without your makeup
i see you as i know you:
flower in the rain-
swept, drenched by wind and water
unbowed, waiting for the sun.

they used to be rooms
grand and wide as hotel suites
but it was you, and i wanted life
and it just so happened
i had this cabin, out in the woods
where the night sky horizon was free
from the glare of artificial lights
i knew you love the moon and stars
though they were always pale
compared to your eyes and your smiles

we had everything we needed: us.
for the things we wanted
no trek was too long or boring,
everything and everywhere
the mundane shed their old clothes
to reveal their secret selves
between our senses
dancing waltz, house, rave, tango,
our fingers like vines,
with your head on my shoulder
i discovered the true gift of time

but one day i came to an empty room
i waited, perhaps you were out
on your solitary musings
just like i at times crave for my own
it was facebook who told me
you were alive and well
by your distant self
happy even without me

knowing about not knowing
without you, i wondered
should i raze the cabin to the ground?
defile every memory for the surgery
i could not find nor afford?
i sought for familiar pattern and routines
should i sweep the floor laced
with soil and minerals collected by our four feet?
should i straighten the sofa, the fallen lamp,
prop the pillows and unravel smooth
the tangle of sheets and blankets
shaped by our last night’s passions?
these and all others, preparations
for when you would come back

somewhere, somehow
from all the waiting and musings
it came to me in the silence
of the end that was never happening

there is no reason for housekeeping
for this is no longer our home

after i stepped out and closed the door
the faint memory of the purpose of keys
the dirge of the open faucet
they did not matter you

you. who is…
where are you?
who is you?
ah, there is only me

feet on the earth, i felt myself rooted
veins charting out paths to subterranean passages
through rocks and buried things
while my eyes saw again the stars and moon

and so before the ashes from dead stars
could find themselves and gather in my pockets
i tilt my fedora to my right
eyes rimmed and clear as lenses
walking out of that place
the faint memory of a cabin
of someplace with someone
carved out from the woods and bushes
reclaimed once more by wild roots and cold fires.

after the hours of supper,
the heavy night tight
with the silence of human
bodies packed like sardines
in the can of a jeepney.

stopping somewhere in Bularan
a man and his little boy, or grandchild
asked forgiveness from the passengers
as if it was a sin to share the ride.

the passengers began to move;
squirming as if earthworms
crawling, or crawled on their skin,
even the pretty lady in front of me
suddenly shrivelled into ugly.

i could not know or sense it then:
from the kitchen furnace of the sun,
the aroma of salt and sweat
sautéed and stewed in their bodies,
the recipe of their daily fish
until it snaked itself into my nose
i confess i nearly choked.

and at that moment
i am reminded, like a fool
with a smile on my face,
grateful for the price they paid
so i may savour my favourite
feast of dried fish.

eyes will seek for each blade of light
as it peels the darkness that may reveal
as feet will bind contract of contact with this earth
to span a bridge over flood, wasteland, or volcanoes
ears will decipher the language of silence and sound
a hunter’s sense born to trap scent in stillness and wind

because tomorrow is a promise written in salt
each day is Pandora’s box i dare open and endure

for you.

like a forgotten lighthouse
sending signals across silent skies
will they ever find brief refuge in your eyes,
these poor words i kindle
from what remains of my fire?

even now, the memories of yesterday  
cold and grey emerge from cracks and walls  
like ghosts who seek for no final soft places.  

there are words, and there are none
as you go back to the coffin house:  

where among warm corpses you have to endure  
the long and slow dance of night and day  

while breathing the air filled with words and voices
blooming from tongues soaked in poison and ash,  

may you return like a flower  
with the memory and hunger
for the firelight of stars and comets.

how is a life with a father?

i will never know
though i have always wondered
if he would have lent me his honda
a sage with pearl words
to a woman’s soul

what does it mean to be a father?*

a young boy shares my blood and face
precocious and brooding as when i was sixteen
it is not enough, i do not know what will:
he knows and chooses not to know me
in our silence blossoms a lifetime
of living and not knowing
if there is a presence in the absence
of words silver, diamonds, or coal
not just to woman’s
but in each of our souls.

