What's the most difficult word in the
                                                                        tio                                          
                                                       dic      
                                                                                      na
                                                                                                 r
                                                                                                      y?
well
for a shy person,

it's hello.

they say doing a thing 29 times makes it a habit
then I thought of all the times this day
this week
this month
that I didn't see you
and think that
that had to have been more
than 29

yet
I'm still not ******* used to it.

Enter the space
of individuals-not-allowed.

bodies merge
knee to knee
shoulder to shoulder
face to face
thousand hands passing the silver faces
feeding the dark
fingernails of grime and engine heat.

Spewing out smoke

a moving temple,
a makeshift market,
a piece of art,

my nation's identity.

Another song
another poem
and all I read,
and hear
is myself.*

I borrow other people's words
because somehow they're better than mine
at expressing my inside

maybe the thing is
that no matter how alone we feel,
there's always someone out there
writing
putting down
capturing what that alone-ness feels like

I find myself soul searching inside Cafes
As if to expect sitting there
The six year old who asked how the cricket sings
The two year old who could not be understood
And the first grader who'd just learned to fly

But every sip of coffee does not give something back
The records playing tug no inner chords
And the pages are as blank filled
As when the notebook was first opened

Strangers' eyes do not hold couplets
And their smiles are painted curves
Of chipping, fading memories

I loan my heart
to anis mojgani's hands
thin and perfect
with a wideness that can hold the moon,
the earth,
a word.

their quiet rising
and falling
their cannot-be-bottled-
up fidgeting

mesmerizing.*

that I too may learn
to express
myself
no shame
no fear
no doubt.

just me.

certainly.

with conviction.

my heart's beat
will thump
thump THUNDER!

I don't care who stares
It won't shut up,
I won't let it.
let their brooms bang on the ceiling
send for the cops!
call my parents!

I don't
care
I'm gonna shout *******

I"M GONNA SHOUT!!!!

Not exactly the best day ever
not the worst either.

I wish I could say that something amazing
or significant happened
but nothing did.

I'm not the same person I was yesterday
but I have no idea what's changed, exactly.

I feel kinda sad
but not the bad kind of sad that has me crying,
it's that kind of sad from knowing
I haven't done enough.

I didn't live up to this day's potential.
I feel like I failed to do something.

I really should start living in the world more

*my brain's getting too stuffy

I used to enter the coffins of bathroom stalls
to dance my weird away
to be free  from prying eyes…
now, they are chambers for my sadness
too small to hold it all

they are the mummy's sarcophagus
and I am cursed with your ghost.

I am
lonely

but the only place
large enough to hold all this loneliness
are your wide open arms.

"move on"
you said.
as if it was easy
like loving you,
as if it wasn't more
like dismantling pyramids from the top
down with a toothpick and an unsteady hand.

someday you will choose to love
but I am not the girl
to change your mind.

I am slowly accepting your death
brushing the dirt off of artifacts:
the way you held me
like an ancient civilization’s most precious deity,
late night walks
through labyrinths, with no wish for threads of return
jazz concerts, green jokes,
our staple, our oral tradition
and food always parted at the middle
a sacrifice for all the hopes we had
in this dating ritual.

you will never be the you that I once knew,
that you is dead
mummified,

existing only in my memory
like a brain kept in a jar
away from the rest of you.

This new you
(the only you that exists)
is a stranger
a different person
an un-dug desert, jungle un-ventured

and though
I grieve for he who has died
it would be stupid to dig up his grave
inside of you.

the building is covered by rain
it pitter patters on the roof
like quiet whispers to the ear
by an unknown breath
I cringe at the neck
too close

where are you?

rain flows from the cracks
on the wall
the windows are crying.
the paint is damp and cold
and peeling.

I am on my bed
shivering
lonely
waiting
to be drenched.

the room is filled
with rain

the floor, invisible
my bed floats
as the waves lick my sheets
I am cold

the falling of rain
the sloshing of waves
sounds encircling me like arms
touching my cheek
my hair
my lips

arms that
hold me by the neck
crashing raindrops like the banging in my chest
I cannot breathe.

