I would here stories about soldiers
Those who wouldn't just fight
They would pull triggers with their speech
Their words were their weapons
Their eyes were their smiles
Their souls held lives
Of those to whom they vowed
To keep all promises
And hold onto justice
Peace in a quiet world
Will always be loud

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

When daylight settles onto the back window. Right through the little crack, it tears itself apart into an array of color, splayed all over the hardwood floor. Outside is nice and lovely, winter grabbed its coat last week and signed off on the year. I haven't gone outside yet, I'm afraid that if I do, I may never want to come back in. What if the sensation of a new spring grips around my feet, pulling me toward the soil. What if we accidentally let ourselves fall so far into a new ground, that we begin to root and grow. I stay sitting at the table right beside my thoughts. Someone said something about change once, but my throat tickles every time I try to re-introduce myself. All this to say, I'm not afraid of the spring or what it might bring, or how sweet its fruit. I don't want to open the door, because I worry winter's still standing on the other side. Before I knew it, it would say, "I think I forgot something" and settle back in with us. A fresh sheet of snow clouds would blanket the daylight, and all its colors would fade. I shake off the chill. I guess I'll stay here, and look from inside out.

Pictures of you: saturated. In motion blur.
we cast nets into the ocean of lights
to catch flames and fireballs
that ignite to the sound of rain
and resist their inherent nature
to extinguish
and so do you,
in rebellion

I always wondered,
Why in my culture, we wore a red
And not a white
Then I remembered she is a woman
Her blood is rinsed with sacrifice
And on the day of matrimonial happiness
She shall bleed out
Maybe it’s a cry for change,
Or maybe it’s compromise in its most crimson reflection
But when her hands are stained with henna
And her arms laced in embroidered elegance
Does her blood begin to change?
And if it doesn’t, will she be thrown away
Like the burden on her fathers head?
That chokes him from the day she was born to the day she is wed
Is that why her mother once wore the colour red?
I think to myself,
a lamb bleeds too when it’s cut for it’s meat,
And then it’s coat is no longer light
Is that why she wears red and not white?

I found myself lost in the wind
The coldness creeping up my skin
Right through the threads of my clothes
And I remembered just how free I was
Amongst the raining leaves and swaying grass
It felt like I had left everything once at last
Wondering if the wind could carry me back to my mind
So that I could gather my thoughts and be redefined

I lay here searching for wakefulness
hours after sunrise.
Outside, remnants of a soft pink rest
among new-born grey clouds,  
And embers of a morning sun fade away.

I admire the transitioning sky, remembering how this life is a mystifying blur made of hellos and goodbyes.

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

Paint the colours of the haunting sky,
With the breeze that ignites your fire,
The seas that whisper your words
And put me sound to sleep.

Paint me with colours of love,
The velvet reds of a rose bud,
The pink lips of a cherry blossom tree,
And the cayenne of your fairytale dreams

Paint the universe with your glow
The one that colours you when you dream
Covers your eyes when you sleep
And dances on your skin when you smile

I’ll admire the landscapes you’ve left for me
Write your name in that stars when I fall sleep
Keep the taste of your remembrance on my tongue
And recite it in your memory to the curious mind
The one that asks where you’ve been all this time

You’ve befriended discomfort,
Left behind your childhood streets,
only to walk down dark foreign ones.
You kiss away your mother tongue,
Surrendering to an unfamiliar one.

                      ...............

Your battles are carved into my blood vessels
and I will carry them with me
as reminders of patience and faith

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?

Where the atmosphere meets blooming water
and boats of paper mache dock
You carry your dreams in a garbage bag  
waiting for an eclipse
to sew back together
your words of reconciliation that you sold
in exchange for hopeless daydreams
when you were too afraid of the aftermath
of healing

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

Dancing on the edge of the horizon
A sea breeze looks for love
You watch pensively,
A paintbrush in your hand
Your feet soaking in painted waters
And you,
Encapsulated by the freedom of the wind,
That you have only seen in your dreams,

you fall in love with life all over again

You’ve grounded yourself to match the subtlety of the earth’s morning shadows

Your heart feels swollen, it’s filled with love for the little things

And you can longer separate yourself from the line that divides love and hate

So you live your life using every lens available to look at foreign objects

And you find yourself overlooking a sea of borders, so you divide yourself into fragments

And now you stare at your reflection,
what are you besides fractals of foreign colour?

What are you besides lost in translation, waiting for a narrative?

So you rinse away the lines that separate your hopefulness and hopelessness

And you look towards the sea, somewhere in the distance, foreign shadows begin to erase the continental divides in your mind

And you take your first breath as someone....

....not something.

