They have spent their
content of simpering,
holding their lips this
and that way, winding
the lines between
their brows. Old folks
allow their bellies to jiggle like slow
tamborines.
The hollers
rise up and spill
over any way they want.
When old folks laugh, they free the world.
They turn slowly, slyly knowing
the best and the worst
of remembering.
Saliva glistens in
the corners of their mouths,
their heads wobble
on brittle necks, but
their laps
are filled with memories.
When old folks laugh, they consider the promise
of dear painless death, and generously
forgive life for happening
to them.

There is freedom in isolation,
in being idle and invisible,
where one could sit in muteness,
swim widely in dusk and ask,
"Am I really here,
if no one is around to see?"
A different kind of suicide

There is pleasure in being a shadow,
in pretending you don't exist,
to avoid acting like you do

Solitude isn't a time for me
to let myself free
but rather a time to free myself
from who I am

Outside the confinement of company,
I am anyone and anything,
I am someone else, somewhere else
I am alive,
but I am no one
I am alone

a.r.

three o'clock every afternoon,
you would come out to play
only fifteen feet from home,
mother wouldn't let you stray

said the birthmark on your feet,
a symbol for your itch to explore
only fifteen feet from home,
but you have always wanted more

drawing on the ground with pebbles,
making a canvas out of the street
bouncy steps on bumpy, hot cement,
careless of the dirt on your feet

running in wide, drunk circles,
scraping your scarred little knees
forgetting why you were laughing,
but you chased the sun, at least

she shouts your name from the house,
thick orange juice and sweet bread
a small towel on your sticky back,
she tied the wet hair on your head

the daytime moon followed you home,
with its humble clouds not far behind
how vast, you thought, was the world,
but it wasn't as vast as your mind

a.r.

The hair on your forehead is soft umber wheat
with a cerulean sky behind it,
the dent on your cheek is deep-
enough for me to rest in it

You are the emerald mountains
and the tranquil rain,
that calms me down
and hands me pain

You are jazz and blues
and if yellow ochre had a sound,
Lying in between our smiles,
was a place that you found

I miss you
and the little church in Lisbon,
across the lone bench,
with a stick that you relied on

In the back of my mind,
how could I ever?
When I've never met you
and I've never been to Lisbon

a.r.

the loudest voice you know
is the one you'll never hear

it screams and it ponders
for every crevice of your body,
to stain your every wrinkle,

how were you supposed to know
that you're already whole,
but spend your every blink,
borrowing all the seeds
that you can swallow?

seeds to fill up your stomach
so much so, that
they have no room to grow at all?

but the loudest voice you know
doesn't know the quiet sunrise,
as well as you do,
when morning felt impossible

the loudest voice you know
doesn't know you
as well as the sky that
watched you build a shelter from
your bones,
the same sky
that cast a storm over it,
and the same sky that smiled
to find you dry and warm.

the loudest voice you know,
is the one you'll never hear,
so why do you listen to it?

the difference between seeking to find me and seeking to stumble into me is the guarantee of only one of those.