from the sea comes
not only the ceaseless fury
of waves  embracing stone:
from its deep where secrets lie
to the source and color of the sky,
one can wade, stroke and swim
to come to its shifting sands
virginal for four feet and four hands.

i have been here, and you there:
the days between us shuffled like cards.
perhaps fate will deal us a full house:
a pair with a heart and a trio of aces
for the words we ached yet stilled
our tongues to shape and caress.

wiser in the fictions of affections,
we proclaim the distance as breadth
where we shall sow the promise
for the season of toil and harvest.

ask the light, and she will speak-
the secret smile she traces as she kisses
my eyes for the beautiful day that is born

as it was her gift yesterday,
on this day when i breathe with love
for you and only you, know this:
you do not owe me touch or hearing
even grateful words need not disturb
the silence because someone has to be
the first to fall, even without knowing
how or when: for a lifetime or all alone.

let me savour the stars and her kisses-
full, like the moonlight with her embrace
where my arms stretch out, as if waiting
for you, even when you are not coming,

because the same light
who promises i can greet you
could only remain silent and dark
as she denies my last desire
to say thank you, and goodbye.

it must be beautiful, to be certain like the stars taking their place in the sky at night, across this vast silence and stillness to know and feel that in someone’s memory i burn like warm gentle fire, revealing faraway eyes and pregnant smiles.

but i dare claim not nor let hope beat in my breast only for truth to bleed out my eyes and set my heart to rest.

but i would like you to know, in your silence, in the distance where you are clutched by things dark, deep, and cold, you are never forgotten.

it is your name he whispers as he greets the smile of the sun; your shape and feminine form absent he remembers to fill the empty space under the gaze of noon and the moon; it is your voice his winds strain in the silence to listen so they may sing; in your eyes where he wishes to feast on the colors and shape you may share; your touch incandescent sheds warm light to what is almost forgotten and buried under a lifetime of love found and lost.

may you never allow the ghosts with their fangs and claws to devour the promise that is you: know that it is you, everything about you, with all your darkness and your light, in the dance of day and night you are the gentle fire burning away all that is lost, sad, and cold to reveal not just his eyes nor his secret smile before he dives deep into the dark.

even when his open eyes never see you again, nor your own eyes kiss him soft and full in the distance, the memory of you, the promise that is in you will always burn and rise

until the last goodbye

naked is her fire,  
from deep heart and with chaste eyes  
she gathers moonlight  
into spoken words reside  
to soothe sad souls such as mine.

to let my tongue remember  
french lessons with every syllable  

slow as a gaze, harvest each color under light
gentle as fingers tracing desire on your naked skin  

but, to speak your name would invite madness:  

for it would stir a lifetime of hunger  
in my eyes to always feed on you
my fingers afflicted by incessant shivers
with only your touch to soothe and calm  

hearing your name, my ears would ache
to hear my own in your voice each day  

*and you do. not know. my name.

even with the faithful sun now
sparing with her dawn strokes and kisses,
the naked earth breathing and pulsing
with underground seas and rivers of fire
now flat, still, and cold against my naked feet-
even with those throats i once savoured deep
the dance of snake tongues to music wet and sweet
seems to have forgotten the shape and taste of my name,  

i have not lost myself,  
still i know my place:  

*i do not belong here.

it was morning
the light glowed in your skin
soft and mapped from a night
of love, desire
was a fire in your eyes

coffee never tasted as good
as when pressed between
my lips with your own
your tongue was a teaspoon
stirring my own desire

i do not love the way the crown of your hair gather the blossoms of summer, nor do i love the canvass of your face where artisans such as i can find color, shape and lines to sculpt, paint or write as poetry into the pages of memories. i do not love the slim trunk of your neck that connects to the branches of your arms capable of lowering themselves so i may taste your fruits.

