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.

on the balcony
of our flat,
i light a cigarette
as the buildings
flickers its lights
harmoniously
like a morse code
in the night.

i look frequently
at the back of the sliding
door to see if they're
back already.

i hope they won't be
until i am asleep.
i am one with myself
tonight or any other
night.
an overdose of loneliness
in a place full of business
and contracts and the years
to come.
it will change me, i fear.

the books i have with me
are all i have,
words from dead writers
whom secret
readers such as i
embrace like a last
source of warmth in a
cave i find myself in,
shivering from a winter
state outside.

so many ideas for a novel
and yet none could be
done, helplessly i cling
to the idea of
these dead writers
as if i converse with them
through the weight
of the book i choose
to read
every night.

if i throw these words
out to another human
being, it'll only pass
through like a ghost
and will mean
nothing as it took
me on a distant
phase once
when i was
wounded by love,
stress and disappointments.

i am a beacon in the dark,
consumed by the dark,
a black lonesome
creature as dark
as coal
and as brittle
as coal.

as dry as the wind of
this country i'm in,
as lifeless as the lives
i have come to notice,
as lives become no
different than clockworks,
worn out tires and
beat up soles.

nothing could be done,
this is how things are,
the lives are
narrowed down
into an organism
filled with nothing
but the same things
over and over. . .

i return to the proper
reality,
the cigarette between
my fingers on my right hand
is grayed out.

below are the neighbors
hanging around,
wearing their jilbabs
probably talking
about something
i couldn't understand.

the fire of life in me can be compared to a dying light bulb.
ain’t that a bad comparison?
the days were like the days when we still don’t care
about the things we say again
but we’re just fooling ourselves
---

good that you have a drink in your hand
don’t you have work tomorrow?
it feels like the strings are getting cut
whenever you ditch a day doesn’t it?
well it’s that feeling that drains
take my words, i’m not putting you down
here with me,
listen, you don’t understand that
at this age you shouldn’t be forcing
what’s not there anymore
and you’ve been diagnosed with the disease
since you age
everybody does, no exceptions
i hate to be the bringer of  bad news
but it’s the truth buddy.

---

you don’t have to state the obvious,
it’s everywhere, over you, over me, everywhere
i just want to pretend that the day’s
going to be great once in a while
don’t you think that it’s not bad to
shed your own skin for a breather huh?
i mean, it gets tiring, i want to put the
mad dog face down for at least today
and i don’t know... maybe go to
a place where the ****’s not as bad
as what we got here

---

where?

---

ugh ****.. i feel lazy...
listen, let’s just
smoke this blunt in my room while
we listen to your playlist
i hope you have morrissey

---

sounds like a plan...

“Never leave your enemy winning without something
to groan about
in other words,
never go down without a fight
even if you only have your raw will left
to fight.”

what is it about fighting that makes some of us
want to win so badly like it’s God’s next big throne?

winning isn’t permanent, today you’re ahead
with three days up and the next day you
value the remaining seconds you have.

it’s always about winning
and nobody wants to fight;
end the fight.

I fight because survival isn’t the reason.
I fight for all daily reasons
and not one of them is winning.

I just want to finish whatever the
end may seem to be

It never hurts to see your colleagues
10 stairs up and never looking down,
just keep on reaching whatever they may
find on the top and what lies above the finish
but then I must continue to fight along with
these regular-sized rabid dogs and our leash
is about to unfold:

There is no paradise for us and we
made a pledge that we’re God’s unwanted
children like what we heard from “Fight Club”
it all makes sense to us and none of us
is you.

Fight not to survive.
Fight because you are born for it and is
good for it and if you don’t,
you’re no different from the others.

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.

wearing blue uniforms in different patterns,
see-through embroidered shirts,
suits and ties

the lead force knows what we need
and what should be done;
the revolutionists and communists
or perhaps citizens beware

these elevated-angels can no longer be reached,
we’re down in the sewers, in the gutters

their leader is faceless, faceless faces
like shadows you can never win against
nor at least inflict harm to

they are everywhere monitoring us
in our private moments, the shadows
cast upon the light of our television sets
in our living room with its lights turned off,
the paranoia in the streets where cctvs
serves as a notion that someone is watching
us

observing our delayed bills, monthly salaries
and taxes along with our debts and its interests.
the short-sweet remedy is its scent from
the entertainment shows that has
strong amplified hypnotizing voice from
artists forcing us to accept all their opinions
are lawful and just

the guardians of the traffic roads
respawned by the motherlings and the all
time fathers of the unknown;
the producers of angry motorists and
robbers.
the bosses
the managers
the CEOs
the licensed practitioners

they all gain a part of the gift of their path
and no alternative force can stop them.
their vital strength also serves as
their fatal weakness
and they are glad that the cycle
is almost stable.

they all belong to a one big underground
family tree, bound to make humanity
suffer, taken away from the
essence and purpose of living

and

i’m here on a refuge, smoking every
inches of cigarettes i could light.
writing the words down like a ***
with a signage that says “the end is nigh”
and it would take a couple of decades
for it to take effect on them to
think that they should’ve listened

not
to
me

but
to

the truth.

