when i'd be asked in the past
'do you collect anything?'
as a child i'd feel an obligation

my friends collected buttons,
christmas ******* rings,
compiled shells,
or gas station keyrings

so i collected can tops
and squishy toys from beach side shops
pointy pointless scraps of metal
that now sit in a dusty jar
and stuffed lizards and seahorses
in a box under an old bed

and when they said
they didn't get it
i knew i didn't either
but i'd say the metal
is sentimental
it really is a keeper
honest

and now i'm older
i'm no objector
to being a collector
promise

because in a box
inside my heart
beyond the dust,
i'm honest,
i keep a stash
tied in a sash
of all the things
i've sprinkled with stardust

of all the memories
of days i loved
and too ones fogged with miseries

of scars formed from thunderstorms
for thorns are as much of a blessing
as the caressing from surrounding roses

of people who loved me
and people i despised
of eyes i glanced at once and
should i see again
would go unrecognised

for when i'm collecting moments
i am collecting lives
and there is no better way
to be alive
than revising every moment
as if it were chosen
by you
from that gas station
instead of just through obligation

i'm in the sort of mood
where i feel i should be able
to write the most exquisitely torturous poetry

i'm in the space between my memories
in which i see the cracks in time
and the cracks in my future in
to which i could so easily slip

and
yet

i find here a barrier between my torn
and throbbing heart
and my brain
much like the opacity between my
last experience here and today

what words could possibly describe?

I am a volcano; I will erupt
I can feel the blood pumping through my head
and it hurts
I've been bottled inside for too long
Oh, how much it makes me want to destroy
Destroy everything in my way
See these tears?
I'm tired, I want out.
DO YOU HEAR ME
LET ME OUT
Otherwise I'll destroy myself.

I ask for someone to hear my cry
Before I say I want to die
My love for you is something rare
I don't know if it's truth or dare
When i start to fall in love
You ask me what I'm thinking of
You don't understand how I feel
For you understand nothing real
Trust is what you want but you lie every day
Can't you see it's hurting me and love shouldn't feel this way
You say your faithful but is it true?
You lie to me and your friends too
You'd be the one to loose if I just let you be
No one will be there for you, not your friends or me
You always think you'll come out in the end holding all the darts
When really you'll be the last in line --- with the only broken heart

How did the Greek Pundit mark
The middle of a storyline
If time, space, and self are handmade,
If language is borderline,
If a lover knows not what love is,
And if a poem’s writer is its first line?

© LazharBouazzi, June 3, 2016

Such beautiful words to bring you pleasure
He lives in my five minutes of thought
Silver snaked-tounged charmer
Claws, and jaws, and teeth, and all
A hungry hellion disguised outrightly
As a love, a father, a friend
Your standing on the ledge
He wants you to jump
Into a void
Into the mouth of darkness
He wants your flesh
He wants to eat
He wants your death
And he'll call it a beautiful life
He still is speaking
And his words are mixed and missed and often remiss
He's going to speak
Still
Listen to me
I'm only here because you need me to be
He's only there because he needs you
There's only one voice speaking truth
Step off that ledge
Fall into a lovers arms
And be safe
Yes there are demons
Who give every inch of might
To try to reach you
Still
I will keep you

I want to kiss your wind
The real you existing before the beginning
Before the body begins
And the beauty is your soul
Not your infinite eyes
Not your silken skin

I've seen your waterfall
I've heard you as a river flowing off an edge
Before any ocean
And no hands can hold such depth
Not the rising tides
Nor the raging waves

Your voice is a delicate breeze
On a newly formed planet
Your heart is a star being born
Your dreams are a star being formed
You were words before sound
You were love alive in tiny atoms
You are music
You are a major scale

I want to kiss your notes
The composition of a cosmic truth
Your stars are instruments
Playing melodious tunes
A glorious truth
A song from heaven

For years, I dreamt of ending the life
Which I regrettably shared with you.
A life through which I felt so much pain,
I thought there was nothing else to do

But be the glutton for punishments
You seemed to think I somehow deserved.
Why a child should be so viciously
Abused makes me feel beyond perturbed.

Still, I no longer wish to harbor
Dreadful woe and despair that you wrought.
I severed our ties, then realized
The prison in which I had felt caught

Could not be upheld once I could see
You never had power over me.