poetry wastebasket

everything's in order in a black hole

[ziruipoetry]

youth

We are the reckless

blue shadows overcast her face spiraling stares and crawling breaths she’s impulsive, oh so impulsive her hair catching on chipped souls as she trembles with the wind she’s dangerous, oh so dangerous lightning strikes heat and the sky becomes one with the sea she’s reckless, oh so reckless

We are the wild youth

she feels everything at once compartmentalizing isn’t even in her vocabulary retinas burning at 2 am looking for a muse to touch. the quiet hum of the morning accompanies the roaring night on an evening stroll and the world is in balance once again. Chasing visions of our futures

two souls find each by accident, drawn by smoke curled exhales. we love so easily, we break so easily. darlin’ you can’t spend your whole life lost inside bookstores

One day we’ll reveal the truth

she stares into the sun, cornflower meeting waxmelt. her lingering glance abides the star to its grave. only to be reborn, reprising moments later.

And if you're still bleeding, you're the lucky ones

red light, she pauses to glance at me and there’s a newfound glint in her eyes an abyss of wonder. red hot whispers bounce off the exit sign and i could swear at that moment she was the only thing still alive in this world.

'Cause most of our feelings, they are dead and they are gone

she was a siren sitting upon the prow of the ship in a bottle

We're setting fire to our insides for fun

age fifteen is fragile and filthy kids with ghost town hearts curious tongues licking the edge of youth recoiled tongues burning in the aftermath nervous hands and lips as sweet as milkshakes skin that doesn’t sit quite right upon limbs too old to be young, too young to be old

It was a flood that wrecked this

she filled and filled until she was overwhelming an abundance of empathy exploded in an array of consonants and vowels, too long pauses, regurgitated tongues. my lungs have knotted themselves twice over breathing all the words i never dared in the presence of the sun.

[ziruipoetry]

wonderment

in science we learned that atoms cannot be changed by chemical reactions. that the electrons can jump around but the essence of the element, the core, remains a constant. the first thing i did after class was to find an exception: radioactivity. nuclear fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium powers the sun and the stars. if the sun is powered by an exception, how can we remain constant?

i’ve always had a fascination with the sun. when i was four my favorite dress had a pale yellow tutu. once i wore it at sunset and it attracted (what seemed like) ten thousand tiny fruit flies. they clung at the lace and burrowed underneath the intricate layers, frantically flickering around my body as if i was the last lifeline stringing along all ten thousand bodies. i eventually outgrew that dress, but i could never outgrow the sun.

when i was five i jumped so high that even the moon couldn’t catch me, cracked my head and added a flare of red upon the coffee table. i laughed myself into stitches. one, two, three, four lines distinct from my dark roots. six: i fell off my bicycle. scraped my knees in the middle of the road and bled a memoir. i learned synonyms at age eight, how beginnings blur into endings and how stories are infinite. sequels were just never as good.

we want, we need, to define everything. label everything. fine lines – all that’s between my best friend’s wrists and the boy who sat beside me on the train. i wear my skin like a second-rate apartment. a chameleon who doesn’t know how to change colour, stuck in transparent. every year right before school starts i ask my mom to take me to the mall. “you’ve barely grown” she remarks. i know.

i remember my first tube of mascara. i liked to think that i had harnessed the night itself into a blue plastic tube. you don’t need to die to be reborn. sometimes all it takes is a sports bra and a faded receipt. for the next year my friends and i coated our lashes with that cheap black goop, sneaking into the school bathrooms before class because god forbid our parents found out. smudges lined our fingertips like trophies for of course we had picked the waterproof edition. 12 year olds tend to cry for anything and at everything.

middle school:  i wore too much black and stared too long at girls with cigarettes dangling from their fingertips. girls who always seemed to be whispering with friends in bathrooms i tried to go into no matter what time of day and a shiny belly button piercing beneath their barely-there shirts. girls with hair dyed so bright that the rest of the world was reduced to black-and-white. what my overindulgent hopes thought was a new beginning turned out to be a “phase”. to my parents: if the moon has four phases a month i can too.

sprinting clocks, there must be some mistake. there are no ends derived from my beginnings, simply the after of before. exploiting memories i haven’t yet developed, i replace my belongings as though they were all pandora’s boxes. locked and sealed before the program has even ran its full course. i’m the marathon runner that quits a step away from the finish line, the one man band at my own funeral. i begin and begin and leave everything overturned in my wake.

wonderment: is it the same for you?

