the worst feeling is when you can't feel a thing. you desperately search for names that they call for the emptiness in your being, but you can't find any. then somewhere in the back of your mind, a voice reminds you that your lungs were void of emptiness; your lung's emptier than empty. there's not even air, and you can't breathe, but you're not furious, you're not upset, you're not even afraid, but you know you're won't be okay. and you can hear your heart, as if it's singing a tune. but it's nothing like those soft melodies your mother hummed while trying to lull you to sleep. it's not the high pitch whimpers you hear in never-ending tunnels either. in fact, it's worse than that. it's just a flat tune, as if the notes were awfully written on a horizontal line. the line that looked like the green display that attaches itself to a critically ill patient, the one that steadily beeps and jumps up and down as if rejoicing for the demise of someone. and it goes all happy and screams at the top of it's mechanical lungs: one long beep. and then the patient's gone. no really, actually you are gone, and no one seemed to be able to save you. you can't feel a thing no matter what you do. defibrillators might bring a pulse back for the patient. no don't get too hopeful, it won't for you, nothing will work on you. overdosing on feelings have already got your body immune. i bet on the red unfeeling machine in my chest, that no course of electricity could ever get the nerves in your brain to connect to the channel that teaches you how to feel. even if you crack your skull open, you probably wouldn't find it. and it's a terrible terrible thing, to not be able to feel. you don't really feel alive at all. so tell me, do you really long for the feeling to not feel a thing? because i did. and i wonder why i did.

Dear friend,

Is this what they call reading between the lines, as I desperately searched for signs that show I do not mean as much to you as you claimed me to?

Distance is a brutal thing, it stabbed us in the chest without a warning and as our hearts that used to lie so close starts drifting further apart, I cannot believe you still think i'm next to you. I am sorry for scratching at the letter you sent, I thought the lines might fall and the letters will rearrange into something I know. Were you writing to me at all? Your words do not speak to me anymore.

A few months ago, you were thrashing in your tears. You grabbed everything that could keep you afloat. I am terribly sorry, because I knew I became your everything. Today, you tried to find the pieces that you never saw me drop. I never said I wanted them back. What if I told you I never want to be whole again?

The road is warped and there is no way I could find my way back to you. Do not attempt to direct me when you never wore my shoes; do not say the stars shine for us when you were free from these sickening walls that exists only in my mind. I am sorry to hear you have paved the ground for us, for I will destroy what I set foot on. You should know I never had a home, and you have to see that we will part someday.

Quit believing in me because i remember how it feels when i realised all that i believed in was nothing near the truth-I will never allow you to compare me to the sun again, for it sets so steadily while i walk in halting footsteps; when it fades beneath the horizon, I am afraid you won't be able to cope with the cold that the night brings. It scares me, when you said I was your everything. Please, hold on to something real, that nothing and no one can take from you.

Do not pin all your hopes on me. I am not as strong as you.

i woke in an asylum ward.

the skies were replaced by tainted walls
and the sun, by a menace clock
the second hand clicked its tongue
60 fifes and the minute hand waves
every hour, a blade-like hand
drags my knees across the polished floor
and i wonder why they bothered
paving the ground for me
when my skin only tore like glass
flesh exposed and the doctors do not see

my fingers hurt from the hands i hold
but i can't let go.
what if i run out of time?

the smell of chemicals overpowers
the scent of flowers
the epitome of time was the wilting
as i am dragged out of sight

they say time will tell
but all i hear is the hollow echoes
of sharpened clockworks
i fear a wrong move will throw the sparks
into the gas tank that we drink from

my name is not on this bracelet
the doctors draped across my wrist
and if i don't tear these walls apart,
these hands might drag me into a morgue.

No one ever told you about the poet that destroys all around him
so he could breathe the ashes of what he loved.
Broken things can be beautiful.
Don't ever fall in love with him for he will fling you against the wall,
and then write about how you broke him.

Warped mind, he won't remember he's the one that slammed the door.
He won't remember he's the one that sealed the chimney.
He won't remember locking the windows.
He won't remember suffocating.

