Eclipse, n.
A phase when the universe is completely dark, minus the illuminance of millions of stars dancing around the earth and the moon, celebrating the reunion of two objects in an embrace of shadows and light, in which no one can see what happens on the other side of this event, but you and I know exactly what is happening.

Reglossing, rewashing, removing, returning,
she kept using the same cloth to wipe up the mess.
All of the same mistakes constantly repeating,
spools of half-hearted "I'm sorry's" unwinding,
foolproof promise to cover for her missed absence.

I keep on reloading, rewinding, replaying
watching the film of our lives together, pausing
at moments where temporarily, I confess,
unpredictable happiness ceased repeating.
This trainwreck of a show carries on, blistering
slides that I want to swipe clean, but her name suppress
stained slates developing, deflecting, destroying.

I throw away the footage, romanticizing  
sheer ideas of finally making progress
forgetting her. But relapses result repeating
bad habits. There is not a remedy. I cling
to the seasons of the past, wanting to digress
reminding, rewinding, removing, regretting,
until the cloth is clean, her faults keep repeating.

Underneath the rushing world
our situation at a glance
has yet to quietly unfurl.
I am only a lonely girl
who's never had a slow-song dance
above the big rushing world.
And you, you look like you could twirl
me, and trap my heart in a trance,
which has yet to slowly unfurl.

On these tracks, there is a pearl
among the others in a stance,
underneath the rushing world.
Suddenly the train stops and hurls
you toward me. This is my chance.
I should take it. But it unfurls,

I need to say before this whirl
    I have not met you. In advance
underneath the rushing world
our love will not ever unfurl.

missing someone who doesn't miss you
is a colossal waste of time
yet you do it anyway,
loving the idea of having someone to
ache from their absence.

I do not get paid to be an extra
in someone's story. The director
does not offer me notes or cues
on when to interact with the other characters.
I am only there, standing alone
eyes darting around for a subject to speak with.
Even the antagonist drops their sight. The other extras
barely glances at me. Their role is just the same as mine,
but they're hoping they'll outshine me. They brush shoulders,
fingers, as they bump against the crowd.
I remain invisible, lingering in the background,
waiting for my scene to arrive. Ready for a line
in the script. Anxious to be a first choice for once.
No matter how loud I scream that I have yet to tell my story, they will not notice me.
And I know the other dying extras are told the same thing-
write your own script. Make your own production.
Pitch ideas until one sparks, and that becomes your entity.
But it is hard to see that the girl in red
is pushed all the way in the back of the white sea unwillingly.

Lying makes a placeholder for the inevitable truth. The lie will become the truth, as a rectangle can be squeezed back into a square.

My mind is a thousand rooms lit on fire,
a fuse crawled on every window,
pins and needles holding up posters of blank faces,
for the person that belonged in that body is not the same as the memory.
My mind is the intersection at dawn,
lazy cars drowning thoughts,
red lights on all four corners,
until the light turns into a green frenzy.
My mind wisps like tendrils of coffee,
sweet bitter dreams,
that never does quite come alive
when it only leaves a faint taste.
My mind cannot erase the doors you walked in,
or the smiles that blew my way,
and the air you scented in your perfume
of hay and horses from your Saturday hobby.
My mind likes to pretend that I hated you,
that I despised how we sat two desks away and we never said hello, even though it’s been three years since we’ve spoken a word.
I’m doing all that I can to not crumble when I see you have moved on.
My mind constantly replays that night at the football game,
and the conversation we had a week later that said
“I don’t want to say it. But we can’t be friends anymore.”
It broke me like a summer hurricane.
My mind doesn’t know how to let you go.
It, and I, are having a hard time
finding something to fill the space
you have left
in my mind.

Nostalgia hijacks unnecessarily
bleeding into a bloodless heart
where I feel peculiar
outside of my puppet body
the force dragging me to the next location
the next goal
the next unfulfilled dream.
I do not feel alive. I do not feel like I am breathing.
My stomach rises, but my hopes crash.
Every lock crunches together when I run into a bad thing
I shut myself off to protect myself
from an inevitable feeling that will not matter
once I'm beyond the earth
once I'm packed in a grave
and shipped off to the next meaningless life.

