not really feeling artsy anymore

What will a writer do when they lose all their words?

For a writer losing all of their words is like plucking all of a child's favourite toys. And you'll see a child cry and throw a tantrum and roll over the floor to get the toys back

But a writer? Specifically this writer that we're talking about, she just shuts herself down. Writing in a cubicle surrounded by white walls and selling lies did this to her.

A black cloudy figure often loom over her shoulders. She felt it's presence everytime she opened her notebook to write. It lurked on her even when she had something decent to write about at work. For they prefer the machine’s version over a human's. For there is nothing real or romantic about marketing useless things. For she's suddenly so scared of the mistakes within her words. The black clouds continued to loom over her. Sucked all the colours of her notebook, her quill, her papers. And then finally her. She sits alone now, by her favourite tree trying to bring back the words that once she didn't have to force it out. She used to write like she's about to be breathless if she doesn't note it down. Like the words were her anchor to hold on to when life crashed merciless waves at her. Now she writes and goes back to her words and feels shitty at how less it all feels. How it doesn't satisfy her anymore. The feeling of not owning anything she writes cuz all of her words are merely prompts for AI to eat up and spit out baseless words that are more likely to get a conversion.

She wants everything back. She wants to go back to hating her parents and not empathising with them just so she can muster up a write up about how horrible they actually are. She wants the romance in it back. She wants to fire back in her words. She wants to look up at the sky and think of poems on the spot like she always does. She wants the music back, the kind that had her up at 1am and write about it.

Until then she'll have the stormy black clouds as her companion. For it has to rain someday.

Why does the queer community hate bisexuals, nonbinary people, and polyamorous people?

Before I proceed I should mention that my observations and conclusions are all anecdotal in nature based on my lived experience, and is in no way empiric. I am writing this piece to start conversations.

I was in a relationship with a trans man for almost 3 years. We bonded well and were compatible. But during this time both of us realised that we were polyamorous, and confided that to each other. I wasn't romantically interested in anyone except for him at that time despite being polyamorous, and I told him the same. We gave each other consent to date other people as well, given if we have a clear conversation about it first.

A month after this conversation, he broke up with me over text. Our mutual friends tell me that he has been dating another man for a while, and the other person was a better partner for him than I could ever be. I was devastated.

Unfortunately, I am not the only one who went through this. Many of my friends have been cheated on, with their then partners using polyamory or open relationships as an excuse to betray the trust of their partners.

As a polyamorous person, I know this isn't polyamory. This is lying, this is cheating, this betrayal. Polyamory is nothing but a flimsy shield. But my friends, who are monogamous, do not know that. They think that polyamorous people are liars who are hypersexual and won't hesitate to break hearts just to get their sexual fix. So my friends and other queer people develop a disdain of polyamorous people based on their negative experiences.

On top of that, some unethical polyamory practitioners treat minorities as a trophy, a game achievement. They become chasers for trans women and men and caste and religious minorities, approaching them with ideas of roleplay the person isn't comfortable with. The disdain grows.

Similary, some monosexual people hate bisexuals. They associate bisexuality with promiscuity and lying behaviour, because their bisexual partner cheated on them with a person of a different gender.

From the past discussions it should be evident that queer people are also prone to biases about fellow members of the community based on anecdotes. The same is for how some people think of nonbinary people.

India has been home of many identities that exist beyond the binary. On top of that, due to imposition by the state, some trans women and men consider themselves to be a “third gender”; and they can become fully a woman/ a man by undergoing bottom surgery and HRT. But, describing one's gender as “nonbinary” is relatively modern and confined to urban middle class queer circles. A lot of working class trans people feel betrayed when they see UC middle class nonbinary individuals being celebrated for their transness even though they haven't done any meaningful work to uplift the members who are in the grassroots. This betrayal develops into bias, that the people who call themselves nonbinary are just calling themselves trans for social clout, they aren't “real trannies”. And it doesn't help that some nonbinary individuals use their assigned gender at birth to defend themselves from valid criticism from trans women. They, intentionally or not, play into gender essentialism; by potraying themselves to be inherently “soft and pure” for being AFAB, and making AMAB individuals to be inherently “violent”.

It should be clear that these biases are made by observing people who are using their marginalized identity as a shield to absolve themselves of their wrongdoings. It's not the fault of the identity, its the fault of the person. As a collective we need to do better by protecting the ones who are the most at risk and asking for accountabilty from the ones who hurt us.

