Beneath the innocence of a child
Is the yearning desire to rebel,
Not against his or her youth,
But against the universal rules of normality,
Whether it be unleashed within a cupboard below a staircase
Or while sitting in the next room over,
Listening to the sound of what magic could be.  
Perhaps if I keep reading,
This fantasy will live on
In a reality that is, instead,
My own.

As a child’s adolescence blooms,
The morbidity behind what it is to
Repeatedly fall victim to fiction  
Is surreal.
Something that non-readers cannot comprehend
Is that the fantasy does live on in a way that is unfair,
For it simply resides in our ever-seeking minds
In which that same desire to rebel, too, lives on;
As I have already come as close as I ever will
To filling that void.

its been so long since I’ve written you down
and since, there have been other you’s that have
come and gone
like these seasons,
steady

so now it is Fall again,
the time last year during which my heart was aching
as you vanished from my side;
I stopped and watched as
you went;
you went so
slowly

i stand now, still abandoned
like a tree from its leaves
but I do stand,
and I wonder what you’re doing now,
but only for a moment
before I continue walking;
listening
as the leaves that were silenced
crunch beneath my sentimental feet.

I  wish that today, I could
demonstrate;
reciprocate
everything you once gave to me;
your blue-eyed glance,
your firm grasp on my hand, &
your love
is still worth 1000 poems
& I'm so sorry
that I cannot
illustrate
that through more than just
these few
short
lines.

made-up quotes about the metaphorical sense of
"moving mountains"
are incendiary to my sweet thoughts;
they anger me into an oblivion
in which these mountains are barriers;
in which they define us.

if I could literally move mountains
I’d do it in a moment’s time;
tearing down all 6,683 ft of their towering elevation;
silencing their spite and
forcing them far, far away;
soothing our tall tensions to ease.

we dwell in opposite margins
of a page that has so much yet to be written;
when I run to you,
I do so in slow motion and one step out of time
as I constantly trip over the alpine ground
that we mistake for a reason why
this isn’t right.  

I cannot literally move mountains,
but if I could,
I would,
and the dissonance
between my heart and yours
would exist no longer.

let’s frighten these mountains into an oblivion
in which we can see just over them
and I’ll touch their peaks to find your hands holding mine;
guiding each other through our separate lives
melded
by love.

somethings not quite right here, dear
the writings on my sheets don’t spell your name
nor does their ink run
at the same, quickening speed as you do
towards their uninviting comfort.

somethings not quite right here, love
i still think of him every time you
forget to remember; a flaw
and I forget to eat
every time i remember his bed

some things will never be right, friend,
such as you and i,
and please don’t cry when I tell you
that i won’t let you watch me sleep anymore
for I’ll wake up too sad to see your smitten eyes
after dreaming again of his hands that
once upon a time, opened mine

we became 2 stars
on the day you left;
sent away & split amongst
other abandoned love stories alike.

maybe, in some far away galaxy,
or in a closer parallel universe,
we’re still together
and I hope, then, that I don’t have to say it.

I hope that in a
better, simpler place,
we still exist as one
and I hope I don’t have to say anything,
just look up at you and smile like I always do.

but here,
existing as nothing more than
half of the memories that drive me
into the stars; mad,
yet drive you further into her arms,
I’ll say this:

I hope you aren’t too happy.

what a silly cycle it is
for me to arduously switch off
between running
and running through television channels;
certainly a perfect analogy
between being perfectly ok
and moping in the absence of what would
normally be
a conversation between us.

so between 2 opposing universes of
happiness and
hopelessness,
i spin in little circles;
indecisive, almost
until one day, i break this silly cycle
and no longer see your face
glaring through the light of my
television screen,
no,
only myself;
my own reflection
in the puddles between solid ground
and my active feet.

you get so used to something;
to someone;
never expect them to abandon you
though you condoned their departure

you saw it coming

it was all experienced yesterday
except, then
it was only a distant speck
you brushed away the dust you kicked up and
ignored the arguments that weighed on your conscience

you saw it coming

yet it still hits you like a freight train
with your back to it;
your earphones in
because you were trying to enjoy a walk
on such dangerous tracks;
such thin ice

you saw it coming

so what choice do you now have
but to finally collapse;
to let it run you over
and let your
omniscient bones
break?

you saw it coming,
but you let it hit you anyway.


please, get out of the way next time.

you are the lump
preventing my swallow.
& nausea,
now a familiar friend,
feebly attempts to collapse your solidity
in the back of my throat,
as do the lies I tell myself aloud
in order to forget.

