I’ve missed watching you sleep
So peaceful,
So quite.
I’ve missed watching you sleep,
Even though it is actually on a screen,
Miles and miles away from me.
On a slow Monday, after work,
You’d take a nap and recalibrate.
It’s night time where I am,
It’s not fair but when your days is just starting,
My day is about to end.
I’ve missed watching you sleep,
On a couch far, far away.
May 18, 2020
May 18, 2020 at 3:02 PM UTC
Been an expat all my adult life,
It wouldn't be shocking to say that
I never knew where my home is.
There is the home of my family, my childhood memories,
There is the home I built around a job,
In a country far away from where I opened my eyes to this world.
Yet something was missing in both,
Not knowing what,
Till we met for the first time, at Dulles.
That was the first time we saw each other in flesh.
You hugged me so hard,
And held my hand,
Never to let go.
And I realized you were my home,
For the name you have, Ev, meaning "home" where I come from.
Apr 2, 2020
Apr 2, 2020 at 6:13 AM UTC
To E--,
The orange sky
at 9 pm
is thrown over
the streetlamps,
bursting the
starry seams.
It's like you're
here, sometimes,
on this couch
the color of
burnt grass,
looking back
past the gauze
into the
hinging face
of night.
In truth,
you're sleeping
at the crux
of two
continents,
in an
eight-hour wash.
Every night
violent dreams
find me out
& unsew me
a little bit.
But soon
my wing of sleep
will be clean again,
because you will
be returned to me.
The orange sky
at 9 pm will
stop revolting,
and the night
will again be
the sweetest
of burdens.
Always Yours,
E---
Dec 23, 2019
Dec 23, 2019 at 4:27 AM UTC
What do I remember?
I remember the way you look,
When you are in deep sleep.
The way your lower lip falls down,
And your breath is even.
I remember when you are so focused on your game,
You won't even notice I'm watching you,
Closely.
I remember the sun beam falling onto the cat.
And how you adore her playing with
That grocery bag on the floor.
What do I remember?
I remember giving up on love,
For good,
After so many heartaches.
Then… out of the blue, I remember my heart
Beating again.
Maybe, this time. Maybe?
I remember seeing you for the first time,
At Dulles, on a warm May day.
Hugging me for life, bringing me to life.
What do I remember?
I remember you.
Me.
Smiling at each other.
And the thousands of miles is now just a number.
Nov 26, 2019
Nov 26, 2019 at 2:17 PM UTC
These words are
your soldiers.
These poems are
your armies.
Let them march
to the drum of joy.
Let them march
to the fife of sorrow.
They will always obey
their general.
Nov 22, 2019
Nov 22, 2019 at 4:03 AM UTC
While her plane taxied,
I had already entered a sort
of personal sarcaphogus,
built to contain the click
click click of this radiation -
errant atoms in caustic traces
throughout the salted air.
It's a mechanism, keeping
me sane in the face of
this sorrow of her exit -
I walk in dazes, and joy
falls away in strips
like bark from a sickly tree.
So I count the minutes of the days...
Nov 20, 2019
Nov 20, 2019 at 12:30 PM UTC
Things I can not say out loud,
The scary thoughts, vague assumptions, endless questions,
They get clogged in my throat.
Choking me, literally.
I wake up with a swollen throat,
Hard to talk,
Hard to swallow.
Will I be here after October?
Will I get to celebrate Halloween with you?
Thanksgiving? New Year's?
Then the throat gets worse.
Can't breath.
The idea of not being here with you,
I am choking.
Then I see you sitting next to me.
I reach out,
Tell you I am fading.
You run to the drugstore,
It's pouring,
But you sprint anyways.
When you come back,
It's not just the medicine that aids my inflamed throat,
And inflamed thoughts,
It's you.
Talking to you,
We let the worries disappear into thin air.
We turn the question marks into kisses.
As I take another sip of the warm liquid with painkillers,
The worrier in me fades away,
And I am finally breathing.
Aug 22, 2019
Aug 22, 2019 at 12:28 PM UTC
You loose someone,
A father, a child, a wife,
You grieve.
You lose something dear to you,
A cat, friendship of a good pal, passion of a lover,
You grieve.
Then you lose something material,
"An earthly possesion",
A pen, a pendant, a job,
And you go on with your life,
Or you try to.
Not acknowledging what that loss means.
How it defined you, say, where you worked,
How you spent 8 hours of your waking hours.
A job is no longer the means to pay bills for you,
It is now who you are.
Someone asks,
"So, what you do?"
Your immediate answer would be your job,
Your occupation.
That thing which you define yourself with.
So why we don't take it as what it is,
A relationship, a defining matter,
And take time to properly grief when it ends?
Bukowski once said,
Find what you love,
And let it **** you.
I dare say,
Find what how you define yourself,
And let it die, wither away,
Once it is time.
Aug 8, 2019
Aug 8, 2019 at 4:45 PM UTC
You know the first few questions one asks, when they meet someone new:
What do you do? Where are you from? Where do you live?
Then they eye your clothes, how do you dress up.
They give a verdict based on what they hear, what they see.
That's who you are.
I don't have an answer for these anymore.
I gave up on my previous identities.
Left my job 2 weeks ago.
A job that gave me a certain identity for 8 years; a brand name, a comfort zone.
Left my clothes behind, donated or gave some to friends.
Clothes that defined me; my hippie skirts, my tweed professor jacket.
And finally, leaving the country I lived for 8 years.
In just 2 days.
Who am I now?
I am ME.
More than ever.
Jul 3, 2019
Jul 3, 2019 at 4:23 AM UTC
Have a tendency to overthink,
to worry about things not in my control.
Things can go right and left,
lives can be turned upside down,
in one instance.
One reckless move at the highway,
one silly mistake to take the dodgy shortcut at midnight,
one naive moment to trust another human being.
Then thinking about the "what if" scenarios a million times,
over and over.
Have a tendency for details,
the nitty gritty, the tiny things no one cares about.
Things that won't matter in a year's time,
all will be the same,
in the long term.
Then the over-thinker meets the detail oriented,
and asks,
But what if?
Jun 16, 2019
Jun 16, 2019 at 5:33 AM UTC