dear b,

i haven't written about you in a while
my white paper hasn't seen black ink in a while

i wonder if i should get it over with
speed the ball up
my head is rolling head-on
in the direction of storms
any way
i wonder if you still think about me

   do you still love me?


i catch myself laughing sometimes
but my tailgating tears never leave
me enough time when they crash into me
it feels like treason whenever i reveal my teeth
to anyone except you, b
i'd trade them all for you in a
heartbeat, if my heart beat

i wish my tears would stop
holding memories in each drop
like when we'd
share sore stomachs
and teary eyes
for all the right reasons
not for reasons like mine
from too much laughter
and not enough sleep
and junk food
and bad tv
and midnight 7-11 runs
and smoke breaks
and made up words
and
i can keep going
just like my tear ducts
i wish the void you'd left me
was in my tear ducts
i’ve even turned to black
just to feel like you and
we feel
    so
weak
i need you here with me
i feel my insides churn
i keep withdrawing
i wish b was for black
then the pain would make sense
i'm even crying as i write this, b
maybe this is the only way
at least that’s what they all say
but i can't help but think of you alone
in that lifeless room

just please promise me
you'll come back one day
i’m growing
impatient, b
why won't i stop bleeding
but it's ok, b
i don’t mind waiting
for you i’d wait more
if there was more than
eternity

sincerely,
your biggest enemy

i'd tell 8 year old me
that she is strong
and that right is never
ever
wrong
i’d save her (from a) life  
catch her nightmares
and her plagued thoughts
her daily mournings  
and high mornings
and her struggles
in reminiscing
and fixating
over little clothes
she used to own
o n e  d i s t a n t  d a y
in a land far
                      far
                           far
away
that were once like her
free
and free
of stains

- end

we are all dope fiends
why can't we see
our eyes are so clouded
that we can't see

if it was as easy
as choosing either
i wouldn’t be
a passerby
a passive eye

i'd rather be
a dope fiend
out in the open
with nothing to hide
than to be

a passerby
seeing me
my needled arm
out in the streets
scoffing by
thinking that

i
am better
than
me

- end

when i don’t pay attention
or smile at her every second
because my self, absorbed in her ways,
is fueled by fumes and preoccupation
with the remnants of my reflections
adversities in the shape of shattered fragments
at the hands of the menace who disparaged
with flying colors
my preconceived
notions of beauty
its existential crises
or lack thereof—
or extinction altogether
that day calamity
struck my ignorant mother
allowing me to stomach her
and with conviction
mimic a life-conviction-struck robber
and weasel my way out the tunnel


her presence never fails to tear
in parts unequal and unfair
my distraction her haughty air demands
******* mine but this time i have trained
or so i have dimwittedly led myself to believe
to maintain sanity soon to be by her relieved
i rapidly pray on my way to met her
in the needlepoint spot on the planet
marked by mere millimeters

but once again as i foolishly dismiss
simple common sense because haughtiness
has always far outweighed the myth
of other qualities we believe are bliss
running the same film strip i relive the same scene
and wonder astoundingly as to how i could be
so obscene
and ignorant
with no happy
to accompany
only misery
and consequential calamities

i only dream
in my wake some day
to see crocodile tears
of lizards’ deep green
as the envy they feel
and the currency they steal
and the grass underneath
which i will soon be at ease
one winter day when priests
sit, sympathize and believe
that anyone for me
could truly bereave

at her sight, i leave
and what’s left
knows what the other feared to hear
    we’re meant to be.
for her i ferociously fall
and the high as i soar in her presence
is far more potent
than the feeling of blackness
i saw back when i crawled out the tunnel
and suddenly saw nothing
unsure as to whether
my sight had abandoned me altogether
or the world was so devoid of light
making my eyes as likely to see
as the hope of those it had massacred
to come back once more and restore happiness

i only see in her vicinity
and no deity or creed decreed
feigned, fabricated, false, factual, fined or free
has or will be near me or nearly
as close to the tier of the invincibility
i currently perceive
i fall for her
and i fall for her again
and i never understand
how something so revolting
could be so coveted
and cunning
and contradictory
but such is you
and such is me

c’est la vie.

