Three Years

You told me the love story of how your mother and father met. They were young. They loved and left. Three years later they found each other again, somehow, by chance. Love returned. I loved this story. I guess, I thought, if I waited long enough you would come back to me too. We would have that epic love story that was always on the precipice, on the tips of our tongues, in the way you would look at me, in the way I would look at you. But the years passed, in seasons, in ups and downs, as life always does, and we did cross paths, lives, even bodies; I let you into my home, my bed. But you were a visitor and you never quite returned to me. You were older now, ambitious, but still the same to me. I was older now too, you said, all grown up, 25. It’s funny. But in my mind I was still 22, right there where you left, like a child I stood, just waiting for you to come back home. 

Laughing Together

Laughter is everything in a relationship.

When the clapping stops and the theatre is quiet, isn’t it time to leave?

Ours

Ours was a love story told many times before.

How we found each other without looking and how it lasted for as long as it could.

I will always remember that corridor behind that green door in that quaint little city.

How we would both call it home for a year.

The Mermaid and her Human Loves

At the edge of the deep green sea 

There lived a mermaid with auburn hair

Blue eyed, she was beautiful and fair

With a smile that could cut a man in half

And a heart of fire and glass.

She wore

a necklace

Five ivory

Sea-shells

each representing five lost loves.

For to fall in love with a human when you are part of the sea was forbidden and rare. There are mermen for that, her father would tell her.

The first human love was soft and kind, but when human lips met mermaid lips, death stole him for his own. 

The second was brave and bold, but he had a jealous heart and fought the mermen, hard. It does not do to fall in love with mermaids and the mermen took him soon enough.

The third would bring freshly plucked purple flowers every day and would place them at her green, enchanting tail. 

The fourth grew cold and impatient at her mermaid ways and moved away.

The fifth grew obsessed with the ways of the sea and he drowned.

The mermaid never really knew what happened to the third love, but strangely, once a year, she would find a lavender flower by her tail. The mermaid began to dream in vivid purple and she went mad with longing in the end. The years passed and when death visited her, she left with him gladly.

Her third love, in grief and madness, returned with a small boat made of pine wood and purple flowers. For many years, he sailed around the deep green sea in search of his mermaid love, scattering violet flowers into the waves as he went.

Midnight Blue

You were with me when I had my mid-twenties crisis

And cut off all of my hair

Even you could not save me from myself

I know you would try

Madness runs in my family, I’d say, laughing

A cherry stem between my teeth

Chunks of midnight hair in my hands.

WOMEN

My Acrostic poem for International Women’s Day 2019.

W ild Women, hear us roar. We have been rising from the ashes for years. Did you see us coming?

O ur ability to be what we want to be in Society today. The votes, the choices we have. The sacrifices our predecessors made. But how many women all over the world are still fighting to get their voices heard?

M en we call you to arms to support us as we promise to support you. We know the world is tough on you too.

E pitome of strength and courage. Do you hear how fierce our hearts beat? Does it scare you or does it make you proud? Of your daughters, your sisters?

N ow it is our time to remind the world of our journey. Do you see how far we have come? Do you see how far we have still to go?