Four Poems Samantha Marie Artwork Sharafina binti Teh Sharifuddin

Clouds aren’t solid

i nervously climb up up up into the clouds where my expectations sail through violet promises to hold me, keep me, love me? it’s not the ascent i fear though, but the fall no parachute, no net, unsafe a plummet through the stratus i couldn’t reach the sun again the light, the warmth, the end only struggle for air as i watch gravity pull me down from a dream you only existed in my porcelain heart cannot cushion the crash i lay in the beaten ground now, nearly smiling at the inevitability of this heartache

the definition of insanity: repeating something over and over but expecting a different result but see here, I knew you didn’t love me. all the same, i still like the view at the top.

A letter to her

seemingly pointless as you’ll never get to see this then you aren’t sitting by the window wondering where the mailman is or refreshing an inbox you actually hadn’t made yet

you’re listening to boybands tell you they’ll change for the pretty face you’re hoping for you’re watching romantic comedies that promise the moody prince will come to love the pain away you’re twisting every roll on your body and poking every bump on your face like if you’re angry enough with your reflection, it’ll take the hint and leave

i remember every birthday candle you wished for happiness a barbie smile without need for makeup or his validation

you wrote a letter to me, asking me what happiness is like you assumed it came with age with growing up you wanted to know what it feels like to be friends with the mirror, to date the prince, and to float because the ropes holding the cinderblocks of your brain must be cut by now “you must be happy,” you wrote me

and to the little girl who cried stains into her letter, i tell you this: you are worthy you are beautiful you are intelligent you are more than enough.

I'm so sorry my letter won’t reach you until you write this.

ex

yes, i am over you yes, i think about you not through a longing window but on a therapist’s couch i daydream on the leather about your manipulative cold hand holding someone else’s pulling them down with you and how i broke nails clawing my way back up thank goodness i lost the weight “just at 200lbs” you used to brag i didn’t realize how heavy that was until you stepped off my chest

i make wishes on stars that won’t come true for the next one you trick to evade the pain you like to coat with an i love you

but where snakes molt, you rather remain in your rotting skin and simply wrap a prettier bow around yourself to distract from the decay

if i’m being honest, i do think about you while i work to remove the rot you left me stained with.

cravings

i’ve always wanted to be loved to be looked at with an adoring smile, not just followed by the forfeiture of my clothes

i want to be enveloped in it like the ocean holds the sand

i feel more like the pebble in their shoe a nuisance waiting to be plucked and thrown back on the gravel

tell me what it’s like to be held without a transaction

won’t you love me for more than the ferocity of my own hungering heart? show me love that doesn’t ring out the tears from my body and then asks for the blood too

love that meets the sun and the water with pink orange red purple promises that never could be broken by the crash of a wave.