It's just you here
With this open wind

And a thought that craves to be embraced
By the arms of a voice daring enough
To bring it out into the open

It's just you here
With a beating heart harmonizing with the sea

Among waves of silenced love
and whispers of forgotten dreams
That colour this terracotta sand

It's just you here
Under the broken sky

A crying heart calls out to you
Looking for consolation
So, you put your hand on your chest.

Reminding it,
It's just you here

And you are alive

I miss the sweetness of writing
When words would untangle these corroded arteries
And bring relief to the pain left behind
By the dying starlight

I dust off recollections of our past
Dressed in all black
Stretching my limbs into a new atmosphere
Remembrance is pinned onto my beating heart

If I ask you to hold my hand
And walk me through this dark tunnel
Would you become the flicker of light
That I dream of at night?

There is a canvas made of broken sky
Covered in dust left behind by the sunset
Pigments swirl in these hopeful hands
I crave to paint, write, and leave behind colorful impressions

But these words have inhabited
The rivers of blood within me
And they flow from thought
To dream
To lungs
To sky,
sea,
and breeze
Then
All the way
Back to me

Let's liberate this silence
Let it blemish with the smoke
Coming off of the cooling coal
That once burned
in the wake of unvoiced promises

Somehow, you and I have managed to exchange dreams,
fears, and beliefs with one simple unspoken conversation

And now words cascade
Down rivers of my arteries and veins
Toward the palm of your hands
Hold them close
(I never intended to let them go)

But it seems that with every nonverbal exchange
A string of understanding ties us together
And there is nothing left in my power that I could do

To save us from the falling sky, splinters of moon,
and blankets of midnight blue

To the distances I could not go for you
I will say a thing or two
Maybe you will find in the vast field of canola
The same sun kissed reasons
For leaving behind the love of all seasons
To tremble in the wake of one

To the white noise we befriended
You hand-in-hand with silence
Wear the stars like midnight bloom
The sun avoids our encounters
And we become the founders
Of bordered misunderstandings

Blooming flowers, spring's demise,
Winter creeps inside your eyes
I would have left everything behind
If it weren't for this unsettled mind
But these vast fields of distances grow
Through the skies and soil above and below

And I, drowning in dreams of tomorrow,
Have lost the map I was meant to follow

Tell those distances I have yet to know
That I'm still learning how to let go

The winds have run away from us
Sailboats and feelings of incompleteness
Are now what we call home
Blue skies kiss the scabs on my knees
I've fallen many times while you were ahead of me
The distance stretches its limbs into the unknown
And I follow the quiet heartbeat
reverberating through my bones

If you listen closely, its reciting those words
And promises I once made to my broken self
It tells me all about my journey across the vast strait
That drains into the storm-loved sea
That bubbles and roars under my skin
I walk through fires and biting forests
As I make my way through everything that I fear

I walk these steps, holding you near
Prayers for you on my tongue
Evaporate into the open breeze
Carrying the hope that you make it through
Everything that obstructs your peace

With an overcast sky, summer warns us
the moon stops by for a brief conversation
before taking its leave, replaced by the sun
I stitch together sheep counts, Z's, and dreams
but these days drag into my subconscious
and streams of melancholy drain into one

You shake your head, watching me
it seems I have mistaken midnight gloom
for rain clouds and thunderstorm doom
Summer's warnings, now clear as day,
everything they were meant to say
I tend to overthink and underthink everything we are

When winter comes,
with endless hours of midnight
maybe then, I will have enough time
to consolidate what we are destined to be
unmistakably

Between you and this dying world
Are boats carried by tidal waves
Built from pieces of love you left behind
You keep moving toward the horizon
As their anchors fall into deep ocean
Strings of forgotten fears hold you back
And prayers, from when you were lost,
Take your hand, tell you stories, and bring you back to where the sun said its final goodbyes
And you, covered in terracotta and blue
Begin to sink in the sapphire gloom
As whatever remains from your dreams
Keeps you afloat and clouds disappear
The stars bloom from midnight grey
Illuminating the way home
All for you

Dream, tell me
what have you heard
from the gossiping stars?
did they let my wishes
fall into the hands
of hummingbird nests?
did the quiet ocean blue
bring waves of things untrue?
Were you deceived by piano keys
lingering songs & eulogies?
Does the sun cleanse your lethargy
or are you like me?
Where it never reaches you in time
before everything fades to a quiet dark
tell me, Dream.

