If You See Kay

Zebra print bedsheets, your hands slipping on the satin of my dress, an undramatic sunrise, a mess of unsmoked menthols, a pout that bites and sulks, my hand in your hair, your hand holding my heels, green grass on our side, smudged kajal and a stained heart.
Your voice burns holes in my memory but you see me in still images –stuck- light edged eyes fixed on you, long chocolate legs crossed lazily, black painted nails reaching out for you and a smile that cracks my face in half. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
A figment of imagination doesn’t feel, right? You wouldn’t want it any other way.

So together we’ll live in indecision, indifference and with an incision on our hearts.
Yours deeper, brighter, a slash of what you never had.
Mine, a secret slit.  

I'm only Chasing Safety

JT,

You've engraved your initials so deep into my pulse that every boy who crashes into me catches me quicken in the same way.
I have always loved - before you and after, but always, I am drawn to the sharp edge of your scar where my bitter bitten fingernails scratch again and again till I bleed
These Boys, they mouth the same lies you did but it is your script I seek. You who taught me to cross my legs, my fingers and my heart so I don't get too 'serious'.

The Chocolate Boy who melted.
The Bassist who plays dead.
Superman who can't save himself.
The Night Prince who only wakes up wasted.

I've walled my veins, buried my blood, straitjacketed my heart, but the occasional heartburn always gets me to recount my pulse rate. I count slowly, checking and rechecking, till your initials are a blur, my heart a fist.

I paint my nails, my face, my hair, my body till I can barely breathe.
Your scar lies dormant, waiting.
Let go of my wrist,
I'm dying.

- Niv

Whatcha say?

The truth is, mystery lies in honesty.

But adolescence makes fucking liars of us all.

We play and switch sides and blades and hide our smiles behind fuck bands, so eventually our mystery fades and boredom and suffocation play referee to a game that ends in tears.

I vote for honesty.

I say, “I love you, now.”

So you know, right? That I love you. But I’m hitting you with it straight - I love you, now.  Tonight when flashing lights veil the whites of my eyes I might love a stranger, now.

We’re so young and overrun by blinding emotion, fueled by fire and intoxicants we forget how to unscrew, and then we end up, you know, screwing. So when her hands trace the silhouette of your spine I know you will love her, now, then.

And I will cry, then, but I know that someday when someone says, “I love you”, I won’t take change and chance and growing pains that spill scars into consideration.

I will say, “I love you too.”

‘cause that’s how we’ll roll, then.

Rainbow Veins

You breathe smoke into me as I brush past you.

My nerves sing fire. I look away. You smile, waiting.

“I’m mad at you”, I say, twisting my hair around my fingers, wishing I could do the same to you.

“Why?”

“You don’t see me," I mouth, as I take in the frayed edges of your jeans, metallic glint of your belt, your veins playing havoc with your forearms and your headphones like heartstrings falling out of your shirt.

I don’t look at your face.

You step forward stealing your way under my skin. I flinch.

You raise your eyebrows, one scar slit, the other whole.You cup my chin with your guitar grazed fingers and as I fight my way out of your familiarity, you headhunt your way into my heart. Again.

“Don’t hide.”

Are you counting? ‘Ready or not, here I come!’ Say it,

It’s your turn.

You don't need a chuddi over tights..

Superman,

You ask me to write of you, for you. I can’t. You’re too real and close to comfort for me to do justice to what the rest of the world thinks we have. Fuck, we’re so entangled that without you I’m at a loose end. I close my eyes and picture you and for some strange reason when I see me I’m always running towards you– slow motion, fast track, all the right reasons – a blur of madness before I crash into you and I’m hit with warmth and comfort and my own brand of cocaine. I’m addicted to you. You’ve let me slip into myself and take pride in it. You’re like an old chair that’s taken the shape of my body, I’m so comfortable I couldn’t, wouldn’t move even if you begged me to. When I’m standing next to you I can feel peace steal through my veins. It’s beautiful. I feel beautiful. You are beautiful. People always talk about ‘right time, right place’, but you, my love, are the ‘right person’ and together we make it the right time and the right place. Trying to explain the feeling that swirls through my blood when I’m with you is like getting a terrorist to pray for peace, impossible. Sometimes, I think I’m not worth you, but then you hug me and I KNOW I’m safe. First base, second base, third base, homerun, SAFE. We skipped, but then again, that’s just how we roll na? A rebel without a cause and superman straitlaced by kryptonite. I love you. Fight with me, for me?

Niv.

Cause and Reflect

We sit on the concrete, playing soldier to the sea, the breeze blowing bruises on my skin. My fingers curl around my knees as I feel myself slipping, seduced by gravity. You sit beside me oblivious to change – change in current, change in currency, change in the way my curls are no longer angled towards yours. You sit, wrapped in the words of the artists you play, who play you - puppet or puppeteer? We sit, entranced, me with memory and motion, you with mystery and music. My face faces yours and as the sea pitches pinpricks of salt at us, my mind maps out the coordinates of your mind.
I can see so clearly I feel blind.
You’re only a boy, lost and scarred, slitting your wrists with The Edge you’ve been gifted with.
I’m only a girl, lost and scared, slitting my wrists with The Edge I’ve been gifted with.
You could, I should, we don’t.
The sea lures us into into her chokehold, beauty in her destruction. She plays siren to those who have strayed off the bloodstained path – water to bathe wounds. The eternal Seductress. 

Temptation.

And as we edge our way down the rocks, you reach out to me and I hold you to it.

The beaten track has never looked so far off.

This time, we plunge.

Sephia tinted

Snapshots flash through her skull, knife slits of memories on her mind as she sits there curled into herself, the foetal position turned fatal.

Vodka shot, two shot, three shot, four shot, five shot, six shot, seven shot, her shot, metallic pink nails kissing skin, one step, two step, three step, four step, five step, six step, bed, smudged kajal, painted mouth, slipping mask, one word, two word, three word, four word, five word, ‘Why won’t you kiss me?’, flashing lights, shadows, hurt, escape, shorts, so short, tall boy, hazel eyes, flicker, on, off, one high, two high, three high, crash.

Piercing, shiny people, short tight black, red lips, bloody sunrise, swing, wet grass, stilettos, fingers twined, menthols, mouth, mouth-to-mouth, rough raw ready, entangled, shift, silk, unmade bed, undrunk coffee, drunk, disgust, pieces, edge, run, fit, smooth, smile, slick on lip gloss, sleep.

Taxi, touch, want, don’t, chocolate skin, chocolate boy, lick, don’t, open, out, trees, football, climb, fall, break, run, him, hand, hold, push, slick skin kissing skin, fight, laugh, lift, flash light brown, flash back, same, Gateway, getaway, feel, want, don’t, when?

Stop.

She unfurls, slashing at thought threads and soaking into herself, and they die, one by one, in shimmering, heart wrenching pain, bloodied footsteps staining their slideshows.

They don't matter, only she does.

She smiles.

Flash on. *click*