My lover’s name is Depression,
and he clings himself to me,
like a ghost that still haunts
its old lover’s house  

I wash off my mouth,
but still taste him

I wrote him endless poems,
but he demands that
I **** myself for him
so he knows it is real

“I don’t want to see you with other people”
he yelled and his face turned blood-red

“I want to engrave my name in your heart”
he said with a knife in hand

“I want to consume you”
he whispered in a flirtatious way

“I want you to disappear with me tonight”
he said as he grabbed me by the hand,
and we disappeared together

I cannot seem to leave
my fervent solitude,
but if you asked me for
apricot jam with fresh bread

I will hide my sorrows
behind the blue curtains,
so you can ******* yellow love

She left me with a bouquet of
flowers that never bloomed,
and a muse with bleeding
verses that never rhymed

At nights when her name
is dancing on my tongue,
I hunger for the cherries
she once promised to feed me

“Show us your scars”
When they should’ve said shame  

“Point on where it hurts”
Yet they couldn’t find a cure

“Have you been thinking about death?”
Like my thoughts wander to anything else

“Just take this pill in the morning”
But I‘m up every morning

“You’re safe here”
I felt their eyes under my skin

“Have you assaulted anyone in your life?”
Can’t they see that I‘m the victim here

“Can we send you home without worrying?”
As if I can guarantee them my life,
as if I have a home

“Bring your mother with you in the next session”
But I’m in therapy because of her  

“Have you considered electroshock therapy?”
And now they want to cause me more trauma

“How many times have you attempted suicide?”
“Enough times to believe that I have already died” I said finally

Today,
I’ve dug a thousand graves for every
funeral that rose inside my heart,

and tomorrow will be a continuation
of this never-ending sorrowful funeral

And the only one
who’s grieving
my aching bones
is me,
and me alone

I wish I could make returning
home feel like a gentle burial

I don’t want to be
reminded of the time

Don’t stare at my empty wrists,
I have lost my watch long ago

But I’m still here, always here,
so is the lump in my throat

Before the night ends, and we
make our soon to be last goodbyes

Ask me to stay,
don’t let me return to my grave again

Because, I fear I won’t be
able to leave it this time

I long to remain dead,
but ask me anyway

Alone
with my ardent longings

Mourning
the mornings I spent in her absence

Three years,
and I still burn, want, and weep

Come and rest your
head upon my pillow,
and trace your fingers
along the tear stains

Now, close your eyes,
I will be waiting
for you in a dream

You who taught me
that I can write such loving lines
only if it is you reading them

But now I ruin myself
because I know no matter
how many brutal lines I write

I will never get to see
your face light up
as you read them

Here,
take my fragile heart,
it is yours to break

Here,
take my tormented soul,
it holds but agonizing pain

Here,
take my sleepy eyes,
they have shed enough tears

Here,
take my whole body,
I wish to disappear completely

I am all the dreams
you had at night,
but forgotten
in the morning

I will shatter my heart
before I break yours  

I will rip out my eyes
before I make yours cry

And I will always love you even when
your heart is no longer beating for mine

Aching,
I stood under the sun,
and for a fleeting moment I saw
death’s shadow aligning with mine

I write so not to
suffocate on my
smoky thoughts

I write so not to
forget that I, too,
have a voice that
won’t be silenced

I write so not to
use the knife
as an outlet

I write so not to
choke on the thorny words
that linger in my throat

I write so not to
be hushed by my—
inner demons
—sweet seductress

I write so not to
burn alone in
my own inferno

I write so not to
die

It is brutal
to have reached for
my trembling hand
and hold it

only to dust me off
back to my grave
without a goodbye
nor a burial

It is cruel
to have made me
believe I am one
with the livings

only to make my
second death
far more ******

O, tragedy indeed

Hot summer breeze,
long sleeves, and
scars you cannot see

I admit, you are no longer my muse,
nor the subject of my growing pains

But who am I to write to,
if not to you?

No heart dares to hold
such tenderness as yours

And no other soul can
understand my lines,
but yours

So tell me, love,
what must I do?

Kiss my hungry mouth
till death comes to kiss

Press your heart
against mine and
abate my misery

Offer me your lips
to devour
to satisfy this hunger
within my lonely heart

A dream about you
telling me the meaning behind
your name in painful details

But darling, I have already
memorized it by heart
as a prayer from a faithless soul

There is
a foul taste
in my mouth

A cave with circus
elephants in my chest

A sinking ship
in my stomach

A grieving cloud
in my tearful eyes

It is as though I
have died after you

I would give up heaven,
and worship her instead

I would give up heaven
to suffer through her hell

As long as I am
with my cruel angel

Oh, burn me
mighty one

She was named after love,
and letters were exchanged
between lovers in her name

Poets found their muse
when she visited their hearts
and I was one of them

But my love never
reached her heart
like hers did mine

And so she left,
when my stubborn heart was
aching to be laced with hers

She left,
and my eyes were searching,
yearning for her

Dear Heyam,
I swear on love letters
and you
For it is the last poem
I write about you

There is such
loneliness in
my heart, and
it consumes me
each deathly night

Weeping I laid
and waited for
the tears to dry,
but they remained
on my face like
a wound that
won’t seem to heal

A knife
caressing my thighs
to my wrists

A chemical mixture
swallowed down
with a drink

A lover
you’ve never tasted

The night came in
and devoured me
like a crow
devours its prey

A dark cloud has
hid the sun, and
convinced me that
I wasn’t going to live

Although I can’t see it,
the glittering sun
is still there to kiss my skin
and remind me I exist

An angel,
spreading her wing
to take me under it
to ease the anguish
of my heavy heart

A heavenly creature
fled from a lover’s hell
to purify her stained heart

I never felt loneliness
till my lusted angel
flew back to her realm

Will she ever fly back
and risk losing another feather?

