maiawrites

[maiawrites]

Manual ( in My Bones)

I think I’ve lost my manual—

the one everyone else seems to be born with.

Mine must’ve bled through in the womb,

left behind on the sterile floor

before I ever learned to ask for what I need

without choking on it.

People speak so easily.

Their words fall from their mouths

like ripe fruit—

soft, timed, sweet.

Mine rot in my throat.

Too bruised to be beautiful,

too late to be wanted.

I open my mouth

and dust stirs.

A hundred rehearsals,

a thousand edits—

and still I forget

how to be simple.

They laugh like it’s easy

to belong to this world.

But my tongue forgets how

to move with ease.

My voice hides behind my teeth,

where all the unsaid things

have made a home

of my gums.

Is it because I live too long inside myself?

Because I read until the world

goes quiet around me,

and I forget the shape

of a real conversation—

where you don’t have to

earn your breath?

I know how to bleed in metaphors,

but not how to say,

"Hey, how are you?"

without it sounding like

an incantation I’m scared to finish.

God—

do I feel too much?

Do I need too much?

My hands shake

with the weight

of unspoken tenderness.

My ribs ache

from all the words

I’ve buried in the hollows.

I haven’t lost my manual.

It’s etched into the soft parts of me—

the ones I flinch from

when touched too suddenly.

It’s scrawled on the backs

of torn receipts and old prayers

and I carry it like a curse.

Someday,

someone will read it

without needing me

to translate.

And I’ll cry

just from being

understood.

[maiawrites]

Epic declarations of what loving you feels like

One. Loving you feels like coming up for air, for the very first time. After drowning for what feels like a lifetime. After finding myself alone for almost all my life suddenly I find myself not so alone. Suddenly there's this warmth, when all I could ever feel was the biting cold. Suddenly there's you, who came unexpectedly into my life and changed it for the better. I constantly find myself wanting to talk to you, seeking you out, actively making time to spend even a moment with you. Because with you even a minute feels infinite, I never want it to end, you are the best thing to have had happen to me. You are my reason for living, for waking up day by day and having reason to endure it, because you exist and your existence makes literally everything so much better. You make me better, don't you see? Before you, I was aimlessly drifting around, seeking the one thing that has always been elusive to me. Looking for you in all the wrong places and wrong faces, always coming up empty. I spent most of my time alone, content in my loneliness. But sometimes there would be this nagging thought at the back of my mind, constantly telling me that something is missing . But I dismissed it as nothing, because I thought I had everything I needed, my books, my art and writing. But after having met you, it's suddenly like my soul went through a ahah moment and I just knew that it would be you. You've been the thing , the one piece that has been missing from my life. To this day I still don't know how I got by without you for so long.

Two. Loving you makes me feel like I am both drunk and wasted, on the worst kind of substance all at the same time. Like I'm recovering from the worst hangover in my entire life. It makes me feel like I'm running on nothing but the fuel from your love. You're like a drug to me. A kind of drug that I'm slowly but surely getting addicted to. Your touch on my skin feels like electricity. The moment you walk into a room, I'm instantly at awareness. The fact that I can feel the pressure of your energy even if I am across a room from you is entirely daunting and overwhelming for me. The extreme highs and lows of this connection, is sometimes extremely fucking devastating to me. It sends my heart straight into a frenzy, making me feel like I have heart palpitations, making my heart beat a mile per minute, hard and fast against my ribcage, you make me nervous in the best way possible, whenever I am around you my hands gets all nervous and sweaty, I find myself lost for words, speechless and not in the good kind of way. I have embarrassed myself in front of you so many times, I still don't know how you put up with me.

3. You are the reason I can survive.

[maiawrites]

// The essence of touch//

Everytime some part of you touches me, there's this jolt that shoots through every inch of my body. Every time your fingers touches mine, it is like there's spark that's igniting for the first time, a flame, hot enough to burn me whole to the ground. There are days where I hate and damn myself from wanting you so much, for wanting for too much, at least much more than I deserve. Days where I despise wanting to touch you so badly, that my entire body crawls with it . Craves it. Craves to touch your hand and just hold it for a really long while. To trace every part of your hands back to front, from wrists to fingertips, to feel all the bumps and blisters, scars and bruises that is imprinted on you, to slot my small ones between your calloused and slender ones, until my bones mold themselves to yours, until I'm well versed with every story of how you ended up with them in the first place.

