You stretch arguments along the lifelines of my patience
Plant eager excuses on my collarbones of doubt
Feed me watered-down wine of ever-pending promises
That my trust-tangled stomach can never hold down

Your touch singes holes in my dress of protection
Burns through the layers of my shock-salted skin
Your eyes tell a tale of belligerent disarmament
My judgement messed up by your lopsided grin

Your glance of missed chances pierces my instinct
Sees right through the weakness of my fast-fading self
My senses confused by the lure of your fragrance
Susceptible bait for your trickery of scent

My nails scratch your back for a grip of intention
I stitch up your contour, unravelling my own
Tearing up scars that I once thought well-covered
Slowly you’re ******* the marrow from my bones

Smiling you cushion the blows of your winged words
But the humdrum still bruises my lured lazy limbs
Your smoke-flavoured lips taste of death and destruction
But still my parched mouth follows your every whim

Ik blijf zitten door kanker
Het anker om mijn enkel wenkt me
Terug
Naar het donker
Kon ik het maar laten
Voor wat het was
Dat het was
Maar het is niet
Afgesloten met genezing
Deze schemering sluimert
Blijft zitten
Met mij

She kissed him
Like New York was the city she lived in
Like Manhattan was her home
When she laid her fingers against the window
She felt it
His heartbeat
Warm flesh through cold glass
Her reflection mirroring his
While she looked out on skyscrapers
Empire State, she
Saw him across the room
In the silence of the empty penthouse
Louder than the racket of
The city buzz below
She heard him
His whisper
Telling her he loved her, how beautiful she was
She kissed him
Like New York was the city she lived in
While never having left the Europe that is home

She picks up her glass
Puts it back down
Listening to the sound
Of his comfortable breathing

He leans over, a smile
Confident and clean
‘It has been a while,
You should go, you should sleep’

Looks away, just in time
To miss her hesitation
She stands up, looks around
For a subject for conversation

‘I had fun, tonight’
His back doesn’t answer
Nor does it see
The tear falling down

She wipes it away
With her expectations
And follows him down
The path of no return

‘I’ll see you around’
While he reaches the front door
She checks her step
Feels his warmth when she passes

‘Text me when you’re home safe’
His deep but careless voice
A gleam of hope looks back to see
Just how he closes the door

And to the fading drums of
His receding footsteps
She sinks unto the sidewalk
Whispers ‘You are my home safe’

Holding on, hands grappling
Wrapping arms around air
Fleeting, leaving
Urges, lurking
Out of reach
Bubble burst
Glass shattered
Chances lost
Among the ashes of
Could-have-been-but-wasn’ts
Last convulsions
Pulsing
Through my fingers
Lingering loud

Hold your breath, forget
Which bridge to cross is about
What to leave behind

This sign on the road sets me still ‘fore I go
Tells me to glance at the map just once more
Tells me to look in the rearview mirror
Before I go

The glass wall before me refuses to break
Instead it reflects what I left and it shows
The path, when it cracks, I’ll be able to take
But it won’t

The landscape stretches as far as the eye
Can see the view of the future
But the cliff at my feet will just lead me
Nowhere

Surely I would know it
If there were any truth to this
The senses, yet, are treacherous
And mostly so’s the wit

Truly I’ll believe it
When intuition strikes
The mirrors running liquid
Through my mind

Freely, I would will it
Convinced by logic’s myth
But ignorance is willfulness
And indifference is bliss

Clearly I can see it
Awoken from reality
Plugged into a conscience
That feeds on mere deceit

Naturally, I am it
The being and the time
Meddling in reality
Mistaking truth for mine

The way you hold me is the thing
That I miss most about you
The way it makes me feel when
You surround me whole
That long before our eyes meet
Your life is just like mine
Woven to be different
So that ours could intertwine
I miss the way you know me
Better than I do myself
I miss the way you look at me
The way I look at you
I long for every moment
You hear me in the silence
I miss the person that you
Help me to become
Yet missing you is not a
Loss like if you would've left
The things I miss are only
Reasons to rejoice

