She used to do spectacular things quietly
But there’s no more spectacle hidden up her sleeve –
Says she’s worn
Says she’s over-worked
Says she’ll fade away like a passive shade of gray –

Can’t remember the last time she felt

Worthy
Or
Beautiful
Or
Held

Says her heart is a broken grandfather clock
She simply can’t fix to chime at noon –
Says maybe she’ll be setting her own pace
With a refurbished cuckoo tune that sounds a lot like
Letting love waterfall in –

Her laugh is hollow
Her goal too lofty
Her eyes imprinted with skepticism
But for her sake, I pray Time is in her favor.

If dust is mostly a collection
Of my own skin cells,
I hope there is enough debris
So I can sculpt a new self,
Out of a past me.

Peach salsa
Has that tangy taste
Between sweet and spicy
Burning tongues naughtily but nicely.

Peach salsa
Is the quiet librarian of dips
Unassuming until the bun comes undone
And blink of an eye she’s a firecracker in bed.

Peach salsa
Tastes a lot like you
And our Sunday afternoons
Experiments with papaya and pineapples
Tossed in with tomatoes and crying onions
The perfect recipe for a little change and a lot of disaster.

His smiled showed the deepest sincerity
So I opened up as intimately as possible,

He watched me ink up spotless white paper,
He watched my abstractions take life in language.

We’re no fortune tellers
No time travelers —
God isn’t whispering His
Distant plans into our ears.

We’re just hopefuls
Speculating our futures
On 11:11 wishes
& fallen eyelash kisses.

Next time you see a shooting star
Harness its magic
Soak in that you’re made of star-stuff
And don’t you dare close your eyes
To breathe out another fruitless prayer.

The exorcist spat out unsatisfied souls,
Steadfastly chained to breathing bodies,
Convincing the living that,
The dead haunt us.

But, when I examine autopsies,
I observe granular goosebumps,
Rising from sunken skin,
Scientifically speaking,
Corpses confirm the opposite:
Life haunts death.

Lemon grass tea cupped on the cool porch,
Though the young eyes are barren beyond belief —
The young eyes are glazed over with ghosts —
She is wiser than her single digit years.

Fingers run coconut oil through her tangled hair,
Humming a sweet sounding lullaby,
Her mother silently swears to bring back
The twinkle that was taken away —
But she fears that once familiar spark of curiosity
will only ever gleam during an evanescent dream.

He’s disembodied
Lives solely in his head —
His dance is chalk against a board
His feet are autopsied and tagged “dead” —

Science is
His beacon
His faith
His love
His life.

But what good is just a mind full of formulas
When not mindful or exposed to other arts?
Appreciation stems from sentiment
Making subject hierarchy harassment.

When we found out we weren’t the Center of the Universe
It shook the core of our collective selfish selves.

We called the findings blasphemous
We charged the scientists as heretics
We realized we were less than specks of dust
But worse off because metacognition is unrelenting.

After all these years
The stars remain indifferent to our presence
But we study them all the same
Doting them like a school girl obsessing over a secret crush
Extrapolating their composition while they don’t bat an eye
Humbled at the horrific beauty:
A lonely planet orbiting all too busy universe.

The house shifts and sighs trying to settle into place
But it’s impossible to get comfortable
With all those stomps and smashes beating from inside
Like a cracked heart pounding against a proud chest
Trying to forgive and forget but instead fettered to emotion
Unsurprisingly the house only knows how to creak.

Chapped lips
Remind me of
Cracked concrete
And how you’d say
Step on a crack and
I’ll never come back!

Except a tree branch
Uprooted the sidewalk
And I fell forward and heart first
Hoping you’d catch me by the shoulder
But you stood true to your word
Because by the time I looked up
I saw your shadow slink away
I sat with scraped knees and
Contused love.

Our lopsided home
Sandwiches between
Thickets of sycamores
Abandoned and resembling
A surfaced shipwreck
Was swept clean by the floods.

But we craftily smiled
Like pirates up on their luck
Adrenaline sweeping our veins
Pumping us to search for
Any remaining buried treasure
Because in that moment
We realized we were safe.

Rebuilding was rebirth
And this labeled tragedy
Shook up our monotony
Giving us our badly needed
Second chance.

Tea is so soothing
Like a mother in a cup
Whose simple touch heals.

