Those moments where you feel like time and whatever makes up that infinite momentum is suspended.

The whispers and loud susurrations of the world fall into silence and that the only sounds that permeate your soul and ears are the breaths between you and I.

Yes, this is no exception.

B r o k e n

songs,
muted lips,
words with indefinite
spaces & pauses

dot around these floors in
this
home.

Where once upon a time,
there was
two
heart beats
instead of
one
within
it.

One slow,
lonely
heart-beat.

Somewhere, in me.
I am hurting.

Tiny splinters of pain, flicks of tears here and there.

Little untitled somethings smarting my everywhere.

My lips.
I can't speak.
Beneath my eyelids.
I don't want to see the world just yet.

The wizened and creased edges of my heart.

Odd thing is, I cannot even
whisper
it
in your ear.

Even if,
you are the only one who will ever know.

Simply because I know
you
are
hurting
*too.

What if flowers bloom in fire & glass-jars?

Perhaps, in muted sunshine, melding with peaks of incandescence & fire-flies, something indestructible will be left.

The rueful ache of time
kissing
goodbye
to
our everywhere
is
rather bittersweet.

The kind of burnt-black and acrid taste of burnt toast.
Strange enough,
it is also
the kind of sweet like
honey and brown sugar
dotting
the centre of it.

Honey seeps off the tips of our sugar-dotted, pastry flaked fingers.

oh, your lips are
just
as
sweet
as
your soul.

Didn't you know I kept a few smiles in my pockets?
Lined against tissues with lipstick prints on them.

I am quite sure, no,
I know you love me too.

And if you do walk away; your footsteps whispering good-bye to mine.

Just be careful.

My heart is right there on this dusty pavement.

I imagined the cutting words that escaped from my lips, multiplied it by 1,
(I remembered the first time I smiled because of you.)
it stung very sweetly.

Then, x2, guilt heavy and dense pillowing under the guise of comfort.

x3 I still remember how my voice sounded when I said Yes,
it's still the truth.

Another time, just for good measure.

It seems like the cells in the spine of my body ache for another to fit against it.

Perhaps not a mirror image or unflawed symmetry,
but
rather just a presence.
Something beyond the lilt of a shadow and shallow breaths.

My fingertips unconsciously linger & idle on the place on my collarbone. Left side, a kiss's width from my chin.

Notice, the word, 'place?' I felt a tad bigger of a human, a bigger piece of this starry starry universe with you.

Eyelashes still flutter, giving way to soft gravity. Hoping your eyes would be reflected against mine again.

I am so very human
with & without
*you.

The way your voice sounded 357 pages ago,
a sweet cut across on wintry darkness; flitting out were all the stars.

The little husky notes living in the
b r e a t h i n g s p a c e s
of
your lungs and mouth to lips are like bookmarks.

I never quite lost the page I stopped at.
I dare not read on.

You kind of make my cheekbones hurt
from
all that midnight laughter
and
the little rhapsodic notes escaping
from
my
lips.

Such
a
lovely
hurt
has
never
tiptoed, danced
&
flicked
across
my
chest.

A stomach full of disappointment.

Price: Lips stiched by all words I wished to say.
*Discount: If you have the kind of bitterness found in burnt toast.

Time is a very, very scary concept.
We can only live for how long it wishes to breathe in our veins.

A single eyelash, one orchird petal and a flannel shirt button.

She kept them in an old shoebox sandwiched against old sneakers with laces knotted like lovers, old yellowing papers and letters. All of which had dated back 5, seven, 11, twenty-1, 29 years ago.

All of them incongruous objects, but they all belong in the past.
I outgrew them, my mind memorized all the words on those pages.
Once from a person I knew.

I don't love him.
Lie

I loved him.
past tense

I had loved him.
still past-tense

I love him.
*Present tense. It's now.

Clearly, darling, you do not understand why
I love you.

All of you.

Stare at these two cups of coffee or look into my eyes.
Shuffle your feet, tangle your fingertips in your hair.
I don't care,
just listen and
let my words
meld into that beautiful mind.
Okay?

For a person to be here, it took years.
The little wisps of hair that always gets into your eyes.
The laugh-line underneath your cheek.

It all took an immeasurable number of tick-tocks.

In those infinite string of days was hours.

In those hours, there were minutes.
And yes, in those minutes are seconds.

Now, don't roll your eyes just yet.
Dotting in between the mellow epochs are experiences, dreams, unspoken wishes behind closed eyelids, tears, laughter crinkling your lips.
The creasing of the edges of your heart.
The sound of your very breaths in a lonely room.