*because what I miss will not be missed again when we'll have met

“I’m gonna die”
The tear in my mother’s eye
Was enough
For my mind to start writing my will
Was convincing
Me that living would soon be done
In a month or two
“I can scream, I can cry
but that won’t change nothing”
Wondered by my own leap
To that conclusion
Shocked by the suddenly short
Life expectation of an 11-year old
Holding on to the pavement
Delaying the point
Of no return to a careless life

Pitch black storylines
Ink painted former forest
Fire wrote a book here

He nodded, hardly looking up
As if they didn’t share same blood
As if she hadn’t been gone for weeks
As if he didn’t care
He hurt her, hardly looking up
Like many times before
Like in condescending looks
Like in stinging words
He knew not, hardly looking up
Nothing of her burning tears
Nothing of her growing thought of
‘Nothing to come home for’

She stepped back until the branch that hit her
Was nothing but a still part of a tree
Until the wind that had cut her skin
Didn't move her sight no more
Until she was just an observer
Of the mess her life had become
So she could set it still, paint it
As a picture more rosy than it
Ever would become

The sunset over the Atlantic
As seen from my balcony
A sight that never tires me
Even though it doesn’t change

I don’t know where the ocean ends
And where the sky begins
Even when the colors change
They fade into each other

Instead my life confuses me
Sitting alone on my balcony
Even though the landscapes change
It always just feels the same

I don’t know where the present ends
And the future will begin
The seamlessness just frightens me
As if I’m missing out on life

But like sunset over the Atlantic
Teaches the view from my balcony
There’s more to life than sea and sky
And the sun will elsewhere rise

When I pull you close
The space between us
Is just moving elsewhere
And your arms around me
Will not cease to
Silently push me out there
So that the air that once connected  
Me to you will now
Surround my skin with empty
Remembrance of yours
And choke me with the thought that
You won’t let me to
Embrace the man that you
And I both know I love

Maybe there won’t be a
Last drop
To run over the cup
Maybe everything is just
One more drop
To fill the ocean up

Look at me and see
A dancing apple tree
These branches representing
All of my extensions
All the ways I’m extending
Away from my roots
Look
Look at me swaying in the wind
Dipping my toe into every new thing
As if it were a lifeline
A way to strengthen my spine
To grow
And withstand the next storm
So look at me spread
This canopy of leaves
Towards the sun
Drinking in the light
The life
That gets me through another season
Look at me breathe
The chest of my stem expanding
Breathing in the dust of life
Breathing out the rust of death
The stem of my chest collapsing
Under the weight of the dawn
Retracting from this lifting mist
Until the senses settle in to old patterns
And my tree dances
No more

You left me…
Almost speechless
Like when everything you want to say actually shuts you up
There were flashes of discourses by the greatest men ever
Lyrics to the songs that you never understood
But also there was silence that you would not have respected
Mixed in with a whisper just not loud enough to hear
Ironic how three words, you deemed suited for this moment
Spurred such a stream of simultaneous shush and scream
That gave me both the will to ignore your words forever
As it did the urge to tell you everything to your face

The belief your life is over
With nothing to be done
Its last part in isolation
Waiting
For the pain to become too much
The pain, the pain
Staring at the same walls
Forty-six days in a row
Never knowing whether
Tomorrow you’ll wake up
And if there is, if you’ll survive
A future left in store
Delirium, depression
A hole left in your soul
Then coming out on the other side
Only to realize
Everyone has moved on

Then who are you to utter these three words to my face
Who are you to dictate how my life after that should change
The words you chose so carelessly, I will take to the heart
Just not to leave the past behind but to make a brand new start
I’ll look you in the eye and use your words  against you
When I tell you how I am about to
“Get over it”

Winds march over boulevards
As winding as his wanderings
Leafs leave branches barren
To make the grey skies seen
Clouds cry bitter raindrops
Soaking sour solitude
The puddles promise solace
To drown in to his waist
Torso left to nature’s whims
And storms to wear him out
Car alarms laugh in his face
Howling mockeries his way
Loudly, thunders call him
To give in to the fogs and mist
Life was never as redundant
As in autumn’s heady lists

If the quantum is foaming
Roaming space for a chance to manifest
Lest it neglect to collapse in on itself
Then who am I