I wonder if you remember,
or does your new sun shine so bright
that she blinds you from your own past?
perhaps she's more of a
supernova, like you said
& so I'd like to think;
something temporary.

still, she came amidst fire & light
while I came with a
removable bow on top;
received pain on a similar platter
as that of my uneaten dinner;
I understand.

my final question is if that sort of
amaurosis makes you dizzy;
tell me,
what effect does she
have on your
stomach?

one by one,
standing over soggy soil,
she plucked the delicacies
from their uprooted habitat;
the flower;
also, the soul
alleviated, you’d think
from its heavy petals;
duties of
innocence; image.

losing yourself is simple;
easy.
she knows this all too well.
the flower is her soul;
also, her surrogate
just as she once was
to a man,
the only difference being that
there was no soft ground
to break her multiple falls that
followed a slow spiral from
the light
of her flower-like innocence.

so it hurts
like a sock in the stomach,
and you're lying on the ground,
taking to the night sky to
fill you back up
and remind you that you're ok on your own.

so it makes you sick
because you're not.
and the sounds of dueling orchestrated symphonies
ring in your ears and
you can hardly hear your own breath.

so you count the invisible stars
and let yourself drown in isolation,
asking
what am I supposed to do now?
now that nobody's waiting;
now that nobody's counting down the minutes until i'm
actually
ok again,
because once upon a time
there was somebody lying next to you on that ground
counting the freckles on your cheek and
ignoring the invisible stars; how they
cried out.

so you miss that
and without it you're left feeling
nothing
but the writhing pain in the center of your stomach
from the beating you withstood
following several words
that concluded
your total loss
of hope.

leave the jagged ground exposed,
I’d rather not admit
that these wounds are self-inflicted;
rather not say that this thing is expired.
let me trip over everything preventable
to prevent myself
from overthinking.
I’d rather not be the one to have epiphanies;
rather not be the first to sign my own grave
because I’m not as naive as I’d like to be.
I wish I’d rather be different,
frowning upon stereotypes and pigeonholes.
I wish I pursued my wants
with little hesitation
and cried out my condolences at every funeral.
I’d rather lack so much composure,
because when one’s breath is so
windless,
breathing is hard to do.

and I wish that bothered me.

his bedtime stories
could still be treasured
through the Rochester stars in her eyes;
fables of a hopping bunny
that chewed carrots and
smiled in its sleep.
little did she know
that the bunny’s teeth had shattered
biting into those carrots when
happiness itself became
make believe,
and her teeth shattered, too
when a fist overpowered a
father
and though the Rochester stars still shone,
every nighttime fable
became a living nightmare.

gentle, but hesitant
he lifts the china to his lips,
and like the tea scolds his tongue,
he punishes himself.
at this time,10:30 a.m, weekdays
she brewed the same Seattle cinnamon
that now flooded his system with her memory;
through Puget Sound and
evaporated into constant cloudy skies that pour
rain into the mind of a man of many mistakes;
last of which being losing her and
the comfort she brought;
something as constant and
as taken for granted as
the weather.

is not just mental,
but physical;
each side of the brain droops,
slowly sinking downward
pouring a lack of tears into either eye
which, when they fall,
drag down both corners of the mouth
their weight reflective upon every *****,
every limb
and all the pieces that once made up a person,
now,
too heavy

the innocence of a child is something to behold
their smiles, honest and radiant
their laughter, bubbling

