.

[squeakybeaches]

dreams in broad daylight, hunt

the things that people tend to call dreams are not so simply named, blurred in their boundaries and sometimes loved, sometimes torn to shreds, wisps of which we remember and the rest we toss to the wind. with hands as soft as clouds they touch and stain, leach warmth from the ordinary until we’re all shivering, starving for something we think we can name but recall only as the shadow of another. i wake to this: a dream as vivid as it was murderous, fingers outstretched to grab for things like infinity, immortality, when in fact the longing only resurfaces now. now, when i catch words on the seaside air thick with salt, fingers smelling like parchment, like bark, and i remember the way a dream lands and takes root in reality to make us search for it. in the fjords, i suppose, their falling cliffs slick and bright with white foam and fish’s slime, or perhaps plains green as the word for it allows, brilliant and yet tame in their alcove homes. i think of how summer must look in a lover’s eyes, how bright the smile of sunshine distorted between filmy leaves to touch the ground lightly, spring with its tang of fir and unscented blossoms, mist much like how we obscure our hearts and tangle cobwebs between fingers to suffocate a scream. the dream takes what i know, makes me desire things i have not; it’s greedy, this one, coveting substantiality and fulfilled only by the passage of us, nomads, lost, searching for the way a dream tasted for all our lives and never really finding it, not in this world or the next.

[squeakybeaches]

christmas ‘16

it begins with a bleary morning, bedhair, presents and hands and smiles exchanging in breaths between gasps of the 8am air. perhaps not the same excitement as years earlier, but no less precious - coaxing hugs and kisses out of stoicism. round the table is set, plates and smaller fingers following: a crease, a fold, soft encouragement until the first crack splits the air. In this moment we are all kings, queens, eyes bright with laughter and a mouthful of sweet soda seeping in the crevices of our teeth. it’s the lettuce drowned in mayonnaise, fish curved round its china plate, a flash of spice and the gentle balance of a sugary pudding. we close. the lights blink on, urged, soft gold fireflies strung over the branches, shining reflections in silver baubles and candlelight in our shared gaze. the slip and shift of cards on wood, voices mingling, tangling, hands and smiles exchanging - hands and smiles exchanging, in this precious moment that suspends over one day for us, each year.

[squeakybeaches]

time #2

in one blink of a drowsy, languid universe, we find lifetimes beneath its diffident gaze. you and i came from the stars, light years of ancients, of dark eternity, sleeping in our veins and arteries. galactic children who cannot live to see the sunrise, in a sky as deep and lightless as ours. a smile, a passing fantasy, the grip of a hand: collapsed into heartbeats and memories, something i call my world when in fact we’re less than wisps, drifting in transience.

[squeakybeaches]

ten years; pt.2

at the intersection of ten years: the brumous touch of memory is fleeting and, therefore, precious. you’d think ink scrawled over pages, pages, fluttering pages becomes repellent in its repetition, but i’m only learning now that it’s not. there is always a chance for the swiftest hairpin turn, sharp divergence sliding and scrambling to right itself in a new orientation; turn it around and the same essence takes on new colour. goodbyes are harder than i ever conceived, if not because parting is indefinite then only because a partnership endures. starving for the unnameable is a desire difficult to quell - wanderlust cast in iron and set out to wander, no thirst quenched but by the howl of a noonday wolf; aphorisms like these are unequivocally brilliant, shards of that same obscure concept of time that has us caught in its web inextricably. yes, we have been slaves to its whim, slung one way and tossed in another until we realise nothing was ever about sink and swim: to swim, you must first have sunk. that same terror curls ice-cold around my ankles, the only forcefield tugging two words together by the obstinacy of burning stars. the cogs have worn away. gently, slowly, we fall out of orbit for the last time - united at once by ten crisscrossing threads and tragically driven apart against the frayed ends. at the intersection of ten: we part. for the last time, this is goodbye.

[squeakybeaches]

a study in light: part ii

dark: what’s blind in the cheap overhead lighting flickers, silhouette of radiance melting inwards, collapse, trap fireflies beneath the jostle of knees trying to pry rhythm from sinew and bone, unamused marrow, mosquitoes and chairs and tables and everything illuminated all at once, so bright that it bleeds black, eyeliner, perceived evil retracting unapologetic stains that won’t wash out. not when it comes back to haunt, snickering poltergeists painted blue and red in between evening hours set on pause, replayed, rewound to embrace the sour stench of flat beers, revolutionary fire inflamed first then put out; cowardice.

[squeakybeaches]

a study in light: part i

light: fluorescent bulbs, dull orange reflecting off of matte grey walls, trademark anxiety sweeping a telltale hum from cracked wallpaper or what’s left over, drowned in bland conversation and breaching gold glistening, crystallised, little sparks caught in the battlecage of evening. peak hour cold to the lips, foam trapped under teeth and fingers, dark eyes peering past windows to trace wandering paths in the chasmic black, crack, plink and clatter and straw-hatted translucence veiling a slapdash, devious smile; intransigent time stilled mid-flutter carried forward by the pressure of the masses - halt.

