qasa'id

RADIOACTIVITY [...]

"
if i had been vain or conscious enough

i would have compared my grieving, mourning self

to a radioactive stone solemnly buzzing

and humming to an unnameable tune

that crescendoed to an explosion that

sounded a lot like the end of the world.

i was potent with a dangerous energy

a bomb that hung off a precipice, ticking its last seconds away,

close to imploding in on itself and projecting outwards,

leaving behind nothing standing but

tattered remains and crumbling ruins

of a lifetime that was once mine.

and like all radioactive stones, i was a toxin

i pulsated with melancholy and poisoned you

for if you held onto me for too long,

i seeped through your skin and into bloodstream like venom

and fucked with your brain and kept you up

wondering where it had all gone wrong.

but you should know that there was no fault in us,

or in our stars, but in me,

in the way my tears burned you like acid,
in the way my touch left you aching for days,

in the way sunshine now seemed foreign to your skin,

and how i hadn't heard you laugh for the past three months.

when we first met, you said that surely,

i would be be the death of you, carelessly, foolishly, with a flourish of your hand.

i never meant to be a murderer and you

never intended to be a victim of the shadows that

had enveloped us whole, cocooned us in darkness;

you still try to claw your way out, away from me, day by day.

i had once read that poison only grew stronger with time.

"

— RADIOACTIVITY WAS THE POISON RUNNING THROUGH MY BLOOD AND I WAS THE POISON RUNNING THROUGH YOURS

[ every once in a while, we fall in the trap of a toxic relationship, and regardless of the blame or responsibility, we can never truly escape this vicious cycle, the tug of war between desire and fatigue and pain, and even when we leave, we leave parts of us behind (limbs, organs, sanity). so this is for you — the person trying to make it work, the person trudging through it, the person going through the motion, grasping at the straws of the good old days, trying to detonate a bomb, delay an inevitable explosion — you will survive, perhaps not whole, but alive and intact. and this is for you — sweet poison, addiction of mine: i know you never meant to do this, i know that you could never stop the infection, but you should know that i don't blame you, that i thank you for giving me this chance at reincarnation, that you will always have a piece of me, that someday you will break down, half-life gone by, and you will be human once again. and perhaps, we will find our way to each other one day. ]