I didn't quite catch the moment I wasn't a child anymore
but since July 17th, I've known that it already happened
if I were still a child, I wouldn't be
facing my own father,
more ashamed than I,
at 2 a.m
in the rotten chains
of a tight pair of handcuffs

perhaps it was the moment that I was first thankful to awaken,
that the demons in my sleep
weren't, in fact, real
or my life would be horribly changed,
thank god it was just a dream
perhaps that's when the innocence was gone,
when I knew I was guilty
for having such a realistic nightmare

so when I couldn't wake up
on July 17th,
it was clear I'd missed the moment
that my childlike innocence had been caught, willingly strangled
by desire
to be something
of a monster

July 17th:
the nightmare and the reality
became one.

why is it that when I have found happiness,
my urge to write begins to cease?
and as I stare at the crease between your eyebrows I wonder if perhaps the reason thunder trails so far behind lightning isn’t a matter of science
but instead, hesitation, as if this sort of happiness is noncompliant in which its outcome is simply consequential, but I doubt one second of my day is spent doing anything less than adoring that crease, i need not express the happiness you bring me through the lines of a poem but instead through the storm of emotions that constantly rise and fall, yet all in all, not once have I hesitated.  
the happiness you bring me never falters.
I have yet to witness that thunder.

a sort of trepidation
that accompanied each butterfly gesture
served as the puncture weapon of a daily wound.
today, the empty hole left within me-
filled with inevitable aftermath.

I'll wallow through the ocean of your absence.

you have opened me up,
sewn me from the inside out;
stitching back together every
broken piece within me, every
cutting shard of distrust  

each tiny gesture
has been no sleight of hand,
but an intentional grasp on a fragile pencil with which
you have written me down,
rejuvenated me;
fastened the seatbelt across my beating heart, and
you,
I am determined to love.

sticky tears  
clog my colorless cheeks and
stain the corners of my eyes like
wrinkles, unnecessary

nothing really matters
why am I really crying and
why’d you leave, again?

I guess driving down the pretty highway
with the trees that shaded a
hot day in an
expired June
wasn’t enough.
and I didn’t need to read about how
you don’t want to talk to me
or how you're busy
truth is, we all have **** to do
like how i sit here and cry
and how my tears clog my colorless cheeks and
stain the corners of my eyes like
crows feet, perhaps necessary

because unlike you, they'll stick around.

painting a portrait of
everything you are,
one mustn't discount
the crimson shirt
chocolate eyes
silly smirk
& angelic
fateful
lies

naivety
the green kryptonite
of an irrevocably broken bond between
myself and the rest

and the sunset
composed of orange lucid dreams and
purple thoughts exchanged
between
myself and the rest

the flaw in all of this that plagued my preciously innocent mind was the
assumption
that you were the rest,
and that my naivety
was, in fact, a flaw
when truly,
it kept me from
conforming into the monster that I irrevocably am.

it was probably a mistake
the day you swore her eyelashes were wet from the rain;
the night you promised to never belittle the importance of the sun

because here she lies,
tears precipitating,
stomach lurching
at the thought of you and
I promise you, I swear
that the sun could never shine
nearly as bright as she did
when she started
rising and
falling
for you.

you have opacified her
radiance
you have shunned her
selfless light

and she who was once a sun
is now a hopeless, spiraling
monsoon.

you don't know but I used to cry when you held me.

and I know
you finally cried when I finally
drove away
but why did your tears even
bother to fall
if she was laying right under you to soak them up?
catching each one and then letting them fall through her fingers
accordingly

I wish I could ask you
why it made any difference
for me to walk out of your life
if she was waiting at the nearest
entrance
as soon as I left the nearest
exit

I don't even wonder why you're gone anymore because I know
that she was always everything
and that tears
are never anything

and I guess I didn't really make a difference,
just left a salty taste in your mouth
that faded so quickly you forgot;
that was replaced so soon by the spice of another Cuban cigar

she is an abundant freshwater ocean
while I, to you, was only brief
saltwater
stream.

I could write endless poems for you
                                And not a single one of them would make you love me

I slapped myself just now.
My face is numb;
Tingling

As if a herd had stampeded over my very own right cheek and perhaps a few of the pack had

                                        Stumbled

Over my very own rough skin, and do you think that hatred

                                        Seeps

Up into your pores? Or does it

                                        Sink

Down into your organs because I'd like to know which part of my body will be the first to deteriorate, the first to

                                        Spoil

Under the weight of my very own hate for myself and everything around me.