i do not love the twin peaks of your breast in whose valley i could burrow myself and find rest, nor do i hunger to trace the path that leads to the center of you where the half of you could meet half of mine and become whole. i do not love the two poles of your legs where my tongue can become a vine twirling downwards to discover the roots of your feet holding you upright from the earth, thrusting you into the open sky to declare your place, of who and what you are to the senses, to the seasons.

i do not love the notes of your voice who echo what may have been the songs from the first day of the world, nor do i adore the twin suns of your eyes who could hold me into the warm season of your gaze and then plunge me into the winter darkness of seeing you not seeing me, ignoring me.

i do not love your soul, i do not know what a soul is, that metaphor for the one flame that burns inside of you, or so they say. you are not a metaphor. you are more than that.

i do not love you. i do not love you because i do not know what love is.

love fails. what is love  if not a mere word, four letters who attempt to become fingers holding in its palm the colors, taste, shape, and seasons of what you are to me: the naked sun, the dying stars, the dance of day and night.... the word "love" is not enough, and so i cannot say that i love you, and so i do not love you.

though i would like you to know that because of you i seek for the roots of my memories, the moment of my birth. because of you i become aware of a tomorrow where i will never be. i do not love you woman, but because of you i would like to hold both roots of my memories and the tomorrow i do not know and stretch it and throw it far behind the light of stars that my eyes could see.

from infernal tongues devouring
wood and concrete edifices,
to the brief yet joyful life spark
from a match lit as if to breathe
soft and tender so that a solitary candle
may flame a vigil against cold and night,
i have seen and endured those lips,
yet none proved to be a feast
more than the fires of friendship
like the one we named ours:

solitary embers fated to a lifetime of wait
until we allowed them to share names,
speak secrets and whispers desires,
fingers like the poles of stars
joined together as it peeled away the covers
wrapping our pains, tragedies, and shames.

yet even as i desired for each grain of sand
be allowed to trace the shape of our feet
while shore and sea lined each kiss,
i did not forget the fate of fires.

even now i can still feel the warmth
as if your hand was still pressed
against my own, ghost friction
from the fiction of our devotion
i now allow the wind to claim
for it flows into them, by their names,
to scatter these ashes away.

we would have remained as we were
with our shoes and our clothes
our words without voice, without witness
to our hunts for metaphors,
these sweet fruits we harvest under the season
fraught with rain, whirlwinds of dust and ashes

and then this world was forged

just as wordsmiths seek
for rhyme and first line
a thousand dreams birth to unveil
this cyberscape, the endless pages
for the human story

no more shall concrete cities and highways
bind us apart with walls or lost in the maze
under separate and distant skies
night and day paused their dance
into an embrace holding us together
so that you and i could touch
should we brave and dare
just like how we do now
i with my words and you with your eyes
where our souls little by little
we bare

i do not remember your voice
and thus i can
not describe them with words.

but do not despair my maiden of silence,
though you have never spoken to me.
i feel your voice.

i feel your voice
as certain things are to be felt:
in the silence of one’s awe,
in the darkness when the windows
of the eyes are closed,
invisible, unpalpable
yet warm and certain
as blood flowing through
the tunnels and highways
beneath one’s skin;
earthly and aromatic
as the whiff of dawn’s winds
filled with the new memories
of fresh flowers and morning dew.

my gaze could no longer trace
the shape and space i claimed for my own
in the wide shifting canvass along with the stars
when and where as a child i vowed to become a man.

