work

I don't imagine the sun ever gets tired, 

Rising every morning

Stretching across the sky

Tucking itself away after a long day's work

Infinite source of energy, light, delight

 

And i compare myself to the sun because i am one of those awful people that believes i should be able to do the impossible, 

and of course hate myself for the inevitable failure 

a skill, learnt

 

i am sitting on a stony beach

pebbles sharp against my bare legs

joints stiff from the cold edging in

and it is dark

the sky is that deep purple blue

a swathe of seagulls are snoozing in a huddle just where the water licks up to the coast

they squawk and lift up to fall down again 

napping

jumping

napping

jumping

a car zips by on the road behind

trace gone as quick as it appeared

 

The sun set at 15:30 this afternoon

and actually, i wish i could also clock off then, mid-afternoon

a stretch of time before exhaustion to exist 

in this moment hung between the glass doors separating presence into a small room i am usually locked out of 

new year new me baby

The crack of a firework, in the yard separated from the pavement you're walking down by a splintered fence, around the corner from the bus stop

You feel the vibrations in your ears, ringing, still, on the bus ride home, the 67 from Stoke Newington to Wood Green, the 221 towards Edgeware. 

 

The crack of bone breaking, an explosion centred between your eyes (you hear him 'oh shit' behind you but you're already walking away). The blooming as a flower unfurls, dripping, warm, thin. You can't breathe properly, but this is a familiar feeling. You can't breathe properly, but it usually gets stuck further down than this, heart, chest, throat. 

 

The crack as your nose is pushed back into alignment by dr qiao, after an hour of drinking bitter herbal tea made sweet with honey, shivering, even though you're still wearing your winter coat. Grateful that you cannot understand the conversation around you because it means you do not have to contribute. Soo translates, wearing a furry hat that makes her look like an anime character, and having her there makes the whole breathing thing easier. You catch a few words, bizi (nose), nai nai (grandmother), shen me (what), and then you lie on the chair and think about getting your wisdom tooth cracked in half and pulled from your jaw earlier this year. This body has been through a lot. This body is tired.

The next morning you wake up and see an imposter in the mirror, the swelling between your eyebrows making you into a cheap imitation of the real thing. The following morning you wake up with an angry purple mark beneath your left eye, to match your bruised ego and bruised heart. 

 

Its midnight but the sky is bright enough it feels more like sunrise, which is apt, you think, 

what is new year's day but the sun rising over a new year, a crown, a beginning, a first page

You are trying really hard to feel good, excited, happy - the sky is big and wide above you. 

And, as the night turns and the trees along the boundary of the marshes light up, gently, 

you're surrounded, suddenly, by a string of flashing light and colour, and you think about the people around you, stuffing grapes into their mouths as you count to 12 and you think, maybe, you might be close. 

 

i want to be a waterfall

I am trying to be a waterfall

Endless, abundant, overflowing

Connected (there is only one body)

Only that water falls onto rocks, sprays the bank, grows moss and fungi and tiny little flowers that spring up bobbing heads threatening to fly away at too sharp a breeze

 Crashes into the pool below, the deepest well, deep enough to catch all of this water falling from the sky over the cliffs edge from the clouds that glow gold in the evening light

All of the water in the world coming through this channel

Held like a cradle

So the body is not just one body but all bodies

 

Where do I put it, all of this water

Looking for rocks and moss and slimy leaves that fall from the trees wet with spray and splash

I pick out the shiniest shells hidden between pebbles at the beach, polished sharp and smooth by the heartbeat pull of waves

Put them in my pocket, portals to this body

 

When (if) the ground wants to drink it will open itself up

soft and ready

 

When the earth is too hard it cannot receive the rain

A pursuit of protection blocks all, even that which would soften it

The waterfall would flood the field it is too much

Overwhelming

It doesn't need the waterfall

I wonder if it is even thirsty

It should be easy, to give and receive.

 

im on the overground at rush hour and i want to scream

I feel like my heart is screaming, like there is a hand around its throat, squeezing, a hard pressure

There is no stillness

No calm

Even though I am calling for it

The more desperate I am the farther away it gets, taunting

Pushing and pulling, tugging the sleeve of the adult begging for a break

But all I get is a sharp look - quiet

It is far too much to ask, out of my place

i make myself smaller, take up less space,

less air (i don't try to, i succeed) 

discomfort is unwelcome, put it away

folded small, tucked away under doubts and sense of self

smile, passive, survive, thrive!

why aren't you happy?