The universe has you
So star struck,
That I need to anchor
You back to Earth --

Because while you're on a celestial search
For some extra terrestrial life,
You end up floating away,
From humanity and known strife.

And the gravity of this situation is,
I'm tired of tethering down my,
Space headed astronaut,
Who is too entranced to look back,
And see that the sea,
Swallows me whole.

Cliff diving off of Saturn,
Catching a ride on the back of a comet,
Passing red dust and celestial clouds,
Crashing and burning into an ambiguous atmosphere,
Sounds a lot like LSD,
But feels more like loving you.

When the thieves broke in,
They broke my mother’s heart,
They broke my naiveté,
They broke my maternal lineage,

By making her closet bare,
She stood barely recognizing it,
Stared at her safe,
Her
Bulletproof
Fireproof    
Apocalypse proof
Safe
Code c r a c k e d,
Deadbolt door eerily open.

“It’s just jewelry,” she muttered,
        [Passed down from one generation to the next,
        Dating back to an invaded India,
        Surviving six hundred soldiers,
        Smuggled within folds of saris through seas,
        Stories etched in souvenir gold].

“At least we’re all safe,” she stated with conviction.
        [Yet I couldn’t help but feel,
        A physical furthering,
        From my immigrant ancestors,
        Who passed along secrets with every pendant,
        Who whispered hopes in every ornate hairpin,
        Who stored their aspirations in every accumulation:
        Real riches knit with poetic prospers from the past].

How funny
To imagine the thieves
Pricing a priceless object --
Ironically making it worthless
Because the burglary left behind
The heritage.

You taste like burned coffee and aftermath
But the rush of your hurricane always sweeps me away
So I’ll be the abandoned & boarded-up house
Shaking but still standing
Ever resilient against the whiplashing winds.

Wash
         Away the memories of how
        We tangled together
        Like the perfect sailor’s knot
        An organized intricacy  
        Coalescing my jumpy nerves
        With your easy laughter
Rinse
        The weight of your fingers
         Imprinted on my scalp
         A heartbreaking muscle memory
        Fingers that once ran through my hair
        Run to another’s touch
Repeat
        *This sadistic cycle of erasure
         Hoping one day forgetting
         Won’t be a conscious thought
         That shower shall set me free.

We made a fruit tree
Stringing store bought bananas
On sycamore branches
Sick of more dead winter
For even the freshest snow
Coated Creation’s color
But the brilliant yellow
Brought us back home
To our sunshine memories.

Time stops
when you
text.

When I paint you against the canvas
Forgive my amateurish brush strokes
My eyes are dew from rolling mornings
So while you’re blurry and out of focus
My focus is consumed in capturing your fingertips
***** from digging into the fresh Earth
Your green thumb growing grubs
Overrunning manicured lawns
Gentle reminders that the land is free and wild and strong
That we don’t trample it like mighty giants
But instead it bears our burdens
That Atlas is just a myth because
Not even the most supernatural man
Would withstand the weight of the world
And the harsh truth is he’d busy himself on enslaving it.

Everyone dismisses me as insane,
But I am a prophet,
Profiting,
On the inane.

When I get lost in stargazing
My cup of cardamom chai
Configuring constellations of cream,
I pocket piping hot horoscopes
Right out of the tea kettle.

Remember --
I drink in the universe,
Sanctimoniously symbiotic.

So the next time I offer,
To read your tea leaves,
Left dried at the bottom of the cup,
Don't scoff me off,
Because what I do,
Is translate the universe's art.

The steady hum of the radiator
Is now our only constant.

Your angry heart is coursing blood so quickly you’re colored red,
Thumping so audible that the dog confuses the tremor for an earthquake,
He’s barking,
You’re barking.

My own has shattered into such a sadness that it is skipping beats
Akin to the now wrecked records splintered on the floor,
They’re past scratched,
I’m past scratched.

The radiator didn’t acknowledge the war,
The radiator stayed as steady as a surgeon’s hand,
The radiator didn’t realize we needed to cool down,
But, oh, how I wish that heartless thing did.

The night I got stuck climbing up a tree
You couldn't stop laughing from the forest floor
And seven feet below you looked like the size of a baby badger;
A baby badger who was now in charge of saving me from my stupidity.

