Author: poetryfest

You guy, my guy! Remember Guy?
The guy who lived on Dumfries Road?
With pleated toes and limestone crown?
Who told tall tales we could not tell?

Life’s not a script, patterns it is
Of twisted truths and fading light
And straightening twirls in curling turns
For y’all to figure out.

Bulging bits of teens Guy said
Put childhood days out of tune
No longer fit same things to do
But still unfit life’s dance to have.

Youth is water in a sieve Guy said
That sips before the tap can close
A time to stretch and pick the bulbs
As in a flash it all could end.

Age is old wine that new skins can’t hold
The creeping marks of bonus time
Leave regret no room, my guy
You never know how old you’ll get to be.

Who wears a broken heart is
Never patient, never kind
She has poison up her sleeve,
She has daggers on her mind

Vengeance is no pleasure,
Beauty brings no pain
Suffering is second nature,
Fate she shall ordain

The other woman never listens
For no one heard her cry
Ever bloodless does she sleep
To obscure her open eye

How unforgiving is this world
How sorrowful its woe
Here treads the other woman
Dressed in venom head to toe

I always thought that when I’d finally fall,
The whole world would know that wasn’t all,
I’d start off with something slow,
Like emojis to start the show,
In my case it’s something rare,
It’ll have to be someone I won’t share,
And just to make it official,
I’d finally make it social,
I’d scream and shout and make a scene,
My friends would know all the betweens,
I’ve finally fallen,
Can’t you see my heart’s been stolen,
I’m now in love,
I’ll tell them it’s not just a fact,
Besides my friends I’ve got books aside,
I’ll fill them both in and out,
Pages to pages would go on and on,
I’m starting my story and I promise it’s long,
I’d write about love and how he makes me happy,
I’d only feel one ecstasy,
That I was sure I wouldn’t be wrong,
Just like my feeling it would be strong,
I’d planned my first date and how perfect it would be,
The flowers the dress the feeling inside,
Love at first sight,
I hoped to find,
I’d love like never before,
And even then, it would need more,
But the guy had to be someone rare,
One I’d definitely never share,
So, I searched and looked,
Hoping to find something true,
I had a whole list lined up,
Even as I became an adult,
And knew the world to not be just,
I still chose to wager on pure luck,
And kept searching for my perfect personality,
In a world that was simply reality.

Dear Mother,

I am telling the truth when I say
I am sitting in a garden surrounded by flowers
and buzzing insects and chittering birds as
I am writing this letter to you.
There is an apple tree and
bushes of blackberries and
turtles floating in the pond and
I am telling you the truth when
I say I love every single one of them.

And yet
electric blue-white streams of fire
run along my arms to my finger tips,
ready at a moment’s notice to be
“precise and deadly”.

I now understand
we fear the Other
and a monster
is just a face we do not recognize.

I was a child when you watched me
prance and pirouette,
twirling my arms above my head
then dispatching a barrage of bullets
of golden flames.

I flit, I whirl, each step like the beat of a butterfly wing
and also
the beat of war drums
a backdrop to the jets of scorching fire,
that someday would melt brick and steel,
that I shoot into the air
and with a waltz I finish,
the threads of electric blue from my finger tips,
and the room is stunned soundless.
But I am shrunk by the fear in your eyes.

Here is a story:
Watch the long grasses part.
You feel the yellow gaze before you see
the orange and muscles and strength;
the tiger bounds with all the ease and silence
of a drifting swan in water
and crushes the limping deer’s neck,
(I do notice its limp
and I do think about how fast
its heart must be beating).

There is the thirst for meat and blood
and there is the thirst for power
but more than that,
there is the knowledge that
you are different and
no one can do what you do
no matter what you look like
no matter what has happened to you.
It is in your marrow.
No, it is deeper than even that.
It was decided before you were born
and you are bound to it until you die.
And why is that so wrong?

I do

Love,
Azula

I was once a rose
but the years spent spun in a
nuclear centrifuge has filled
me with a rage,
a taproot tethered to an
experiment gone wrong.
Over the years, their pipettes punctured cells
to inject a serum, to replace these rose-petals
with a hunter’s heart.
Little did they know that all
the years I’d spent praying away this gay
would result in an unshackled mutant,
a hybrid with tendrils longer
than the strings they’d use to move me.
Now, they’re microscopic mad scientists
watching helplessly as I roam free
and charge through their barriers
possessed like Biollante.

