There is a vast open space somewhere out there
and there is one in me.

It is not sadness, it is not emptiness, anger— ****.

I can't seem to define it.

The harder I try to describe the shape of this mold
I am holding, nobody's asking.

Therefore, everything accumulated, everything I've learned
and come to know has been totally obsolete.

Hope is scarce.
Daydreaming is dangerous.
Carelessness is expensive and God knows
he couldn't care less about what has become
of everybody.

At 31 to this present day I know for a fact that
there's nothing more I can add or contribute
to the world but to consume.

I got so depressed,
so fed up with everything one time
at work that I let that *******
client know that I wanted to **** myself
because I was so sick of everything;
not that it had something to do with what he was
complaining about but I couldn't process it anymore
at the time.

The next day, my manager received a lengthy
email and the police (Dubai) went to our office
to investigate the incident.

I got called to step outside with them and was told
that I am now considered as a criminal and a threat because
it is illegal to want to "unalive" yourself, yes that's the new term.

They were doing good cop, bad cop.

One says, "in this country it is not allowed this, not allowed that.."

The other went ,"go do it back in your country."

I wasn't sure which one was good and bad, I didn't bother
but they were useful as they helped **** time at work
especially it was the busy hours when they came.

Then they let me go back to work after filling up some forms
and having me sign some papers.

When the old got new and the new got old
I was judging myself prepared in the mirror
and always end up lowering my arms,
decide that it's too much to participate

I have never once made it on top
and I just know it is going to be lame
and disappointing

don't believe me?

Try to remember the few
times you worked hard in the dark

Try to imagine if everyone
are born winners

Try to imagine if everyone was neither
edgy or oblivious to even raise
a finger whether it's red or pink

Try to imagine yourself
constantly rebutting
every reasoning you can
come up with
before you even execute them
and you can't help it

It took a lot of tries and hits
careful or careless
I still drag my fort
without describing its
current state, shape or form
to everyone

I was young.
I could walk for miles without getting tired.
My thoughts could send me flying elsewhere.
I can put holes through a wall with a single punch.
I can control others' minds and make them act silly.
There were no clocks in my head!
I can compete with fast gods or go toe to toe with
stronger enemies.
All those possibilities. . .
and none of these.

It's not a mystery to me that I keep
having this fantasy to be young again,
rewind, nothing in mind;
not a single thing to be reminded of.
of any specific steps to take in order to make it;
all nothing but pure grandiose on the spot.

no ******* critics to tell you their boring bigotry
because for ****'s sake,
all the sake's for our innocent poetry.

rhyming is allowed, spacing and misspelling,
no viewers, awkward, anxious...cringey.
you name it!
these things basically, if not, partly make
our youth meaningful.
deprived of all the terrors of the world
and what people say.

If given a chance to relive them all
I'd do better
but maybe,
I am just helplessly
drifting away again
in this coping mechanism.

god if this is a theatre,
splash an epic ending for me
before you close the curtains.

I am drunk
and I have work tomorrow
just like everybody else.
Don't feel sorry.
I did this to myself.
I was careless.

Now, I am going to sleep.

You know, as much as I wanted to be versatile
in writing my own poems, there's just no cheating
my way on becoming a good poet.

I wouldn't be able to artistically write something
if I try to think too much on a certain subject
but when I try it obviously comes out as some
pretentious piece of untrue events and I think
I could blame aging for this but I just can't
get away with it.

Nowadays, there's really nothing much going on,
just dull sunlight, lazy afternoons and somber evenings.

Tonight I drank a couple of can of beers just to check
if something's going to come so whatever's going to be
written here could either be just something as random
as intentional I intend it to be or as often as it gets;
dull.

Mentioning it only makes me feel the humidity of the weather
and the uncomfortable embrace of insecurity.

I always find myself deep choked by this fantasy that keeps
lingering in my mind:

I let go of myself long ago and I am always afraid to admit
that I am going nowhere, heading nowhere, a nobody who
wants the spotlight but without really wanting to do anything
to achieve any of it.

It's a pity pit mud show down here and it stinks, it stinks quietly
on my own and the stench of the sorry sobs I don't walk on
anymore. I had so many plans in life, one of them was to
start some indie band but the people I meet were all
rockstars in their own imaginary world like I do.

There was no progress at all.

One time during college, some of my colleagues read my poems
and called them all cliché; a motivation to lay low.

It didn't bother me that much because I didn't knew the meaning of the word back then so **** me.

Fast forward to today, I am hunted by everything.

I can't escape any of this today
but it's not a problem,
really.

I was running out of ideas,
not about the ones that could work
but the ones that would surely
let me live a little in the midst of it all.

I am caught between my crazy thoughts
and the standard procedures they
keep on prescribing to everyone
while none of theirs really worked out.

Whenever I smoke inside the bathroom,
there's this big mirror on the wall
with the size of the modern flat TV screens
like the one you have in your living room.
I see myself in it, deformed, defeated,
clueless and occasionally mad about how
I couldn't live at any moment;
always crawling like a bug while carefully
avoiding being stomped by the bigger fellows
from the who-knows heavens above.

If I was a bird, I'd be aware that my wings are clipped
and if I was God, I'll know how to keep my subjects
subjugated-fairly.

