Pain is an Essay

For yesterday's class, we were required to write a paper about New Systematic Methods in Analyzing and Deconstructing Human Social Structure. I stared at the tiny dots on a piece of paper, from my pen. There was no guidance; it was white and wrinkled. The waste basket grew full, and I turned to the screen, where my fingers wandered lightly over the keys, and important words came up, really big things that define the world.

And now this.

There's actually a melodic scheme to it, when you're lonely.

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time a boy was born
Healthy, always looked after
By mom and dad
Top in his class
Good kid, the best friend
your lover most
loved
He spoke on graduation day and drank
a bit, happily
Heights were reached with
no excess
That position was made for him, you see
Wedding day was light blue
and all smiles
Soon came another boy and two girls
Bright, brilliant
loved

One night he goes to sleep and the air escapes him
There is no reason, only his heart gave out and his
face was wet, even before he found it

I

A piece of paper
Mind
Empty

II

It is the second you cannot remember.
Words you have not heard of.
Honesty you cannot say.

4 PM, Dismissal

Since when, she asks.

I don’t know. Maybe it was when you raised your hand lightly and said Ma’am, that is incorrect, and she actually listened. Or you, kneeling down on the rain-spoilt grass, collecting what was left of your science experiment, while your groupmates watched beneath the shed, with empty hands and empty heads.

Or it was your lithe body stretching sideways during gym class, Thursday afternoon; drops of sweat dripped from your chin while the unimportant noises mourned for a lost goal.

But that’s wrong, she says, and she lets go of my shoulders as if they burn. That's really wrong.

The sun wounds my skin, like
He's trying to kill me with
a gentle hand.

It's hot, isn't it, I answer, clutching the folds of my skirt.

November

Like crossing through limbo, feeling the sun pierce your skin only it is ice-cold. The
northern wind dries your lips and your legs quiver, dripping
with sweat.

One day you are mourning, murmuring senseless prayers and missing people, but
you see the bright lights line the fences, and scents that promise
the best of nights.

It's like this: imagine your one true love, right in front of your eyes. Completely at your mercy. Only you can't get it yet. You have to get there first. You have to go through it. And it's not a choice at all, but that's what Gregory believed in. The rest just followed suit.

No one remembers you because they can't wait to get ahead.

No one feels you because they want you to end.

And it gets cloudier as you pass by, with hearts beating faster. You know you are special because you are conceived by romance, but it could be different. It's awfully cold, and lonely, and it's getting colder still.

The next time you come along and it's the same damn thing, but you'll get there. And it'll get better, I swear.

I swear to god it will.

Ways to Cheer You Up

by Mushroom


1. You have no right to be lonely.
You smile at the crowd and
a billion faces smile back
Mouths widening with teeth
Ready to eat you up
Because you’re delicious, baby
Every inch of you is
Scrumptious, blackened
meat.

2. You’re a lovely thing, and when
You walk the earth crumbles
a little. The world has no
use for you, but you use it like
a dumb dog. Imagine;
wagging tails and tongues
following your stilettos
to the setting moon. They die in your lead,
the way I did,
you killer.

3. I laughed so hard there were burnt holes at the sides of my throat, like old cigarette marks. You were laughing, too. They were laughing. We laughed so hard nobody heard a sound.

Day breaks and you manage to stare right through it. That’s how lucky you are. Your eyes dry up; I see you and you push your tongue in fleetingly and there’s nothing that gets me more than your wanting me. But you don’t, you really don’t, and can't you see how funny this is?

4. Leaving is part of you, and
I cried a lot, yes.
I called and you did not look
and the earth lost a big chunk
of itself; vast Pacific
spilling all over my face
It was a very silly
ending, I believe.

5. You made a choice without me.
If I see you cry then all my hurting will make no sense at all,
because there can only be one lonely person
in this sun-brightened world.

And No-one Else

I lost my virginity with a finger.
Lost between awkward pillars, functional shapes
the temple trembles, holding its
space
in my mind was her black upswept hair and
delicious freckles
starred over an ordinary face.


I guide the finger deeper, explore the meaning of my want
She does things to me.
The pain
inside, does she feel it too? The incredible feel of her
Maybe if go deeper in me
I can pull it out, long and hard. And in her
I will be.


What makes me sad is that it can
Never go far.

