Jubran Khalil Jubran died in New York, New York on this day in 1931 (aged 48).
"For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, 'Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks.' Thus I became a madman."
--from THE MADMAN (1918) by Khalil Gibran

You where there last night in a dream
laying down in a bed
made out of moonlight and stardust
and your lips painted the warm colors
of hope in the empty space below my ribs
and whispers murmured
from the faint beat of something alive
inside of something I thought was dead

you kept your name a secret
and stole mine
and gave it away to a bird

with black feathers

and black eyes

and a black beak

and it chewed and swallowed
every letter and every syllable
and I became a nameless prayer
on the tip of your tongue
and a helpless beggar
and fool on my knees
and you wrapped around me
like a snake squeezing the last breath
out of its next meal

your skin was a blanket
made out of the soft heat of the sun
and it covered and held together
all the broken and lost pieces
of all the things I had forgotten
use to be part of me

and your heart filled all the emptiness
that I had been carrying in my blood
and your eyes where painted
fields of flowers and flames
and you sang a song that had no words
that told all of the truths
of what it was to find and know love