midnight strolls under the mango trees
where spiders inspired my fingers to weave
about how and when and where to touch a woman-
where my lips charted my chosen path and press
about how to flow soft and gentle as do butterflies and bees-
i know i stand but i could not find my feet
buried among leaves brittle, brown, and quiet

and there, in the space where once resided my hunger
after all these suns and rains now stands immaculate
empty and desolate, my roots shrivelled into dust
perhaps transformed into these breaking cracks
gaping as it consumes my reason to go on being
with a smile i now find myself pore by pore forgetting

she does not speak his name
for the syllables do not match
the rhythm in her heart

her tongue still to savour its shape
could not trace its outlines
even as a sacrifice into silence

unlike mares violently stomping
in the night while she sleeps
the memory of his name contain

no trace, promise, or fragment
for what she desires to possess
even if only in secret dreams

gazed with a pure force of naked tenderness
caressing the leash of my raving blood
to be quiet and still

as if held inside your arms
laced with your soft kisses

never will i forget your eyes

is it madness to confess
i crave for the sadness
i have known, named, and matched
to follow the rhythm of my heart?

like old flames with their burned out fate
of my sadness i have not felt of late
have my tears lost its salt for her thirst
do my sighs no longer suffice as cries
for all that remains in me, and dies?

where could you be, mi tristesa?

soon you will be distant after you leave
while here i will remain in silent wait
with the stars, the moon, for you to return
so i may find form and shape in your eyes,
for the shores of my ears kissed by your voice
and I’ll remember more than just my name.

i will move, my lips repeating your name
as inch by inch and feet by feet you leave.
i know you cannot hear nor hold my voice
nor do i know if you care as i wait,
yet i will, with failing heart and poor eyes
for hope, rhyme and reason with you return.

from where you are I know you will return.
but will you remember me, or the name
of those that once found delight in your eyes?
will you forget or abandon them, leave
all thought to an eternity of wait
until it hears nor fears no sound nor voice?

i confess I close my eyes when the voice:
yours, caress my ear, as if i return
to the first night before i learned to wait
for secrets hidden and revealed by name:
of those that have come, gone, and those that leave
endless broken mirror shards in your eyes.

never will I forget your shifting eyes
that held me before you gave me your voice
that made darkness fade. glad i did not leave
for there was only madness to return.
the same night when you gave me your own name,
your gift for what ceased that night, your own wait.

in silence, not knowing, i still will wait
under day or night skies until four eyes
lock and hold, to each other trade a name
that could not be spoken in any voice.
only then will i know when you return
that smiles or hope have no reason to leave

here i will wait until I hear your voice,
eyes sleep and wake with hope as you return,
name in lips that only after death, leave.

like waves
from a faraway sea
your voice
comes to me
kisses and licks
the shores of my ears
tickles and trickles
little by little
like sand
into within
before leaving
for silence

in the silence
with eyes closed
for I cannot see you
i feel you
as certain things
can only be
in the dark and silence
like your words
twigs kindled
by your voice
into a warmth
without a name

your voice is enough
while I keep my silence.

only in this naked sky
is where I can touch you

even if by chance together we gaze
you may have already forgotten me:

the memories they call warm and sweet
most favorite by time’s tongue and teeth.

but just as the sun rises
so it can fall to the sea

so will soon like stone be still
the rhythm of this heart for you:

*for now it will take a knife.

your ears may never be again
the shore kissed by the waves
born from pages your fingers stroked
slow and gentle, nestled in the tender
warmth of your lover’s hand.

still, a thought of you precipitates
like soft falling rain gathering into a stream
for pages ****** and naked
as you once were, and waiting
for words to find their shape
like how you once traced and claimed
my own in the dark

your ears may never be again
the shore waiting to be kissed
by these new waves born from streams
flowing together in my lengthening nights and days
still, everything as it must be and still is

for even after us this still remains:
the afterstory of how i ache for you
with an emptiness equal to your silence.

when four feet and four eyes,
each halved into pairs
so they may face each other
with eyes set on separate skies,
how many suns and full moons
does it take to bleed and leech
the colors from each shape,
blur each stroke and line
from the canvass portrait
of a friendship once born on that night,
as if like the first star in the first sky
until it finds death for its dying?