Underneath the moonlight you’d sit
Somewhere where roses would be
Just so you could smell them at night
And in some other corner of the world
I sat surrounded by the sea
Of your wave like memories
Soaked like petals in pouring rain
I’m dreaming of blossoming
And taking away your pain

Someone used to say
That spring begins and ends
Like a transient midday breeze

When the colour of the tulip fades
To an old pale yellow
You, grown out of your sorrow
Will stand ahead of the horizon
Ready to live, ready to breathe

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

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

Amidst the September blues,
And cold aching wind
That lingers around your bones,
A hopefulness lives
Bright in your eyes,

Reminding you of the dreams you will meet, when you begin to feel alive.

I’d look upon the hollow sky
Watching the birds fly by
Feeling like a lone wolf on a crowded street
dreaming of the traveler’s breeze
Letting the heat touch my covered skin
With all my mind sunk in the blue sea
I’ll be somewhere the birds would be
When winter strikes my hollowed heart
I’ll find places with dreamers like me
Looking upon the hallow sky
Drowning in crowded places
Made for people with hopeless dreams
And I’ll walk through the rain
Ripping through the man made seams
And find my place  in the hallow sky
Where I could fly in a traveler’s dream
Alone no more, just being me.

The time when the sky is greyed to hues of poignant blue
And the mist haunts the the ground
The cool breeze slitthers around your ears with secrets and stories to tell
When warmth is just a distant memory
And the sun seems to have escaped the endless loop of its cycle
Yet it's not night nor is it day
It's not dawn nor dusk
It's when you unravelled in the chaos of the dead leaves
And payed your debts with blankets of ice
But your grudges held their place in your sleepless nights
And your restlessness laughed in the face of forgiveness
Your stubbornness smirked at the idea of redemption
Yet you still wondered why peace escaped you.

Sounds of silence,
They swim in weak goodbyes,
They linger in the corners of hatred,
They dance in the light of ignorance,
they lounge in peaceful loneliness,
Sounds of silence,
They're always there,
written in every story
drawn in every picture
Silence
It kills

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

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.

Under the sea of stars
Lay remnants of departed days
From a past up in flames
And smoke transforms
Into clouds that armour your darkest nights

"A melancholy grows, and it's swathed in nostalgia.”

"Why is that?"

"With every day that rains, it is September again... the month of endings.”

"Or new beginnings."

"I haven't laughed like this in forever."

"Me neither."

The laughter continued reverberating, threading itself into the wind and dispersing across the city glow. A moment of peace followed, and your company was a comfort, with each laugh we exchanged transforming into a life vest keeping me afloat.

"I hope you find ease."

"This discomfort is temporary, and that is the beauty of time. I have found my ease in that mere thought."

"But pain is pain."

"And it passes, like grief, it buries itself deep within, growing its roots and blooming into gardens, disguised as triumphs and memories.”

Do you, too, like to stare at the moon,
chandeliers and *** lights?
when your eyes feel
like they belong to a sculpture
stuck in place, tunnel vision
Do you, too, make moonlight out of street lamps,
and use dreams to feed the craving
of meaningful existence?

Skies were always fascinating
Them with their blue hues
Brightness in even the darkest navy
Accented with silver twinkle
Or giants made of pillow softness
The whitest mattresses in the sky
But it always daunts me how skies are grey
With their plush blues
Gone to waste
The doom of smoke comes to play
But then comes the tears of those enchanted
With droughts and disparity
But grey skies don't always cry
Not the ones that smoke you dry
They force the water out of smiles
Those who couldn't revoke
No one asks to be blown up by the mist of our greed
And for a second there is fire but the rest is just need
Sadness wanders beautiful cities
Whilst their people are broke
Burning the happiness of children on the streets
Or whatever is left of them
So When I look up
At night or day
And see the blue is here today
and with my fear I look up high,
My god, thank you for a clear blue sky

You would say something about the push and pull of every day. And we would plop down with ideas. Think of this and think of that.
Throwing words like imagine and wouldn't it be amazing out into the open. You would even make plans, with patterns and colours for something to go on your wall, your own wall, whenever you'd have a wall. How many of those open docs do you have on your computer, with half-finished chapters and riveting denouements? I know it's hard to believe the people we once used to be. And sometimes fistfuls of carpet can feel like your only way to grip onto the world. Sometimes it feels easier to tear yourself limb from limb than look for your voice. It feels easier to sink into your bed, asleep or searching for sleep than to walk the miles ahead. Waking up every morning, de-shelling yourself, and stepping outside of who you are and used to be can make your bones ache deeply. There isn't much to say about the push and pull of everyday, except that there is a wall, your wall, and it's blank.

