A year has passed,
and I am still writing
poems—pleas—for her

Three years,
and my stubborn heart
still yearns for hers

It has been so long,
and I fear I may have
dreamt you, dear one

I pretend that my heart doesn’t sink
when I remember, only fragments of you

I pretend to want this life
even when I can no longer stomach it

I pretend not to notice my scars
underneath my new green skirt

I pretend to be alive
despite my decaying soul

The feeling
of a hot blade
on my wrist

How gentle is
its sharpness
How soothing is
the stinging pain

Sometimes that’s the
only way I could
remind myself; that
this body of mine,
or at least parts of it
still want to heal

Come,
and lay down your sorrow
along with my solitude,
my heart is yours to break  

Come!
let us abate this
intolerable agony
with lavender tea
and beautiful poetry

Tonight,
I am grieving my self

How I let my hair grow
How you let me go

How your cold absence burns
more than the heat of August,
more than a cigarette to my lips

I cannot sleep,
I think I’ve become my grief,
I admit you make me weak

My favorite color used to be yellow,
it was my sun,
it kept me warm and happy

But as I grew older crimson
became my favorite color

A slow death,
crimson drips from my wrists
as I turn cold and pale

In the morning,
alone,
I plant a pill
on my tongue,
and it blooms
like a chemical kiss

In the afternoon,
I wash my face and
wounds with blood

At midnight,
the rain pours
on my pillow,
but I don’t weep

Every night,
I sleep in the burning house,
but cannot feel its warmth

You’ve brought me into this world,
and you’re the reason I want to leave it

You were supposed to mend
my wounds when I got hurt
not be the reason behind them

You were supposed to protect
me from any danger,
but you were the danger itself

Your piercing eyes and
cruel hands still haunt me,
and I cannot find any peace

I needed you to tell me
I’m safe when I was scared,
but nothing is more
scarier than you, mother

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?

I tried holding the darkness,
and imprison it
in a forgotten place

Empty handed,
I am the darkness
and the forgotten place

How does one choose to forget themselves?
How do I eradicate myself in order to mend?
How do I rid myself of something that lives within me?

A vicious war,

I won—

I defeated myself

—so why does my heart still
beats with so much darkness?

Can I pour this love I hold
for you into your open mouth?

Can I write you endless
love letters as long as I live?

Can I drown my sorrows
between your thighs?

Can I devour your scent till
you suffocate with pleasure?

I might’ve inhaled her scent
when we were making our
soon to be last goodbyes

Her scent filled my lungs
So I held my breath
and counted to ten

Countless tens,
I lost track

Suffocated,
I inhaled the smoke

Broken,
I buried what she felt like

Abandoned,
I exhaled her out of me

When breathing felt
the same as drowning—

and I’ve drowned myself once

—I gasped for her scent
with each breath I took

Tell me, does the night go through
you with its aching loneliness?

Do you think of me when
you see a wilting sunflower?

Do you see my face when
you hear the word longing?

I can’t tell if I’m awake,
or not done dreaming

All I ask is, when will I awake
from this never-ending nightmare?

Perhaps death is
my only awakening

I feel a fire starting under my ribs
It is swallowing everything,
my heart, lungs,
and memories too

Or I may just be missing you
to the point where I set myself ablaze

Tell me,
does my cloud of smoke not reach you?

I suffocate with a burning longing
Do you not understand?
I burn, I burn, I am burning for you

Be with me
if only for a moment
For soon nothing
will remain of me

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

Since you took
your last breath

The food tasted
like the bruises on your face
like the dry blood down your nose
like death

When I stood next to
your still body,
your corpse,
you

You were quiet,
I searched for you in your eyes,
but they were swollen shut

I tried to touch your face,
but the coldness of
your skin burned mine

My heart is grieving,
my skin is burning,
my eyes are bleeding,
and you are still dead

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

Love,
you should have kissed me
before my lips started to bleed

You should have teared me apart
before my flesh turned into
a graveyard of longings, for you

But I promise you this:
No one shall touch me
after you, not even I

My aching body,
my worn out mouth,
my fever-burned eyes,
my hungry heart,
and the rest of me
is yours for a lifetime

Though these words
strangle me to write,
you do not long for
me as you once did

I do not know who else to be
if not your lover all-night long—
Endlessly

I whispered to my heart
filled with yearning,
“Be still”

Even if the curly ropes
of his hair
leaves you trembling
with an unsatisfiable hunger

“Be very still
dear anguished heart of mine”,
but as a leaf
I quiver
clinging desperately
by a bleak bough

For soon I’ll flutter
with the wind,
and fall down
along with my sorrows

As the fallen leaves
withered and loveless,
I shall crumble and disappear

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

An eyelash stuck on her left cheek,
she places it on the tip of her finger
makes a wish,
and gently blows it away
hoping it’d come true