Oh how I destroyed myself with lots of ****
in the internet. Other than the self-inflicted pleasure,
I confess that it did get me through being completely
insane with how fast the world moves,
how it forgets that a person can only bear
a couple of things all at once though
on the other hand it destroys more than
it mends.

Don't get the wrong idea, I am not alone, physically.

I have tried countless approach, methods, ways
for whatever the day wants me to shapeshift
myself into, just to reach the most
fitting, the most becoming form in order to
get on the next day while surviving the traps
laid by the worries imbued in me by my upbringing.

My mouth as well as my mind is all dried up
to blame even an innocent rock for all the things
I keep running into, therefore I just embrace the spikes,
rush to the fall, crash to the wall and intentionally drown
while knowing there is no other way to escape any of this
but to run mindlessly towards my problems
that has different shapes and sizes.

I wanted to become one with the endless roads. A neverending travel filled with great mornings—rain or shine, up in the dangerous but fulfilling mountains, away from the city. I'll bring with me a girl named Sharlyn, an innocent soul with purity so bright, the stars come down with their own time and greet her, lowering their hats and whatnot.

The nights will please us with its aurora light show as we lay on the friendly tundras and as cold the night gets, it will freeze nothing but our trouble thoughts, our worries and bad memories about our dangerous encounters with these religous businessmen and their massive paycuts.

Oh take me away from the reality and let me select my own. I am tired, my shoulders, my back, my mind are tired from working. No amount of money would bring me into thinking that better days is just around the corner. See, I almost lost my way to everything, even directions in life..

I still have some sanity, grasp on sensibility and meaning but I lost more than half of creativity due to excessive productivity.

I need help.

I used to think I can do more than what I am supposed to, expected to. Now, whenever they bite more than they can chew, they take a small portion just for show and shove the rest, big chunks in our mouths.

Allah, are you aware how your children are misbehaving?

Of all the things I could promise myself;
I can only say half-*** things about the good things
that are about to come along the way
then light a cigarette with a clouded mind
and zero visions of an escape plan.

Yeah, it's as typical as I could be when I am left
with not much of a choice but to function in harmony
with the "best laid plans" of my life.

I am somehow glad that I got through
almost everything that has been weighing me down.
Through with the sadness and the depression
but hollowed out through the process,
worn out by everyone who have me by the shoulder.

I don't mind at all, but if there's something that
bothers me is that the longer I spend my time staying here
the more bland my life seems to present itself
which is why I keep on finding ways not to get separated
from the line that leads me back into thinking:
"I don't mind at all."

born

named after a three,
a brainstormed term
or the same old family name

celebrated

bred

thrown out in the open

eyes widened by the true visions
of the world

self confessions,
both harmless and self deprecating

the only answer to be given back
are tears out of the lack of reason

make a stand against the machine
with trembling
limbs, having courage is absurd
but to live it out is a choice

leave a flower for a few days
without water and it will perish

at peace
at ease

easier to let go
harder to leave

you just don't gather these,
your dissatisfactions in life,
distractions, warning signs,
long durations of time,
probably months without
someone to do,
you keep them until they hurt

why do you keep them
all to yourself?

do you know these people?

they're always right huh?

they're never wrong.

that's why you're there.
I'm here.

we don't resist.

we just want to live in our
own way of how the world
could attain peace,
then we die silently soon after.

we've set foot in this world
with open mouths gasping for air

the white in our eyes like ghosts
we pass by everyone,
every single soul who could see us
they try to touch our bodies
like smoke in the air
and we try to set
our arms helplessly, forming a hold,
an embrace

we don't harm anyone
we don't call anyone
we don't miss anyone

we miss ourselves
and we pass by everyone
we search for the same image
of ourselves through them
we copy their motions
in an attempt to feel
what once was

and they walk through us

formless we swim in the air

everywhere at once, we seem to
get smaller as the trails
disappear in thin air

what keeps us from disappearing?

we smoke

the **** out
of those packs.

just like everybody else.

I don’t have any idea of what’s going on.
The last time I’ve heard of people is that they’ve moved on.
I filled up all the spaces they’ve left vacant;

A reminiscent of company left to replay scenes
in the dryness of old places where such small
events happened.

Here stands my greatest enemy.

He reigns from far distant places and secret
undesired corners of the mind,
he serves as a companion to many,
can get a grasp of many heads in just one heavy
lash of isolation translated in thousand resonating languages;
an anthem whose choir wears nothing but electronic
employment pages on their heads
in this dangerous time of ours;
the fair opposite equivalent of rendered services in the day
by limbs, nerves, anxiety and mind laying rest in the night,
waiting for the weekend or perhaps waiting for an out,
a pause and maybe a moment of silence or peace:

Loneliness.

I never mind your presence.

You never were a good translator,
if anything,

you’re a traitor.

some other days our twenties dry like dry leaves
no cold establishments would take our souls
hey I just lost my job let’s drink with what’s left of my paycheck
I’d carry us a little bit higher than the rusty rooftops
if not, we’ll carry on as dreamers as the belligerents failures
of the previous generation into the four corners of
this small apartment

it’s a gathering of the minds

it’s all there is for us other than what wings that covers us
in our home, in the suburbs, in our comfort shelters

I get so tired of letting people know
that I just want to take back their idea of me

and of course, anyone of you who’ll lend me

the phrase “we’ll figure it out in the morning” will be much
appreciated

no need to force our depression-embodied bodies to work
we can bathe in alcohol lose another day loosen up lay down
get laid get high wake up late and despise the industry..