Do you ever half-accidentally

                                        Pause

Just to glare at your own selfishness and wonder how you ever became such a vile creature? With venom in your very own blood, How could one ever

                                        Plant

Such a seed of pure evil like a virus stemming from your very own mind but there you go again blaming someone else for something that's really

Your very own fault.

In my mind, I was
Prepared for your presence.
As if you would illuminate my world and
Tear down my mental fortress;
I was prepared for everything to be
ok.
So these preparations became the most daunting of dreams;
Wonders and hopes of everything
Actually
Being
ok,
And even after you monotonously sauntered into my physical world
And everything hopelessly remained the same, if not worse,
I kept dreaming.
Months after, I dreamt.
Prepare? More like pretend,
Pretend that you, in fact, never did
Physically saunter
Into my monotonous world.
That you, somewhere, existed
In a consistent aura of love and affection,
Or even in just the sense of an ability to love would've been
ok.
You had to exist somewhere because,
For god's sake,
It surely couldn't be here;
This surely couldn't be the you I had dreamt of.
And it wasn't, it was the you that was irrevocably you
You were as good as you were going to get.
And I was the same.
Indifferent.
Incapable of loving anyone,
Let alone you.
This was the "ok" that I had so long awaited,
and I was certainly not
ok.
So I dreamt.

How long can one continue to dream?
How long until they off themselves on the realization of the inescapability of hopelessness?
How long can one lie to themself?
The reluctant truth is that every reachable
"ok"
Is really not ok at all.
ok is miserable and impossible and
ok
Ceases
To
Exist
Amongst those who are miserable enough to admit this reluctant truth.
ok is putrid and a liar because
I'll never be ok.
And I'll always say I am.
And you'll, from time to time, saunter back into my monotonous melancholy of an "ok"
And I'll never be happy.
And one day I'll off myself on the reluctant hope that there is an
ok
Existing beyond you and I;
Beyond everything that I've dreamt of.
Because none of that was ever ok.
It was only a dream.
And all I've done is woken up.

An expressionless face upon a white wall;
A mask which holds no meaning at all.
Uncover the truths behind empty plastic
And beneath it lies a story of a matter more drastic.

You can criticize the outside but not what's within;
Meaningless gibes at a person's fragile skin.
Denying the artwork of a creased, bruising hand;
Destroying the armor that enables one to stand.

Forget all your problems, this is one chance to see
Who the person with the mask of a lonely soul could be.
With a loss of stubborn pride, you can finally withdraw
And befriend all the minds whose depths you never saw.

it's not that there's anything
wrong
          with me.


                 it's just that there's nothing
right.

Do you ever imagine
That the ground beneath your aching body just
Breaks?
& though the sound a heavy teardrop makes
Rings in your ears,
You continue to float.
When the fix is gone,
& every hope in your aging mind again
Shatters.
Forced words insist you're all that matters,
But every flaw ends up
Caught in your throat.
So as you wallow, you sail;
Your vessel is sunken and your lilo - in as
Many pieces as you are.
Your wings, however,
As bruised as they may be,
Provide a path for your broken bones.
It may not lead anywhere but
"Anywhere but here".
& that's ok.
I'm ok.
You're ok.
Just float.

If my love has not confessed to you
That this ending was unplanned,
Then to your mother please stay true, for
In your life I no longer stand.

I do remember when the world was kind
And I held you in my arms,
But as I dodged these hate-stung bullets,
Life lost its fragile charm.

In war's ruins my body now lies;
Beaten and covered in dust.
Your mother: broken by this fatal news,
In I, you have lost all your trust.  

If my love has not confessed to you
That this ending was unplanned,
Then to your mother please stay true, for
In your life I no longer stand.