Reckless, in a cloud of bloom
Ocean salt from seeping wounds
Eroded sands and mindless chats
Raised eyebrows, and an empty hand
My pulse, waves of emanating pain
In the troughs, is the space
You placed your absence within

Fortresses of shy encounters
Built around memories of happenstance
My cloudy speech and murmurs of nonsense
Infiltrate the speck of soil that still remains
Barren land, and you, a seedling of perseverance
Have found an impossible way
To grow
In my aching heart

You always carried me home with your gaze
In your laughter I could float freely with all my fears left to drown in the sea of your reassurances
I slept in my dreams clutching the threads of my tears
So that in my wakefulness,
I can embroider them onto the fabric of a forgotten past
To keep the memory of your name within reach
So that when I whisper it into the sea breeze
Everything once cultivated grows inside of me
And a garden scape of indescribable ease
Is complete with streams of water that run
from your heart to my shaking hands

What becomes of these fleeting reunions?
Do they wash away with the sea salted sand
and becomes fragments of a conversation once had
Do they transform into the sugar in your coffee,
or the honey in your tea,
and compel you to never forget about me?
Or do they live in this rustling wind
that picks fights with your consciousness
and leaves you in a state of rumination
between the present and the past?

Here we are at a crossroads
Separated by clouds of silence
We've exchanged laughs, stories, and condolences
You carried your virtues on your back
And I held my shortcomings in my hands
The horizon calls out your name
Waking the moon that sleeps in your eyes
Your light has guided us through the midnight grey
And this trail winds down to a story's end
Fireflies guide you home toward the moonlit sea
Where thoughts and prayers take the shape of water
And boats built from your benevolence
Take you to rest with the roots of your dreams
As I accompany the fog through woven forests
I echo your humming in this silent night
Building the distance that was written to be
I walk, lost in reflection, toward an unknown


And quietly,
my soul follows you home

You have always given me enough space
For my laughter to stretch it's healing bones
I don't have much in the corners where I reside
Besides enough room in this soul of mine
For the both of us to sit and recline

I don't have much space in this beating heart
It's still under repairs and renovations
But I will find a way to stretch it thin
To let it's shadow cast over you
And shield you from the glaring sun

From whatever remains..

I massage the black seed oil into my hair
love the way it reminds me of my mother's fragrant laugh
And the way her soft hands stretch the dough
And she sprinkles kalonji onto it where the melting butter
welcomes the seeds with open arms

I braid this ocean breeze into my itching scalp
Thinking of how she would sit me down
And run her fingers through my knotted hair
After I played outside without a care
And I would shriek in pain with every pull,
desperate to leave her grasp
But she would pour the mustard seed oil onto her palms
And I would be transported into her tough love

Now I think about those moments,
And the pain feels like distant menthol induced haziness
Instead, all I feel is my back against her warmth

—————————————————————
Kalonji - Black Seed/Onion Seed

Here's to the ephemeral nights carried away by the sounds of birds.
While you were tracing constellations in your popcorn ceiling
I was drowning in the midnight blue, thinking of love,
And how the shape of water reminds me of you,
I packed a bag of dreams for the bus ride down your memory road
To keep me occupied in your dreamscape world
as I chased remnants of wished-upon dandelions
back to the backyard where our laughter still circled with the wind
only to find you waiting with our two-handed promises still knotted together
the dreamscapes shed around us
and sunrise glow burned through our souls
shoulders hunched by weighted confrontations
night escaped hours ago, but I, desperate to hang on, drown in day-glow
My memories and dreams have melted into motion blur
And thoughts of you carry them away to the moon.


I am back to where you left me last, taking reality on a walk,
As a long summer day saunters ahead.

Fireflies float in lightless rooms,
Spelling out words with fluid constellations
And my heart still tender from afternoon
Drugged up and fussed with the want of rain
Interprets these flecks of dancing
as love letters to pain

I think of dreaming and I think of you
Somewhere basking in summer rain
While I fall for foolish stories
written on the windows of a midnight train
These conversations that go nowhere
heavily soaked in honey stick to my tongue

These whisperings float in pools of ink
Like the daunting midnight sea,
But i'm too far gone into this dream state
Yet ready to drown, before I can hesitate,
In this ocean that you call home

We, birds in pain,
Put our trust in branches
Too weak to hold the weight of these dreams
This saffron grief is too fragrant
For our evergreen pine noses.
The everyday calamity
The everyman dream
Burns through the soil in our lungs,  
Memories of summer are now lost in September rain.
I am here dreaming of mending hearts
That have braved more than they can bear
But these drooping eyelids
Are stuck in endless night cycles
Of listening to the sounds of misery

Little footsteps in this moon dust sand,
I chase my memories as they flee my grasp,
Racing the clouds to embrace the sun.

