i think
there is nothing
better than
agate blue
quiet stillness
earth is a
faraway thought
i am already empty
my volume
should be
water instead
of my blood

you don’t need to go there
you don’t need to open
every door that your mind
takes you to
you don’t need to do this
the labyrinthian musings
you don’t need to be
a snake eating its own tail
you don’t have to seek
paths no one else
has been back from
lay your head on my lap
let your worries fall off
your shoulders
i will braid you a story
that has a ribboned end
and you will be able to sleep
at last

a stream is a river is a sea is an ocean
a cycle of water breaks free from the same waters
and if anger is the conditioned emotion
we follow same circles, same eldest daughters

i think there is something
wrong with me
yes, i know you found nothing
in my results but
i am indigo pale in the sun
the river that flowed in between
the cracks of my spine
has ran its water out
and i carry
clouds heavy with depression
tar-like, and beating my chest
plummeting me
to the depths, the depths
of sorrow i felt five years back
and i’m telling you, doc
i don’t think i am meant
to feel this much

an orange skyline, ultra-thin and sleek
i take my mother’s scissors and hold it
in my hands. it weighs as heavy as her love.

a chrome red road, glittering and smooth
we run to familiar shadows, familiar monsters
after all, their footsteps sound like love.

an azure getaway car, rumbling and ready
i give you the scissors and you hold it
gently. it becomes water in your love.

a yellow streetlight, bent and rusted
under its pallid color, there’s no monster waiting
after all, could there be fear when there’s love?

an evergreen tree, still and quiet
the car has stopped in a field of wildflowers
sunrise has come and it looks like love.

they have taken my words
and minced them up
in front of me
this is a familiar hell
this oubliette, this hole
this ******* landfill
of words and words and
words have
lost meaning, lost color
as little by little
i am pulverized
to grain, to salt, to dust
over and over again
over and over again
over and over again

i would like to run away
far from the bogged down
existence i have made
sell my clothes, my hair
sell my words still
dipped in my blood
i’d use the money and
board a train, a ship, a plane
**** it, i’ll move to an island
everywhere’s an island
if i tell no one where i am

i am a narra tree
i want you to cut me down
with your sharp ax
slowly
measured breaths
your sweat
my branches
down
down
down
i go to the ground
we leave my roots behind
my body will be your house
and i will haunt you
you will want me
curved
straight
smooth
until i am in
the floor
the walls
the ceiling
my body will be your house
and i will haunt you
until you want me
out of everything
push me out
drag me out
curse me out
but remember, i was a narra tree
and i wanted you to cut me down

when time sits with me comfortably
i forget i was ever thirteen - even twenty
she is someone i can barely hold
her laughter is made of stuff purer than precious gold

when time sits with me comfortably
i despair at the thought of being thirty
she is someone i can barely hold
her dreams are the dinner table food i left out and gotten cold

when time sits with me comfortably
i feel like i am choking from inside out, endlessly
but to think on it too much makes the suffering unending
and before i sleep, i think what i feel isn’t pain but understanding

i love being soft with you.
gravity is nothing compared
to how you ground me.
the earth shakes, the skies break
and yet
i’ll always know you and
you’ll always know me.
i think about the laughter,
and the next chapters
and usually
the thought, the changes
make me anxious
but you make it better
by existing, by staying.
mike, have i ever told you?
i love being soft with you.

i think you can dilute me
in the southwest monsoon
that buries the city in july
i let the gray rainfall
choke me, drown me
until all my colors have
bled through me

i think i can dilute me
and make me easier
tolerable for you
to drink up, to love
there is nothing more i want
consume me, renew me
make me water in your hands

i think there are other people
out there, waiting for me
but i don’t want to wait for them
when i have waited so long for you
so just dilute me, **** me
let me be a chasm
and fill me up, up, up

i think you can make me
into someone you will miss

im so
humgry
im so so
hungry
my stomach
hurts
im so
******* hungry

i return to the shore every night
the waves in indigo shades
i bury my feet in the sand
i am exhausted with my heart

the night makes a quiet friend
she is the cold fog and a starless sky
i swim past the ivory coral reefs
i am exhausted by my heart

the hurt settles on the ocean floor
it feeds the algae floating by
i drown to make sense everything
i am exhausted for my heart

i am standing on the ledge
the precipice presses
on the soles, in the soul
and chills me to the bone
i am standing on the ledge
and i am about to jump
into the unknown, evergreen
thoughts of mine flourish in
the inky, lonely midnight
i am standing on the ledge
if i look back, if i could turn
you and a hundred thousand people
stare at me, waiting
for me to flail, to fail, to fall
i am standing on the ledge
there is no safety net,
no wires connected to a pole
no helmet placed on my head
this is how i know it will be painful
i am standing on the ledge
there are no constraints,
no mistakes yet shackled to my belt
but the wide, glittering skyline before me
is how i know it will be glorious
i am standing on the ledge
my knees forward, my heart -
a clever, fragile thing - beats
strongly and reminds me i am alive
i jump -

in soft hours when your heart’s
awake dreaming
and you feel a soft whisper
gently tracing
your skin, your spine to your soul
that’s me loving
you

have I ever told you?
you are the August moon, December rain
and I am summer year-round.
when we meet, the light catches
and from your rain and my sun
we make a burst of color -
fleeting,
beautiful,
and never real.