I read back old conversations
and they are not our voices
they are muffled sounds
underwater

heavy faces
like rainwater
on tarpaulin ceilings

sinking into the meaningless
prose of daily life

cliched, cafe, journal writer
asking for someone
         to answer

the why.

and everyone is wearing earphones
         everyone

's an empty magazine
cover
stories
photos
colors, forms
edited,
          taken
from somewhere else

          we are no longer

ourselves.

thin, fat,
black bars
trapped
in a white box
          we willingly enter

reluctantly leave
           to feel
the joys of coming in
           
again.

palms are masks
that cover nothing
fingers, frustrated fishermen
combing dark waters, searching
for the uninhabited isle.

the tree stump pitifully trying
to grow,
melody of the typewriter,
the letter opener's song,
withered daisy in a plastic display,
hidden bookworm art
carved into dusty paperbacks,
overgrown, abandoned houses:
sleeping animal,
dormant jungle.

wet asphalt puddles of fallen sky

dead butterfly

blind blue eyes;

tragic, difficult, poetic
         you are

poetically
(unplayed piano furniture)







          useless.

I have used up
pages
pages
pages
to reap
only frustration,

crossed out
word
after word
after word
phrases sentences stanzas
not knowing

why?

forcing verse to rise
from the dark waters of self doubt,
time and effort coax and tease
and tempt
and tug
and pull

yet pencil lead continues
to disappear
empty
on pages
nothing

but thick hard gray scratches,
second guesses
angry strokes

Voices hum from the towering trees,
inspiration hiding in a corner
running
mocking

and I listen
to myself
saying
                 
            I can't.

And all the poems that could have been
fold like smoke
tumbling
twisting
swallowi...

I'm walking armless in the dark

nervous unrest my only companion

My heart beats inside me
like a watch
inside a crazy man's head

threatening
threatening

to explode

As I snake my way past crowds
I bow my head
and hope
that no one I offend

I say sorry for every contact
every brush of a sleeve
I'm sorry
so sorry
pardon me
exhaling so many apologies
it's the air I that I breathe.

I'm sorry that I am flesh and bone
physically present to touch you
sorry for my body's contact unto yours
sorry I am here
sorry I am occupying your space
sorry for the footsteps I leave where I stand

so sorry I exist

go ahead
push
and shove

"I'm sorry"

I've been curing my loneliness
with solitude

talking to myself
instead of somebody else.

I've been spending days
staring at the ceiling
dreaming myself to outer space
or New York

instead of leaving my room.

I've been writing letters
whose length would make Anna Karenina blush
all tucked into the curves of my cerebral cortex

instead of sending

"hey, hw r u?"
text messages

I've been curing my loneliness
with solitude

if you call crying alone
with my own hand patting my back

curing

today as i scanned
the people who liked
read
and commented
i came across a girl
who seemed to understand

i sent her a 'thank you'
simple and true

because when i thought i'd come across
a wide lonely land
she stood there beside me and then held my hand

and as i stared at the white block
with the send message
button,
i wanted to tell her

"see,
this is the boy i love"

and i knew that she'd listen

"i've never met him"
i'd add with some grace

"heck i've never seen his face
past the black and white box
beside the comments his placed"

then i'd pause for effect and wonder a bit
but there's no doubt in my mind
it's a feverish fit.

"he has a way with words"

i'd tell her some more

"when he speaks about love
it's like it makes up his core"

love 'im never met 'im
and i let out a sigh
(though she will never hear)
and i bid her g'bye.

The road he travels is filled
with bleeding markers
wrought with the pain of a past
life

They described him to be substantial
and ****
like unfinished books
on coffee tables and subways
pages blowing

His future promised to justify
his parents'
fears

A wanderer
silently obsessed
with the road less traveled
with reading the American continent
like Sal Paradise

But he lived with windows half unhinged
never
really
getting there...

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?

