The wind howls ******
Off the lake,
Yellow eyes centred
On its face,
Salivating white-capped waves.
Back arched rubbing
A cloudless night,
It claws the land,
Paws at my house,
Playing cat and mouse,
Scratching at my window.
Then crouching silent
It slowly moves,
Then springs, extended
In full flight,
Changing landscape
With one swipe.
Then like one
In the night,
It lies flat
Across my lawn,
Licking
With a milk-dish yawn,
Then prowls away.

(A list that doesn't desist.)

1.  These sleepy moments drive me crazy....for, sleep, i can't...
2.  When I close my  eyes, try to relax my mind, that's the time I cant.
3.  Teasing images dance inside this head of mine.
4.  No choice.....I open my eyes again,
5.  I stare through the dark walls and ceiling,
6.  In the dark, the truth is so stark,,like the devil, guffawing.
7.  You sway, smile, you call me, you torment me.
8.  Haven't  got that kind of eraser, to delete your face, your memory...
9.  There's no way out...you are indelible.
10. No amount of distraction could help, not even solitaire,
      crossword or    sudoku.
11. I get paper and pencil, and start a list,
12. What could I do? what couldn't I do?
13. Exasperated, I reach for old journals, turn back the pages, 
14. I read through drafts, my eyes take me to crumpled pages, so wet      
      with sad memories,
15. The painful journey starts all over again...



           This time around,
           so cruel is the  night....



Sally

Copyright 2014
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan

everyday starts at
273.16 Kelvin, 611 Pascals
my body still unsure what it wants to be
-no, scratch that-
still unsure what other people want it to be

1. with my parents
the temperature drops and the pressure rises
while they yellcriticizedemand
and suddenly i am ice
solidfrigidhard
stubborn as hell but ten thousand times colder

2. my best friend is the fire
sparking excitement in dark parts of my soul
and as we heat up together
i become free as air
the earth no longer able to keep me together
or hold me down

3. i am fluid around everyone else
freeform
shapeshifting until all they see is their own reflection staring back at them
intangible
slipping through hands like an eel that will shock anyone who gets close
and quietly destructive
slowly eroding the paperthin walls of their hearts and leaving behind nothing but canyons in my wake

solid liquid gas
common science says that it ends there
but you
you always remind me that there is a fourth state of matter
because when we touch it is like i can feel the electrons of negativity jumping off my skin
and when you kiss me
i could swear we are the plasma that the universe and stars are made of

i. (kc) was the catalyst
the first to convince me that I could be loved
and the only one to make me believe I was capable of loving back
...for about two weeks.

ii. then (jt) arrived
popular
suave
and dorkily crushing on the one girl who couldn't return his affections.
but it wasn't until the first time I heard my name and 'beautiful' in the same sentence
that i realized there might be faultlines in my heart
shaking the love out of my body like lunch money from a scrawny kid's pockets.

iii. the first time i broke someone
the process was anything but (sl)ow
and it was then that i realized
i was getting too comfortable sleeping with regret, curled up like a black cat beside me.

iv. fortunately for me
(je) had 20/20 vision.
he saw through the mask, forced me to face myself until i couldn't help but punch my own reflection
and though his words almost convinced me that i could be saved
his empty stare reminded me that i wasn't worth the trouble.

v. looking back, the initials should've warned me
that he would be the (ss) to our sinking ship,
that we were fated to drown.
but he was coldstronghard as metal
and it took me a two years, one month, and one day
to learn that even silver can be tarnished.

vi. the name was fitting, i guess.
(jr) was finer than any greek hero
and were he a god, I would've named the planets after him too.
he was as reckless as the roman empire
scratching himself on the thorns of my soul just to find something worth saving.
was it because of compassion or guilt or shame
that I put Ariadne's string in his hands
so he could navigate his way out
and run for his life.
maybe it was because
I was so used to the echoes in my head
IendeditIendeditIendedit
that through the tears, I still managed to smile at the words
he ended it.

i. There are moments when I think that I write until the words run into the ground. I reuse metaphors and recycle imagery until the English language is used up and nothing but compost. But god, it is like yours can speak life into being. They are a breath of fresh air in the cave where I’ve been hiding, and for the first time in a while, I remember what light tastes like.

