We talked and talked about nothing—
though nothing, I know, doesn’t truly exist.
From the silence between syllables,
I pulled a thread of gold:
the curve of your mouth as you spoke,
the warmth hidden in idle words, your jokes.
We talked and talked.
I thought—how strange, how cruel—
when two hearts want to touch
but language betrays them.
My heart reached out—
but my tongue stayed caged,
wrapped in barbed wire
even your gentleness couldn’t unwind.
Still, we filled the space
with the sound of trying.
I said—clumsy, quiet—
"In four months, I’ll miss this."
The way we spoke of nothing,
and somehow meant everything.
I said—
"In four months,
we will not meet again."
And time,
so full of chances,
slipped through our open hands.
Maybe we should have been more careful with time.
Maybe we shouldn’t have tried to outrun it—
because now I know,
it runs faster than we do.
I know I waited
before turning the lamp off,
wading in the dark, knowing—
there will be others,
but none like you.
I will search for your scent
in the house of strangers.
I will chase silhouettes on the wall,
and talk with others about nothing—
searching for someone akin to you.
As I recall
how you said nothing,
I learned this:
it carries regrets—
hundreds of them—
and I hoarded more.
Silence folded around us
like a closing book.
I will regret
learning the alphabet,
curse the language I was born with,
burn my tongue
with all I never said.
And maybe, just maybe—
instead of nothing,
I should have said:
"I love the nothingness we share."

The house is haunted.
I swear it by the way the tiles creaked.
Her father kept her as a hostage,
Imprisoned by her lack of knowledge.

I swore I saw their ghosts—
Cursing at each other through the walls.
I missed my reflection in the mirror;
She grinned at me from a cup at dinner

Cursed by a child’s sadness,
She is just like her mother—helpless.
What a pretty golden cage,
With a garden to tend, to bury her rage.

Look at the father's ***** claws.
He was captured for seven months.
He used to fight at the front—
Carried it back and brought it home.

Look at me, clawing at the walls,
Eavesdropping on the ghostly calls.
Look at the birdcage's paper bars,
With tiny toy soldier guards.

Look at their scribbling on the paper,
Painting mountains, lakes, and nature—
Making peace with the haunted house,
Writing clips on wings to hide inside.

I can tell a good thing just from one sight
As a newborn, I hugged my mother tight
And I knew from the first glance at the Sun
I was glad I was born in a summer month

Could tell from the way you handled light
How it lit up your face, how you smiled bright,
That I want to bask in it all my life.
I would attach wings to my back to fly

They melt to a puddle but I feel the shine
I will gladly take the fall and die,
For knowing the disaster that would come—
Still, soaring high up and risking it all,

is a kind of courage I never owned
But who wants to die without feeling scorned?
I’d rather bear the burn marks on my skin,
Scars, scabs, and tears, than to be soft and clean.

A clean corpse dressed in white laying in the grave,
without stains on my skin without pain
Not the Sun in the sky, not the heat,
Just the cold ground and the mites to meet.

Little pond, little pond,
In the heart of this town,
Two little frogs sitting side by side,
We were young, barely five.
We played with rocks, sticks—
Jump ropes, chess, and dominoes
All those harmless little things.

He brought a stick, and I the stone.
He claimed the pond was our kingdom.
We were both knights with a cause—
Defeat everyone who can do harm.
The water is muddy; it needs cleansing.
See how those green monsters keep splashing?
They need to be defeated.

He palmed the stone in his tiny hands,
Threw the rock as it splashed.
The first one missed, the second skipped,
The third cracked as it hit.
“It is nothing but a frog,” he protested.
It was something small, alive, and green,
Not something that a boy can ****.

But how violent can love be?
He batters his hands.
Why is it in his nature to crash?
Look at the frogs; see how they jump—
But how would they look
If they were crushed?

