absumink

[absumink]

i don’t know what i’m supposed to say. i don’t know what i’m supposed to do. i don’t know if i should apologise. do you want me to? would you forgive me? i think, at some point in time, i stopped caring about the right things. and started focusing on the wrong ones. and now i’ve reached oblivion. but i can still hear you. i still listen when you call. i still hear your breath hitch, broken into shards when i don’t answer. i know it’s my fault. i could’ve been better, but i wasn’t. i chose not to be.

sometimes, in the dead of night, when the phone rings off the hook, i hold my breath and think of you. of you, in whole— this time, unbroken; no stench of dark, no black decay, this time you are loved, warm, and swaddled soft in sugar. sometimes, when the waves are fast asleep, i close my eyes and think of you. of you in bloom, in all potential, rich of glow and light. this time you are not lone, you are not aching for a grasp you cannot reach; you are home. you have flight.

i do not know the right things to say. how to make it better. i do not know how to find Time, how to bludgeon her, how to make her pay. it’s not her fault anyway. it’s mine. i won’t fall to my knees, beg your soul for mercy. i know you would not listen. i know you would not look me in the eye. i don’t know where you’ve ended up now, how far beyond the cliffs you’ve sailed the sea. but i will be here waiting, keeping cobble clear, the weeping vines at bay. i will dust when it gets dirty, close the windows when it rains. i will empty all my love and send it out your way. i will wait for your call. and this time, i will answer it.

g.k. - attempt at atonement

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[absumink]

this morning i made french toast

even though

it was

quite early

for sugar.

i just thought:

today will end so suddenly

just like

all the others.

if i’m not careful

i could misplace it

lose it

to the evening sky.

i just thought:

time

is an olympic sprinter

and i

cannot keep up

a blur i cannot focus on

sailing far beyond the sea

she calls for me

but the faster i run after her

the faster

she slips away

i just thought:

i won’t be here for long

not long at all to time

i will last almost a century

but to her i will fade suddenly

dwindling like

a dying cloud

she will not miss my warmth

to her

i’m just

decay

tomorrow will be yesterday

before it’s afternoon

so i must hug hard

laugh loud

love madly

i just thought:

time will outrun me

and yet still

be so far behind

i just thought:

i am sick of life

escaping me,

blue for all

that could have been

i just thought:

i need something

sweet.

g.k. - death of a cloud

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[absumink]

your skin is still woven here

through the seams of mine

and the salt

that makes it bitter

overripe

leather almost rotting

overstaying the welcome

that was lost long ago.

your voice still sits here

like a souvenir

like a song that will not leave my head

just to linger

decaying on my doorstep

saying that you think of me,

still.

when you left

you did not take all of you

you left some things behind;

remnants that survived

that dawdle

in my unmade bed

and in-between my fingers,

like a parasite

tempting me to catch it

to chase it

where the shadows grow

your essence is still living here

daring me to bite

to ponder

if you miss me

if you’re looking for my footsteps

and the echoes of my name.

if i catch that parasite

it will lead me back to you

but i know

that you still

will not have changed.

g.k. - parasite

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[absumink]

i think you came from a special part of the universe. not you as in your body, but your soul. i think you came from a part of the universe that is far away from here. where the nebulae take form of earthly flowers, and the constellations constructed are alluring, oozed in bronze and ash. where the planets are ethereal beyond any human comprehension, unable to be named or objectified, just alive, with being. where the usual vacuum of space is less of a vast vacancy, and more so rich of ebony streams. i think where you came from must have been intangible, a part so celestial, farthest away from the ruin of human remains.

i am sure you became from the brightest pocket of stardust, concocted from grace, creation’s finest formation. your spirit’s traveled long, but still survives unscathed. somewhere, in the deepest reaches of the sky, arose you. where beauty is so stark, so fertile of elegance, where splendour bleeds distant into eternal night. somewhere where, if humans could attain, we simply could not fathom its significance, envision its eternity, understand its glow. you are the universe. contained, in human form. you are all beauty. all warmth. all effervescence. you are the light that illuminates my darkest days. and the joy that brings, and shares, my brightest ones. you are made of all good. you are my good. you are my everything.

g.k. - sacrosanct

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[absumink]

T W E N T Y - O N E L E S S O N S

(to/from twenty-one year old me)

i. you are not afraid of love, you are afraid of loss. if you keep refusing a life of ever-changing tenderness, you will drift off to sea, without ever knowing warmth.