A heart, content, is left on your doorstep,
I hope, someday, the person you are meant to become will trace back the way I came and exchange the goodbyes we once hung
out to dry.

But until then, here in this momentary stillness
An opportune silence blooms into this heart of mine,
And it seems I've misplaced it in your moonlit palm

You sit here on this night, reclining on the moon,  
Sleep inhabiting your eyes but your stubborn heart still beats the rhythm of a thousand days of recollection,
You dwell on the remnants of departed mornings still beaded onto this horizon line,
Dipping your feet into the sunrise, embracing the coolness of the morning wind,
Nothing stands between you and reality;
Flesh is fleeting, it is memories that house the graves of love.
So, you pick flowers to pay your respect, leaving the stagnant solace of this momentary life behind

Do you remember when tunneling ravines would flow through our stomachs before we spoke out into the open?
And how vigorously tapping our feet felt like the only way to shake the mountains, daring to bury us alive...
or how when cold shoulders felt like judgment harmonized
and yet the dissonance euphonized in our ears as we swept our heads back into the open arms of the universe,
engulfed by inescapable laughter  

Now things are different; you wear your heart on your sleeve, washing the shores of people and things that scare you with your perpetual confidence,

and I proudly observe in wonder and admiration...

Distantly tapping my feet, fighting ravines, and laughing alone.

I reached into my chest
To free these sutures of moonglade
Reaching deep into the pulse
That is sinking into this still water
My boat, tethered to my hands
Cuts its ties, taking this heart
Deep into the moonlit sea

Between us and this dying world
Are conversations and stuttered words
That we left in the hands of midnight breeze
I float in your laughter, too light
to be weighed down by my fears
We lay under this sea of stars
Pointing into the sky
Casting nets into this galaxy of dreams
Calloused hands caress this wind
As stories pour out of our limbs
And we wash away yesterday's storm
Waiting for the sun to rise
Basking in the terracotta sky
Asleep against the coolness of the ground
Smiles still remnant on our face
And in all this was a heavy heart
That you pulled out from my chest
Held it in your palm as you slept
And I existed in your ease

Somewhere in the tremor of this monsoon rain
Your heart itched in remembrance
And denial took its hands away from your eyes
and so, you cried,
you cried a mountain of tears
Enough to fill the gardening pots
When you watered your roses
With salted despondency
And the flowers began to wilt
You realized to set these dreams free
But even then, they were too far within
Like the arteries in your chest
Keeping you alive

Thank you, for everything.
Despite this rain that thunders in my heart
Your sheltering love will never be forgotten
I'll walk down these streets of motion blur
Thinking of you with every streak of light
And when this rain starts to pour on you too
I'll be waiting with my apologies
For this fragile heart is still learning to heal
It tends to scratch at anything new
It hides away when shown some love
And when your sun rays scare it away
It'll come back to hold the umbrella over your head
It might not be everything but it's all it can do
This broken heart will heal for you

These fingers trace dust
that glistens in this fractured light
over old frames
crafted with beads and pink glue
glitter fell onto our laps
as we rattled this earth with our laughs
where did the time go
when we held it so tight?
yet it still disappeared, out of our sight  
now I look for you in bus windows
I listen for you in those youthful laughs
Holding onto these moments
wiping away the ashes
of these burnt recollections
from my shaking hands

Morning collapses into night
with emotions scattered on the ground
here we are kneeling down
picking up the pieces,
throwing them into pools of midnight
This bitter honey sleeps on my tongue
my words unfiltered
build static charge
in these exchanges
through which this current flows
I'm left wondering, if within your eyes
I can find the pain that you disguise
if i can pull it out from this
reservoir of sunset dyes
and stain it with the words I left inside
will it bloom into the flowers
we would pick and laugh over
to hide the butterflies
circling this unknown that we once denied?

Morning collapses into night
with emotions scattered on the ground
here we are kneeling down
picking up the pieces,
throwing them into pools of midnight
This bitter honey sleeps on my tongue
my words unfiltered
build static charge
in these exchanges
through which this current flows
I'm left wondering, if within your eyes
I can find the pain that you disguise
if i can pull it out from this
reservoir of sunset dyes
and stain it with the words I left inside
will it bloom into the flowers
we would pick and laugh over
to hide the butterflies
circling this unknown that we once denied?

