Prove someone wrong
chose the person
chose the exact words

prove someone wrong
run into another hamster wheel
until you have proved you are “__”

make “__” your motivation. Add another layer to your persona; keep your ego fresh sautéing those words over it

jump into that wheel
do it, again
and again

and when your finally exhausted
find out that living for someone else is not as powerful
as living for your own being

proving is over. you do not need a hamster
wheel. proving is over. You powerful
when you are fulfilling your own heart. Proving ends and you begin

I compose poetry on the subway
on my phone

People think I am texting

I think they are texting
Maybe they are writing poetry, too

you grab the fruit but you do not

water the tree

                           then you cry in silence at night without asking

the tree why
Why it can no longer bare fruit

your thoughts circle a dead end street
and scream “BARREN”

But why

Why don’t you just water the tree

I had a dream that I found you on the Subway, leaning on a rail guard by the door slouched you said our loved had ended with such sweetness in your eyes that I cupped your left cheek with my hands and smiled

When the doors slide open, I proceeded to put my arm around you and guide you off as you drunkenly made your way out. I knew I would still love you
just not in the same way. If before you had pierced me like a needle, now you were one of the threads that had stitched me. And so I kept smiling

My mother says "tomorrow is your birthday,
and we haven't bought you a dress and a pair of matching slippers"

I laugh

She's been so busy packing for her next trip
that time snuck up on her, again

I smile and lean my head against her shoulder
I want to tell her she is enough
of a present for me

and that when I am old
and unable to find her
I will observe her here –in this moment–
And I will dream of waking up in her house
under the bugambilias, again
Her caress sweet; her flesh warm

As I understand it, we all become momentary pilgrims
gracious wayfarers recounting our life's blessings, as the body reaches
its end, so whilst at the beginning

all I can manage to tell her is
"sabes que esas cosas no me importan"

she smiles
I think she has always known

I have forgiven everyone
every hurtful thing
has no space within my heart

that is why my words towards them bare lightness
it mercy for myself and for them
nothing is worthy of carrying

I have lifted the mug to quench my own thirst. I content,—— a middle line, silence, full as I always was find myself beautiful and find you divine. I need no other reason but this deep love of ours here on the spin-off rock to smile.

The world does not revolve around me
this earth
this multitude of people
must be nourished too
Other stories
other ways of living
so why do I deserve to have it my way


The simple answer is because everyone deserves a chance at true happiness

When they look at old photographs of you
,you will tell of them of all the crazy stories and all the mistakes you made as you grew.
how your chest expanded and your heart pressed against your ribs inflating like a ballon on certain years, wishing to become airborne and to lift you along with it towards the sky

you will tell them of all the unfortunate situations that lead to all the food in your fridge rotting and all your sadness eating up your appreciate
and how you turned inwardly and perched like a bird over the ledge that you decided was not to jump off but a clear vantage point from which to see peace all around and from which to oversee the land
and make out what direction you were now going to head down

I waited for you to write, to call,
to share a song, to share a moment
it was odd
months, days, hours in reverse

The world just seemed so beautiful that I drove into it head first, without hesitation and without need of pulling back.
I jumped off the big board and it’s altitude did not matter because  I just ached to see and to know for myself this world. It has always seemed so marvelous to me this little body and this unknown earth under my feet, that even when I have felt one of my perceptions of it collapse over me –I have felt inclined to photograph it’s dilapidated roof, walls, windows and all the false starts that I dram of when I dove.

It’s just I love this plot of being, as if it were a field stretched over centimeters of flesh, which is my skin. And I love how we are all kin. And I do not care what someone thinks of me. I care how my feet feel against the grass, if I can forgive and love them just as myself. If can kiss again this world with the same vibrancy. I care that I never put this love of life down, that I take it, take it all, all of it as it is.

What does love do now
it opens its palms

When you come so far to be left
   with no response for months, years until

It feels like an eternal dance floor where hope has propelled
  you to stand at the periphery watching as they dances with another

When you come so far to be the last kid chosen for teams
  only to be told that to include you would be one too many (odd you)

It feels uneven, but not uneventful how your heart                breaks
  and still the blame is never split like you wish it were
       (some for you, some for them, some for time and some for life’s  required modules) 

the candy during recess is not  split fairly  
                     When you come so far fairness dissolves
                     off of  the countenance of the other kids as they begin
                      to grab what they can

And you wonder if that is what they did to you
                   grabbed what they could and left
                   or if that is what they think of you
                    
It feels like a tragedy or a terrible comedy cast,
                  staged and off broadway now
                  maybe they feel the same

The dancer who does not want to dance under the disco ball and the ones that want to dance but are standing around waiting might just feel the same.

