I Hear You

I hear you speak, I just don’t want to listen. You have a knack for saying things that make sense when I don’t want sense. You tell me the truth that I don’t want to hear when I am here, blissfully oblivious. Why you gotta burst my bubble?

I hear you shuffle around me, silent yet not quiet, watching, trying to nudge me, rouse me into some motion. I hear you thinking, see the thoughts on your face, see you try to hide them.

I hear the things you don’t say when you don’t want to hurt me. I see you struggling beside me, fighting me with me, pushing me forward, cheering me on, calling me out, bringing me into me.

I feel you beside me, brave when I’m afraid, more daring, exploring avenues I’d never dare, facing fear head-on, unapologetic in who you are. I hear you and I’m glad you’re there. If you weren’t, the silence would consume me.

Kassy_Lu

A Song You Know By Heart

I like it when you sing. It’s something between the right notes and notes that are a semitone off . I never quite catch it when I try to play it. I like it because you enjoy it so much, you add lyrics that make no sense and drum rolls that really shouldn’t be there.

I like it because you sing when it’s just the two of us. Only I get to see this artistic side of yours, only I get to watch the show.

It’s funny too. Sometimes you go so off-key I can’t recognise the song you’re singing. You seem to think everything should have more to it even when it doesn’t need to.

I want to be that song. I want to be on your lips, pouring out like warm honey, soothing aching bones and sore limbs. I want to be who you summon when you’re sad, when the world makes no sense and music is your only solace. I want to be the reason you dance again, the reason your heart skips a beat and your stomach flatters. The one who puts the goosebumps on your skin.

I want to be the rest that accentuates your rhythm, the rest that creates the syncopation, the melody you can’t shake off, the harmony that fills your mind late at night.

I want to be the song you know by heart.

Kassy_Lu

Better Half

I’d like to use the cliche line that goes “you’re my better half”, but that wouldn’t be true.

Rather than two halves of a whole, I like to think of us as two different colours of paint that blend into one.

They can’t be separated. They’re not what they used to be, but what they are now wouldn’t be without what they used to be.

But I suppose I must try to equate your calm blue and my chaotic orange to some halves of an object, maybe a wishbone so we can have luck, or you being the top half of our hour glass, pouring into the bottom half that is my life.

I like having you around, and I like that you’re not a half. I like that you compliment me and I like that sometimes it makes no sense why we work.

Kassy_Lu

All the Reasons Why

The question that people always ask is why. Sometimes even when the question has no answer. Even when it has the stupidest answer.

When people ask me why I love you, I never know what to say. Why do I have to have a reason? Why can’t I just love some random person I met on the street just because?

I suppose they expect me to say I love you because you’re kind and generous, and you make me laugh. Or that I love you because you get me and I can be myself with you.

The answers that people want to hear are that I love you because you’re intelligent and sharp, you unapologetically you and you’re a total goof yet you’re the most serious person I know.

I guess all these answers would be the correct ones. But what if my answer is just that I love you because there’s love in my heart to give? That I love you even when you’re not loveable, even when I know that loving you will hurt me and take away from me till I have nothing left?

What if my answer is that I love you because you’re here now, in the radius of my love and are the lucky recipient?

What if I just love you because even if you’re not perfect, you’re worthy of love?

Kassy_Lu

Mint tea

I like a hot cup of tea on chilly days, bundled up in a throw and folded on a chair, lost in a fictional world full of adventure and intrigue packed in a book.

The cup of tea sits on the table beside me until its warm and no longer hot and is slightly bitter because the bag stayed there longer than I’d have liked but it’s okay because you made it.

It’s okay because the taste of it reminds me of how we first met, how in a crowd of strangers you were a friendly face with a barely there smile.

The scent of the mint is a reminder of the nights we spent up, talking about things we couldn’t remember the next morning, whispering and giggling like children being up late when it was against the rules.

Holding the cup is a reminder of how you held me tight as we listened quietly to the sounds of the night. It reminds me of how whenever I started to doze off, you squeezed me tighter and whispered something that sparked a new conversation.

So saying I like a cup of hot tea actually means I like a cup of tea as long as you make it, and especially if it’s mint. I like it even more when you’re seated next to me with your own cup.

