I fear
the loneliness of an aged man

holding onto the grip of the bus
with his arthritis hands

with his soar knuckles
shook to his fingertips

I fear
the old woman's short temper
her waist resting against
her bags of groceries
on the bus seat

falling asleep to the sound of
children from the back

we all hear "dreams" differently

I fear the type of loneliness
not an empty island in the middle
of the pacific
but an apartment you have spent
your whole adult life in

like a bed that has not been moved
in decades
like forks and knives on the dinner
table pointed
to the same direction
always

I fear a type of solitude
where I'd see a family of three
passing by my lawn and
I can't imagine myself in their shoes

When I have missed a part of life
busy untangling myself from pride

I fear
the windowed grandfathers
the divorced elderly
the senior citizens with no family
who know the routes of the city bus
too well

never lost,
just not enough change

life is nothing but an ocean of waves
a wave of highs
a wave of lows
of sadness
of glee
of holding back
of letting go

a wave of loving your mother
a wave of forgetting to call

a wave of many friends
and then relying on the trust of a stranger

a wave of 3 am puking
and hangover mornings

a wave of coming home early
and listening to the quietness of your own home

and then a wave of the train rides knowing
someone is waiting for you
cooking the dinner
setting the table
checking the clock

there will be a time when
it seems as if the wind has stopped blowing
the moon and sun has gotten tired of the chase
this is the end

keep watching the tide,

life is nothing but an ocean of waves
a constant battle between shoreline
and sunset
you can never have both

you can't see the sand from the middle of the ocean
but the sun will never leave you
if you choose the shoreline

you'll never see the future from living in your past
but there will always be a pocket full of memories
for when the storm is coming
so keep moving on
follow the ocean

lightning comes
before thunder

and
sometimes
you look at me
pause 

then inhale
then exhale

then you 
allow yourself
to crash down
fall to pieces
inside my arms
hang by 
my shoulders

with no intention
to be saved

but with every 
desire to be
heard

you allow yourself
to be this storm
one moment you
are my world

my streets infested 
with your rain
basement flooded
windshields soaked
my house filled
with the noise of you

next minute 
you are gone 
stripped down to 
crickets and the sound
of my body moving
you have moved on

you are someone else's
reason they cannot sleep
yet still you are my reason
i cannot sleep

i cannot stand the quiet
the stillness, the complete
darkness

i listen to my faucet

tiny drops of water
hittig the sink

i am settling for less
because i am tired

and i am ready to
give up

where's the meaningful tug
pulling each other from the waist
our palms resting on each other's side
the fast world of businessmen and
mothers, us, standing like a patched heart
saying our goodbyes

where's the moment of silence
the pause, the deep breath, the uncertain
exhale, where's the lip biting, the half smiling,
the word choking, the not knowing

standing like two dandelions in the open field
facing each other, with nothing to say except
for when the wind blows,
we give each other a hundred wishes

where's the promise to never forget each other
where's the clever comeback to hold back the tears

where's that one moment that sums up everything
the birthday card, the christmas present, the one last trip
where's the humbleness in our voice
like we were speaking in goodbye

you disappeared out of my life like a name I forgot
like a word on the top of my head

so sudden, yet so smooth
like tender rain
like a distant anthem

sometimes the significance is not in how it ends
but the parts of you that are left afterwords

sometimes is all the time

i'm stuck
just stuck

between walls
and buildings

between soil
and sidewalk

between wood
and paint

body
and shadow

i'm just stuck

between music
and words

ocean
and city

between old
birthday cards
and childhood
photos

i'm the crease
of double sided
bad parenting

i'm the shadow
between all the
books, all the
poems

i'm every edge
every corner

i'm the rim between
sweaty palms
and sweet victory

and i'm just stuck here
being everyone's middle

and somehow that
is the loneliest place
to be.

dear friend,

I sit criss-crossed on my bed, trying to
think of a way to start this poem my
mouth fidgets like some nervous kid's
fingertips right before a test. Or like a
coke addict inside an elevator. I don't
know how to say it. But
I hope we're friends long enough I'm
the first person you call when you get
a boyfriend. When you're waiting for
the bus, or as you're walking down the
construction jammed block, I hope you
want to tell me first.
I hope we're friends long enough I can
watch you evolve. Cutting your clean cut
corners and bending every straight edge
in your book because you love him, I hope
I see you lose your mind and find it in him.
Irrational or emotional, up or down I hope
I'll be there. In the corner of your peach
room, scared as hell.
I hope we're friends long enough I can
watch your music change. Your hair, the
way you do your make up.
I hope we're friends long enough to see
more presidents be elected,
I hope we're friends long enough we share
more Christmases, more birthdays, more
first days of school. Like a timeline of
pictures hanging from a clothespin, I hope
our memories extend around the equator.
I hope we're friends long enough I'm there
when you're dog dies, or when there's
another hurricane or tornado. Play card
games through the phone remind ourselves
all we have is trust.

and if not,
if time, or distance, or other people or even
just ourselves get in the way. Stretches us
out like an orange rubber band rusting to
snap. If we can't survive the grip of fate.

I hope through all your boyfriends, all the
hair cuts, all the make up experiments, all
the hard times and especially the best
times, if I couldn't be there
I just hope someone is.

I stumble online, finding stories saying

"90 year old couple dies holding each other" and "Lovers find each other
again after 50 year separation" and I think of the modern day love story,

meeting in between bar stools, exchanging twitters and Instagrams
adding them on Facebook, waiting for the message button to light up

cutting every minute they won't reply into an exact science of what it
all means, we fall in love in front of our phone or our computer screens,

looking into the eyes of a camera and playing chopsticks on the skin
of our keyboards I stumble online, finding

these stories,
and I hope their true.