Your eyes were a familiar town,
A ghost town I call home

The first time we kissed,
We tasted soil in each other's mouths,
We both smelled fire
And felt burning when our fingertips touched

We had dreams of a natural disaster –
The rainfall of ash and pumice
People screaming, temples collapsing
And we woke up remembering
What buried us

We lay in bed
My bones on your bones,
My skin against your skin
My hands shook like an earthquake
I asked you, "Did we not die like this?"
You kissed me, unafraid,
"Were we not born from this?"

Choose your words carefully, now
Stick a coffee filter
Between your mind and mouth
Please try to control what comes out

Hold your tongue
Staple that muscle
To the pinks of your gums
Please just do it for my mom

End the R-word
Print it in a million books
And watch the pages burn
Put a stop to the harmful looks

Terminate "*******"
It isn't a synonym for "absurd"
It's not just a filler-word
My cousin is not to be discarded

If I could eliminate
The word I hate
I would cut the letters up
And hide them away from the ones that I love

Dispose of this nasty term
Cut this expression down
Watch this word infest with worms
And let the death be the talk of the town

Take flight upon the wistful breeze
mourn not the loss of mortal shell
let go of all with quiet ease
for those who loved you loved you well.

Then we shall sing a prayer for thee
a light to guide in passing peace
that you may rest forever free
as morning brings your souls release.

Find coastlines along the edges of your body,
mark your territory
and invite gallant young men to try their hand
at crossing a huge wall made of crystal glass
and steel verses.

Let them be afraid of the tombstones gathered
at the gates; tremble at their own risk
because your heart can't handle an unsteady hand:
it's filled to the brim.
And as the tourney dies down,
as the men scratch the surface
and leave with pieces of your arms,
your eyelashes, your cheeks,
there will be one
who is there when the dust settles.

Allow him to love you,
in a most consuming way; let him
take your body a shrine and let him
call it his only home.

Finally,
break his heart,
and watch as the poetry
spills out of you like
an angry river, from a spear
he wishes he'd hit into your chest
not cupid's arrow instead.

I guess she was a part of you. When she left, did she take a part of you away? Tell me, were you trying to fill the gap, the silence, and the darkness with everything in reach? I wonder if I was music or noise to you. Whatever I was, it wasn't enough to keep you close to me. Perhaps you knew you couldn't grab hold to that little ray of light, just like how you couldn't hold on to me. We've crossed paths and I'm still at the intersection where I last saw you; long after you left, I still see you everywhere. These songs are getting old, ringing like background noises that I got so used to- I still can't get used to life without you. Were you trying to convince yourself or me when you said you had gotten over her? Have you rid the emptiness or have you filled it with an even deeper abyss? I was a wreck, just a **** shaking with the breeze. You swept me off my feet, set me on fire and threw me away. The smoke is choking me and someone's screaming, "why'd you set yourself on fire?" It feels like a third degree burn is etched on my consciousness each time I go to places we have been. Sometimes, I walk exactly the paths we took and I can't bear to pretend you're still next to me. I'd choose to believe you did everything for my own good. The thing about missing someone and hurting is you don't mind it at all. And I never yearned for it to end. Time hasn't healed you and I don't know if it will ever heal me. All the would've been, could've been, should've been. Did I mean anything to you? You meant so much to me.

True criminal, I sold my soul and stole it back.

Dissipate into oblivion
To become the nether
To lapse in consciousness

To enter the void
Flow to omniscience
Live without measure
To float through the meshwork

To drift through space-time
& Become the needle
To weave my percipience
& Teeter on the precipice

To transcend ascension
Ameliorate the ethereal
To glitch beyond boundaries
Defragment my surroundings

To eclipse the sun
In perpetual rapturing
Suspend reality
Be one with the everlasting

Like snow dreams melted;
Oh! Toppled their crops like sticks,
And flew their souls!

I emerge at the calm before the storm
where they can't reach me by the quake
anymore.
Before the plunge I am unwithered and unworn
calling Mother at the folds where it was torn.

Cast as foetus and bag of stone
I am pulled down into a blend of effulgence
and the lungs linger in my mouth
before settling for breath between the bones;
marked by nascence and polished.

Held in an agitation of hands I am lifted
onto the summit of all things,
and she cries at the final separation
of our veins,
of our beings.