You are familiar with the tale.
A mermaid, sang with the most beautiful angelic sound.
Had to surrender voice to be human
and marry the prince.  He wanted another
princess, and poor mermaid dissolved
in the ocean.
 
Aphasia is:
A snake that coils and hisses.
Diabolical Ursula schemes to rule the ocean world.
An evil witch who casts a spell over speech.
A toothy fox ready to bite your head off.
A sudden end to your dreams,
only able to see a dark tunnel, the sun blocked.
 
Disney gave the story a happy ending, so Ariel
married the prince.   With courage and strength,
you overcome disability and are much better. 
You have learned much and are still alive.
A fairytale ending to a scary fable.

Forest shadows hide impairment.
Owls hoot, concealed in the dense canopy.
Tall, leafy trees flank the faint path.
Difficult to follow, wander aimlessly.
Lost, and the orange sun dips down;
walk in an endless maze.   
Leg weak, worry about falling. 
Disability is a war with no battles.
 
In a clearing, giant raccoons
with bushy whiskers, striped fur,
and ringed tails encircle us and watch
with reflective beady eyes.
Leader wears mask, makes handicap
fall behind, cannot run.  How to escape?
Will the fairy godmother help
or will the evil witch devour us?
 
Hear a car with music blaring
from the speakers.  Look towards
the sound and see a road. 
Hiking poles to get over the rocky trail,
right half of body weak.
Now, see the way to overcome
yet another challenge.

She,
of whom I used to know.
Her arms flail in the mist,
mine self still I search for.
 
Drink she her cup of tea,
fall she into the darkest water.
 
A few berries of Jupiter
and an ampule in my pocket red.
 
She and her thatched hut,
both burning in my figment of reality.
Ashes of hers hover
within the red hues.
 
Selene’s weeping and the glowing flames,
monochrome in my memory lane.
I look, I see the waning of my twilight.
Moonlight in her youthful vibrance,
an illusion to her deprived disposition.
 
Look I into her shattering self,
found I mine emaciated past.
Either she is the truth,
or I am still blindfolded in the labyrinth.
 
I watch, I devour this line of thought.
Lose I mine coat of black.
Foraging for subtle changes, 
I have blinded the sculptor in me.
The road which the callous me saw,
lay glued to the colour I remember.
Lands formed from undescended waters,
plants seeds into the cold depths.
Into the devouring tunnel of adulthood,
lured I by the sanity I am knit into.
 
Confused yet determined,

I return to my idle portrait. 

Past,
we know not.
Cherry blossom,
never did I endure.
Spectral rays emanate from the eternal owl,
know not I, mine cocoon.
Forever lost in the moonlit shallow,
an apple rotten at heart.
Sunken I am in the shifting sands,
returning home nevermore.
 
Wintery dawn and the whimpering tree line,
both drenched in the oblivious green.
From inside the moonlit cottage,
hear I my mother’s calls.
Calls,
my torn yesteryears still search for.
Run I towards her,
my face lingering in the vicinity.
Voices I do hear,
clouding the tears I shed.
 
Oh,
I know not why I am blind.
Blind,
to the oasis in my vicinity,
a cloak over my futility.
 
Days,
they never did caress my aching self,
lost in a patch of puerile limping.
Know I this photograph of old,
vanish soon into the grayscale.
 
My mother,
I would part ways with,
for chained we are to the eternal gale.
Forget I never,
the life she cared for,
nor the void my whimpering solitude
craved for.
 
It is the mind which suggests,
a puppet that garnishes the midnight gloom.
That which pulls apart the cocoon of youthful gallop,
leaves a bower empty for innate sway.
A string of cotton held against the foggy morrow.
A queer lady sobbing in the distance.
 
Yet part I not,
with the celestial ringing
in my apple seed of existence.
Live I this moment,
listening to those calls of hope.
 
Roots that entwine in morning's glory,
numbs the eyes that search.
The unhindered moonlight lures and testifies,
my misadventure into the marsh of desire.
 
Now I am here,
amidst the chirping bulbuls

and the view of the eternal Selene.

In another life,
I’d be the one the other side of the curtain.
Blue scrubs, badge clipped on,
Strong enough to lift someone out of pain,
Instead of drowning in it myself.
 