while most prefer art on walls
of quiet houses, solemn museums,
along lonely hospital corridors,
i decided to be a walking gallery
with my canvass skin bare to be strummed
by needles with the stories of my dying

i vowed for no words or names
for they can be a reminder of a tender voice
growing into an acacia of silence and forgetfulness

my mother asked me why, of all images
twisted horns and roaring with flame
i trapped a demon (ah, it speaks with my name)
i would have chosen a butterfly, i said
if only life was gentle like wings on summer winds
and so it was outlined and shaded
in and with the memory of ****** skin howling,
like my innocence once lost, never to be reclaimed

perhaps i will never discover
the name of the woman who holds my pen
faithful friends keep faith that i will
though i do not really know how, where, or when

feasted by time, poisons in my heart and veins
my face has remained a mask
for my smile who has almost forgotten daylight,
from my eyes the ****** in my every gaze
sleigh of the mind for what i hide behind:
of mysteries and deceptions born
in the loving state of trust and rejections
into demons i seek to keep in chains

inked, so i could go on dying and writing

to discover that strain of silence
i avoid as if plague born and sworn
claim to take shape and root
like the pathways of my veins,
drinking from my mortal heart  
so now i gaze as if with eyes born  
with the light of unnamed stars,
wind trace forgotten sigils on my skin,
fingers touch and trace as if laced
with the kiss and embrace of desire.  

i would be grateful, and speak,  
as only love between pen and paper
fresh and wet with ink or with blood,
the name of the altar for this naked fire  

but there has only been silence
now i claim for my own, and all  
this silence seek is only silence,  
born to spawn to feed and breathe  
an infinity of itself and in between.

ahh, even those of my blood
my friends true and few
would blind themselves
twist their tongues to speak
of how i deserve and that i will
find again my reason and my smile

but how can i not sentence myself
to what remains of my days into shadows,
of my nights into secluded and distant isles
for though i have only hoped to sow
seeds to bear sweet fruit for smiles,
i only have the harvest of tears
from all the names i claimed to love!

for even if each of my lovers proclaim
that there is no regret nor to blame
for how our story came to its end,
the distance between us is a wasteland:

*where even silence fear to sleep, with eyes
bled out of their tears and could not weep.

you could have chosen
exile or as a lone passenger
in the transport of time
across vast waters to an isle
uncharted in any map;
kept as a secret, like the poetry
you wrote and i read without
knowing it kissed and caressed
more than just my name and face.  

naked as we were even before  
the dark where we peeled  
from each other’s skin and touch
the cold and dust of yesterdays,
it must have been terrifying to dare
against a fate lonely and beautiful,
still, with an elemental force that raced
to bind wind and sky from north to south
you declared that i, a prisoner of wonder
to how it must be to be loved by you
be set free.  

for this reason, and perhaps only this  

my eyes will always seek and trap the light
for the harvest offered when to you again i gaze,
a pilgrim to the province of memory
where everything that persists: streets,
gardens, houses under the stars
breathes and whispers of you and only you,
as lips will move while my tongue trace  
each syllable of your known and secret name
until for last breathe this mortal heart.

i discovered
the shape of my desire:

to navigate the waters of sleep
without signal flares, rafts, or life jackets
like you do.

with you.

after everything,
this is why i still love you,
how you now fall:

*gentle, as if like lips imitating fingers
tracing a calligraphy of desire
or the contact of soft fingers
like ripe lips whose kisses call forth
more than just warmth as blood surges
to answer every delicate and naked pore
awakened by your slow seduction
into an incessant rhythmic foreplay
between your ice and my fire.

