I consider myself an amateur poet, writing brings me great joy and is a way to process life. Poems will be regularly shared here and paired with photos as new series are released.

Poem of the week:

On Your Knees

(misunderstood, misunderstanding)

I dream in three languages 

In two of them — I cannot speak

I am clubbed mute, like the trees

I once watched grow 

Only to see their leaves trimmed into a perfect shape, 

More appealing to the eye perhaps, 

Or sometimes their branches taken altogether 

For convenience of a home, or a road, or maybe too much air 

Seeping from their little leaf pores

They were too much

Now, they are nothing.

The dreams are always built 

On one sided understanding 

Too often lately, life feels this way too 

Shouting, grasping, praying to be heard 

Launching cries for help into a room that will not understand

What i am asking for 

An empty, or populated, void

The echo is the same nonetheless

This city, this language 

They are not mine.

And with a heavy pen, I admit sheepishly that they never will be 

Why with such weight?

Why the shame in not belonging?

I’ve never spoken in my dreams 

I awake with my tongue anxiously primed for its moment

Guilt crashes over me

For my lack of capacity

For my ignorance 

And just like that

I return to poetry 

Not for profit

Nor for product 

Not to cross it off my list 

Nor speak into a void 

With any semblance of 

Purpose nor intention 

I return to poetry 

For salvation — purely my own

To make sense of the echoing chambers of 

Hate and hurt 

The insecurity, the lack of belonging

Displacement: by choice 

Disenchantment: by nature 

Disappointment: mostly in myself 

I have forgotten how to grow here 

I have forgotten that I am growing 

Call me nameless 

Take this skeleton for shape 

Clothe me in your finest garments and jewelry

Blanketed with a desire to be accepted 

Fear over being found out 

Assimilate. Assimilate. Assimilate. 

A grandiose success is now going to the store 

And returning with what I need 

Most days I fail 

Coming home with embarrassment 

Over poorly pronounced words

And an ever spinning narrative 

Replaying an improved dialogue

Oh, how I must improve! 

And how did I come across? How DO I?

It is hard to be yourself when you don’t know what you’re saying 

It is hard to be yourself when you don’t know where you are

I suppose it is always hard to be yourself

Or hard to learn oneself 

Waking up one day with a woman in the mirror you hardly recognize 

I suppose I am the most myself I have ever been

I am certain that is terrifying 

Of all the misunderstandings,

mine of myself hurts the most. 

My eyes open, and the day begins