I cried at the breakfast table this morning
my father carefully explained,
"wives must be submissive to their husbands"
"housecleaning is the domain of the woman"
"God created woman because man asked for a partner"

This past semester I wrote two papers

One, a fire and brimstone sermon
          I quoted Anais Nin
          sending the creators of sexist commercials to eternal suffering
          "**** them!" I said. "May they burn in hell."
          For the women they portrayed were doormats
          Misconceptions
          Monsters

The other, the role of women in the 1920s,
           No longer confined to the kitchen
           they dropped ballots with their new freedom
           they wore short dresses and short tresses
           fingers wrapped around cigs
           they quoted Wilde instead of Alcott
           they danced until their feet hurt
       
I read of Anais Nin's "new woman,"
her partnership, not submission to man,

I craved a room of my own, neigh demanded it
For sheep stayed in the kitchen,
The Woolf had a study.

I read poetry
Sexton,
Plath,
I wept for their starved, depressed selves
caged, suffocating inside the clasped hands of a man.
Loved like rib-cage jails.

Adrienne Rich made me angry,
her daughter-in-law
forever trying to fit into a box
she was always too big for, spilling
at the edges, her shaved
legs like "white mammoth tusks"

I was finally
happy with my womanhood.

******, ******, *****, *******
they are mine.
******* free to move unrestrained,
jiggling under my shirt.
Wetness between my thighs.
Menstrual blood,
they are mine.

mine.

I am not ashamed of what I am
because there is no shame.

I am woman,
I am girl,
I am lady.
I am a creature
with a voice
a mind.

a creature who endured much abuse,
continue to endure.

I am woman

and I don't have to be wife or mother
unless I want to be.
I was not created for man;
I was created for the same reason he was,
to serve the same great purpose on this tiny blue dot.

I am not rib.

I am ******, ******, *****, *******
******* free, unrestrained,
Wetness between my thighs.
Menstrual blood,

I am a per.
I am a wo.
I am a hu.

Man and son need to back down,
collaborate not dominate,
speak not command,

for when less are forced into silence,
the maddening scream
hidden inside skin and bones and muscle-meat
becomes song.

this world of car horns and tire screeches
crying and wailing from raw throats
angry protests of indignation

could use a little music.

sometimes I feel very very small*

I am here
on the bed
a cocoon
fighting desperately to be a butterfly

you are there
a bird
big strong wings waiting
to eat me.

I am small
like a loose thread from an old sweater
moving against fingertips
you could roll me into a ball

and you are the smudge on the window pane
that this ball cannot wipe away.

I am the small drop on the shower head
clinging, trepid,
anticipating my great fall

you are the hairs on the shower drain
not going anywhere
stuck
hindering the flow.

I am small
and I am tired of you

I am sick of the parts of you still in me.

I am the cocoon
desperate
-ly fighting
to be

aching for freedom
I break my mattress cage

I crumble, choke, struggle
instead of fly

The feathers in my pillow
are yours

now,


smother me.

my life consists of needing mirrors
to remind myself
that I am not invisible

you have taken parts of me
and thrown them away without question
without regret.

the ease with which you let me go
echoes within me
like a "*******" spoken in church

a crack on the pane
of the room's only window.

you were not a liar
but you made yourself one

and I say that I do not hate you
because I've forgiven you

but you made that a lie also
you shaped it so that the reason for my lack of hate
is that I can no longer bring myself to care.

I will smile when I see you
because you can no longer hurt me.

your apathy shook me
like an antique chandelier
just before it crashes to the ground

and the fact that you read my poetry
and feel nothing
makes me shiver

you are cold.

you are the corpse frozen in indifference
a dead heart pumping the liquid
of fake tears.

you look and move like you used to
but I can see the stitches in your skin
the glassy, empty, gaze in your eyes

you are a monster
but I am no longer afraid.

I drop my torch and pitchfork
and watch you
destroy all the things that we built.