[squeakybeaches]

untouchable

untouchable, a line we don’t dare to cross. she is untouchable, though the dimmed curtain of grey slung over her eyes like sloom hurts me, too, when i’ve seen how it looks when stars flare in her irises and silver curls against the pearly sheen of her front teeth, a home for treasure and enchantment. would that i could claim to be more, reach over an unbridgeable divide to pilfer the sunshine in her smile, broaden it tenfold when i can, at last, bear a little more of her burden.

[squeakybeaches]

thinking of you

malt wine, strained whisky, cold amber decanters reflecting off the floral wallpaper. starlight, moonlight flickering tremulously and your hands, your smile, the gentle slope of your shoulders.

[squeakybeaches]

in writing

giving over to something i can’t name, it’s so easy to forget that this is being overcome, no control, no constraint between the clip of one consonant and the drag of a vowel. this is writing, writing, writing my heart in veiled insult and chasing nightmares in broad daylight, exchanging the hushed silence of hesitation before standing ovation for the barest glimpse of dimension, stretched taut and thin. only conceptual, but this is writing, writing, writing.

[squeakybeaches]

nightfall; a series

i. lose all inspiration to the consuming wick of a candle, the flame eating through charred paper until handwritten directions to the centre of the universe have all dried to dust and feathery ash. ii. punch love in the teeth; ignore the fact that it’s not losing my heart between a new set of ribs, rather the kind of love that has me setting bones back into joints because home is the prodigal son. iii. capable of destruction, enough to want to tear what i’ve known apart, the satisfaction of fingers meeting like a vice-grip of molars gnashing, closing, tightening over a stronghold. iv. living that feels so much like dying. feels so much like watching lives in slow motion, thoughts scrambling like non sequiturs to flee the very perfection they hunt. v. artists sell their souls for their art. they make a pact, set their hearts aflame for a burning moment of incandescence under limelight. vi. never date a poet, they’ll write you into the charcoal hearts they’ve given away like they’re worthless. they probably are. love is only a word, and poets wield words like swords and they’ll weave something indestructible from words, a bastion of defence against your reprisals or remorse, whichever, if the lush cloud foam means nothing as soon as it disintegrates on the shore.

[squeakybeaches]

ten years

ten; at the matchstick tar of years intersecting until these charred remains remain, i can look back at last. why the cat forewent the feast, why schoolgrounds were bigger than our bones, grander than our dreams, but in fact infantile next to what we confronted. forty; your eyes behind my fingers and long leaves, tinkling laughter. i remember summer, lockers, pounding feet, startling fair features, and a 5 o’clock shadow. the grid could not hold me, chicken scratch extended rebelliously, spilling over the edges, and i first learned to fear the dust and grey, overcast, blue grained tables with red faces flashing in reverse. a spark of envy extinguished before its true flame to exchange for a soft smile, unplanned companionship. silver glinted under midday sun, not air but the musk of shortbread and elastic; sticky fingers. three years prior, a dimly-lit room with dustbunnies and penciled promises and second celadon glaze, brushed with the hopeful embarking on the journey to redeem a lost battle. golden skin, white socks, central island no longer so lonely; necessary scramble for straws. your unsure smile transmuted to endearing certainty, a butterfly mid-flight with mine still grounded. so close, so close: failure heartbreaking to the touch, cold as ice, strange as unfamiliar eyes to the window of my heart. so close - this is where ten collapses, too easy and too fast. voices twisting in the hush of a forgotten library. learning, again, to trust the splinted wing of faith as we stand too close to the edge.

[squeakybeaches]

first love/frost

she’s warm in the winter, steady brace of shoulderblade and a wind-beaten voice crushed sweet like wine, spilling, flourishing. under the cheap mango lighting, jaundice dries over her knuckles but strays when roses flush below her cheekbones, bright, steady. her smile retracts, white teeth refract in an emboldened flicker of honesty, the indent of her brow and a curve of lips brought to bloom, enchanting, intoxicating.

[squeakybeaches]

a remix of endings

a reminder: the song of your bones might be brittle, but life surges through the passageways from your heart to your fingertips, the imprint of stardust flaring in your veins. this existence is no circuitous street; the boulevard that takes your curious mind by the hand and faces the evergreen surge of a cul-de-sac end points you to no conclusion but a continuation. every stone you sidestep to the water-slicked boulder of the creek, has been a direction, has been a guide, and you are valid in every curve and twist of your smile. a reminder: the basement in which we locked up our dreams is no birdcage but a beginning, a gaslit and starlit and sunlit path we traverse; you and i, we’re here because we have yet to go there.