A warped mirror perhaps?
My face always twisted,
always grimacing behind a dry beam.
Two Tylenols are never enough.

Ella.
A lump caught in my throat.  
Her scent walks by,
uninvited, yet welcomed.

A blurred outline,
a cutout blocking the light.
I yearn to sweat nightmares
out of my pores.

At night, her voice still fogs
the thick wall of silence—
muffled.
“Are you listening?”
Obscured echoes stir
down the pit of this endless night.

Tulips grow somewhere
on the side of the bed,
where it whirrs and beeps,
and reeks of alcohol.  
But the night is ever still,
unperturbed, as it sleeps in my arms.

Murmurs drift like dust motes,
caught in a sunbeam—

Ella.
I chase shadows of her laughter,
fading out against gushing white noise.  
Fingers twitch to speak,
for words are somehow
lost in static.

The walls hum a song,
croaking with hurt it sounds—
“Stay with me,” it pleads,
but my indifference swallows
the words.

In the spaces between breaths,
I linger suspended.
Ella might be digging me out.

Not long ago
the twilight called you into her arms;
into to the depths of the unknown,
left your name in the care of this world
sweetest sound that leapt from your mother’s lips
and ours.
The tides where you are is unperturbed
by the mortal wind,
and in the clouds a garden sprawls
and thrives at the tip of its universe.
We can only imagine.
If such letter scribbled here shines a light; if our candles burn
may you find it a star in the night.


You are no more,
no more to share this borrowed life;
no more treading in the stream of time;
no more but with me still, stirring yet ever still,
shattered heart never heals.
as the last rays of the sun through the window of your room dim,
Your soul is lit up in our dreams,
as though a candle that eternally burns,
I bid time, return
for you my father had taken flight,
silence lingers in restless nights,
where you be, you be
for we shall have our time,
to reflect on this life; the endless sea
for too, shall we; in the crossroads meet the end of our journey: an inevitable destiny
and where you be, we be.

There are certain smiles that bend the broken crooked,

certain shades of green light that wilt flowers in the field.

It is an ‘as if autumn walked in with a jug of herbicide

and started perfuming life with death.’

Yes, certain smiles that stand on stilts to prop them up.

Smiles leaving someone so bent that they see nothing

save for dirt staring back at them.  

There are certain smiles that bend the broken crooked.

Us All

In hunger, my belly aches,
of clawed darkness, I’m afraid,
to forsee what is to come, I’m blind.
—just a reflection of all else.

On damp paper you may sit,
on thorned cushions someone may,
to the vast universe, insignificant.
—just a reflection of all else.

To linger, is in the hands of time,
but as the rest, home waits as death,
merits mortals with same eyes.
—just a reflection of all else.

Fields of wombs
grown on unsteady soil,
the ides of May, harvested
and cast into the fire.
The brand is seared
into the soul,
yet we scoff and sneer,
while we dangle on the branches
hanging on for our dear lives,
of the same burdened trunk;
of the same root that sired
us all.

—just a reflection of all else.

I have so often wondered why the rose in the yard kept being a rose when everyone else is a dandelion,
or why it would recite light when midnight is still in the land’s arms.

When the spring rages,
and the rain dry of its songs,
when the colors are famished
of their sky,
when the stars abed fail to rise,
this rose is unfazed.
ever flamboyant on the stage,
gliding gracefully on ebony ice,
this rose has a will of a cactus.

At times, you choke on your breath as you fall. Then, the lids of your eyes shoot open. A sneak preview of a nightmare. You were asleep all along.

Life is but a dream.

Sunset-amber flames curled from the cedar kindling of the great divine,
and lo, from an imperceptible dimension he crouches down to a wick,
you,
us,
them,
me,
on a wax of chance,
on dirt not far from the sun,
we hiss into being and flicker in the cold wind of uncertainty.

From this, a hard-earned lesson; a lifetime is spent reeling love into our arms until time pries them open and make off without yielding to consequence, save for us who are foolish enough to believe we can outlast it.

Who lived to ever tell?

Fracticous hours know not the pain of wasting away as it saunters by, leaving wilted hope frozen beneath its shadow.

Storm clouds in the horizon charged with crackling blue bolts that split trees in the open.

Grief flashes through our eyes like headlights bracing themselves against the graying sky metastasizing into darkness.

