My Favourite Sounds At 2am:

Yena Sharma Purmasir - “When I’m Not There”

Dead Poets Society

-1989

there’s an echoing in my bones telling me to

leave this place

and not return.

i can’t decide if it’s fear or fire.

my jaw clenches

and my teeth grit

and i can’t seem to stop the rope

from slipping, fraying.

my tether is escaping me

and is it fear or fire?

i need to know

before i decide.

do i leave this place?

this purpose and pay check?

do i slink away like a fox

in the night?

where’s the rope?

hello?

where’s the light?

hello?

can you hear me?

Girls when they life starts to sound little bit too much like the fig tree analogy by Sylvia Plath

a child’s disclosure

i took notes around the corner

from the chainsaw’s roar,

while the lock was wrenched off

by its teeth.

and i wrote about the fear,

and the tears,

and the injustice of it all.

no safe space to call—

not home,

not him.

i watched puffy eyes,

matted hair,

tremors—

and i thought and thought.

but all i could do was take notes

around the corner

from the chainsaw’s roar,

while the lock was wrenched off

by its teeth.

how could i kill the weeds

when i watch the bees frolick

among them?

places i vape:

in public bathrooms

in airport corners

under my desk at work

beneath my hoodie

on mountaintops

on backyard chairs;

in my sleep, in my waking, in my dreams. beneath the clouds and the shadows. on the horizon and the stars and my aching soul.

(addiction presents as poetry, just ask bukowski)

all I’ve every wanted is to be seen. i’m sick of fighting for it- and i refuse to shrink to fit into your periphery.