tell me.
*will
i
ever
reach
the
outskirts
of
your
soul?

I've been waiting for you
For a full Earth's rotation around the sun.
And I've looked everywhere
At the **** of three hundred and sixty-five cigarettes,
And in three hundred and sixty-five last sips of wine
In the last few seconds of songs sung
By forlorn ex-lovers
And I think maybe
It's at one of these ends
That I'll find you
Because the end is where I saw you last
So in three hundred and sixty-five nights of never quite
Falling asleep
I've merely been
Falling
Looking at the ends of cigarette butts, bottles, and ballads
For the end
The one you wrote
So that I can rewrite it.

Fear
fell into
my lap like
raindrops without the splash

But when I stand
the onslaught I
adopted is
gone

Art:
Bending or breaking a set of rules
Until the broken system
Finally resembles you.

Hey, where did you go?
You have such a beautiful voice,
And though I've never heard it,
And I've only ever read it,
It always sounded so wonderful through your prose.

I miss seeing your thoughts.
I think I've read you,
Straight through,
sEVEN times at least.
It's been since February that
You finished your work from January.
I want to know your mind again.

You started
Me.

You told me I was good,
A shock after my first attempt.
It electrocuted my doubts,
And saw sparks bursting from my creative capacitors.

Then you told me to grow some *****.

Well...
You can't change everything.


Then you said you wished somebody would write you the way I wrote her.


Hmmm...


When I call words to mind
And haphazardly plaster my paper with them
They're really just scattered collections,
Lessons in literature I've unconsciously taken from my favorite authors.

So,
Really,
You're already in every poem I write.

My favorite authors are the minds
That create bodies for themselves
From the bodies of their work and skill.

Well,
When you write,
You embody the poem.
All I see in those lines is your hand,
Back bent over your thoughts,
Wringing perfection from English.

Point is,
My poetry is already partly you.
But why would you want
A poem of you
Written by somebody like me
When your own poetry
Is more you than I could ever hope to be,
And when you are such a brilliant writer anyway?

Don't worry.

I'm here to tell you what you need to hear.
And it's not what you thought you would hear,
And it might not be what you deserve to hear.

Don't worry, it's me.
You don't know me well, but
You should know that I am kind.
I am gentle, and I think about you in that fashion.
My thoughts are not barbed wire,
Nor clear sky.

When I think of you, I think this:

You are foolish.
But so was I,
For years
For the same reasons as you.

And nothing can judge you
But the years,
And the years are nothing if not judgment's mirror.

Lonely years.
I would write poems of hate.
I tattooed my life onto the skin of so many notebooks.
Letters only exist on paper--
How badly I wished my depressing poems would be emblazoned proudly on my soul for all to read.
How cold I felt when I realized nobody wanted to get close enough to see them.

The only tattoos my mind bore
Were freezing outlines of emotions
None of which could burn hot enough to melt the ice they were etched into.

Then something magical:
Neurons. Synapses.
I realized that my mind is not a metaphor.
My mind is not a tangled mess of hyperboles and adjectives.

My mind is not poetry, and life is not scripted.
Nobody's brain is made of prose,
Much as some would like to believe.
Depression is not more noble because it is written well.
And if you have written it, believe me when I say that the way it flows when it is read aloud makes no difference either.

Do you understand?
Here it is, simply:
Step back if you find yourself a step too far into the world of the over dramatized.
Burn your depressed poetry.
It serves no purpose but to remind you of the state you are in.
It dwells in your long-gone years without thought of any future unless that future is your past relived until your future's end.

Poetry is not a coping method.
Poetry is an excuse to linger,
And "coping" is a very poetic way to euphemise that fact.
I have found this out the wrong way.
Poetry is as addictive as alcohol, as drugs, as depression.
They all go together well.
And they don't like to let go once they've started to hold hands.

What I'm saying isn't "stop writing."
What I'm saying is that if poetry is an excuse to linger, you have a choice.
What i'm saying is I hope you choose to linger on joy before you dwell in sorrow.
Because the longer you stay somewhere,
The more it feels like home.


Try to grasp the idea of just stopping,
Letting every idea go
And leaving.
And not coming back for a long time.
And doing it right now.

Realize:
1. The longer you stay sealed inside your mind, the longer you'll have to live with only words as company.
2. Words make terrible company when they're written in sadness.
3. The stars don't give a **** about words anyway.

Be like the stars.

Be with your friends. Make yourself laugh. It'll be hard at first. Then it will be easier. Then other people will be able to make you laugh too.



And one last thing to you specifically,
To you, the person reading this,
The person wondering silently,
The person I've been writing to this whole time--

Realize:
I don't know you.
But I love you.

This is not a joke or a ploy.

I love you.

Somewhere out there, there is somebody that loves you, and it is me and I am not afraid of it.
Find me,
And I will love you openly.
Because if you have the strength to find someone you don't know, you have the strength to find yourself too.
And then you won't need a stranger's love anyway.

"sumulat ng mga "paano kung" sa buhay ng isang tao
may mga pag-ikot o pagbabago sa mga konklusyon
sansaglit nguni't mahaba nung nilikha
may mga tainga sa mundong ito, nag nagkukusang-loob
bukas and mga palad at bukas ang mga labi akong tatanggapin
nangingibabaw sa kanilang isipan ang pagbating ito:
"Maligayang pagdating, Makata,
Sabihin mo sa amin..."

welcome poet, tell us....

Translated-for me by Sally, who welcomes everyone...

Just an an excerpt from http://hellopoetry.com/poem/615068/where-has-writing-gotten-me/

underneath the stars, i am holding your hands.
your grip tortures me, it kills me.
then the look in your eyes, i cannot
take it.

slowly my skin touches yours, filling every
gap in my soul.
lips are trembling, my knees, they
are weak.

i want to embrace you, feel every part
of your body.
i want to kiss you,
from head to toe, everything.

but . . .