Sleep

Sleep has left the building.
She has to be coerced with a pill.
She has no claims to fantasy.
She requires no story.

Give her a story
And she will stay away pursuing it.
She’s best left storyless
And thus, barren.
A pill is her fee.
She comes – carelessly –
And then has a brood of dreams.

Dreams I would rather not have;
Because they remind me of loss
And pain –
And people who won’t love me again.

Sleep smiles. I forced her with a pill.
So I am punished.
Her brood wakes me up
And the moment, I open my eyes,
She is once again set free.

I remember, I must

I remember the gold hair in your beard,
As the loss descends, much as I feared.
The eyes grandmother warned me to avoid
Have bored, into my heart, an endless void.

I remember how hair curled on your neck,
How, when you fought, a tiny spittle-speck,
Frothed, and formed strings, between your soft lips –
The void shifts. Tears threaten. My breath dips.

I haven’t eaten a mango this season –
Will strawberries hold you back for treason?
I would look for you when you’d gone too far,
How I would instruct you to drive the car,
I pick up the phone to wish you good night –
But you’ve kept your silence and killed this right.

I remember your leg‘s weight when we slept,
I remember the promises we kept.
I remember your warm hand holding mine,
Through each movie, every single time.

I remember you wiping my tears dry
And I wonder how you have let me cry…

The kids miss you. (Remember my daughter?)
They have passed for you, like dirty water.

I’m mad at you. I’m pining. I am lost.
If I’ve hurt you, is this truly the cost?
Because I loved the way you felt and thought,
I‘ll always remember, but you forgot.

Though, through this caravan of memory,
I‘ve seen us through paths you will never see,
You’ve forsaken me in a place I know,
Love will hold fast; but I must let you go.

I Couldn’t Keep You Happy

I could not keep you happy all the time.
(You could not do the same for me, too.)
But I gave you every thing that was mine –
All of my hopes and smiles I shared with you

Who stays happy all the time in love? (I ask.)
I’ve been in love before and I’ve made it last.
Making true love live is an easy task:
It predicts the future; learns from the past.

I didn’t keep you happy not all the time –
But you made choices through all of our fights!
There were many smiles (which u now decline)!
I made you family, I gave you equal rights!

I have my faults and, yes, you have your own –
So why am I the only one to blame?
Why must I alone be left to atone,
When you have forsaken our very names?

It takes two to tango, here, three could dance;
I was willing to share with you progress
But you resolved not to give us a chance
And succumbed to finally regress.

Love for me doesn’t alter with hours and weeks.
Sex may dwindle, but that’s never the end;
Now I have nightmares. A woken fear speaks:
‘All he ever did with you was pretend.’