Good ten minutes to four
I reached the temple door.

Take your offer for the God
the flower seller was eager
no haste, he smiled
his time for a rest
will soon be over.

I wondered
why I'm never contented
with what God has to offer
and as a rule
my bag of grievances is ever full.

In the faint light
I held his idol in my sight
listening in the quietude
to the temple pigeons.

With great peace
I bought two lotus at fifteen rupees
from the flower seller
dividing our happiness
into equal share.

In a momentary haze your mind spins
It droops and falls helpless into a vortex of
Smallness insignificant cold uncaring lonely
Smallness of the day when everything big
Either hurt, or used or didn't bother
It knocks the air out of your lungs that suddenly
Have no cause for breathing for why waste the
Precious oxygen? Yet you inhale in quick desperate gulps
And the ground slips from under your feet
It's all pointless - to save yourself, to seek help, to go on
Too small too emptied and filthy with their intentions
In tension with the needs needs needs...
The hopes that you found suitable for fire setting  
Pointless naive stupid hopes
So hatable you demolish them at once
Into waste under worthless sign
Forget the pain whatever it takes
It left you with blisters and hanging shoulders
With your chin tucked underneath your
Self-worth and you are not walking you are
Dragging yourself along the path
In the direction of pointless consumerism
And fame fame fame is all you wish, its all you hear
It's all you know of care because it's all that keeps them around
Them the faceless the soulless manikins that
Seem to have something you don't
Those hatable bodies that fill up the space
Around your black hole
And you fall and you fall and you fall
And all the things you have don't make you happy
And praise or kindness makes you paranoid
And you take all these little tablets of oblivion
Together in one gulp to forget
Just how far you still are from where you
Wish... if only you could wish to be

He knew the ache could not be recompensed
they knew it too the moment echoes fell silent
There was already not enough love
in a world grown dark as darkest past

It wasn't the color of his skin nor dialect
or the  journey of a  thousand  miles
Not the place that he'd come from
       back when ―  left behind

             nor a heart of gold,  
      that never became a home

The colour of  unwritten silence
had  eclipsed  the waning  light
On the run from who he'd become;
     ashamed for all he was,  
couldn't erase a lifetime that felt a waste ―
               trying to untie a Gordian knot

He saw his body as an entombing barbwire cage
    imprisoning  a  wellspring  of  love writhing deep therein

Immured at arms length from the outside world
    where  the soul of a teardrop  abides  within
                         its insignificance

Shielding the  inherent  maelstrom
                          from the innocent passersby
Buried thoughtfully for the greater good of all ―
for the unsatiated dream boundless love betides

Written  artifacts  exhumed  like  ***** secrets
a lifetime of stigma's stain swept under the rug;
just whispered words written from an unfinished life
few ever really looked deeply between the twisted lines
arising from the soul of just another passing stranger

The long road begets a suffocating silence
choking out,           extinguished love inhumed
Ashes  of what once had been life aglow of light
               forevermore shrouded
          like the dark side of the moon



rivers

13 | 31 Poems for August 2017

I wrote many of my poems in Braille for the kind of love I was desperately longing to feel.
I’m still catching feelings; my words are revealing and that’s why you’ll know that this poem is about you.
Let me tell you about my version of events while we listen to Emeli Sandé on any given Sunday.
For what it’s worth, I was only trying to make things work, but I got high on love during my hiatus.
I’ve had to learn to love you in silence and as if that wasn’t enough, I’ve had to learn to love you from a distance.
I know you didn’t give me permission to, but I already started talking to God about you.
Maybe in your quiet time at exactly the right time, I could possibly be your one and only valentine.
I think I finally understand it now, I’m a hopeless romantic who insists on remaining hopeful.
Let me tell you about my version of events while we listen to Emeli Sandé on any given Sunday.

i stopped talking to the stain on the wall when i realized it wasn't you,

just the desire of it to be you.


the house where you were born, is standing up just by the bones of you,
i'm sure.

dad sometimes says your soul is still trapped here,
like it dug a grave and buried itself in the foundation.

i wonder how that can be --
have you wrapped the roots of the maple tree around your middle?

are you holding your breath as if the soil is water;
As if the meaning of you is still refusing to go on because there's a snorkel attached to your mouth?
Because i'm here waiting for you at the maple tree
with the ash you would call snow,

in my arms,

and you're still in some place I haven't found yet.


The stain on the wall doesn't look the same.
The place where you should be feels void,

and outside there's a storm,
it's causing the heads of the flowers you planted to bat against each other.

I wonder if you've possessed one of them,
I wonder if you're trying to **** me so I can possess one too.

I wonder if you're even here,

or if I am even here.

Sam.
Sam.
little brother?

i'm sorry.

The ground beside your grave is cold,
I've dug dirt stained nails into the earth to try and reach you,



but you never reach back.

it's gonna be dry one day
when it finally stops raining
down here in old Alabam'

seems to be either drought
or tsunami rain forest ****
down here these places

Outside the puddles
are taking over, the farmers
always proclaiming catastrophe.

like drug dealers, I used to know
they don't want you to realize
their prosperity

or find their two ounces stashed
buried near that peanut plant
in the field

or the fifty thousand cash

You don't give a glass of water
  To a drowning man
And you don't throw a thirsty man  
  Into the deep blue sea

Yet I drank deep of that glass
  Though my lungs were full of water
And thanked you for the refreshing swim
  As I gulped the briny down.