today
a girl
tried to say
that i looked
like an elephant
as if to suggest
i were quite hideously fat
i told her
that elephants
are adorable
and that at least
I'M cute
maybe to the world
i am an elephant
i don't care
i just wish
sometimes
i guess
that elephants
could
forget

1
Like the  turning sheets
of a monthly calender,
life has layers after layers.

How would he know that ,
just a callow youth on  sea shore
playing with  smooth pebbles,
that was when he saw her first.

She was the woman who
taught him, whole cities lay merged
within a woman, like wave after wave,
of inhabitants over time, leave their
archaeological markers of periods,
she was a mystery like life itself.
There is no way to decipher.

2
They first met
in the city of light,
Diwali lamps were lit
in all courtyards,
It was an immortal moment
in his  life, he realized,
leading him gently to the light
which evaded him though he assiduously sought,
she parted without a word
Did she belong to someone else?
3
The city of sorrow,
yet again brought them  face to face
Ridden with angst of existence
he stumbled, was about to fall, then
he  could experience her iron will
more than a woman, she stood, like a pillar of strength,
she took his weary head in both hands, pressed to her breast,
pulled out the crown of thorns, their paths
diverged again, inexplicably complex, was their relationship.
4
In the city of guilt,
an unexpected meeting again,
they were surprised. Here, they were on their own.
They  wanted to take their lives in their hands,
in spite of the currents that pulled them to different directions.
But he knew all the while that her self, was divided between
three cities within  in her.They co-existed, Light.Guilt.Sorrow
will their love survive? Not all loves are intended to live long,
a parrot in his tree of loneliness always whispered.He pretended he didn't hear,
A game of dice, almost was their lives, mysterious forces did bet on their love,
Having traveled through fire and water, she was beyond pleasure and pain,
Kali with a fiery nose stud, female power that overcomes all pain,
she became, that shattered his dreams for them.
He was thankful, to be awakened by her,
the light she lit, burned bright, within.

Now or never.He crossed the river.
Deliverance comes from an inner source,
otherwise all will end as an idiot's tale
signifying nothing.
Her flame lighted his wick, liberated him.
5
Fire spitting dragons one can tame,
but in the duel with demons of life,
it could be a blood letting end,
call it play of chance or what ever
they are the  easy game here
He  packed his backpack and
started to move eastwards,
Westward bound was she, invariably,
her heart had still a song left for him,
the void was filled, the pain was stilled
with anesthetics of mind.
Just for one last time they went to the beach,
watching the sunset was their good bye to each other.
They never met again.

My heart lives in my throat
recently. It lives empty and losing its
pulse in my throat. Day by
day it becomes harder
to swallow. I’m on the edge of choking.

I’m on the edge of stillness, of
no more beating. And then I will
choke. I will choke on my
own still, heavy  heart.
I once knew what it meant
to live. I knew what it meant
to breathe and to see and to feel.
I knew passion and love and
happiness. I once knew what it was like
to feel. And now all I know is this
numbness. All I know is this
empty existence. All I know is waking up
each morning with the prospect of the day
ending already consuming my thoughts. All
I know is not wanting to wake up
at all. I do not know feeling any longer.
I do not know breathing or seeing
or living. I know existing for the sake of not dying.
All I know is not dying. That
is what it has come to. Don’t die
today. Wake up
tomorrow. Get through the
day. Wake up. Get through the
day. Don’t wake up. Don’t
wake up. Don’t wake up.

I am on my way to choking.

Will I hear you again?
Or even see you open your eyes?
If only I could have one last chance
...
I wouldn't change anything
Except make it easier on Mom

She took her ring off Dad
Left it by her pain killers
You tried your best, it wasn't good enough
Things have finally wrapped up
Just like you are this very moment

Seeing you in a casket,
Wrapping my still young hands around your fist
Tears staining your new dress shirt
Speaking for the dead, listening to the alive

Searching for the memory
Of the Concrete Cross
Reading the numbers of your hospital room
All of it a mixed memory,
Slowly sharpening

I'll miss you Dad
I guess I'm supposed to say:
I love you
But I'll walk through the Church doors
My last words to you were
I'm disappointed

Goodbye Dad
Summer, now just a ball of ruined treasures hanging above me
5.23.13

Goodbye Dad.

before I sleep, i fix my sheets
and stack my pillows as if
a lover sleeps on my bed

i sleep and wake up alone, but
i wouldn’t mind waking up
to morning hair, sleepy eyes,
tired smiles and a long yawn
i wouldn’t mind waking up
before dawn, after dusk,
during the sunset or while
we’re under the stars

i wonder how lovers like these
are hard to find, because i bask
in the simplicity of mornings
for only in these early hours do i
truly know someone

maybe i have puzzles and traps
stuck on my hallway, or a
warning sign taped on my door
for none even bothered to knock
or maybe it is my refusal
to find any other

no one else sleeps on my bed,
because i’ve pressed all my sheets,
perfumed all my pillows, marked
my calendar and saved the dates
for nights and days with you.

will you stay long enough
to keep me until i can love again?
or will you make me see
that there is no hope for me?

if you will, then be the wind
that goes without a trace,
so i can only smell
what you’ve left,
the scent of your betrayal

for each time you return
to fill me with your essence,
i have no choice,
but to open myself fully to you—

i can’t live like this,
i can’t breathe in what you exhale,
leaving me with nothing, when
you go on to places
like the morning mist,

this isn’t love, this is
all your emotions on airlock
poured out on me,
i can tell you’re running out
so i’m running away.

I know I’m nothing.
I know I’m even more of a nothing every time I say it.
Every time I talk about it.
Every time I point it out.
I am pathetic.
And I am nothing.
I am not the motion of a princess being swept away.
I am not the gaze of a star-crossed lover.
I am not a wedding vow.
I am a hug and a receptor of sound waves.
I am kind words and oxygen.
I am a friend.
I am not a lover,
A wife,
A significant other.
I feel like nothing.

Sitting at the bar talking about poetry.
Talking about the girl I want to look at me.
Hold up my hands as if those thoughts were fire
Burning me from the inside out, just had to get it all out.

"I met her for the one night, and I've been writing about her ever since"
Then she looked at me and just said "Wow".
I wanted to smile but I felt just dirty.
These are my true feelings and I don't want share them with you.

Hold up the time for me I can't see it through this mask.
My head hangs low and stitches are bleeding.
I want to fall in love with this girl, so I write and hope she'll read it one day.
Now I am alone, high as fuck, totally drunk on that idea.