[maiawrites]

Best i had

I used to think that praise and validation from you was the highest attainment i could ever strive for. Until i realized that it lacked something important: warmth and love. I kept going to you for validation but still ended up leaving cold and empty handed each and every single time. Not realizing that what I was looking for all this time was love. I kept going back to you because you filled a part of me that was looking for recognition, a part of me that wanted to be seen for who I really was. A part that craved intimacy so badly that I mistook you filling a void, as a fulfilling love. All the times you said that I bring happiness into your life, or that time you said you missed me something fierce. I believed it didn't I? The thing is though that you were a thing too good to be true. Still I mistook it as you giving me the world, bringing me so much happiness that it almost harboured on addiction. I kept going to you for love and each time returned more drained than ever. Still you were one of the best things to have had happen to me. You made me feel good about myself, you boosted my ego but not my soul, so now looking back at it, was it even worth it? Worth me sacrificing myself, my ideals and convictions just for the sake of being accepted by you. Your approval was like an elusive thing, I failed to catch, time and time again. Still it feels like I owe you for all the good things you brought into my life, the clarity of realizing that I deserved so much better than to catch even the miniscule breadcrumbs you'd leave me. You never did see my worth. To you I was just something you used to feel good about yourself.

[maiawrites]

I keep wondering if my words will ever be enough, if one day this endless well inside me will run dry and my poems will die a death the most violent. I dread the day that ever comes to pass, because I can't imagine myself without a safe space to let these words and feelings out. I wonder if one day the ache will wither, I wonder when I'll stop turning my pain into poetry. If one day my feelings will latch onto hope and bloom instead. Take root and Sprout leaves and flowers from the very soul and depths of me. That that seed will one day manifest and grow tall enough to be considered a tree. A tree full of hope, love and faith instead.

[maiawrites]

Trauma turned into scar tissue, a sight so abhorrent that you will need tissues to stop all the blood from leaking through, blisters are all over the place, my body is made transparent and so see through. All these words I've carved into my skin, full of razer edges, will it ever be enough to stop the pain from peeking through

[maiawrites]

I love the idea of a lover writing letters to me, just like all the great ones wrote letters to lovers that came before. like John Keats used to write love letters to Fanny Brawne. There he expressed his greatest desire of hope, love and faith of a bond between them that transcended the depths of space and time.

Like Emily Dickinson's intimate letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson. Where she wrote about the longing and mourning of missing a loved one, of craving the nearness that connection brings. Where she compares Susie to nature, love and time all at once. It was in that moment that you know Susie was loved really well, because she was mentioned time and time again, weaved into writing so eloquently put together.

It's that same way I want someone to write to me. Someone to want me, to learn me, to pay attention to every little nuance, details and tells that shows me they know me really well. To tell me about the way that I consume their thoughts at every waking hour, that my love overwhelms but still brings peace in calamity hours.

[maiawrites]

Loving you feels like flying, being caught orbiting around the blazing of the sun. The center of my universe. Loving you feels like floating then falling, head first, without a safety helmet, full of trust that you'll catch when I eventually land on planet earth.

[maiawrites]

I know I can be too much sometimes. Sometimes I think I think too much. Too fast, at least too fast for my mouth to catch upto. My words runs a mile per minute smooth and elegant, and then tumbles awkwardly and clumsily out my mouth. Unorganized with no rhythm of thought. Sometimes I am too blunt, too sharp, too open. Like an open wound, raw and gaping, like if I don't clamp down on it then I'll bleed myself dry on the vices of others. Like If I'm not careful enough then ,I'll be in danger of bleeding ink onto others around me.

[maiawrites]

I want someone to read my poems, the way they would their favorite book. Peer into every line, catch little glimpses of my soul hidden in there, every sentence a soliloquy.