[ziruipoetry]

Meet me on the Eastside

the longing: for a touch, for the hint of a smile. longing to fall in love with you. fall in love with the way you laugh, how your eyes light up, how your mouth turns, how your fingers tap: fall in love with the way you think, the way you breathe: fall in love with the concept of you, the form of you, the longing of you.  

In the city where the sun don't set

exchanging the secrets of our souls in careless whispers, as easy as inhaling and exhaling into the crook of your neck. molding bodies, intertwined fingers. trapped in the waves that are your eyes. to lay with you, watch the rise and fall of your body and your mind, keeping you alive, keeping me alive.  

Leave tonight

exhilarating screams, voices escaping to join with the salty breeze. deep bass vibrating with our shaking hands. forgetting old nightmares, making new promises. pull me closer, until our lips are crashing and the car is shaking – love me.

Take my hand and come with me

[ziruipoetry]

forget-me-not

It felt so right, just you and I

floating away: time slowed the one where you’re intentionally intention-less, like something straight out of a dream the one where you’re in pure bliss, and all you want to do is escape to outer space

Like this is something out of a dream

floating away: time frozen the one where clasped hands and the slant of cheekbones, is all you see, even the sun cannot blind you the moon and its quiet reflection, as the gold of your hair and the silver of your eyes seep into my bones as one

Since you been gone, don't know what I've done

floating away: time past the one where you flail your hands helplessly, because they’re nowhere to be found for were they even there in the first place? when all that remains has been reduced by the gold to smoke and ash 

You're just something like a memory

[ziruipoetry]

per-ma-nence

my wrists  contradict each  other,

putting consonants and vowels through metamorphosis.

curves and slants pinned down by black ink

they struggle to escape, smudges marking trophies a civil war

butterflies’ wings, clipped and tattered pre-flight

my words: stuck in the pupa stage – uncurling u’s, unfolding v’s

they hurl themselves towards the sun flickering trauma

the paper tears the truck picks up the survivors in a blue bin

reincarnation: my pen has not yet dried

and so i will continue writing black holes

the last stage the final phase permanence

[ziruipoetry]

RED //

red is heartbreak and passion and your wildest dreams. she is the flame licking your fingertips and the roses blooming outside your window. she is bold touches and wild thoughts and lingering glances. she is rage and smashed walls and crumpled pieces of paper. she is untouchable yet unavoidable. red wears cloaks of leather and tattered doc martins. she has eyes of embers and a bleeding heart.

ORANGE //

orange is satin sheets and neon signs. orange lives in the desert and devours the sun’s harsh light. orange is like a bad dream that you can’t wake up from. orange is coy smiles and the tap of long nails against the counter. she is blunt yet mysterious, the beginning yet the end. orange is the one night stand you struggle to remember the next day. she is the dust that leaves you behind and the roar of a motorcycle that momentarily deafens you. orange is honey and pencil marks you just cannot erase. orange wears pants of velvet and pinstripes. she’s got you trapped like insects in amber. orange puts foundation over her freckles and sees the world through yellowed-lenses.

YELLOW //

yellow embraces her freckles and has permanent crinkles around her eyes from laughter. she wears mismatched socks and winks far too much at strangers. yellow likes overalls and old converse. she walks along a path of sunflowers and dreams of meeting the sun. yellow chews bubble gum and listens to jazz and always get the happy meal at McDonald’s. yellow converts her entire backyard into a garden and revels in nolstagia. yellow is fairy lights and flower crowns and glitter on cheekbones. she is bike rides through parks and ukuleles late at night. yellow wears clear lip gloss and has chipped nail polish. she bakes chocolate chip cookies for fun and wears sundresses year round.

GREEN //

green is a breath of fresh air. green complains that ice cream is too sweet but eats buckets of it anyways.  green drinks smoothies and owns one too many succulents. she wears knitted sweaters and cuffed straight leg jeans. green is an adventurer. you can find green with her lace up leather boots by a tree with her camera. she captures moments that only she can see. green is quiet ambition and kai ponds.