I raise my palms

and warm myself by the fire.

plastic
tables and chairs
pinks
blues
yellows

leftovers lie on the table
paper plates stained with chocolate syrup
beside the foam
fossil of a milkshake

brown
fingertips and corners of lips
dinosaurs and tiaras

table napkins wipe away
giggles and smiles

wooden table
little words etched in
hearts, crosses and names
jagged lines through the middle
random doodles
curse words

stained with grease, an empty pizza box
soda bottles all over the sticky floor
a single can
of beer, empty
touching a hundred lips
curious little sips
awkward conversations,
air thick with secrets and lies
confidence and cockiness

*clean white table cloths
long-stemmed flowers
crystal wine glasses
silverware

no one quite fits into these

knees always banging
and cutlery always clanging

no one quite fits into these

The truth is
I've got no more face
to face you

I've been such a ****
and when I look into your eyes
all I feel is shame

your face
with its smile
and accepting eyes
has become a mirror
of all the times I put you down.

I am not avoiding you
because of you
I am avoiding you because

of me

it's the whole cliche'
of "it's not you, it's me"

but maybe it is you

the fact that you
do not hate me
or condemn me
or even as much as recognize my shame

you're drowning me in guilt
and your open arms
are worse than the prodigal son's father's

so when I say
goodbye,
know that
it's not you
it's me
and my insecurities
and my self doubt
and maybe my depression
and maybe my fear

so I'm not gonna like you
I'm not gonna like you

even if I already do

he knows it's justified
to **** to survive*

dark thoughts still come sometimes
but I think I'm going to be all right.

I. first memory of him:

in a bus
bodies were squeezed in like crayons
he, at one end
I, at the other

I remember him looking into my eyes

peering
sinking
seeing something I knew I didn't have

I felt nothing
wondered
what the hell did he see?

I looked away  
forgot.

II. the second memory of him:

curtains
covering a broken window
opening to a basketball court

thump thump thump
the ball went
alone he played

I turned my head as the wind blew
our eyes locked

looking...

       looking...

                 looking...

III. the third memory:

me
running away

IV: the fourth:
my anger
letting him slip

V. the fifth
waving at each other

smiling lips

and polite

empty

eyes.

Whoever said,
"Parting was such sweet sorrow"
obviously never meant/met
you

because

when you go
you take all the light with you

NO

not the light
for all light does is help one to see

what you have taken
is but every single shred of happiness
and
hope of ever getting these shreds back again.

Maybe it was Shakespeare?

How lucky he was then to have lived
and died
meeting only people he could bear
to part with

and how unfortunate
am
I.

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 remember the day
you said
'I like you'
I acted cavalier
ran the hell away

yet the truth is
I thought I kinda liked you too

I don't know why
I stopped myself

I've turned the pond of silence
between us an ocean

but sometimes,
(just sometimes)
I still feel your glance
and I swear I still hear the
whispers in your eyes.

I've run,
yet here you still are,
and still here I go
running
to there...somewhere

when the truth is
that every time you come,
to that moment before I turn my back
walk away,
I had already spent

hours

                thinking

                            waiting

­        for you.

The truth is
I always
always
know when you're there,
I've memorized the way you walk
to the messy of your hair.

There's nothing more to say because

I've never said anything
nor have I ventured near enough to hear you
speak.

I am paralyzed
by this anxiety
this deep fear, they've weakly deemed

shyness.

I hate when I wear my pretend indifference,

because the truth is
I like you,

I've always.

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.

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.

when you say you like someone else
I retaliate with silence and made up faces
of calm and i-could-care-less

"haha that's so funny"
smile
you're not thinking about this
you are not thinking about her
you are looking at his eyes
(stupid eyes that look at another's)
smile
don't grit your teeth
smile
oh he's holding your hand
did he hold her's like this too?

smile

get rid of that sarcastic face
he is looking at you
and he is holding your hand

smile.

I press play

he sings
I cease
speaking.

I hang my voice on julian casablancas' lips.
I am mute
as he breathes on the microphone, quiet
as he speaks
hums
and
frees his thoughts

he stops.

and for a moment
in that moment,
that pause until I play the next song
he's told my story

all of it
everything.

and I let out
a whispered

"thank you"

the truth is
I want to die
but the truth is
my death
would hurt more
people
than my life.

for in living
it is only I who suffers.

and I have discovered
that the greatest pain
is not in being hated,
but in being ignored.

and sadly
the only way for anyone
to really understand what I meant by that

is to live through a life
of being overlooked.

of speaking
and never being heard.

of wearing masks
so everyone can stand being around you.

of being constantly told
that you are fine
when deep down you know your truth.

of using tears
to clean your face
just so you can smile once more.

being frustrated
at your inability to articulate
these feelings into words,
failing to realize that there is no way
that they could understand what you mean

because what you experience,
this personal hell,
is not in their scope
of existence.