- end

the old man goes to what
for the night
acts as his local diner, NoHo.

he causes a ruckus.
the surveillance lights
flash on.

he doesn’t notice this since
he’s too busy conversing
with himself.

all the others trade glares
these days, i guess,
passive aggression is strength.

-

she lays the baby plastic tray
on my table—the waitress
we briefly switch formalities

and she leaves
and he turns to me
and says

oh.
i would’ve said hello,
had i known.
though,
i thought i won't; assumed you’d glued
your earlobes’ holes with those phones,
like them all.

he looked away
to continue the interaction
i had so rudely interrupted.

and that's when epiphany crashed in
as i reached for the white strangers
i let sing and speak to me so often:

whose sanity are we to question
when it’s not he
who voluntarily hears voices,
but who speaks to himself
because our need for humanity
is involuntary.

-end

i fell in love at first sight
my heart was dancing till it stopped
it was all my fault

night after night
i sought life and pursued solutions
yearned to learn to go on to teach it
just how to reconvene all its pieces
with no help from neither

knight after knight
nor the world outside
and how to make its own beats
because taking beatings from strangers
is what put it to sleep after seizing

lethal sleeplessness
steered me wrong
and under its grip
i gripped its wheel and steered to collide

saw the road
switched sides
opposed signs

the alarmed neighboring cars'
bore honks resembling alarms
and in the midst of my insomnia
i was awoken to recall
that every eye
even in its prime

has a spot, blind.

- end

soulmates:
        two
        poems
        written in
one
language
spoken by
only
        two

i am illiterate
my soul
its mate
both:
         nonexistent  

- end

they mistake me
often.
their heads lead them astray.
they judge books.
and covers.
and they correlate us
together
much too often.
although
they’re aware.
and they know
all too well;
better than ever to engage
in such cliches.
classic traps.

they call me
beautiful
often
they show me their sketches
of isolated circles.
i later come to find
are so enamored
they've merged into
one
vastly overlapping
ven diagram
each individually labeled
me
and
purity

how i wish they’d stop seeing
                      and start hearing
the words
my much too often
hyper-glamorized lips
try uttering
forewarnings
of appearances
and deception
before their whims
begin interrupting
the inevitable
is the contempt
their ignorant hearts
will build
and ultimately
i will suffer and so will
my will
power--

more so than will power
they don't know
possesses the ability
to observe me
through truly
objective
optic nerves  

ever will.

maybe i don’t deserve to be stable
my mind always did love wandering
yet somehow
it never embraces changes

needless to say
the thin veil crowning my brain
faded
when i replaced it
with red pins and needles
but one too many
led to sudden and mass vacation

after all my hard work
hours of painting

bars
the pillars of our cages

i always did love to wander-
lust was taking my saneness  
i left a piece of me behind
after every visitation to strangers
and i wonder how it is today
that my thoughts take me nowhere

when they’re in a million different places

misspelled
what i meant
so well
my cell
saw no reason
to check
choke
child*
who am i
to protest
synonyms

believe me
even my best
most seemingly sweet
intentions have stemmed
from seeds i can’t stress
as less than selfless
at best

why don't you call me
just to talk
why don't you enlighten my eyes
with the electric sparks of your mind
why can't i find you
when you're near me
and why do you feel closer
the farther you are

the venn diagram of conscious decisions

to drink: achieved through a state
of self-inflicted unconsciousness
rapid.
pleasurable.

to think: achieved through a state
of self-imposed consciousness

slow

tortuous



the overlap: interchangeable
two means too fatal
in reality
insanity resides in the latter

i may be a sadistic cynic
but i am no *******  
i'm too selfless
or selfish
synonyms....

do clichés not instigate
infinite plagues

so why put off until tomorrow
what yesterday
could have hypothetically
assassinated all
my future-former sorrow

it would have been excellent then
to begin embarking on my end
though it's ok
i hear they also state
that never is never not better than late
and how i love to double up
on shots and my many
mesmerizing negative mind states

thus
once the ex exits
what next best exists  
than the first
if not its successive fail
the second in line
and what time most prime
to quit
more so
than me
while i'm behind

