The ****

muttered under breaths
of exasperation
is the language that you speak.

your life has become a series, unanswered
questions, curses, solitude.

you walk from dead end
to dead
end
crossing dark roads in between

as cars shine yellow eyes behind you
your shadow shrinking
swallowed by your footsteps
disappears
with the red taillights
fading into the distance

you are
lonely
yet
want to be
alone

you're angry,
angrily searching
for peace.

smoke rises from your parted lips
trembling
forming the lyrics
of that last rock record

it probably sold millions
your pain and frustration
caught in it

yet still

                                  no one understands.

You're the only one I've ever known to stare
at the face of the clock on your wrist,
carefully following the

tick.

tick.

tickin.

just so you could brag about
what every two-eyed person missed--
catching the minute hand move, in its slight little twitch
or maybe it was the hour
I fail to remember which.

Saw it with your own two eyes you said to me while
smiling
and i shook my head in disbelief,
amused at that tricky timing.

I looked at you and thought some thoughts
of how your you-ness has always been
a what you get is not what you see,

your patience forever a complexity,

and your determination, the perplexor
needs its own personal illustrator
.
You've always known where you were headed
but you also made sure that you'd take
the longest, most
                                                
                                             loopingly,

                           w
                                 i
                  n
       d
                           i
            ng-est,
                                                    weirdest path
to get and eat life's cake.

I knew I couldn't follow you
but well I gave it a try
and when you finally put your wings on
I was just happy to see you fly

happy birthday to you
happy birthday to you
happy birthday...
happy birthday...
happy birthday, to...*

Today I felt like I was born as a much saddder person
I feel sadness because I feel lost
the country I lived in all my life decided it was somewhere else
and the people I called countrymen and friends decided to go with it

nothing looks like it used to
nothing feels like it's supposed to
and even nothing has changed
to become this everything.

the sound of laughter escaping lips
needs subtitles
and the messages from my best friend's eyes need decrypting
a knowing look no longer knowing

where my parents house is
where the giant tree, with kites stuck and tire swings
is planted where I spent my years growing
my old toys lie in attic space  

I do not know what happened
I don't know what went wrong
but I just want to hear again the tune of that familiar birthday song

happy...bir....ay
ha...pybur...

now, how did all that go?

Here's my plan
I've thought of it long and hard:

First I'll collect every beautiful word on the planet
listen to every song that contains you
and photographically memorize every child's eyes
every mothers' warmth
every cool breeze
and every single scent of every single field of every newly cut blade of grass
basically, everything that captures the way your fingers feel
when they're wrapped around mine
and I'll take all these and fit them into one cardboard box which I will wrap and prettify
and morph into a poem
which I will end
with stars.

I will then give it to the mailman, who'll read it and know
that it's all about you
and he'll travel the world
searching, going into the places where I failed to go
and find you sitting
the way you do
with both feet up
on the stool
your knees bent
and your face contorted the way only your face can ever be contorted.

He will hand you the poem and you will read it
and know that I am still here,
and you will be moved
and fall in love with me again.

Then you'd begin searching for me though I already told you where I'd always be
and once you remember, you'll find me
and tell me that you've read my poem about mothers and their tender hands
and children with their bright eyes
and the grass which already says it all in itself
and also,
stars
and most importantly you'll tell me that you want me to write the rest of it
because there is so much more we can do together beyond the stars
and I will look at you as you tell me this
and try to familiarize myself with the face I've never had to familiarize myself with before
and I'll stand there watching your lips move
your chest heaving from each breath
and notice that they've changed and somehow I will seem to know that my mouth would not know how to fit into yours
and my head will have to move about a bit to find that nook on your chest it used to be glued too

and I will read that poem back
and then I'll see that just like your lips and your chest, all the words have changed
and that the person that I actually wrote it for
has already failed to exist the moment I penned
the last word

and so I end this poem
with stars.

I offer you this poem,
or an idea of what this poem could be

because all I've got is 18 years in my back pocket
and that really ain't much life yet

I'll add the beautiful things I notice
but I feel I'm becoming too old
to notice beauty,
that's child's play

am I too young or too old?
usually it's both.

I'll probably stash the things I don't want to say
in the way that can be understood directly
because I want to sound deep and mature
and also because I want you to think
like me, for a bit
to borrow my eyes
and maybe you'll find what I mean
and maybe you'll find something even better
and maybe we'll finally feel that someone out there understands.

maybe

I want this poem to scare you
into doing something about some things
you've always wanted to change
or things I've always wanted to change but have always been
too scared, too young, or too stubborn to do.

I want this poem to move you
to write one that's even better
because maybe your eyes are like glass
so clear, you forget that it's there
or foggy
or blurry

but surely
new

but I have yet to find the words

I haven't looked through enough eyes
I haven't opened enough hearts
and I haven't read enough poems like this

though I don't mind spending my life searching...

but still I offer you
the idea
the possibility of a poem like this
because I'd really much rather like to believe

that it exists
          ...out there

as opposed to the alternative which is just too sad to ponder.

you never held my hand
    I was always too shy to let you
    and you respected me too much to try

but you held my shoulder
grabbed my arm every time I was about to fall
you always let go after
afraid that saving me was too much contact already

     you never tried to kiss me
because we never got that far
but your lips with all its talking has always been enough

I never got to touch you
as much as I would've liked
but you gave me more than that

     you gave me your words
let me into your ideas
let me touch you in places no one else had
and I let you feel

my fears and my dreams

    maybe it was too brief
and maybe we were too young
for it to have been love

but as far as I know I miss the way when we walked together
how you'd always take the side of the sidewalk where the cars sped by

and in that way I always felt
you risked your life for me and I never even got to say

thank you.

I breathe in the life that surrounds me
listen to the million conversations
people utter and forget when words leave their lips.

I grab at them and keep the ones
that cage my formless sentiment

I tuck them into the folds
of my eyelids,

I close for clarity,
night comes, and the world becomes my eyelids,
escape, fly, and play in darkness
the words

but in this freedom they need to be put down
with guns
fire need and purpose,

restlessness.

my hands tremble as the words seeping
from my eyes to the lines on my fingertips
spiraling inward.

they need to be
put down or they will leave and fly away
run the course of being eaten and said
eaten
and said

mouth after mouth
chewed
spat out
and finally

lost.

never to be more than gossip and hushed murmurs
of could be
poetry