একুন ইউএসএ তে ট্রান্স মানুষ রা বেশ কস্টে আছে। নোটুন নিয়ম বেরোচে, রাজ্য সরকার থেকে আর কেন্দ্রীয় সরকার থেকে কি ওদের কে ওই বাথরুম ই ব্যবহার করতে হবে জেতা ওদের জোনমোগাতো লিঙ্গো সাথে মেল খায়ে। ট্রান্স মেয়ে রা স্কুল কলেজ এ খেলাধুলা এ অননো মেই দের সাথে খেলতে পারবে না।

আর একতা কি ট্রান্স মানুষ রা জোখুন পাসপোর্ট নবায়ন বা ভিসা জননো পাসপোর্ট জমা করচে, ওদের পাসপোর্ট জাপ্টো কোরা হবে, ফেরোদ পাছে না।

আমড়া থেকে টিজি কার্ড উদযাপন করচি। কিন্টু, ইউএসএ এর অস্থিরতা দেখে কি আমাদের ভাবা কথা না: সরকার/স্টেট সে তথ্য তা নিয়ে কখুন কি করতে পারে, সেট কি আমরা জানি?

Feb 7th e queerbeat namer ekta online site e article berolo. Seta ke bangla te lekha'r chesta korchi. English article ta eikhane ache: https://www.queerbeat.org/stories/my-last-wish-is-to-die-fair-and-pretty-these-hijra-women-think-glutathione-will-heal-more-than-their-skin

Bolche je hijde kothi ra ga er rong phorsha kora jonno ekta medicine nichhe jar bishesh podartho hochhe Glutathione naam er ekta chemical. Eita amader liver e samanyo bhabe toiri hoye. Liver er oshudh hishabe eita'r proyojon certified achhe. Eita te dekha geche ki kichu khetre ga'er rong phorsha hoye. Eita te rong phorsha korar jonno “wonder drug” hishabe bikri kora hochhe. Onek skincare treatment e o dewa hoye.

Kintu daam onek pore. Effect dekhte gele to ek bochor treatment nitei habe, 15 khana treatment o hote pare. Ekta treatment er daam, jaiga jaiga te depend kore, kintu 3000/– teen hazaar taka o hote pare. Aar skin er upore effect baniye rakhte hole treatment niye jete habe. Na hole, abar aager obostha te chole jabe dheere dheere. Bochor e 36,000/– theke 84,000/– dam porche treatment er, depend kore koto ta nichho.

Glutathione er market onek bodo. Onek jon nichhe to. Article e bolche ki Delhi, Maharastra, Punjab e praye 45% community nichhe. Aar non-community manush, film star, celebrity, era o nichhe. 2024 2 praye 117 crore taka'r market chilo Glutathione'er.

Lokjon nichhe to ki sundor lagbe, partner habe, customer habe. Kintu article e jei hijda kothi der interview korlo ora eita'o bolchilo ki ja extra kamai korche seta to treatment nite'i beriye jachhe. Kintu onek peer pressure ba community bhetor theke chaap o achhe – phorsha lagte habe, cis-women er moton lagte habe.

Medicine er side effect o achhe. Long term use korle kidney te effect hote pare. Especially kenoki ei treatment ta injection ba saline drip er sathe deya hoye, tablet ba syrup noye. Seta te side effect howa chance besi. Tai treatment nile o, doctor dekhiye neya utchit, kidney testing korate hoye. Kintu article e jei hijde kothi der ke interview korlo tara to bollo ki onek jon i doctor na dekhiye naye – fees aar testing er poisa beche jaye, keu besi side effect niye bhabe na. Ek jon bollo ki amra aar koto din banchbo, side effect bhebe ki habe.

Where Have You Gone?

Through a hurried life, Her presence compels me to pause and savor.

Why is it that I cannot look away? Like colors blending seamlessly into nature, Her essence merges gracefully with simplicity.

Moment by moment, She proves that the beauty of humanity Is the source of boundless joy.

Even after she departs, Like eyes sensing light even in darkness, Her absence lingers, traveling with her presence.

The warmth of her breath mingling with the air outside Gently caresses my solitude.

The places etched with her images Turn the mirage into a profound truth.

In my frozen world, Her realities melt away, leaving me bereft.

Where have you gone?

My contentment fades Without witnessing your playful innocence.

My peace turns to emptiness Without beholding your soft smile.

My hearing falters In the silence of your absence.

Where have you gone, My woman? Where have you gone?

