Being seen
My body is mine
And not mine
My body is solid
And shapeless like liquid
And like glasses
Can be broken into pieces.
My body sees itself
Being seen
My body, with a wealth of histories
Too many times
Got stripped of personalities.
My body
A field of battle
An unnecessary war I have to fight
Just to be in my own flesh.
My body records
Engraves
Remembers the anger
Ownership taken away
By the gazes
That aren’t mine.
-Phavine P.
In the presence of gods
She,
In the presence
Of gods
Blazes the sky with her being.
She,
In the presence
Of gods
Takes human form.
She,
In the presence
Of gods
Commits mistakes
That gods themselves
Wish they could make.
She,
In the presence
Of gods
Is willing to take pain
But refusing to be tamed.
She,
In the presence
Of gods
Looks upon earth
With gentle attention
Raising an eyebrow at shedding blood
Not giving a gift in form of a flood.
She,
In the presence
Of gods
Doubts their significance.
She,
In the presence
Of gods
Carries a bag of sins.
She,
In the presence
Of gods
Lives her raw humanness
That gods themselves
Wish they could possess.
-Phavine P.
Beauty and destruction
I twirl in my little black dress
Waking up evil
Sprinkling distress.
I let myself fly
I take pride
In being the only blackness
Your goddess of death.
My aggression crushes a mirror of purity
I destroy beautifully.
I was deprived of anger
My dark soul was in hunger
Now fire and violence I pursue
I have paid my dues.
My tight fist greets the mirror
I do it with a smile
Anger is now my child
Go on, run wild.
-Phavine P.
Reclusive
I’ve lost interest in people
Doesn't mean I don’t view them as equal.
We’re capable of saying so many words
Yet nothing is really heard.
I look at you looking at your screen
I’m tired, more than I have ever been.
There are always insignificant competitions
A lovely distraction
For our short-span attention.
I do not care
Who gets paid the most out there
Who has the latest car
Or who has gone where
Because wherever you go
There you are
You can’t escape yourself
Even with that goddamn car.
I have no interest in rumours
They’re simply acting as armours
We stop talking about ourselves
Because it’s easier to talk about others.
I’m not impressed
By all the preaching you express
Something in your eyes
Tells me you are not as wise as you suggest.
I’m reclusive
But painted as an arrogant, high-cultivated bitch
Well maybe I am
And I’m not sorry. Not one bit.
I’m a flying soul
Roaming around
Not really here, not really there
We can look at each other
Hammering down defences, stripping ourselves bare
And feel the vulnerabilities we all share.
-Phavine P.
Be still
Be still
And watch dandelions dance
To the stillness of time.
Be still
And listen
To the silence
The silence that is not excruciatingly painful
The desirable silence
To notice all that is happening inside
A sacred place
Shielded away from human eyes.
Be still
While observing movements
Up on the hill
I watched those yellow trains, back and forth
Doing their job
Running on a familiar track
Stopping at their familiar places
Then they came back
And there goes another one.
The trains ran fast
As if they were very excited
To reach a destination
They have reached a thousand times before.
In the midst of silence
When my stillness collides with fast moving trains
For a brief second, I ponder still
How I’ve come to be granted a special place
That can be painful at times
And lonely
With inexplicable and strange beauty.
-Phavine P.
The void
7pm
I hopped on a train
To see a man
Who would fill the void
The other man left for me.
But those evenings
With either one of them
Left me pretty empty.
But he took me for long walks
In freezing cold nights
It was loneliness I tried to fight.
From coffee shops to pubs
To museums to crappy Chinese restaurants
He gave me that much needed thrill
I took the last train home
Only to be crushed by guilt.
He looked at me
I thought of him as Dorian Gray
The man certainly knew
How to get away with beauty.
We knew it led nowhere
But the other man’s absence
Was too big for me to even care.
Sparkling night lights
Noises filled the air
They all died
When the morning sun
Hit the sky.
So here I am
Once half
Now learning to be whole.
Because the void within
No one but me
Could make it thin.
-Phavine P.
My womb
My womb will not be a house
My womb takes no order
Not from you
My womb breeds fire, anger and disappointment
A representation of a rebellious enemy
As portrayed by this sickening society.
Oh, guilt
A mountain of guilt
That you make me feel
For living and reclaiming every inch of my body
What a shame, you have internalised patriarchy.
A land I own, that’s what it is
A land you cannot touch
A land you cannot colonise
A land you cannot map
A land you cannot terrorise.
I’m a bad daughter
For not taking orders
An unfortunate woman
So incomplete
For she can’t produce a so-called family
That she doesn’t need.
I’m a failure
For resisting oppression
In your eyes I’m nothing more than a disappointment
For not letting my womb perform its function.
Happiness equates reproduction
A formula set by a male-dominated system
A recipe for destruction
I don’t need your redemption.
So quit patronizing
Your thinkings have gone missing
Planting implicit expectations
I’m sick of your delusional sense of entitlement.
- Phavine P.
Mother
You made me feel guilty
For what I did
Or didn’t do
Twenty years later
You ask me
Where I went wrong?
Guilt trips travel miles
Across oceans
Transcending time differences
A lovely gift wrapped up
In the name of ‘love’
An inherited disease
From her mother
And now to her daughter.
- Phavine P.
We’re not medics
I still miss you
Oh, but that’s not new.
As days and months passed
I’m a woman in your past
And hopefully, fondly remembered.
If I could I would stand there
Facing you
Tilting my lips for a slight smile
I don’t hold a grudge
But you can’t touch the child.
In my eyes
Our children are hurt
None of us are medics
So how can we tend to the wounds
Others inflicted
On us?
I’ve been all the way here
Sometimes feeling like it’s been years
I travel this far for the child I hold dear.
Once in awhile
The breeze that carries pain
Touches my skin here and there
In touch with sadness, remembering
The slow death
Of the love we once shared.
-Phavine P.
Mother in disguise
He looks deep into my eyes
Seeing his mother in disguise
A mysterious swan
With her wings
She departs, she flies
His ego silences the boy
Who screams and cries.
Let me cradle you
Lifting the boy away from the blue
Fixing the unfixable
Replacing the irreplaceable
Taking all the bullets
For the crimes I didn’t commit.
But the once-chatty boy is there
In the dark night
Lit by a faint candle light
But by day
He keeps the child out of sight.
Kneeling on my knees
Giving him what I never had
Love, warmth, acceptance
All reside in paradise
Meeting his demands
Keeping the child satisfied
While the one in me lives with hunger
Deep down inside.
-Phavine P.
Dimmed light
Dimmed light
Smoke
Hair down
More cigarettes
Smile
Noises
Laughter
Reckless behaviour
Human
Another human
Dimmed light
Silence
Confined space
A different space
Alone
In bed
Where did all the noises go?
-Phavine P.
The creek
I keep running back
To the creek that had run dry
Hoping I could find water
In a place where my being is denied.
But round and round I go
Returning to the creek
Waiting for the water to flow.
The creek is empty
And even dusty
But I sit down, staring
Like a child
Quite naively.
The child won’t move
Because this creek is all she ever knew.
- Phavine P.
Waiting
Waiting implies passivity
Availability
The ability to be made
To wait.
Time can run
Time can jump
But it comes to a still
Against my own will.
Is this what love can be?
Making you wait for eternity
Disabling my desire
When it rises
Time can’t pass fast enough
Time is in captivity.
-Phavine P.
My old man
Is my new craze
My brand of tobacco
My panther skin
My milk and wine
Dionysus and Aphrodite combined.
- Phavine P.
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