Man O' War

When the light comes out of hiding,

I am left standing alone, amazed, enchanted,

The world had disappeared into darkness

And September brought an end to the eclipse.

Every day is a discovery,

I am running, content

I begin to dream again,

To speak and laugh, absolutely free.

Patterned ink cover my hands,

I adorn them with culture.

My name is finally familiar to me,

Memories disjointed but easily recognised,

The past year was a notion of loss and fear,

desperation in love,

I stopped breathing, stopped singing.

A jellyfish in the ocean restored my faith,

I begin to eat and pray,

I begin to hope for belief in love.

My light eluded me,

Now it's all behind me and

I stand alone, regal and amazing.

I Am No Man

It matters not that love was created and
Invented about the wit and humour of man
It matters not that the night shall wax and wane
That the tide shall take its leave of us
And return in due time
It matters not that love requires an epiphany
It matters not that love is a sophist, a masochist and a sadist
For it had been founded upon the heart of man
Of which hath the attention span of shit
That love shall wilt
It matters not
For I am a woman
And I go by no man's rules
I shall love thee 'til my last breath
I shall love thee with a kind of love
That besieges a woman
Of which is immortal

Sound the Bells

The moon hangs low in the sky,
my eyelashes thick with smoke and
my hands shaking,
I walk alone in the dark.
It has been a month of worry,
passing unremarkably in a haze of espresso and books.
My soul is weary and my skin longs to meet the sun.
I am in the final hours
of the week deciding my future
and I can no longer stand,
my lungs aching and my tears drying.
There is nobody holding my hand,
no words of concern and encouragement.
I walk alone in the dark.
A week from now,
I see only darkness.

Wondermilk

i am content being alone,
surrounded by colours.

lomo cameras and photography jargon,
i wonder if they know of profound connection,
meditation and rosary beads.
their eyelashes reaching up to the sky,
their gaze empty of comprehension but
alight with enthusiasm.

strange music drift along,
uneven beats and thoughtless lyrics.
how beautiful silence is in comparison,
the constant companion of deserts and oceans.

menthol cigarettes and virgin margaritas,
my friends embrace me with love,
a birthday like no other,
a heart broken like always before,
a bouquet of red roses
from a new acquaintance.

in my corner,
i dream out loud,
coffee and peace on my mind,
twenty-one is a good number.



.............written January 16, 2010....................

Skin Art

Her skin was a canvas.

The girls expressed themselves in ink and needles,

immortalising beauty onto her,

in sharp aesthetic lines and sexy curving blackness,

in watercolour illusions,

they used her as a conduit for their electricity and

she had grown accustomed to being violated

and transforming into art after hours of pleasuring pain.

She sleeps,

her nightmares seeping into silence.

She wakes and another tattoo emerges,

fairy wings resting across her shoulder blades,

a rosary circling her ankle,

prose poetry creeping up her elbows.

She cannot come to terms with permanence,

absolute untainted faith and undying love.

Time was an unseen ghost haunting her relationships,

causing fight after fight,

and he doesn't understand.

So she allows the other girls to claim her largest organ,

then giving away her heart to a boy who never wants to grow up and dictate its beats as he should.

Give her a bucket to kick and

she'll dance life away,

her goodbyes in the rhythm and proof of her existence

in the hands of those trigger-happy girls,

and the eyes of that forever fighting, unhappy boy.

Roots 2.0

The years pass as ephemeral as ever and I miss the desert,
its silence, the weight of dust.
I miss running,
my feet bare and my heart free,
my passage distorting mirages.
I miss the relative simplicity of the past,
the ease with which I fell and stayed in love.
I miss watching strangers doing their washing at the Nile,
while crushes give me piggy-back rides
and I dance with my best friend and her boyfriend.
The white heat go unnoticed as we made our way past armoured tanks and military towers,
men in robes taking a shit by the side of the road,
donkey carts beside our van, on the way to school.
Katy used to croon in my ear,
Gibson Stratocasters synonymous with drug deals,
Literature and Physics at the tip of my finger.
The years have passed and all I can do is dream,
yet again I dream and I am haunted,
the desert calls to me to come home
and I close my eyes to heighten my senses.
Let my heart be free again.

Roots.

I have forgotten.

For the past few months, I have been collected, serious and overall good. I forgot who I really am.

Some eccentricities survived law school:



But my mind was bogged down with thoughts of the future, of saving and changing the world.
Criminal and constitutional law, social and environmental awareness.

Music was just a reprieve, a de-stressing mechanism.
Art was confined to fashion blogs and attempts at running in high heels.
Saturday nights reserved for studying.

And then, Samhain. A night traditionally denoting a time when magic is at its strongest, most potent. A night of celebration, of saying goodbye to the summer and its scorching heat and of welcoming in the falling of the leaves, welcoming the beginning of winter and the solace and silence it brings.
I was taken back to my roots.
Magick and music in a huge-screen LCD display of fireworks and a dancing, prancing Native American Chief:



I was a groupie for Halloween. I was me again, circa 2005.

Thanks a bunch to my standing Friday night date, Alisha CHANGI. Oh, how much I love that motherchucker.

Moving along... in the process of finding cams_groupie/Liyana Flowers...

Sunday mornings had been reserved for family events and catching up on my reading (god forbid, of blogs).
And then, Nina. Faressa.
Lucky bitch was about to be off to freakin' London for two months! So we made a point to meet before she had to catch a flight out of this wretched city we pathetically call home.
We spent the day in traditional LiyanaNina fashion: iced lattes at the tobacconist (where we talk about our sex lives), movie (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) followed by lunch (originally, we planned on sushi as usual but the movie steered our tumblies towards spaghetti and -duh- meatballs) and then magazines and iced passionfruit teas that cost as much as the magazines at the apartment.

With Nina's help, I remembered wanting to live in a caravan, traveling, free, accumulating shoes, ponchos and dreamcatchers... And BOOKS.

I have finally recalled my dreams, my loves, my hopes and aspirations.
Now, reconnected to my roots, I desperately wish to stay grounded, loving peace and mathematics, regardless of the limitations I have realised have been imposed on me... self-inflicted barricades.
Please, please let me stay essentially, me.

peace, love and math,
L.A.