you catch yourself sometimes, not breathing

you have to remind yourself

convince yourself

to stop

take the sword out of your mouth

force the air down your stomach

it gets set like that, fresh concrete left to dry out in a mould, rigid, immovable. 

might crack if you hit too hard.

so its got to be gentle

coaxing

not a slash but a slow slide in

only as much as accepted

which initially is nothing: the grate stops entry but it also stops the exit of anything worse that might come up

acid, bubbling, tears, salty

a shadow, all consuming

moth wings and spider webs and nails bent out of shape and the lightness and heaviness of knowing its all in your head 

and it stands in front of you as you blow at it 

as if that will be enough to defeat it (it has three blades and brass knuckles and a long reach)

often it isn't

(and it hurts)

but sometimes it is

if only for the 4 count

and then the 6 count

and then the 8

 

ways of showing love as an asian mother

Small red strawberries, neatly packed into a ziplock bag the size of my palm, shining like something precious, an unexpected addition poking out of the corner of my lunch bag, diligently packed the night before to minimise waking minutes before leaving the house.

 

The scent of durian, indescribable but not stinky, never unpleasant, strong, fragrant as soon as the door swings open, a greeting before crossing the threshold. The flesh falling away in my fingers as I try to grab a piece, slipping through. I say I'll eat one piece, but two, three seeds appear, naked except for the cap where the stubborn bits of bitter fruit are stuck despite the sucking and scraping. You laugh as I show you, telling me to eat more, how sweet it it.

 

Interrupting my phone call to a friend I haven't spoken to in months for the second time, first calling me down to ask me something I couldn't possibly know the answer to and can't care to remember, second opening the bedroom door right after knocking (it has taken a long time to even get the knocking) with a plate of cut mango, not just sliced but with the skin peeled off, offering it without apology, knowing it is one, in that the words are too clunky to fit in your mouth, unfamiliar jagged obtuse the way your mother tongue is in mine, cutting not outwards but my own gums.

 

I don't have to say it, you don't say, because I should know.  

Picking me up from the tube station at night when it's dark, even though its only a ten minute walk and the exercise is good for me. Wanting to. 

Not asking me why I moved back in.

 

There are no words of comfort, no telling me that I am valid or physical affection beyond an awkward hug on the first night, my arms bumping against your glasses. I tower over you and worry about squeezing too hard, its unfamiliar and uncomfortable. 

 

I love you. I think this is the first time I believe it. I am an infant again, stripped and naked and helpless but I'm also 26 years old and still helpless in front of you and the power you hold over me.

 

The blackberry bush in your (our, again) garden also gracelessly suffocates the other bushes, thick stems barbed sharp against anyone trying to push back. And in the summer sun those branches are heavy with the weight of an abundance of fruit, tart and full and grown through the labour of striking through other plants, of barging through the slightest cracks in fences of tending to thorns created with the generational knowledge such they taper to so slight a point but still only break off whole when forced. 

 

I sit on the grass wet with morning dew soaking through my socks, looking at the space in the stem where it tore, thorn between my fingers. This is the way it grows, this is the only way it knows how to grow and how can I expect anything else from it but the wholehearted commitment to protection, fierce and trying. 

Shared company, two adults trying to live. We cast shadows against the soft carpet as we split a late night snack, paratha hot and oily on the plate, half yours even though you only take one bite, muted tv glowing colours of some shitty reality show. In the gaps of light between us I am able to hold, with gratitude, the years between us the miles between us the four years of therapy between us, and enjoy the sweetness of the fruit.

deep winter

As you wake the warmth dissolves around you

flickers in your chest frozen as the walls solidify

you feel unsettled. your rooms a mess and you don't want to tidy it up

 

The mornings are slow, moving through molasses, for no reason at all really

There is an ache in your heart and you hate it for that

 

Anxiety buzzes, tiny flies you can't quite catch the shape of swarm inside you

too quick to catch with your palm or fist

 

It is a wound in your chest, below the sternum just under the stomach, slightly to the left

 

It is just sad

 

living living living

There is a grip around your heart (my heart)

The hand is broad, strong

thick knuckles soft, torn around the nails to make layers of skin into tiny mountain ranges in glowing amber, blood only just dried around the edges

Another is around your throat, all the way around

thumb pressed against a pulse beating staccato erratic

a 200 bpm electronic stutter

catching jarring gasping

the pressure feels good

 

It lights something inside you burning around the wick

spreads from your chest down your arms till your fingertips burn with warmth

you press them to your face and you are wrapped under a thick blanket as it snows outside - 

 

And then it is gone and the ice numbs your toes and you sit, in the bathtub, filled with water long gone cold wishing for it to warm you again

 

