cinnamonwhispers

[cinnamonwhispers]

I wait by the road

your vanilla scent wafts by

nostalgia hits hard.

[cinnamonwhispers]

you speak in a language that i cannot understand.

your words dissolve in pits of haziness as I try to comprehend the language that you speak in. An occasional laugh and a once-in-while nod as you speak seemed to make you think that i understood everything that you spoke. I ask myself again and again, what language do you speak in that makes me want to tear at my ears and understand? Why can't you speak slow and soft in the way that won't make my ears bleed? Can you understand me even a little?

I do not understand the language that you speak in even though I have torn my ear off with my overgrown nails that have collected blood and dust over time. I meet your eyes and whisper that I do not understand you. And you do not understand me either.

Till I met her.

she spoke in a foreign tongue yet her eyes touched mine and her fingers held mine. she leaned in closer every time I spoke in a foreign tongue trying to make out every little detail of the sound I produced. her sound was like little water lilies to my ears as she tended to my overgrown nails.

i met her and I knew I didn't have to speak the same tongue to understand. to understand is to love. and i love you.

[cinnamonwhispers]

what do the poets write about when they are not in love?

what do the poets talk about when their heart is not breaking or when their heart isn't fluttering?

When their thought doesn't linger on that one person, that one city, that one landscape, that one emotion?

What do poets write about when they are absolutely empty, devoid of emotions, and devoid of love?

what do you write about when you aren't in love?

can you write about the way the flowers fall and the way the world is breaking apart beneath guns and bombs?

Can you write about anything that does not include the human emotion piecing itself back together or falling apart?

do you write about the taste of her lips and compare it to cranberries and strawberries because you are in love or because the thought of her lips are all that you know?

will you write about me and compare me to the starry skies and the endless oceans?

Will you fall in love with me and make me a muse of your poet?

[cinnamonwhispers]

"Why did Orpheus look back?"

But I look for you in every new person i meet searching for that glint of your soft soul once again. I search for you and i keep looking back at you again and again till I feel a stake through my heart. I might just be Orpheus who doesn't get his love even after travelling to the depths of darkness and through the gods of death.

I look for you in every person i meet and I am terrified that I will see you again. I will see you walking down the street and even though i have spent months looking for you, the moment I see your eyes, you will evaporate right before me. And I am terrified of finding you again. In anyone else.

Am i Orpheus who looks back at his love only for her to fade away? I spent eons looking for you through the darkness only for you to disappear when i finally touch you.

[cinnamonwhispers]

i wonder about the people who haven't found their Chicago yet. The ones who are struggling with finding themselves that finding their Chicago is a long process. Something that might take them years because you do not find comfort in strangers unless you find comfort in yourself a little.

I wonder if your Chicago is yourself. And if it will always stay that way. Will it always stay that way? Absolutely lonely, crying at 1 am with no one to comfort you except a message from that one person who will be alright even if you leave their life asking you if everything is okay.

(where is my Chicago when I need it?)

[cinnamonwhispers]

i hate the fact that I care about you too much when you don't anymore. I cherished the days you cared about me but i was a coward and I got scared and i pushed you away. Again like a coward, i came running back because i missed you. I missed you a lot. More than you know. but you do not care anymore. Even though you ask me how i am doing or what is going through my head, you inherently have let go of me before I could truly apologize for being a coward.

So allow me to be a little braver this time and allow me to show you that I care about you. A lot. And i won't push you away again.

[cinnamonwhispers]

if you asked me about how much I like ice cream, i would say I do not. I do not like the way ice cream freezes my jaw and makes me clench it hard. but on some days, i love eating ice cream. Probably a butterscotch flavour with a few chocolate chips on top. but my favourite way to eat ice cream is to eat it with you.

If you asked me to eat ice cream, i would not think twice about how much i dislike the coldness of it or the way it makes my brain freeze. i would come with you to get an ice cream. I would buy a cone for you because I know how much you love it.

and I love doing everything with you. even things I might dislike a little bit. but I don't dislike ice cream as much as I did once. because every time I buy a butterscotch cone, i will be thinking of you. and eating ice cream with you will always be beautiful.

[cinnamonwhispers]

i look at the steel glass beside my bed and reach out to sip water. But I pick up the glass and it's empty and I wonder where did all the water in the glass disappear?

i watch my heart in a wine glass and I wonder when did all the love in me dry up? when did all of it become an empty space with nothing more left to give? when did I stop being vulnerable and stop giving myself to people a little more?

when did I lose all of the love that was growing inside me like soft flowers in a garden? i sit beside the small window, an empty steel glass in my hand and wonder if the love will ever fill itself again.

[cinnamonwhispers]

my mother taught me how to be patient and vulnerable. how to explain your feelings of love through your eyes and through your fingers. she told me how to peel pomegranates by digging your fingers into the flesh and plucking out the seeds gently. but everytime you hand over a pomegranate to me, i am overcome by a sense of impatience to reach to the core. i am overcome by the desire to get to the seeds before I can be patient with the shell.

Every time you love me, i want to reach your heart before i know what it is like to feel your shell. i never interested myself in what made you build your walls and how to break them slowly. I dig into the flesh of your skin with my nails and reach your heart but I cannot find anything. my hands are covered in red because I was impatient to break down your walls to find your core.

so this time, i will sit with you patiently and peel off your shell and break down your walls slowly. gently. patiently. just like my mother taught me. till you feel brave enough to hand over your core to me.

