1. the sky is blue, and so is my heart. blue like the dandelions that blew past our house; the house that is now burning a never ending inferno. he slowly turned to dust while i sat and watched from the sidelines, my hands too much for him to hold. i was gasoline he said, i could burn the world he said. it seems like i did do it, but i have no memory of it; except bruises on my thighs and skin under my nails. i have no memory of it, but he has scratches on this arms and perversion on his face.
2. i left this planet behind. packed up my bags on my way to Venus in my search for love. or maybe Neptune because i want to be numb. anything but this blue and green world with gaia slowly rising and people slowly dying. I’ve forgotten how to weave metaphors because my fingers are charred. everything they touch, they ruin. my lungs are still smoke; i am the earth now – she hates what we’ve done so she burns us, i hate what he did, so i scorched him. my lungs are smoke, my eyes mist and my heart shards – i am a walking kaleidoscope.
3. the air is colder up here but it is not so bitter. or maybe my body is dead and this is all theatre. that would be nice to write about, except my tongue is dry and words don’t make sense anymore. i see little pinprinks of cities; they look like the map i put pins on – hoping to travel the world. i’m moving to a different galaxy now, would i need a new map? with places for sorrow, for emptiness, for forgetting and for love? or is it all greed and hunger again? if so, when’s the next bus.
4. i see stars now and they’re not as pretty as i thought. they hurt my throat and my belly. they fly behind my closed eyes as i float and float and float – towards the night sky. my ears pop; that gives me hope. this paper plane is about to land on a burning star. i see the earth now, far off. far off – he is far off.
5. i haven’t thought of him and smiled in ages. i do it now, for he’s one with the breeze and I’m on my way to Jupiter. oh did i tell you? i changed my mind; i want the whole world to myself and jupiter seemed big enough. i’m a flicker in the milky way now, i am me now. i left earth behind. i left my lungs behind for they burned.
6. see when i said i left the earth, i did mean it. i chased after the powdery moonlight and ended up so close to heaven. moonlight enters my blood through my nose, and heaven flashes before my eyes with beeping noices in the background. i am one with the universe now, i am god’s child now. i left mortality behind, for it had it’s pains. i left my body behind, it had his handprints.
7. the last happy things i remember are maa’s eyes and nanna’s arms. the last i carry with me is akka’s smile and my own heart. the last smell i remember is adrak vali chai and maa’s words. she said there was a pattern in the tea leaves, she said it was ominous. there was hopeless dread in her eyes, i wonder why. but all of that is in the past. i only hope they remember me, the girl with her sad eyes and poetry.
in search of venus 