The Poetry Marathon

Why divulge in art, 

Why indulge uncertainty?

In a duty-bound, 

Eternally narrow world;

To do, to embrace, 

What is neither required, nor needed, 

Is a present.

I am made of borrowed words, 

Chipped away, 

Gifted, 

From the strangers I meet

each, adding a pleat

to the fabric of

My life

And If I were to live, 

Live life in earnest 

I would write their story.

I’m afraid of how deep

The deep blue ocean

Can take me 

I still, 

Settle my feet 

At the hem of its billowy skirt 

The ripples tease

My toes, 

The wind nips, 

At the tip, 

Of my nose

I take a dip, 

Ever so lightly 

Into the water, 

Cold, and snug between 

The mountains 

Cerulean and teal 

I look down 

My eyes drown

Into the sea. 

I have wanted you to belong to me, like no other prayer prior 

Some higher power, laughs at my refusal

To pray for you then

To ask for you, beg for you 

How could any divinity make you mine?

When we are already both one?

It rains,

Five times, in a whole year, 

For grains, 

Humans, and beasts to share,

And so I carry, 

All my days with the sun 

I’m never wary, 

Of the sun in my city 

That shines, 

Brighter than anywhere I have ever seen,

We often align, 

My sun, and me.

We were born believing that the world centered around us, 

It’s confounding, really, 

when we catch this lie surround us, 

I believed that the pink of my mother’s tea was the only right way to feel warm, 

But the beauty of being wrong, 

Lies in the generosity of truth

And youth is so forgiving,

I could count the number of lies on the fingers on my hands, and not need more, 

And how many more days till the world stops revolving around me?

I’m told, it takes at least three heart aches? 

And at least four falls, before I realize the crunch of the leaves beneath my feet

Is another pleat in the longing of our entwined existence 

Across the ocean a lady in white, 

I think, she makes her tea exactly like my mother 

But each time I ask for another, it tastes a little different, 

Looks a little red, 

I dread, I would need another finger, to account another lie, 

The wind here, so sly, 

I almost felt my mother’s hand on my cheek.

He met me in my dreams, by the river, where the crickets still remembered us, 

I lay in his arms, the moon, how she revered us, 

Life, oh she begs me to stop humming his song, 

He stayed with me, long after he was gone 

My grandfather’s house didn’t have a telephone, 

Loved ones lived on memory and good fortune, 

For the longest time, distance carried such importance 

That my grandfather was nearly heart broken, 

When his house was finally filled, with distant voices

I was fascinated with the idea of those who lived so far from home, 

I was enthralled by the idea of life, outside of home

If only we had listened to grandfather, 

When I ran away from home, I didn’t know I was taking home with me 

My mother hugged me goodbye twice but I only looked back once, 

I belonged to the distance now, the one my grandfather so revered, 

You see, I wanted to get away, 

Hide in the distance, so I may have an excuse to say, 

Talking to you twice a week is enough, 

If we talk more we’ll run out of things to talk about, 

There was a drought of voices back home,

And I blamed my absence on the abundance of things we shouldn’t say.

He whispers promises that neither of us hear, 

Safer, that his secrets always remain his, 

And mine dangling at the edge of my bed, where he lays

I melt, under his generous gaze,

For 16 hours of one lifetime, 

He belonged to me, 

For 16 hours, that could almost be a day, 

I modeled modest dreams of sand, in clay

And I pray, quietly, 

Oh how ardently, violently, passionately, 

Fate will tear him from me, I await patiently, 

For him to disguise his choices as fate, 

And mine as unfortunate 

As luck would have it, he left some dreams on my pillow, 

And no amount of rigorous washing could get the stains off, 

Now I sleep each night in his dreams

And he wanders sleepless, it seems

Well, now neither of us can sleep

It was a 6 hour flight, 

A smaller journey than I’d make on the road, 

On family trips, on vacations, 

It was an easy journey, it was awaited 

It was supposed to bring me home after

Many many months, 

And I dreaded each moment, 

For all the happiness of being home 

Was swallowed whole by the hallowing fear 

That I was trapped in a giant metal tube, 

Thousands of feet in the air

with no way out.