Max chased the Wretches to the waste
Such beings bred from scientists’ haste
A blend of man and beast
Conjured in labs for tasks discrete
Controlling the brood proved a feat
Till peace time here did cease.

From corners and cages they flew
As bombs dropped at morning’s dew
Raging, frantic, incensed
A spirit of boldness soon grew
Freedom taught the Wretches life true
Bonds no longer made sense.

Enter our hero of pure stock
Max, a born leader of the flock
Determined, committed
To wrangling the Wretches in field
But the brood refused to yield
Could they be outwitted?

The waste, the devil surely carved
A place where all creatures soon starved
Cruel, careless creators
Cursing the brood to such sad fate
That man always held heaven’s gate
Unmasks God’s true traitors.

(!)
Aliens

I wanted them to be like death
Seemingly far away
But knowing that I will be meeting them for sure
Knowing that I have a rendez-vous with them

Knowing that the very thought of them
Will stumble into my soul
Not now, of course
I am not yet red meat
I am not this yet

(!)
What is the name… among us?
Is it necessary?
Is it empty?
Is it temporary?

What a laugh!
Aliens
They are too pure for us anyway
Unlike rats and pigeons
We don’t seem to want them
But
Aliens!

(!)
They are not like a certain death

They don’t give a damn about us
Just like we don’t give a damn about fish

Maybe we are fish to them
With small brains, useless flesh and soulless hearts
Maybe we are homeless fish to them

But
(!)
I am no fish!
I don’t want to be fish to them
Want to be their friend, their enemy, their threat, their experiment, nude as a chicken for them
But not fish
That’s pretty unfair if you ask me
That they think we are fish
That they don’t want to kill, kill, kill
I mean

Making.
Dawn.
flourishing.
Lay to rest.

otherwise.

Fabrication.
Arrival.
Broadening
Death.

-Emma perkins

sequined dresses
rot in my closet
“vintage” earrings
and eid bangles colored dark brown
they used to be ruby red and gold
fit for a bride or a princess
or a a little girl
only “desi” from a couple bracelets
that could be bended with a stroke
i’d never tell my mother how many of her bangles
i broke that way
twisting them into weird shapes
sometimes the alphabet,
sometimes hearts, sometimes eights
sometimes i think she wouldn’t even care
sometimes my own culture feels like hearsay
never a place for shimmer on my wrist
grandparents and cousins pass
without one chat
only flashes of biryani and mangos
they feel like imitations to follow
real memories
no eid parties, ramadan dinners, no chants of zindabad
no real idea where i come from
only imposter-syndrome
during cricket matches and bollywood movies
people call me lucky
“you speak three languages!”
but i’ve forgotten my own
broken family and broken punjabi
i wish my “desi”
was more than things
more than pretend
but we moved too far for that
every bend of a bangle
destroyed practices
that should’ve seeped into my skin
and flowed through my blood
I forgot traditions
fashioned and followed for a millennia
in one generation
I killed a culture for my children
I wish my desi was more
I wish it was me, for them

Tearing the ground apart
As the soil splits, it bleeds.
The earth mends itself, weaving back stronger,
But my lips?
Words unravel them
Until I stitch them shut tight
So it hurts to speak.

I face the mirror.
There I am,
Whole, yet fragile.
I reach out to feel, but
fear washes over me like a torrent
cracking the glass before I can.
I shatter myself before the world can.

Eons of tears, scattered like seashells
hidden and abundant
I press one to my ear.
Sorrows echo inside—
the waves lashing,
growing distant but
never gone.
The ocean and my tears taste the same
Both humming the same song.

It scratches the itch away
but each touch splinters another mirror.
Even my own body fractures
Working against me
Splitting when I need it whole.

My eyes buzz like the inside of the seashell.
The mirror stares back at me,
Its smashed surface screeching louder.
But beyond the cracks, I hear the waves
Crooning somewhere
Tucked into the seashell’s grooves
Savoring its last embrace of the shore
before waning away.

I will piece it back together.
Even if the shards are buried deep
Even if they cut me
I will piece it back together.
My fear will not be the victor.

It stays around my wrist—
The shell entwined with thread
Through the mud, the smoke, or the fire,
small, yet unbroken.
still singing
an echo of who I am