ii. Every night I have tried desperately to feel something, anything, squinting at the ceiling to try to force a single tear out and pretend that I remember what emotion is. But you remind me what the ocean feels like on my cheeks.
And it is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever known.

iii. Sometimes, the only reason I still believe in God is because someone had to have sent you here to save me.

iv. It’s been a really long time since I’ve believed a compliment. And it’s only because you have worked your way into my life well enough to know my imperfections and then continue to see beyond them.

v. I can see my future more clearly with you than with anyone else.

vi. I get into trouble because it seems I romanticize everyone who comes into my life, constantly thinking of them as a better person than they might be.
Except you. You are literally as amazing as I think you are. (And just as you are the only one who can compliment me, trust me when I say I know what I’m talking about when it comes to you).

vii. I swear, if my life ever flashed before my eyes, I would see only high school swim meets, camera-******* photo shoots, squirrel watching, Prom, late night conversations in the glow of the moon, and a brief glimpse of a girl struggling to read my clearly too-fancy name tag.

viii. I realized while writing this, that for the first time, I am actively trying not to be self-deprecating. I guess if someone like you can love me, I want to work a little harder to try as well.
You are right; we bring out the best in each other. For a while, I thought that I could only build others up by tearing myself down. But with you, I feel like we can take over the world (which we will). I hope I have loved enough to make you feel the same way

ix. Thank you. For all that phrase is worth and then a hundred times more. It cannot even come close to conveying what I feel right now, but then again, I was the one who was never comfortable with emotions to begin with.

x. I love you.

1.) I led  him on
2.) if you saw us together you would think we were dating
3.) at one point I wanted to kiss him
4.) at another point I didn't
5.) we held hands the second day
6.) I remember shopping with him
7.) I also remember crying in his car
8.) I cried when I heard his voice
9.) he gives the best hugs I've ever had
10.) I'm scared of commitment
11.) he's now moved and I don't know how I feel
12.) I'm so torn emotionally
13.) this is turning into a jumble of sentences and words that mean nothing
14.) I've always hated attention
15.) this is the same year I've cried in front of more people than I have in my lifetime
16.) I can feel us growing apart
17.) but I will always love you, always

I

To-night, a first movement, a pulse,
As if the rain in bogland gathered head
To slip and flood: a bog-burst,
A **** breaking open the ferny bed.
Your back is a firm line of eastern coast
And arms and legs are thrown
Beyond your gradual hills. I caress
The heaving province where our past has grown.
I am the tall kingdom over your shoulder
That you would neither cajole nor ignore.
Conquest is a lie. I grow older
Conceding your half-independent shore
Within whose borders now my legacy
Culminates inexorably.

II

And I am still imperially
Male, leaving you with pain,
The rending process in the colony,
The battering ram, the boom burst from within.
The act sprouted an obsinate fifth column
Whose stance is growing unilateral.
His heart beneath your heart is a wardrum
Mustering force. His parasitical
And ignorant little fists already
Beat at your borders and I know they're cocked
At me across the water. No treaty
I foresee will salve completely your tracked
And stretchmarked body, the big pain
That leaves you raw, like opened ground, again

1.
A boy dropped his pen on the floor next to me
and I took it.
I said it was mine when he asked about it.

2.
I didn't cry when
my cat
or my dog
or my great grandma
died.

3.
I read the text.
I just didn't want to talk to her.

4.
I broke up with him
on the phone
because I thought he might cry
if I did it in person.

5.
I stopped talking to him
when I got a boyfriend.
I started talking to him again
when we broke up.

6.
We flirted for 2 years.
He told me he loved me.
I told him he was like a brother.
He started doing ****.

7.
I knew his dad hit him.
I didn't tell anyone.

8.
I told her to stop talking to me
because she was too depressing.
She went to rehab for self harm.

9.
When he told me he wanted
to **** himself,
I told him a million reasons he shouldn't,
but never once said
*don't.

I. I thought you were her world;
   Her paperback novel
   She could ponder quotes in
And crack the spine of.
   But you’ve now got police orders against you
And the pain of missing you
   Seers the seams of her striped-sweater heart
   And though you’re trying to get into Green and Ginsberg,
   She can’t see what the big deal is.
   You were the Holden Caulfield
   To her Jane Gallagher
   But Holden never took Phoebe
   To the mattress so
   I guess that makes the two of you
   Sid and Nancy
   Instead.