There's a huge disconnect when I see your face
that memories have burned themselves
far too much to resemble ashes
and as I try to rearrange the picture
it seems the person I knew
does not exist anymore.
the person I tried so hard to forget
when you were the only one
I wanted to remember
I can't rush back to the start
and not notice how much you've changed.

Reglossing, rewashing, removing, returning,
she kept using the same cloth to wipe up this mess.
All of the same mistakes constantly repeating,
spools of half-hearted "I'm sorry's" unwinding,
foolproof promise to cover for her missed absence.

I persist reloading, rewinding, replaying
watching the film of our lives together, pausing
at moments where temporarily, I confess,
unpredictable happiness ceased repeating.
This trainwreck of a show carries on, blistering
slides that I want to swipe clean, but her name suppress
stained slates developing, deflecting, destroying.

I throw away the footage, romanticizing  
sheer ideas of finally making progress
forgetting her. But relapse results repeating
bad habits. There is not a remedy. I cling
to the seasons of the past, wanting to digress
reminding, rewinding, removing, regretting.
'Til the cloth clears again, chaos keeps repeating.

we make plans for the future but we're never guaranteed for it to come through

I put my trust in an already
broken vase and
handed it to you.
I said, "If this cracks
even a little bit,
my trust will ooze out
and the shard that splits
is a piece of my heart
that ran away again."
It's taken me so long
to find that piece
and convince it to
fit back where it was supposed to.
But it always struggle to accept.
This is where I urge you
to not drop me.

One day someone will hold my body, reach
intimate places, steal breaths from my throat
and his cold barb-wired fingers will breach
my silk-woven skin, leaving me to choke.
I'm afraid I'm not sufficient enough
to let his love crawl in me, sweeping dust
away that no one has bothered to touch
after all these years. Certainly he must
not want to encounter a tornado
that destructs everything that could save me.
When he's done, there will not be a halo
above his head. He precariously
set my heart up for more disappointment.
He took my trust with the lack of consent.

Just hearing the prospect of my brother's proposal
plunged me into an ocean
where I am not allowed to surface. I can only
struggle and hope some fisherman,
or a dolphin, or jellyfish
to rescue me,
   n u d g e me,
ssstttingg me back to the currents above.
I have this anchor locked to my tears, and I can't make

a sound. If they notice, I will begin to cry.
I don't want them to know
that I'm bad again. They are not the right
people who should know.
I just want someone to care about me
as much as I care about them.
I deserve love, like everyone deserves air.

The first bite of a strawberry,
bulbous soft ruby,
tastes so extremely bitter
as your friendship was to me
that after several berries,
my tongue dissolves the sour
sting of disappointment
slowly
diminishing.

Gimpse in the mirror, hair cascading down
emerald eyes piercing the reflection that isn't entirely yours.
Suddenly you see yourself age 78
overlooking the sea on the balcony, wrinkles traced in hands.
The Bainbridge ferry streams along like always,
dropping off passengers on King Street.
Girls and boys strolling down the avenue
happiness and dreams circling their trails.

You are only twenty. You should be experiencing this too.

Holidays at the pond
reminded you that you were always going to be alone
and look at where you are now.
No one will see the lights with you. No one wants to see
a smile at the bokeh, the incandescent halos
wrapped around the bridges.

You only wanted to be happy.

Two linked sugars make up a disaccharide. And that's
what we are. Simple, plain
table sugar, dully passed back
and forth to sweeten our taste.
Sometimes I'll accidentally switch
the shakers for breakfast, hand

you the salt, and you hand
me a spice so harsh that
my tongue curls at the unexpected switch.
I do not prefer the boring, plain
predictable exchange of taste
I followed for so many years back.

So I turn my back
to you, hold up my hand
as a shield of what you would say next. "Have you lost your taste,"
you say, anger overshadowing your faded love, "that
I've grown plain
to you?" I knew then to make the switch

into freedom from the same scene replayed. I get up and turn the light switch
off and leave you in the dark. "When you get back
from work," I say to the plain
dining room, "you will find this ring off my hand."
I can barely see your eyes glowing in the only source of morning light. "That's
absurd," you exclaim. "All because of how I want my cereal to taste?"

I shake my head. "It's not the physical taste. It's the taste
of you that makes me want to switch
out of this marriage. You aren't giving me what I want, and that
is my reason to back
out of this. You offered your hand
to hold mine, to support me, but it's all so plain."