I could go on
but their voices have seeped into all my cracks
"it's all in your head"
"get over it"
"you're just being dramatic"
and I end up judging myself

feeling less like a person
and more like a thing
that was made wrong.

a misfit
a mistake
a dysfunctional
an oddity
an alien
a ****** up
overdramatic attention-seeker.

everyone has ****
why can't you keep yours in line?

everyone has pain
why can't you fix yourself?

just talk about it.

let it out.

it's easy.

what is wrong with you?
why can't you just tell me?

I hide tears away like illegal contraband
feelings that should not be indulged.

I wear smiles like special passes
so I can weave my way around society.

and all I really want
is a little patience
a little acceptance.

I'm not too much of a freak
that I cannot be loved.

I promise I'm not so bad.

just give me some time
I'll be good

please?

loneliness clings to me like wet paint
so I walk the streets at night
leaving behind neon footsteps

traces of your absence
color the asphalt
blue on black
the wind is cold
but at least it touches me.

I have grown more intimate with the rain
you are unfamiliar.

my brother's phone vibrates
and I remember when the sound
was once
yours.

I am lonely
and I am sorry for this.

I hang on you like a noose
I am the weight you drag
the useless end of a tow truck

I know I shouldn't need you as much as I do
it is unhealthy
it is unfair

**** me.

like all parasites,
I must die
so you can explode like the amazing fireworks display you were always meant to be
or burn burn burn, you infinite star..

you are

gone
pounded footsteps unto the floor
keys clanging
on the bowl beside the door
crashing like mother's china.

still feel
your hand on the shelf,
my shoulder.
the shaking cupboard,
my heart

these the ghosts
the shadows
the flicker
of the wet-paint-traveler?

covered in reds and pinks and sunsets
dragged his colors,
streaked my insides,
marked my rib cage

or

is it the make up
once swallowed
attempting inner beauty?

wanted to change

but you told me to stay
the drab old wallpaper.

You left
and it looks like
ended up changing after all.

like the legend of the phoenix, all ends with beginnings*
-Daft Punk

sometimes
my heart creeps into my mind
like young lovers' hands
reaching for palms and fingertips.

my mind tells me to forgive you
but my heart is heavy with pain

my mind tells me to accept what has happened
but my heart is full of memories

my mind explains the pain away
but all my heart does is feel

my mind tells me to forgive you.

it is seven twenty-four AM
there is a violin playing in the distance
and I am still haunted by you.

I am slowly letting you go though,
like feathers falling loosely
from my fingertips.

I watch you float slowly to the ground
where you can no longer hurt me.

I feel myself grow taller
as you lay beside my feet

and maybe someday a soft wind
will lift you slowly
into something else.

I dreamed of you
again,
a  longer dream,
(if you will)
a full feature,

I must admit however,
there wasn't much of a story,
we didn't even talk

and this time you weren't just
the one liner extra either,
you were the leading man.

It was just you
and me wanting
to talk
yet avoiding
a meeting,

It was just you and me
staring
at each other
from afar,

it was just
you and me
hiding behind our
friends, hating
yet somehow wanting their
teasing.

basically,

it was a reflection of you
and me
in reality or rather
perhaps
of you
and me

in the past

because at present
i don't even see
you
anymore.

I feel the feeling of wanting to die,like standing on the edge of a high place;
glass elevator ascending
closer to heaven.  

as I read my book and look up
your eyes say,
"you are beautiful"
as shyly, they look away


I am ugly.

I am a monster with stubby fingers
a dead animal on my head
a screaming in my brain
marks on my face like dots splattered from broken ink


you said they looked like stars
and then you made me cry

I thought I'd never do that again.