i confess it takes
one word from you
to touch me still
while the world grows silence
until there is only you
and your word

blood surges like lava once more
to my dormant volcanic heart

still, i am wise and realize
your word from the recipe for surprise:
the season of silence and absence
ripened time and choice words
in the garden of our distance
into this fruit, plucked harvest

i am not a magus, only an alchemist
as i decipher the chemicals and elements
trace parts and exact measures
as i draw symbols and mental lines
for the ritual to transform your surprise
to reveal the face and name that it hides

because your words are not you
nor am i the words i reply
laced with a chameleon’s skin
for the end that has happened,
for the new season that reins
this naked earth and sky

i rediscovered
shape and form of my desire
while you were sleeping
away the taste and texture
of words born from stupid mouths.

we parcel ourselves
to trade with each other
through glances, gestures, and words
a handful of fears
and a sky filled with our desires.

we barter quotations of our lives
fruits and goods of experience harvested
after being toiled in the garden
where the sun lives and dies
all over and over again.

we even offer our silence,
we breathe deep while memory seeks
to unearth the pieces we lost or misplaced,
at times finding those pieces
we choose not to trade.

i spread our traded pieces,
yours alongside mine
and discover they share
bursts of red passions,
hues of blues,
warm white and cold black
on their skin and flesh and smell.

there is that space between us,
silent as the dead, distant
like the stars of no particular time
and i would like to fill it with something
crafted on my own, from memory of pieces
we trade and traded.

something like a bridge to span along
the ocean of gray space between us.

when your eyes gaze at me
i am reminded of stars ablaze
ancient fires fueled by desires,
or perhaps by fate,
charting the distance and darkness
to glimmer like distant fireflies,
faint light for the faint of heart.

i would have told you this,
but always i am drawn
to your eyes
as flowers are for the butterflies,
devoured by the mystery
of what you see in me.

for this reason i become
your most favorite
unschooled astronomer
fingers tracing for you
the fated constellations and erratic
orbits of my soul.

there, in the stars.

with my discarded faith
faithful friends, will you confess
to which you would tear your shadow:
to know there never was a god
or to know your prayers transmit as white noise*

faithful i know they will remain
as for friends, well, i do not really know
so i never asked, nor ever will  

still, it awes me of the human condition
to worship and seek portents of blessings
whose arrival the faithful rationalize
as happening on some holy time table and line
instead of the chance and probabilities
like let’s say of winning the lotto mega jackpot  

i have read persons proclaim
after having missed the bus or plane
that afterwards fell to a ravine or mountain
of how divine was the intervention  

i wanted to shake their hands
they must have been so special
to be saved, blessed and loved
while hundreds were ******.

thrice the moon has claimed the sky
away from the comets and stars
yet even her full naked light
could not brush away the shadows
gathering from not seeing you
nor hearing from you

even the photographs where you bared
more than just your smiling eyes for me
burns into my own like snowcrash static

until all that remains is this ache:
a ****** song born
with the rhythm of my heart;
the sound of your name laces
each of my breath, as if a prayer,
as i lay my soul into sleep.

to write about the light of night stars,
how they pale against the harvest  
she gathers in her eyes from only the sun
would be like tracing the outline of a scar
with a blade, to bleed in silence
for the lust and addiction to old memories  

thus, there remains no reason to write
about passions when they poison;
for longing when one does not belong;
nor for desire burning into cold fire  

without a reason for love and living
i will court and be intimate with dying

you do not wear new clothes.

you do not attempt
to erase the aftertaste
by savoring other lips,
nor do you let new hands
trace and discover the valley
below your hips

you do not
even say
goodbye:

because it would be too late
because it would be too soon.

because there is no forgetting,
there are certain days, like a roll
from a seven-sided dice
when i think of you
they happen less and less as you
became more fluent with silence

but today i woke up
from a fading dream where you
were as you were, and since then
under the eye of the sun and the stars
i have become as if prey
hounded by my thoughts
always straying to find you

i miss you and i have been thinking of you
until now at the very least
with the constancy as mortals
need to breathe and heart to beat

i wonder where and how you are, now
while i listen to this silent night sky
once the bridge we built together
to bind even our closed eyes

with the tired and aching memory of you

the voices of morning
the call of the birds
the hum of fragile wings
and even the winds sigh
for they could not hear your voice
and thus they could not sing
and the sun would weep if not for her fires
would rather be blind
for her eyes could not find you
to give you your shadow
that once walked alongside mine

silence could not find its voice
for it has lost its rhythm, its home
between each syllable of your every word
and even the night feels the cold
that is dark and empty without
you in the distance, awake,
your heart beating and your eyes
set off to some distant land,
or to the sky where soars
your dreams and hopes.