But I drive it in, like a knife cutting
See the single bone pierce through my flesh, slicing through
Killing the memory of a girl and her
legs apart
As the tip of my nail
Brushes the end of
my heart

Desaparecidos

Author's Notes: Politically-laden. Written for my Nnara-Youth CWTS class. Dedicated to all the internal refugees from Southern Tagalog.

( I’ve always wondered what it’s like to be super. )

So, I have this fantasy entitled
"The Beginning and End of the Sensational and Electrifying Existence of She Who Is Named __________________, and So On and So Forth"
the drama begins with me walking up to her, eighteen
teardrops painting my cheeks
and my mouth opens with "my beloved cells are
are immature."

"Oh darling, honey, sweetheart, love of my life,
she who makes everything bright and sunny,
whatever do you mean?" She gasps, arches her eyebrow, and
tears her hair.

You've heard of it, right? I say. The cells feed,
grow and think,
just not the way they're supposed to. Tragedy suits
my somber smile, like
the rape of the Pacific.

I take her hand and walk to a nearby romantic
volcano. "Do you regret
everything you've done?"

"Yes!" she cries passionately, and I push her down the pit.

Dear Chipped Toenail Number Three

Okay.
So we’re walking, bumping into other feet and
there are people throwing sharp, shiny, sparkly
thingies
From their doors with teeth
They do not really understand shit like
Spiritual disability

The stairs are long, spiralling, brown and
it feels like falling upward into heaven
Step on the ledge, oops! There you go
Tiny spots down below
Pretty spots
Just for us
Fly in air
Die in air
Let’s step on ‘em fucking spots!

Tears Are Required

When I die, I want people to cry for me.
I want to have at least more than a hundred people in my funeral. My doctor should be there, and my lawyer, including their families. Tears are
required.
And they can’t be fake.
They have to be real, salty, large drops of tears.
For it to be real, their noses should be red and runny and they should look ugly. Disheveled. Not like those movie stars who still look gorgeous during death scenes. Mine should be a practical funeral; my visitors are not allowed to thrash about.
They shall weep in silence, like normal people would. There should be
snot in their faces, in their clothes.
They will look at my stuffed body and the tears will come rolling. And they should be restless for several days.
I want my mother to be so depressed to the point of breaking down, so that
she’ll be desperate enough to call the man she divorced, and then he’ll come and they’ll both look at my grave together, like true parents.
But you, Lover, I don’t want you to cry. I want you to feel so hollow, so numb that you can’t even shed tears over my departure.
I want you to call out my name and wish for me to come back. I want you to curse God for taking me. I want you to whisper I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you, with dry, chapped lips against the glass between my mouth and yours.
When that time comes, I will feel love for the first time.
And you will be distraught.
And you will kill yourself.
And you will have a funeral, with many, many people. Tears are required, because who does not love you?
And we will meet again, and you shall say that you love me, that we should never be apart. That’s how it is going to be.
Prove me that you love me. I have proven myself by stepping out the window, freer than the people down below. They will cry to prove their love, but you only need to jump.
I will be waiting.

Lotus

by Mushroom

I can’t even remember how much you meant to me.

It is almost midnight; I realize
I don’t love you anymore, yet I still wrinkle my forehead

In thought, trying to recall how good it was
You are always stuck in my head, I can’t seem to let go

Of the memories that smell like dry, crisp leaves
Forgotten breakfast and stale coffee

Why you left the bedroom, I do not know
I love you, but tonight I won’t.

For the smell has left my sheets and there is
No coffee in the cupboard

I don’t love you anymore, and I can’t even remember
How much you meant to me

I only remember the warmth like a timid sun and
Not the feel of fingers, not love

There are two figures in my memories, only
You and someone just like me

My mind breaks because you do not mean a thing
Anymore; I only remember that I love you

(But tonight, I won’t.)

[Part Three of my "Religious" Poetry Series. Check former posts for first two.]

