Month: Aug 2020

Introduction To An Unreliable Narrator

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Did I promise to tell you the truth with all these lines

Or did I promise to lie until each of them rhymes?

I can’t hold an honest conversation about my pain

Not thinking it’s a competition that consumes my brain.

Yes, I’m sick, swallowed by the system and chewed up,

Looking like a normal product of society, maybe, somewhat.

My left foot chained to a curling iron thinning it out,

My right arm drained of its blood by panic and yesterday’s doubt.

But you might pass me in the street wondering how I’m so well –

And truthfully, no one but me could really tell

How a mess of a human presents that well on the front page

Or the Facebook feed of another lover I blocked with rage…

Did I promise to tell you the truth with these lines

Or did I promise to lie until each of them rhymes?

Whatever you heard – must be worth all the energy to get this far,

And if you believe that I’m being honest, you might have a heart.

-JW

The Origin Story

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One of those way too hot summer days but I’m trying to make it work.

Haven’t had a meal since Monday, yet I’m feeling they’re ready to lurk.

Putting my best foot forward on the dusty, forgotten town roads at north –

Not even five minutes in, a horde on my back breaking all the walls,

Even the fourth.

The sentences sneak up slowly, they’re there to capture and also – to kill.

Haven’t thought of myself this way. My blood runs cold, it stays still.

Every step I take gets heavier – or am I heavier now? Impossible to tell.

The darkest of thoughts thus far rush to my brain, and my eyes blink,

Ready to swell.

Shaking and scared to the core, I walk faster to avoid the burning heat

Of the words spoken so meanly, so categorically, and I know I don’t deserve

The right to breathe

Unless I’m good enough, tiny and form-fitting enough,

Plenty from all the sides and angles enough,

Enough, enough, enough.

Why wasn’t it enough?

Why did you have to say it out loud, would it make your parents proud?

Why did you chase me down like a hunter chases down its prey with a hound,

Hoping I won’t make a sound?

Because here I am eight years later writing this story,

Hopeful, enough and proud, wishing my father would call me

To also admit that, honestly, he’s been bathing in his own “sorry”,

And too blinded by the shine of gold, for the lack of a better allegory.

But on my worst days I’m still in that summer day eight years back, ready to go,

To disappear into nothing – if that’s more pleasing to strangers who I don’t even know.

Placing my best foot forward, keeping it together so tight it my break my heart altogether

But I guess it’s all a circumstance of the gruelling weather

And my thighs not being lighter than a fallen feather.

-JW

A Beautiful Day To Die

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The sun is playing on bare skinned people passing by, not reaching me yet.

I’ve become a mirror to the world’s worst battle cries, the symbol of debt.

Would be a lie if I claimed I’d rather touch the rays instead of reflecting –

It’s a beautiful day to die from overdosing on medals I’ve been collecting.

Never thought of myself as a warrior, cleaning up foreign messes, not my own,

Making sure as a foreigner I hide my own truths and give my illness a loan

To take out later, when I’m crumbling in the concrete walls of another city

Where windows are larger than life and privacy means you must be guilty.

All these second-hand “thank you” notes I’ve gathered now don’t mean a thing –

Loneliness carries itself just royally well until it finds a place to sting.

Then you’re down with the venom tearing your vision apart, installing mirrors.

You feel like it’s a beautiful day to die if you get to see the world any clearer.

But that was then – I continue to walk the streets with my growing reflective hopes.

I’ve become the mirror to the world’s battle cries but I’m no longer a ghost.

***

I shut the neon gates to my city.

The rebels are gone with the winds of fog colored in pity.

The small picture’s gone, replaced with only this memory

Of how I treated the streets I created as an enemy

I know I can’t reach my younger self but I’ll try through this revery:

Love, I hope you remember me.

-JW

New Chapter

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Blood on my trembling fingers from yesterday’s out of control rendezvous.

I don’t think I’m ready to ask questions with answers dipped in your blues.

It’s true, wanting everything from my past to be torn apart isn’t a solution

But I’ve waited too long for a happy ending, not another mediocre conclusion.

“I love you so much it pains me,” I say, looking at a gold framed mirror.

Bought this one myself in a vintage shop made for people-shaped errors.

Painted my walls white and took the hoarded neon to another graveyard –

I spilled my paint going there, then accidentally became the vanguard

Of some new, braver movement… Sorry, I can’t really recall their name.

They told me tales about the fame monster but I won’t listen to reason

When it comes to my shame.

So there’s still blood on my hands and I should admit – it’s probably mine.

Cutting your heart open becomes a hobby if you start practising when you’re nine.

Bleeding yourself dry daily for other’s mistakes feels OK, you’ve gotten better.

But I’m still unable to remember a time where I looked at myself

And didn’t feel dry or bitter.

May this mirror I’ve bought myself serve as a reminder of how I’m here, breathing,

And if I happen to bleed for my own life again, that’s because I’m leaning on myself,

The one person honest enough to drop her habit of being deceiving,

Instead of running for the hills, walking the walk through the delayed grieving.