I thanked December way too early
now it has taken things way too seriously.

Most of the times
I neglect the truth away.
Never wanting to disturb
the calm waters.

The coming of age is over, spoiled
now that I have all the answers.
It's all coffee in the kitchen
with my feet tapping anxiously
sitting and waiting for the dead
working hours to move on its own,
dragging me away from freedom.

I never get control of my life,
honesty is a misunderstanding
and
depression is a misunderstanding,
a misleading coping mechanism
to slack a day or two in bed,
reading books that I'll never finish,
reading Bukowski poems
that does nothing but
make me embrace
the most comfortable
negativity there is.

Not doing anything at all,
just waiting for nothing
to happen until they move
me on another spot
that needs covering.

This individuality lacks
the guts to move independently,
lacks the guts to burn bridges
in exchange for a better path,
for a clearer space to breathe
where my state of mind is not questioned,
misunderstood or left untreated.

For ****'s sake,
relatives, strangers, friends, lovers,
corporations and unwanted
entitlements, responsibilities
just leave me alone.

I have been sober for months now,
and all you care about is
throwing all the things
that you think
is best for
me.

Well I could use a drink,
it's the best thing for me now,
that's for sure.

Hail Raymond!
The corners of the room is with you
The silence of the room is within you
The empty and the hollow feeling
is reaching a thousand yards down,
aiming for your throat and you cover
your heart just a little tight for no butterflies
to escape

The sunlight intruder through the window
tells what muscles are made for and you're
not one for more than the hours a creative
mind to waste

The night is your salvation,
Words, alcohol and cigarettes are your
salvation

You don't go well .

As businessmen, in your eyes, are just
men playing God paying other men to be
their broad daylight bad omen

O Raymond, you've written so many letters
to yourself and you don't read them

You fancy the letters as the steering wheel
of your life and those letters aren't
steering your life well enough to sound
mentally well

Raymond, you have so few friends, vocabulary and ambition for today,
what did you do today that is different
from yesterday?
What limbs you have aching now?

You've become so poetic and yet
you are behind, far away from those who swim happily through the deceiver's pool

Raymond. Raymond!
You need to wake up more than
everybody else, the rapid smoking doesn't
help but if it helps you,
may your seasonal belief in faiths and miracles save you from your flesh.

Raymond, we won't be getting
anywhere anytime soon.

Raymond, don't let go of the last hours
of solitude every night.

It's our only hope.

Raymond, you poor *******.

dead bodies moving dead bodies
you know the theme, the scheme,
the thought and the idea

the bodies, dead, paying the bills,
moving dead past the dawn
eyeballs rolling up as windows
closing and doors close and open

the bodies, mass production,
lots of bodies
Monday, Tuesday, Shitday
Thursday, Friday, Saturday
and Christday

Neighbor Allah never greets anyone
and he talks to himself in echoes
Buddha is all smiles and virtues
but no muscle, Buddha's daughters
are out clubbing tonight ******* their
oriental curves, selling their oriental
scents and cold white skin
to Allah's *** deprived sons

Christ is the only father and
he disowns his nieces and nephews,
I knew years back that I am a distant relative

just dead bodies, yours and mine
produce, corporate livestock,
labels from the heaviest bills handed
over in sinister alleyways,
sinister exchanges, hitman to hitman,
extraction to extraction, fraction by fraction,
bodies serves as platforms,
nonliving chopping boards for the butchers
dressed up as elves

the bodies, limb by limb, sagging skins,
rivers of hairfalls, scratch marks,
Ms. Universe stretch marks, the *** tapes
of the cheerleaders whom silent and wise
boys yearned for all through years of fading
innocence

Closeted gay professionals keeping their pointed ******* when nothing's wrong with them until consent turns from probationary to mandatory and hate and red and blue and green and yellow flags and pedophiles and bigots and white supremacists and Allah whisperers and Allah fanatics and Buddha hypocrites and China takes over the world and feminists, and third and fourth and fifth and so on genders and Trump and memes and Filipinos and mental health and memes and mental health and memes and literature and literature and activists and who ****** who and politicians and what Americans, Australians, Chinese, Japanese, British, Candian, Irish and and North Koreans and K-Pop plastic lips and hips who young girls and boys from isolated islands gets ****** for and hipsters and the nine to fives and the ***** to give and the snobbish *** girls in parties, in clubs, in alleys who wants to get ****** by all the celebrity status ***** all just becomes a tiny pinch for the dead bodies not to see and point the flower and shoot the gun to end the human war.

the slowest, heaviest and the
lightest thing the artist carries
is a bag of bones and meat

slouching on the sofa
eyelids as heavy as
boulders

the artist tries to stay awake
as his brain fries for a little
pinch of creativity

the urban pollution embodies
the scene, his inspiration,
and the artist is missing:
gone along with the radio waves

a mild, slow torture is upon
him, he disregards this,
he smokes a cigarette
his eyes lay lifeless
through the night,
as cars, bikes
and garbage trucks fills
his mind

midnight calls him for sleep,
before it,
he remembers some
beautiful things in his
past life and never he
make it past through a single one
on the back of his head

he doesn't want any of it
and he is unconsciously
made to think that way,

he has given all of it away
to the void, doesn't remember
much about everything,
year by year and
what remains is
a shadow of him,
the world was never easy
on him

and the world
always criticized him
with one word:
'pretentious'

because all the world's
intelligence and cunningness
lies solely from that
particular word

with him as a witness
from this comedic
tragedy.

