sub.poetess

[subpoetess]

for the us that would someday meet

The lights are orange and warm on this side

Though we stand under the same sky

Across the black, purple, pink and blue

I wonder if it’s different on the other shore

Strange destinies, stranger fates

Things I may not know yet.

Of places in my life yet to be filled,

Though shaken, though misplaced,

Paths wrought that had always been meant to be.

The you who is there, are you waiting too?

For the us that someday would meet?

—19 Mar 2018

[subpoetess]

2am; I should be sleeping

How do you move on with your life

when you’ve looked into that person’s eyes

and you know

you just know

that they are the catalyst, the sum of reasons in your life.

Life goes on

but not you.

No matter how many times you pick up the pieces

or tear the plaster off the wound

you don’t get used to it, it doesn’t hurt less.

Inevitably, your thoughts always turn to that person and

you wonder if it had been just your imagination.

How do you move on?

You can’t.

You cover it up with distractions

and pretend you’re running.

[subpoetess]

Before I knew it,

the hair I had cut short,

I could braid again.

7 November 2018

[subpoetess]

Altair and Vega

We could be Altair and Vega

Briefly met in a millennia of history

Except when I stood across you

Your back was facing me all the time

So I never knew, I'll never know

But I'm still standing at the end of the broken bridge

3 May 2021

[subpoetess]

A new day

Sun is rising into the sky,

Start afresh a new day

Dew is dripping on the stile

It is a typical day in May

Moon is floating into the night

The owls are searching for mice

Lying down, under twilight,

The air is fresh and the night is nice

3 February 1997

[subpoetess]

Whispered Words

Let me bare my soul

Even for a moment let me close my eyes

And breathe

Or not

Let the memory seep into my body

as like whispered words and etched letters sink into paper and dry

Before I come into the future

where my memories become my lies to me

Let me remember that night

when the light touched you just right

Let me remember that I saw you with my own eyes

that you were devastating

took me completely by surprise

and though the you I saw may fade

my heart remembers that

there was nothing in that moment

but lightning and thunder

— 1 Feb 2019

[subpoetess]

If I can’t be yours,

I don’t want to be anyone’s.

[subpoetess]

It ended, it began

People think that the notion of falling in love at first sight is absurd. That it’s something you’d find only in romance fiction.

I have loved, and I have fallen in love with you.

In that moment when my eyes met yours for the first time, an earthquake happened inside of me.

It felt as though my world had ended, and it felt as though my world had only just begun.

17 Feb 2020

[subpoetess]

Ode to the possibly 17 years, thereabouts

You came to me in a dream;

The cheesiness of it will not dissuade me from admitting this.

It is true, and it did happen.

What was in the dream?

It doesn’t matter. The only thing that does is the “after”.

“After”, I saw you. I had probably seen you before, but “after” I really saw you.

I saw you then, for the first time in my life.

You were fooling around gleefully.

You were glowing — because the morning sun was streaming from the windows behind you.

I think about that moment, and I’ve wondered

what my life would have been instead, if it hadn’t happened.

But it did, and it will not unhappen.

Minute moments, short bursts of happiness

quietly cherished in my heart.

I held those memories of you from afar like a torch.

Who was I to you after all? A nobody.

I changed as I chased your shadow.

The me that was weak, was made stronger.

Quickly the years passed and school done.

I thought I would never see you again. That your work in my life was done.

You came back, if only briefly, before you were gone again.

Years and years I was left wondering if you were alright, if you were here, if you were dead or still alive.

When you re-entered my life, no, that’s not right.

When I finally entered YOUR life, I thought, this is it.

This is fate, I thought.

That I can let myself hope

Years and years later. And finally, finally, I did dare to dream.

I do not deny — even in those last moments, I had dreamt of something other than “this”.

Maybe I was not the girl you’ve always loved somewhere in your heart.

But I thought maybe I was at least, something.

After all, you have made me who I am right now.

You placed me where I am right now.

It had hurt me. I was completely surprised that it did.

I thought I would be alright.

But in the end I wasn’t. How would I label that pain?

Was it the pain of a broken heart, or a broken trust? Was it hope shattering into a thousand pieces?

Do you know? I am always pursuing.

I keep looking for the YOU in people I meet.

I view them with mistrust and I close myself so tightly,

but never tight enough, never close enough.

I forget that pain at times, too many times, and stumble open.

Then the heart that refuses to remain broken, gets hurt again.

I curse, and swear.

I dedicate angsty love songs to you and others.

But I am not mended.

I fear I may perhaps never be.

[subpoetess]

Love in Measures

If I love you in measures, would that make me less sincere? With envy I see people boldly write their names with yours while my heart quietly  raises your name to my sky. Yet still I’m afraid that if I let go, my feelings would overflow ceaselessly; and sweep you away until I am nothing left behind.

15 January 2020

[subpoetess]

It is you

There had been a path laid down for me

To meet the people I had to meet

To live my life as I had to

So that I could be that person for the people I meet

"Destiny" or "fate" or "inevitability"

I am not the hero of this story

It is you

9 Dec 2021

[subpoetess]

That Time

If I had told him that other time

That other place

When I was another me;

Would I long each day for day —

Would I cry endless tears —

Or would I have him by my side

Would I have happiness?

How simple the words sound

Rolled endlessly within my thoughts

Yet if it were so

Would I have not told that?

That time I lost, never again:

That time would not come once more.

Each day for day I rise and fall

Each day for day my heart will ache.

Would I have that chance again!

That time I’ve lost, lost forever

Each day I live; I live with regrets

Just “if”s form in my mind

I rose and fell hopelessly

Since that time.

[subpoetess]

Happy Things

For a brief moment, it felt as though I was peeking through doors slightly ajar. Beyond it was a brilliant and colourful cacophony of happy things. And I was just on the other side of this joy, like a promise of things to come.

[subpoetess]

Untitled

There is a dark place inside of me

I struggle with my ocean of "what-ifs"

I'm trying to keep afloat but I'm sinking

I long for a sign I know I won't believe; and

the words you say are pretty

but actually they're really just feed

I hate that before I realised it

my existence to you matter a lot to me

I used to think I'm alone and strong

Yet in the end, I'm just lonely.

I am ashamed of me.

7 December 2018

[subpoetess]

The Clear Night Sky

As I look up into the black sky, I feel myself falling towards the deep space. There is not a shred of cloud.

I know the galaxies and solar systems and stars and planets are out there somewhere. But right now, at this vey moment, all I feel is the nothingness that stretch for miles, hundreds, thousands and millions of them. An infinity of emptiness.

Inside me, even a little, I quiver at this small inconsequential me.

3 August 2018

[subpoetess]

Light & Rain

Standing beneath the umbrella Between breaths, the pattering of rain, I get a little wet. I sigh, toes wriggling in the water. I watch circles spreading from my feet. What am I doing here? In the dark, in the rain. My shoulders feel heavy. It’s not cold, just uncomfortable. Against the light, the slant of the rain looks beautiful.

18 Feb 2018

[subpoetess]