[maiawrites]

I'm not used to wearing my heart on my sleeve, one of your greatest pet peeves

-I know. I know I'm prone to impulsiveness and destructive tendencies. I'm used to only relying on myself, a result from people always putting me and my love back on the shelf , until they have a need for me again. I'm used to being let down or taken for granted, but still.... I give countless chances, because I believe people to be good at heart, despite... knowing differently. I'd probably do the same with you because I still want to trust depsite being hurt over and over again.

love, I have a hard time opening up ,I know I have far too many layers to your liking. But can you trust me enough to let you in when I deem you worthy to be worthy of my trust. But that being said ...

Can I trust you to figure out my mood by the look on my face, without me having to tell you how I'm feeling.  Love can you be the one to get me out of my head, when I can't even lift my head off of the bed.

Love, I know its not your responsibility to take my problems on as your own too, trust I don't want to impose on your primrose.

love,

Can I be bold to assume, that you'd know me well by being well versed in translations of my unspoken words - no prompt needed.

Can I be bold enough to assume, that you decphicer the dejection in between my lines full of rhyme,

or when I ask you for a bit of your time? would that be too much of a crime, for me to tell you I'm fine,  especially when you see right through, and know its me downright lying to your face, since I'm so used to saying everything's fine. Even when it's not.

would you be able to look into my eyes, uncover my dreadful sighs and unearth my demise, hidden between my heartfelt cries. Could you be there ?could I ask that much of you? Or are these just destructive tendencies. Love, I'm trying to compose, a limerick out of my dysfunctional tendencies. Instead I decompose, my words turn comatose I'm trying not too end it like this..I just need a repose.I guess its my specialty, not even knowing how to disclose, good at being vague,

my lines, so ardently verbose.

[maiawrites]

My definition of love is you. You as a whole. The way you feel like home, soothing and comforting. A safe place I could always fall back on, knowing you'd be there to catch me if needed. The way you draw me into your comfort quietly and full of revenance. The way you give space for me to vulnerable without any fear or judgement. It was in the way you'd throw you head back, eyes closed and crinkled in the corners beamimg up at me blindingly, that settles into my chest almost like a heavy ache. The way you bite your nails when you get all nervous about something, hands clammy and sweaty, knees bouncing up and down in anxiousness. The way your lips would curve up into a barely there smile, when you'd find something cute or funny. It's in the way your love feels like safety and home -a feeling I've only ever experienced with family and loved ones. But this type of love is the different kind. And that is most likely because it's you. Because you exist. You have no idea how you light up the world of those around you. Your mere presence brightens up the room the moment you walk into it.

[maiawrites]

Sometimes it feels as though I feel too much. Like the intensity of my feelings is enough to make anyone flee from me. I was once told that sometimes my feelings can be too much, too intense, too overwhelming for another that it is enough to drown oneself into. I am a thing made of feelings with no where to put them, no where to channel them into so instead I've turned to art and channeled it into writing. Whenever i feel too much, I have this need to write, to get all my thoughts and feelings onto a page. And I write. And write. I've been writing for so long that sometimes the words start losing their context and meaning but still I find myself writing. Writing till my fingers bleeds ink, until my fingertips are tattooed black from gripping so hard onto the edge of my pen, until my bones creak from sitting still for so long, until blisters form and become calloused, until my hand cramps and the page tears from writing and pushing down my pen so hard, hurriedly to get everything out before it disappears from my mindscape.

[maiawrites]

Each poem I write, speaks of you.

Each line that is conjured

from the depths of my very being,

holds traces of you,

you're always there lingering in the background,

making yourself at home in each stroke of pen gliding through paper.

Here you appear as inspiration to my recently half-written poems,

here you're stripped in sunlight,

the rays of your essence unofficially lending itself to be my muse,

here each strand that makes up the nature of your being is dipped into each line I write,

you're infused into all my words like familiarity. Here each line reveals little fractures of your being that captures and hold my attention,

fractures that are to be nurtured and well treasured.

Here you appear in lyrical compositions and rhyme,

here you exist fully and wholly as mine

and in return I remain yours.

[maiawrites]

Marya Hornbacher, Waiting

[maiawrites]

Henrik Ibsen, from a play titled "The Wild Duck," featured in Six Plays by Henrik Ibsen

[maiawrites]

Leila Chatti, from “Tea”