There are nights that I want to
take the world with me

and I just don't know what to
do with its burden,
I let go empty handed
and still feel the weight
on my shoulders.

I turn to people, literature,
and sometimes
to God himself
and still, I come empty like these cigarettes in and out of my system.

It's hard to stay hopeful
when the help that comes out
of their mouths stay
as mere letters in thin air.

For a world that is over populated,
I feel so empty that it's humorous, irrelevant and hidden.  

I just need a little bit of time
to reflect about everything,
from years and years back
and when it all comes clear to me,
I'll shatter the glass:

A final form, reached right
before its due.

What makes you
leave your bed
and
smoke like
it's your last
at night?

Images of a
former love?

Chances
you could've take?

Words you could've
repeatedly
said?

Or committing
another bad
poem?

And so on,
and so on.

There is something about
the silence of the night,
it could be your hollow body,
your exhausted
mechanism,
or
the only hope that
you keep holding onto.

How many cigarettes
does it really take?

How many hours?

How many
scenarios playing
back and forth?

It stops when
you don't realize
that there are
still so many
questions left
for you or
for someone or
for something
to answer.

And in the daylight,
you deal with all that's
unimportant.

In the night,
there's nothing more
important
than dealing
with
knowing what it
takes to sleep
rather
than
exhaustion.

Me,
I try to
take them
all with me.

She's more than
what she think
she is.

She's stubborn and funny,
doesn't want to be
called 'beautiful',
and a little bit of a snob

but I like her that way,
not letting anything
in her way stop her
from getting what she wants

but she doesn't know what
she truly wants.

She's beautiful in her
own kind of way
and she doesn't know
that.

Says that she doesn't
want to get married
because men
always overrule
women based on
some people she knew

but it doesn't bother me
as much as it used to,
as I told her;
our moments together
is what matters to me
no matter how short
our strange relationship
will live.

and when the day
comes she tells of
our story to her
children, grandchildren,
I may not be there
to hear it,

but I know
for a fact that it happened
and

I'm all up for that.

a part of something
I try to become a real part of,
I say 'hello' to a long
time companion,
a long time friend,
a former love,
I'd get a 'hey',
catch up a little bit
and soon enough,
like a room someone's
about to leave,
they'll turn off the lights
and what
would remain
inside
is either
a sleeping soul
or just
an empty room.

It takes a lot to move
a muscle,
a waste of energy,
time,
thoughts
that costs multiple
hours to get over
during
most nights,

and to use your
heart,
you'll have to
pick it up like an unfinished
book,
try to continue where
you left off
but it usually takes
where it began,
remembering
takes a lot as well.

It has
been so long.

I put mine on the floor,
stare at it for a while
and try to see some
good memories
from it,
then leave it
like a grave.

Someone may put
flowers on it
or
someone may
pour whisky on it,
someone may
move it elsewhere
and for sure
it ain't
going
to be
me.

the ******* feeling
in the world
that you can ever feel
is that being deceived
that someone truly cares
about what or how you feel.

you can never avoid it.
there are so many people out there,
so many, that you won't be able
to stop yourself from believing
that someone actually knows
and someone actually cares
and someone would really
do something about it.

take one example,
the internet,
it's the place
where you can meet
a lot of people

because it's the place
where all the people
are now.

and all the people,
including you and me are gone.

all heads are niether
up or down
but gone.

it's a vast disappearing act
like magic
but the magic is that
nobody anticipated it

and that ignorance
is the most cliche bliss,

taken for granted
as it is meant to be.

constrict your heart,
your throat,
your lungs,
your dry lips,
your pulsating brain blood veins

keep it all within yourself

no one should live for
someone else

don't let anything
in your way take
what's important

battles scars are inevitable

imperfections, marks, scars and
more imperfections are
all meant to be
visible in you
as you have no other
choice but to
leap into the void
that is the world itself

don't let
love, jealousy, fear,
betrayal, failure,
cheating women,
the system's copulation to
the masses,
vague heavy dreams about
planes, battleships, buildings,
continents, planets,
titans, earthquakes and
volcanic eruptions
expanding sizes
next to the small you
take the only thing
that you have
in your possession
from the beginning:

yourself.

Hey, I may be gone
out of your life
but don't feel all low
just because of that.

There are still more things
to do than just
wallow in sadness
because of me.

It's heavy, it's dark,
it's weakening like
wet clothes to the skin
in a cold rainy night,
I know.

Smoking
now makes more sense
and drinking hard
is more important
than anything else there is
because
you don't want
to be surrounded

with the unsettling feeling
of missing me
but I won't stop you
if that's what
it is going to take
for you to become
better.

It will hurt
and hurt
and hurt
for many days and nights,
it won't stop until
you become so tired of
feeling the same
everyday.