Every day
on the orange-line metro, she would wait;
wait with her lovely mahogany harp
and it's worn, threadbare case
for a dollar;
a piece of tangible hope,
as delicate strings of rhythm
filled her ears
and controlled her senses.
What people couldn't see
was the way her soul poured itself
into each pluck of a fragile string,
and how her eyes remained
fluttering,
as the entire symphony
harmonized around her insignificant tune;
vibrating through her chest;
booming through the auditorium,
which was really just an orange-line metro
and a lone woman with a lovely mahogany harp.
So the empty case came as no surprise
to anyone
except her,
as she shed a single warm tear
and stepped off the train into the cold, bitter night.

In the emptiness
In this asylum, I've been buried.
Was it forbidden
That I just float away?
Did you have to hold me down?

There wasn't anything here, and
Despite what I told myself,
I knew.
But yet you've trapped me
In the bitter;
In my own enveloping thoughts.
And the worst part isn't that
You don't care.

It didn't occur to you or anyone;
It never would.
In an instant it was gone, and
With a blink I saw it fade.
It was bound to burn out,
And so was I.

So if I'm buried, if I'm trapped;
Held down;
Forgotten;
I'll sit here.
I'll drown and drain myself
Into what I only know is empty.
Not me,
But what is around me.
And all around me
Is you.

2 longing hearts.
2 broken homes.
10 casualties;
All 5 each their own.
16 smiles;
4 of them, today.
20 tears fallen,
Only 18 wiped away.
17 wishes.
17 wishful thoughts.
34 self-crushed hopes,
And 34 "stomachs-in-knots".
12 years spent adoring each other,
Twice that many nights,
2 risks would be all it took
For this 1 love to take flight.
1 white lie.
3 chimes tolled.
2 lives were changed
As 1 string was pulled.
2 eyes darted
As the other 2 stared,
And both lives were fixed
When 1 kiss, they shared.

Why trouble yourself with the past
When the future is to be presented?
Then again, why trouble yourself with the future
When it solely depends upon the past?

Your hair like the fire
That I saw burning in you;
Red,
Setting you apart.

Why, exactly
Is my mind so unable to decode
The anger within your words;
The wrath in which I was unable to escape,
All because of a few things.
Things I did.
Things I said.
This "friendship"
Like a plane in a thunderstorm;
Irrevocably caught.
Each day another strike of lightning,
Sending us down, down,
Inevitably crashing.

Your eyes like the fire
That I carefully watched burn out;
Black,
Finally driving me away.

I know what love is.
Love is not when you love someone for what they say
Or how they act;
Love is not when you love someone for what they do
Or how they look.
Love is not a feeling.
Love is not a passion.
Love cannot be spoken,
Nor heard.
Love cannot be given,
Nor taken.
Love is not an emotion,
Nor a vibe.
Love is a force.
Love is loving someone for who they are
Inside and out,
Through and through.
They are that, and that is perfect.
Love is not when that matters more,
But when these matter less.  
Love doesn't wait,
But instead, it lasts.
Don't look for love,
Let it find you.
And believe that it will.

One cannot just simply
Replace
The salty tears or scattered pieces
That once contained a heart.
One cannot just simply
Reconstruct
The fallen home or forgotten wishes
Withholding a haven of wonder and
Bittersweet reminiscence.
One cannot just simply
Prosper
When this world has once again come to an
Abrupt halt
The smiles and sentiments have refrained from spinning and
The images have stopped moving.
Where there was once laughter
Now lies an empty silence.
Where there was once life
Now lies an empty body.  
Everything that binded her in rusted chains
Escaped from her desperate grasp and now
She
Is only a memory.

Air

  "I'll tell you what I've told everyone else.  The lake doesn't usually freeze because the air isn't usually so cold.  It was frigid that day.  Or more so, that week.  That year.  It wasn't a good one for Amie, she told me that.  And while the lake consistently stayed warm throughout the coldest of times, even it gave up that day, as had she.  It gave up and froze, the warmth taking Amie with it, lost under the icy surface. I know you know this."

  "Well, you have gotten us off to a good start.  I'm going to ask you some questions. What was Amie like at school that day?"
  