i hope you

- lick rust, get tetanus, and die
- forget your keys in the car
- step on glass, get a foot infection, and die
- get a mind-numbing toothache from 11 PM to 2 AM
- get stuck in space with your oxygen running out
- never find someone who matches your freak
- compute your GPA and realize you’re a few points away from getting Latin honors
- choke on boba
- get bitten by an unidentified venomous snake and you don’t have access to the antidote so you slowly die
- get CC’ed on a HR email before you clock off
- time travel, get stuck in the 1800s, and die from cholera
- trip on your shoelaces and land on dogshit
- never find the other sock
- are the last person alive in a zombie-filled apocalyptic wasteland
- miss me

march is ending soon
and i admit, i still see you
in girls wearing silver bracelets
in lovelorn incomplete phrases
in lilac flowers hanging on vines
in a curious cat’s blinking eyes
i stare at them a second longer
and let myself softly linger
march is ending soon
and i admit, i still see you

i had a dream - you and i
were forty-ish in a room
stuck at some premiere,
maybe yours, maybe mine
our eyes would meet
and i think, or maybe i hope
neither of us would look away
and you would finally smile
and i would smile
and that would be enough

come meet me
in dreams, tinged in orange hues
like the ones in movies
where they walk in between trees
talk for hours, holding hands

tell me your troubles
i know the stones you keep in
your head, your chest
i have a better idea for them
let’s run to the lake

you’ll have one, i’ll have the other
watch them skip, circles on the surface
before sinking, forgotten
do not worry, we will be bathed
in golden daylight when we wake

laughter is now empty
how the voice shakes
vibrating in the air
marking the territory

there are a
million, million things to do
there is nothing i can do
but wait for you to
wake up instead

silence is overbearing
but what can words do
but make things worse?

it’s a heavy feeling
wanting to die
i get wrapped up in it
caught in the rain with it
buried six feet under it
it’s a heavy feeling
when it is just me
and this
pounding, screeching
in my head:
how could there be
any space for my living
when already
i am holding hands
with my death?

goodness is not
an inherited trait
we were born to
learn violence
the soft animal
that breathes inside
hungers for the
clawing, the blood

goodness is not
an inherited trait
devoid of all emotions
we choose to survive
it might be a knife
to the back
or a bullet
in between eyes
but we all will choose
certain certainty

goodness is not
an inherited trait
we are awake at night
because
we close our eyes
when we get
too close to
the sun

with forceps and scissors
i open myself up
i incise parts of you
still lingering around
the sharp cuts are
methodical, swift -
the poetry is
messy, unrhymed.
with every snip,
i can feel you
leave me
in my lonesome
tiny, quiet life.
it makes me sad,
it makes me happy,
it makes me angry,
and then
i feel nothing
at all.
this apathy, i think
scares me
the most -
have i given you
everything,
after all?
i put this thought
back inside,
i slowly stitch myself
back,
seven of them
holding me together.
if it were possible,
i would like to sleep
for a long time.

let the dark engulf
the past life i had?
i was thirteen when i saw
my closet held
too many bones
too little clothes
is it kindness
to become
an entirely different
person to protect
the tiny threads
unravelling in my soul?
it is too open, too wild
to be awake right now

i have seen the shadows move
i have held hands with
the monster hiding under my bed
i cannot tell you its name,
only that it whispers in my ear
seconds before i sleep

i have heard the moon sigh
i have let its crescent mouth
laugh at my tears as i watch
silver clouds stream lazily
and a sole distant yellow star
blinks once, twice before it leaves

i have touched the velvet hide of the night
it is true, the world sits on the back
of a quick black cat and she runs
across time, never quite catching
the mouse she’s been chasing
for a while or forever

the trouble with friends
from what i’ve learned is
that often they only eat
in a table you’ll need
an invitation to

graciously, you must
accept the request
as if your stomach wasn’t
desperately craving
hunger devouring you

remember to be
inoffensive, tasteful
make yourself palatable
don’t forget the garnish -
only then their dinner’s served

i know this is overwhelming
but what else can you do?
you do not want them to
chew and spit you out -
you want to be digested

i don’t understand
why doesn’t anyone want me?
i have a body ready to be carted
i have a soul ready to be juiced
my back is tired from the constant
push and pull, pull and push
this has been more than enough
i don’t understand it
i am a willing participant
to the exploitation
you don’t even need to ask
my mouth is already open
i am dying to be used
pulverize me into a husk
empty out my emotions
you will have no regrets with me
i can be a good machine

the world is quiet whenever i cry
i could hear the birds, the leaves
falling softly to the ground
a sort of drunken lullaby

i unravel
the words are
so heavy
but the break
has no sound
i unravel
there is a
typhoon
on top of
my head
it hurts
to think
i unravel
i spent the day
quietly
nursing my
wounds
like a scarred
wild dog lost in
the field

there is a field
at the very, very end
i will meet you there
heart still, eyes facing
the wild, wide sky
there will be
a feast waiting
a table set
and there will be
enough for everyone

the letters used to taste vanilla sweet
they now stick in my throat cloyingly
it is so hard to pronounce,
a four syllable reminder of you
the shape of your name
has its edges sharpened
has its corners sticking out

(my mouth moves to kiss the air before tugging
the corners of my mouth back into a sneer
then i open my mouth twice, chomping
at the ends of your name, ending in a scream)

i used to trace it nightly
the slopes of your initials in my palms -
it was a river bend in its grace
it was a story in gentle motion
it was daybreak with lilac skies

now, your name is stuck in my throat
refuses me relief, refuses me reprieve
in a decade, in a second
perhaps then it will stop hurting
and yet the thought of that scares me
i want your name to hurt -
it is, i think, some semblance of love
i want to choke in it before i give it up