There’s cave on your face You keep it ajar a lot You let it loose a lot Open, wide and wobbly The cave is a free country

Sometimes it has air At times it is fair Tales and toils it has been bare But dare someone to hear!

It's not fragile out there, It’s not brutal either; It’s not nice out there If nice is what you are

Still dare and dare Dare to care Since it’s only fair To show that you spare All your despair And tears that are queer.

everytime i settle down in my skin and start to feel safe, kolkata reminds me that women are never safe. ever. anywhere.

I have been staying in my place for four years now. it’s like 10 minutes of walk from Ranikuthi. a place i have felt relatively safer to navigate. i see other trans women and queer couples here in public, late night walks are serene and uneventful, often i finish my work and walk back home at around 1 am at night and never have i ever had to face any untoward behaviour except a few persistent offer for lifts from various men.

that changed this diwali. i didn’t get assaulted per se. but i didn’t feel safe. i didn’t feel carefree. i had to be alert and almost ran back to my apartment.

i got done with my work on 3rd at around 2 at night. i wasn’t worried about the time because these kinda times are normal for me. accounting for diwali i was expecting a little bit of life on the roads, and i wasn’t disappointed.

as i started walking back to my place, i started going through the learnings of the day and the task list for tomorrow. i was quite deep in thoughts so it took me a little while to realise two men on a sports bike had been circling me. they have been going in front of me, waiting for me to cross, and then slowly overtaking me and waiting patiently for me to come up and pass by again. i got more concerned once i started paying attention to what they were saying. it seemed the one driving was more excited and the pillion one was not. he had been busy texting. i could hear stuff like, “ki tight figure banra”, “mai gulo ki thatiye achhe, amaar haate fit hoye jaabe bol”, “oi pod ta ki dulchhe shala”, along with a little whistling, and making the bike growl and what not. last time they passed me before stopping their bike before a signal which was green, i heard one of them asked the other to ask me for a ride and i can sit in the middle of them two.

i missed having a cigarette in my hand. i’m not new to these comments. in most scenarios i pay no heed to them. but this is different, i’m alone, and i wouldn’t be able to do anything if they approached me. not like having a cigarette would solve the issue, but in my experience men prefers to not approach women who smoke openly for soliciting, they want us to smoke in the bedroom, not in public. i have previously made a habit of walking while smoking for precisely this reason.

before i could finish thinking what i would reply if they do become persistent about giving me a lift, one more bike with three more men came and joined them and an argument ensued. the bikers from the new bikes started hurling abuses to the driver of the first bike. “jekhani jabi sudhu magibaji”, “sobsomoye nongrami koraar dhanda”, “chup chaap onnoder disturb kora bondho kor, amader saathe chol.” the dude tried to say stuff like, “tora erokom keno korchhis? amar ta ami bujhe nebo”

at this point i crossed them, crossed the road, and was out of earshot. i couldn’t hear what they were talking about anymore. i know it was about me because i was the only woman in the road, there were a few more drunk uncles scattered around the road, minding their own business, drunk out of their mind. after i crossed the crossing, i have automatically started strutting, i couldn’t breathe, i couldn’t see anything around me anymore. i didn’t even realise when i started running, until the next day when a local neighbour asked me why i was running back home last night.

i wasn’t touched. i wasn’t slapped on my butt. i wasn’t dragged by my hand. i wasn’t felt up by groups of men. i wasn’t elbowed. which, in the four years i have been living in kolkata has happened multiple times except the year i shaved my head and became a shut in.

but i haven’t felt terror like this in years, since i got sexually assaulted in a taxi in last year february. i just couldn’t make it stop and get out. i felt helpless then as i felt utterly hopeless now. may be it is because of how things are right now. i think it’s kinda funny how if i die tomorrow on the road while sucking a dick or just because i chose to walk home at night, the people who would be in the forefront of the protests would be some of the people who had touched me up, or made me unwelcome in their space, or even actively tried to hamper my livelihood. i think it makes me lose hope in the world a bit. i think it makes me question all the work i am doing. and the absolute terror that i talk so much about this community, yet if something to happen to me at late night, almost no one would be available for help.

when i was doing the mental health workshop in chiang mai, i had a small breakdown in front of the facilitator as i was telling her how i am not built for the cities. when i got back to my home, all i could think about was how i can’t wait to run away from here. never to come back, never to talk to anyone i have known here, as i cried and cried and cried till it was almost morning.

you know, i tell myself it wasn’t as bad as some of the things i had to go through, they didn’t even touch me. it was just a possibility that thankfully didn’t come to pass. but for me and many like me, things like this will keep happening, and more often than not, more than we care to agree, or to accept ourselves, these possibilities will get realised and many of them will get escalated.

i’m tired. i’m honestly exhausted. i am at my wits end. i am lonely. i don’t got energy to write fun stuff. you all who are happy please go on write romantic stuff. i’m only gonna say what pops up in my head.

