illustrious-justice

[illustrious-justice]

The weight of memory drags my shoulders down. I take a string and stack everyone I've ever known and loved like beads, pearl on pearl on pearl. And when they leave- because leaving is one certainty we're burdened with, and when they leave- I clutch the pearls and try to breathe. I remember it all, even things I've forgotten. Some nights, I dream of smiles and faces and laughs, my best friend at 7, the first boy I ever liked, my grandma on the patio- pearls on pearls on pearls, boxes full of necklaces stacked in every corner of my heart. The weight of the world on my shoulders- is that what is left of us in the end, memories stuffed in pearls, waiting to be worn?

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from the The Flesh I Burned

[illustrious-justice]

There'll be a moment when you realise you're 27 when yesterday you were just 17; and you wouldn't be able to tell how a decade passed away and your life got divided into before and afters. The fury of youth will subdue and nothing will really change but everything will feel different when you look at old photographs and blurry videos taken on cheap mobile phones. Scents will remind you of childhood and certain friends you don't talk to anymore, hangouts will become reunions and mom's burnt pie will become the best food you ever had. And I know on some days you won't be able to show anything of those 10 years but I hope you remember to breathe, and let go of the knot in your chest. I hope you go out in the sun and live a little, because tomorrow is 37.

Edit- I added the visualizer for this piece on my YT, check it out here

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned

[illustrious-justice]

Selfishly, I hope I have left an imprint on your heart - I hope my name is signed on one of the chambers with a lock only I have the key to. I hope when the sun comes through your blinds on Sunday mornings you remember how I would lay there next to you, back bare, my eyes staring into yours. I hope when the girl sitting across from you laughs you think about mine, how it would fill the room and your chest just the same. I hope you look back on the kind of love we had and realize it was a once in a lifetime chapter of the novel you now have to continue writing without me. Selfishly, I hope there’s still time for me to be the one who’s there until the very last page.

If not, help me let you go.

[illustrious-justice]

I don’t know how to make things happen anymore

[illustrious-justice]

In my prose, I enclose shavings of myself The peeling skin at my fingertips, As I rid myself of those callouses Gifted to me by Passion. Could I not be soft now? Tender lover, velvet touch, Let your untouched hands plunge And whisper to me sweet nothings. I'm the only one who could ever Have you like this.

My words are stepping stones, Each one sixth of a sentence That saves me from myself, Because if I did leap, I would fall.

So, I ram needles into my eyes now, Piercing through skin and bone To the back of my skull, And admire you through the cracks Between my fingers. Bleeding, as the truth spills out of me And soaks my clothes. Because I can't ever let myself be known, But how longer could I have kept it a secret?

#poetry #poems and quotes #poetic #poems #poets #original poetry #poem #my poem #writers and poets #poet

[illustrious-justice]

2+2=5. "When a lie has been told enough times, it becomes real." Two and two is five. Every morning I tell myself I like who I am. How many times do you repeat the lie?

I don't hate myself. I love myself too. I'm surrounded by myself, hounded by my own cries, caged inside my own ribs. I love myself. My body is my temple but some days it feels like the ruins of Petra. I love myself. I just don't like myself all the time.

On rainy days full of blues, I'm tired of this body, of this mind. 2+2=5. If you could sell all your bad memories, only on the condition you'd have to give away the good ones too, would you still do it? Are you your memories or are you the vessel that houses them? Are you the product of your thoughts or the manufacturer? When you repeat a lie enough times, it becomes part of the truth, expands and births itself anew.

Two plus two is five. Am I the voice in my head or the notes of my heart? Am I the lies I tell myself? Lies of consolation, lies ot condolences. If I love myself, why do I keep seeing my corpse at the bottom of the ocean, on a road, slumped on my chair, buried in the dirt? If I like myself, why do I keep hearing four, four, four? Two plus two is four. Where do lies end and god's honest truth begin? Because lord I'm tired of not knowing.

-Ritika Jyala

[illustrious-justice]

Coming to Terms with Being on your Own

You are leaving me,

tell me,

what ever for now?

And your cruel reply sweeps my ears like the dust of a thousand paintings,

and you reveal what you didn’t know about me,

and you reveal your true selves under the varnished panels.

Now with you where my heart lays and head should, I feel green,

Though I’ve always wished for solitude, in ever manner of definition,

I realise I needed you like I’ve never known before.

Innocence! Repent! For the Kingdom of Forever is at hand,

Heaven a place too far for us to wander,

The soul of the crown leaving a dying king, enters unto me, leaving everything but fulfillment,

And I realise I need you like I’ve never known before.

[illustrious-justice]

at least at school you’ll never be disappointed: a poem

i miss complaining about such simple things:

maths tests, no respect, lunch timings;

the arguments were primitive,

he said, she said, competitive,

in those cold, early beginnings;

now i breathe in a place i care for,

longed for, shared for

as long as i can remember,

where the birds whistle on the garden fence,

the guard patrol in stubborn defence,

you evolve backwards into the old offence,

and i am no longer yours.

