THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
i think nobody needs to know how pretty i look at 3 am in the morning.
you know it is the time when my eyes light up. when the aching urgency to let it all out no longer consumes me but instead fuels my raging fire into a conflagration that devours everything it sees. sounds kind of extreme. that is me.
i don't think in parts and pieces of yesteryear and the land of tomorrows. everything i do is art. it is music and poetry screeching through the walls they built. flowing through my veins but there is no surging blood. all you can see is golden honey. loud and sweet. cacophonous and melodious and broken and brave and honey. of a golden soul.
i burn and burn and rage and scream and then silent. my ashes lie around me. the quietude is multitudes screaming out at me. calling out my name like it is the only sound that will ever matter.
and you know i am dramatic.
have you not already realized my bones are rustic from the magic of another era. do you not see that you would be insane to let me go. let me fall. madness and chaos and beauty and power live inside me. make up my core. kindness and calm and agony and melancholy reside in this body too. make up me.
so then why do you question me. how can you be so foolish.
how dare you.
do you not know i have descended from the heavens and ascended from hell. i have cried with the angels when god rained down his blows. i have worshipped the devil when he tore apart their souls. do you not witness the pulchritude that i am. i am not yours. i simply do not belong. i cannot be caged. i cannot be tamed. i am a wild thing. the wildest most gentle thing you will ever find. but you can never discover me. never hold me. i slip away like the grains of sand.
you know i think i am immortal. a pity.
i am agonizing and terrifying and satisfying and slowly dying. yet every single day i live a little bolder. hug me. tell me it will be okay even when it will not be. let me set you free. let me be your sky. the stars you hold on to. show me the scars you are afraid to uncover. i will tear apart everything that tells me i have to act a certain way. love a certain way. i am me. change is my constant. compassion is what i understand. sometimes i confuse it with being a reservoir that gives and gives and gives until it runs out. dries up like a dirty well.
you know i am one of those gemstones. they break me and my light scatters. scaffolds the earth a little more. it is a tragic joke that life likes to play with them. because they all know that i may be broken but i can never fully break. everything feels like a game. but i am okay. i wake up every day and breathe. i open my eyes to colors. i can feel. extremes.
nobody will know my mind like this. a hollow carcass turned inside out. spilling dreams and fantasies and thoughts and hopes. they are not all shattered. some of them glow. my thoughts will never end. these words can never cease. what is this inside me.
years of history etched into my skin. engraved secretly.
a dirty little secret. my most beautiful truth. nobody will ever see.
nobody needs to know how pretty i look at 3 am in the morning.