I've been there.

It may take years before
the image of me
becomes completely erased
and only my name
will be all that's
left to your memory of
us.

Someday, everything
will make sense
but for tonight,
as the others
carry on
while you lay still,

it will
hurt you,

and it's for the best.

For many years

and

more to come,

we won't be
spending them
together anymore.

It's a move

I've made
on my own

that caused it all.

The motions it took
must've hurt you
real bad.

I'm sorry.

Let me feel something
from it too,
'cause it's a flesh
wound in your chest.

You.

Was it too much?

It's a drug, I know.

It takes time to
wear off.

Everybody
waits.

I can't feel anything.

I go with
the wolves tonight.

only smoke lives inside
this empty chest now

and a book lying in my bed
is the only companion I have
during most nights
and for the following nights

I can't confide with it
or exchange words with it

only it fills the little gaps,
small spaces
that I recently have made room for

it will take time
to remember how to take
a few steps

it always does

but I'm in no hurry

one good thing
about it is it doesn't hurt
like it used to
and I wonder if it really
mattered,
all those four years
because I couldn't feel anything
from it

and I keep having
this thought in mind
that loneliness
granted for a long
period of time isn't so bad
after all

I could use some solitude,
some peace, privacy and
time and time again
to reflect

however loneliness
isn't good for
a heart that chooses
to take action on its own

it doesn't matter,
for I can always cover it up
for as long as
I could

there are plenty of women
out there
but now's not the time
for that
since
I have no use for
relationships built within
the confines of the social
standards
especially nowadays
where no one wants to
keep their happiness to themselves

hold it like some treasure
bury it deep down like
you wouldn't want anyone else
to find it once you
get your hands
on it


and this poem
is as horrible as,
serves as a tribute
to
the last relationship
I had.

I am trying Camus, really I am.
For a headstart, I got fired
and received a one year ban
here in Dubai
for shouting back to that
Egyptian ****
who is
a poor excuse of a manager
who has no concept of humanity,
but **** humanity and
that job, and that Egyptian.

Humanity's been around for so long
that it has become a world epidemic.

Everyone's full of themselves,
In fact, everyone thinks
they are the perfect example
that everyone should follow.

No one's going to start a war
in this madness,
not when the war is
already inside our heads,
the wrong war mostly.

I believe we are at the
verge of humanity's
stupidity, it needs to end.

It's affecting lives.

Everyone has depression,
you and me,
including the one who
thinks 'memes' are fun;
including the one who
should emphasize himself as
someone who has it to form a sense
of identity.

You can't blame them you see,
hell, you can blame me for being
a poet out of commerce.
You can't blame the hipsters who
gather themselves in a poetry reading night,
I wouldn't go there even if they will
pay me base on how good my poems are
and these poems aren't for sale.
You can't blame the workers
for seeing less of themselves,
slaves to whip,
only now the whipping's mental,
they have families to feed Camus,
that's why they're here, to be
Christ-like and not to oppose.

I don't know Camus,
I really don't.

Are you trying to convince me?
If so, I don't understand the absurdity
of it all, not that I or anyone is able to.

You're probably right, it must be
the sobriety that is causing all of this.

Charles Bukowski, where are you?

it's funny that
I can only remember
bad times through another one

that just got its way
to sour me up
whenever I stare blankly
at something while thinking
of numerous ways
on how to solve it

knowing that nothing
could ever be done
to it,

nothing but the sense
of worrying relentlessly

because it's
the most sensible and feasible

way to approach problems
known to man.


I am to believe that
it's a reminder

from my own old system,
telling me I'll live through it
just like the other ones

and will remember
it in the future,

when another one
arises.

like the subtle movements
of the continents
below the surface
that triggers
small earthquakes
too weak to awaken
a sleeping neighborhood;

I was trying to compare
it to the physical
activities i feel
in the core of my brain:

a mixture of odd feelings
that shot itself from the chest
up to the head,
partly heat but mostly cold
and the color is neither
blue or purple

the strokes must've
never hit the
canvas

and I am about to
miss another shot
at happiness
and worse,

a good and
final riddance
to

apprehension.

there's blood dripping down
wipe it off
the wolves can smell it
from a hundred feet away

yeah, we are sons of *******
just some beat up strangers
in the streets
homeless
cigarette-bumming *******
asking for spare change
from gold stained hands

the cross they hang from
way up there
blocking the light
casting a shadow like
a ******* crosshair

they'll shoot us with
everything they've got
if we choose to stand in their way

how are you coping
up this week?

i guess we'll figure that out
when one of us does.

Is there a life within this life?
Every day, after my day job
all that's left of me
is a body demanding rest
just to get enough energy
for the same routine
in the following day.

I don't get out,
and I am limited in spending
the rest of my time
in nothingness.

I have blamed everything
enough that I couldn't
see the point
of blaming anymore.

I have ran out of resources
inside the corners of my brain
to explain myself or at least lay down
the right words
for effective deliverance.

I have tried so ******* people,
I have tried so hard for myself
and I don't believe that anything could possibly change anytime soon.

It's hard to be me
and no one's noticing it
except me in my own perspective.

I used to believe in friendship,
young age, positive thinking
but it seems
that the world around me
is showing quite the opposite.

