sometimes
                                                       ­                         my
                                     ­ brain
                       doesn’t
                                                       ­     work

right
                                                ­                               and

                             my

                                              thoughts

     ­                                         scatter

               ­                                                    like
                               beads

                                     spilled
                               on
                                                              ­                 tile

floor

The truth is I have no idea how to begin this
because I don’t even remember
how or when exactly you began to invade my consciousness.
you were an uninvited guest, a gatecrasher, an intruder
filling my mind with paranoia and endless dilemma —
how I contemplate about going out or not
because I get overwhelmed with crowded places
like public transports, and malls, and fast food chains,
how I s-stutter whenever placing an order,
or how I could not finish one sentence without repeating
repeating a word or or two.

It might sound funny how I find a sea of people terrifying,
how I feel a dagger or a gun pointed at me every time I step
outside my comfort zone,
how I would replay failed scenarios inside my head like a broken tape,
how I would apologize for actions that demanded no apology.
I often get nightmares about being asleep and not being able to wake up
and sometimes I dream about waking up in a strange bed in a foreign room
filled with people with the strangest faces talking in tones barely audible
but when the voices would all stir together
I would run out of air and pass out,
but I still wake up though, screaming, trembling
signaling another episode of survival.

If I could drive, I would take you away with me and bring you to a sunset beach
tell you that everything’s gonna be alright
that it’s okay to knock me down sometimes
but not too hard to break me
just enough to remind me that I am, after all, human
Or maybe I would drown you or maybe not
because I get too overwhelmed with the waves
I struggle against the current,
and I am the one who gets drowned instead.

I hate you, no, I mean I love you. I should love you
because they said those we love are meant to leave
So I will love you, I will love you until you get tired of me,
until you no longer find me appealing
I will love you obsessively, until you get sick of me,
until you run out of places to run to, until you run out of air
I will love you until I run out of words and metaphors
and rhyme or reason,
I will love you with the hopes that one day I could finally say:
“My anxieties have died beautifully, with dignity,
in their sleep.”

The sort of home you want to be in,
When all you can focus on are the buttons of his suit,
Tightly woven into the fabric, brand new

Is not the same house you were in when he was alive

Its 3 AM staring at the floor, begging for the sleep to take you,
Anywhere
Even nightmares are better than this, nothing.

The solemn stares churn my stomach,
Somersaults with acid, my body lurches
Doubling over in the pain that is grief.

When the eyes in a room all fixate on you,
It's difficult to hide in a box inside your own head,
Because they tear the walls from your fragile shelter,

And their rain is a burning flame,
You are the match that refuses to be put out,
But wants desperately to feel nothing.

The sort of home I want to be in is
Roses, the thorns cut clean from the stem,
Green tea, just the right temperature
And an old console with his favorite game loaded up

But that house is abandoned,
Left like last week's sawdust,
Swept under the rug in a pile of books,
And i am the can of kerosene in the corner of the room,

Waiting to be used in the most vile of ways.

I am an unlit candle in the midst of a hurricane,
The shadow of the night sky blotted out by the moon
I am the fading smile of remorse,
The pang of guilt,
The sorrow of loss

I am the broken inside of you,
The one that eats away at you until the shell is broken apart
And you are all that's left
In the dictionary, i look up sad and expect a picture of me,
Depressed is myself in my room, alone
Suicidal is the knife i once picked up,

Daring to question if my own beating heart was worth the blood

My House is boarded windows and jail cells,
The crawlspace of cobwebs and creaking stairs,
The leaky roof and patchy ceilings

I am all but a finished mess,
And my foundation is cracked and split.

There is always vacancy,
Because who wants to stay in a house like that?

I’d rent out the rooms, but i'm paying for their rent
if they choose to live inside these decrepit walls

I only wish someone would see the shambles
As a start, and not the leftover parts from a failure,

If these 4 walls housed opportunity,
Instead of destruction.

My house, is a home that i long since enjoyed.

I do not know whose eyes perceive
my finite movement toward light.

Each letting go, a small cry,
each forward move my life's
migratory assurance of what
none of us can ever know.

The genetic certainty of cells
propels the forebrain
with its stumbling feet,
while a heartache of hope
wins each moment even
as it is lost to the next.

And we must accept
the impermanent flow
that is like air, necessary
and sacred; tears are not
the only salt of sorrow.

I don't like that picture framed,
Looking from my shelf;
You're no longer like that,
No longer you're yourself.
I don't like your smiling eyes,
I don't like your hair,
I don't like the way you look,
I don't like you there.
I had plenty,
I was twenty,
A life ahead of me;
I don't like your picture there,
Looking down on me.

I'll place a new shot on the shelf,
A recent picture of one's self,
Mirroring pangs of time,
The heartaches that are mine.
A picture of an aged-worn man,
A head that droops,
Shoulders stooped,
A face laced with worry lines,
A wry smile covering crimes;
A still life and a pantomime.
I don't like that picture there,
When I was in my prime.

To live a life in perspective
I’m told you need to define a horizon
line eye level to the viewer.

From my hill of years the view is fluid
as in watery, but also as in unpredictable.

On the sea’s face a wall of fog moves in
and out like histories remembered
and forgotten.

Sometimes silver striates the sea
with such a glitter of insight
I am bedazzled and cannot look.

Sometimes fogbank and ocean merge
with such blue-gray unity it seems
the horizon rises so that I stand on
the shore, dwarfed by a surf of knowledge
that pounds at my ignorance.

Sometimes the sea becomes invisible,
the white air a questioning emptiness,
a finger-touch of damp against the cheek.

no, I'm not talking about the ones with big noses
or greasy hair

not the ones with bad breath
or round bellies

no, I just like them raw
a little broken, a little sad

the ones with scars
a story to tell

I sure know how to pick em' you might say
but I'd never give them up any day

a whole adventure in a person like the outdoors
one with canyons and mountains he would let me explore
only ugly guys give themselves all at once
no parts hidden, everything is exposed

vulnerability is thought to be a weakness but in reality it's bold

I like ugly guys.