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

do you think of marriage?
they say its an inevitable end
silver rings, golden bells
i hate the thought
but my emotional drought ends
and i am thirsty
and suddenly i am
thinking of marriage
half of mine, half of yours
how romantic, don’t you agree?
ours will be poetry softly spoken
to the ear of the Almighty
lovestruck, high maintenance
i have every reason to believe
you are heaven sent to me
if you want marriage, like i do,
you’ll need to scream my name
from the highest mountain
when the orange moon is at its peak
then i will come to you,
despite rainstorms, despite faults
how romantic, don’t you agree?

sometimes, i wonder
if you stretch
like a cat, before napping
under daylight
if so, i’d be the floor
normally, i’d be
inconsequential
but in the afternoon
when the sun is high
you’d choose a good spot
we would touch
then i would be
special

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

if you were icarus, i’d be the sea
ready to envelop you when you fall
perhaps i wished your wax wings melt
or you wouldn’t hear your father’s call

if you were ariadne, i’d be the labyrinth
every corner of me ready to confuse
your gold thread would end up in knots,
maybe i’d even trip up your theseus

if you were narcissus, i’d be the lake
ever-still, come even closer to my face
i’d feed into your vices then pretend
that you’re the hero in every case

if you were calypso, i’d be the island
invisible, bending to your every whim
when the shore lines up with a lost sailor
i’d be here when you’re done with him

if you were orpheus, i’d be the underworld
sing your song, bard, and get lost in me
my darkness will soften your hard footsteps
until you realize you could never be free

i used to swallow english dictionaries
force the foreign vowels in my mouth
chew them, grind them between my teeth
until they are
a facsimile of sustenance, substance
its sharp corners scratch my throat
then i water it down with
the warm satisfaction of approval
and i did this work, this habit
for years and years and years
my tongue has curved around the
space i molded it from
my teeth has bent from the pressure
of forced phonetic mastication
my voice has the tilted quality
of a bird snatched from the forest
in hopes of sounding sweet
i sound lost, i sound unsure
i try to retrace my grandmother’s voice
it lingers on my tongue, before it dissolves
like sugar on my lips

i want to pick us up
and push us back into a year
but i have a strange feeling
we would still end up here
this is why they call it a tragedy
the end was always clear

i want to sleep
i have given
too much
i have become rusty
my eyes sunken
and my back
is busted
this foreign language
optimized machine
selling words,
selling emotion
wants to spit
me out of it
to keep working
but i am so
sleepy, shut down
and so if the machine
is broken
and the soul, myself,
is weak
there is nothing
left to do
but to starve

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?

let the rain come pouring
smashing through the ceiling
let the wind shake the house,
make its bones stick out
depravity is thin, its ribs outlined
glass breaks, roof caves
debris sticks on my skin
plaster dust, a heavy breath
there are a dozen ways
you stayed hidden
in the framework, in the foundation
of my mind
my house is embedded by you
and only a typhoon can
get you out

i think you suffer
because you want to
you surround yourself with friends
to tell yourself you’re not lonely
that you are likable,
that you are smart
when the most special thing about you
isn’t even by your design
i think you cause
your own loneliness
the way you sit in silence in the dark
the way you let the seconds pass by
hoping you are closer to the end
than you really are
i think you make
yourself desolate
yes, you can pretend you’re fine
but after everyone
has gone home, credits roll one last time
the loneliness becomes heavy
and you carry it all
and sometimes, i wonder how you can

i lie on the surface
it is cold, it is lonely
the words in my mouth
taste like wine
i must have been a
poet who died at sea
i lie on the surface
it is warm, there you are
the words in my mouth
taste like water
do not mourn for me
when i sink

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

you know my weak spots
you know my bones
and the closet where i hide them
you know my haunted land
every twist, every corner
because i showed them all
to you
so do me a favor -
bury the map
and i’ll
bury the lede
let’s just call it quits

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.

it starts in the chest
a sting that reverberates
as clear as the church bell
split-second
it travels to the legs
to the top of the toes
and everything hurts
for a moment,
i cannot breathe
and then i blink
and it’s curdled into
anger, then disgust, then
sadness
before i take it by its neck
like a sick, unwanted kitten
and drown it in apathy
i understand now
how memory loss
might be therapeutic

it’s better to let the air out
than burying it deep
when is the last time you breathed
without your lungs caving in?
i heard you can bleed out poison
from a snake bite, from a person
i’ll help you out as i am curious too
but promise me first you’ll tell me
if i’m pressing too hard where you hurt

i think i’m better than this
lying in a hole next to the ditch
so now, i’m going to write you
relentlessly
i’m going to put my pen to the paper
and make you ******* bleed
did you think you’ve heard the last of me?
baby, i’m just starting
i think i’m going to write a story
where you and i get to kiss
before i leave you, leave you, leave you
in the footnotes, in the margins
squish your ******* heart
into the ink

show me the evidences
of your devotion, your love
i want to trace the veins
of regret, of anguish
in your poetry
in your pillowcase
in your head
open up the locked drawer
where you kept the proof
that i am yours
give me a centimeter
of the reality you lived in
where i was without
but kept within

the rain is sweet to me
its cold touch a motherlike hug
my feet are unsteady and
they are likely to slip
but the rain pours over
fills my shoes with liquid courage
and makes them fly

i find with surprise
red wine is sweet
paired with the
absence of you
it sits on my tongue
soft like a kiss
solemn like a prayer
my thirst, my hurt
is soothed
completely

whenever i feel like it
i hold you
softly in my hands
there you sparkle
there you shine
you,
a facsimile of reality
a fragment of the past
yes, tonight
you’re mine, all mine