Dry mouth.
Probably because of
too much smoking.
When did I start
the things I feel so
filthy about when I was young?

Well anyway,

I remember
“Que, Sera Sera.”

My grandmother used to sing
that song to us, her grandchildren.
And when I aged, I found out that
the meaning of the unfamiliar
phrase is within the song itself
all along;
that’s why she always bet her
money to those big casinos
whenever she gets some.

She wasn’t afraid to lose
but then she is a loser
I suppose.

And that taught me
that there’s something
I’ve been born with;
not a curse,
not a blessing
but
endurance
to
the

last.

scream as much as
you want
and
you'll never wake up
your neighbors.

whisper and you'll
never know
what stories
they would come up with.

silence your way
and you'll go mental.

please your neighbors
by shedding a heavy layer
of your skin
and you'll find yourself
living among
the dead.

live an outsider's life
away from the suburbs,
away from the streets,
away from the city

and

madmen's threshold
to tranquility you will find.

I stayed up until 2 am.
I was a little bit high and my hands were itching to write, I was able to finish one of my drafts out
of boredom.
I read it again and again.
Lost in transition,
indefinite blues.
As far as I remember,
the things
you want to say
in a form of simple
words and with
a passive conviction
can mean so much
more without any
fancy borders which
sole purpose is
just for attraction
because all the decorations
does is spoil the point and the
rest is a trend and then history.

Why can't I get someone to
get it even though
it's not my business?
Whenever I get an
approvable on point
it gives me hope
which translates:
not only I feel like ****
because of this stinking world
and how the society
adapted to it
and me dragged along,
of course
like a man in
the middle of a stormy sea.
I'm tired of it all. . .
the figures of speech
and how I can't use it
properly. .
the never ending debts. .
the omniscient monthly bills. .
the same old
******* thing ever since
I graduated. .

. .but my motivation
is, today's my Thursday.

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.

write it,
decribe it.
let it devour your
tight grip on your
possessions,
reputation,
fear of judgement,
concern for
your receding
hairlines
and failure.
don't ever slow down.
slowing down means
to feel what isn't
necessary
to feel.
the weight is nothing
compared what is next
after the cliff.
your body has been
tainted to begin with
and the only way
around is forward.
go.
never mind the
machinery parts as they
fall piece by piece
along the road.
your worries are
mere distractions
and don't ever forget
that you've ****** up
more times than the
minutes you spend on
worrying.
dying could be set aside,
consider it once you've
outlived your enemies
and your demons.
if you ever find yourself
unable to stand,
your fingers will
gather all what's left
to form something
not new, but a
working dysfunctional
remaining pieces of
yourself.

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.

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.

i have that never
ending problem
and there's no time
for metaphors

feet on the
concrete cracks
that details war
going on in my head

the future, tomorrow and the next day
what form will it take?
how high will the bars be set this time?

and

i wish i was as tough as a dog;
more wounds
more fight left

and i wish this frail fighting
stance would be enough
to conceal my trembling body

i was born the heir
the favorite ******* of
the mother dog of poverty

christened with
lies to reveal

and

distance to ****

this is not my flag
it is my symbol
the ever rusting
seal of reality

the most rabid of dogs
in cages

and

the bluest among the
humming birds

i.
together with
all the other dogs.
refuse.
to.
yield.

till
all our
stilt steps
fills all the cracks

and

the smoke storms
brings death in our
my lungs.

Let’s start with these
overpriced filters
for
heavy smokers..
I choose Tarshield
for it’s the cheapest  
****** brand
there is..

and if there’s a cheaper brand
Let the light guide me
to find it
in these
self-proclaimed
convenience stores.

if you're reading this now
       and you're breathing through your nose
that means
       you're alive and literate as well.
i originally wanted to write something
       angry but i just couldn't do it
like how i can't explain the weird
      spacing; see? just ignore me. thanks.
bye.