[cinnamonwhispers]

I think when people ask someone to peel an orange for them, they are indirectly asking you to peel away the layers of their shell and to see the soft fruit within. To squeeze the nectar out of their soul and have a taste of their mind. They are asking to peel away the layers of their heart to watch what happens when you discover that they are not as sweet as oranges should be. they want to watch you experience the nectar of their soul be a little sour and sweet at the same time.

They want to see if you have the patience to peel away all of the layers of their personality and still find something not-so-sweet within.

and they want to know if you would still love the sweet-and-sour fruit in them. or would you throw it away because people do not like sour oranges?

[cinnamonwhispers]

i think when you ask someone if they can peel an orange for you, you indirectly ask if you are willing to peel away the layers that make up your personality. you are asking them if they are willing to be patient with you and if at the end of it all, even if the orange tastes somewhat sour, would you still take the time to peel away all the layers?

[cinnamonwhispers]

you healed a part of me that I did not know needed healing. you touched my soul and held my heart so gently that I cried my eyes out. you cupped me in your arms and made me feel so alive after so long that all i wanted was to drown in the depths of your ocean eyes. your ocean-doe-shaped eyes rimmed with the perfect eyelashes that took me all in the first time I laid my eyes on them. my coffee-coloured-huge eyes on your ocean-doe-shaped ones.

you healed a part of me that I did not know needed healing by kissing the scars on my soul ever so gently and wiping my tears away softly every time my mind was raging. every single time my mind raged, you leaned in so calmly and held my face in your hands that made my heart flutter and the voices in my head were not so loud anymore. they are never loud anymore. they have grown to become quiet and sombre just like your soft touch on my skin.

you healed parts of me that i thought were ugly by touching them with your fingers and with your ocean-doe-shaped eyes. and i never felt ugly anymore.

[cinnamonwhispers]

your laughter made my heart warm and soul flower with a garden of lillies the first time I heard it. the first time you laughed out loud at something I said, i couldn't help but think how beautiful you looked. your perfect teeth framed by the outline of your perfect thin heart-shaped lips letting out a sound of happiness made my somewhat-heart-shaped heart flutter. and i couldn't help but think that all i wanted was to make you laugh everyday for the rest of your life.

and you laughed again today at something I said. i am pretty sure you did. even though i couldn't hear it through the small text messages that said "you are funny", I am pretty sure you laughed and i smiled thinking that you did. and i wish i could do this for the rest of my life. even if it meant not being with you, i would not think a second if it meant that i could hear you laugh again.

[cinnamonwhispers]

"i am terrified therefore I write."

[cinnamonwhispers]

and i slowly begin to wonder. how do I make you stay alive in my memory when we love from a distance. how do I remember the intensity of your touch and the feel of your lips against my shoulder and the soft brush of your fingers against my waist. how do I remember each and every detail of the lines of your face and the shape of your nose when it has been days since I have felt your touch on my skin?

And so I decided. I will recite it to my loved ones. i will preach your beauty and the way you love me wholly. The way you shower your soft reassurances on me every time my heart is breaking for no apparent reason. Every time you hold my hand when I feel too nervous to walk alone. And I will tell the stories of how you have the most beautiful eyes and the most serotonin-inducing laughter that made my stomach turn and my heart skip a beat like a teenager in love for the first time. Oh how the realists would call it the "initial stages of falling in love" but how did it matter when you came and you loved and loved and loved till I was sure of your love for me.

So I will tell stories of you. I will describe your touch and the feel of your kisses as poetry and as verses for everyone to read so that in some way, in any way, I will be able to remember your kisses, your soft reassurances till I am able to feel your fingers on my skin again and till you lock eyes with me again in a crowded street.

[cinnamonwhispers]

i am terrified of writing poetry for you. my hands quiver and they begin to fail and blood drops appear on my nail beds every time i take out my book to write poetry about you. i tear the pages off in frustration wondering why I am only capable of writing poetry that rips out the hearts of people and not poetry that makes them understand the feeling of being in love or the beauty of your starry eyes when you lock eyes with me. I am terrified of writing poetry about if you can break my heart only for you to loathe me.

So i write about the beauty of falling in love with you. probably for the first time in a very very long time. Even in the terror of it all, writing about being in love with you was more liberating than sitting with my thoughts of if you are capable of breaking my heart.

And so I write. and i fall in love. all over again. terrifying and liberating.

[cinnamonwhispers]

there is this underlying thought in me where I believe that i ruin everything I touch. The things I want turn out to be things that are not meant for me, and the relationships and friendships I have been in, all evaporate into thin air with the slight touch of my fingers. With the slight touch of my fingers they get ruined and my fingers get burnt.

I believe I am like Icarus who went too close to the sun and burnt his wings because he believed. He believed that the sun would accept him with open arms if he could just touch the rays. Only to get his wings charred and fall to his death.

And i ruin everything I touch. Including you. including me. So i tape my fingers close together so that they don't feel your skin under my touch. so that I don't ruin you the way Icarus ruined himself because he believed the sun could love him just as much as he did.