To negate the hypothesis
That life is ineffable
Interfering with the pattern
That would have else entangled me
Instead,
I find myself a wave function
Undetermined until interacted with
Insignificant until observed

Who am I to challenge
That everything is energy
Rising through the ranks of probability
A wavelength contracting  
An equation waiting to materialize

Who am I to doubt
That uncertainty is anything less
Than a superposition  
A potential to fill
The vacuum to the brim
With vibrations that extend far beyond the evidence
Fluctuations fulfilling a destiny  
Of singularity
A momentum to make matter matter

In the rolling of the thunder,
In the clashing of the waves,
In the raging of the storming seas

He whispers.
                              Will you?
He whispers.
                                                       ­     Listen?
He whispers.
                                                       ­                                   And be still?

But shouldn’t there be lightning crashing,
Voices singing, clouds breaking?
Isn’t glory only shown through
Miracles, eclipse?

And I… run,
                              run,
                                             run,
To the rhythm of                               my heartbeat,

Each thud roaring down the whisper
He’s trying to make me hear.

But I… run,
                              run,
                                             run,
To the rhythm of                               my heartbeat,

Which slowly he aligns with...        His.

In between the beats He still
Whispers,
Hardly loud enough to hear;

                             *“Slow down, listen!
                                                         ­         Be still before
                                                          ­                                 Me”

It's 4 A.M., you're on your afternoon coffee
The fuel you drink as black as my night
Still you'll be sleeping long before I will
When this 4 A.M. will have stolen your daylight

By now your tomorrow has taken my weary
This witch hour feels like eternal remorse
A limbo between our past and my future
This night's silence drowning out yours

Are you counting the hours from you to where I am?
Assuming your waking equals my yawn?
Will dreams come to me with this AM turned PM?
Will you love me again when your dusk meets my dawn?

I thought you’d go the distance
You didn’t move an inch.
How can I recover with this
Hovering over my head?
You said ‘just trust me’,
And then let me
Go the extra mile while
You stayed behind and whispered
A soft goodbye.

You sent me out into a storm
That I only could survive
With someone else beside
Me, with you right there.
This is indeed the end of it.
You led me to believe that if I
Were to ever have you,
‘Now’ was the time
To jump.

So I took the leap and
Landed in the puddle
At my feet.
Stood tall to see the rain fall,
Stood tall to see and meet
A someone else beside me,
Fronting the same storm,
Who looked at me and whispered
A soft hello.

Away she stepped and looked at the mess
And all this while, time stood still

The words an echo, shattered glass
She walked away, as time stood still

Hours past, in a different world
But where she ran, time stood still

As she stopped and turned around she saw
The sun went down, but time stood still

She gathered every shred of courage
All through the night, as time stood still

As a new day dawned and light crept in
She took one step back as time stood still

She set out on the way back wondering
If life had changed while time stood still

She reached a past in screes and shatters
A broken mirror, as time stood still

Unmendable it seemed to be when
She stepped back in and time stood still

Then morning sun lit up the shards
She sat down, still, and time stepped on

Morgen is de minste zorg
Zonder waterval aan vragen
Waarom? Wat? *** wil je dat ik dat doe?
Nu
Is altijd meer dan honger,
Gisteren nooit minder dan spijt

Het leven leest voor uit de legende
Maar leeft die niet
Nog steeds roepen de weken om stilstand
De uren om snelheid
De seconden om jou

En dus geef ik mij over
Aan de afkeer, de omkeer, de terugkeer, de wederkeer
Wederom went de nieuwe start
Tot elke gedachte versmelt tot vervreemding
Van voordeur, gewoonte en de geur van dat huis

Waar ooit thuis was is nu een regel,
Een vooroordeel dat schreeuwt 'nooit meer'
Een wereld te leren leidt altijd tot anders
Maar het keerpunt komt,
Onherroepelijk
Zoals geen dag zó steekt dat hij nooit stopt

