The summertime confessions

The summertime confessions

Rina Cakrani

Confession I

Whatever I might be doing today, Whether I am happy, or I am smiling, Whether I distract myself with useless pursuits Or I keep my mind busy with what the day offers me; Whether I deny that I have a heart Or that I still hold certain things as important Whether I act careless Or unbothered by my past or what the future has reserved for me; Whether I refuse to worry about the outcome of my actions Or of the words I speak so firmly when I’m angry Whether I neglect my dreams Because I can never find the right path; Whether I hold myself high When I feel like giving up Or despair myself with visions of failure; Whether I project my past fears Into my new endeavours Or I pursue self-destruction Because I feel undeserving; Whether I continue being consumed And battled with the reality of my surrounding; My heart still finds the strength To keep thinking about you.

Confession II I was destined like my mother,

When I see her, I see my own tragedy, When I see her, I see my past, my present And my future too.

My mum gave birth to a creature so complicated That she chose to be alone.

No one likes fractured people, You must be a whole, Not in pieces, Your dreams must be red Your dreams cannot be grey.

I hope I can swim in the sea and not risk drowning, I hope I can feel indebted to my heart and my heart only, And not even to yours, Although I love you.

I will need a lifetime to heal myself, To turn my dreams from grey to blue, Or green, the colour of hope.

Sometimes my dreams were green, But only when I was with you.

Right now, what I have, is the absence of words.

I talk, and I write but this is not enough.

I am speaking but I am unable to say what my heart holds.

I hope I can be full of words one day.

Confession III

I wish I could write without words, Cause not even words can express what I feel, I am a hurricane of emotions that is constantly Trying and trying to break out, But I like to hurt myself, Because I think I deserve it.

I wish I could write without words so I would not have to explain nothing to anyone, Right now, and perhaps forever they just see a spectrum of what is me, And yet they would not be able to see through me.

Confession IV Brown skin boy,

You got me before you even wished for me, And you still have me after you stopped wishing for me.

You got me when you kissed me And even before you kissed me.

You got me when your hand reached out for me, The moment right before the touch, When your fingers longed for mine And grabbed them gently and held them tight.

You got me when your brown eyes stared at mine softly, And then slowly lowered to my lips.

You got me when I felt your breath heavier than mine, Or when your heart was racing at my touch You got me when I saw your mild revolutionary soul, Or your decision to wait for the right one.

I said to myself: settle down, settle down Settle down with this boy, But I forgot to ask back: Does this boy want to settle with me?

What was I to you?

I was afraid to ask you, Because I knew.

I wanted to spend time with you.

I wanted to be with you, My brown skin boy, I wanted to be with you, As long as I could, For you I was ready to defy anyone, To defy all the stupid traditions All the taboos I never thought about.

I wanted to with you, I want to be with you.

I am angry at myself, For letting you get inside me so early, For my vulnerability, You made me so vulnerable so easily.

And I never catch feelings so rapidly.

If you look at me again as you did When I first met you; Or you smile at me while asking for another chance, I might return the past, And fall back to you.

My beautiful brown skin boy, In my eyes, you were a sun, You were glowing despite your insecurities, You told me: this is me, I’m not interesting That’s how I knew there was a whole universe in you, But you left before you could tell me.

Did I scare you? Did I intimidate you?

Did I go wrong, why did you give up on me?

Is it too late to right my wrongs?

But I can’t change for anybody, Even for you, the one who has my soul.

I know I look unbothered, But there is so much confusion into me, And bitterness for lacking fulfilment, Or a certain definite ending.

It is not over, we both know it, You have me at the palm of your hand, If you seek for me, I will fall back to you.

And that’s what I would do, Every time, Again, and again and Again.

If you try to kiss me again, I will look into your eyes and say: Don’t But please get closer and start kissing my hand And my cheek, and reach for my mouth And I will be the one to kiss you.

I will hold you more than you will hold me And I will melt in your arms, I will die slowly To then be reborn and live through you.

My brown skin boy, I say ‘my’ because you will be mine, You will be mine.

You will be mine.

You are mine, but you don’t know it.

Let’s get married.

Let’s get married.

Today, tomorrow, soon.

