Her arms on my shoulder, pulling
me back like it's a force of nature.
We share glances like we've foreseen our history,
Or dreams that will soon be memories.

Her vermillion cheeks, boundless by beauty,
It matches the necklace in her chest that beats for me.
A soul so crystal clear, it can't be tainted by reality,
It can only shape mine to form as her ring.

I follow along her antics like a disciple,
smitten as how love was written in the bible.
Air bubbles forming when she shakes up my skin.
Huff! The way she makes me feel is worth no sin!

Loosen the vowels, Loose the vows,
All of my yous turned to thous.
Through her, this love isn't a liability.
With her, this love finally belongs to me.

I wish you didn't prune me like a branch,
But if I stayed you wouldn't have grown,
And to rewrite the pain that once borne,
I'd wish the fire tickled on your bones.

If I could dust off the earth and dare myself to another pair of arms,
If I could step out the inn and march with the strolling players,
However my rose-tinted heart made no flicker,
Made no sound like sea-splitting thunder.
No, not a heart I should give another.

Oh, but the strokes of your silver-tinted bristles,
You dotted my heart like freckles.
You spun and swirled your words, like a silvertongue,
However, even the deaf and blind need to be upfront.
'Cause as I bled I could taste the silver,
When you gave all of yourself on a silver platter.

So, leave me dreary under the crease of twilight;
Leave me on the earth where its soil rumbles in stride,
And I hope your knees fall into someone stronger than gravity,
Cause that strength you're digging for,
For love, it's not with me,
Not anymore, not where it's supposed to be.

I'll paint the strokes of your shadow
and carpet it on my silky floor,
Or I'll hang it against the wall, like a willow,
Where it can lurk behind every sound.

Every snap, every whistle,
Every clatter of each wasted nickel
I had spent on shores that crashed aloud.
Oh, but I paid to see the view anyway.

Every murmur, every whisper
of their fathers telling you what you are.
Oh, but I'll love you the most first,
And I'll cover your pride away into the dark.

4 years of letting you down,
4 years of letting you drown.
Tell me, how could you forgive me now?
Believe me when I'll turn things around.

I'll get you a set of brand-new eyes
that don't blind under the midday light.
I'll get you a brand-new name,
Much less sounding like a saint
but lesser to prey.

I'll gravitate myself to you again,
Like a loosened knot crying to its thread.
And, when I'll no longer feel the same,
You'll Be Reborn Someday.

With you, I'll count every single blade of grass,
Sharing the view with you feels like flying in first class.
Even the petals can't tell "loves me, loves me not" apart,
Because they'd flown and nested on your hair from the very start.

Loving you is so rich, yet so free,
but I wouldn't have cared how much it cost.
I'll be ****** to think otherwise;
I was never trained how to break other people's hearts,
I'll be daft, but that's while I try.

And so there's no way I'd flee, not a world without you is free,
As I could live inside our album holding my poses for eternity,
Unmoved, never having to take a heave to wrestle my doubts,
Every stain of marble will have our reflection glossed out.

But if we fell into a hole in the ground,
Will the right time tell us when to come out?
If the water we dived in has become an all drought,
Would you be okay with hiking on a mount?

A nod is all it takes for a single step.
If not the stars, we could glow on lava lamps
and march into love with just our calloused hands.
I could gamble my heart, bet half to keep you and play with chance,
And the other half would've gotten to you anyway, because it always has.

FROM THE POETRY ALBUM: BELIEVERS TO THE GOLDEN RETRIEVERS.

I. Asymptot...

Perhaps I have filled my days with ignorance —
that I had thought life stopped giving me a second chance,
and the words stopped coming out of my mouth,
so I bridged friendships in the south.
However, I can tell when my skin has exuded with moisture,
when my reveries have reflected my peculiar gesture.

I watch you meticulously — my minutes chipping away —
You’re not even staring back, just existing vividly.
Since November I held myself in high regard,
I looked upwards and shuffled backwards when
intimacy breathes down my neck.

Nothing changed since then, love was easy to bend,
but something about your demeanor belittled me:
I dove myself in my selfish grace, but you were
a kind of selfishness I couldn’t brace.
That same day — you came and touched my face.

A gigantic shard impaled my chin, but it wasn’t sharp.
It mimicked smooth, silky, and beguiling skin.
Contradictory in every sense, it still pierced me
so effortlessly. Like reading a child’s fable with such melancholy
it made a grown man weep. It’s unorthodox, like a snowflake in spring.
Though there was more than the touch that lingered.
Your touch spoke in riddles. In pools of uncertainty.
It succumbed to thoughts, or in feeling. In desire or curiosity.
And I, I indulged in it like the age of summer swallowing the heat.

At first, I placed my glances upon pedestals deprived of
inviting countenance. I reigned upon blue and violet skies.
You were on the same level as me. I saw all of you with child-like glee.
Our seeds did not quite create contact but beside each other we entangled roots.
Was it because I got a better view of you? Is that why I want to bear your fruit?
Are you feeling all of this too?
Tell me you’re not, and assure my heart that you’re signaling truth,
or else I may meddle in our impalpable affair. I might start to care.