He won't remember he already died.

I am clueless as to how I have dug a hole in this concrete ground, 60 feet deep. The dust I’ve been choking on does not bother me no more, layers piling upon my lungs like snow upon an exposed carcass. The slightest upheaval of my chest and tingling in my lungs reminds me that I still breathe. I’ve met scaffolds of bones down here. As I stare into their hollow sockets, I could never figure if they were ever esurient for something I held. They taught me how the ocean is never blue but only a de facto reflection of the sky. They said many mistook the sea for the sky, but never once mentioned the salt that contaminated their lungs-  the impetus that drove their feet 60 steps into the waves. A reconciliation it must have been. I doubt it made any difference, when their hearts were bleeding out; a pity it doesn’t make it any lighter. Down they sank.

I wonder if I mistook these soils for the sky. As I looked up, I realised that the sky only seemed further away. There’s something peculiarly comfortable down here, the little bumps on the walls and contours of the craters looked like jawlines of a new-found friend. The sun is so blindingly high in the sky. I preferred how sometimes I could see the man in the moon- shadows cast by imperfections on the moon’s surface. In the vague moonlight and scrawny silhouettes, the fact that the moon always has a dark side makes it tangible a thousand miles away. Sometimes, I lay on this wooden receptacle discovered upon excavation and gaze at the empty skies with my friend as he tells me what lies outside this trough. Happiness is a pack of hungry wolves and when they are done, you are left with only your marrows. I see things clearer down here, than above where they are smothered by smoke from the trees they burned to the ground. Sometimes the skies are dark with no hint of dusk, sometimes the sky is filled with white nebula; but most of the times, the days are shorter than the nights. But it never gets any darker down here.

I figured I could never mistake this hole for the sky. I was just chasing these broken pieces like I used to chase happiness. I have no idea how I’ve gotten this deep while trying to pick up these pieces that I don’t recognise. But the struggle tells me it’s real, and the pain keeps me awake. They say if you spend enough time with someone, you will fall in love. I guess that’s what happened between sadness and me.

I’m staying here.

As the moon found its way to the sky, the crowd began to spill in. Chatters about how this will be a new start drowned the screams of a skeptical man, and the extravagant lights towered over the burning stars; we forget that they exist.

I watched the short castle walls and bobbing skulls. How lucky are these children that they have not lost their heads;

for the mannequins had half their head mutilated. It wasn't a pity- they needed no eyes, they didn't have a soul anyway. It's funny how they looked pleasing to the human eyes though. So hauntingly beautiful, like an incomplete work of a deranged artist.

I wonder if they had forgotten to take down the christmas decorations, or if it was newly hung for the new year. The lights seemed to drip down scrawny fingers; the tree must have inhaled rusted air from the killing machines on the road.

I could already picture crowds downtown getting ready for a countdown to nothing meaningful. As they release the fireworks into the skies, it shall catch the undivided attention of wandering eyes. Tired eyes light up at the sight of explosions and the smoke cling so tightly to their skin without them knowing. They're lucky smothered skin doesn't complicate their breathing. Or are they not? At least no one will consider getting under their skin anymore.

5! 4! 3! 2! 1!

oh another night has passed, but why hasn't the sun risen?

some days i dream that you will carry me home
on the once familiar road again
i recalled how you'd wince each time
my knees came in brief contact with your hips
i never knew why
and you'd refuse to put me down
your lips curled into a tight smile
i wondered what lies behind the creases by them

the path beneath my feet seemed to crack
as i carried my heavy lungs back
to this house of cards built from 52 empty promises
where the summer wind burned our only solace into ashes
it carried your skin away but left your bones with me
i took a gamble and i lost it all
all except your hollow bones

the queen had a ***** in her hands
standing in front of our door
but you were supposed to win this war
i had my stakes all on you.

and as my feet got tangled in the cobwebs
i almost mistook them for medusa
prying my eyes open to the hearts we carved in the trees.
"give him back to me! he's mine!" i clawed.

oh but isn't it funny how the scars on the bark remind me of
when i touched your bare hips for the first time in the dark.