Moon-white hair, dyed by the endlessness of crossroads leading to nowhere, is sheared short, and shorter still until they fall limp on the scalp that cradled them.

One can only hope that their roots reach deep down into throbbing wisdom which a weary body has amassed over tumbles and falls.

We know not.
Some nostrils come powdered if only for a moment feel alive until it wears off.

Some hang on cliff of smokes sailing through the air if only for a moment artificially induce emotions other than loneliness.

Some wicks come bent, breaking dirt, submissive, submerged in salt water or oil for a chance to burn another way.

Still, there are those whose heels are filed by dust and sand, smoothening them perhaps, but praying they could be planted and hold flame elsewhere.

But there are wicks that are born with eyes weighed down by the ego and sights nailed to their chin and nose s anchored to the clouds.

Some wicks are coated tips, but in truth are fuses to fireworks that light up the skies. Often loud, leaving s stamp on time.

Some hide, losing themselves, they do.
Heinous crime against the essence of being.
Hiding behind an image that does not exist.
Hiding behind expectations.
Hiding behind a false construct and letting the play of light warm up and comfort misled believers.

Some pile up blocks of wood, glass, steel, silicon, and plastic, hoping to burn brighter but in the end just burn out like the rest.

Perhaps as wicks, we can light those who cannot for themselves, for those who are obscured by shadows, for those who are dampened by the downpour.

Perhaps the world wouldn’t be as dark. Even when the sun is going about her day.

We’ve been falling all eternity.
Life is but a dream.

Hi Eddie,
look me in the eye and hold my hand.
Sip the air slowly and breathe.
Eddie, I see the weight you carry,  
The silence that lingers when you speak,  
How love, like wind, slips through your open hands  and leaves you wondering where you belong.  
You are the lyrics and melody to my song.

My dear friend,
I can sense
your brokenness.
A thousand years that lived in our days
is not enough for you to mend,
you did all you could to blend,
still you were an outsider to them.

I know you’ve given
more than you received,  
and every time you try,
the door stays shut.  
But hear me now,
you’re not alone in this,  
I’m here, beside you,
as the shadows swells.
But I need you to believe.

Though they may turn
their backs
or look away,  
their blindness
cannot dim
the light you hold.  

It’s themselves
they are leaving to decay,
I’m near you
through the aging of the cold.

How I knew your story.
For every page that was dog-eared
I ached with you.
How could a playground
as innocent as children can be,
be an ecosystem for the cruel?
We often went home with you
mottled in blue.

You held your own and smiled,
but I knew deep inside
it is where
you were mostly bruised.

Behind those bright eyes,
are sustained notes on a string,
bent high enough then it
dove with an ululating vibrato.
I knew your soul was singing the blues.
But I was clueless about your truth.
Until time uprooted you.

I recall seeing you
hiding behind the bleachers
bawling your eyes,
wailing your inside out,
looking like a crumpled paper,
and you were.
As if you were a note
bearing tragic news
stinging the eyes of a reader
the way a coffee drinker
would burn his mouth
for being overly excited
to sip from an angry mug.
It was something you told
your mother and father.
“You were no child of theirs,”
is all they could utter
and while it left me bothered,
you tried brushing it off,
like those words didn’t matter.
Stood your ground,
against aches that could stain
you,
like you were a magic
eraser.

But you were a rogue moon,
pocked with millions and millions
of craters
drifting farther and father away
into deep space.
I recall sadness deeply
entrenched into your face.

Over time,
we grew taller;
not older.
How brazen of me to think
that just because our legs
grew longer
that they would be enough
to take us somewhere,
but I faltered to hear
you say that somehow the past
kept chasing you.
Fetters attached around
the feet of your heart
and it has been going on forever.
And in the mirror
is a stranger that you’ve
known longer
than you ever known yourself.
Seemingly stuck inside
of what was’ padded cell.
And how I wish I could help,
but to you swore not to tell.

So I must tell you.

But you are unbreakable.
I see it in you,
steady and untouched,
A quiet strength
that rises through the cracks.
You are enough,
even when they can’t see
The beauty of the soul
you show the world.
I’m here,
whenever you need to be heard,
when your heart aches
for words you’ll never hear.
Though I can’t make the
hurt disappear, I just wanted
to make it clear, I’m near. I’m here.