Zo is morgen de minste zorg
En jij het verschiet dat elk keerpunt doet lonken

El muro me das
Sin mostrarme la puerta
Huérfano soy, de alma y pie
Limites pintas
En colores de retos
La pintura me vendes a cambio de paz
Libertad tomas
La conviertes en miedo
Con sangre escribes mi nueva canción
Promesas me haces
De pasión y impacto
Los confundes con lucha y labor
Me haces creer que
Deseo rodera
Sentirme segura y en comodidad
Me robas del nuevo,
Ser aventurero
Mis sueños ahogas en ayer

These hands
Written on by life
Will write
With only my words
This death I’ve died
A thousand times
Is mine alone

This skin
That stood out in fields
Alone
That has drowned in  sees
Alone
That has scarred from
Words and glances

These veins
Pumping through
This life force
The blood that brought
The marrow to the bone
That brought a life
That was never mine
Into the fabric of this body
Into the struggle, the effort
The wisdom, the peace

The day I was launched off my feet
Sleep crawling
To side lines
That I might never leave
The debris
Has scattered into memories
Forgotten
Even by themselves

These lungs
Have whispered prayers
Bellowed poems
And swallowed pride
Choking on the ghost of death
One last time

These bones have set
In crooked ways
A skeleton
That’s lost
The art of support
Stiffened from
Bracing for impact

From the very day
That I decided
That if I can’t shine
I’ll slay
Support myself in every which way
Support this weight
That I’ve hoisted on my shoulders
These boulders
That I’ll stand up

These feet
Leaving no trace
But the distance between us,
Will go
Where no-one will find me
Will dance through ditches
Curve into corners
Coast out of questions
Throttle and choke
The fear

Halfway into solid soils,
These roots have changed their minds
Fractures welcomed quickly
For a chance at new sustenence
Broken, they are, still,
Open to a fresh start

A shard has found its way,
Its place, its role,
Its eternal purpose
Part of a whole as broken as he is
Still, life, painted out of imperfections
Only cracks and stains
Form patterns that mean anything

The waves roll in
Broken against rocks, cliffs,
Heady as the lists they offer their battles to
Never stilling the insatiable thirst for living
Yet always enough
To toil, turmoil, retreat
And re-emerge

The crystal starts its free fall
Darting down in ominous torments
Forlorn hope of wholeness
Only to be broken into molecules
Shattered by its very nature
Melted into volatility
Still permanent like the sky it came from

The earth trembles me every time,
Fragile, into hiding
This world, broken, new grounds opened
Mountains crumbled, veil torn
Still I am, unstirred
As the dawn dissolves all darkness
Every time heaven opens
I am merged into peace

Blank heart, blank life
Your pen leaves ink stains,
Black rivers
That seep into my palms
Drip down my hands
Stain my fingerprints
With traces of you
I sit here,
On the edge of mystery,
A thriller, open-ended
Jibberish wishes that
Stumble off my lips and listen
Only to where your music flows
Beats, blows through unsteady determination
Plaster falling from walls as
Shels from eyes
Fresco revelation

Worth wondered why
I didn't want Him
While He was always
A better companion
Than fear
Why I deemed Him more a
Question of value
A question at all
While He merely was
Wonderfully enough

By now,
The seasons don't remember
Why now is not the time
For snowfall, in August
But August started it all

By now, all things are expected
But nothing is foreseen
Would I feel more affected
If the sidelines hadn't taken me in?

I hear you like a white noise
I feel you like a flatline
'Why' is a question I'll ask anytime
But 'what' is not worthwhile

Roots tangled firm as an oak tree
Wings like an eagle spread wide
Life never answered in full
Stops
Lost as it was in the extra time

By now the tingles are changing
The summer breeze freezes sensation to stone
Extremities breaking away from the anchor
The long August chill
Is bringing me home

Tonight is the hypothesis
Predicting possibility
Molding what we are
Into mathematical equations
You + I = the great unknown

This land we inhabit
Staking our fences
The lens through which we see the world
From behind windows and hedges
Spectators of passers-by
Random sidewalk happenstances
We live vicariously through
What lives on the outside of our plots
Our parcels, our lots, our allotments and our storylines
Where branching out will always be
Punished by pruning and
Shielding off of stretching out
The ground beneath our feet too fixed and stable
To switch
When plots thicken
It does nothing
But hold us in place

