Who were you?
A foreigner
a mere woman?

Perhaps I valued you
beyond the common measure

I think of the possibility
of lives we have lived
in some past time
some other world

I guess I am a Buddhist
after all.

Because
this fascination
this love
goes beyond my experience

What can I compare it to?

I believe in the potency of desire
that it can manifest itself
across a span of years

a span of lifetimes

I can imagine
that we were
then as now
different in appearance
from cultures widely separated

Let's say that I wanted you
that you wanted me
for so it is today

Let's say that circumstances
kept us apart
or prevented us from meeting
as equals

Let us say, finally,
that this world
in which anything seems to be permitted
was created for us
that we might meet again.

What an absurd
romantic notion!

Tonight the lights are all on.
Other beings surround me.
This world is a different world
for each one of them,
though strangely the same.

Surely this world is ours.
The lights
are brightly lit.

Thousands of insects
cover the glass
dazzled by this light.

We must be dazzled, as well.
For none of us can see.

Not a one of us
can touch the heart
of another.

So since all is permitted
let us permit ourselves this

that we can touch one another
each into each.

A mystery gripped me unawares,
One without form, shape or color
All I could make out is this dear:
Weaved  out of million fine strands
Its essence is all; all of it a mystery.
No distinguishing mark, you’ll find
Its warm grip transcends limits
In such a state I was left, for which
A name none  has ever invented
Even that’s not a need, of course
Being the one of it’s kind, a name
For the singular mystery won’t suit
It’s beyond the realm  of identities
The mystery is just that,get it right.

I wish I had
the courage to
look into your eyes
without feeling
the regret
or despise
of myself.

I'm not worthy
of anyone,
not anymore,
not since
the sun
stopped shining
inside me.

I can't take
you seeing me
in this way,
I can't shake
myself any harder ,
I can't smile
like I'm okay.

Just for once
forget me
leave this day
leave me
so I don't have to

I promise tomorrow
you'll find
new friends
this sorrow
will devour me
not you

I will never
let it
hurt you

ever.

We cannot write silence.
The beats.
The pause.
The breath.
The way it aches
and persists

and begs that,

if only for a moment,

our consciousness is only a whisper.
our bodies,
our lips,
the air that passes through falling chests
and stillness.

A melody of emotion.
Sleeping in the quiet of a heartbeat skipped
a word lost to the wind.

The wickedness of reticence
Encapsulated in air and time.

The moment stretched too long.
Hesitation perpetuated in the grip of fingernails
pressed into palms.

We cannot write silence,
but we can try.

to find a way to immortalize emotion
to create space
in the ceaseless drone of words that speak and spin.

I cannot write silence. But I can write
tears and years
and the burn of long-stretched lies.

I can write goodbyes and hellos
And dozen ways to say
I love to hate you
Or
I hate to love you
and sometimes
I cannot tell the difference.
Silence.
The space I have upheld for myself.

I love to hate you
Heart.

I hate to love you too.

I cannot write silence.
But I know it.
and I have held it in my hand.

Her eyes were that Heineken bottle green,
and her spirit bubbly,
a cold touch
to a warm soul
I got drunk in her love


















And I never regretted it.