Lean into me
When like paper
the world feels too sharp,
that it seem to cut you in half.
When the silence is loud
and you feel unseen.
Know deep in my iris
you’ll see you in me.
Through storm
when the winds of doubt
snaps the sails
and you find yourself
cast away.
I’ll be your shore
throwing you a line,
Know that I see you, Eddie.

I’m sorry Eddie, but you’re not alone.

Warring colors busting at the seams,
the day-burnt sun's fists
sag and dip into the clouds,
weary of the battle the night has won.
And the night sired children,
restless as the dawn,
riveted the dark with metal sheets
and armed it with visions
of an obscured future
polluted with hollow promises
stirring in their minds.  
Hope lay dying,
dank with mold and blood,
her cries met with clogged ears
and barred doors.
They were against mother,
she who fills their bellies with
rice and corn,
she, who pours water onto their
glass to the brim,
she who softens their fall with
carpets of moss for their bed
and canopies for shade—betrayed
and thrown out with the wolves.  
Now these,
and what sorrow to behold
hands holding up their voice
snatched and pocketed
for a bushel of grain
to fend off pangs of hunger
away for days,
in return, all their tomorrows
until none to spare.
Mother why have they forsaken you?
You gave them life,
now they bring you death.

—e.d. maramat | erwinism

There is a constellation that knows you well, a piece of heaven that saw you take your first steps,
a clusters of stars that watched you fall asleep and hushed you when you dreaded the burst of darkness overhead.
They knew your story.
They sang your lullabies.
They fished out the moon out of the lake and washed off its impurities so you can hold soft light in your hands.
They braved the rabid bites of winter so they can fill your pockets with the sun.
They’ve always wanted you to sail North, away from the wasteland polluted with emptiness, upstream in a kayak, where the lakes sing your name.
Until like most stars, you dipped your toes in the pond and burnt out.
The stars they call you—reignite once again.

Could you pawn enough courage to smile and pretend that everything is going to be fine? Just this time. One last time.

While the lines are blurred, and cries inside unheard, know that as the end unfurls it is that way by design.

As we cower like cowards in corners we run towards the cracks as the daylight chases us to remind us of the debt we owe for squandering every streak of light  on fights and afternoon delights, you and I knew somehow, we needed a place to hide. In an obscured sense, it is that of saying goodbye.

When I set the pen down and let ink bleed into the parchment, when I twiddle my thumbs cognizant of the things I meant, much is pondered about why the room in your heart I pay rent and as a tenant, I’m flagged delinquent.

And on your end, all along, you had all of me tucked in your hand. The silence too abstruse for one to comprehend and is unnerving.

Perhaps you found me undeserving of a love always teetering on the brink just waiting to succumb to gravity. Now the weight of unspoken truth bears down so heavily on us as we fall apart.

This throbbing anxiety seems to walk the road of eternity and in our insanity, we were two pyromaniacs playing fire with destiny, and destiny, a sadist as it may be, there is a horizon bordering its cruelty and honestly, we were vampires driving stakes in each other’s heart.

What I meant is speak your truth or forever hold your peace, for while we had our falling we loved nonetheless. No matter how we repress the past together you and I undressed and the future fraught with regrets, I must confess, though I detest, today we leave what we  had and we leave it to rest.

Yesterday hid behind the dense
switchgrass
on the look out for us
to light candles of thought,
so it may remind us

of scent, quiet but lingering,
of a fragrance, infused beneath memories’ skin
and ferry us back in time.
seeking forgiveness,
seeking that we might forget,
on the eyes of restlessness an obol shall rest
and leave what was as dead,
as if a rash, cooled to no longer rage,
to no longer itch.

Yet, we can’t forget.
Unbidden, yesterday returns as spring
but with a hint of winter
and the frailty of things.

Do must we,
But break clocks
And wish gears lost,
In the end we are found
On the road where we
left our ghosts.

I speak not of the sun neither speak to her for the winter it has left in my care. My conversations with the cold snap and the polar vortex had gone stale.

The sun and I had our falling out and if these words should find their way to her doorstep, let her know I don’t miss her warmth. I don’t leap out of the bed to tug the curtain and let her silver light fill my room and let the motes dance in her rays like I used to.

I shudder at her supple shadow swirling, flowing and flitting about, and the halo she wears petrifies me. Her pestilential disposition burns through my walls fortified with years of heartaches. For these, we must part ways.

Run, run while you can;
while your toes can spring from the asphalt;
while time is on your side
and the wind is behind you,
and the world is a trail of blur.