Why light another candle
For a soul already lost
Why say another prayer
For a world as contorted
That words, so hollow
Are worthless
Mere moulds we fit to
A deformed sense of purpose
Mostly,
Heaven is what works for us
At any given time
Just as often a struggle to overcome
As it is a fate we acquiesce in
Victory, contentment
Both equally worthy
Of pursuit
Both virtues
Both sins
Ever in need of salvation
We breathe life into
The miracle of the mundane
Resurrecting a reasoning that absolves
Reincarnating a consciousness of hope
Of whatever will let us
Exalt it, adore it,
Extract from it
A narrative
To subscribe to
To believe in
To be God

Ik meet mijn leven in gemiste kansen
Weet steeds weer te berekenen
*** anders de ander, *** anders ik anders
Was geweest
Verleden verandert het heden het meeste
Als de reden het verklaren wil
Achteraf is altijd makkelijk leren
*** je vroegere zelf je jeugd heeft verspild
Miste ik meer dan ik had mogen meemaken
Of was er toch al weinig weggelegd?
Met elke dag wordt het wachten minder
Dwingend, minder resultaatgericht
Lichtelijk verlaten kijkt de klok me weg van toen
Het leven me nog aan de voeten lag
Maar de rijkdom van de tijd
Aan mij niet was besteed
Vergeten blijft altijd een keuze van onwetendheid

Het verleden begeeft het
Verweet het me eerst nog
Niet te zijn geworden
Wat kon
Nu
Nu beleeft het
De kleuren, de klanken, de stilte
Nu weet het
Dat wat gisteren miste
Vandaag was
Scheef gegroeid door de jaren
De kaders, de verhalen, de adem
In wat van mij is
Uit wat verraadt ***
Goed
*** dit slechts
Het tipje van de sluier is
*** de ontluistering
Leidt tot luister
Tot alles wat rauw en puur is
Wat echt is
Het vroeger van vroeger hoopte
En bad
Maar vreesde
Het vroeger van nu belooft me
En leert
Dat angst nooit in me zat
Ondanks het vroeger groeide ik
Vergroeide ik, met mezelf
Bloedde ik
Maar niet zonder te voelen
Ondanks het vroeger
Vermoedde ik
Dat de missende link
Verlicht was
De liefde was
De liefde is

Atomic, we are
She and I,
And all of us
Covalently co-valiant
Exchanging energies
Between us
Building a bond
That’ll keep us entangled
Our essences
Bursting out of shells
That’ll no longer define
Our properties
We change states
As we do shapes
Solidly condensed, we are
No longer ephemeral
Feminine, maybe
But on our own terms
Strongly nuclear
In our common core

When push comes to pull, we
We're electromagnetic
I, the static
You, the current
Drifting through circuits
Conducting
Affected as ever
The force field wielding its powers
Laying out the potentiality
Of energy
However relative
Charged with the burden of proof
The vector pointing at you
Radiating truth
Yet, whether we attract or repel
Is just a matter of reference

We worship words
While words have lost all meaning
Pinned down and carved out
Hollow sounds
Mere moulds we fit to the world around

These chances that surround us
As subatomic particles
Descendents from the brightest stars
Blinking in and out of
An existence that registers
On cosmic scale alone
These bones
Might tingle
Hinted by a ripple
Traveling through time and space
That once returned to dust
Our essences might mingle
And dance on winds as one
This spine, yet
That I was taught to have
Has stiffened
Standing firm above the force fields
A scarecrow there to daunt
Even the dustbowl of our love

I wish I could feel the pull
That I would know where to go
To be in her reach
Which frequency to tune into
To feel this spirit
Fuel my soul, form my self

There, where the universe is flat
I gain a dimension
Am brought into my extensions
Where the background energy
Keeps drafting the blueprint
Of me

But when left to my own devices
In a world that towers over me
I am lowered into voids
In which I can't but disappear

I wish I were made of steel
Drawn to her, magnetic
Through a space, permeated by it
This body it inhabits
For a short while
Matter, embodying the story
The narrative that whispers
Of what is

And me
One story incarned
Suspended in this vacuum of ignorance
Until returning to a wave state
Tuned into the frequency
Of reality