ii. its okay to be resonant. to be the thunderous thrum that brings cliffs to their feet. do not chase smallness; chase eminence, essence, beauty.

iii. you are not your mother. you do not have to be.

iv. there will always be others that are adorned with more gifts, have pearlier bones, solid gold teeth. do not let this stop you from creating. make art to meet grace, not to win a trophy.

v. on your most lonesome nights, look up to the sky. there will be millions of others looking up with you.

vi. when ache begins to overflow, let it be. no matter how hard you try, you cannot stop a damaged dam from breaking eventually.

vii. in rawest form, born as flesh and blood, you have been worthy. you do not need to conform or accommodate. you do not need to alter or obey. regardless of condition, you are enough already. you always will be.

viii. your most valuable journeys will take place within you. treat your soul with patience and with love.

ix. there is more than enough room in the cosmos for you.

x. they are not out to get you. they’re neither evil, malevolent nor vile. they, too, hold deep wounds in their hearts. they hold pain that they don’t know how to yet heal properly.

xi. break your ego with your shoulder blades. you do not have all control, you cannot change most of anything. let go. let go. let go.

xii. love without conditions. this does not mean settle. or to tolerate trauma when you should be running free. it means; meet people where they are. it means; you do not need to fix everything.

xiii. you do not deserve what happened to you.

xiv. people are more bitter than you think. but they are also kinder than you will ever know.

xv. you don’t owe anyone university. you don’t owe anyone a humdrum nine-to-five in an ash-coloured cubicle just ‘cause the pay is nice. you don’t owe anyone marriage, or (grand)children, or a white picket fence with a lawn you need to water every day and a house in a neighbourhood that all looks the same.

xvi. at the deepest core of every human, is a heart. you are more alike to humankind than you think. you are not exceptional, but you are still extraordinary.

xvii. explore far. and farther still. not to flee your roots, but to discover how distant they will carry you.

xviii. time only is, if you are counting. this moment is not ephemeral, it is forever. go slow, stay soft, and breathe deeply.

xix. your body will always be the least important thing about you.

xx. the past has ended. but i know it somehow still lingers, still idles in its cave. i know the memories and the aftermath remain. you are not playing victim, you are honestly suffering.

xxi. the universe does not care if you make it out alive. do it anyway.

g.k.

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[absumink]

you are someone’s dearest

someone’s home soul

when wind song blows

they hear your name

in it’s melody

you are the warmest

of telescope waves,

the remnants of stars

lost at sea

empty at the bosom

ache in every bone

every namesake you

happen to be

you are where

the far lands lay

where the earth ends

and bows itself down

into the empty

stomach of space

you are not sadly altered

or destroyed

the broken wail of ebony—

you are laughters light

every cosmos

come together

to slow-dance

in the rain

your spirit, love incarnate

however finite;

you will never be

again.

g.k. - honeydew juice

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[absumink]

i have always loved to long

for the lives i’ve never lived

for the bays made of salt

wrapped in warm cliffs

for the teal-bike baskets

that hold sourdough

for the fields of evergreen

and the sands of marigold;

or a sea that is cold

but still wild, and still blue

where i’d learn to catch storms

like i’ve learnt to tie shoes

where the power goes out often

but i’d keep candlelight

so i’d be the only glow

for miles, at night;

or a place in the hills

that’s never met the sea

where the goats and village people

drink from freshwater streams

where i grow my own garlic

my own freckles, and wheat

where the wind whispers tales

of the dunes in the east;

i could pack up tomorrow

any thing that would fit

change my name, chase a dream

that i’ve never lived.

but wherever i go, i’ll still just be me.

afraid of the dark, a love of the sea.

i’ll still look the same, speak the same

have the same things to do,

i’d still have myself,

i would not be new.

if i finally escaped,

i’d just dream of new dreams.

where i live in new places.

where i am not me.

g.k. - a day dream

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[absumink]

can you tell me i’ll be okay? can you tell me i’ll make it? can you tell me that this life, of thick spots, kumquats, warm moons, cold windows, doesn’t have it out for me? sometimes it feels like it does. sometimes it feels like i’m lost in woods that extend for eternity. sometimes i feel like having brioche for breakfast will kill me. can you tell me that i am enough? that i have it? can you remind me that not every void is mine to carry? that i am allowed a hot bath, a kind hug, that i do not have to worry. can you hold me, say every flaw i own is ebbing, every fear i feel is fine. say i am not all or nothing, i am being, i am tender and soft and loving and strong. say i am light. i am song. can you grant me grace? can you bring me epiphany? can you feel my heart, deep inside the earth, longing for a taste of the sun? i have always been afraid of what i do not know, what i cannot understand, what i will never love. i spend days attempting flawlessness, faultlessness, i want to be admired. i want to be adored. can you remind me that its not worth the odyssey? i am only human, spirit, the final breath of fire. i need sleep, springtide, rich kisses, sunlight. i will not make it out alive. can you tell me i am whole? that i’m complete, already?