I leave empty spaces of crowded stillness
In hopes that past promises can sew themselves
into the embroidered stitches
of your wise words
And you speak to me, unbound
A heavy heart in your hand
And I carry it, quietly, searching for its rhythm

To bind the books
I have written in a consciousness
about all the little things
that manage a heavy weight
the things I pour into my mouth
along with the endlessness
and swish it around like mouthwash
hoping to taste the peculiar flavour of wonder
enough to forget the pain from
dunking my hands into buckets of wood chips
and fishing around for the next steps
retracting my fingers from future mess
that are now covered in the challenge
of scarring and healing

The words once spoken,
scattered beyond Mediterranean shorelines,
I can feel them like whispers of the wind  
As the sun, the wind, and all the birds carry
Spoken promises in dire need of healing,
And despite my racing thoughts
paralleled to my feet,
telling me to face the other direction,
I still held out my shaking hands,
To put you back together again,
even when my fingers were bleeding

I yearn to see the starry sky
And admire their sparkle in your eyes
But every night is cloudy blue
As the stars only seem to follow you
But I don’t blame them for their wonder
Because if I was a star or even the sea
And I could move ever so freely
I would flow along with every wave
And find myself right by your grave
And when I’d look up at the moon
someday, somewhere very soon
The stars would find their way to you

I think im stuck on the ground
there is no getting away
I'm trying leave in silence
but the stars block my way

I’ve been trying to leave in silence
Escape the ruthless routines
Take my belongings and run off in to the sky
Hide my fears and escape before sunrise
But every time I find myself half way there
The ground grips my feet and my eyes start to stare
And I find myself entranced by the wonders of the universe
For every time I run, I come back for another day
I try to leave in silence but I can’t seem to escape
every time I try, the stars block my way
And they always take me home, where my heart tends to stay

In hopes that this reaches you when you need it most

A message soaked in echoes, reminders, and hope
Lathered with the perfume of nostalgia
Floats back and forth between my mind and heart
Out from the arteries, back through the veins
Shaped and reshaped into paper trains
Thought bubbles and mind maps
All muddled into flashcards
Something in there might say: I have dreams for you
And maybe if in some way
You can decipher all this mess
You'll find the speech bubble, bullet point, and quiz question
written just for you that says in someway:
1 believe, and believe, and go on believing
Everyday
In you.

Summer rain descends to the ground
Hope rests on each droplet
And you watch as it fades into your skin  
Slowing your anxious pulse
As you waltz with the idea of blooming

You soak your sun-dried dreams in rose water
And bead them onto strings of premature promises
You once made to your naïve self,
Despite your love for dreaming
The summer moon’s quick departure
Leaves you stranded at train stations
And you make your way back through fields
Of distant memories
Looking for ways to fall asleep

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?

Oh sunflower soul,  
You chase the daylight
Looking for hope in bright blues.

You tremble with the thought of a dark night,
But the stars have come out
amidst the navy blues.

A crescent moon becomes the silver lining,  
And a trail of streetlights twinkle like surface stars lighting your path as you walk toward

dreams you’ve been waiting to meet

I’ll surrender my thoughts to you
They didn’t mean much anyway
But I know you’ll find a way to break them
And find what they really have to say

I’ll surrender my doubts to you
They still hold some pieces of my heart
And I know that you will take a few
And give it to the world

I’ll surrender my heart for you
For it’s already damaged enough
But I know that you will fix it
It’s what you’d do for love

Remember me?
We talked last year,
I was the cold
And you were still here,
I would talk about my dreams
And you’d disappear
And as I would dream
I’d look for ways to keep,
My hands entangled in your destiny
But I guess it was never meant to be
I was the cold, and you were the sea
And wherever I am, you’d never be

Take me to another time
When “grand” was small
And you were mine
Take me to the quiet nights
The ones that would keep me talking for days
Back to when the sun would shine
Straight into your lost eyes
And we would talk like morning birds

Back to when I’d miss your face
But now I tend to feel alone
When you’re here and when you’re gone
Now I seem to speak in silence
Whisper my dreams to your eyes
But you’re fading behind my walls
The ones you thought you tore down
They only got stronger with time
Take me back to when we were
Something that I’d never seen

But...

Now you’ve disappeared behind these walls
On your way to another dream

I saw the constellations in your dreams through a telescope

The navy blue skies that reside in your eyes were painted with nebulas of hope  

A figure made of a million stars moved around to the music of your heart

And a dreamy eclipse wearing a ghostly white waited for a new start

With just one glance into your hopes,  I was staring at the sun, the moon and the ethereal skies

It seems I was looking into the windows of the galaxy to escape to a world of glowing fireflies

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

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