I continue, "And isn't it plain
to see that my taste
in relationships lack passion? I give out my hand
to anything that flicks the switch
of love. You give me the nudge to turn it back
off." With that

I exit the house and try to restore my taste the way I had it back
to my actual preferences. I switch from the plain
safety and run with the risk that I never had at hand.

my future always seem so happy,
but when i thought of the future ten years ago,
i didnt think i would still feel like this.

I am last season's remains
a cracked, dry petal
fallen off a prinses irene tulip.
I beg for attention,
for human affection
much like a plant demands
water to live. Please tell me the lonely
winter is over.

You can't put all of your happiness
into one person. They are
temporary. They do not last
forever.

Things break.

The dependence is a thin line that stitches
your heart to the object,
struggling to not slack,
and one day,
like she broke you,
you will crash backward.

Do you ever have a moment
that suddenly it     SLAMS             into you
                                                             ­     you          are    alive.
And seven billion people     write the same story. You wonder,
  alone in the crowded Seattle-Tacoma airport, if someone
   will ever hold your empty heart       like the man in a gray business suit
   and the woman wearing a striped neckerchief. Will someone ever be upset your flight didn’t depart at the expected time, and give            the bouquet of rhododendrons to a stranger. Will someone               ever burst into a full sprint
upon first glance at you, deliriously happy that you are
      home.
Will someone ever    acknowledge that
  you are alive,   breathing for a change, wishing    for a slow dance,
loss of insanity. Will someone ever, in the passengers
   of the world,
                   notice you.

i met you in my dreams
somewhere
between my drunk
universes that i believe
you and i are alive and together
we chase each other through
sunrises above shots of tequlia
and raindrops searching for a glass
of promise to hold.
i am only dreaming of you
and i hope you only dream of me.

My father tells me what should be my first memory of hearing:
A car scuttles up the gravel hill in front of the home I loved.
I drop my chalk and run to the end of the driveway,
as if I am chasing the exhaust of fumes sputtering out the tail pipe,
wondering what on earth is that strain of air
since I was not given sound from birth.

At my testing, the audiologist put me in a soundproof booth:
The ocean has forgotten to pull its stitches together for the life of it.
I want to scream that I feel like I am drowning
as the waves tormented me into debilitation,
kicking for a gasp of air, just anything to break the current.
I cannot keep myself afloat.

My friend’s voice is the most beautiful I’ve ever heard:
Her laugh makes me want to jump in euphoric joy, like she’s dosed me with ecstasy.
I can see her smile and it speaks all the words I don't need to hear.
When she repeats a story for the third time, I do not mind
that she trusts me with her voice and her whimsical light
since she is the only one patient enough to put up with my aggravating nuisances.

That night at the David Gray concert, my God what a beautiful night:
I am so familiarized with the stretching of violin strings and guitar plucks,
Gray’s hypnotic vocals roaring into my heart with the bass thumping
into my disabled ears, rendered quite useless until I have tasted such delightful surprise
with so many of my favorite noises encasing me into their world,
that I have forgotten my own disability.

It peeves me when I am with others:
The muffling of girls whispering once the lights are out;
my stepfather keeping the TV volume low and does not provide caption while the movie rolls;
how I answer the question with the wrong response and receive confused glares.
I am a lonesome tree in the woods
with no one around to see my inevitable fall as the fire plagues on.

A technical transition last July:
Misery trenched my mind as everything rang louder-
the shuffling of my hair against my ears bothered me very much so;
I heard women talking from three tables over at the pizza place.
First given nothing, now having too much,
I am not appreciative of all the sounds in the frantic tussle of daily life.

A forest begins to chill at four o clock:
The leaves flutter on the terrain in a dance no one knows,
the sun warms me in a song with lyrics I can’t comprehend.
I am relishing what is given to me, that even though I am broken,
I still realize that I would much rather be deaf
than to ever go blind.

I didn't expect this dream to be a stillborn
after so many years of seeing this false image of reality
it never arrived intact.

there's a part of me that keeps
checking in to see how
your life is going. I can't shield
my curiosity from the pain
when I see that you have replaced
me in each pose
every sunset
and a single smile that
was not catapulted at me.

