Yuppa
Young Unique People Persuing Anything
Eboni's Poetry
I Don't Have Gills
I don't wear glasses, though I need them, because I don't want to see.
I squint, I squint, I try so hard,
but my vision won't follow me.
I can see the traffic lights.
Blurry, glowing red, and telling me to stop.
Yet I push on ahead.
It's as if I see everything through a filter.
I'm walking right side up but my head is below water.
Everything tranquil initially seems fine.
Can drive one to madness slowly over time.
I don't have gills, I don't have fins
I have lungs struggling to breathe.
How am I supposed to leap above the waves when you tell me to "be happy"?
I don't wear glasses, though I need them, because I don't want to see.
I don't wear an air mask, though I need it, because maybe I don't want to breathe.
Pride
​
Dazzling smiles illuminated the faces of passerbys who came to revel in all things love
Brightly coloured flags pinned to streetlamps
Accentuating the freedom in the air,
flying like a bird with a purpose in the trees
​
I break through the crowd to find you perched in the shade in Stephen's Green
​
Nestled in your hand your fix: a bottle of wine
Larger nearly in alcoholic percentage than your youthful age
No matter the size, it was too much for a sweet girl.
​
A deadly cocktail.
An enabled behaviour.
A ticking time bomb.
​
I, too, was losing consciousness, so I tried to make sense of my surroundings. I count to five:
​
1) A cloudless blue sky
2) The silver flask I know to stop drinking from
3) My best friend, who was not you, caught in the same dream as me
4) My purple lipstick marked on your porcelain cheek
5) Two gay men's first Pride, kissing passionately before my eyes.
And So
I've made my peace with the significant dissatisfaction that I will never be allowed to love you.
We will never smell the roses, watch the leaves fall, revel in the sunshine, touch the morning dew.
I am destined to drive myself to understand a harsh reality: you will never be mine.
I begin to feel your warm fingers caressing my face.
In my mind.
I wake with the comfort of a lifeless pillow and a journey to make every day.
I reminisce on our memories, biting my nails away.
And so I freeze a picture of you in my head:
A kindred spirit having crossed the road,
walking parallel with me by the quays.
Looking back.
Meeting my gaze.
A tease for my heart.
And my restless mind will hold that image until it can concoct one of a happier, less bittersweet moment.
One where we are unapologetically enjoying each other's embrace.
And so I wait for what is never meant to be.
A Letter to a Lost Love
A thin set of glasses frame your angular face
A spread of poise, dignity, and grace, and anger surrounded you.
Who hurt you?
Who built your walls to watch them roll down,
taking your tank of a heart with it.
And speaking of your heart, it had taken beatings.
Love's since passed you by, stealing youth and leaving jaded poison in its place.
Do you even bleed red?
Does your face take a hue of green when you are jealous?
Are you so wrecked and ruined and washed away by the tides that there's no soul left in you?
You never gave me a reason to believe you had one in the first place.
Let me fix you.
Let me be the final star in your constellation.
Let me the final stroke of your masterpiece.
Let me make you the beautiful man I know you to be.
And in return, not that I ask for thanks, will you then love me?
Luas Love
You clutch your red bull in your hand
take a swig and kiss your lady love.
When it comes to PDA, there can never be enough.
Newest Adidas tracksuit bought with your dole payment
Forget about the fact that you can't afford your rent
And of course, there's no saving at a time like this
When you're paying a pittance for a can of Guinness
Alarms of the guards and now you're way Ticket inspectors but you never paid -
Why would you pay?
Throw caution to the wind
Snapback cap on your head
There's a life to be living
before you're dead
Kiss her before you run
and waste another heart's time
With your luas love.
Aye
You sleep with headphones in your ears,
tuned into a radio station.
What do stations play at 3 am?
Symphonies of static, a burning white noise,
better, of course, than the
Piercing sharp, bitter stab of truth.
You have seen people die in front of your eyes.
Bodies drained of their blood, the deadly crimson painting pictures on the canvasses of the white flags,
still clutched by the cadavers.
You wake in cold sweat, hoping to a Catholic god you're not still trapped in Belfast.
You oppose the cage from inside its impenetrable barriers.
Stone cold.
You married a countryman - Were you settling?
A sweet young girl like you could have any man
And you've had offers.
But you ran, ran faster than your Twiggy legs could take you running from the North, from one hellhole to another cesspit.
This is your life, Eileen.
You're an artist who finds strength in lies.
You're a woman who finds comfort in a guise.
You're a person with a sharp tongue and a hardened mind.
And yet, you sleep with headphones in your ears every night,
listening to static,
tears in your eyes.
You saw innocent men die.
​
Live with the consequences.
Forbidden Admiration
Your stride commands respect
And instils enough terror in me
to never ask about the emotional
battle scars you wear on your chest.
Your brown eyes your daggers pierce violently through me
Leaving butterflies as wounds and
an adrenaline-fuelled heartbeat
inside
You are my eclipse
I gaze from afar
Never looking directly at you
But stealing glances in the darkness
A forbidden admiration
Doomed
Never to succeed
A parted heart,
shared gender
Translucent
You're not what most people would call "attractive"
A chubby face.
A frumpy figure.
A walking style more akin to a strut, a march, than to a graceful glide.
But most people never look beyond that.
I see a delicate, ivory hand with nails bitten away.
I see a smile that compels me to forget the sharpness in your face,
one that adds to your lightness.
I hear a hesitant, stuttering laugh,
self-consciousperhaps as
you wonder what others think. Betraying your Devil may care image.
I see plump, bow shaped lips that I will myself not to kiss.
I want to see more without you knowing so that if ever you let me in the transition will be easy.
I want a spontaneous moment where, for just one second, you let your guard down and I could run my fingers through your cropped, dark hair.
For two people so fiercely opinionated, we can never just give in to the same passion that drives the rest of our lives forward.
So I'm left wanting,
you're left never left never knowing,
and I'll continue to try to see you through the translucent glass of the window until
you let me in.
Slievenamon
I was four.
I held your hand as we started up the mountain.
You taught me the months of the year in Irish.
You taught me why farmers shear sheep
and why dogs bark.
I hung on your every word.
We started up Mount Slievenamon.
I was eight.
You held my hand during the first hundred feet.
You explained why it's called 'the mountain of women'.
and you promised you'd attend my First Holy Communion.
To your credit, you did.
I clung to your promises.
We continued up Mount Slievenamon.
I was twelve.
You let go of my hand at the summit.
I asked you how the world works
and why I'm growing strange hair.
You told me it was none of your business.
I felt uneasy around you.
We rested on Mount Slievenamon.
I was sixteen.
You wanted to hold my hand - I refused.
I tried to discuss the death penalty
and current events.
You changed the subject to my education.
I can't talk to you.
We descended down Mount Slievenamon.
Here we are.
The bottom, the pits, the cave.
I think about the mess we've made
and if you'll accept me for who I am.
You can't even pick up the phone to ring me.
I idolized you.
I still remember Mount Slievenamon.