Palms of ocean blue
This sinking boat
Me and you
Hands tied to sheltered love
We float on our backs
Toward shallow waters
Dipping our toes
Into wet sand
Hanging our feet
Off the edge
Of these coastal cliffs
Reaching for the horizon
Tying together strings of current
That exists between
these distant conversations
a rush of turquoise
runs through our blood
cooling down the fire
that rages within
our anger subsides
and we start floating
toward togetherness

Water dripping down dark canals
I sit here expelling all the words soaked by my skin
Through the rainwater spout
Of this house I built
Foundations of fallen dreams
Rustle like newborn earthquakes under my feet


Something peculiar about these tainted windows
The goosebumps you left on me
The frame of this thesis that I have yet to write
About all the denial
and the six stages of grief that feast on my wrath


I am too far gone into the black
That I cannot forgive myself
For losing everything that made me
I threw our dreaming into the fire
and traded it for contentment


The pain of this aching desire
To become whole again
I threw it all into the fire
That burns this little house
And I carry the luggage
That you tied to my shoulders
with those arguments that sleep on my eyelids


somewhere I go, but nowhere creeps close
these maps are fading, and so are you
this exile is burning everything into ashes of tunnel vision
but what am I to do with these vestiges?
Seedlings of some light
The feeling of forest pine
The wandering scent of still fog


The petrichor under this damp earth
Calls my name and yours too
Should we just lay here on this black sand beach,
And build a new house from yesterday's dreams?

All I can think about
Are the things we would do
If I had moved the mountains
That buried you
I pieced you back together
With shrapnel from the glass
Stained with the pigment
From under my eyes  
Restless from this rustling wind
Anxious and bitter cold
I feel like the whistle
That rings in your ear
As you lay there
Under the weight
Of broken words  
Trying to forget the sunrise
That looms too close
With your sleep captive
In its marmalade palm

These years, they ask us questions
answers that tomorrow never knows,
held in the arms of yesterday.
The weight of this dreaming
pushes the clouds onto the ground
and our fleeting conversations
with this flooding rain
breaks the boats we built
that were already too unfit
for this ocean between the clocks we build
and the time we chase

Seconds go by in tender bliss
We smell roses and stain our hands with
crushed petals.
Declarations of life long rumination
live between the distance in our
exchanged affirmations.
Happiness opens its undisguised embrace
As the silence between our spoken words
fills the gaps of our stuttered promises.

Drifting deeper into this September dust
It’s been a thousand nights of wide open eyes
Waking up to sounds of December dreams
Your hands shaking in this frail wind
As you try to steady your heart beat
To match the stagnancy of these cold encounters
But the little things hurt too much
And the little thoughts dissolve into your atmosphere
Faster then the rain on your skin
Drifting deep into these November nights
A thousand days of rehearsing the right words to say
When all the words you knew too well are too big to house in these hours you dwell in
So you sink into this mud made of spring
Running from a winter that craves your honesty
Your reflections sit here in this fractured mirror
Waiting for you to break this inner silence

We run through golden drops of sunlight
with reminders tied around our wrists
memories in baskets of woven wind
Tomorrow chases us
as we chase yesterday
The synchronicity of our steps
becomes the rhythm of time
lost in the streets of reality
while navigating maps of wonder
our lives are repelling forces
that now face the immobility
of our desire for freedom
so what's left? Besides you
running toward this morning sky
and me, sinking in a shallow sea
of words and puzzles, that time built for
you and I

In the allure of this thin air
Streetlights tell stories
Of snowflakes and rain drops waltzing
You put out your hand
Threads of your heart
Fall into place like hourglass sand
Hoping to catch some remnants of time
But on these darkest nights
Where dawn seems to have faded
Into the midnight sky
We count snowflakes
As if counting sheep
Falling asleep to the sound
Of the beating hearts on our sleeves

Your shadow picks roses,
as you sit under the thunderclouds
that follow your melancholic movements
your reflections from the past
pick stars from the sky to build their dreams
yet you are too busy searching for sleep
because nothing seems to be
what it used to mean
now you sit here wondering
How you got so far away from yourself

but on these roads you walk on, rain or shine
I will find those reflections you can't seem to find
and we will walk home together to the places you used to go
to remind you that where you are in your sorrows,
is never where you'll always be

Lungs outlined with blue feathers
Ready to take off and fly
My fingertips like silk
Are incapable of holding on to anything
For too long

What can you hold against me?
Ghost stories I should've never shared?
Or that every time I dream out loud
I always seem to miss your outreached hand

What can you hold against me?
Besides this ache in every bone
That whispers to my soul
To let go for once, and try flying alone

I simmer in this silence
My hands ache to write something
But words dissolve into my surroundings
Before reaching my fingertips
I try to translate my dreams
Into palatable conversations
But I've lost them to anxious deciphering

Can you take this faded heartbeat,
and pour it into the white noise,
that puts you to sleep?
As I lay here
Held captive by a permanent dawn
That rests under broken skies.