As a kid, I never dared to
have dreams of my own
It was prohibited,
amongst other things

When asked to make
a wish on my birthday,
I only wished for the
nights to stop coming

I grew thirty years older
when my pearl was
stolen by filthy hands  

All I was left with was
an unimaginable
fear of her piercing eyes

I prayed to a cruel god
with every fiber in me
For him to either save me,
or return this body of mine

I lost my self, purity,
and youth all in one night

I died before
I had the chance
to simply live

The clock is stuck at 3:33 AM,
my mind is stuck in yesterday

I drink a glass of water,
and wait for my heart
to stop bleeding

My soul weeps,
but I don’t stop writing

Your soul wanders at
the edge of my heart

Your footsteps when you
left still rings in my ears

Your scent filled my
lungs till I suffocated

You haunt my dreams,
now I write to your ghost

You poured your honey into my
hungry mouth like slow poison

You said love won't save us,
and my heart stopped

Every time I hear the word “love”
I think going
warmth
and then going
(don’t)

My heart sings
the bluest song,
but no one is
around to hear it

I hope one day,
my heart sings
a yellow song
that rhymes with
happiness and serenity

I take a pill,
and wait for it
to doze me off

I take double the dose,
there’s no need to wait

Now, I’m holding
a bottle filled with
promised
goodnight sleeps

I’ll swallow a pill
for each night I stayed up
suffocating  
instead of dreaming

My happiest moments
were always the ones
where I’m closest to death

1.
The seasons changed,
but he kept wearing a sweater
during the steamiest weather

He spoke in three languages,
but has only felt the word:
Melancholy,
and the joyous absence of it

He wondered who he would
be without his sweater,
and the word Melancholy

2.
He never uttered the word father
for it was heavy on his tongue
like heavy rain on a bleak midnight

His mother loved him dearly,
or ruined him and called it love

A man has fallen in love with him,
and he felt for the first time; the
warmth of equally returned love

His lover tore apart his heart, and
told him it was the final act of love

3.
After eleven years of insomnia,
he stopped measuring happiness
based on how many nights he slept
A funeral rose in his heart as he wept

He muttered the word:
Suffering
as if it were
a prayer
or a lullaby

4.
Drawing road maps on his skin
was his only consolation,
he chose the color red
to find his missing path

Scars between his thighs
like hidden treasures—
Centuries deep
away from people’s sight

5.
His new beloved was in
the shape of a knife,
they embraced and
the gushing blood
was his final act of love

I am feral lover
with a stubborn heart

It is true,
my love for you
is unwavering

But your absence pierced
this heart of mine
For eternity

This morning,
I watered the lucky
bamboo you gave me

I kept it near me,
I let it be kissed
by the sun,
I took care of it

Not because
you asked me to,
but because I love you

The thing I use to fight with
has turned against me,
and is winning the battle

The enemy—
my own mind
—is about to attack,
and I’m unable to act

And now all I’m left with
is scars that never seem
to be healing,
I never seem
to be healing

A handful of pills
in my palm,
their color is a sign
of truce, purity,
and surrender

And I surrender

So here is my shield,
my sword,
my soul,
I no longer want
to fight this battle

Grief sleeps in my bed,
and I lay awake on the floor

She hides the sun
and spits in my coffee

I have known her only for five months,
but she has consumed me completely

She is me,
and I am my grief

Today,
a cloud has weeped for me,
she poured her tears upon my
face and washed my wounds

People call the
sky’s tears as rain,
but my tears are salty
and dripping with pain

A pill in the morning,
and one before I sleep

Pearly white and motherly,
I like them better than me

I awoke today,
and felt a strange force pulling
at my stomach and tearful soul

Hollow and motherless,
the pills have left my body

Is the side effects the body’s
way of refusing to heal?

Am I swallowing bombs
or chemical kisses?

Will they mother me
and bring back my mind?

Dear my aching body,
I promise you,
this is not another suicide

So be still,
be very still,
and keep the pills down  

Don’t whine
Don’t cuss
Don’t fuss
Don’t resist
Don’t fright
Don’t fight
Don’t cry
Don’t die

This is not a suicide

I’m accompanied
by two tonight,
agony and her
beloved insomnia

Nothing lives inside
me any longer  
Perhaps I orphaned
this heart of mine,
when I didn’t listen
to its desperate cries
in need for a shelter

Cursed with homesickness,  
an abysmal void grew within me
that’s where I found refuge

I welcomed madness
with open wrists

I spent my nights
alone
without loneliness

I waited for you
with a longing-pain

I wanted my soul
to be laced with yours,

but your soul
doesn’t yearn for mine

I want my day to start
with her yellow laughter

And end it with her crimson mouth
laced with my bruised mouth

In a river,
I will pour my love
as you watch it sink

On your shoulder,
I will pour my salty tears
and pray to forget you

And when she left,
I kept her lucky bamboo alive,
and wished that the leaves
will speak to me in her voice

But the leaves has grown quiet,
and turned into my favorite color

Does that mean our love has withered,
or have I been speaking with the dead?

I woke up
in the middle of the morning,
and I was six years older

Every inch of me
was yearning for its
                         doom

A broken voice,
crooked smile,
and raw scars

I closed my eyes,
and now,
I’m no longer here