ducklings and a llama

that rare Sunday
where I find myself
without plans, an agenda
only an afternoon
stretching into infinity

that rare Sunday
is a glimmer
that lives in my eyes
my green wilderness
vines, creepers
peeping out of their
cautious corners

and in the silence of
that rare Sunday
I adore that you and I
are on our phones
not talking
not needing to
only filling this space
with a chuckle
reserved for dogs, cats
some ducklings and a llama
a song I just discovered
an intermittent ankle
on my arm
a new recipe

it is here
in this Sunday languor
and this meshing
of my world
within and without
that I’m yellow

remember and rob

sometimes I crave
the friction of a new notebook
undecided
whether I have enough poetry
to be able to ink
through its daunting thickness

the truth is
I'd rather pour my heart
into pages that are going to be 
forgotten tomorrow
like parts of me 
scattered
across time
and geographies

I list out the digits
that mark today
reluctantly
almost as if I 
want to remember
and rob this timelessness
in equal measure

but this - forever 
being stuck
in paradoxes
in loops
but also endless playlists
is perhaps 
as comfortable 
and familiar 
as it's alienating

how many instances
along time and space
can I point to 
that felt exactly 
like this
a lover's arms
home's windows
streets that had
scraped my knees
people who had
felt mine

this life
is nothing
but an act of 
nerve-wracking
courage

some pluck it
from the bottoms
of whiskey bottles

and others from
withdrawing to
the pillows laid out
by their soul
only to emerge
as music and melancholy

failed states

the fairy lights are up
some evenings we visit
the bottom of a whisky bottle

it seems like my 
field of vision 
has forever featured 
the silhouette of
two attentive ears
taut, velvet

a constant jarring 
is at work
like sandpaper 
against my heart
wonder whether 
it will come down to 
making choices between
tempered chocolate
or war-ravaged towns

it's either too little 
or too much

cold sun

one night
when the only colour
painting the canvas
between the earth and the sky
is green
titillating
choreographed

a lone light bulb
casting shadows
of ascending lengths
while she sings of
the cold sun and the chill
of exhales

the heart is better for
the love it feels
the love that tears it apart

paisley

drenched rainy clouds 
hemmed into
the linings of my skirt

greens around me
and my heart
heavy with
the groans of the sky

crying freedom

do you

what do you do
when love starts feeling like
sea salt

home and heartbreak

at some point
how I felt about love
was a song

it was against
rain streaked windows
red and purpled from
street lights reflecting
off of wet roads

it was in smells
that were at once
home and heartbreak

and in the
dusty, forgotten memory
of my mom
bursting into laughter

it was also in
a book I knew
I could never re-read

it's the stuff
that gushes out of my heart
on seeing Milo
comfortable within
awkward angles of my body

in loss
in sights that left me breathless
and in evenings with too much wine in them
love. there was love.