and i
and i my love
and i my love stand alone
even my shadow dissipates
my voice fade as my eyes
dives into nothingness
with only a faint hope
that when morning comes
light and sound, sight and hearing
reveals your face and your smile
that rival those of the stars.

you don’t have to wish
my heart to beat and learn how
to french kiss your name,
i’ve practiced since the first night
my first word when comes daylight.

perhaps i only truly see
my own eyes in the bountiful harvest  
under sun, star, and moonlight:
more than the garden of earthly delights
all these passion volcanoes exploding-
the flow of conversations from rivers
subterranean, human, and thus divine.  

and after everything  
i see you.  

seeing you ignites a spark of desire
to burn colors and form in my eyes
that until the last fading light and breath
as long as you allow my gaze
i wish i would not be blind.

it began with the fingers of day  

parting the dark and cold to reveal
fresh and green succulent cruelties  
arousing one’s appetite the desire:  

to be a blind witness
in how your absence  
bleach color and bleed form.  

to be deaf to wind fall fail  
find their morning melodies
for without your voice  
there can be no song.  

a brand new day in the season of waiting  
until you would arrive in sight or hearing.  

but now i no longer count the ways
i gather the body of each day  
to join the corpses of yesterday:  

there is only this, and every night,
among promises written with salt or in sand,
a cancer without end, or cure
eating me up while i endure.

pure white ****** paper
my pen emerges
ramrod lustful
to take it into bed

as if with every contact
pumping and thrusting
whirls and whorls
lines and curves
between gasps
of commas and periods
it could soon
******* the seeds
from hope’s garden

without a muse i stand
staring below my well
with the coin in my hand
a gathering gravity of sweat

with parched throat and sun bitten skin
the waters stir a delicate invite:
to wash away the gathered dust and ashes,
dilute even minute traces of yesterdays
from soiling each new day,
immerse out the cold of last night
where, in her deep dark
i stripped and whipped passion
free of my longing and desires

in everything that i see*

you are so much like the air
wrapping me around your fingers, invading
filling every empty pocket of my dry body

from old faded photographs
worn and eaten by the eternal mouths of time
leaps forth the winds
that strokes the embers of our memories

i find you in places that we have been
and i see you two, us
like ghosts who haunt final soft places
i find you, us, even in dark corners
where away from prying eyes
we bathed in each other’s nakedness
two flames lapping each other

perhaps, it’s only memories,
of what were once promises of forever
forever that is only as long
as one cares to remember, or forget

i find you in what my eyes see
i find you even in the darkness
where i seek for no company
insistent, persistent, you are like the ocean with her waves
from far away you rise and fall to touch my shore

i am a sailor overboard immersed in your sea

and yet, i cannot find you in me.

almost always
in the aftermath of found love
blown and lost to the winds
everything suffocates:
even the sunlight of noon pales
the surface of things laced in grey
ashes gather in my pockets
films and coats my eyes
like a monocle
to reveal the ghosts
rising from memory.

but not now, not
with my memories of you

instead the light is a sharp blade
revealing surface and edges
your feminine form
touched and infused
with a certain clarity
vibrant even in your absence

the wind is not silent nor howls
between its folds a certain fragrance
like from a flower with petals unfolding
rises to claim and roam
every inch and pore
naked and empty, waiting

then it comes to me:
no ghost rise even in your absence
because you are out there, somewhere
where wind, light, and sound touch you
the same wind, light, and sound
who claims earth, sea, and sky

as they touch me.