Let’s not think too much.

I want to be with you.

Perhaps you will realize that you want to be with me too.

And then let’s get married.

Let’s forget everything And let’s get married.

Be with me, is that too much to ask for; I am a hurricane, You must bear me for the rest of your life.

But every moment is worth it With the one you love And who loves you back like you do, Or maybe even more.

My brown skin boy, I always thought of life cynically, But you made me feel as if I had you, That would be enough.

I don’t need anyone else.

My brown skin boy, I can’t promise I would love you forever, But if you chose a lifetime with me, I promise I would pour my heart into yours, If you choose me once, I would choose you a hundred times, I would choose you as you are, With your past, present and future, If you chose me too.

But my brown skin boy, Even if you don’t choose me, Just know that: You have moved me like nobody else has done, And the memory of you will remain with me, I wouldn’t give up from you entirely, My heart doesn’t know measurements, You will be with me as a beautiful memory, Somehow, you will belong to me.

Brown skin boy, Remember when you said: ‘I could never forget about you,’ Then keep your word.

Don’t forget about me, I will never forget about you,

So please don’t forget about me.

Confession V I shouldn’t ask for forgiveness, But I am sorry I wasn’t enough for you, I was never enough for anyone.

I am not enough for myself even; Living in this body is a burden, Living in this soul feels heavy, Living in this mind is a never-ending process of Self-punishment.

Even If you loved me, I would have found a way to reject you, Because I never accept the love I get, I am a mix of honey and poison, I love but I hurt.

I run away from love, I run away from it because I feel undeserving, I never feel fully worthy of it, And yet, I still demand it, I still desire it.

So, thank you for not loving me, I would never want to place this load on you.

Confession VI

In your absence, I know myself better.

I know my strengths and my weaknesses better.

I am solid enough to hold myself From falling back to you.

You were once my illness and my remedy, My poison and my antidote, My despair and my rejoice, My sleep and my awakening.

But I saved myself from you, I am only mine now.

Hear my words: My absence, my bitter absence will hunt you.

And you will hate yourself for what you did to me, But I won’t forgive you.

You will learn your punishment, And I won’t forgive you.

Confession VII

One day when we’ll meet again there will be a silent awkwardness between us, just like now.

You’ll tell me about how you have settled down, You will probably be married and with kids.

And if God wants I will be a writer, And you will tell me about how happy you are that I managed to become what I always wanted.

I will tell you that I am happy as well.

I will tell you about my beautiful struggle, How I accomplished the dreams of my youth, And that I finally managed to settle and find some place to call home.

Your eyes will dissect me And you will realize that I haven’t changed at all.

I would still be the mess of a human being that I am now.

And you will go back in time, in fact both of us will.

And you will tell me that I haven’t changed at all, that I still look at you in a certain way, but that my aura radiates fulfilment but is colourless.

You will ask me if I am truly happy, And my pride will say ‘yes’.

I won’t tell you that I waited for you But you will know it, Because you have always been the only one that could understand me.

You will know that every book was written with the memory of you, Every day was lived with the hope of meeting you again.

You will know everything by the time we see each other, Although everything would be passed, it wouldn’t be erased, It would be transformed and saved in my deepest memories

As we would continue to live our lives.

But in that moment, I will tell you, that to my son, I will give your name.’

Afterword

I wrote these poems very spontaneously in different periods during these past two years of my life.

They are seven very honest confessions of what I have experienced externally which have heavily marked my emotional being. I have kept my experiences hidden from people because I am not the most functional and well-spoken in social settings and I dislike talking about myself and explaining my

emotions, because I never seem to succeed in doing that. I always end up transmitting only half of what I intend to.

I would like to thank all the people that have inspired these poems, even though my interactions with them haven’t had pleasant endings. I would also like to thank one of my best friends, Isolda Chirinos Vogel, for being the first one to read and give an opinion about it and my sister Dea as well, for giving another perspective and always encouraging me to write. This project is a way of reconnecting with myself and establishing a certain stability and clarity within me, because I constantly find myself in a state of confusion and mental exhaustion. I neglected this passion of mine for a while, because of everything that was happening in my life, but I am glad I am back now and I intend to continue writing poetry.