Rachel Lin Rachel Lin

Where do I go?

The words start and stop
I am here and yet I am not
So willing yesterday to find an end to these thoughts
Foiled completely in daylight
These feelings are false
My doubt is false
I am simply winding and unwinding,
Threatening to take flight
Am I really nothing without these threads?

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Rachel Lin Rachel Lin

Tiny explosions

An inside joke

Split into a thousand layers, one for the first half of the day

Another for the parts of us that refuse to remain open

Tightly shut, just the way it’s meant to be

Until it’s not, and we’re erupting in laughter

Honesty spilling out at the seams

/

An explosion of softness

My hand framing your face

All of the excuses melting into itself

The moment demands attention and so we give it what it deserves

(Because we are respectful that way)

I’m underwater, the world is quiet

Your beaming face a warm light to return to

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Rachel Lin Rachel Lin

Prerequisites

It is foolish to think that there are indeed prerequisites

for the difficult things that afflict us.

Prerequisite kindness,

time, softness.

All the things that I could not find

in myself to ask for, because

I am tired of pleading

to be thought of, cared for.

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Rachel Lin Rachel Lin

Defence

As always, a game of:

who felt the least

who forgot the most

who didn’t say the words,

ask for more.

To be without,

that is the status quo

and anything more is greedy indulgence

a betrayal of all of the mechanisms

we’ve unconsciously agreed to.

A moon lit pool,

your feet dipped in.

Jumping across sand, following footsteps.

How nice, to just be present

Eyes on the escape hatch (but I miss you)

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Rachel Lin Rachel Lin

Not quite true

Rewriting what once was

because I must have misconstrued,

overanalysed, jeopardised.

I want to pull myself in ten directions, to feel the full

weight of this grief —

the many griefs I have not allowed myself to feel

One narrative to the next

and I wonder why I’m lonely.

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Rachel Lin Rachel Lin

Milk

fresh and full

perfect, sans caffeine

20 minutes and the throat closes

(not quite) but the discomfort is apparent and

intentional? You opted in,

as you often do

this ridiculous game of

what is good for me and you

a chance for it to finally

be what it was,

without everything it came with.

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