The cartilage of your joints,
fresh and oleaginous,
pliable as your young mind,
can take you to your destiny;
can satiate wanderlust,
a bitter aftertaste for a time long gone
of a weary spirit
tenant to a rigid flesh.

Breathe
the scent of life in.
Let your lungs and air,
like lovers who have folded
the distance between them,
savor the embrace
throbbing in their minds at night.
Breathe the scent in,
in time,
they grow stale,
planted in water by the bedside
wilting with apologies
and well wishes
dancing to the music
of beeping machines.

Up the hills if you must;
through mist,
yielding not an inch
to questions
doubt pours on the road.
Against the unwillingness
of your body,
defy,
and when its defiance ripens
in its season,
your spirit shall burden
it a heavy swathe of obstinacy.
So run,
for the loan of time digs deep in the pocket to claim interest,
pay your heart in full,
before foreclosure.
Time inevitably demands its due.

—e.d. maramat | erwinism

You’ve got a city pass in City of Uncertain Love,
walked through the door,
didn’t so much as flinch,
even after all the plasma drawn from this love,
you walked away hissing,
bared sharp fangs, jaundiced from all the scathing words that flowed,
pale as a vampire,
it was you after all and not me you said.
Enamored with the sights and sound, the 360 degree dining experience with a view of the future, complemented with vocabularies to match your mood, aged like wine in the vineyard of pick-up lines,
while I’m left here in a curiosity shop of brokenness:
kisses spat back into the bottomless void of yesterday;
thoughts of once newly-minted strangers we were scrawling notes and now smeared by tear stains;
a heart with no discernible shape, slapped for dragging beats on the snare;
A corpse of a phone you have murdered taking it off life support when you eloped with my charger;
mismatched pillows you left, still possessed with the ghosts of restlessness nights haunting the halls of my mind with echoing arguments of what to eat for dinner;
a spare key—a wedding ring for a keychain.
I fell apart.
Ring!Ring!Ring!
“So, everything didn’t work out for you?”
—inaudible—
“Do you know what time is?”
—inaudible—
—you missed me?”
—inaudible—
“Uh-huh….
Sorry to hear, but there are no refunds for your freedom ticket. Bye!”
Click!

no matter how you rove,
you can't trust roads
to lead you home in the
winter.

on occasions, she brews
a tempest laced with
coffee to wreak havoc
in the morning,
and at night,
in between restlessness
and nightmares,
her back holds up a sign
that reads "no yesterdays
allowed"

gone was our youth,
tarnished like trinkets
coated with gold
peddled and sold
like empty promises

sometimes,
white flags are waved,
and we find us wrapped
inside arms that used
to be used to be our home
but the years took
its toll and had us evicted
out of boredom

deep in her eyes,
I see that she is there
at the moment as a misdirection,
fleeting like a daydream fading
into the background
but in the corner
of her disquieting eyes
there is a pulsating
dark light yearning
for emancipation.
There is something
behind their walls
that I dare not behold,
lest, my heart turns into stone,
a monument of brokenness
deeply rooted where it stands
waiting for time to weather
it into dust for the wind to
scatter

it's utterly tiring
to spit words
that leave wounds
for us to dress with
never-again bandages
for in time,
in the most inopportune
circumstances our deathless
animosity just
seeps through

yet,

as voracious as we are
to be alone, we atone
for still we loved

we can't always
trust the roads to lead
us home in winter,
but if take the good
with the bad
maybe one day
we can look back
at our madness
bold enough to say
though our hearts betrayed
still we loved.

The hour is an uneasy,
the hour is exasperated,
it paces from one room to another,
taking great strides
to pull me by the wrist
and take me straight to bed.
Not yet,
give me a second a said.
I thirst for a swig
of what this bar has to offer.
Neat! The hour is impatient,
no chance for me to relish
growing old,
no way to feel my insides glycate,
it wants time back,
this itching hour.

Of colors born
from depths of human sight?
with fingers taking scuffing steps
and their raspy breath
for years of yearless quest,
what gold weigh with a
master’s piece made destitute
by passion wants?

Visions mothering hues and strokes,
in blood, tears, and sweat hardening on the canvas,
from pockets that solely dreams of bread to sit on the table,
would they find the worth?

Lo, when the hours covet sleep,
but the soul in the soul lay wide awake,
and night and day bleed on each other and the yearn chafes his bones no end to be under promise to the craft.