If you want to stay, my friend,
Wrangle their little necks,
Gouge out their eyes,
Tear at their insides.
Rocks are made
To crush, crush, crush—
Can you feel
The rush, rush, rush?

Two frogs sitting by the pond,
With their hands and legs torn.
I shook my head—
Not made for violent acts,
And to do this for his satisfaction
Would be self-betraying,
Not fitting for innocent beings.

Two innocent beings,
Sitting side by side—
Is he worth it,
Shedding blood for?
When I look at my reflection,
She knows she wants more.
"Crush them, crush them," you chanted—
I hesitated back then.

Innocent and right,
But at home,
You had to fight.
Later, they buried the hole.
The dirt and ground covered them whole.
Two little frogs, side by side,
Now they sit with heads torn wide.

Violence breeds violent acts.
Rocks and sticks
Can shift from toys
And playing children
To careless fools.
It's right, it's alright.
I know you had to fight.

Draw your sword and die by it.
At home, his fist shaped to hit,
And the cycle is just habit.
The predator chases the rabbit.
And if you ask me again,
I might not think twice—
Two frogs sitting side by side.

Can I be as beautiful as the Mona Lisa?
Draped in blue like Margarita Teresa?
My features soft and kind
A nature so mature and polite

Can I have a man who paints
Relaxed and focused before the flames,
With hands stained by strokes of time
With a passion for hues and rhymes?
  
He will paint me slow and detailed-
Mouthless, faceless, truly changed
He spends hours perfecting my ears
He never talks when he concentrates.

With every stroke, he paints hues
purple, red, and a touch of blue
He invents new colors, studies the anatomy
Counts the bones inside the knee

He learns the composition.
bends me into a new position.
A new art form now
Realistic, still unrecognized.

For while I am sitting in my chair
He selects shades for my hair
I am now framed and proud
Worthy of being fawned about

When his masterpiece is complete
Mourns then moves to new conceits
Hung in the Louvre—by my neck, pale and still
A brushstroke by his graceful will

You will know me by my mystery smile.
Find recognition of me in his style
I can be viewed now through his lens
More of an art and less a self.

I had a dream the other night.
I could lie and say it was about you.
But I was more entranced by the light.

The heat suffocated thick as smoke,
like a stove left on too long.
I choked beside you, gasping there,

The stone’s sharp edge pressed into me,
and your eyes—
slid soft, yet cut like knives.

"I like heat waves, sweat on my brow."
What a liar, I smiled. Summer dries you out.
You conjure storms in these times.

Yes, the weather choked me.
But do not mistake this for cruelty.
I would not use honesty to hurt.

I know dreams are like candies—
tempting, dangling in front of me,
summers I can never see.

I outgrew the sweater my grandmother gave me-
I would not let myself be rocked like a baby
in a dreamscape I can never call mine.

So I will think of sunshine,
how it burned my skin
more than you stained mine.

I can have more summers.
if I am lucky, even ninety-nine—
but not another you in my life.

For I had a dream the other night,
and I lied when I said it was not about you—
it was about the weather, burning bright
'

Ever since I was a child,
I counted all the ways we could die—
falling through ice, an earthquake,
Even the weather seems to panic.
Somewhere in the world, right now,
A fish is struggling to get by.
But it dies by the hand of a man.
who thinks death is a pastime.
We die small deaths every time—
Like scissors in hair, shedding of skin
when I knew all the ways he would leave
Once, just once in my life,
I want to feel delicate.
Not like the hole in the drywall.
shaped like a fist.
Once, I want to shred the list.
that contains all the ways we could miss
Just once, I do not want to be sharp.
like a cutting knife, like a blade
Even in death, there is rebirth—
flies, mites, beetles,
feeding on someone’s deathbed.
From just one conversation,
I could smell the rot—
the body left untouched for a month,
Is it wrong to say?
That ever since I was a child
I lived with ghosts in my house.
And I was never soft in my life.
just bones and flesh
with a brain filled with living death.