firework(in progress

(c) 2013-2014 'Safira B'

i.

i will become prettier:
    a) i will have shinier hair
    b) i will have clearer skin
    c) i will learn to wear make-up properly
    d) i will buy nicer clothes

ii.

i will let him go:
    a) i will burn my old poems
    b) i will rip our old pictures
    c) i will stop wanting to see him
    d) i will not let my heart beat to his name

iii.

i will live life without love:
    a) i will not give myself away so easily
    b) i will keep my heart safe
    c) i will love myself first
    d) i will not feel lonely at parties

iv.

i will be open to love and friendship:
    a) i will write again
    b) i will not chase anyone
    c) i will let people go
    d) i will not cry or be hurt

v.

i will think of more resolutions:
    a) i can't keep using last year's ones.

at the bottom of the ocean

(c) 2013-2014 'Safira B'

were you f o o l i s h enough to think
that i would be beautiful
when you broke me?

        did you think that i would
        break cleanly? that there would
        be no jagged edges
        screaming for your blood?

                did you think that your
                mocking laughter would slice
                my brown skin into thin slivers
                without me twining myself
                into a noose for you?

                        did you think you could
                        make me trace the footsteps
                        of my ancestors; bathe myself
                        in gasoline and light the match
                        with your name on my cracked lips?

your eyes are not the ocean

and i will not drown

unbecoming, unbeing

(c) 2012-2013 'Safira B'

do not tell me i should forget what it means
to be the smear of brown in a sea of pallid skin, to be
muddy brown eyes in a canopy of green and sky of blue, to be
small hips and short stretch of legs before miles and miles of pale, curving bodies.

do not tell me i should forget what it means
to be the butt of the joke, to be
you look beautiful today and raucous laughter because
who could find me beautiful? what a laugh.

do not tell me i should forget what it means
to be wrongwrongwrong.

do not tell me i should forget that
you taught me to love men with eyes as blue as the sky and
hair, curly and brown or golden, and
acres of white skin;

when no one ever taught me
how to bleach my skin
and how to stretch my legs fartherfartherfarther until i cannot see the ground
and carve the accent out of my speech
and wash my irises out into something glassy
and wish hard enough for my hair to be blonde.

do not tell me i should forget
when no one ever taught me
the trick to being loved back.

blinding

(c) 2012-2013 'Safira B'

it is the gompang that beats through my veins

                      thunder and lightning realisation racing along my spine

the bright sun on the couple walking from nikah to their car

                       the groom clad in blue baju melayu

it is the sounds of my home that remind me

you do not want to be here.

social unlearning theory

(c) 2012-2013 'Safira B'

dear society,
                              'behind every great man is an equally great woman'
                               i never thought you'd take that so
                                                                                         literally?
                       
                                                                                                                  regards,
                                                                                                                  g

make ends meet

(c) 2011-2012 'Safira B'

we live our lives waiting to die
        they say
i'm living my life,
 waiting for you
                          (is that a kind of death, too?)

but isn't it morbid,
   to start with the end?

but what are you and me
  but a collection of loose moments
and words
    and touches

      and accidents? (i didn't mean to love you
                                  you don't mean to let me.)

should i talk instead about how you
feel like
             sunlight
taste like
                the rain
                on my skin? does that make it easier for you?

(we have enough endings by now
                 to start something new.)

sword clash

(c) 2011-2012 'Safira B'

i have been fighting for the longest time
enough wars to make your hearts break

                  [dawn and dusk
                        mother and father
                   sibling and child
                          ; the darkest of all crusades
                                 the most righteous of all jihad ]

   i would fight a thousand more
                         a thousand more

                                  if i could fall like a star
               or angel
                             (there isn't too much of a difference; both are so far away)

       into you
                        ; my home.
                  (heaven,
                                 jannah)