Ode to Headache

At times,
you clouded my mind
like fresh tobacco in the valley rain.
My eyes teared up and fell
for your celestial dance.

Never had I known,
you lingered relentlessly
in the deepest of my thought,
sometimes in conga drums
sometimes jazz club glass clink-clanks
sometimes an urging storm
sometimes a leaking tap on a quiet afternoon.

The most ugly was at night.
You drummed with hollow bones.
You tap danced in metal heels.
You withheld water from dying fish.
You told lies about my past.

You amused me,
you and your little friends in clusters.
You left the sand scattered after a play.
You summoned the cicadas to choir practice.
You hid the crumbs to trap squeaky mice.
You and your little friends
lived in the fun house built on the neurons
of my overthinking brain.

Then,
I realised there was never an agreement
for your occupancy.
You were just algae latched on wetland.
I moved to the hot desert and left you all behind.
“Cry, cry baby!”

Pain

She sits in silence by the sea
lets the waves orchestrate music
to make sense of her internal chaos

He stands behind her
hands in his pockets
knowing her spirit is crushed
She is trapped in her own mind
He is not allowed to rescue her
he is not allowed
Hopelessness shouts so loud
so loud

When he was a child
he mended
rain worn kites to set them fly high again
he tended
wounded animals to nurse them back to health
He comforts
friends with broken hearts
strangers with despair

She sits in stillness on the rock
lets the descending sun withhold its warmth
to sentence her to another imprisonment

He kneels on the sand behind her
fists dent deep
There is nothing
he can do
he will do
because
he loves her

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