Author: poetryfest

Trying to find my way back to living,
my soul plays peek-a-boo in a vacuum tunnel,
where oxygenated cells have fled,
abandoning a hollow body,
thoughts swirling,
deeply entrenched in denial.

A sense of torpor settles over me as I
gaze at the empty walls,
the fabric of my cushion covers,
even my fingernails—they stare back,
silent witnesses, exuding a soothing tension in the air.

I’ve knocked myself out with awakened mindfulness,
where dreams no longer distort reality;
they are sharp yet obscured,
while fears fade,
lingering like shadows at dusk,
prolonging the delicate dance of human sentiments.

“I’ve outgrown the pain; I am no longer a sufferer.”
But what does it mean to outgrow,
to leave behind the ghosts of yesterday?
Perhaps it is to embrace the light
that flickers within,
a quiet rebellion against the darkness.

You say it’s your favorite color.

Is that why you seem to enjoy when the red of my cheeks makes that shade stand out in my eyes?

And yet, when I don a dress in the same tone,
you leave deep scars on my self-image. Deeper than
most of the ones I gave myself on my skin.

I remember being excited for the holiday season, where our two favorite colors lit up our apartment.

Yet now, the love drains from my chest, leaving a darkness
that I would rather have swallow me
than exist in the landscape you created.

I remember when you used to look at me
As if I were the moon,
Hanging in your sky,
Soft and luminous, pulling the tides in your chest.
There was something in your eyes
A quiet worship, a longing,
Like I was both faraway and yet yours to hold.
In those moments,
I believed I was made of light,
Reflecting something beautiful back to you.

But maybe I’m just delusional.
Maybe I read too much into the way
Your eyes lingered a little too long,
The way your breath seemed to catch
When the distance between us thinned.
Maybe it was never the moon you saw in me,
Only a fleeting shadow,
A pale echo of something you wanted to find
But never truly did.

I try to tell myself that I imagined it,
That I painted you in the colors of my own dreams,
But still,
There’s a part of me that holds on
Clings to the way your gaze once softened,
As if you saw something celestial in me,
Something rare and worth orbiting.

I don’t want my heart to ache for you,
To tremble in the hollow spaces
Where your light used to reach me.
I tell myself it’s easier to forget,
To close the door on those memories
Before they grow too heavy
And sink me like stones.

But how can I stop the ache
When the nights are so quiet,
When the moon still rises,
And I remember the way you once looked at me
Like I was its reflection?
The truth is,
I don’t want to ache,
But I do.
I ache in the silence you left behind,
In the empty places where your gaze used to rest,
And I can’t help but wonder
If you ever look up at the moon
And think of me
Or if I was just another phase you outgrew.

The day after was so very quiet.
It was oh so deafeningly silent,
and there was no use in denying it.
You were gone.

The day after was so very quiet.
There was no breaking that horrid silence.
The air was as still as your body was.
You were still gone.

The day after was so very quiet.
But something new filled that awful silence.
The sound of tears, of grief, of our mourning.
You will live on.

Because even in death, you still live on.
You were a good dog, a wonderful friend.
As they say, “in time, even a heart mends.”
We still love you.

We all still love you, and we’ll meet again.

Before, I peel each layer carefully,
I baptise in the memory of that night
when you coaxed me into the bathtub
licked all over me with your bubbling tongue
pressed my thighs and breasts
before we had sex on the bathroom floor.
I cut through the pale green leafy vegetable
which will soon be shredded into bits,
seasoned with coconut
and cooked to my husband’s favourite thoran.
But before I offer myself in bed
for probing, fingering and shredding,
I wash myself in the scent of mustards and curry leaves
popping and swishing,
making music in an oily tub.

*thoran- a vegetable cuisine popular in Kerala, India

The day you died i became fluent in silence
The only words i wished to voice
Stolen from me by your own passing
Carved out of my soul while yours craved for rest

The news pierced my skin like a silent bullet
My body numb to the pain that settled under my fingertips
And the words i wished to tell you still lingering in the ink of my pen
Senteced to be written and read but never feel the closure of being said

The day you died i became fluent in my quietude
Grief stranggling my every thought
Burrying more than just your corpse and memories underground
A piece of me intertwined with the dirt that now covered your heart

The tears stinging my eyes but feeling too torn within my new fluency
Devoted to the words i wished to part from you with
Left abandoned to be seen as an ancient relique
A proof that love transcends death

The day you died i became fluent in sorrow, in pain and grief
None of which i knew how to express myself in
leaving me quiet, covering up the goodbye i wished to give you
leaving me silent, carrying the weight of never more seeing you

insta : sofssmatos
Youtube : allforlilsofs

his. social network
filled with dead links

his. calls,
increasing volume without joy

his. sleeping in a chair
while those around converse

M. could but
where would it lead instead?

Her, in tireless
automatons make morning

come awake in kitchen clean
the slow grind of eggs against metal

I love like a bad dog
I’m soft, and sweet, and gentle–
Until I’m sharp teeth and terror.
I don’t mean to bite,
but my lips curl back
to show my sharp, shining teeth.

When people leave me, they leave with bite marks.
I hold on too hard, I hurt people.
I never learned to submit.
I never learned to let go.
I’m restless, I’m harsh, and despairing.
I’m the stray dog you were warned not to pet.

I claw at closed doors
until my paws bleed.
Nails shattering on the siding
of a house that was never my home.
I just want someone to let me in,
to save me from the cold, dark night.

My teeth ache, heavy with memories,
they were never meant to hold.
I bite down, desperately,
because letting go feels like losing.
Bruised and bloody, I hang in there,
the champion of a fight that will have no winners.

I’m not the kind of animal
that knows how to separate love from pain.
I’m not the kind of beast
that can soften in the face of fear.
I’m the kind of dog that keeps fighting,
even when surrender is the only way out.

I get mean when I’m afraid.
I’m a bad dog dying to find a way to be good.
I want to collapse at your feet,
belly up, open and surrendering.
I don’t want to fight anymore.
I just never learned a better way to get you to stay.

She’s ruined me,
And my dream.
Her ruby heart
Blinds our art.

Full black eye,
We’re far apart.
And I believe the irony

Is what makes us strong.

And we can try to pry
Our nights away, we’re not smart.
Full of laughs and purity.

When we’re together, it must go wrong.

You can plead your case
My wish is your desire.
An eerie reminder of love from a prior
Broken soul, torn to face

A fountain of youth,
Failing to tell our truth.

She’s ruined me
And my dream.
Her ruby heart
Blinds our art.

Full black eye.
We’re far apart.

When we’re together, it must go wrong?

I once had a girl
and her name was Romania.
I loved her, I did,
but she left on Tuesday.

We had us some fun
and drank us some beers,
but then she stole all my photos
and emptied out all of her drawers.

Gone is my love
and gone is her junk;
I just shot the last gram
she left in my trunk.

Alone, by the phone,
I call out her name,
with face soaked with tears
and beers of the same.

She threatened strange suicides
wailing pink pills and bloodstains.
The joke was on everyone
when she hacked up her veins.

I loved her, I did,
and I called her the flower.
I’d give up all of time
just to see her this hour.

But death is death
when the blood is spilt:
The love drains out
and the flower, she wilts.

Her mother got pissed
and called up a posse;
they came looking’ for me
with an eight-by-ten glossy.

When they broke down my door,
I was waiting with lead
—shot her once in the gut,
and again in the head