When I was a little girl, holding hands was part of a smile
It meant I liked the mud castle the boy who lived next door made with me
And back we’d walk from the park when my Mum, sister cradled in her arms
Would call out from the verandah “Enough, doll, the street lights are on”
So we’d destroy the mud castle (just incase the other children stole the idea)
And we’d walk back home holding hands
Finding new flowers and pretty stones along the way to put into tomorrow’s gravely adventure
Never learning from experience that our mothers would make us throw it away

When I went to school, hug was part of being sorry
It meant I felt bad that the stupid bully from grade two had stolen his food
And even scratched the very picture on top of his brand new dark blue tiffin box
His mother would be so angry
So I’d hug him at the end of school when they separated us into bus lines
Both of us wondering how he would fare
And when I went home, I’d tell Dad as he kissed me goodnight
“Did you see my tiffin - all the pictures on it still work”
And when he said “It’s ok even if it doesn’t, tata, go to sleep”

When I was eleven, the boy I sat next to gave me his hanky when I was crying
I had failed my Sanskrit exam
I had never failed anything before
He left it on my desk, so i kissed him thank you at my best friends birthday party
When no one was looking because the cake was being cut
It seemed only natural
And I had had too much sugar
The next day when I told everyone he sat in another room
I could hear him there, telling his friends about me
“She’s lying, I don’t love her. Liar.”
His best friend said the b-word - the one for girls
Loudly
So i could hear him
So I said the b-word for boys from the other classroom back.
You know - the seven letter one.
That’s two letters more than his.
Stupid boys with no vocabulary.
I was confused. I was crying, and I wouldn’t tell my teacher why.
He asked for his seat to be moved.
And I never spoke to him again.

And now when I hold a hand
Or hug
Or smile
Or kiss

I wonder

Why can’t it just be
A smile
A hug
A kiss

Why does it need to be something?
Why does it have to mean something?
Why does it have to be interpreted?
Why are they good kisses?
And awkward hugs?
And meaningful smiles?
And still a secrecy around holding a boys hands.
What is it with that, boys?
It’s just your bloody hand.
You’re fine with the other bloody parts.

And if I hold a girls hands,
Or kiss her when she’s crying
Or hug a colleague who has broken down in the bathroom
Coz her stupid boy started going out with a girl from year two in college
(What is it with year two in educational institutions that makes people stupid?)
Then we are “too close”?

I want to go back to being five years old
When even my mum didn’t bother if I was under a blanket with my best friend
During a sleepover
Because he and I got scared
While tried to scare each other
With scary stories

I want to go back to being able to just hug and smile
And not needing to have to words,
Or to say the words
Or write the words
To transmit every feeling in my heart
Every debt of emotion
There aren’t words to define all things
That’s why we are still inventing words you idiots
And we will never invent them all
Because we don’t understand the human heart
So we can’t have a word for its every nuance
There’s only one word for love
One
Word.

One.

For

Something

As

Beautiful
Tragic
Breathtaking
Majestic
Heart breaking
Soul warming
Gratifying
Intoxicating
Gut wrenching
Earth rotating
Money squandering
War inciting

As love.

So please
Can we all just go back
To smiles, hugs, kisses and sex?

Oh wait, I never mentioned sex did I?
Oops.

I am tired of this place
I am tired of your face
It’s time for me to move on
It’s time you are erased

Yet when pen comes to paper
When dreams come to play
It’s your warm touch that lingers
It’s your voice that I crave

They tell me be gentle with yourself
They say deep wounds take time
Oh fools, if they knew what this recovery has cost
If they knew how perfectly your body was built for mine

In night skies I see lovers on Lygon
By day they pick carpet colors at Harvey
But if naive hope keeps me from healing
Then surely the fool in this story is me?

Smart enough not to need forever young
Wise enough to dream of an imperfect love
Tough enough to make it happen
Tell myself every night I’m better than this

Look at my own life on the outside
I can see through the glass my own wry smile
There’s a whole life inside me wasted
All the things I could’ve made last
Wasted in pride and circumstance

Darling life can be perfect
And suddenly it’s not mine
Sometimes joy is not enough to know
Sometimes the sadness must grow

Look at all the people
In and out with lives like mine
Bleeding healing keeping giving
Tears, nostalgia, 3am with wine
Walk walk walk and then you die

Strumming your guitar patiently as I learn
We catch a quick smile,
A knowing glint in each others eye
Once more the thought crosses my mind
Why can’t I fall for you, why?

All the words I ever wrote about love
We could effortlessly make them come true
Yet there’s a ticking voice in both our heads
This is not the one for you.

Maybe someday years from now
When we both find who we need
We will share that knowing glint once more
Thank God we waited to find the missing piece

Till then can we enjoy each others company
And not try and figure it out too much
I’m grateful everyday that you came into my life
And I was always better at friendship anyway! ;)

Me:

O lovely Sunday with skies do blue
Whatever shall I do with you?
Spend you basking at the beach?
Or only keep remote in reach?