And if I do, what if your love wasn’t something for me to bear?
That I may veer into the line that disembodied my pride
and find a line that cannot be breached, but only to stare?
I may sway into volcanic embers and burn then and there.
All this time, your touch would have handcuffed my heart. Your touch
was a grotesque specter that blindly led to my predicament.
Of shame, of displaced faith, of a missing golden retriever who’s
found himself in the same place as before, forever and evermore.
— Yes, the line proves we’ll be but something else.
But somehow, it kills me that an element of love shan’t be addressed.

The truth slides in so smooth,
No cracks on its edges, no ruse.
It's an outstretched hand waiting to be used,
But my fingertips falter to the truth.
If I found out my prophecy,
Will I have found my truth?
Or will I have abused destiny,
By foreseeing the blood before the bruise?
On the other hand,
Even Gods are stung by mortal fire,
And string of lies can sound like a lyre.
So if divinity wants to keep meaning hidden,
Why is it something I should acquire?
So truthless, so disdained,
Nothing is right or wrong, it's almost insane.
But if it's true to you, it could be true to me,
And if my purpose runs loose, it would flee
to the nearest arms of the meek.
So, if it's my responsibility, it belongs to me,
And that has been my greatest epiphany.

Can't you think for yourself?
Have you disarranged the atoms in your head?
Don't they already move for themselves?
Shouldn't you be moving for yourself?

You should get used to hearing yourself,
because that's the only voice you'll hear someday,
Don't let that point over your head, it's all over  your face,
Don't buy others words because the price is for you to pay.

Put their words in your mouth, how does that taste?
Pick the flavor you want, you're not getting a second plate.
Everybody's in line, pick while you're still at the front.
Shut everybody down like it's a public stunt.

So enclose your thoughts in quotation marks;
Keep them in one of the chambers of your heart,
and you'll hear them again like an undying song,
And it will be flared to the skies from ages on.

We never beared fruit on this arable land,
but the soil, sturdy and unbiased, kept our roots intact.
We buried ourselves in rich foliage, where trunks soared
like a beanstalk, and lakes, like wine, getting better with age.

Your purple razor blades  left grooves of love on me,
as deep as the pacific, on spots so specific.
We had danced in rain as salt, left no ripples in the ocean
and buried our footprints with bush as we walked.

I wrapped my arms around your shoulders, pulling
you closer like it’s a force of nature.
Each clutch against your robust leaves wrote a million
love poems on the grass that, even in an icy apocalypse,
remained warm and unfrozen.

Every night, we passed the trail less traveled by,
and we swung like curve-tipped sabers in a sword fight.
We were two worlds orbiting the stars
until we found a way to dip beneath the sun.

Past the primroses and sunflowers,
I always come back to the periwinkle,
lingering in my series of reveries.
And when my heart makes a flicker,
It reappears under the crease of twilight,
all of its parts mirroring me asunder.

Tangerine skies, puffy clouds,
Roots protruding off the ground.
Ants crawling to the oaks and
Two hearts conquering the land.

Spiraling shells, sand castles
we wish we could crystallize.
The waves tugging the sand and
Two hearts conquering the land.

Shaggy rug, tabletops
and a couple of wine shots.
Moping over a spilled cup and
Two hearts conquering the land.

Busy streets, light streaking at
teeming roads and buildings.
Hours bought firsthand so
Two hearts can conquer the land.

My brother used to be selfless,
So I thought I was too selfish,
then he reminded me how much of his life his'
How much of my life was really mine at 14?

Just because I was strong doesn't mean I can
seize the wrath of a disgruntled bolt with a single clasp.
You tried to gently dismantle me to pieces but I still crumbled
and passed it off as a slow death to make it humble.

How could I have not been hurt?
Letting time heal me was worse.

All these tears soaked the same clothes,
Couldn't stand on my feet so I wandered as a ghost,
And slid behind the window of what used to be home.
Then I realized for many, many months that I was so alone.

If you have a reason, make sure it's yours.
If there's a life you're fighting for, make sure it's yours.
If there's a pain you're letting go, make sure it's yours.
Even if you're a little lost, make sure the path is yours.

Wish I could relearn the language I quaked still papers with,
Dribbling the ink with the service of thought on my fingertips.

Language as the fins of euphoria flipped against the tidal sea:
It's the one I promised to bequeath, to not only
my younger sibling, but to the older version of me;
Regurgitating the sweet taste of ecstasy.

Language as the scales of lust waxed on my polyester skin
that brushed against now forbidden lips.
They seared long nights, and morphed hearts into stars.
... Though all stars drift afar.

Language as the rods of faith that pillared my soul,
It lit my eyes with child-like hope.
However we live with the cards we're dealt,
The tactile touch of our deck makes us not forget.

Wish I could relearn the language I quaked still papers with,
Dribbling the ink with the service of joy on my fingertips.
To translate the words that reverberated in my head,
and vicariously live those emotions I had unkept.

Neutralizing pills, disinfected teeth,
Tweezers adjusting my veins like wires.
A bright light hovering my head,
Could be God descending, could be a fire.

Politely, I morph and transpose my ghost to a better host.
The pain's retribution for my young self for not being old.
For the deities, I must put on a good show,
As all the legends have gazed under the same moon.

Mirtazapine for dinner, breakfast, and lunch,
Transcripts of my language recorded in real time,
To live is to be free, but when I do, I'm on the run.
I only go to therapy to shamelessly confide.

Reanimated, I am an algorithm.
Reanimated, I am a system.
Reanimated, I am a victim.
Reanimated, I am an organism.