What could be done?
Is there something out there
that could help me turn things
around, anything other than
the acceptance of the thought
that there is a God
who is omni present
and knows what I am
specifically going through
and that with all of his—
he'll save me?

I am in a part where
I am the only one left to talk to
about this, and for so many years
I have been with myself,
alone with myself,
I lost the capability
of remaining above
of where I am below of
right now.

I am not completely numb,
not yet I suppose
because I can still feel things
such as stress, restlessness,
anxiety and anything
that has nothing to do
with a healthy state of mind.

Also, I keep having these  
surreal subconcious thoughts
about running towards
speeding cars
and
jumping on high places
which a normal person
would never think of
but it's not really alarming,
for the average person
like me
who's
battering the body
against the ham
must also have their
subconciousness
begging for this timely
horrendous routine to stop
but I guess unemployment
would just cause us withdrawal.

Get it?

(I guess I don't know how to
distinguish the sound of
a normal person from
an average person)

brain shrinkage,
dialating eyes of confusion,
the molding of stress
in the pool of sobriety,
receding hairlines and
developing obesity,
the awry rationalization
of everyone's
depression in controlled economics,
the weariness in a blackhole,
sore feet,
sore body mass,
the lower backs breaking only for Moloch,
the lack of enthusiastic sense
to search for enjoyment,
for everything and anything,
one dead end leads to another,
the lights out hour
and
its deadly suffocating bed box
sadness machine;
as/while my relentless contemplation
for suicide delays,
I think I am more concerned
that with no savings at all,
the could/would-be bills for a funeral
may matter more than the death itself
but yeah,
this little enumeration
of a poem does no help
at all

but

a bottle of brandy
may help to make
it clear,
even for me.

sometimes i get
suicide bombers, rapists, killers, robbers and thieves
because their motives are visible through their actions.

but i never once in my life
bothered understanding businessmen, pastors, priests, muslims, religions, politicians,
and people whose motives in life
remain hidden
until caught red handed,
and also those people
who choose not to see the world naked for what it is.

maybe the UP activists are right
and that i shouldn't think of them as brainwashed kids or
just paid heads to do
what they do but their actions,
my thoughts and this poem
doesn't change anything.

i bet 100% of you
who are reading this would either think i'm deranged or seeking for attention.

i could go on and on writing
this **** and explain thoroughly
but the people's brain
are now wired to ex b's
hit single and yes,
mentioning that made
this a little bit funny but no.

as a ******* filipino
who should be typing this in tagalog, working overseas,
i've seen some fellow countrymen showed some pride
against their oppressors
from work but they don't get anywhere but jail.
i must've forgot,
the movie about manalo
trampled the one
about heneral luna.

see how helpless
we are in reality?

what's your photo that comes
with a bible verse got to do with others?

are you spreading
the word of God?
what does it do to you?

Sometimes I get
The New People's Army.
But I don't get Muslims
who runs businesses and the Chinese too.

Sometimes I wish
I could spread fake news
that doesn't harm others
and last but not the least,
I hope someday the world would stop not and smoke Marijuana all
at the same time
including North Korea.

I couldn't stop.
I also hope that these people,
those who has a lot of followers
use the attention properly but no, people are so ******* dumb and Salinger is right with Holden's, "People never notice anything"
and nothing's too big
if people will stop creating bigger things that'll only add up to the congestion clogging up the world.

and Allen Ginsberg is right,
we are breaking our
******* backs just to lift ******* Moloch.

**** your Mosques, your INC branches, your corporations, your religions, your borders and divisions, your trends that kills the minds of the youth.
**** your laws, about making Marijuana illegal.
**** your disguise and your intelligence.

I almost believe world cleansing is the answerbbecause the ant colonies are so much better
ruling the world.

I don't know anymore, my smartphone's ******
and I am not smarter. . .

. . . like a
small **** on the road.
You see, from the eyes of a man who has nothing but himself
to be fooled by the world
and hopes for a better day
or year,
I thought I was different
like I could change the ways
of the world through my own
visions but none of them
seems to work at all.
You give a *** from the streets
a crumpled bill and
next thing you know
he'll blow it all with
what he never had
for a long time
but I believe I would've done
the same because no Jesus
without a penny or dime
would waste such generosity
in this world and I
only believe in monks
who can discipline themselves
but monks are useless.
I have tried several approach
to make a difference
but nothing ever works
and sometimes I dream
with my eyes open in
broad day light that in
the dream I have the loudest
voice in the world
but even so, all ears are plugged,
all eyes are shut and
all hearts are pale.
You either die poetic
or amongst the ones
who have unturning eyes
but still you end up
in a box.
No small amount of
light could ever penetrate
the dark unless
the light is the focus,
and I just made that up
whatever that could mean
to anyone.
You can never be a
successful writer
without good advertising
and marketing nowadays
and with this awful
writing style I have,
I don't count like
those microscopic
sea creatures.