It's so stupid to feel lonely in a room
full of laughing people, enjoying their company with family.
I myself am with family, but I feel so
secluded, put aside, a thought floating
after a quick glance at the girl who's been quiet
for far too long, who usually
sparks the conversation before others.
Tonight, it is too loud.
Dancing waiters and a conga line,
trays of cheap champagne passed around,
Andrew discussing a promising proposal,
kept me so removed from table 351
and the restaurant itself. I cannot control
anything.
The conversation carries on without me.

I feel the loneliest at an airport
because my soulmate could be walking around
searching for me
and light up at the glimpse of my face,
stammering to find a conversation point;

or they are getting on a flight
after hearing my laugh
remembering the sound across the nation.

Some nights music has to be turned up
at the highest volume
so that my thoughts
do not **** me in my sleep

You made it clear that you moved on
without texting me "happy birthday"
five months ago.
That's what we always did, even
when we fell out.
Now it's your turn to turn twenty
and I don't know how to deal with this situation.
I want to let you know
that I think of you all the way home
rooted in thoughts that wonder
what our lives would be like if we still talked.
I want to let you know
because you ignored me
I do not want to ignore you,
but I feel that given with your apathetic, unexisted reply,
I have no choice.

I've kept my promise to her for six years now, and she broke her promise four years ago.
They were made to be broken, but a human heart deserves to still beat on.

still i felt desolate
while singing miley's "the climb"
while laying on the pavement
with her watching the stars
while blurring the lights of el paso
behind my sights
because while i love who im with
im not in love
and i constantly wonder
what its like to be with someone
who loves you back
all the same.

the song you listen to on blast
as you wander around campus
8:53 pm
and the holidays are approaching,
you know you are still alone.
even with your family, you are alone.
no one loves you,
the whole of you.
not yet.
but you wonder
if ever
will there be such a person
to walk along transatlanticism with you
in such a moment like this?

My heart quickens
so terribly fast when I listen to the voicemail
that I've gotten an interview
for a job I blindly applied to.
That dreaded "tell me about yourself"
question, I respond with a different answer every
single time. I don't really
know much about myself
except that I change as often
as a song in shuffle,
the clouds drift in seasons,
rising from sleep
after a long night.

Against the perimeter of my childhood backyard
cluttered rows of privet hedges produced
tiny ruby berries, easily crushed if stepped on.
They always fell from the branches
in the slightest trail of wind.

Cougars prowled my playground.
My parents, hesitant to let me out alone,
planted the bushes
in the hopes the cougars would
eat the Ligustrum ovalifolium and never return.

I knew the berries were toxic
and could make me ***** more than what I consumed,
a time bomb in my stomach.
Mother said the poison could make
me shiver harder than a winter day.

When, once, I raised a berry to my lips
Mother plunged forward
and slapped it out of my fingers,
a strange mixture of anger and concern in her eyes.
I was never to pick one again.

I didn’t understand the problem
until I saw two cougars laying behind a privet—
a mama and her cub
no longer breathing in sync.

A child, not of speaking age, sat
   across me at tea time. The mother
fed her cake and cucumber
sandwiches, and the young girl
screeched with
                            a sour face

staring at me as if I held the solution
to erasing the taste of sweets and crunchy water.
I feigned a smile.
      It occurred to me that even as old as she was,
she had opinions on things she would forget. No one
remembers not liking cucumbers that young.

sometimes you never really know
how the carpet looks
until you stare at it so long
that the fabric melts in
you start to feel cross that you cant
distinguish
whether it is purple with yellow waves
or yellow with purple waves
or if it's just really
ugly carpet to begin with.

Whoever swoops into my heart next
please don't make a nest
and then fly away when you're ready to be on your own.
Don't use me as a shelter
to keep you from the drowning rain
and expect me to feed you
when nothing else is living.
It’s hard holding a home sturdy
sufficiently well for my aching soul.
The branches are already trembling
the weeping wind echoing
lost, diminished cries
of the ones who took off.
I know I push you away
when you get too close,
but this is where you fight to hold on longer.
I keep losing the ones I love
because they have not loved me
enough to stay.

I can't say goodbye to the fact that you saved me. That you understood me, the fragility of my heart, and the broken glass of my thoughts. You were always my first choice. You're my strings of lights that's guiding me home. You made me forget the world. There were so many things that you have done for me, that I can't thank you enough for. I'm still living because of you. Please do not feel guilty for my actions, and yours. Time and life happened. We were just meant for those five years, no more and no less.