“অমর কাব্য তোমরা লিখিও বন্ধু যাহারা আছো সুখে”

The problem isn’t the name of the institution (school, college, company, non profit, home,...). It is how almost all spaces are structured hierarchically. With the power to oppress, to violate, to dominate being assigned to specific posts/status. We need to imagine new configurations for our lives, our work, workplaces. Where we are not dominated and bullied nor do we dominate and bully others. Bullying is not just commonplace amongst school/college students, grown ups in positions of power are bullying openly, harming people and careers, and preventing work because of their stupidity, arrogance, pettiness, and spite.

We need to learn to see how power operates. How it sustains and reproduces oppressive structures.

Of course, the colour, the plumpness, the pressure...the give. But beyond analysis, is a feeling of knowing. I just know. Or, at least, I feel that I just know. Sometimes I am wrong.

How do you?

I was going to the health camp organised by a community-based organisation on the Human Rights Day (Dec 10). I took the metro from Tollygunge to Dum Dum. The metro was already crowded when we boarded. I was standing near the door, holding an overhead grab-handle.

There was a woman standing by the door in front of me. I noticed that she was wearing a green kurti, pink sweater, and duppatta. I was wearing a green salwar-kurti with dupatta. Our eyes met and I passed a smile. She smiled back. But then she looked at me, puzzled. Then burst out in a laugh (not a boisterous laugh, no sounds, but a laugh that was mocking me). She looked away, then looked at me, and then laughed again. I asked her, in English, “Are you ok?” She said, “yes, I am OK.” I was annoyed. I stood more firmly, looking glassily straight ahead. Her eyes scanned my body and my chest. Then she laughed again. She started communicating with a similar-aged man standing across from her. They were traveling together. He was wearing brown slacks and a patterned deep blue button-up shirt. He looked a bit embarrassed. I had a bag slung over my shoulder and a water bottle in my hand. I clutched them tightly. She could see that I am uncomfortable. She laughed openly at me now.

I wondered what I should do? Doing nothing or moving away did not seem like an option. What happens if I protest? What's the chance that people might beat me up? Would I be able to handle it if this situation escalates? I felt alone.

The train was crowded. A couple of men standing beside me were noticing what is going on. I whispered loudly. “oshobho.” She scanned my genital regions with her eyes and laughed. “Rude.” I said more loudly, “Lajja kore na ei dhoron’er byabohar korte?” The man she was talking to called her to his side. She went and clung to his hand. She laughed again, and started talking to him about me. Everyone around could hear her talking about me. He wasn’t engaging, but she continued to try to get him to also make fun of me. It had been about 10 min since the journey started. It felt like an hour. I looked at the men beside me and said “ki dhoron er oshobhota, dekhuun” Their faces were like stone. But her boyfriend sternly told her to shut up. She complied but was angry at him. 

It felt a sort of victory, and I started smiling. She then started to quarrel with him about other things. Quarrelling with her companion was her way of registering protest. Seeing her cling to him and quarrel with him at the same time, I felt kinda sad. It felt like she was trapped in his protection. It felt so strange. We could have been friends, right? We could be collaborators on challenging patriarchy? And here we were, both protected by a man.

I'd love you a kind of love that goes unspoken Like a grave unnoticed By fox kits playing over them in bliss.

And those wild foxes bleed music from their veins As their feet graze Against the sweet hawthorns you planted for me When we found ourselves drenched in the soft summer rain That soon turned into a hailstorm of huge calamity. Without clarity, I lost you.

You were lost in my lies, While I wasn't there with you.

You should have been singing I should have been listening.

They search deep for a sweet Soulful sound that melts the ears, And years of time pass for them to meet The avalanche of emotions That sorrow brings into the threshold Of our skies where lies impatient Boreas and all the love that his mournful soul Has to offer to this willful ignorance of a childish heart.

Like a child I leap and scream your name into the heavens Where spark-birds fly limitless into the arms of Life

And you, among those rimless clouds, my love Smile back at me like I'm the treasure that you hunt And not me who searches a shelter by your irridescent feet

When my wounds are fresh enough to rise above the clouds of your empty vocal sounds, I'll know my chase for cowardice and its shadow began with the fool's halo. I need to know how cotton was made with my hair and alive was the forest inside your heart that was shrieked by the sounds of thunder and drum rolls outside the window.

