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May Asher Feb 2017
We're quite with screaming lungs
and they would not know
our definition because
we were not defined,
we were hung somewhere
in between being human
and being demonic.
Because humans have hearts, they say,
and demons don't have souls, they say.
But we?
We are ghost faces,
born of of the pallor of the clouds
with hearts that beat too fast,
and lungs that scream too loud
and a void gaping inside us
where a soul should be.
So we reach on our tiptoes
to touch the sky and collapse
because our hearts beat too fast
for too long and because
it's a dying muscle that we can't revive,
But we're dancing ashore
after we know the guilt,
and after we have relapsed from the regret
and after our hollows contain the oceans,
we were not afraid but we are brave now.
Not because we're not human,
because we can be more than human.

We can be kindness.
May Asher Feb 2017
Your eyes are wide and unsure,
but your shoulders never sag,
your hands never tremble,
you have been taught to hide your heart
in the darkness of your chest, I know.
But unravel, I want to tell you.
Unravel unravel unravel.
We're wounded on the surface
but our insides are ravaged too,
we will scream this anguish
into our crumbled knees,
we will shatter.
We are rancor-soaked and
tattered bones,
we are fallen valor but
we will not let ourselves be pitied.
Our night sky carries the same moon,
not quite half, not quite yet full.
It's dangling with no visible strings
but the stars do not shine
from where you stand.
The stars are not as bright,
as if they can hear our screams
that we have contained
in our collapsed shells.
For Zaeem
May Asher Feb 2017
The skies are my companions,
our lungs are perfectly still
under the weeping clouds,
we don't breathe.
We are rancor-soaked
tattered eyes
(they seem old because
we lost the innocence
of our childhood in the scream of thunder).
Our future is a mirage,
I'm too dim to be defined as a star,
you cannot be a meteor
because your fire isn't potent.
But we are nothing short of brave,
we have our memories bound in scars
that can't possibly heal.
We bleed without being cut,
I will simmer down but
I am not a calm soul,
I blaze too loud sometimes,
I will scream until my lungs cave in.
I will run until my legs crumble.
I will search for the cloud
stable enough to carry my depth.
I will learn to stumble
across your terrain
under this relentless rain.
I will try to tell the sky that he is not alone.
May Asher Feb 2017
I'm opaque
with stone-lungs
(I can't be breathing can I?)  
and I wonder
if I could be tangible.
My skyline is a bleeding blue
stumbling into death-white
and quite unclear.
Collect my bones when I unravel,
fix them only because I want to know
what could I look like without scars.
I think I'm falling but falling
seems like floating,
or does it seem like breaking?
I'm a synonym of antonym
I can't say I'm sorry
because my tongue is rust and salt
and my mouth tastes like raw memories.
They are choking me.
Shadows are shards
pressed into my palms,
I'm about to break.
Bury me where sun touches the shore
maybe I'll soak its essence
and be alive in the sunlight.
May Asher Jan 2017
We're ripping with silence
woven through our tar veined cardboard skin,
falling falling falling apart
because our scars are unseen
and all our lost battles are faded
and distant.
They don't matter
because it was all in the past.
Standing before our unhealed eyes
is a lonely avenue
littered with forgotten memories
because all our past
is a constant hue of gray almost alive,
almost tangible so potent
that it fissures our bones
so deep that we unhinge,
falling into incomplete remnants
of what we once were.
You can't help that your desires are inhuman.
I'll fit my hand into the imprint of yours
and tell you that it's okay
if you don't want to be human anymore
because I know it is hard.
But I'm your tether
anchoring you because you can't see,
that the higher you fly
the harder will you fall.
And I can't let you break
because I promised once
that I'd be there when you fail
to stand straight.
I never told you the truth
that I wouldn't be able to see
the tears shining in your eyes
with an unrevealed anguish.
Someday maybe I'd tell you
how I'd want to die.
I want to die when you're with me
because you're the last face I want to see
before I fall into the void. This time for ever.  
I want to die with your pale moonhands
tucked in my trembling fingers.
Excerpt: Tar Veined
May Asher Dec 2016
This moment is holding me still
in a second too long,
in a memory too deep,
in an ocean too infinite,
in a scar too wide,
a hollow too dark.
On a road where I can only stumble
because my legs
were not meant to walk,
because I have not learned
to give up this guilt
gnawing at my heart,
clawing at my arms
because I'm not sure
of all the things I do,
and all the things
you told me not to do but I still did.
But this is the end
and I let the moment hold me still,
so still that I almost feel
my heartbeat freeze in place,
so still that everyone doubts
if I was ever alive,
so still that earth feels like it moves,
so still that I can almost
Almost hear you screaming.
So still that I can almost
Almost feel your heart against mine.
So still that I can almost pretend that I'm alive.
May Asher Dec 2016
I'm a liar because
I pretend so much.
I pretend the tears are not yours.
I pretend your eyes are still green.
I pretend your face is not so pale
almost similar to a corpse's.
I wonder if you know, that sometimes —
sometimes I wish I knew
what love could possibly be.
I walk with paper wounds
and cardboard bruises
and I haven't learned
to keep myself from falling apart
when you tell me
to tell you that I love you.
I would want to tell you
that I never knew
that you could tear apart so violently,
that you could voice,
that your strangled scream could be heard.
An agony so sharp it comes visible.
Tangible.
Palpable.
I pretend to breathe
when it wrings your soul
out of your heart,
bleeding/battered/broken broken broken
broken.
But my fingertips brush yours.
Our arms are a tangle of scars,
we are a pile of bones
and we are not afraid
of each other's darkness
anymore.
Your eyes are fluttering
against my eyelashes,
your hands almost too scared.
I cannot let you know I shattered
when you shattered.
We're shattered words,
unsaid and unheard,
alive only in echoes and thoughts.
We're almost apart,
we're almost whole,
we're almost sure,
we're almost healed.
But my hands are too desperate
snuffing out the fire
because your eyes
are too use to the dark.
We're lying with the truths
that our eyes scream,
were drowning in the dust
that we're not afraid of,
we're not crying
(because we lost our tears).
We're flooded with emotion
but we're empty shells
cracking on the surface and we
collapse.
We collapse because
our knees buckle
and our ankles are disjointed,
all of our past is an ocean
and we're drowning again.
We're drowning until we gasp,
clutching at each other's hands
like it will be the last time.
We're seconds stumbling out of time,
we touch everything and everyone,
and we become their memory.
I grasp your hand and fit the image into a second, burning you into my being.
But your eyes are wide
as though you did not know
we stretch into the unknown;
that we are vacant terrains
standing upended
with empty pockets,
and your hair is too gold
in the sunlight
but your eyes are too green,
and they're screaming so loud so loud
so loud.
They are scared and and questioning me,
they're asking me to stay.
But all I manage is a whisper
because I lost my voice
in the whirlwind I was born out of.

Forever Is such a small word, love
I'll be with you until time ceases to exist.
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