  "As far as I can remember, she wasn't acting in any unusual way.  They all ask me if I saw her smiling or laughing; pouting or crying.  School certainly isn't anything to cherish, nor anything to dread.  Amie wasn't some sort of intellect, she didn't want to be.  Or maybe she did.  She woke up at the outrageous time, walked the gloomy halls and did the infinite amount of meticulous homework-"

"But did you hear her complain?"

" No.  In fact, Amie was so monotonous in everything she did, it was hard to tell if she was truly alive.  She didn't talk, she listened, and to more than just voices.  All it took for people, including you and your coworkers, to become aware of this 'boring' life she lead was, ironically enough, her death."

"Don't say that. We were all aware of her existence in one way or another, and if not, you surely were.  You and her were good friends, is this correct?

"Amie was my best friend.  Not in the way your best friend is yours.  She was my best friend in knowing that I could sit in the same room as her for hours in utter silence.  I didn't even cry that day.  We weren't even close.  Our friendship was exclusive--the only person I wanted to be around was her because she was as human as everyone else but yet she served as my escape from everything human.  Do you know what I mean?  I know why she didn't hesitate the moment she fell through the ice.  And I'm the only one who understands because I am the only one who understood her."

"You said she listened to more than just voices.  What exactly are you implying?"

"I'm saying she could hear the earth breathe.  And you could too, if you tried.  It's all she did and it's all she ever wanted to do.  She was more than in love with nature and its simplicity; she believed that it was everywhere, alive and thriving.  I honestly don't think any person could ever make her feel the way she felt when she sat in an empty classroom.  Or when she laid on her driveway at night.  Or, the most relevant scenario, when she ran her fingers through the water of the lake in her backyard.  Amie may have been my best friend, but that lake was hers."  

"So this lake was clearly very important to her.  How often did she go outside to visit it?"

"Oh, every day.  More often than that on days she was home.  I spent a lot of time there at her house, and most of the time I would only watch as she went.  I think the lake gave her the same kind of escape that she gave me.  It was a beautiful thing and I wouldn't take that lake away from her even if it meant she would still be here today.  You just have to see things in the light that Amie saw them before you try to comprehend exactly what happened that day."

"Listen to me.  Do you know why you're here?"

"I'm here because you think Amie drowned herself.  And listen to me when I say that that's not what happened.  She let the lake drown her.  Willingly, yes, but this is a completely different situation.  You didn't know Amie, none of you did.  Even I may not have known who she was, but I knew her.  And I know that there is no other way she would've wanted to die."

"You're here because a girl is dead, presumably from a suicide.  It was you who, in fact, reported the incident a few moments too long after you witnessed from a window the disappointment in her face when her fingers touched the ice, which cracked beneath her feet at the center of the lake .  You watched and felt the indifference run through her body as the water enveloped her lungs, and this girl drowned.  She lived alone in a house with a backyard lake, and every other person we have brought in here sits down exactly where you're sitting and draws a blank after that.  Nobody knew Amie."

"I know what you're going to say and I've heard it countless times.  She was not depressed!  Haven't you been taking in what I've been telling you?  Despite her lack of interest in everything every human considered interesting, Amie was happier than you or I could ever be.  This is because, unlike us and everyone else in the world, she didn't need people to be happy.  I am like her in many ways except that because I needed her.  Shes gone but i'm ok because i still find her in the littlest things i see or hear, and she taught me how to do that.  She was and still is everything good in my life and subconsciously in yours, too."

"I don't think you have been taking in what I'm telling you.  Please listen to me.  You might not think so right now, but Amie was sad.  she was helpless and broken and without words, no one could hear her cry.  Amie, this girl who loved nature, this girl who didn't need people, who passed all of her classes in school but barely spoke, who lived in a perfect house with her beloved backyard lake, who no one really knew about, this girl is you.  And you're still alive."

"Wait, stop.  What are you talking about? I told you she was my best friend-"

"I know you love this lake and I know you have no one to live for but you have to believe that whether or not you need people, people need you.  You said it yourself.  YOU need you."

"No, I'm fine, I'm here in this room and I'm alive and-"

"You need to swim.  Swim towards the surface."

"I-"

"Amie, you need to press your hands against the ice.  Press it and push up.  Push!"


And suddenly, there was air.