warmer
softer
lovelier
just for you
happier
luckier
sweeter
when I’m with you
yours
yours
yours
just that
Apr 28, 2017
Apr 28, 2017 at 11:11 AM UTC
This is us,
meeting at the curve
to be set apart
coming close
to never meeting again
Apr 4, 2017
Apr 4, 2017 at 10:38 AM UTC
*my mother likes to think i can’t see
her dabbing her eyes dry,
that long, lost love is not something that is pieced
together into the equivalents of promises
and vows
yours have been broken
mine just beginning to birth
we are lying motionless
in this game
whose pieces are pawns of fate
and cruel intentions
for the strength it took to leave
is as brittle as the ground i forged for abandonment
and my poetry is as stale
as warm beer you drink just to forget*
Mar 25, 2017
Mar 25, 2017 at 11:44 AM UTC
It's strange how I could fit so much in a shoebox. A shoebox made for a pair.
There is this specific shoebox I have tucked underneath my folding bed.
A relatively new one, with its glossy lid and blunt corners.
I can name its contents by heart.
A letter dated September 27.
Two pairs of tickets to movies.
A priceless photo of you as a kid on horseback.
Six receipts I managed to save from places where we've shown our true colors.
Nine bus tickets.
One valentine's card with a doodle I'd frame in the Louvre for everyone to appreciate.
A list that says ten things but actually has twenty. My favorite one being "I love that you love me. I cannot even."
Two poems.
Five photographs of us, two of you, one stolen, most with teeth, some wacky.
An ice cream tin. I can still taste the pistachio and see our smiles while we shared and fought over who gets the tin.
A notebook holding a sacred bucketlist, boxes unticked.
This box is small, but it keeps a lot more than that.
It cradles a semi-epic backstory.
It possesses a playlist inaudible to all, except for two people.
It confines a few arguments, little squabbles, and maybe a tiny bit of resentment.
More than that, it is abundant in affection, concern, last-minute cuddles, kisses given and taken.
I won't deny it, I'm a sentimental person.
I've been keeping and snatching little parts of you and placing them in plain sight around me.
Where I can see them, see you, when I flip through my books or open my wallet for change.
But now you're gone, hidden from view. Diminished inside four corners, right under where I sleep at night to forget you.
It's strange how I could fit so much in a shoebox. This shoebox I made just for you and I.
Mar 8, 2017
Mar 8, 2017 at 8:24 AM UTC
I want you to bury my heart along with my hands
So I cannot grasp your skin with every empty throb and beat.
Picture me with you
Picture us. For at least one last time
I am with you.
If I never fall in love again,
Give me your eyes,
The gift of sight to see what you worship. To adore
the footsteps you take further and further away from me.
It would take too long for me to forget. You
Whose prayers I’ve been repeating for too long.
If I never fall in love again,
Break me one last time
Leave crevices for me to find. Pieces of you
Still hurting and healing. I am
Not going to walk away.
When I fall in love again,
Allow me to do dance with you one last time.
Melancholy is inching its way through.
If I fall in love again,
Let it not be with you.
Mar 8, 2017
Mar 8, 2017 at 8:17 AM UTC
*I don’t know if it’s just me or
The six bottles of beer I just had,
But this body misses that body
And I know I could be drunk
To want to kiss your lips
And unfold you
like paper cranes
with worn out creases
but too beautifully assembled
And I am sure I am sober
Enough to love your crooked smiles
And wicked grins
That my stuttering and stammering
Broken “I miss you”s
Would show I am stumbling
For sentences cohesive enough to stick
To the back of your mind
Only to recall and rehearse my drunken stupor
At 1 AM when you accidentally wake up
And you can’t remember the difference
Between wanting and waiting*
Mar 8, 2017
Mar 8, 2017 at 7:31 AM UTC
My poetic senses will grow stale
The words escaping me each and every time
For I know what it’s like
To be immortalized
In love and heartbreak
To be worshiped
In song and in ode
To be penned
Too many times until you lose all meaning
This is not you
You are not ideal
You are as surreal as hurt
We are as casual as fiction
I will not romanticize you to the point of lucidity
And the tides will not turn when you arrive
The stars will not fall when you leave
The world will not stop for us
The words of love will not come
All because I will not love you like a writer
Mar 8, 2017
Mar 8, 2017 at 7:21 AM UTC
Do not patronize me.
I am not looking for gazes full of wonder.
Or questions that do not rhyme.
Who is the artist?
The canvas is stretched to tearing.
My taut body holding on to the frame that encases me.
Maybe my colors are just not right.
The blues a little too bright.
The yellows a little too dull.
I am trapped in my own downfall.
I am looking at you from across the room, your eyes darting everywhere except here.
You are tinted with regret and encapsulated in your sadness.
And I have heard so many artists say that they need it for their art.
But what's the glory of art with so much heartbreak?
Your tears spilling and mixing into a palette of grey.
I will draw you to me just to be mistaken as divine.
Your hands will ignore the calls for caution telling you not to touch me.
That I will just ruin you is just another way of saying I will eventually love you.
Chaos is just another word, unrequited is just ten letters, but risk is all too close.
You will try to paint me another smile, to cover up for past mistakes.
And I will flake, revealing the ugly layers underneath.
This masterpiece was just another study.
Another shamble in the pile.
Mar 4, 2017
Mar 4, 2017 at 9:50 AM UTC
Someone once told me that I was "for keeps". I've never been a fan of any type of label, but I've wondered how he had shelved me in two words.
I've sought out its meaning. Maybe it was the same as how he was always proud of his vintage toy collection. I was there for his quartlery dose of nostalgia. The novelty of us was something that made him grin.
It could be how another liked to treasure letters from lovers past. Only to flood himself in regret. The names and faces garbled in the salt water.
I learned it was not the same as how my neighbour cut the thorns of the rosebushes, and left the buds for him to adore. He always kept the scissors by his bedside.
The only things I have managed to keep are my pinky promises, my drafts from two years ago, and my used bandaids. It's embarassing to recount how unmade, unfinished, and uncertain I've been.
But if I were to love you, I will not tell you you are worth keeping. Holding you would be selfish to the universe. I cannot possess your thoughts and your soul, your charm will pour itself from my grandmother's china. Pictures will not be taken. Maybe just one, to show my friends the uncanny resemblance you share with my favorite poet. I will unknowingly breathe you in, only to heave heavy sighs into your mouth.
We will thrive among white lies and speak about tomorrows with fistfuls of hourglass sand in our pockets. We will borrow light and pay in forms of miles we need to walk.
I have never wanted to be called a keeper, nor have I ever wanted to keep. The world can only afford to lend beautiful pieces of itself.
Feb 4, 2017
Feb 4, 2017 at 9:21 AM UTC
Come, closer
Linger
in this gap made for one. I've cleared
myself just for you, bearing
familiarity and pulsing forgiveness.
Place your hand
on my shoulders and leave it that way
until the light drives out the crows outside my bedroom window.
Succumb to my passion
and scorch yourself
on unabridged fever. You'll map
unchartered territory and traverse on nostalgia.
I'll let you scar me
with melancholy, if you take me
up on my offer.
Jan 29, 2017
Jan 29, 2017 at 10:30 AM UTC