If you think in such numbing detail, eventually I found myself happily and hopelessly tangled in those strings of little infinities.

And then, I fell in love with you.

It's simple really.

Softly, unknowingly,
like the steam from these cups of hot coffee.
You languidly permeate through me.
Sweet & bitter
paints my little white heart
red.
With unbroken gazes, blind hands, shy fingertips,
our crimson cheeks
hues
over
winter-bitten
faces.

The parentheses of his smile seem to be an infinity of quotation commas to a story perhaps their little tale. So, it won’t ever end.

As he laughs, his special lady seems to pause for a second before returning it back.

The balmy wind flows in where who knows where, I wish and cross my fingers that it would whisk away those secret whispers between them.

For it seems to be the ingredients for happiness.

There comes that shiver of such tangible affection and love again.
It is enveloping them everywhere, its inside their eyes, it permeates the very air.

for the fact that
counting stars seem to be a pretty lonely thing to do.

Sweet-heart,*
pumpkin
munchkin,
beautiful.

"Yes,yes, it's so very lovely."
She slowly says;
as her fingertips dances across the wooden table.
"Now, hush those alarmed and worried eyes."

"But somehow,
when your lips speak
every syllable
of
my name;
it's like a lost and forgotten
piece of me
returned."

"Oh really?"
And like a full stop to a sentence,
he gives a
kiss
on
her crimson cheek
.

She had a very sweet heart & a tooth.

Which one turned bad first?

You tell me.

Home is full of secrets.
The first laugh and all the laughs in between the last of a baby muffled itself into the bedroom walls. His mother sometimes sit in front of it, hoping, hoping it could live in her ears again.

The nervous movement of lip to lip, neck to neck, heart to heart in the wardrobe, in between jeans and cotton button-downs.
Getting dressed is still achingly difficult. And it is getting truly ridiculous now.

Those holding-too-tight-yet, you-are- still- not- close- enough sort of hugs under tired doorways.
You were enough, you are always enough.

Within swelled up throats, the unsaid words hid themselves in odd drawers, cabinets and a handful of knooks & crannies.
I opened a drawer today and I very nearly cried.

For I heard your voice, your breaths, then brushed again with the warmth and coldness of your wrists. All of which were in different dimensions of time and memories.

And I try and am still trying to keep my pen on the page. For, its to keep you alive, again.
A few words has already slipped and tip-toed off the page.
I'll find it someday.
(Putting something far, far, far off the horizon eyes can possibly see is the sort of thing, humans are terribly good at.)

She does not speak of metaphors & rhymes.
She's more than pretty things & sweet excuses.
Her skin will not smell of sugar,
vanilla
&
butter.

I miss the cookie crumbs that fell from your lips and then dotting the wooden table.

It drove me
crazy-insane.

Thing is, it was good crazy.
The one where undiluted happiness bubbles into your chest.

Inexplicably lighting up places you thought the light switches
were
terribly
br ok            
                       en.

Now,
I am
slowly and surely
losing it.

Wit by wit, memory by moment(s).

I'll burst into a slow bloom
from
the tongues & flickers
of
fire
itself.

For I have cut through spidery wisps of white lies.
We have both lived through pin-****** of pain
and
see, I told you there would be smudges of sunshine again.

Like time and the concept of love, change is infinite and boundless.
And that is when I notice the half-drawn infinite symbol on her window.
There is a gap in it.
That little gap smarts me, I carefully join up the two lines and there, it is now complete.
Whatever that dances on infinity will never lose its way.

Spilt
little
pecks & kisses
on
bared collarbones whisper
"Good Morning"
on

those sundays.

Giving up:

It is when you look at the chef's knife at a strange hour wondering if it is sharp enough to draw blood. You already know it is, but the white lies beg to stay within your skin.

Don't you dare say I gave up, or I am giving up.

1. Especially when I cry with anger glassing over my eyes.
Bleeding out all the bad truths & rusty faults, for a better day.
I have not given up if I look for truth over sweet fiction.

2. How ferociously warm and red my cheeks are. The kind of red reminicent of berry stains in tumbled laundry. Truth is they were slapped by a ghost's hands.

Or when I found out that hot tears and hot showers feel the same.

Do not say I lack the strength to stay here, when my veins dance to a heartbeat; loud & defiant.

Don't ever say to someone: 'You gave up easily' unless you know the exact & imperfectly precise way their thoughts align into dizzy constellations.
Like the way you know the back of your hand.

*Don't.

Something odd, warm (almost the temperature of balmy summer nights) stirred the tendrils of veins, muscles and blood.