Hysterically, the cadavers are cropping into your bones like stitches of woolen yarn, and you are smoking the snow smelling earth as if you are ashen by your winter. You don't know your name and not your blooming monstrosity, but it's rising flames into the loins of your empty bosom and as if you function as humane as nature you are puking bile.

I am not thinking about you but you are flashing in front of my eyes like faeries and nymphs on feast and inside the claustrophobic walls of my cosmopolitan house I find you the ghosts of English past. The fireplaces are so burnt with coal and wood painting the red on bricks and yet,

you flash like the sorcerer of my life, and yet, this is my monstrous cosmopolitan forests and the walls keep shrinking.

I fear that someday this hallucination of the past is all my today exists with truth. And when tomorrow I open my eyes it's a blank canvas so bright that even my shadow scares my soul to set a foot on earth. Maybe, I am thinking too much with nothing concrete but my city around me. But the cold shrine of winter moon on the swimming pool feels like slithering reptile scales, and I am soaked in all vile liquid and I am consuming it like a supple and galloping meat with a mouth and no air to fill vacuum space in me.

If someday you vanish from the throbbing cells of my antelope brain, and truth is not poison of my morning juice, and breakfast tastes like bakery in all its bloom, will I know my name and the sews I stitched on my gaping wounds, would seem like paper cuts of childhood games?

You have no mouth on your face now, and I don't remember you crook of nose but your spiraling eyes like the storm of the seas, resemble enough to the turbines of the laundry room, and I am staring too deep into the glass cages of whirlpooling fabrics as if you are looking at me, asking me tricks of your existence. And never when my spring break comes, once again, I set my eyes outside the door, hoping a drop of rain would fall on me and it would smell like the joy of soil, sorrows of the sky and ending all hopes of the sun to rise into the oblivion. Just like it used to when days were juvenile and trees were saplings. They needed sun. The sun couldn't face them because the skies wailed horribly.

I name you Michelangelo. You created me this pretty when I was soil and calcium of bones. But you are no artist and flawed like him. I call you so because in the history of my glory your existence will be mammoth. I am me, because you saw me then. But you'll be lost and barely remembered except your creation, the stapled scars of prude boyhood, and so lost will be your face, like so mouthless it is. Soon your eyes will be crawling with maggots and you will be consumed. Rotting the rotten, you'll be into the soil; in the calcium I came from, yet you'll be acid, and churning into the wheel of your eye; and I'll never look at the hullabaloo of soft fabrics in the laundry room. You'll be Michelangelo; forgotten and remembered; and I'll be the paintings of Rome, talking tales of mythology as if you built me in a day.

Attitudes of people in front of me They shape me They inherit me Behaviours of souls I observe Treatment I don't deserve They impact me Ideas of myself from far within Call out their name It's my name in their mouths And theirs in mine Their minds in mine They listen, I listen They talk, I talk I get tired of pretending They find comfort in projecting I become them And they become me Reflections of me in the clearest water surface Lost and lonely The need to belong The desire to be understood To be loved And cared for To be taken seriously I become me, thus A mirror of my own self

TW/CW: graphic mentions of rape, sexual abuse and death & mourning

The death of my mother’s daughter haunts the city park. Autopsy was done, she was lying by the curb Her womb was blood Cervix torn Later she was killed Emptying the cervix that labored for her. The death of my mother’s daughter made me question Why was I my mother’s daughter? Why was I killed?

The dead body of my mother’s daughter Lies beside my motionless mother Not a tear Not a life In those eyes, Eyes that once had rage A rage I once Used to share.

Where was my father? Why was he not here? For I was a corpse lying Not the princess Whose world he conquered.

The death of my mother’s daughter Pained me more, as I lurked Like the gust of air. My life was lost, What I left was despair.

No boy, no lover No crime, not any violence A kill had occurred And an act unfair Who would you blame? Who would you name? Who would you call out Label him insane, He who never was Bereft to make the claim?

The death of my mother’s daughter Killed a few more Alive they looked While only I was who burned. No rage was cooler than that pyre No screams were calmer than those flames No life was better than those ashes

The death of my mother’s daughter, Quicker than the rape of mine. Would you call it a crime? Would you sleep on my shine As my body was agile Voice seemed fine, Yet Night and day Body and mind, Ruins of toils Chafing my loins, Ruins of toils Calling me to spoils.