I wanted to bury what
I truly feel in this poem
but the anonymous
readers wants
to see if there's something
in this that would
push them further away
from the dead seconds
they'll be spending reading
but I keep failing them,
my sleeves are torn
and my flowers dead,
the words are dry
and the manning
operator of
the stream of my consciousness,
fat, balding and
unwillingly resigned to
the facts.
there is no more spit left
to spit and I've conjured
all the bad things out there.
All these words I have in here
are only here to expand
this poem;
and as the readers doubts
more,
I have to take this
part now to say what I really
mean:
You just can't expect life
to be as fair as how does
the wealthy have it
on their daily plates,
but don't get me wrong,
they have problems too
but not big enough
to drive anyone of them
to write this kind
of poem.

And yes,
I don't expect you
to find my shoes
appealing.

the only thing my parents
prepared me for the real
world is knowing how
to tie my ******* shoes
that's right
and yes
all else i figured out
all by myself
and by all else
i found out so many things
that took several tries
to get meaning out of
and most of these things
never come easy
i stopped blaming them
after witnessing
that such things
can never be prevented
from happening

i never noticed
how life really looked like
until little by little
it kept showing its true form
during my most
vulnerable days

again and again
the copulation never rests
and where does
this lead me and the others
like me?

i don't know,
go without me.

i have to tie
my ******* shoes.

it was another Friday night
i was with my friend
we had nothing else to do
and we never knew what else
was there other than drinking
it was how we always find
ourselves when the long
thread of days were paused
and everything never felt right
nor wrong for all that was left
to alot those feelings into
were long gone
and yes, the only thing left
to do back then was
to get heavy and slow
we bought can of beers
and cigarettes
and drank and smoked
outside the convenience store where we bought them and i have to admit
we were only heavy drinkers
when something pulls
our severed heads higher
than where it should be
but we still managed to finish
a few
and when we had enough
we felt like
oil-thirsty machines
it was the best part of the nothingness
we talked about music
the nine to fives
the outcome of our lives
lyrics
our-then not so long ago past lives
the friends we've lost
minimal fun times in college
the little things caught in
spaces in between
life and life itself
that made us who we are
and that one particular
name that changed it all
and
there was silence
and its long duration
was like loading
a slingshot with a stone,
pulling it backwards to aim
and misfiring in the end
i saw his heart slipping out of his
sleeves and its radiance
influenced mine
and we've never been so sure
that in life, one twist could
either form a new substance
or break the whole vessel
but we were just drunk. .
and i knew from there,
we were brothers

eyelids, as thin fold
of skin against the rain,
the consequence
the posibility
I shove this progress,
making space and making time.
I just want to lose
all this will energy just
so they admit me
to a hospital break
and I want to fake
everything. . .
God why can't you
make all this easy
for me?

and to my Mom
who seemed to
forgot what
living is supposed to
be,
you're dragging me
in the same ending,
I hope she knows.

and to my real Father
who never figured
things out,
I'm happy that
I got your ideals and
that you get me in my
current situation.

how many remaining days
are there before I lose
all this and become
a shadow
of what I used to be?
I wasn't great, never better
but around these days
I don't feel much
and as I am writing
this pitiful poem
I can feel the urge in my
hands to break something
in order to let
everyone know that something
is wrong but no,
people never know
I have been fooled of
this fantasy so many times
that it made me
burn bridges, including
long ones.

losing sleep,
restless I come at it again,
I'll force my way
all throughout the day,
earn the money
while I slowly turn
into stone,
losing myself
and drifting away,
****, I am drifting away. .

tomorrow
another blank slate,
thin fold of skin
against what tomorrow
brings
no rhymes
problems in the daylight
and mostly at night

only living
without being
truly alive,
I come as a poet
with problems at night.

let a machine
do all the thinking
for a man
and he won't worry
about anything
but himself;
but let be a man
who does all the thinking
and he'll worry about everything excluding himself;
and today,
in this modern present day,
let an intellectual
read this kind of stuff
and he'll think of all the men
who might have said the same thing
and the author
becomes unoriginal,
pretentious to him.
this generation is fat.
this generation is at its peak disadvantage.
this generation
will never have its own
Hemingway, Kerouac, Salinger,
Steinbeck, Ginsberg, McCullers, Rimbaud,
Plath, Fante, Bukowski,
Vonnegut, Camus etc. (and Nietzsche)
this generation. .
it is so tiring to think for it.

that rain and the soiled
streets of our muddy hometown,
i remember my hands
soaking wet
and the in-between spaces
of my finger nails were
***** from hard work,
i ease the tension
in my veins with a cigarette,
smoking in the rain.
how my body shaked
from the cold and i thought. .
i must be alive
and surely death is
miles and miles away
and i've got to carry
this heavy machine
as Christ to his cross.
i spit some blood
but from my own doing
and witnessing so. . .
yes, i must be,
truly,
surely,
******* alive
in euphoria
like a *******
and yes i was drunk.
drunk after the graveyard
the shift
and i smoked and smoked
for i was willing to
spit some more blood
but my mouth was dry
but my eyes weren't.
i wasn't trying to prove
anything and i already
know the people from this
age of internet too well.
i wanted to run
with this violated lungs.
i wanted to sing and scream
with this smoke fried throat.
i wanted to empty
all of my desires.
i wanted so many things but
God, you made me in your own
image but unlike you i'm an
immortal being.
the soil the mud the rain the desires
the smoke the people who read this your creation my narcissism the arabs the people who read this and their view of me as pretentious the sick ******* who derailed me the rain the rain the rain the smoke in the ******* rain the smoke in the ******* rain