(the numbers were added to make the readers feel
that the writer invented something new, something
that other writers haven’t tried before but
it doesn’t really work because mainly,
his writing *****)

1.
i hate that she still listens to Motion City Soundtrack
and i don’t doubt it that she already introduced
her baby to their songs like L.G. FUAD,  Everything Is Alright,
The Future Freaks Me Out, Hold Me Down etc,.

2.
i think that i’ve been fairly unfair to my recent lover.
but things are more complicated than ever that
i don’t feel like myself for the past three years
but it’s not her fault. neither of us is at fault.
a well crafted excuse to avoid being regarded
as another poor excuse.

3.
everyone i graduated with
seemed to have moved on with their lives,
are now professionals in
their own prefession and here i am,
convincing myself that i am alright
while listening to MCS’s “Everything is Alright.”
P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C

4.
it feels good to say that “i have no friends”
when what i really mean is they’re all
too tough to get down to late night
sappy conversations which for
the very least, happens occasionally.

5.
fact:
whenever i get to something new like a
job, path, ****, course, wage, state of mind,
level of sanity, new batch of hair falls,
or the latest, ‘country,’
it’s always somebody’s decision

6.
i honestly think that all the people
i’ve met in/on/at work are phonies.

7.
i ******* hate myself.

8.
Dubai is like the Season 2 of my life
and the people I left in my country
are the 1st gen Pokemon
(i have no pikachu)

9.
everyone’s moving along constantly
and i’m a part of the audience,
but the only one
who doesn’t participate

10.
another wasted hour.

You are not like this.
It is what the world wants
you to be.
Are you angry?
Are you upset?
Do you extinguish your demons
with your cigarette breaks?
Do you hate everything?
Does the matter itself
brings you closer to the end?
Does the fire in your head
breaks your spirit little by
little every time you
think you've been fooled
all along?
Stand.
Don't take a step.
Let the train have its
way.
You are made for this,
flesh by flesh.
Your finish is grace.
Afraid?
Fear embodies you.
You don't know fear anymore.
You don't have to care.
The world does not care.
A recluse is better than
a narcissist in every way.
It's the world.
It's not this poem.
It's not what you think.
Every body is burning
and you are one of the few
with the thin skin
who feels it, expresses it,
molded by it.
Bukowski knows this
and he doesn't want me
to repeat it for him
but he's dead and I guess
I will be too.
It burns.

we’ve known each other
for years,
hell, you’ve brought me to hell and back.
it’s confusing really.
can’t tell if you’re the same
monster who once sought to destroy
and shatter my dreams
for you don’t have the
same intention anymore.
or is it just that you were once
the victim of the same battering ram
pushed by another?
the thought nullifies the hate
i’ve gathered but not all of it
gets out of my mind that easy.
the disease that you’ve invested in me
affected my stance,
resulted into my-now inferior character,
bore instability and anxiety
but what can i do?
i’ve come to live with it day by day
like it’s my secret identity
and now to think that you’re
literally under my bed,
snoring like a tired beat up dog
home from work,
i couldn’t hold any more
but to let go. .

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.

letters Y,U,I,G,H,J,B and N. . .
these are the letters on this keyboard I stare at
when I’m blank enough to start writing something.

I wanted so badly to know if I’m the only one who is
stuck with nothingness.
the only motion of the day where I can consider
myself living is when I get this space at night.

and those places. . .
there are places around where I live I stare
at when I get the chance and I
try to play previous scenarios
that doesn’t have much meaning to
me anymore. why do I bother?
but some of it are just
plain good to lose meaning;
those places
that I changed along with
not
the ones who changed me

like
that park near the river
my classmates and I used to
play on until our parents come
to pick us up

or
the places that are so clear to me
when I try to remember them,
but can’t quite remember
where and how to go there
for I was so young back then

well I guess that’s all for now.

you wake up
you eat breakfast
you hear the news
but the news don’t hear you

you dress
you have a job
you get paid
but it doesn’t pay off

you get old
and you die

and you wasted a couple of
seconds of your to be wasted
life reading this.

GOD and the guy wearing
red pajamas didn't partake
in any way in this madness
that is going on in this world.

man is responsible.

our leaders?
greedy *******.

wars?
negotiable.

the religious?
wise guys, crooks.

the media?
ask the Beliebers.

the people?
still clueless.

writers?
i'll leave it to you.