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

sometimes i want to
it’s a passing thought,
a half-remembered dream,
a bullet on my to-do list.
and the only thing
really stopping me is
my mother
who cannot afford
another funeral

all these words for what?
god put all these words in me
for what?
i put meaning into things
live in a fantasy i built
i pretend i got it together
when i don’t
i am such a good liar
no one can
tell the difference
between me
being sarcastic or suicidal
because they see me dressed in sunshine
all the ******* time
don’t they realize
that the sun is slowly burning out?
but what’s funnier is
i make my own pain
(it’s objectively funny)
and i alternate crying and laughing
to the point
i’ve started having trouble breathing
my heart and my lungs
don’t know how to keep up
with the interminable pacing
of my ******* mind
all these emotions, these thoughts
this entirety of me
for what?
what is it all for?

you’re spoiling me
my insides and guts in disarray
yellow fungi, can’t you see?
cover every word i say

to you, this is preservation
keeping things in standstill
to me, this is degradation
going bad so slowly kills

see the thin white maggots lie
and how they happily feast upon
the meaty flesh of you and i
is this still part of all the fun?

a second lily has decided to bloom
its petals remind me of waiting

my hydrangeas are slowly wilting
the ends a murky brown

i have left the day spill into
a restless night, of mourning

there is much left to do
too much to do, too much growing

i know you’re asleep
but i hope you can tell
i have been praying
that you dream only
of good dreams,
that you live well
in a life
you’ve barely begun
to live

it’s a modern love song
and it goes like this:
party heels, glitter on the floor
your best friend’s second cousin
is passed out in the couch
someone ordered fast food
someone is crying in the bathroom
i think i saw a high school classmate
kiss my college friend before puking
leftover beer pong, the ice has melted
and made a puddle on the floor
i look for you in all this mess
mascara running on my face
soon everything is blurry
but one thing is crystal clear:
you somehow find me first
and haul my drunken self home

this afternoon's rainfall
reminded me of
the start of september
i remember -
the barely there glimmer
of the end or the beginning
though i could never tell the difference
the long, unbending river
of goodbyes i left drowning
in between the truth and lies
the simple quietness, the whisper
of my house, my room, my mind
as all stare back at me
watching me, no -
daring me
to fly

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

i want you to know
sometimes
i get scared of me too
i don’t know why
but to talk about it,
makes me want
to ask my father
to come pick me up

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

your sweatshirt
socks
my copy of Hunger Games you spilled juice on
rain-drenched Sambas
a navy blue comforter
your backpack full of ants
my sweatshirt
thrifted sheets of music with suspicious brown spots
a couple of DVDs we washed, thinking it would make them work again
your old Nokia
a pack of cigarettes
torn-up black stockings
polaroids to make that blurred effect
me

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

i am now twenty five
the number is evenly placed
between twenty and thirty
i hated myself at twenty
i wonder who i’ll be at thirty
the years seem to stretch
and snap back
i am now twenty five
i’ve had my heart broken twice
i used to think i’d never recover
until i do, and i always do
my friends have changed
my voice has changed
i don’t know what’s next
and maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be

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 wanted to hug you last time
i just realized what i want
(i should’ve done that)
i wanted to tell you
“everything will be alright”
i was up in my head
i was still a bit hurt
(from january, from july)
i’m slow to realize
but i really should’ve
hugged you
and invited you
(late realizations make me sad)

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

sometimes
i am terrified
of the heaviness
of my words
breathless, shapeless
but so very alive

do you know what it feels
to be hit by
cupid’s poisoned arrow?
at first, it is wonderful
to be pierced through the heart
the world adjusts to your new eyes
because a certain person is alight
there is music in the air
there is sugar in every bite
you make every excuse
just to be by their side
you don’t even realize it
but here comes the crash
storm clouds brew over
your perfectly sunlit life
suddenly, you’re dropped
from a few thousand leagues in the sky
falling in love?
more like falling to your death
cupid didn’t give you wings
he injured you with precision
his arrow hit a major artery, darling
you’ve been losing blood
hallucinating, fever high
all this time

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

i cover her in white musk, lily of the valley
there she lies
still, infant-like, and white
her body soft and barely there—
almost a mirage of the senses
she fits the palms of my hands
and i gently cradle her, meeting her at last
whilst covered in crimson blood
i think she had a life
i think she had a breath
i think her heartbeat was
louder than the metropolitan haze—
a homing beacon calling me
a cadence tied tightly to my soul
before she was felled by you
i bury her in white musk, lily of the valley
and finally send her to my father
in hopes for revival, survival
after all, he is the first person
who taught me how to live

the worst
has happened
i no longer
know
who you are

you could have
(insert verb here)
instead you did
nothing
do you know what’s
worse?
i could have too

if you called me
right now
this very second
this very second
this very second—-
why aren’t you calling?

no amount of wonder
is ever wasted on you
you’re made of stardust
magic, a periwinkle blue
no worries, no scary
monsters in the night
could frighten you
the horrors persist
and baby, so do you
your heart is strong
your lungs capable
your feet will take you
wherever you want to go
the distance between
now and whenever
is whatever you want it to be

you don't know how much love I can give
you worry about the abyss, the dark
you worry no one will remember you
but I have written you into everything
your eyes, the way they see
your mouth, the way it speaks

you don't know how much love I can give
if you let me trace you, then put you on paper
if you let me, I will leave behind enough words
for them to see your shape, your soul  
you have nothing to be anxious about
because
I will write you
I will love you
until the bittersweet end.

this is how much love I can give:
everything I have done, have written
is for you
and this love will be left behind
and you, my love, will be remembered
sleep quietly tonight