Maybe id be a nurse. Or a paramedic
Shouting over sirens with adrenaline in my chest
Or a doctor, calm and clever,
The kind that makes people feel safe,
The one that makes a difference
 
Not this.
Not 24 and shattered,
Living like I’m 84,
Every joint and nerve staging a protest i never signed up for
 
I’d be working shifts, not managing symptoms
Filling out charts, not pip forms,
I’d be saving lives, not just trying to keep mine bearable.
 
And maybe, just maybe
I’d make my parents proud in the way i always imagined,
Not for being strong though the pain,
But for becoming someone that i always dreamed of being,
For being something that mattered,
Not just surviving something i never asked for.
 
And id be proud too,
Not just for coping,
Not for just getting through the day,
But for being someone,
Doing something,
making a real difference
 
In that life id have a purpose,
Not just prescriptions,
And a body that carries me,
Instead of one i have to carry,
 
In another life…
I would have made an amazing nurse,
I would’ve changed lives,
I would’ve made the difference in the world I always wanted to
 
In another life…
I would be really living, not just surviving each day.

 Your voice was an iced fruit apple slice to us, Shared while seated outside every summer, Though you never travelled in any season. Your laugh was a comedy catchphrase.
You were the pink Marks & Spencer meringue nests, Crystal-cut glasses of cherryade, and amethyst birthstones on bracelets. You were the bag, laden with photographs, postcards, Prayers, and magazine tips for houses.
The school I confided in you about, And the certificate I earned from there— You were the imagining of it framed on hospital walls.
You were the marble-handled, soft-bristled hairbrush, The Revlon make-up, the hot drinks before bedtime, Silky blouses, blazers, and slippers.
You were the grandma we prayed for a miracle for, As we willed you to get well.
Now you are the neat, grassy path I know by heart And tread with utmost care; The earrings of your sister we must arrange to repair, The door ajar at a certain moment, The good luck wish, the tiniest horseshoe, And rosary beads we last left you with.

​March 5, 2025 06:18

Nothing. No one. Or other pieces of emptiness that wander through my atrophied memory. The big white birds talk among themselves incessantly, even in the middle of the night. The sea was yesterday a blue wall, which I would not have dared to cross for anything in the world. So beautiful. The elders once came from the other side of the horizon to here, and for them it was the end of the world. Pines tortured by the wind surround me, today, it’s blowing from the East, from Central Asia like the people here. An abandoned cathedral, Greek Orthodox and all white, was empty. The path climbed steeply to the top. We passed a cemetery without a cross. A man imitated a bird there, looking perfectly ridiculous. In my dream there was a painting painted thirty-five years ago broken by a stranger. I discovered a piece of it by chance at a friend's place who was indifferent to it. This strange character can't speak English, the others are bandits. In the gallery everyone thought I was rich, it makes him think about Under the Sun of Satan when he looks at them. At night I hear the heavy footsteps of the seagulls above my head, moving and screaming even in the middle of the night. They are insomniacs, winter is coming to an end, it's the season when they talk too much. Something or someone stole two eggs, as white as both my eyes, from a nest placed on a window ledge thirty meters above the ground. So she never came back. Human beings and animals are the same, it's sad or not. It’s the beginning of the fasting for some, the awakening for others, at six o'clock sharp. Life is paradoxical, as the angel Gabriel told me once. I have nothing to say against that, I don't know, nor will I ever know. I could have or should have jumped, no one would have known anything about it. She’s totally aware that suicide is the only way out for him if things keep on going like this. Others have always been afraid of him, rightly so, and vice versa. After madness, nothing will be the same again.
And yet, the blue sea was certainly not a wall for him, but an abyss, in the end.

I have noticed the other side of love
By the withered rose and the river at night. 
I collect and water them to give to the dove
And raise the flag of truce with the wings of a kite.
I bow down to love ignoring the proverb-
‘In war and love everything is fair’ and right
And keep at the threshold the point blank arrow
Hoping one of us may die without sorrow. 

​Still, calm and noiseless
The charade bustling street is at rest
Emeritus drawing from the overflow
Well of Knowledge
Birthing life in white and black
 
Emptiness! A fight of vanity
Isolated in the other world
Waging war against inner demons
Ranging from human venoms
To cracking rumor
 
 Conspicuously muted
Her Mouth is sealed
Yet, she raced in heart
As she swims across oceans of thoughts
Mi Corazón esta perturbado
 
The bang is louder
Will she yield to its call?
Again, this tune fascinates me
Will she dance to the rhyme?
It all resonates with my soul!
 