II. I suppose she never believed you
   When you told her that you were an alcoholic.
   Because alcohol burns
   And though you lit her fire,
   You couldn’t keep it burning.
   You told her that you didn’t read
   And she should have
   Backed away then.
   But she didn't.
   Because you played accordion
   And dressed like Gatsby
   And she adored that for a good while.
   Until you told her that you despised the Rolling Stones
   And may have committed a ******.
   Even then she did not back away
   Because you bought her cigarettes
   And hit on other girls
   While she waited for you
   To give her the boot.

III. She liked your accent
   But it was just a sweet, endearing cover up
   For a mind as empty as a gypsy’s wallet
   And a rich man’s soul.

IV. You liked to give her drags
   Off your E-cigarette
   Because it tasted like cherry Pez
   And you wanted her to see
   Or rather, taste,
   The magic.
   Kissing you was like magic
   Until
   You moved on to an older broad.

V. Everytime
   Her lips met yours
   You tasted like heavy *****
   And she was too desperate and twisted
   To really give much of a ****.
   So she accepted it
   And moved on.
   Because you called her pretty
   And made out with her in the forest,
   Denim scratching denim,
   Hearts hurting hearts.

VI. She didn’t know you were homeless.
   Or, rather,
   Maybe she did
   But she didn’t accept it.
   Like an elderly doesn’t accept death at first
   And attempts to bargain.
You smelled horrible…
   She believed it to be a natural thing.
   But you were neglecting your hygiene and with that,
   Her as well.
   And the only thing you cared more for than ***
   Was the *** Pistols.

VII. You asked her to take off her glasses one day
   And with one look of her freckled,
   Pimple-shell ridden face,
   You told her she looked like Ramona Flowers
   And upon googling who that was,
   She nearly crapped herself in glee.
   She should have taken it as a sign
   When you began to find
   And tiny reason to touch her in as playful a way you could.
   Through tiny nudges
   She should have seen the possibility of romance blossoming.
   But you were 29
   And she, 17.
   Twelve years, practically
   Three Presidents
   Between the two of you.
   But your undivided ideals
   Brought you only closer together.
   You were an English education major,
   With a III mark after your name
   And Megaman on your walls.
   She took one look
   At the astounding possibilities,
   Drew a breath and fell in love with
Every little thing about you.
Every single,
Unnoticeable thing about you,
From the scar
Stretching down your spine
To the scruff on your chin…
She fell
Deeper in love with you
Than she ever had before.
And she saw a dream,
A future,
That came in on a hot summer day
With Taco Bell
And destiny.

1.
I have been told
That I am too pretty to smoke.
I did not understand what he meant by this
Because I knew plenty of beautiful girls who smoked
And their boyfriends did not comment
On their vices, instead, only on their virtues.
Then I understood
That he was remarking on my insides-
My lungs and my horribly scarred soul.

2.
I didn't know anything about Batman.
I asked him about Bruce Wayne once
And was called a ******* idiot.
Now Batman scares me
And makes my stomach twinge
Because I feel guilty
For not knowing who he was,
I am a ******* idiot.

3.
Your mother loved Reagan
And I told her that he was
A dishonest, morally twisted pig
Who sat back
While thousands of Americans
Succumbed to a disease
Who's name was whispered
On the winds of her generation.
I don't think your mother likes me much anymore.
I think she may get in our way later on.
I wish she and I
Didn't care so much about Ronald Reagan.

4.
You told me about Joy Division
And I thought it was beautiful
That Ian Curtis hung himself in his kitchen
for his wife to find
And later had the words
"Love will tear us apart"
Inscribed on his headstone.
You called me cryptic
And then assaulted me in the night.
You made me want to die
So I could write "love will tear us apart"
On my own headstone.

5.
He asked for **** photos
And I told him no.
Upon which I was called a ****
And demeaned during intimacy
From then on.
He taught me that virgins could be *****
And now I am the ******
Time has made into the ****
It has ****** time and again.

6.
He called Wes Anderson films "hipster garbage"
And told me instead to watch things
Like Reservoir Dogs and South Park.
A year later, I only know not to tip
And how to be an *******.

7.
You told me to grow my hair out
Because a girl with short hair
Was a lesbian and you told me
You didn't want others to think
That you were going with a lesbian.
But in the end you still pulled it
With regular fierceness
And I was too much of a coward
To tell you to eat ****.