Songs of Praise

by Mushroom

God taught me how to worship;
By running my gaze down the length of your spine ‘till the teasing edges of your trousers, observing the way your clothes cling to you
like second skin. She listens when I roll the R r r r s of your name with a smug grin, and when desire laps at your neck I am aware that She is touching you,
guiding the tip of my tongue and telling me how far it
can actually go.
In abandoned evenings God laughs when you scream out Her name—oh god Oh God OH GOD YES, OH GOD THERE, DON’T STOP, NEVER STOP—and when your breath holds back as I glide my hands along your thighs, our soaked bodies adoring each other, we both recognize this
holy, wretched passion.
While our lips and bellies meet, swallowing and piercing in desperation, the taste makes me remember that the morning exists, but She tells me everything has been taken care of, and within a moment I
indulge.
In our celebration God is never absent; like a high note in a melody we cry, shaking and hissing because it is so much more than what it seems, it is beyond the sheets and the walls and Earth. During winding, seemingly s l o w and drugged nights, Your s m o o t h mouth crucifies me, so I curse God and I curse sweet heaven with countless profanities because it is too good, too excruciatingly divine; I’m bursting at the ends and as I let go of my soul I laugh and cry all at once, for She has given me a piece of paradise.
When the act is over—heaving chests and satisfied smiles with sweat and saliva moistening our skin—I push my head deeper into the pillow and I pray,
Thanking God for this wonderful pain;
This agonizing pleasure.
It is a gift, this between my legs and yours.
After my lips utter Amen I realize God believes me, because you usually press your ears against my threadbare heart and inform me that it’s beating wildly; I know that we'll be safe as long as we have faith.

[Part two of my 'Religious' Poetry Project: Part One]

Hell

by Mushroom

There was fire in my ears
when I heard your words: the
‘love’ between ‘you’ and ‘I’;
They burst into flames
And burned my hair, and
Scorched me in the eye;
Love flowed from your lips
And melted my tongue, much to
My mouth’s delight;
And the scent of cooked flesh
Lingered and soared
Still everything felt right;
My skin oozed sweat while
The flames grew high, even
Stronger than before;
My conscience was burning
To the ground, my
Values deemed no more;
I wanted to ask you
What 'everything' meant, but my
Throat went suddenly dry;
As you held me my body
Came apart, and then
I knew ‘twas all a lie;
Your rhymes lit the candle
While pouring the gas, and soon
My soul fell dead;
Not one bone left, only
Ashes and dust, and kind
Words left unsaid.

Heaven Help The Sinner

By Mushroom


My lover and I roamed the winding halls
Together, before his departure.
My heart could barely breathe, smiles
Twisted in avoidance of the subject:
A war beyond the barricades
Called for by authorities, who
never attended battles of their own.
He smiled and laughed and squeezed;
An obvious display of hollow mirth.

As the ships sailed west I heard
Pathetic wails of children, mothers
Embracing their sons and husbands goodbye
Squeezing back, I remembered who they were;
The faces that frowned at my summer days.
Soon everyone knelt down to pray
Deafeningly to their deities while someone
prepared their tombstones, written with ease;
Date of death, of birth.

I looked up at the skies myself, and
Tried to speak to his Savior
Imagining countless blueberry-lipped angels
Lifting him up, asking the One
For another chance, that He
Recognize him.
And I wrapped my arms round myself, thus
wishing for my man comfort, presence
in the warmth of a hearth.

Is there a God for us?
He was returned to me, drenched in blood,
meaning
God punished him to almost-death.
No, it was not God…it was their God.
Holding my lover in my arms, weeping
I could hear him speak of our fate:
“There’s a place in Hell for us to stay
Not here…not Heaven nor Earth.”

Mikhail

By: Mushroom
Freeverse
( Poetry )

***

The Monologue of Yet Another Tortured Man to His Most Desired

Author: Mushroom
Rating: PG

( Prose )

No Return

He released a feather from his heart
And brushed it on those who can feel
It was warm, gliding, I point a wonder
There was a risk; yes, there was terrible pain.

From unleashing it to others nameless
T’was eager, albeit shameless.

People saw it, laughed, scorned
It was a sacrifice, one-sided.
Nothing gained nor returned nor lips
To touch, to pour wine upon.

Man did nothing but to pretend.
He gave everything, why a bitter end?

He sought but fell, scarred a knee
Flesh remained, but thoughts anew
Demons’ teeth impaled his head.
Feather gone; nothing soft to strike.

Unquenched love had brought his fall.
Nobody wept, though his gravestone tall.

Double Taboo

A stolen kiss, a tug of the heart,
A longing pure and true from the start.
I was mortal, yet he was up above;
Only a young man confessing his love.