Hold me like
a wish in your heart

Leave me like
you’re blowing
away an eyelash
to make another wish

Do it gently
and I promise,
I’ll come true

A knife
caressing my thighs
to my wrists

A chemical mixture
swallowed down
with a drink

A lover
you’ve never tasted

By the gods, I cannot
bear the possibility of
the morning light kissing
your back as you dream

I fear such tenderness
might be fatal, dear

At night,
aching and alone

I learned how to worship
the glittering fire of my mind

And in return,
it wrote this
poem for me

I longingly thought of you,
but the memory of you has faded
slowly,
and led me away from you

I no longer remember
the shape of your lips,
nor the way your hands
moved when you talked

I am forgetting parts of you
with each lonesome night
I stayed awake without
your I love you’s

Alone
with my ardent longings

Mourning
the mornings I spent in her absence

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

My beloved April moon,
when the poets write ghazal
they are writing about you

The goddess of love,
Aphrodite,
cried when I told her
that you may leave

Her tears shedding
for you to stay,
like drops of Venus

Come back
For the goddess
of love’s sake,
come back

The sweat of an orange
upon her upper lip,
melts into her skin

This mouth hungers
This heart yearns

They both burn
from their
ardent desire for her

Let me whisper
my last goodbye
between your lips

Oh, won’t you let me
bury this poem along
with our dead love

And pour my salty tears
upon your naked shoulder

My tears are
saltier than the ocean’s

My heart is
heavier than Sisyphus’ rock

My secrets
that I buried beneath my
skin has turned into scars

My body is
but a graveyard

My ugly mouth is stained
with cigarette kisses

It knows only the heat of a burning match
lighting a harmful kiss after another

I long
for my fingers to smell of her
and not the cigarette smoke

My brittle heart
longs to be held
by your small hand

Mother gave
me a blade

Mine was pink,
hers was purple

It was a useless sharp thing
that’s always in my drawer

One night,
I reached for the blade,
and it felt like my
mother’s embrace  

Every time I used it,
I was being released
from all my pains

Thank you, mother

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

My fingers used to
always smell of her,
her scent would linger
on my clothes for days

Now that she has left,
my fingers reek of cigarettes,
and my clothes remain unwashed

All I want is for my skin to
absorb her scent once again

But this is not a poem,
and she has changed her perfume

A home
can be a grave,
or a lover’s embrace

I want to return to a home
where the air smelled
of only her scent

I will break all my limbs
to have her mold me
as a clay sculpture

To carve her knife
into my skin because
this is how art is made

To have her look at me,
study me, conceal my flaws,
till I am finally perfect

To be owned by her,
her creation to
admire and love

If you still wish to seek me for
another poem,
another momentary desire,
another ***** tear to lick,
another night to melt,
or for a little death

I will be waiting,
burning,
yearning,
for your small hands

The reason why I look away when
I notice his blue eyes gazing at me

Is that I am afraid if I stared into
them for too long I will drown

Now that he is gone,
I long to drown

She gave me a flower bouquet
like leaving behind a weeping
bouquet of lilies to wilt softly
on the grave of a loved one

The aromatic scent of lilies
couldn’t overcome the mist
of death ruled by Achlys

The forsaken flower quivers
over the piercing whispers
of her impending doom
when her youthful roots
were unwillingly cut

She withers upon my grave,
and emits the scent of death and I

The decayed petals drop
like blood from cut vines
The brittle dried flower
rots as its color fades from
pure-white and pink
to senescing brown

A slight tint of pink still lingers
as what’s left of her love

The corpse flower
scentless bloom of death belongs
Ghosts with feverish smiles shall
visit me with a bitterly cold embrace

All that I am
is a snowy mountain

Desolate,
carrying a heavy burden
that people call snow

Aching in one place
for an entire season

Longing for
a little warmth
without the risk of love

Love burns me,
and all I ask
for is warmth  

To melt,
I wish to melt
completely

Perhaps,
I will fall in love with
the sun this winter

Or die trying

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

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

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

Here,
take my sleepy eyes,
they’ve witnessed enough chaos

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

To you
who’s silence
pains me deeply

I admit,
I still converse with
you in my head

I have slowly forgotten
the sound of
your bewitching voice

But I remember how
your small mouth  
was my greatest desire

When everyone has abandoned me,
my shadow laid there next to me,
and it whispered “let’s go home”

And when my poems
turned into suicide notes,
I sharpened the knife,
and put it on my pillow
to sing me to sleep

A bottle of pills with
my full name on it
White and motherly,
I heard them call my
name from a distance

I swallowed the pills,
I swallowed the knife,
my shadow swallowed me

I am finally home