**** a sober mind.

it’s funny

my anatomy
my heart lying
inside me
beckoning
beating me
to beat
feigning delicacy

isn’t it funny
it’s merely a muscle
i feel it steal beats
my steel fists copy
it clenches and dictates
me and my existence
and like me
never rests
only
keeps
beating
itself

it isn’t funny
aren’t muscles
meant to provide strength
to shield me from emptiness
and disconnect me
from all these tissues
i keep rupturing
why the contrast, then
why does it do the opposite
does it beat me out of spite
knowing i take it to heart
and again when i find
dense napkins inside
and realize
that they never left
but the worst part
is the blood-red
     cherry
on top that i need.
bitter venom i need.
to be what i don’t know
i want to be. in a world
where i’m unsure
as to why it brought me in
or what it is that is
that which up to
i should be
living
which is that
that keeps on beating
and killing the same thing
it's expecting me
to be achieving.
i hate the fact
that heartless
i suffer
though if i could
i would love
with all my heart
the alternative
that is subordinate
to fraternal evil twins

because there is no
suffering
nor mourning
as that of a heart
not yet deadened.
if only the analysis
caused it the same
paralysis
as is
witnessed in my now idle mind  
that flatlined
when i realized

i was
birthed
exist
live
and will
cease with
the oxymoron
that is
weak muscle, me:
strong  
and hollow inside

the calm never did suit me.
                                                
           i thrive

on
      chaos

the ease i feel tonight
is so unfamiliar

            beware
                         tomorrow's
                riot.

it will be
a
      beautiful

              blood red
                 canvas.

i could've been anything
you made me your everything
then you left like it was nothing
i tried to go back, to be something

i was withdrawing, but i kept trying

i could’ve been something
but you delayed my denial
then forced me to face my insides
now i sit, staring at nothing

and i’m still withdrawing

- end

shy away from the negativity, i don't care
i used to but i can see you'll see your day
and even though i wish i was a malicious *******
i pray reluctantly that you find someone to bear your pain
when you see your day

- end

i have perfected
the art of acting

now my audience
is absent

i'm alone
with my reflection

it stares at me
with empty eyes

it leaves me
with no direction

- cut

i’m looking for clyde  
together we'll **** time
he’ll distract me with his AK
i’ll use him and he'll know it
but he'll be OK with it

i want him to know
that i
don't want you to know
that i
care as much about you as
i do

and we’ll both be lying
it’s never one sided
i'll distract him with my problems
he’ll use me and i'll know it
and i'll have no problem with it

he wants me to know
that he
doesn’t want bonnie to know
that he
cares as much about her as
i do
about you

- end

we
are** far
too
lazy

hate
is all
too
easy

that
is why
to-
day

we
obey
the
******

- end

walk me down your streets
take me to your sheets

because all i want to see
is someone else, content
off of my mind's absence
someone else content
from all my mind's absence

and all i want to be
is somebody's happy
and all my Bacardi
is for my lungs  
is for my intestines

and i can't die
and i can't die...

and i can't hide
your stares

when i feel down
for knowing i know
i don’t not
stoop low

i cut morbid
short circuits shorter
for torture. torn rapture
it incapacitates

and breaks order.
to do so
i con endorphins.

i feel small.
especially
when they grow
and go.



and i'm here. more
                                                            ­alone.
than ever before.



i resort not
to overflown words
nor spilled souls
poor or porous

they transform whole
into prose seldom spoke
almost as though
forced forward
fueled by formerly
foreign
external forces

and i'm a foreigner.
and i'm a xenophobe.

and i am
a vagabond gone rogue
to enforce laws and propose chaos

my thoughts provoke.

i ****** them to
withdraw.

they pass it on.
they're why i’m so
withdrawn.

to belong, i pass it forth.
and i'm so far gone
regardless, i will
keep
withdrawing.

so
in love
not with you
but myself
in your presence

so
in trouble
not with you
but myself
if you vanish

- end

we are what we hate
you say stop acting this way

asking why i'm somebody  else
whenever i start to shed my shell

i guess we really are exactly what we hate
and maybe really for me all i am is...

myself.