It felt like hot showers, bare skin on sheets + ice-cream against azure skies.

It is a something so very lovely.

She has felt the rough edges
of
anger marrying sadness
against her
front
teeth.
The way happy tasted on her tongue.
And she has yet to find a right constellation of syllables for love.

You forgot to pull out the blunt knife you put in her left shoulder-blade.

She's not all sharp edges, rusted metal & stale blood that you hoped for.
She's all more than that.
She is *alive.

"One eighth of my heart is for tea & penning silly things on blank pages."
she murmurs under her slow breaths.

A little inward gasp falters her heartbeat upon the realization that the seven eighths of her heart has been unwittingly stolen by Mister Him.

"Sweet-heart, you have managed to take one ∞ of mine."
His voice is like buttery sunshine on winter-bitter skin.

"That's not possible, silly boy!"
Her smile punctuating each letter, sighs of bliss lives in the spaces.

"What I meant was: You have taken all of me. Not just my heart.
Soul & body.
The little kaleidoscope of moments I think at 2am are already hopelessly tangled with that hell of a smile, the astute wittiness
and
the
curve
of
your waist."

For now, I have only taken one whole of your lips. I think. He pauses and winks a upside crescent moon.

I have made you

*speechless.

I keep my fingers crossed
selfishly
that one day,

your lips
will
say

"I missed this,
my mind still flickers back
at
the stars
reflected
in
your wide eyes
on that very night."

It sure does in mine, sweet-heart.

My heart has been
d,
since your eyes met mine.
i
The little gaps punctuating the Z's are
filled by the little crease line that gently brackets your mouth right before you smile,
z
the way your eyes flickers in amusement; it's like a dozen of stars winking at me.
The words you speak from those lips flit recklessly in between.
z
It's the tiniest of winks that causes my heart to stutter a little.

Just a little, ok-ay, sweet-heart?
Don't flatter yourself.
y
It's that inexplicable yet silence that does not quite feel like silence.

"Please don't leave me."

One of, no, the few truthful words that will softly & slowly pull your mind into ragged edges and creases, like a promise.

For, it is those silent words finally speaking aloud.

It is the confession that has etched onto the inner wrists,
all of those midnight,
                                         2am,          then
                                              ­                             11am thoughts.
I can breath.
Just slightly, sure, oxyegn does fill my cells. Perfectly. Carbon dioxides escapes through my raw lips. In & out, easy.

My heart works just fine.
It falters now and again.

My damp fingertips are intact, despite the tears.

My soul is not.

But, I still want you

                                       here.

Tear this little piece on the dotted line or carelessly,
a shard of you.
Any part.

It will still be a piece of stardust; a wisp of the infinite universe anyway.

Nothing quite the same, never quite this close in our ten fingertips.

Give it to him,
to her,
half-senselessly
&
half with all your heart.

Of course, with a pinch of apprehension, a tickle of doubt,
a sip of shyness.          

We will invariably be torn, broken, tugged at.
As, we are always guilty of doing more.

Never less.

There.
You're imperfectly human.

Once I saw an x-ray of a heart and I was alarmed by its smallness, its translucence.
A thing we ask entirely too much of.

I adored the very action of blowing dust-motes off a box.

Watch it dance in the distilled air.

I like the sight it presents.
One where the past snaps the silence of today.

Slowly but surely
re-etching how much time has passed
on the corners of my bruised heart.

Once, happiness and sweetness, those dust-motes are just greyed out.

They kiss my cheeks and eyelashes.

I never blew the remnants of time again.

That stranger had cheeks stained by berries & a summer's day.

So,
there we were under december lights and burnt out matchsticks,

looking like we've fallen in love tonight.

It was all eyelashes and hastiness drawn out.
You braided secrets & warm murmurs into my hair;
then a smirk into my left shoulder blade.

Your lips tasted like something,
someone

I wanted more of.

I like how her eyelids slowly close ever so gently, as if those words could be forever inked into the pockets of her mind.

Oh, the way he breathes in at times, it's like he tries to inhale the words through his slightly chapped lips into the airways and then

into the staircases to *nowhere.

Seems like anything that will tickle the corner of my mouth upwards or downwards simply walks straight into me.

Unannounced and unanticipated perfection of untitled somethings.

And before you know, I've caught you in my arms.

*Just
like
that.

She had violets blooming in her eyes.

They hold the night
and
a daybreak's first breath.

We all go through life punctuated
by
*lies, loss & love.

What is gold cannot stay.

Not fully or whole-heartedly anyway.