You called the fire department
And said a human confused herself for a cat
So was stuck up in a tree and therefore
In need of a local newspaper headline rescue.

With the height advantage
I saw three firetrucks rushing down the road
Epileptic lights bouncing off the empty pavement
And yelled down to the baby badger
"You made a scene for no reason!"
Only to have the baby badger yell back up
"You ARE the ******* reason!"
And I swear I almost fell from the topmost branching
Laughing with my whole body in motion.

Three minutes later I was surrounded by an unnecessary amount of red
"What the hell is going on?" questioned the Fire Chief
Amidst all the official uniforms and bustling bodies
All you could think to say
"Sorry officer, we binge drank the moonlight."

I know I'll never have Alzheimer's
Because the look that overtook the Fire Chief's face
       Cracked his professional facade
       Transforming it into an all too knowing smile
Will forever be etched on the inside of my eyelids
Embarrassment and hilarity relived every blink of an eye.

Checker-boarding across countries,
I tuck my loneliness into my suitcase,
Neatly fold her between a cardigan and khakis,
Thinking that maybe if I’m lucky,
She’ll follow suit of my favorite sweater,
Last pictured in Lima,
And get lost.

You spat me out
Like stale gum
Left stuck on the sidewalk.

What’s worse?
I still would’ve been content
To be trampled by the sole of your shoe.

He knew exactly what to tell her
To kiss her fears away
But I’d like to remind her that
No matter how poetic or well-spoken
Words are feeble and hollow
Until action takes place.

My heart is on pins and needles
But I can’t seem to shake away
That certain sleepy shivery state —

It’s stuck ruminating on you.

Mark, my best friend,
Gifted me cheap fine wine
For my 20th birthday
But didn’t think to bring a cork *****
So like any other underage college kid
We banged the bottle
Against desks
Against bed frames
Against arm chairs

Pop!

Success laid in stabbing the stopper
With an unassuming pen
But pressure had built up
And purple still stains my ceiling
Our accident ******* painting
Our unintentional Michelangelo memory
But created with unrivaled passion –
A combination of desperation and anticipation
A testament to the trials of truest friendship.

Raindrops do not drown
When they hit the rough ocean -  
They add to madness.

I destroyed us
To salvage me.

Before accusations fling
About that being a selfish thing…
I had to get out with a shred of sanity.

         Remember when storm struck
         The sturdiest of ships
         Refuse to anchor lifeboats.

Let’s let it go
Let’s let us breathe.

        It’s time to d r i f  t   a   p    a    r    t .   .  .  .

The sincerest words
Laced in darling decadence  
Could not even dream to do justice when it comes to
Penning down your laughter and painting in my blushes.

Since I met you, I’m afraid I’ve forgotten how to write.

You’re like quicksand —

The more I struggle to move away
The faster you drag me in.

To gain your support
I’ll have to learn to relax.

My citrus hands
Brush against floured jeans
It’s one am
I’m a little delirious
A lot drunk
And find myself
Making lemon bars
Your favorite dessert
Hoping familiar taste
Will bridge the distance
Lemon custard filling the gap in my heart.

Internally icicled
I’d knit myself together
But the frost froze my fingers
So there unravels my fraying heart.

Her wrinkles marked parentheses around her lips
Where her smile used to be
Her wrinkles haunt her like ghosts
Happiness a distant memory.

Reincarnation teaches
Empathy for all past beings.

Don’t apologize,
I was you once
I understand the distance you travel —
To you, sacrifice comes natural
To you, break downs are routine
To you, hope is expressed through help.

You encompass an almighty humanity.

Like my old sweater,
You cloaked me in words but let
My emotions pill.

My desk is splintering –
     Each time I go to pen a poem
     I end up with pinpricks and in pain
     Wooden needles dwindling my thoughts into half nothings.

But wearied words keep bubbling in my brain –
     Like fermenting fine wine
     Dazing my work with stray sounds
     Their dull fiery fury only serves to slur my speech.

The page is inked with nonsensical rambles –
     An unedited outlook of my inner mind    
     A canvas confettied with crap
     Everything was purer as a blank slate.

Hair tossed up
Tongue stuck out
Fingers curled and
Foot tappin’

It’s poetry time.

there's nothing poetic about it.

(but i'm sure i'll try anyway)