- end

i’m* not
like them
afraid
of the
                 monster
lying
under
my bed

they asked
me how

i'm not
like them
i'm afraid,
i said,
that the
monster
laid
upon
my bed

- end

my man
are you proud
of your hand
the one i have
woven around
my ham

tell me
is mama proud of you
does she call you a man?
does she know
she had everything
but a man?

that is, unless, of course,
mama's a crook like you
and she thieves like you too
and she can't help herself,
but she helps herself
to what she can't.

****.

like the shame you all are,
your whole ****.

i hate your name
i hate that i am
not
my own
man.

he can’t stand me in the daytime
then with the sunset so does his fight
and i see the sadness
in his eyes
that along with mine
elopes to pause time
hoping to intertwine  
yeses and nos in our minds
back and forth
swinging like see saws
south and north
sing me to sleep
with your arms
till the grip of your palms
lets me in peace
rest
like i so often
dream

-end

does it directly
affect me
or arouse sympathy
i have to screen
what i hear
i need to keep
from feeding
the screams
that used to
use me
i was used
to losing
to them
like my sleep
and me
once i lose
all my dreams
i warned
of how i’d be
and today they see
i mean well
till i mean
to be me
mean

nightmares say
i’m inspiring
nightmares say
they thought
i was only real
in their dreams

now they believe
in miracles
in me

******* mothers
embraced  us.

we were conceived
from specimens--
one mr
one mrs--
presumably
intelligent.

misconceptions
mask reality.

we exist...

if for nothing
but to compete
in a sick game
of
who will withstand
the most pain
if for no
objective
other
than to
reinforce
to the collective
that if nothing,
we are comprised
of nothing

but
sad

selfish

backstabbing  

failures.

shelter from—not host of
hostile words
and shattered hearts

You are not a breath of fresh air
but air itself.

i don't know whose
firsthand reaction to the sight
of me crawling is worse

that of the man
that asks how i am
as he backtracks
in baby steps
or
those of the rest who
due to oversight
or indifference
are unconsumed
and unconcerned
by and with
futile breaths
nonetheless

but i sure as hell know
the answer
    doesn’t matter
    so long as i stay sat
    writing rhyming rants
    to hold my skull’s fracture captive
    and perhaps
    so i can have it massacred
    alongside its inner cats
    their joint force task of making contact
    with my meek heart also known as
    the meager muscle
  plasma-mad
      in vein
              and
                 collapsed.

- end

i can’t bear this silence
so i instigate
the flame distracts
i’m well aware
that though i often fall
there is a part of me
that never fails
and always grows

- end

i have secrets.
secrets
even my sleeves
don’t see fit
to wear out—
  so instead
  they wear me. i'm
  out and about
trying to find a way
to fit in
on my way out

you ****** me up.
you broke my bones.
i helped you.
i let them be.
i didn't breathe a word to a
single
soul.

i don't know why.
only eight years
old.

sure, i've grown
anatomically
but that's all.

you'd be so proud of me--
how i carry your legacy.  
but it's not you
who ***** me up

any
more.

live as if
you have nothing
of everything

i sleep on the ceramic floor each night
to keep the creases in my bedsheets intact
i never knew you were an artist
till the day you painted them and left.

- end

this little heart of mine
i can't let it shine
only blind by passion
it ignites in desire.
let it live and catch fire
start riots and conspire
so together, in harmony
we can finally unite, fight

back and back
        
fire.

can't think amidst this
chaotic conglomerate
coined companionship

screaming speakers
weak winstons
sinful sexes
indirect intentions

vicious voices
as if it's insufficiently
pacifistic
in this excessive thinking
my nemesis
feigns friends
concoctions
contradictions
composure
i uphold
to call
when they call upon
myself

sometimes i get caught giggling
by my eyes
in solace
till sagacious flashbacks
attack
i reminisce
in retrospects
those words of his
he chose to omit
their counterparts
which he transmits
with infinite tact
royalty don't smile
signal
leave who you lead
behind
holding their breaths
and possessive
obsessive
over more questions to ask
than answers to grasp
balance is a task
and who
if not you
is talented at
abandoning straight lines
that find themselves at last
lost
alone
in intricately
tangled tracks