[illustrious-justice]

Mistakes May Have Been Made

“Everything is going to be okay, we’re gonna be fine”

Is a repeated, recycled, overused less favored line of mine.

And though it keeps me with one hand on hope,

The other considers and toys with knife and rope.

Because my pit sits filled with a paralyzing poison

And I find it difficult to rebuild what it destroys in.

Confidence has waned, being replaced by doubt waxing.

Rethinking every decision I ever made has grown rather taxing.

I wanted to give you something great,

Something with which you could be happy, proud.

But we’re in a bit of a sorry state,

Which is why I apologize with my head bowed.

You are everything to me that is good and right,

And I’ve never doubted wanting and having you as my wife.

But I am long awake every endless night…

I’m stuck thinking maybe someone else would have given you a better life.

[illustrious-justice]

I am yours. If I died this moment, I am yours. Forget me. Forget me and love me again as you did the first time. Forget me and come back to me again.”

— James Joyce, A Play In Three Acts

[illustrious-justice]

Ivory drills through the soles of her feet

And splinters through her head,

Skin still clinging to its spikes,

Clots of blood and hair splattering on tiled flooring.

As her brains leak from her mouth,

Gurgling them, she heaves

Drooling Sanity down her chin

And dyeing her clothes black.

Later, she'll clamber into her Mother's arms,

Drench her in heartache and in guilt,

As if she exists to soak up her daughter's messes.

Please, her pores are weeping blood,

She can't stand this anymore.

She etches her pleas into the floorboards,

Her fingertips turn blue.

Unfortunate, poor child flaunts rose-tinted glasses

And can't stand to see heartbreak that isn't her own.

Oblivious, she poses in the mirror,

Head held high,

Ivory spikes distorted to form a coronet,

As her world crumbles behind her.

Who is there left to love you now?

#poetry #poem #poems and quotes #poetic #poems #poets #original poetry #poet #my poem #poetsandwriters #short poem #writers and poets #writerscorner #writerscommunity #creative writing #poetblr #poetry on tumblr #poets of tumblr

[illustrious-justice]

Flickering

I will not write this piece for you,

But I sure will dedicate it

To the time it took to write you

Unrelenting, bountiful, delicate

The time it took to see me

And I almost didn’t let you, with

My back against the balcony

I had no place to run to

I had no better view

Than both hands gripping the

Railing for my dear life

And just as I leaned my head back

To ask the moon to keep me

From drowning so quickly in you,

I felt your hand on the small of my back

Your lips on my neck like I might be

The only name you ever wanted on

Your breath, hot in my ear,

Hands in your hair, but

I will not write this piece for you

I simply would never forgive myself

If I forgot a single detail

Of how you caught me like lightning

God, I wanted to be electricity

Waking you up, Breathing life into you

Ever, and evermore

I needed it, never before

I didn’t understand how lightning

Could hurt so beautifully

I’m too in awe of you to feel empty now

Knowing you had to leave me,

Flickering,

I am flickering inside,

Please, Don’t leave this light here to die

[illustrious-justice]

Anne Carson // Jonathan Safran Foer

[illustrious-justice]

there’s a teacher at my school,

he doesn’t shout, only in jest,

he’s gay and you will know about it,

he needs mental support and validation, from a lover and his parents,

there’s a teacher at my school.

there’s a teacher at my school,

she tells you how it is, she doesn’t work fridays,

she’ll tell us to wake the girl up at the back,

she worries about her daughter’s health and wonders if she’ll make it home in time to see her,

there’s a teacher at my school.

there’s a teacher at my school,

he boasts of his love and adoration of his work,

he gives us instructions on the canteen tables,

he sits at the table after work, comforted by his kids, he’s leaving the school next year, he can’t handle it,

there’s a teacher at my school.

#poetry #poem #my besties a genius

[illustrious-justice]

But I've altered it, I've dyed it in my favorite colour, it's still a little big but it's warm and comfortable.

I know it once belonged to my father but I've made it my own, and I'll keep it on my body until my body wilts to death.

Is it bad that it's my favorite piece of clothing?

[illustrious-justice]

"Can I tell you that, sometimes, I utter the word justice and mean revenge? On my best nights, I mean mercy, but my best is my rarest form."

J. Estanislao Lopez, from "My Uncle's Killer"

[illustrious-justice]

There is a little dipper on my

Left foot, I am woven constellations

The birds outside remember when

They were only atoms and that

Is why they never stop singing

We are all one event horizon

Away from oblivion— what is

Matter but something to lose?

We glisten, we glitter, grotesque

Divine, angels and devils with

Hands over our mouths when

We should all learn how to scream