g.k. - faith

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[absumink]

i wish you the best of days. but i wish you the worst of ones, too. and i hope the next tea you get, from the coffee shop on the corner of fourth, has too much milk and too much sugar. but i hope you get it for free, ‘cause of the mistake. i hope you know happiness, and how she sings. and how she laughs. i hope you feel the sun on your cheeks, through the glass of your window. but i also hope the sky where you are is dreary. and bitter. and bleak. i want you to find beauty, and warmth that does not flicker. but i want you to feel remorse. and the weight of the hurt you birthed onto me. i wish you would’ve loved me in the ways i needed. and not in the ways you did (the only ways you knew how). i wish i did not ache for you, yearn for you, both abhor and adore you. i wish you would understand. i wish you every heartbeat, every spoonful of honey, every smile, wide and loud. but i wish you every lull of dusk and dawn, every dying star, every heavy empty. i hope i do not see you again, for a billion and one tomorrows— but i hope i see you soon. to sit with me, in softness. to speak with me, in fondness. to embrace me, for a billion and two.

g.k. - contrarian

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[absumink]

i am sorry i cannot be consistent

that i am both

every sea, skinned

and spring’s first citrus;

a bedevilled itch

and your mother tongue.

this dark, dull ache

and the deepest wrinkle

in my smile

some days i am so loud

i eat bones,

and the homes

of the shadow people;

while some days

i go hungry.

i am both all and every,

light and lull

alabaster, sap-blackened

and the broken back

of grey;

you cannot recognise me

i am new

i change

g.k. - elbow broth

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[absumink]

the last ten years of my life people have been telling me i’ve began the phase in which life changes drastically. that i’ve entered a new era of becoming. that i am growing up, growing old, growing new. they’ve said that i’ve reached the age in which aches thaw and things shift fleetly, not ever needing my permission. first, it was leaving childhood into early adolescence, then early into late, and now, i am known as a woman. all the uncertainty, newfangled, fresh-born, all that was foreign to me; gifted in a box with the title “Here’s What You Receive For Your Next Trip Around The Sun”.

i think it may be simpler. with every echo of the words “you’re at that age now when…” i grow a new cavity. a chasm inside where there is no light, no bone or sinew, a gap that breeds on the fear of being one that things happen to. instead of one that is just being. the unknowns i faced did not belong to the ages 18, 15, 12. they were mine, inside and out. i held them in my hands. i did not know what to call them. i did not know if i should call them, or just sit with them, in the darkness, as a way to say “i do not like you. but you are here. and so am i. and we cannot outrun each other”

i’m sure there were some validity to the echoes, but when i heard them i’d always feel sour. i was starting to believe that the wounds i was running my hands over, picking at the raw frayed skin of, were not actually my own. not mine, but something else’s. something that was full bruise, only ever suffering. something that i had the unfortunate path of greeting. but it is, in truth, not that way. it is not that way at all. Life and i are not on two separate lines, occasionally spilling over onto the other. we are the same line. it is all mine, it is all me.

i am not here to be “happened to”. i am not here to hold pain that belongs to another entity, a different time and space, feet in floor made of tar while eternity moves onward. i am here, now, and although i cannot touch the cosmos, i still feel it, ebbing warm. we are the same line, the same stars and blood. we are the same flow of light. life does not happen to me, i have happened upon it, and it is a wondrous thing; of love and grace, of war and pain. all that i feel, well and truly belongs to me. all that i am is not all fated, is not all doomed. when unknown falls into the palms of my chest, whether soft-spoken or bloodied, i will sit with it, in darkness, i will sing to it with fondness, i will say “i do not know you, but i’m going to”

g.k. - i am bliss. i am ache. i am wild blue yonder.