I live and die by         poetry

      I live hundreds of lives            notebooks
of lives
     I die 100’s of times       in the silence 
of a spiral
                       And I am reborn    
To this wheel of                            samsara    
           
           ­      with every turn of the page

Había una mujer que le hablaba a lá Luna. Tan encantada estaba con la luz de la luna, que un día extendió sus manos hacia ella y le clavó sus pulgares.

Al tenerla en sus manos la mujer abrazo a la luna cerca de su pecho y le susurro con cariño “tu aluzas las más oscuras de mis noches”

grateful                  life      
Be                 an/a                   well of
    constant is        infinite

The closing of your eyes is the clashing of clouds and their thunder for-tells the lightning of dreams

I am on that boat
don’t you know

I already sailed off
can’t you see

Come on’ bruh
you gotta know

ain’t **** you can do
to scare me off

if my boat sink
in the sea of love

at least I dared
and peace be mine

for all babies
are my babies

And on that boat of love
I will cradle them

you want tell me they can’t be mine
well then with your logic
this earth ain’t yours
so why you hacking it up

I on my boat of love
cradle all them babies

I am swaying them in my arms
peace on earth I sing to them
“ peace on earth”

Thank you to the temporary thing that I cannot keep
that have passed me
thank you for letting me hold you in this one splendorous life

keep this boat of kindness
anchored to dock of this tiny
speck of a body born into time  

may all violent waves and turbulence
never break the mooring line

I tried to tell you
I loved you
in all the ways
I could
now it just lingers
on my lips
soundless

I could not write about the people I lost during a short writing class exerciae. My sentences circled
swirled inward on the page
the way my departed and my beloved
swirl within me the sacred spiral
my endless nature trying to map itself out on a thin piece of paper

you must look at things for what they truly are
just as naturally as sunset comes to the day
you will face night; call it “night” no need to wrap it up and make it tidy

I am alive and there is warmth inside my chest
The sun again makes its trajectory over the sky into yours
Standing at the door of dreamworld
Half anchored,  eyes closing
I begin to understand that the warmth in my chest also rises

Spent so much time alone
Suckled by the edges of leaves and awaken by mountain slopes that the first person I see makes me smile just like the first flakes of snow

I feel this ball of energy entering me
something has come
it has already arrived within me
announced itself
but I cannot yet see it here
in the materials world
but it is deep and makes my heart race

we are in our home
where the pomegranates have begun
to fall

where the sugarcane is planted
next to the persimmons, and the limes
drop round as heavy as chucked pebbles

into a sea of black dirt below
illuminated by one round moon
your face stern and mine young

         begin to sing to our elder
                                                      in the sky
that was it, I remember—

my paternal grandmother would sing for us

throbs of pain that materialize from the air
i hold my chest,

i try to imagine two warm hands embracing
the heavy iron stakes of sorrow that pierce you and then me

You are already a poem
that I love—

Like all great poetry
it is to be shared with the world

what song can a bell make
that does not pierce the heart

(what melody can I sing when love entangles me to form
music does not need to be seen, so why do I gulp at the thought of their deaths)

glorious grounding silence engulfs all, evening comes but only makes it’s gust stronger. It is here where my fear touches the tip of my love that I close my eyes and hold the hands of uncertainty—

may hope truly give us wings

You walk and breathe and claim your stake on earth
with every blink
the sun arises and sets
For you I grieve that I cannot
come

Dear Dark Brown Eyes,

I  am glad something brought a wave of joy over your  countenance bubbling up as laughter. You deserve the clearest balm to ease your sighs and sorrows. And the warmest of hands to hold yours when evening envelopes the mountains
And the river that divides the north and south of Seoul is frozen over

My dear brown eyes, whatever you decide is yours to decide. Who you pray to, who you love and who you’ll be as the years go by
are all YOURS,
like the chirp of a bird,
or the song of a swallow
it must feel natural to you
and only you can hear it as it perches



MINE. My song calls me to you.
To sit by your side and to meet you once the the sprouts root and grow green,
past the frozen ground onto pathways which the light of spring is to reveal

Who you’ll be then and how you’ll feel
I will respect. The vines grow in many directions in and around all posts, fences, names and memories. They can become nuisances or the fruit for fine wine.

