These white lights shine too bright for my

poor dead eyes, and the man’s ramblings, he

held my eardrums hostage. Then came a sudden squall, she

engulfed me in one heck of a waterfall.


Faint moonlight peeked at the end of a musty, darkly lit stairwell we

saw each other and laughed at our equally drenched clothes, our

wet hair. As sewer rats, we scurried to rescue potted plants, we

whipped *****, thuds on white walls, with sticks and knives and all. We

rolled on the floor and nearly got concussions, sprained ankles. I

remembered how to fall again, to do it all in one fell swoop.


I know my body was mine, but now it is also yours, so we

danced, barefoot, twirled in our arms, caught each other, ate our

mother’s mooncakes while the storm rages on somewhere, outside. We

smiled, mouths full with black sesame, white lotus, egg yolks, our

laughter echoing under this gentle white light, upon this warm wood.

This conversation spins nothing, but this means everything to me.


We walk under the damp, stale, starless sky, remnants of the squall. You

suddenly proclaimed that all stars have gathered for me,

and it is my stage, my game now, so I

went home smiling despite it all. You

don’t know that this mid-autumn night was all I ever dreamed of.

Monday night my head spins
Reality and fiction sunken in
Sugar rush tires me but keeps me
Awake, I whirl in everlasting anxiety
I am panicking, how much time do we have
Left, something’s not
Right, my brain is shutting
Down, deeper into knots of
Self-doubt as if someone enabled
Occlusion culling, why can’t I see?
What’s in store for me? I can’t?
See what? Is in front of me?

We dance in an enclosed white box,

You led me to the center stage, then

Held my hand and guided me in a waltz.

You said something,

but I could not catch it.

Your eyes locked to mine

but I see past it.

All I felt amidst the all-too familiar floor

And our fragile, reluctant punches,

Was the pain on my feet, worsening

As you whirled and I twirled.

Between your laughs and chatters

Is complete silence, a forlorn face.

How I can make you smile somehow?

There are others who do the magic trick,

But if they sing like songbirds, then I'm a stone.

Why does my voice lie buried within my throat?

saturday noon, we sit on solitary metal plates,
i see tomorrow’s windows through your wise old eyes
overlooking grey skies, the monotonicity of life,
“everyone wakes up, works, and sleeps at the same time..."

your voice trails off as the train taking our rest arrives.

I recall when we’re all smiles,

Paper flow’rs and hot-pink dyes,

Virgils in the pitch black night,

Scrape and file till screws sit tight,

The toxic whiff of burnt plastic.

you fly too close to the fire, my dear

while i

can only watch and sink helplessly into the sea.

you started singing one of my favourite songs

and i know it is yours too,

then you talked excitedly of your adventures,

i wish i was there too.

maybe one day i’ll make snowmen with you,

but more than that,

i wonder why i didn’t sing along too.

sirens blare and shutters close,
we sit calmly in our humble abode
until we smell the smell I’ve smelled
a thousand times and going strong.
we joke and skip idly around the stairs
in a fashionably orderly manner,
like in an empty amusement park.

“the fire smells good”, says someone,
and i nearly choke at the absurdity,
but i have to agree, it smells like
nostalgia, the plumes of charred plastic
filaments, remnants of 3d printers
bringing me back to better days.

as the chaos rolls along in the background,
we order truffle pasta from the vending machine,
giggle at the firemen who lost their way
and watch the sorry-excuse of a smoke
trailing away into the blindingly blue sky
as the exhausted sirens blare once again.

Shall I compare thee to a sunny day?
Our slow, bright morning starts blurring at nine,
Back to those dew-polished grass where we lay,
Your gentle fingers intertwine with mine
But hold on, what do they feel like again?
Were they soft, dry, or calloused, I forgot,
They overrode themselves with muscle pain
And the romance runs thinner than I thought:
I stare at space knowing I can’t be yours,
While you take over the physical me,
The only sense I felt was that of floors,
Blurring the edges of its boundary…

‘Tis too hard, no love weighs more than I recall,
Perhaps I wasn’t meant to write sonnets after all.