I crack the glass under my feet
break through and fall,

hot wax dripping on my back
my shoulders
meat and bones, crashing
falling
drawing
closer to heaven.

Alone again in this four-room house;
the wind stagnant, like water.
empty beds
crumpled
from bodies that have long ago left.

On the table there is but one placemat
and eight chairs.

I have turned off all the lights
to look at myself
reflected
on the moon on my table.

I wish you were here

but you never are, never were.
you are a ghost
hiding behind words from far away.

It's been days of us reading
each other.
letters, commas, question
marks dancing
into a person.

I crane my neck to hear your voice
but there are only faint echoes,
like murmurs
from distant mountains.

There is a house on Trepidation Street
and it is where I have often lived.
You are beyond

a poem
you are beyond me
you are my fear in human form
because you are so many things I am not,

talented
intelligent
interesting.

you are what I've been looking for
and more,
it is this more that makes me fear
the distance
between us is further than my imperfection can take.

My own fear rests
in my occupation of this space
you've given me: between loving you
and wondering
if
you love me too.

or perhaps
in the realization
that no good poem will come to me untilyouleaveme
but I don't think any poem could be worth losing



you.

I am a leech hungry for pity.
I say I want death
but what I really crave is recognition for the life lost.

If I cut my wrists
will the red flash like warning signs
in an empty road?
will the blue of bruises
cry out to you like a lake in the desert?

How much will it take for you to see me?
I'm sorry my tears are colorless
they cannot paint the story of my pain
they cannot make the ribs of this cathedral
a stained-glass window.

I am as silent and grim as a cemetery
looking peaceful in just the right light.
Look beyond the beautiful
mausoleums,
the ivory plaques,
the angel statuettes...
dig deep for the decaying bones
the foul smell
the dead body that I am,
being eaten and gnawed by worms
and invisible, microscopic, living things.

She watches a drama on the television
calendar pages flying
from time’s prying fingertips
showing her,
reality is
slower,
trudging ,
dragging in its pain;
she paces quietly,
wandering down
lonely stairwells of her memory,
her feet shuffling,
slipping
on loose tiles
of broken promises.
the floor is covered in his tracks,
decaying leaves of fickleness, letters of blotted ink, thick gray scratches; 
his unsaid goodbye, lingering
heavy and stale,
the air
filled with the smell of him,
scents of his self doubt and insecurity.

I am in love

with the life that pours out of every slam poets' lips
the life that flips out from all my books pages
the life that pounds out of a good rock record
the life that flows in a contemporary dance folding with the music

the life you breathe into my lips
the life from the warmth of every hand
shoulder
and arm
stuck in awkward hugs
and interlocks.

I am in love with the life

lost

when the heart breaks
when the magical tree is cut down
when childhood fades
when the loved one dies
or lives
away.

I am in love with the life
stolen
by anger from hurt
by difference
       ...in names for the same God
          
                       ...in color from the same box of crayons
                
  ...in definitions from the same thesaurus
                      
                                                       ...in beliefs from misunderstandings.

I am in love with the life
we breathe
we swallow
we cry

right now.

I found a sketch
I did

of your face.

I am careful
as my fingers pinch the edge
feeling the straight line

one hand separating from the other.

I start from the top
and end in the bottom.
going the same direction as
us.

I am careful
as I rip away the shreds of you.

careful to destroy every semblance
to the face I tried to capture.

for the honesty that existed there
was one that my own hands
and eyes
added

and it is
in the mass of the irregular
white pieces
and gray lines

that I see the truth of you.

I grasp the pieces in my palms
and clasp
and feel
as they rest in the spaces
between my fingers

it is in this mass
of shapeless nothingness

that I begin to really feel

you.

I’m talking to you
in my head

been cultivating this shyness
since I was three years old

talking to inanimate objects

painted smiles, rubber-skinned
metal frames
turning wheels

the family minivan kept me company
as mountains rose and fell
like held breaths
let go.
playing games with pregnant raindrops
rolling down the glass
obsessed with the shark’s fin triangle
the wipers could not
reach.