To dance under this broken moon
Is when speckled stars and old fascinations
Come together to put back pieces you
Shining a light on this midnight blue
That infuses your wounds

Ten thousand years can't save you now
So, leave behind this moonlight melancholy
Find the hands of those you've loved
Those that hold you in their eyes
Hold onto them,

In the empty space you used to breathe

Little signs
Waiting at the airport
Watching planes fly
You and I
And this dying sunlight
I’ve been looking for trees
Forests, green
You have been chasing seas
Everything blue and never seen
So, what are we to do,
With this continental divide?
Your arrival
Is my departure time
Your goodbye
Is sunrise
On the other side
Of the world
That lays asleep
Between
You and I

You've left me here
In pools of honey and vanilla
Dreaming of London fog
Holding onto chamomile evenings
With every last breath
Orange pekoe on my tongue
Thoughts of you like jasmine flowers
Warm water and green tea
Something hibiscus and peach
Floating like little worlds
Surrounding me as I drown
In this romanticized life
Watching you swirl your spoon
In everything
We said
Was not our cup of tea

You stand on one side of this
Mountain,
And I stand here,
Where fields of memorial Howers grow
Where colours blend into cobblestoned paths
To make hopscotch grids,
And carry children's laughs
Tell me where you go
When I try to reach out
For your cold hands
How easily you fade to memory
How easily It all fades to black
I find myself far from this mountain
Back into my restless eyes
Where I left reflections
Of you, my dear past.

Do you watch the sky
The way I
Watch memories rewind
And sink your hand
Into pools of midnight sea
Searching for wet sand
Rocks and seashells
To build a clock tower
On the edge of this receding shore
That rests half in my heart
And half in yours
And gaze for dawn
While swimming in these
Pools of sapphire blue
dreams?

Between us and this divided sea
Between us and this dying sun
Between us and this pale blue sky
Between us and the raging tide
Between us and running time
Between us and yesterday's dreams
Between us and tomorrow's sleep
Between us and the drying leaves
Between us and winter's grave
Between us and summer's taste
Between us and this beating heart
Between us and what's beneath
Are the remnants of our interlaced
Fingers
Still holding onto
Love
Hope
And some reason to
Breathe

Let's lay in the grass
And think about spring
Think about dandelions
When they still look like the sun
Let's laugh like when we were silent
Fill in the voids of winter
With senseless chatter
Let's talk about feelings
And push away barricades
Let's put down our weapons
And roll down this hill
Let's put this fading
Friendship
Back into the stormy grey
And let it
Rejuvenate
With the tears
That were shed
As We
Reunited

You stole my fears
crushed their petals
to make a paint
that you use
to wash over this blank canvas
that is me,
when I am too afraid
too pensive
you surrender
to my hopeless hands
holding them in your palms of sand
brushing the tears
from tomorrow
onto this blank canvas
that is me.

Thoughts of you rain down with the falling sky
Onto my skin, it soaks it in
Thoughts of you take the shape of water
Then transform into paper boats
And drown in our conversations
My memory becomes subject to erasure
You extract poetry from forgotten moments
Thoughts of you hold my hand when I’m lost
And mold into a compass when I’m in need
of remembering something that was good for me

In these clay-covered hands
I hold the last droplets of water
We laugh off the miseries
Drinking steaming tea
Stepping into pools of mud
Purposefully
Laughter on a leash
Follows us wholeheartedly
We hold onto the clouds
So that we don’t fall asleep
And miss these terracotta skies
That match our skin
Where within transcribed
Are hopes and dreams
A flower you are
So preciously delicate
And I’m here praying
That whatever I have left
Is enough to
Sustain
Your growth
Out of this midnight grief

My heart, tethered to the ground
Beats in anticipation
It desires to listen to the melodies  
That colour the wind
When you decide to return home
Where you left the best parts of your dreams
And you pack them up
Ready to take them to the moon

I think, those wrinkles on your face
The ones you want to erase
The ones that appear with every laugh
Are waiting to be shaped
Into musical notes
That form the melody
Of the sound of healing