Sunday:
First, stop rhyming.

you didn’t know

i was trying to heal for you 

and i didn’t know

i was wounding you 

you kept telling me

things i already knew

that wasn’t why i left

i just couldn’t hurt you

you were the last one untouched

the last unconverted believer 

i turned around from cynic’s end

when i saw you in my rearview mirror

so please don’t hate me

i just couldn’t bear to see you fall

you’re the reason i’m still trying

so i can’t be the reason you give up on it all

baby, i wish you could understand

i left so you could be with her

that her, right now, it isn’t me

maybe not this lifetime, not this year at least. 

you use him as an alibi

and it allows you to smile

so i’d rather let it be

coz maybe then you won’t hate me

yes, i was selfish, and yes, i was wrong

so the mixed tape on my table with unheard songs

will never make it to your front door

will never accompany our first getaway alone

you made me weak in my mind

in places i didnt know existed

you wouldve eventually made it to my heart

if you just had the patience and had waited

wrapped in my quilt

wrapped in my guilt

im drinking tea and listening to TSTM

but still sunday mornings arent the same

i wish we were friends longer, 

i wish we had taken our chance later,

i wish we had taken it slow

i wish we hadn’t crashed and burned.

Would it have mattered if I had stayed?

What would you possibly have changed?

If I bound myself in your chains

That still wouldn’t have freed you of its claims.

See darling, we never were equals

Because your games, babe, always rhetorical

So I need to walk away while I still can

I need to think of you as a different man

See, I was ready to be your walls of protection

If you agreed to open the doors to the landmines of your past

I would’ve held all the broken glass in my hands

Till you healed and gave us a real chance

See, I wanted to believe you

Till your actions proved me wrong

I thought I was your exception

But I was just another girl all along

Ironic, the girl who shut down your heart

Is the boy you have become to me

Yet you won’t accept that you’re faithless

You won’t admit you can’t go the distance

And how brilliantly we fool ourselves

That I blamed everyone but you

And how sadly you delude yourself

That you believe you are the victimized hero.

You can run me dry of emotion

But you can’t steal my innocence

Please continue to suffer in your one man show

Because I will move on regardless.

I love you without complexities
Not for what you can do for me,
Not for how I fulfil your needs,
No involvement of moralities
No ifs, just straightforwardly,
Not your heartache, not your laugh
Not what you have, not what you didn’t get
Not the weakness nor the strength

I love you because really
What choice did I have
You could’ve been 20 and depressive
30 and abrasive
I still would’ve loved you
The essence is what stays when all else has changed
And the essence, it blends well with mine

I knew all along.
I knew I never had a chance.
I always get the feeling that I’ve known you before
I had let you in before you even saw the door

You were surprised when we first made love
“Did you expect this to happen”, you asked.
I laughed incredulously and looked at you
“You didn’t?” I replied.

An eerie penchant for seeking the truth
He feels you out before he knows,
Dark honey eyes that look through you
Know your secrets even untold.

Skin so warm in the morning light
Lips I could watch all day
Natural affection, unblemished, unguarded
Passion that never fails to sweep me away.

I’ve seen him move mountains for a friend
I’ve seen him guard secrets till the end
I’ve seen him be a child with me
And fit in with sophisticated company
And when I hold him, safe and tight,
Barefeet, I can place my head just right
To hear his heart beating, to hear it go quiet
I could escape the world in that silence

But I forgot all that, gave up the safe haven
Foolishly I wandered out on my own
What I was searching for, I wish I knew
For I shot myself, and now I’m alone.

My own avarice, I wanted more
Convinced his love was untrue
If I heard the song behind his words before
I wouldn’t be singing heartbreak blues

A woman scorned, I thought myself
Not good enough to be taken out in style?
Trapped forever in the walls of this home
Clocking up no frequent miles?

The romantic, the writer, struggled in me,
The practical in me goaded them on
When I was tired of trying, the rebel broke free
And when daylight came, they were all gone.

And now I must with the wreckage deal
My fantasy blinded me to your real love
I walk around, tape, scissors and seal
Hoping my makeshift fixes will hold up.

Its now a hot summer’s eve
And there’s nowhere I’d rather be
Than at a dusty table with cheap chinese
And then curl up with you and a bad movie

Its interesting to see,
How we keep forcing what isn’t meant to be,
And alas that it is only hindsight
That is painfully twenty twenty.

Truth is wasted on the cynics

And unblemished devotion

On the broken hearted

If you believe you’ve been marked for life

You just have.

If you can’t remember what you saw

When she first walked into your life

She might as well walk out right now

For a million girls will love you the most they can

And a million new friends will cherish you

Till they can’t anymore

But you keep waiting for them to love you

The way you want to be loved

Expect them to cater to your unexpected weaknesses

Expect to only cater for their agreeable ones

But love isn’t perfect; love just is.

Make of it what you will.

Empty room and empty bed
Black black night, but all I see is red
No promise can keep you here
No door can make me leave 
Must I call it love..long past that stage
I’m calling you, already rehearsing a voicemail
Tell me, baby, do you just keep me
For warm summer eve company?
Giving just enough, of pre-rehearsed love
To turn me around each time I leave?
Well, its far too little to keep me happy
No promise of it getting better
A growing bedside pile of love letters
False consolation, he’ll regret it someday
Deep within I know, you’ll be the one to walk away
Once you tire of me desperately wanting you
Once you find someone new loving you