cemented all through out
the decades, this living
and the eight hours a day,
debts, bills
and essentials
for sustaining stability
led masses blinded,
resigned to the facts
and engraved in their veins
the blood of slaves.
the man-made monster
to rule us all now legitimized
with man-made laws
that were bent in shape
to keep it perpetually running,
and us as the moving parts
who have nowhere to run
cannot do anything about it.
and all heads can say nothing more but 'tis the way it is'
and are afraid to have their possessions taken
piece by piece
when they have nothing
to begin with.
why is it such an
impossible feat to fair
the system and its cycle?
you see, hear and smell
the oppression,
lives imprisoned
or taken with no
trace of ****** hands
but only for
the greater good as they say?
if i have the ability
to explode all parts of my flesh
before all this,
before our powerlessness
over it,
before our troubled minds,
before our weary beat-up
bodies,
before the people they raise
just because they have
money,
before the unseen,
the unheard,
the unspoken horrors
kept by the authorities,
in the name of the
father, the son,
Nietzsche,
and of the raw people of
the earth,
may my rain of flesh
and the words
that comes along
with it pierce the void
blocking our people's
senses.

Al Ghurair ad,
January 13, 2017,
13 Dirhams,
a pack of Pall Malls
and a bottle of water,
with no dreams at all;
Jesus, Allah, Satan,
have you seen the line?
it was a rainbow illuminating
from an old projector.

how is it that people
never minded the facts?
no questions,
no disorder just
random breakdowns,
suicides of the frustrated,
lonely and depressed.

this you granted us
isn't a massive meat market
is it?
the line,
it's seamless in its
manageable horrors
and though the line
itself looked orderly,
the conversations
of the souls inside of it
were either
about something else
other than what lies at the
end of the line or
the hopes for
other better possibilities
after the line.

the temporary tracked souls,
as they pass us by
never saw the whole picture
of our depiction
but they know
your origin, Jesus, Allah,
Satan.

is the true human condition
in all its aspects
too bleak to bear
an alarming attention?

i don't understand
the line,
the tail of the beast,
the Hallelujah
and the Allahu Akbars
but I know you failed
us all, ending the line. .

tonight.

i can't be sure yet
but i don't want to be
disappointed
and disappointments
as they come raining,
i am more than
enough to have
room for one more. . .

December’s days are numbered,
the New Year’s on its way
and will soon take me with it.
My bones are of the same set,
its whole test of endurance
will be displayed again
as I dodge bullet after bullet,
January light,
my birth month,
its fire will once again
grant me another age.
The scoreboard of this year,
I never saw my name on it.
This battle of stillness is nobody else’s
but mine and I’m its sole competitor
and yet, it still haven’t
consider me as its own.

I'll leave this for now. .
(as I am so tired of being
aware of all my weaknesses
and
the disability to improve them)

tight grip ties,
the inevitable desperation
in our palms,
i see it in you
i see it in me
and the world is a
skyscraper piercing
the fruits of our labors.
honey you didn't
need to count our
blessings,
the wolves are already
here
and their mouths
are open, watering
before the scent of our ignorance
and our
mothers and fathers,
they knew it
and they wanted all of it
out of our sights
for the glow
that we keep
keeps the worth of
their burden paid
and we'll carry it
and we'll wait
and wait doing
this living that has been
translated so many times
in our past lives
to the outcome of
our lives.
and this,
honey isn't something
you haven't heard before.

we had the most saddest and hidden swaying drunken nights,
all of us, friends
from the bitter ends,
in a yearly interchangeable
roster,
the purely
'stick arounds-or-be awfully missed'
gathered around alcohol
talking silly, laughing
at each other's stories
and sensible nonsense
with smoke in our lungs
and spits on the
balcony's neutral corner
for ****, spit and puke,
singing halfway songs,
remembering
remember's contents,
it's like a boat without a captain,
just reckless abandons,
relentlessly hardworking morons
who are in debt in
finding out the worth
of it all outside
the confines of sobriety.
whenever we make it to
the nearing dawn
as drunk *****
carrying the weight
of the fun abuse from
the night before;
sore throat, oily hair, ***** fingernails, weak joints, bloodshot eyes, bleeding sentiments, sweaty forehead, sweaty palms,
moments i most feel like ****
though **** i am really are
but i feel great,
i feel more human despite the few
friends i have
who tolerate
the wrong in me as
i tolerate theirs,
there is nothing more to
life than moments
you could never relive
once you let the bad in you
take control in
grace.

it's cold.
the moving casted
shadows from
the headlights of passing
cars,
reminds me of you.
all i see are limited
scenes slowly turning
from happiness
to a strange interference,
a howl in a slow phased dance.
i am in a cave
and when i open my eyes,
you know that
it's time to
read this down slowly,
the scenes are cut,
the end only means
moving forward.
it is cold tonight.

there are many of us
out there, hiding our wounds,
counting our blessings,
retracing our steps,
the world is caught
between opposing sides,
the maidens, aides of
the last aspirations
now concubines
as the last form
of defense
for
this hidden world of us,
no stars would show
in rivers and no moon
will have
two suitors at the
same time on
different places,
the last prince in
turmoil,
but there will be hope
and the words
of its own,
transcending
for the next
muse