(i) you have seventeen dead roses
in your house.
Seventeen.
You continue to water
seventeen dead roses, day after day,
every day.
(ii) your doorbell doesn’t work anymore.
Some days you sit outside your house
and ring it again
and again
and again,
until the sound pierces your heart,
and the silence, your heartbeat.
(iii)you hate sitting in silence.
you broke your record player.
you call it simon.
last night, you wrote it a love letter.
then you read it out loud,
again,
and again,
and again,
until your neighbours started dialling
your phone number.
(iv) you write your secrets on the tube
of your favourite toothpaste,
last week,
you sketched your favourite song
on your arm,
you call it your battle scar,
and paint it a different shade every day.
(v) you introduce yourself
with a new name
every time I see you.
I remember all of your names.
You call them phases, not names.
And yourself, poetry.
(vi) you’ve named every star in the night sky,
you call the sky a bookstore,
kitaab, on days it is crescent,
you play chess with the sky at 3am.
(vii) you count your bruises
on your finger nails,
there are stretch marks
on your heart,
the ones you refuse to speak of,
shame;
you call them your home
but never asked me to come in.
you hide them,
under the dark circles
you label as nights of working late,
hiding nights you stole from the florist
and gulped down a bottle of pills.
(viii) you break a mirror in your house,
each day,
walk on the broken pieces,
and call them footsteps,
you walk out of your house
every night at 9:53pm
and buy flowers for a grave
that was never dug.
(ix) you stay up at nights,
emptier than you,
and the sound of your laughter,
you whisper my name
to make your heart beat,
faster.
your remind it to beat.
a little every day.
until you forget that you have to.
_stretch marks on your heart//
emmess
Prompt: I want to meet your therapist.
10/05
in your house.
Seventeen.
You continue to water
seventeen dead roses, day after day,
every day.
(ii) your doorbell doesn’t work anymore.
Some days you sit outside your house
and ring it again
and again
and again,
until the sound pierces your heart,
and the silence, your heartbeat.
(iii)you hate sitting in silence.
you broke your record player.
you call it simon.
last night, you wrote it a love letter.
then you read it out loud,
again,
and again,
and again,
until your neighbours started dialling
your phone number.
(iv) you write your secrets on the tube
of your favourite toothpaste,
last week,
you sketched your favourite song
on your arm,
you call it your battle scar,
and paint it a different shade every day.
(v) you introduce yourself
with a new name
every time I see you.
I remember all of your names.
You call them phases, not names.
And yourself, poetry.
(vi) you’ve named every star in the night sky,
you call the sky a bookstore,
kitaab, on days it is crescent,
you play chess with the sky at 3am.
(vii) you count your bruises
on your finger nails,
there are stretch marks
on your heart,
the ones you refuse to speak of,
shame;
you call them your home
but never asked me to come in.
you hide them,
under the dark circles
you label as nights of working late,
hiding nights you stole from the florist
and gulped down a bottle of pills.
(viii) you break a mirror in your house,
each day,
walk on the broken pieces,
and call them footsteps,
you walk out of your house
every night at 9:53pm
and buy flowers for a grave
that was never dug.
(ix) you stay up at nights,
emptier than you,
and the sound of your laughter,
you whisper my name
to make your heart beat,
faster.
your remind it to beat.
a little every day.
until you forget that you have to.
_stretch marks on your heart//
emmess
Prompt: I want to meet your therapist.
10/05