This arrow pierces through her heart
It aches like a kiss of blade
Rivers ceaselessly flow through
Her balls, sad but true
Her guard is down
 
Imminent pains of gains
Applauds her tenacity
Her breast flapped in agony
Of want and needs
Reality is falsified
 
They all speak the familiar language of danger
Project of death in a lovely package
No more fight in paradise
Paranoid by paralysis of desire
Who wins, the demon or me?
 
This shadow deep in hollow
May one day hallow her hassle
Shackles of lack
Luck and will
Trends afar her
 
The cloud is ‘bout resting
Before dawn
I valiantly beat him
To rust and dust
Though choked but she moves!
 
Till next episode
Where the moon bows out to the sun
I shall retain my strength
To wind through the storm
And sail across the Nile

When first we open our eyes to the world,
tiny fists clutching the boundless,
we are cradled as enough--
fragile, infinite, perfect in the gaze of love.
No questions asked, no measure weighed;
we are simply here, and that is all.
 
But the world, sharp-edged and brimming with voices,
sees not the light we carry.
It begins its chiseling,
its carving of worth from the outside in.
“You are too dark,” it says,
“too pale, too slow, too loud.”
“You love the wrong way.”
“You dream too big.”
“You belong elsewhere, but not here.”
 
With every glance, every word unspoken,
the mirrors around us shatter.
Each shard reflects another flaw
we didn’t know we had.
What once felt infinite
now seems confined to the lines
others draw around us.
We shrink to fit their frames,
contorting ourselves to be seen
as something—anything—close to enough.
 
And when we cannot shrink further,
we fall.
Fall into the silences of our own making,
lost in the echoes of “not enough.”
We let the weight of their judgments
shape the way we see ourselves:
broken, unworthy, incomplete.
The soft hum of self-belief quiets
beneath the roar of the world.
 
Enough becomes a weapon.
It shifts and twists in the hands of others--
“You are good enough for now,”
they say, with kindness that stings.
“Is this all you’ve got? Surely it’s not enough.”
“You’ll never be enough.”
The word folds in on itself,
its edges cutting deep,
turning possibility into limitation,
turning wholeness into doubt.
 
But enough is not static.
It moves, it grows.
It becomes a breaking point:
“I have had enough!”
Enough of their rules,
their assumptions,
their smallness that demands
we make ourselves smaller.
 
It becomes a reckoning:
“I am enough for myself.”
It becomes a declaration:
“I have more than enough to give.”
 
Rebuilding begins slowly,
tentative as a newborn’s first breath.
Piece by piece,
we reclaim the shards others discarded.
We stitch together the moments we thought
were too small to matter--
the resilience in our tears,
the kindness in our failures,
the courage it takes to try again.
 
And yet, rebuilding is not a single act.
It is the slow, deliberate sifting of noise.
The voices that once roared “not enough”
still linger, insistent and unyielding.
Their echoes creep in during quiet moments,
whispering, testing, taunting.
So we sit with them.
We let the noise speak,
not to believe it,
but to understand where it came from.
In the clutter of doubt, we search--
for the voice beneath the noise,
the one that is our own.
 
This is the hardest work:
to unlearn the lies we were told,
to untangle the barbed wires of judgment,
to separate the truth of who we are
from the weight of who we were told to be.
But in the stillness of reflection,
truth begins to emerge,
a fragile whisper at first:
“I am enough.”
 
With every step forward,
the whisper grows louder,
until it becomes a steady song:
“I am enough.
Not because I am perfect,
but because I am here.”
 
And as this truth takes root,
our gaze turns outward.
We see the brokenness in others,
the weight they carry
of being told they are less.
But we know now--
we know the lie,
the cruel game of measuring worth.
 
Enough is no longer a question,
nor a weapon,
but a promise.
It holds space for our flaws,
our beauty, our growth.
It reminds us that in being ourselves,
we are sufficient.
 
In their eyes, we see the same glimmer,
the same light that no voice can extinguish.
And so we say:
“You are enough, too.”
Not because you’ve proven it,
but because you’ve always been.
 
Let the world try to tear us down.
Let it question, measure, compare.
We will answer with the quiet defiance of knowing:
We are not perfect,
but we are whole.
Not better, not worse--
simply, wholly,
enough.