The death of my mother’s daughter Was an end I desired For my mother perished Why a daughter Why a maiden Why no omen Why no evil Why her cradle Left so barren Why her husband Sobbed no spoken Why her daughter A tragic token, She wept And mourned enraged, My mother’s daughter left no trace For all the perils To her devil entrails Burned with ashes Neither evils nor remains No just crime could ever pertain.

My father’s daughter had died in vain A conqueror so vague Loss beguiled the pain in might Not life, nor light No home of mine My father’s daughter had died, And in death I couldn’t even smile.

আমার একটা বাড়ি আছে। সেই বাড়িতে আছে, আমার বাবা; রোব্বারে সে কাগজ পড়ে, সারা সপ্তাহ সে হিসেব করে। বাড়ির রান্নাঘরে ভাসে মায়ের বানানো মশলার গন্ধ এবং তার ঝাঁজে বিরক্ত আমার মা। আমাদের এই ছোট্ট তিন কামরার ফ্ল্যাটে সুখ শান্তি, ঠাকুরের প্রসাদের মতই সাধারণ মনে হয়।

না না! প্রসাদ বলতে সন্দেশ, জিলিপি বা পায়েস না।

আমাদের সুখ হলো নকুলদানা ও মিছরির মত গৌন, এবং তাতে নতুনত্ব বলতে বাতাসা বা কিশমিশই মুখ বদল। সহজে পাওয়া যায়। চাহিদা কম তো তাই। হয়ত তাই জন্যেই প্রসাদের মিষ্টত্ব না রোচে মনে, না লাগে জিভে। ডাল ভাত ও খিচুড়ির মতো স্বল্প সুখে ভ্রূকুটি দেখিয়ে পিঁপড়ের বেগে জীবন কাটাই আমরা।

আমার ঘরের ভেতরটা একটা আস্ত জগৎ। রাত্রিবেলা সেটা অন্যরকম এক ব্রহ্মান্ড। সেখানে আমি একা; আছে ঠান্ডা হাওয়া, অগোছালো বিশৃঙ্খলতা, চুপচাপ এক মুখ, মৃদু একটা গানের আওয়াজ, সুনসান রাস্তার ব্যাস্ততা, ও অফুরন্ত নিস্তব্ধতা। ঘুম ও সকালের রোদের সেখানে বেশ বন্ধুত্ব। অনিয়ম, বেনিয়ম, ঠিক, ভুল; সবটাই সেখানে আড়ি-ভাব। ভূত-ভবিষ্যৎ সবটাই সেখানকার বর্তমান।

বিশেষ কিছু বলার থাকে না আমাদের এই বাড়িতে। অথচ সুখের নকুলদানা বিচিত্র কোন কারণে, কমে গেলেও, একেবারে নির্মূল কখোনই হয়না।

In my head I have imagined you laugh twenty different ways, yet I am confused, exactly which one fits your cheeks and the tint of your lips, the baritones of your voice, and the tingles of my stomach. Astonishingly I am thinking all these at an hour so busy but I, I... desperately need to think about you or my head would explode worse than a jackfruit in summer and putrid than its smell. And then I am in front of the mirror, and I see my tangled hair and my bright eyes; somehow, I feel you would call me sweet despite my disheveled state. You'd clasp me tight in your arms and I would be gasping; I'd like it too. Our hands are red and far; and it's fine as poetry ‘cause how they fit together when we would pretend lovers, as if it was real and all the eyes knew what we were. Together we would feed the cats and now, how they roam around my feet asking for the stains, tainted, painted, on my hands, the red from your veins.

Body so numb, as heat is only to receive for last, it held; those hands that held you. Yet, Tonight, I can see you pale and blue in the reflection, along with my dolled face, a bun up high; and hands unstained, manicured in French. And forgetting everything, I run towards you, witnessing your existence once again, despicably trying to haunt this fine afterlife. But... You are endless, and the ghost of everything I slouched away from; pulped it into arson and burned it all. Yet, you stand in front of me, mosaicked in the shades of every good byes I ever swore... Yet, You stand in front of me, and I can't think of you. True like a corpse, as I remember you, just as we danced, every stain like the mulberry spots; ugly freckles of horror; you are a ghost and a story. Which I buried, bare, and banned. Gone, are you! So, with the smoke of my fireplace, let me extinguish; all the soul that stands dead to me. And tomorrow when I wake up, I'll eat my cereal with bliss, and breathe my name, all over this abode; smiling in Lolita.