The foam on the waves crash gently against your ankles

bubbles and brings with it treasures from far away

The stones beneath your feet are sharp and cut tender flesh as you try to move

the salt stings but it is a sign you are alive

 

im trying to connect with you

Hard and knarled, I stare at a peach split in half, velvet skin bruised from being knocked around at the bottom of my backpack 

It was overripe, torn, leaking out its furry boundary

papers and phone charger sticky 

An impression, contact made with the world of my possessions as if not wanting to be forgotten

Remember that time? Even after it is gone

There is a pit in my stomach

A seed in an infant given at birth

Containing all the dna and scripture for a whole life

(the tree is already in the seed)

Sometimes it is a core and sometimes it is a well dried up, bottomless

Sometimes redecoration is necessary, the pit gets covered by a cage

and the cage is also empty at first but then I realise it is actually full

Or half full

Or getting there

 

that fun diaspora feeling

I spoke with my dad this morning

Keh se ho

The words are clumsy, my tongue trips over the furniture in my mouth as if it hasn't lived there for 26 years

It gets rearranged, the indents in the carpet scars of what was, perhaps what should have been

The projection of a happy family sitting around the TV, words and language melting together fused solid, steady

instead of bumping my elbow into the corner of the hardwood table as I try to make myself small against the wall, unnoticed, my accent swallowed 

 

 

in the dungeon

Your fingers dig into your skin your chest your neck clasping grasping pressed tight and close and hard like you can't slip or something will escape

One crack and it all falls apart

Bleeding out gushing thick viscous honey

bulging with flies stuck suffocated by their desire

It should be sweet but its bitter 

hardened under pressure

but no value added

 

The crow in the cage bats its wings

strikes against the bars, shoulder bruised from impact but going

again again again

heavy, a bass drum beat

beating the air into a gale force wind because survival is a zero sum game and if anyone else is happy it means you are not

But survival isn't really enough

it isn't satisfying it is draining and brain melting and numb

an absence

does it matter if it is excitement or anxiety

what do you desire

 

 

sorry

I am apologising too much

Empty sorries that fall like rain hitting pavement

Not fat drops plump with meaning in the middle of a humid summer

But spitting sheet rain, there but not there -

doesn't warrant a good jacket but enough to blur my vision through the streaks on my glasses

I was holding something precious but it slips through my fingers and my hands are empty

bereft of something weighty to the point that a part of me is gone too

My breath does not quite reach my lungs 

But you are right it means nothing

stream

The light and shadow dance like ants across the surface, static on the tv after rewinding the vhs tape (an old memory) frantic, fretting, confused against the gentle babble of the stream. It folds around the rocks, a caress, firm, as it continues onwards, unblinking. The tension holds for a second before breaking as my fingers slide in, slimy, wet. I'm crouching on the bank, grass overgrown and soft beneath my feet, giving, a cradle, a holding of my own roots in contrast to the unforgiving hardness pressing back on the road

ibs

 I'm thinking about how worms can grow back when they're cut in half

And how they can be split in two and not be ruined

But continue below the hard cracked surface

To rend the earth itself and turn and mix 

and grind back into it richness, multiplied

 

I am thinking about how my gut is a brain

but it feels like the earth

heavy and wet and full of life forms crawling crawling crawling around 

unidentified churning kneading like bread like taffy like fudge

but the kind that makes you want to throw up

 

It is giving me indigestion

But it is also only the upper six feet

The box inside is much deeper and isn't hard or cracked or rich it is small and it is scared

I am scared

 

The nameless dread of being born

The silence that echoes from everything inside that cannot be let out 

A head cracked open and spilt on the table, cranberry juice dripping a pool on the floor 

midsummer (light)

 

There is a dream that goes in two directions

One is home, familiar, warm

 

The world is a beautiful place

 

In darkness there are no shadows

The edges are soft, they blend like pastel clouds on sugar paper

I want to set it alight, watch flames lick and curl the corners up

Running along seams that threaten to rip and spill out 

My fingers grip the sheets on the bed 

 

The bruises beneath my eyes aren't purple or pretty there is no romance there

The fire in my chest isn't warm

It is sharp and barbed and digs at my insides

Black bleeds out, sticky tar I don't want you to step in

It will ruin your nice shoes

 

A memory lingers

A feeling

A flash of teeth meeting in a smile

Heaviness, muscle under flesh

The impulse is to dive into the water

(I've never enjoyed swimming before)

Dance barefoot with the grass tickling ankles, arms

Buttercups, crocuses, crushed beneath to regrow next season

It is not blood but sweet wine inside me and I want to drink