Absent love

I'm so scared of potentially losing you
That I neglect your present self
Pushing you further away towards
My self-fulfilling prophecies

Static Flight

My muscles tense as I prepare to flee
Breath hitching
Heart pumping
Eyes shut tightly around dilated pupils
As my body lay motionless in this empty bed
Thinking of our imaginary future
And preparing to lose what wasn't real to begin with.

recycled fantasy

sandcastles in the 
seabed while rolling
waves pull its grains
apart into new forms.

pillars firmly shifting
ebb and flow
insistent claws thwarted
by dismantling tides.

hardy grains
crumbled when packed in
as established thoughts
recycle history as painted fantasy.

Am I learning yet?

the tears fall unbidden, leaky faucets that can’t seem to be clogged up no matter how much tissue was used to stuff into the cracks. The tissues just dissolve into a pulpy, splattered mess, but I don’t switch to a more permanent solution.

 

gasps escape my torn up lips as I raise my face to the ceiling, feeling the scream trapped in my throat, an almost painful experience. There’s no easy solution here because the pain isn’t residing in the centre of my hollow chest. It’s a physical pain not intentionally inflicted by pumps of the fist toward the wall. It’s an ache that can’t be distracted by binges and purges; by numbing agents; by distractions; by redirections.

 

chills wreck my body, cheeks cracking with the salt trails tracking down, marking out a new contour to my mask.

 

Meaning and revelations sought out in any and every song, every book, every show about heartbreak and bad love. The ghost of future regrets taunts my heart as my brain leads my vengeful marionette fingers to type out words of anger, spite, hurt and cruelty.

 

This will not end well again.

She’s back

Back

Screaming silently, quietly, piercing my noise
Please stop hurting me, I can’t start hurting myself, not again
But her shrill squeals skin my sanity and peels my masks away

Collapsing, cool floor icy cold and ragdoll comes to mind. Little puppet breaking and cracking, splinters.
Hot liquid, lava pooling and quickly coagulating, slide and tremble

Please no more how do I stop how I do keep going, how do I not break when she screams and screams.

Lies lies lies please, enough, just give me back the masks of determination. Please
I can do it, I promise, the stakes are way too high, the loss too deep.

Just please let me concentrate, let me obey, let me listen and not hurt, stop screaming and throwing me off.

Stop bringing back the depression. Stop bringing back the cloying clotting parasitic wailing emptiness.

In light of self-sabotage

Full out bawling
A child again
Deep chested
Whiny
Mouth hanging
Drooling

Fear of abandonment
Of patterns revisited
Demon whispering I told you so
Logic screaming just be chill
Stop being crazy
Just trust his words
Why can’t you just
Trust

Trust
Broken before but not him
So why cling to the past
Why be a stereotype
Why let your crazy control you
Why believe you have a crazy side
Thus allowing it existence and power

Enough!
Silence!
Just.
Drop it.

Why can’t you just let yourself be happy.

Letting it slip

Your true insanity

Muffled, silenced screams,
A whimper the only indication
That you’re losing control
Unhinged
Unwinding
Unfurling

Hair scrunched and pulled tight
Pain to distract and peel away
At the expanding explosives
Within your
Itchy Twitchy Shaky
Tick Tock Rip
No, stop!

Screams, layered
Clawing, stiffening
Wailing
Demented
Moaning
Crumpled

Collapsing, deflated as she finally broke
Snapped
Split
Cracked
Extinguished
Exploded

Imploded, more like.

Careful, your crazy is showing.

In which, I Potato.

There’s a phrase called Jiak Kan Tang, meaning to eat potatoes. It’s used in slight mockery of those who were born Asian but are more westernised in thought and behaviour. That is to say, preferring potatoes over rice.

Potato is also a great meme for the awkward girl, potating away in potatoland, awkwardly poting about while embodying both the essence and physicality of the potato.

I’m both.

I believe it is this Potato Identity that has often left me in a perpetual state of singledom. Not just single and ready to mingle. Or even just single and happy. I’m just, potato. Even when I’m in a relationship, I’m just preparing myself to be launched from a potato missile into singlehood.

Bitter and mouth-curling when raw with emotions, crumbly and mushy when heated. God I’m such a potato.

True, a potato can be delicious, but it’s tiring just being seen as delicious when embellished with someone else’s favourite garnish or sauce. Then again, I wouldn’t have me raw, or cooked and plain.

Even when I do meet people who seem to like the potato that is me, all I can think about is: Why? Too many YouTube good channels have taught me that potatoes in their natural state or least worked on are the worst state of potating. They may insist they like a nice, steaming, clean baked potato, but all I see is the crumbly, dry rubble of my innards. Or perhaps they exclaim that they admire the intensity of my raw emotions, yet all I hear is that they enjoy the vulnerability, that they see me for the potential not yet achieved.

It’s easiest to say I do best when discarded, forgotten and left alone. You see buds sprouting in abandoned potatoes after all. Yet I can’t seem to realise that loving nurture, water and nutrients help me become a plant, not just the sprouting of some weak shoots that wilt in weeks.

As I long for the quiet, dark dirt to bury me in self-pity, self-hatred, and self-sabotage, I’m resigned to be dug up by sharp claws and snivelling snouts. When all you know are cuts and intrusive smothering, a gentle touch still feels like a shimmering bolt of lightning.

Oh my Potato self, oh Potato me. Won’t you allow him to hold and grow you into a green, leafy plant? Why do you revert to staying rooted in your ways?

Adult awakening

Drunken awakening

Realisation of self, desperate attempts to revive

Resuscitate

Rescue and control.

 

Spiral and sink,

Fogged and shattered,

Exploding incontinuities

Repugnant existence

 

Advise

Counsel

Recognition, realisation, repetition,

Confession to the self of

The slow descend into

Drifting out of control.

 

Back to a routine

To denial of patterns and comfort

Desperately hiding away to avoid

Burning more bridges,

Hurting while hurting

Defences up while loved ones

Loved hard in the wrong way.

 

Is anything but my preferred way

The wrong way

Or am I asserting control

By pushing everyone away.

 

Self esteem plunging

Self love dissipating

Self hate emboldening

Worthlessness strengthening.

Shifting plates

Swaying with the autumn wind,
Swept about with every gust
Never landing, never settling

So far from her branch
Broken off and now
Drifting along with the torrential tides high

Wave upon wave of uncertainty
Ripples of opinions
So far from the pebbly beach

Withdrawing after each crash
Each crush
Falling past the edge of cliffs

Down the rabbit hole
Through the clouds
Two feet always on shifting plates.