Kas

My First Time

I was scared. I had heard so much, so many stories that shouldn’t have made sense, but they did. I had read some of those stories, had tried to understand how all of them were true and why the people, some of them, had lived to see the light of another day.

I stood up on shaky legs when it was my turn. Unsure of whether to go forward or run out the back and not let myself be killed by my own foolishness. I clasped my hands, they were in danger of being burnt and I quite liked them a lot. I took a deep breath and took a step forward. The line seemed to move slower than it actually did.

I tried to swallow the lamp in my throat but it wouldn’t go away and I panicked. My heart started racing and I was sure I was going to faint if I was lucky. Otherwise I was going to die.

It was finally my turn to get to the front and I held out my hands, palms out, quite damp with sweat and shaky like a leaf. The woman looked at me curiously for a second and then said to me gravely the words I had heard countless times before then.

And then she placed in my hands what looked like a small piece of waffle. White and round and immediately, my heart stilled. I wasn’t going to die. Even if I was, it would be with sheer bliss at finally and at last meeting the very Essence of my being.

Kas

Poem?… For you

Sugar is sweet and so are you.

Sorry, was that supposed to come at the end?

I’m not really sure what to say that’s different from what I’ve said before. I don’t know how to say I like the way your eyes light up when I hand you a gift, so I get small items I see that remind me of you.

I don’t know how to tell you I like the sound of your laugh so I get into stand-up mode to get a chuckle or two our of you.

Deep breath

In short, you make me happy and this poem was an attempt to make you even a fraction of the happy that I feel. But alas, human language fails me. So as the saying goes:

Your smile is brighter than the sun
and your hug as warm as it.
Sugar is sweet,
but not as sweet as you.

Kas

Sappy

I saw you laugh from all the way across the field because yes, I was watching you like some crazy person.

It reminded me of the sarcastic jokes you liked to make. I guess she makes you laugh, that’s good. I like seeing you laugh, I hope she does too.

I hope she tells you jokes that are so hilarious that she gets to hear your loud hearty laugh everyday.

Me? Don’t worry about me, just knowing you’re happy is enough.

Dru_Dru

Coercion

There was so much commotion.

The people moved in crowds, shouting, chanting, running ahead and behind of the Roman soldiers. They were leading someone out of the city, probably a criminal.

He stood by and watched for a few minutes. The criminal was barely recognisable as a person. He was walking, dragging a tree that pressed hard onto his back and he looked like he was ready to fall down and die.

He hadn’t noticed just how close to the sight he had come until one of the soldiers looked at him, pointed his finger and commanded him over. He looked around him, he wasn’t calling him, was he?

He was. Resigned, he stepped forward and grumbled in a low voice when they forced him to lift the end of the tree that the criminal had been dragging. If he grumbled too loud, he would get lashed too.

He walked in silence, his breath coming in heavy. This was no small feat. The criminal looked back at him and their eyes met for a moment, and in them he saw something great that he could not retell. He felt an unsettling sense of peace fall on him.

They got to the top of the hill and he could not walk away. He watched as they drove nails into his hands and then into the wood, watched as they fought for his clothes, watched as a group of women huddled together in search of consolation.

He drew closer as they brought down the body and tried to make himself useful as they went to bury him. The unsettling sense of peace still washed over him and he knew it always would, so he stayed close to these people who loved this criminal because now he loved him too.

Dru_Dru

Valentine’s

Happy Valentine’s day. Well, it was happy once. I loved you, you know that? And seeing all these people with their gifts and mushy, romantic gestures makes me a little jealous.

That’s a lie, I’m so jealous I could trample their flowers in the mud. It makes me angry that this could have been us. We could have had a corny, cliche Valentine’s day. You would have got me flowers and chocolates and I would have written you a poem and made a scrap book.

I wrote the poem and made the scrap book but I can’t give it to you. I’m pretending I no longer love you so you won’t text me. So that I can stalk your socials and pretend I’m better off without you.

I’m not. I still look at your favourite chocolate bar in the shops and instantly get filled with longing. I would have gotten it for you today, and then I would have eaten half of it and you would have complained about it even though you didn’t mind.

This Valentine’s day sucks. You’re not my valentine and I don’t know what to do with all the love I still feel for you. Its starting to choke me.

Anyway, Happy Valentine’s day.

Dru_Dru