BLUE //

blue is shadows and overcast days. blue wears double denim and sips giant mugs of coffee. blue sees the world in soundwaves and observes people from her bench. she writes down anything and everything she sees in her notebook and bottles up her feelings. blue is also stormy skies and crashing waves after the sun has set and maniacal laughter on the beach. blue is the feeling of sand beneath your feet and piercing glances. blue is awake before everyone else and she sits on her window-seat listening to the hum of the morning. blue dreams of galaxies and wears teddy bear buns in her hair.

PURPLE //

violet is a minimalist. she sees right through half-lies and has a habit of going to the grocery store and buying whatever strikes her fancy. purple listens to too much hayley kiyoko and wears her earbuds too often. she also wears crystal necklaces. purple loves skylines and sunrises, disco balls and late nights. she thrives late at night, where there’s nobody to hear her whispers. theres blue black shadows under her eyes and blue black shadows around her wrists. she’s the carefree at a haunting.

[ziruipoetry]

a haze of muted cymbals where you see the sound, you feel the sound, but your ears prove to be nothing but traitors; i’m the one man band at my own funeral.

szz

[ziruipoetry]

there’s a void where my conscience should be and i’m not sure if missing posters are gonna make it come back

szz

[ziruipoetry]

burn all your bridges: and hope that by the time you’ve healed, they haven’t moved on.

szz

[ziruipoetry]

don’t let me disintegrate. // 10:02 p.m.

[ziruipoetry]

toxic waste flowing from your hollow mouth regenerated like biomass energy regenerated from rotting trees. our trunks were tangled like long-lost childhood friends on the brink of being more than just two masses of the same arrangements of particles enclosed in bodies of being that were on autopilot; the same tedious routine day after day. why do we dose ourselves with cold water in the morning and warm, no, burning hot water at night before we lay ourselves down on boards of tranquil matter that mimic the festivals of death. a white funeral: the state of being half empty half full half living half dull. why do we insist on separating our vessels of air so that we can shove our puzzle pieces into other vacancies that don’t even fit for we are naught but broken: beings obsessed with the idea of being whole. mind controlled automobiles programmed to prove that we are different, that we are more than what we think our society is. why do we want to escape: to the interstellar [oh holler] skies of wonderland. why do we take the plastic bags of thought and suffocate; our mindless lives, infectious crops of wilted bones of flooded lungs because we are not okay. i don’t understand you, neither you to me but please know that i am trying to make us okay like bonded trees, tangled branches in a forest hidden to all but us. the force of nature cannot be reckoned with and your roots grow outwards and away and we snap and winter comes but (oh god) you aren’t here and my sap cannot fix my broken limbs no matter how hard the birds try they cannot stop me from falling: if i fall, but no one hears, do i still make a sound?

szz

[ziruipoetry]

i’ve seen too many pretty things to fall in love with the likes of you.

szz

[ziruipoetry]

running on empty adrenaline, a red hot sensation of pure exhilaration but there’s no wind in your hair or pounding in your lungs. a robot riding a rollercoaster. one too many cups of cold coffee trying to awaken numb nerves too frayed out with too many crash landings to care. sitting outside until the light has gone trying to grasp onto the warmth of the sun as though it is the last lifeline stringing along your broken body. a tired slump, a defeated hunch, a roaring mind. your internal clock has run out of AA batteries. seconds that feel like hours yet days that feel like minutes. it’s always too much or not enough. the cackling of flames daring to lick at your fingertips. it feels like you’re drowning in the ocean surrounded by flames and eventually, all that’s left is the whisper of the smoke arising over everything you’ve ever known. skin painted but insides ragged, lips demure yet eyes frantic. you’d think, no you’d wish that you would feel something. anything. but your taste buds have evaporated and the only thing left steeping is the raw taste of a swallowed tongue. is this sensory overload or deprivation ?

szz

[ziruipoetry]

bony wrists and downcast eyes. forlorn spine and raw bitten fingernails. i wear my skin like a second rate apartment. graffiti that no water is scalding enough to corrode away and hastily thrown meals. cold showers and burning retinas. warning: love sold separately

szz

[ziruipoetry]

joy wears shoes of nostalgia

szz