Sapphirism

Your silence is the summons commanding me to the defendant’s table, Where I sit beside your lingering shadow And put my tongue on trial. I beseech your blind, impartial eyes To weigh my words and declare, What is it I said that made you leave? (Was it because I laid my soul bare?) The attorney sifts through our filtered polaroids. He examines the fangs behind your grin, And the claws behind your caresses. Hands are wrung, words are chewed. The strands of time are combed again, The knots harshly yanked. Then the gavel is struck: I hear the verdict from your unmoving lips, Those words of censure from your closed mouth Which echo louder than your declarations of love; It is a dangerous thing when love and justice are both blind. Photo by  Sora Shimazaki  from  Pexels

I’m five and I see A little white pocket with doodles of wings. I ask mum what it is. She tells me too quickly, “It is to keep the bathroom clean.”     It is Grade 3, and mum picks me up early. "Grandmother is sick”, the leave note reads. I ask mum what’s wrong, But she looks away the whole way back home. Hurries me to the bathroom, hands me a Whisper Stuck awkwardly to my bloomers, And whispers that I’m different, a big girl now And I’ll have to wear this every month. I don’t get it. I ask her out loud, “Why, what’s happening?” And she smacks my cheek. “Don’t advertise, stupid! Just do as you’re told!” My perfectly healthy grandma pokes her head in, And mum smiles, “Nah, all good, she’s just feverish.” Someday, I’ll get that the secrecy is so that My period doesn’t become the headline of my hometown.   Different. It haunts me everywhere I go. When my friends are playing volleyball, Mum and I shop for training bras. I bet the oth

i remember sitting at my dim-lit desk and waiting for his text (spoiler: it would never come). i remember the fear of pissing him off, and the self-loathing that would follow suit, and then the guilt, the shame, the acute anxiety... but there was that tiny whisper which told me that we wouldn't talk anymore, so i don't know why i waited for him. i told myself,  no, he will come back, it's what he always does. he'll come back. all those worries you have? all irrational. all in your head. he'll come back. just hang on.  i told myself, he's the most wonderful thing in this entire fucking universe! don't you forget him. you must savour those memories. you must keep him alive in your mind. it must go on. i told myself that there was sweetness in that mourning, that i needed him like i need oxygen. i told myself that it was ok to hurt for someone so brilliant, someone who shakes up your world from its very roots. but. i only realised too late that i was killing al