Oh good Lord, may you provide us with providence..
Merry are those who are deceitful at ease..
Wash away not only my sins but also my knowledge..
These index fingers are pointing at all direction...
This unclarified purpose is digesting my head..
Why do I loathe a lot of irrelevant things?
When my existence is a part of inconsistency..
I see the world from a moon in my isolation.
More and more souls are appearing to be a nuisance..
For the voice in my head told me so..
Such is defining gravity and drowning on a sunny day..
To a soul with feet fixed on the daily tracks..
Perceptions are unnecessary for these subjects..
Relying on hope itches my pessimism..
I am so eager to scrape my enemies but I don't know them..
And my thoughts.. why are they trying to **** me?

we are not gonna fit into
those holes because
we are not used to change,
afraid of change,
always burying within
the confines of self comfort.

tell me, why I am not designed
for this and that's perfectly fine,
convince me that
it's completely okay to be
emotional;
it's just that they don't acknowledge
it like they used to in the
old days.

it's not alright to feel
this way all the time and
we've tried almost everything
but the problem is that it's just
us, wanting to always
feel in the rain
while smoking cigarettes
in a dark 6am morning
where the stillness
doesn't say much
and the rain completes
what we couldn't.

maybe Real Friends
is right,
this place
is the same and we're just
changing.

maybe Dan Campbell
really is Aaron West,
my, I sure hope not.

maybe the boys from
Modern Baseball
just needs
to take a break;
Brendan, Jake, if you
read this,
know that I feel
the same way too
about
mental health
and depression
and the people who have
'em really needs help.

i wish we have
all the lines
and
all the time
but we don't and
we can only hope
for things to get better
any time soon. .

it’s true, these past few years like all other years,
i’m still not sure what am i supposed to do
with life.

even my words aren’t so sure what it wants to
mean and though i write so many things, mostly
about myself and my experiences, i still wouldn’t
call myself a writer because the truth is that
i am still longing to be a part of something.

i honestly think that the people around me
will just pass me by with hello’s and small
talks.

i wanted something more and i realize that
it’s not selfish because i haven’t got anything
i wanted for a long time more than i could
remember.

this life i am touching, its meaning to me
is less valuable. every day, five or six days
a week, nine to fives, overtimes, bills,
account savings, marriage, families...

the whole picture is getting worse as
a whole in the back of my head.

maybe i am not of this world, not of
any other worlds either.

the last time i felt my feet steady
are the times when i still haven’t
had the slightest idea of what the world
truly is.
but it was just a short period of time,
and periods of time,
moments with everyone,
lives,
beliefs,
everything...

i just wanted to disappear.

if you say that
you don't want
to do this anymore,
the job, the work,
the office,
the spreadsheets. . .

then what else
would you
be better doing?
what else is there to do?
all thoughts are leading
to ending up into a ***
in the streets begging
for change.

it's a trap you see.
everything is supposed
to be free until everyone
started owning things.
they caged us with
most of us not knowing.
it costed us our
true freedom.
they contained us
like gasoline
for their desolate machines
that has no flesh or heart
that no single human being
could ever stop on his own.

where the homeless are
right now is just pure
evidence how cruel
we let things happen.

you wanted to praise Jesus,
and the next thing you know
is that you didn't helped
at all
and you only
helped yourself with lies
to cover up the absence
of reason.
why such terrible things
happen?
leave it all to God.
what is a god?
leave it all to nothing.

honest, i sometimes
think i believe in
the terrorists.
they are like mental
scars left untreated,
bound to do things
their own way.
never again
to sit still in front
all of these established
conformity that was
created for our minds
to submit to,
to unconciously
accept
as the standards
or as the only way,
the right way.
but it's absurd to do so,
either way.

i have these thoughts
out of motion,
inanimated,dead,
therefore i failed
but the tiniest spark
will do
against all odds,
against the
thousands of
your faithful followers
and your statuses
about yourself,
your beautiful self.

half closed eyes. . .
you don't want to
read this, i know.

'm drunk and so the world.

boiling stomach;
ready to *****
but no.

i hold it in.
and so my pain
is steady but i'm still drunk.
drunk.

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.

a humid night stills.
there are no stars
no signals
just motions for
the steady notions.

i have changed.
everybody does.
but there are some
moments i want to relive
that i can’t seem to
get a grasp of.
looking at my trails,
i do not seem to get that far,
i’ve been running in circles
for days.
i can only look back
and i can’t get past
the thick glass separating
the present and the days
of my youth.

i wanted to break the glass
but it resides within the
deepest chambers
of which i can no longer
retrieve

and

the beer in front of me
is getting warm by the
hour.

it’s another day of work
tomorrow.