“Apologies, but into the word art, simplify not,
nor of labels you set a perilous climb to a wicked peak take refuge.
For whilst eyes, in liberty, take pleasure in mocking outcomes,
the road on the way there taxed the soul flesh pound per pound.”

Nakedly bottled.
Capturing bursting seasons
here and now.

Life, delicate in its notes,  
the top notes,
lithe as youth,
citrus and bloom,  
ever briefly,
recondite pleasure,
a suppliance of time
a rush that fades away.  

Heart notes,
the flesh of our days, unfold—  
warm spices, florals, deeper and continues to exude as winter winds careless breath.

In the middle years, the scent sits and blares and mellows—a steady pulse of sandalwood and musk.  

Sultry as the scent may have lingered,
flirtatious colors in the breeze’s hair
the base notes come,
the earthier tones,  
amber and resin,
heavier on the air,  
decays a final wisp
until faint on the skin.

A memory is born.

Shoot for stars but take your world with you.

A space-lost man knows that he is trapped in his mask.

He blows breath onto the visor despite dwindling supply, creating a thin mist reminiscent of snow telling the world it’s December.

There he sees the past reflected on a soft, soggy patch.

There he momentarily lives, knowing the end has finally arrived to pick him up at the airport.

Through the glass he sees eternity falling and the stars gasping for breath and black holes falling on their knees.

The end is cold.
Like hearts devoid of love.
He clutches it by the arm.

In his solitude, he feels for once a king. Claims his stake in this lonely universe orphaned by reason.

Beyond nebulae bursting into light is a celestial villa where the forgotten lives tax free and there he shall retire. So, it seems.

He leaves his footprints in the coarse, sandy darkness, where most dread to follow. He drifts away with nothing but himself and his regrets talking back to him. Telling him of tales lost.

Too late, he could flood galaxies with tears but nothing can reconnect him with his harness. Communication slowly breaking down.

He hears a blanket rustling and heavy footsteps and creaking floorboards. A squeaking valve. Running water trickling down. Yes, a tub. Yesterday and Yesterday had enough of him. Got tired of his hollow eyes. Devoid of a soul. He hears the door groaning. The bells chiming. Door slamming. Engine revving and growing fainter.

Under a looking glass he plotted constellations. There is life somewhere he pondered, but there was life where he stood. He just didn’t have eyes for it.

He shot for the stars and lost his sun in the process.

If I had dropped off the oranges to Mrs.
Glique’s house like my momma told me to, she will still be alive today.

If I did, she’ll indulge in rambling about her taffeta.

Breathing,

Through the grace of chance

Through honeyed afternoon that deserved a tea

Through a looking glass

That saw love in a different light.

In the evenings, Mrs. Glique sauntered along memories past and her garden of stars where she threw her arms in the cold air to stroke the face of the moon.

Thinking of her dear Tangerine who behind bars wore orange.

Orange now taste differently unlike yesterday

For orange meant to stretch her lips to touch the tips of her cheeks from side to side,

That’s what the scent did for her.

Thinking of her darling Tangerine whose life is in ruins, her once-a-time princess knows now how to steal and steal she did, lives in fact.

Mrs. Glique would have been out her trance and instead found a noose to her new romance.

Pulsating light
caught in the mirror,
what sin have you?

I see your hair prickling,
your skin bleached pale,
from rich in sun’s goodness
to a shade of despair.

Your hand had the warmth of a corpse,
as if an omen, as if to say,
your fate had been decided.

Something treads through the air,
no sudden movement, eyes down,
punctuate your sentences
with a resounding sir and ma’am.

Roll down your window,
wear a pageant smile,
serve who you are on a platter.

Swiftly, heavy thuds on the road,
on either side of this quivering wagon,
figure morphing into a sentinel with
glassy eyes.

Life flashes before our eyes,
dripping as if a cold maple syrup
over a cold and stale pancake
served at a cold table in winter.
    
Was it how we trotted?
Was it how we fared?
Emptied our pockets with
wrongs we had none.

Draw no pistols,
plant no bullet that shan’t grow
and swell into chaos,
we need none of those.
We prayed.

But came,
an honorable man,
a man unlike many,
he said fear not,
the bridge ahead is closed,
an apology was issued,
for the inconvenience.

We turned away,
the night ceased chasing us,
the light faded,
we were safe.  

—e.d. maramat | erwinism