I’m obsessing over seeing you.

always trying to be invisible
your eyes beginning to skim past I,

they didn’t used too.

“The voices that once spoke love
but did not mean love.”
the withered rose living
in the trash,
abandoned friends in the attic
forgotten songs
unfinished books

I am the forgotten
I am the abandoned
I am the left behind

cobweb-and-cotton-dust-collector
the silence connoisseur
I wear loneliness like an unwashed favorite shirt

If I die
Will you read this?
Does anyone else think such things
or is Tonio Kroger my only brother?

I am Kafka’s cockroach,
everyone is waiting for me to die
or to change into what you want me to be.

my name will not be in the history books
by the time my children’s children will have children
I am no one.

Everything fades in this world
like whiteboard-marker on acetate lives.

Desolate corners and garbage
tell stories
art is vandalism, vandalism is art.
and people wear diamonds but they are worth nothing.
and babies inherit their father’s eyes.

I am not yours.

You are not mine.
Isn’t ownership objectification?
If a man owns a clock
does the clock own the man?

Let’s be
money and greed
or
greed and suffering.
one cannot survive
without…

Let’s be
the mismatched pyramids
of wealth and population
form a parallelogram
like bricks on an unstable wall
never falling down.

apple

did you imagine red?
so did I
which is weird because the apples I eat are kind of yellow

asia

I said asia
not China

I remember the time
my history professor told my class to imagine asia
I thought of an exotic
country
with arab sheiks
and snake charmers

the Chinese
the Japanese
chopsticks
and the orient

it was then that she pointed out
"haven't Western ideas just messed with you?"

and it was then that I realized
"Wait; I'm Asian. I've lived in Asia all my life."
how come I saw it as something foreign
and strange?
I've never even seen the things I imagined.

I remember when I watched Big Bang Theory
and the four friends sat down to Thai food
Raj made the mistake of asking, "where are the chopsticks?"
which led to Dr. Sheldon Cooper saying
(in this paraphrased version:)
"they don't use chopsticks. They use spoons and forks.
The fork doesn't go into their mouth.
They use it to push food unto the spoon, which then goes into their mouth."

I sat there thinking..
well that's weird

when a couple of months later as I watched the episode again
I realized
that's how my people eat!
that's how I've always eaten..

the houses I picture in an average neighborhood
are two story
concrete structures
with shingled roofs

cul-de-sacs
and oak trees

my own house
is one story
of brick and wood
it is beside a highway
and surrounded by guava trees
and coconuts

I don't even know what a picket fence is.

Let me be the Bonnie to your Hyde
I can be the Z to your Scotty
Let's, let's ruin each other baby
Arms and fingers locked
Drugging the other down
We're two gnarled bodies, writhing on the ground

No morphine needed
We're both about the pain
Inhaling you fast
You're my line of pixie dust
I fly to fall down
Faith? Hope? I just need to suffer now.

You're the apple tree splinter
Poking my eye so I can't see.
The mirror on your door is me
And the fairest is anyone but you.
I'm your painting mr. Gray
Hide me in the attic; can't throw me away

Let's, let's ruin each other baby
Oh wait we already did or do.
These brass scales are getting heavy,
It's me for you

And do you hear that sound?
It's our siren lullaby.
We crash into each others'arms
Tied to each others' masts;
Drugging each other down
There's the frog and the water-sound.

We're one, we're done, well that was fun.

there was a brief moment
in our acknowledgement
of each other
when everything felt right
a shared smile
and locked eyes

but

it was precisely this ease
of slipping back into
what once was
which made everything
so absurd

and the jolt in my heart
pulled my head down
as I stared at my feet
walking away from

you

I bury my eyes
in shane koyczan's voice
feel the folds of the syllables
rolling off his tongue
in there a whole world could fall
fit
and burrow in.

I close my eyes
see nothing
but his fireworks

the tornado
the hurricane
the spewing raining lava of his words
as his sentiments color my insides
and paint the soul
of my soul*

I blink
squint
and rub away the clear cut
edges of my box
to finally
properly and openly
               
see.