I taught myself to walk through fire
Until the flames no longer burned
But my skin became scarred
And I couldn't see myself underneath it.

Ridges of scar tissue
Arranged themselves in your name
And I could swear
I saw your face among the embers.
I taught myself that pain was love
An inferno simply meant
That I was doing something right.
But the smoke began to choke me
And I could no longer see.

You left me to burn
But did you ever think
I could rise from the ashes?

Kiss me
Neath the summer lit sky
of crimson pink
and glory gold

Say my name
with that sweet tremble
of caution
and delight

Chase me
Catch me
Caress me
Cherish me

And you will know
what it is like to have
all the Seasons
embrace you all at once~

I wrote a poem for you when you were gone
It was everyone's darling; I found it feeble.

About how the leagues between diminished
when I stared up at the same stars that lit
the night where you walked. How the Earth
still revolves but we cannot feel it and we
look up, unknowing if anything looks back down.

You returned to me and I collected the pieces of your
heart, gained sight of salt leaking luscious from places
whose ignorance of existence naively I was blessed
heard words I would rather have remained unspoken.

Loathed speech fell like cumbersome bricks from
my tongue to yours, decisions took in absence
causing tectonic plates to clash and tremors be to
felt, further and wider than your eyes when I spoke.

I am sorry is a meaningless phrase. It changes
nothing and I try never to speak it, rather avoid
its crashes of consequence, freeze substance before
the impacted have little cause to celebrate
its colourless intonation.

I am sorry for saying I am sorry, but that which I am not
is for the needed swelling waves which set you far from my shore.

what could she say for me to lose you ... ?
i'm in a war against keep
fighting an army of loose truth
& if you win, who loses ?
& if you lose, do I approve blue ?
it isn't sane for me to choose clues
over an ocean of proved truth

what do I lose if I lose you ?
all of my come-trues
have become you
& if you lose me, do you lose ?
I'm not this someone to hold onto
we can expand views if you choose to
open a window or your mouth
either will do
not to confuse strews with don't do's
I am through with all this proving
I'm a wanter wanting all of you
ensuing all this sousing

i
no less than two hundred souls lie
        clustered along the shoreline
        lowland they call a town.
there where the hilltops look
        below, where salty waves
        in unending sequence
        lap the rocks.
the foam floating still is fading
        and the icy gloom of night is gone.
the tug-tug of the diesel engine
        interrupts the balmy silence
        of the sleeping town.
perchance,
        here is a variant
        (or is it?)
        on new island soil
        tread one another foot.

       ii
away now from the busy hum of
        factory, from the hurrying trucks,
        daredevil drivers, the unwelcomed
        whistle of the morning train,
        from the strained scream of the
        lumpia vendor, from the sophisticated
        melody of nightclub music, from the
        alms-begging cries in crowded sidewalks,
        from pretending graded glasses seeking
        sheep-skin, high-pressured ticket seller.
        away form the honk-honk of waiting
        limousines, the haste of presses
        accommodating headlines, the cackle
        of the radio announcer.
        it takes a sea to part the two,
                and many others more, yet the
                watery distance do mend the broken
                piece-part of the broken whole.

      iii
broken by the water barrier, part of
        the broken scheme – a stray mass
        the grown untamed.
blame it on the ills of war, a frenzied
        sickness, a cancer-growth.
        a callousness undisguised
the city’s pleasure is a farmlife’s
        leisure and these
        in different garbs exist.
not even mindful of the worms
        that eat up the human heart,
        like a rotting fruit.
with colored goggles
        the hue is blood-red and shady black.

  iv
o city of pain,
vineyard of desire
o burial ground
        where lay bedfellows
        they who came, stayed, gone,
where stumps and leafless trunks
        are bare to the sun,
        breathless and devoid.
while fingers are busy
        counting metallic coins.

  v
no, not a flood shall cleanse
        this wild and wanton fleshliness,
        nor upturn the barren farrows,
        not the rise of the tides
        nor the fury of the winds
        not even the whiplash of a strong hand.
the deluge in every clayey figure
        in the farm and furnace.
the going up beyond the worldly
        watermark of the passing tide
        that is man.
the man
        the self
                is the starting point
                from which the line
                        of the circle revolves.
                        and in our chambered brief hours
                                of aloneness, shall speak
                                a shrill deep-seated voice
                                to which we shall be all ears
                                        and shall tremble.

I'm not afraid
of dying,
but of living,
yes, living,
it scares me.

Of losing someone,
of everything,
of living
in nothingness,
and in pain.

It scares me
to know,
that life isn't fair,
of people's judgment,
where is freedom?

You live in the world
of broken dreams,
of broken vows,
and of broken wings.

I'm not afraid
of dying,
but of living,
of losing someone
you love.

Today I thought about burning bibles and how my house is surrounded by cobwebs and how do I explain that to people.
It burns my veins when I think of the god that lets children die and creates maelstroms inside people so they’re left begging for change in the streets and all those prayers are like pinpricks on my forefinger because if I was created in his image, then why do I curl my fists when I look in the mirror
It’s not easy being cut-cloth and vacancy motels in foreign cities I will never return to because I know their owner
I know the freckles in your back like constellations in my head
I've heard your voice when I was on the bathroom floor sinking, sinking
There’s no anchor in this ship and the tossed waves are like your tousled hair
and maybe the sternum in your chest is the Bermuda triangle
but I could have sworn I held your hand, I know this for a fact
because my pulse danced with yours those days
but now it’s these days and I can’t get a grip
and I bend my knees but the bruises are stubborn
I keep opening doors but I don’t know what I’m looking for
I want to call, for help, to my mother, to my father whose clothes cling to him like death and I want you to know that this isn't about you
When I was a little girl, I would go to church and hope that someday my knuckles would get kissed and not murdered
I wanted everything my parents didn't get
I used to think it was because god was too busy with other people's families and that's why their lawns were always greener than ours  
I wanted for you to exist so badly, I forgot that I did too.