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[absumink]

i’ve been feeling like a shadow. like a backwards bruise, where the blue stays, cause it’s gotten to know me. (i’ve gotten to know it, too). i’d like to be likeable, i’d like to have a place in people’s brains, with a soft seat and some tapestry, be what they think of when they feel the warm sun. it isn’t all “good”. it doesn’t have to be. if i write, it can be scum. if i love, it can be in hyperbole. if i am a thought in people’s heads, i can be detested. if i am a shadow, i can be cold. here is my permission, signed beside the ‘X’, above the dotted line; i can be all thumbs, clumsy, mad, ungainly. i can be a little broken. i am allowed to be.

g.k. - moon-glazed glass and the hollowing need to be Most

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[absumink]

we both do not have time

and yet carry

all of it

underneath the creases

of our knuckles

between our folds of skin

strapped to the spaceships

we send among the stars

it is all here

where we are

where our parsnips grow

where our bodies bruise

we are not far

from the vacuum

she sits with us

at the table

and passes us the salt

in-between our atoms

becomes the seconds

slowed down

soft

coming to a close

and yet

we are all

still only

beginning

g.k. - moments

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[absumink]

so. it’s here. again. the twentieth time (for me at least). i get it, right, i do. its a celebration, an occasion of recognition and remembrance, a time to cheer your golden hours, your finest lines, your unmatched moments. in technical terms, its when the counting restarts. again. the last digit changes and we start from the beginning. again. but i’ve never been a big fan of beginnings. if i’m to be honest, they scare the hell out of me. every new is unknown, fresh, unaccounted for. i’ll have to learn its name, its routine, where it intends to roam. and more often than not it won’t stay around for that long. a month or so in i’ll find a note on the fridge that says “see you around, sorry”. the human heart can only take so much defeat before it begins to question “am i the problem?”; i’m not. i’m not optimal, ideal in any physical or emotional sense, not ace in intellect or wit. i am not the best at baking, painting, poetry. i have rot, in some parts, sweet tea in others. i am a collection of every ache and kiss, every scream and murmur, every clot of blood and bruising of a bone. i do not need to be fixed. i do not need a hundred fireworks and a countdown from ten to show me how i’ll make my way home. i will find new, in my own time. i will improve, in my own way. i will not become lighter, smaller, easier. only kinder, brighter, gentler. while the rest of humanity holds their breath, decrees scorn to the selves they swear they’ve left, endeavours for the finer things, the shiny things, the silly superficial things, exhausts their finite time to find any ounce of meaning, i will be here, breathing. i will be here, loving. i will be here, singing.

(10)

usually i’d say

(9)

i’m going to be smaller

(8)

less stubborn

(7)

not so much of

(6)

a tragedy

(5)

but i think if i’m

(4)

going to change it’ll

(3)

stop being

(2)

out of so much

(1)

self hatred

g.k. - “if i am to change, it will stop being out of so much self hatred”

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[absumink]

“the thing”

im not doing so well

are you?

there is too much ache out there

these days

my heart feels too heavy

to carry around

so i leave it at home

in a box with some clothes

under my bed

in the dark like its dead

but its not, i just cant

bear the thing

on my own

g.k.

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[absumink]

WOODGRAIN AND SUN-FALL

i’ve been growing fond of the way i brush my hair. easy, kindly, slow. one hand holds the base, so the knots don’t hurt as much. a younger me would have held her breath, puckered her face, combed through each tangle like she was losing time. she did not know gentle. i’m not too clever, though, i sometimes still have to remind myself that there are other ways to do things than with brunt and haste, i am not (always) being studied, i am not (always) being timed. there will be a day when all i can muster is a docile touch, a humble fondling of the world that sits beneath me. so i will learn to be so. i will learn to be gentle, embrace the ebbing lonesomeness as if it were a friend, lingering in my doorway, asking for a home. i will buy an abode by the sea, memorise every hush of every wave, every song of every wind, every pulse of every star in the heavens. i have time. i have always had time. one day i will run low, but that day will not come soon. so until then, i will brush my hair easy, kindly, slow, i won’t worry of where all the time goes, i’ll just keep my curls from knotting.

g.k.

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[absumink]

i need to pick the skin

on the bump on my nose

dig my nails into the shirt i put on

because it makes me feel itchy

watch three separate television shows

at the same time but not

pay attention to any of them

because i am not

that interested

you are the thing i hate

the thing ive grown to loathe

sat like sludge

in my stomach pocket

because every other

corridor

is weighted with a humming

five thousand murmurs

all at once,

remains both hollow and decaying

wishing i was not a buzzword

was not a bruise or misery

chewed down to the bone,

but a flower full of sun

in a valley made

of gold;

i embody every

monophonic purr

because if there ever is a silence

too long or loud

too close to kiss me

on the mouth

i will throw up every ache

i have been hiding from

and you will have

to fix me.

g.k.

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