May this mirror be the first thing to remind myself I am not perfect at it,

But I am healing.

-JW

A Dystopian Novel

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There are these full circle moments when the drums stop ringing in your ears,

The sound paralyzing your every move turns into a river washing out your fears.

But you can’t stand up, can’t raise a hand to greet the overwhelming sun

And the mountains seem golden, yet you’re careful about letting go of the gun.

There are moments where you reflect on deflecting your whole past and present,

The bass is penetrating your heart muscles because trauma isn’t pleasant.

Skull pulsating harder than a carnival stage filled with betrayed manic rebels.

Anxiety-driven you rush through the memories, climb brave through the levels.

There are moments where killing your mind with noise becomes a simple mischief,

But you pull that trick way too often so it grows into a cult, you bury it like a christian.

You might need a decade to ditch the part where attacking your senses feels fine.

The longer you ignore that pain, the more likely you’ll turn it into a dystopian novel

with rhymes,

like mine.

-JW

When I Was Younger

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And I look at my layered cotton candy sky every evening

Blaming my father for distorted love that keeps bleeding.

I’m doing alright, more than I was promised where I grew up

In the town where no one’s allowed to stand up

For themselves or for anything somewhat decent…

I can’t shake the spite because it feels so recent,

Because their cotton candy sky’s inherited and not really earned.

Where I come from, each cry for love remains spurned.

The hate is a currency there – but so is the hidden insecurities.

Dirty beings blowing mud on the clouds, judging all purities.

And I look at my pink sky because I clawed my way up here,

Away… but the town behind refuses to fade out and disappear.

I know that my head on a stick will not suffice their hunger.

Wish I had known when I was still hopeful, when I was younger.

-JW

My Dear Pain

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Extremely sad pictures are painted on my reflective walls today, it’s alluring.

My lungs trembling to the melodies of The Cure, yet – they aren’t really curing.

Every pore becomes an open flesh wound when I’m stuck in this hamster wheel.

“Go rob yourself of all joy and pride, go spread lies, sing off tune and steal.”

My brain is the enemy I knew I’d never win but I always cherished so dearly –

If I go down with its flawed narrations, you’re also going. Can you hear me?!

Do I even mean what I’m yelling when I put up the fight and try to survive this?

Not a day has gone by without me wishing I could take a bullet through my iris.

But that’s not true, you must know I’m not a reliable narrator by this point. Do you?

I’m the sad pictures on my own walls, yet – I’m also the vivid daydreams you knew

Back when we were a little less depressed and I wasn’t smothering my insanities…

So let’s go to war, my dear pain, throw a ceremony of prayer to help your own christianities

With my godless profanities.

-JW

Picture Perfect

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Shattering circus mirrors on grey streets, my boots punching straight through them.

Setting fire to another pastel advert asking “us ladies to starve and lose ‘em”.

You cannot blow up the crooked system telling you how to be happy dying

But you can bite its head off trying to hear how the filtered buzz is lying.

The feathers of poorly made starlet costumes flying off as I tear them open –

If we’re exploring what beauty means, let’s also show the parts that are broken.

There are no friends in ecosystems built out of denying every human emotion,

Made out of caricatures of people who only stay young by staying in motion.

“Another pound gained means another rumour that her husband doesn’t love her –

We didn’t write the rules, it’s her fault she kept thriving when others ran for cover.”

What is this obsession of being camera ready and acting the part as well?

Your life is not up for an Oscar so stop reaching for the poisoned wishing well,

And your lungs are designed to scream not to swallow every shallow remark –

Lovely, please, dig a hole in the dust to bury the voice that haunts you

And leave the grave unmarked.

-JW

Growing Pains

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I keep picking apart every challenging moment I’ve felt

And I turn it into another foolish misdeed on the shelf.

A sinner, a torturer, a victim of my own darkness, a fraud.

I refuse to call myself anything less than somebody flawed.

But I want to grow up, I just don’t need to grow old today.

The harder I try to play it safe, the harder my parents pray.

I’m not a bad person, I’m only the worst with myself.

Can you even see how hard I’m trying to reach out for help?

Yet – my ego’s rotten and I’d rather make it tragic.

My brain’s a one way road to sadness, you can call it magic yet ratchet.

-JW

Assigned Loneliness

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Too much time spent with lovers but without anybody to love.

Whenever it gets personal, I flip the script and burn the whole show.

Cannot allow anyone to know, anyone to find out the withins

So I watch the world from side lines while it practises spins.

No one wins in a game of two where the first one is cheating

While the other turns a blind eye to third parties bleeding.

And maybe I’ve never been good at business or tango, or chess

Hence I keep looking for insignificant loners to undress.

…Perhaps it’s the sense of running out of time that drives me

To choose quick battles instead of picking up wars to win wisely.

But loneliness cannot be assigned by others, it has to be felt –

As long as I’m feeling nothing, I’ll play with what has been dealt.

-JW