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.

i wrote about you
and i wrote about her,
it's like writing's
the only remaining
thing worthy
of a wholesome good ****
any desperate tough guy
act person could offer.

writing is awful
but every ending
of it releases all the
bad that needs to get out.

like your one friend
who doesn't take off
his shoes when he comes
barging in to your house,
and in your room,
you know
writing is there for you,
especially when you're
drunk all by yourself
either because you
just wanted to ****
yourself up or because
of some ****
you need to get over
with.

i don't know about you
but it's. . .

better than ***,
better than dope,
better than ulcer and smoking,
smoking and ulcer,
better than bleeding fists
and anything swollen due
to excessive and meaningless beating,
and a lot more better if
it is
the only thing
you'd ever wish
to be good at. . .

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.

how many sad love stories
does it take to make a heart
as thick and black as tar?
how can they take a lover's
plea like it never betrayed
anyone before?

I stare at the young bloods,
the vibrant reds,
the fresh mouths,
the holy bathed genitals
and they all make
me wonder. . .

what will cause them to become like me?

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."

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?

the burning sensation on my feet
inside my socks on a radiant day
is a sign that hell truly is a
sole-inch away.

the bums are the birds
their pecks as ***** palms
and our change
are the crumbs.

the mall is a one massive arcade
inside of it are the machines
we play;
one works with one or two credits
and the others works for dozens.
the rich gets to play at ease
but the poor plays with
dual frustration, be it with
the old or new games
and no matter how many
times the poor wins,
the devil always prevails.

the road is a desert and its hellish
drivers are the vultures
and the travelers doesn't have a clue.

your ride home
is a short film,
narrated by the houses,
streets and different
churches from
religious cults

and the home is
where the tragic
takes a rest
and your eyes,
a projector.

"we can't do
anything with bare our hands."

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.

haunted by the greatest poem that will never be mine
i sprung across the centers of mirrored versions of myself
the first one i saw was a barefooted town drunk with a twitching pair of lungs
the second one never lived half the age of the original plan
the third one in a scene my heart couldn’t bear i skipped
the fourth one hardly mattered, it looked a little wiser than the others
and the fifth
and the sixth
and the seventh
and the eighth
and the ninth
and the rest
all looked just like me
all bestowed the same fate from the third:

Mette stole all possibilities as our consent
gave us blind gratitude from it.
i came back exhausted
realizing that the fourth version was more becoming. . .

Someday, when I’m old enough,
none of these would even matter:

the women I could’ve ****
but was emotionally unstable to do so

the dream of being a great writer
where everyone would dream of
giving me a head

the people who forced their own ways inside
my head

the romantic times where I should’ve
let my ****** feelings win rather than
regretting it afterwards

the chances I wasted telling the truth

the frustration in life and
the lie about how I was manning it well

the friends who is no more than words

ambitions I lost during my upbringing

my unhealthy relationships
and state of being

wild obsessions

the real truth that nobody will
ever notice

disgust towards people I used
to look up to

fear of getting judged

and lastly,

hoping.

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.

it is one of those memories
you succumb into

if you don’t write it down.

there were three of us,
the usual roster
for a small group of college friends;
two love birds and a third wheel
who’s got it under control.

little did i know,
though pop cultures
didn’t really interest me
the same way it didn’t
appeal to them,
we didn’t see it coming.

it was all fun and games,
skipping classes and
getting drunk,
the usual talk that bores
you if i go on.

of course, like in
any other event of a story
the settings are alluring
for young audiences
where it could’ve
been somewhere else:

we spent one
evening on this theme park
in a pier,
one of those few moments you’ll
never forget either way.

i believe in giving
all the details
but if you insist,
we were walking
after the eats and the rides.
me’s on the left,
he’s on the right
and the she’s in the middle,
between us.
she held both of our hands,
on my side i felt
her tight hold and i didn’t
bother how was it on the other
end ‘cause we’re all friends
and
it all seems irrelevant
to talk about now.

after all,
it’s just memory
you don’t want succumb into

if you don’t write it down.

experiencing an unbearable
headache from a withdrawal
due to cigarette cessation,
he puts his earphones on
plays the pixies' 'where is my mind?'
opens a browser
secretly looks at his ex's
social media account:

newly-wed and a mother and all

when the song ended
he went to bed
and played it all over again. . .

upsetting outcomes
and
useless confessions,

****!
now that i've figured
how to get by during
the previous two decades,
i can't figure how
in this present time.

to define this
frustration
is to result
forced efforts
to a grumpy poem.

the reciever always
pick up bad signals,
bad ******* reception
from no good people
you meet.

if i close my eyes
in a room full of
people i know,
i just know no people
i know knows.

sometimes it feels
stupid to reach out
but it's more stupid
not to, however it
makes more sense
to be alone and over
analyze things and end up
with the same result:
it's another grumpy
poem.

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.