you are here
with me
in theaters,
watching old films,
looking past
the close ups
of pretty actresses,
searching for
cigarette burns.

some sort of warning,
to see the story
is close to ending,
or the reels are
just changing.

pictures wont stop flickering
and i wonder who you're
pretending to be
now.

but i'm afraid,
alone, in the dark
i don't have
the patience, to wait
for the curtains or the credits
so i'll clammer my way
down to the exits
and continue
to pester the quiet projectionist.

autumn has come again
so the leaves
are soaked now
with all the colors they have
kept  in.

and people frolick while nature
is dying

and under every mask
the eyes, still gleam like they belonged to children

every trick
deserves a tiny treat
greedy gloved fingers are scythes
they are hungry for the harvesting

of rotten teeth
of breathing ghosts
of temperatures dropping

the naked trees
start their shivering
and the cold
cant hold them

the kids carve their names
in vain attempts to console them
as if to say,
"we're all trapped
in between
the shadows
and the seasons
we're all frustrated
and on the cusp
of becoming
we're all waking
and forever waiting
to be born again
curious, brave babies
in the blooms of spring"

i think i
would like
to fall

into love again,
like a deep dark well

i
could
descend
in.

the days light slipped out--
gravity calls
it in other directions.

i do not miss it,
but sometimes i do
get reminiscent.

passing stones, gray--
far past illumination.
and for moments, forever:
i feel such
a heavy weightlessness.

my mouth agape,
but fear isn't a voice here.
i yearn for impact;
i howl for it.

when i am aging
at this velocity,
every futures growing
more and more
present.

and so
i break fingers
on every lonely stone,

and i bruise, like sunlight
thrown on
smashed human bones.

i drip,
like rain that longs
to be a lake again.

but for now,
i'm reflecting on
stars
burning holes
in the reservoirs,

because
i think i
would like
to land
into a heart again,

splashing,
like a rock dropped
to see where
a deep dark well ends.

If I asked you
would you let me
affix you to chains?

And if I pleaded
would you take my heaviness
overboard with you?

Would you be the anchor
that ties the vessel
to the ocean bed?

The voice that
quietly lays down the word:
"sleep,"
to my ears?

When the gray sea of life
lurches to and fro
with its infinite unrest

with every droplet quivering here,
and despite my years abroad
I still cant decipher
all of its erratic movements

Oh, Al-Mateen,
Will you hold me still?
Because I think I like it motionless

why yes
i am

the one; of many.
the prince; of pennies.

counting copper pillars
that cage tiny
dead symbols

of Lincoln
of freedom

i invade quarters
and pillage coffers
hidden in dry wall
and buried in floorboards

those secret panels
where you also hoard
i am also moored to

and if someday
Charon, extends his hand
and gravely states the price
i just may finally be able
to afford an eternity:
of laughing at this carnival;
of screaming on this ride.

A poem
is like my breath
on a windowpane,
a condensation of my soul,
developing only to dissipate,
leaving dusty ancient clues.
Fingerprints of my true name
point back at me.

the page shivers under my pen
like soil when the dam breaks
it knows it must change
like tinder to my flame

inhaling, i consume it
and make it a starry night
but keeping my ears, to hear the light
swell and ebb out

beside all hope and along all doubt
my brush paints the darkness, colourful
and knows it is not ugly, knows it is not cruel
but oriented

towards the last ocean
where the world
is but a molecule among it's
infinite
directions.