I could feel the difference
between a thin strand of hair
and a thin thread of spider web

the sun becomes a river in my eyes, engulfing all,  maybe then the majesty
and luminosity of everything will shine
as does the golden beauty of a sunset or of a compassionate word perched on the lips of another
all is possible
why change the lenses, see more pf what is already, sincerely there

I look at the tree and see my lovely leaves
We share life together their bark makes that part of the world and my body makes this part of the physical world. “Oh my leaves :))”  what do you think when I stare at you with such joy in my heart ?

finally, i understand peace is a price too high to pay. continual compliancy is not a sign of consistency or of love. indifference is more painful than goodbye, and forgiveness is not something many are willing to do just as compassion is a muscle so is letting go so is admitting to seeing the steps you took of your own free will to destroy your own self worth. simple and benevolent the truth will find you scrape at your insides, stick its finger in your wounds
and reveal what still aches

The wailing cries of history swoop
into the hands of today like some audacious pigeon

students hold their hands out across the nation and hold a dove

if you would hold your hands out too and still your anger, still the past and hold your hands out you too could touch a dove

These are the girls that dream
one speck of dust turns into a planet
orbiting their soul

Opera and Pansori are like the olympics of singing

I could hold a foam sword towards you
but only from a distance must it
look real, this bluff of mine–

unzipping my mouth like a coin pouch
to reveal its teeth would do little
no words would change into a charge of bulls

a faithful distance
for the harmonious well being of an  aging
heart that needs a steady home that I cannot provide, this bluff of mine is played –

adorned with this old regalia of indifference, so heavy it stops me from running to where you are, forgive me—

every time I grow silent and distant it’s a bluff not on you but on me who loves you. The bluff is one me—

Still maturing…
never too ripe
always eternal
and with one foot
in time

I carried the grocery bags to my car,
while the divinity of my spirit carried me
within its bag swinging me back and forth, through a parking lot that was no less divine than the snot running down the nose of the little boy being pushed on a cart while his mother made her way into the store.

Can I wrap words,
clutter them around your hand
and make them press
warm and soft?

Could they be of value for you
like the gems people mine for
or the things they pick to be family heirlooms?

How deep is their deepness and
how far is their reach?

Can they feel Infinite like my existence  and finite like my life ?

Can they build a bed to lay on ?
Fabric, metal springs, foam, cushion, soft, plush, lifted, comfy, useful,
Can it be a good place to rest when it’s been a long
day?

Don’t let there be gloom, it is so easy for it to grow when watered
it will cover even the most beautiful of flowers,
you’ve always been gifted with a green thumb, and a large heart
you deserve to harvest
lovely things are coming
water those blossoms because they do give fruit

And it is
that this is who I am
I am not chasing
any kind of glory, that I don’t care about being the best at
something worldly I care about being the “ best me”
nourishing my natural gifts in order to share them

I am not competing. I am not running on empty or on misguided comparisons( I save my energy for what matters)

I
already everything I will ever be in motion towards my inner and outward destination
sit calmly because it trust again not a man or a womyn but myself

What someone can take is only a fraction of the real strength, courage and authenticity that flows through me
I am really human, fragile and sensitive to the touch
small and unassuming like all life on this earth grateful for every rotation in this galaxy.

I know what I really am and I call upon it and it calls upon me and we smile together
one in the same
this is what I am

My mother would always argue with me. “Why can’t you look nice” “here wear this”

I would smile and wear her dresses with black combat boots. My dad would always laugh.

Bickering. We bickered always over that. She would utter “you are a locked combination box
whose combination I cannot find”
then she’d proceed to laugh and let me out the door with my black lace up shoes.

I see the longing in their eyes and heaviness
and I want to tell them you have still got life to live
and the body it goes
and I do not know that plot of land you inhabit but I know life is always here
that with tenderness we can hold all our lives’ sorrows and see the gleaming bread of beauty that remains
for that which we have been
is the wool in that yarn string

They are standing on the hills behind me each one
but now I am standing on another

I climbed this mountain up hand in hand with him
this mount that then became a mountain is now becoming an Everest, my love full so full it overflows and drips  as compassion