- end

can i hate him
when he can't fathom the thought
of anyone
doing otherwise
to begin with

if i die today
and you
and the rest
are okay
with us estranged
then i’m ok
and the rest
of my days
will lay safe

my winning wrists
insisted i don’t resist
their dire desire
to emulate
nooses

it used to be
a mere fantasy
but the notion
of perpetual sleep
has won me over

i drag my silhouette
pretending all is well
like drags from my cigarette
i'm cancerous to myself
we're both just smoke
and slaves to myself

i love him too much
perhaps he was right
though he was wrong
about only one thing
Him

i fall asleep
and wake to tears
that torture me
i can’t take one more night
i won’t take one more day

so i will take it all away

tell mama she was always right
goodnight.

i never knew there was a point
worse than wishing for death
until i met
indifference.

- end

and if i died today
no one would see
till the organs grew potent
and summoned them
to their senses, olfactory
and led them to the decay that is me
dead or alive
and unwanted

it's ok.
i'm prepared.

i can always make them come
though i can never make them stay
and when outliers do on occasion
i lie my way out till they lie back in line
and once again i can go about my isolation

i see the little girl wearing me.
puppy eyes, dogged tears
she's so ashamed of me
she says we've gone missing
in this world, she's all i've been missing
so i made her go.

and let the distance grow
because although i know she misses me
she doesn't know she misses nothing when i'm gone
and everything when i'm here too long

if not for the memory of her purity
i would contemplate my eulogy
so strangers i wish i knew
knew what to read before they buried me
     like i did with the little birdie
     earlier when she caught and told me
     that my little girl is wearing everything but me
     and that she makes them come
     ever since i made her leave
    
-

today is here.

- end

i don’t follow
and won’t lead
if my dreams
chase after me
at night
i won’t lose

no sleep
and i will feel free
aimlessly seeking the street
sign so no one sees
dimly lit lights live

where nightmares strip me
of all i claim to be
then embrace my body
followed by me chasing them
when they threaten to leave
i claim to tease
when on i still lead

in reality
they know all
that i am
for them
my reality
is the dream

nothing to do.
nowhere to go, because i'm here.

levitating
if you take away these sheets
my legs are crossed
i'm alone, after all
the screen is off
because when it's only me
who's there to put on a show for

i feel one ankle touch my knee.
my other sole is right but blood is life
and it feels so cold on my purple-pink skin

this precisely is the type of moment in solace
that incentivizes my strike plate's flawlessness
it's unexplored
like the ****** groomed in preparation
for a very imperfect fiscal offer
made amongst four x chromosomes
we sometimes coin fathers

and really if you look closely
you'll know why i let them do to me
what i've struggled to do with myself
for so long. en-titled.

i pay the price whenever i free-fall
but a cold soul is something i can afford
given the flight down revives
late exhibitions of all the love i once had
that weighed so heavy but now acts
as the anchor where my frown is
what i should be
never lost and always found

and if i could
i would defy science
and gravity
in my psyche
and gladly glide downhill
perpetually to
feed fleeting feelings
before once more
i abandon control
and lose to
a-
void

- end

i’m worn
like these scars
that won’t let go
even when i go
why because

the show must go on
always of course
never off course
even if i’ve been
off
cloning the track
that lacks foot molds
in an ongoing
marathon

no one warned me
of what would come
from wars
we would’ve won
had i
thought
all the ones
i lost
could
have been
mine and yours

now all that’s ours
is the loss  
they keep saying
they’re sorry for

i am what you see
a product of he and she
the me of which you dream
your sealed eyes set you free
i agree
alternatively  
is mere reality
evil  
ecstasy
and all eclipses in between
are revealed

sleep
stay where you lead

i too will stay
but here
as I am
all along
then and now
i have and will be
standing  right
here

from time to time i go blind
remember?
the one time?
i looked at you and felt jealous.
i didn’t realize
and wouldn’t have
hadn’t you told me that
you did the same
looking my way
at the same time.

and isn’t it sad
and hard to explain
as it is to understand
two mirrors
face-to-face can
see bright as day, all
then their own rays,
black.