The cigarette hanging precariously
on the edge of that mouth. 
Those pursed lips exhaling smoke
and pouring my bedroom 
with the sick sweet smell of marijuana. 
Playing a body contortionist, eyes closed
to the beats of my favorite song. 
Dancing the last dance. 
And that wicked grin
playing no wicked games. 

Between wistful delirious visions of you
and the present unambiguous with your
absence,
sanity beckons.
And so I wait for your face to slowly
dissipate like the smoke
from your lit joint.

People will do anything to escape reality. 
Some find homage in strangers' words, some in books, some get lost in music, some in some sort of impending destruction.
One may flee reality for a few moments, hours or days.
But that doesn't drive away the problem.
It keeps on staring at you, like a fluffy puppy craving for love and attention, waiting to be understood and attended to. 
How long can be ignorance a bliss?

I'll take to my grave the overcast sky,
The pallid moon adorning the black velvet,
The string of iridescent lights on that balcony,
The pea sized solitary pink flower that floats in the pool away from its family in the bushes and gently brushes against my skin bringing my attention to its fragility and life in death,
The mustard streetlights shimmering in the puddles,
The many shades of blue and rose during sunset,
The cold gentle wind that kisses my nose like a puppy's bite,
The crumbled yellow dead leaves falling from the branches that shake,
The candlelight flickering and casting genteel shadows of its loved subjects for a brevity of time,
The black and white keys of the piano pouring delicate music in the air,
The warmth of a mother's love, the father's hug and a lover's embrace.

We are intersecting lines.
Not even parallel lines.
Even though singularity exists out of this world.
Parallel lines at least meet at singularity.

I fill my pores with tender poetry
because words touch me in ways any lover could not.

You clandestinely waltzed into my life
leavened my moribund nights
lifted me up
with your graceful arcs of gab,
full of bewitching sweet nothings
and swirling soft kisses
you held the vise for my time and
unmitigated attention. 
And I liked making you laugh. 

Happy little period
where we dabbled in
the daily saccharine twaddling. 
The days gave way to nights
and time warped into a honey glob
on declivity, disintegrating gradually
while gravitating. 

The bonhomie finally
fizzled out.
And I wallowed in disbelief 
at your furtive retreat
silly me, cocooned in ingenuity
waited for you to come back
whilst you moon walked 
and cachinnated with the hip chicks. 

Rivulets of tears
fused with cheap dark ***
and months rolled into years
yet no cue of your return.
You moved on and I was still
stuck three years behind. 
Love felt like a prison
where I was serving a life
sentence for your transgressions. 
Doleful eyed, weary of waiting
and heaving dolorous sighs,
nearing nadir. 
It took me a long time to
finally accept defeat
and obliterate the last
shreds of sanguinity.
It took me a long time
to realize that
I cannot chase love.

Sitting in the backseat of the car
suffused with the bonhomie
of a happy little family
I gaze into the rear-view mirror
pleased with my twenty two
year old reflection
Content with the richness
of the moment
I smile to myself and doze off. 
Somnolence exits and the 
nightmare begins unveiling
My world and I spinning together
in a collision of gas disgorging 
metallic machines on wheels
Gyrating out of rhythm
as the toppling subdued
shrieks of raw fear subsided
my family comes out unscathed, 
my head as if dipped in
dull scarlet paint
a forehead ripped apart
blood drops dancing on the lashes
I sit in a daze
processing the shock
with the smell of the blood
and a death that was near
and I say thank you to God.
For honoring the wish
of a ten year old who had prayed
please let it always be
her before them.

Whenever my peripheral vision
catches sight of that familiar flash of color,
I know the special visitor has arrived. 
I run to my window and never greet him. 
Just watch him, silently, in awe of his perfection,
inconspicuously. 
You see, 
Sometimes a glorious peacock graces 
my verbena and rose garden with its presence. 
It struts around proudly, with its trail of feathers,
judging the terrain, with those inky goblets. 
Sometimes it pecks its beak on earth
to wriggle out worms for lunch. 
Sometimes it has company. 
The cobalt blue and the earth-hued mingle,
gliding over glass blades, each movement so elegant
Their coarse voices produce a  delicious cacophony.
Other times, it stands still on the wall. 
And when a light breeze gives its feathers a gentle shudder. 
It flies away.
But remembers to come back again.

They were a thousand miles apart.
They had a petty fight.
So he sent her a parcel.
In it was an envelope
home to a green origami paper
saying just those three words
I love you
written in the shabbiest handwriting
in the thinnest strokes of a blue ballpoint pen. 

He's incredulously stupid. 
said she
as a slight, bashful half-smile quivered on her lips.

I found love, I lost my way.
I lost love, I sought my way.
This path, not an easy one they say
riddled with roadblocks and potholes galore
I stumble, fall, cry, bleed
I wipe out my tears and jump in the puddles
Splash muddy water on the bystanders who stare
Determined to make
this non-linear  hackneyed path,
beautiful and a work of art.

Countless neon thoughts sprouting
in a bajillionth of a second
whizzing past each other speedily 
like bullets
in every direction 
constructing a matrix
of your vestigial memories
in their wake.
And now I am trapped again.

The sun is beating down 
The wind is blowing
The leaves are swaying 
flashing brilliant beautiful illuminated greens 
The red prickly pears are in full bloom
It is a beautiful day.  

Inside, it is black and grey and cold.
The angst of unfulfilled dreams.
The anguish of unrequited love.
This bitterness, this resentment
is locked in huge icebergs of darkness.

But
When I sing off-key tunes at the top of my lungs
or lead the addling muddling trains of thought
on a path of fruition
or gulp down a beautiful day
do these icebergs thaw.
Little by little.

And slowly, I let the spring come in.

Look at me.
Back to square one.
Filling the void.
Heaving sighs.
Seeing you everywhere.
Everywhere.
In the book.
In the mirror.
Among the crowds.
The sky, the crowd, the beach, the sand, the stars,
The moon, the dark of space,
The dead fallen petals in the green of the earth.
In the water I drink.
The food I eat.
In the words, I try to gobble up.
In the words, I give my pen to.
In the long journey, when I look out of the window.
Everywhere.
I'm so mad about you.
But you don't even think about me at all, of course.

I loved you in silence for too long.
When you thought it started to make some noise, you tried to shut it up.
But my heart still sings for you.
Like the buzzing ringing sound of an obliterating machine.

If I could only split open my chrysalis of fear
I could then soar
like the two banana colored butterflies in tandem
their course creating love ellipses in the rose-tinted sky.

I hope when I dig deep inside my heart
to see what lies there
I find endless glitter and confetti. 
And only when enough pressure has build up in the core of my being
That an endless streamlined sparkle will burst through my walls 
or consume me entirely
when I explode into gazillion tiny strips of scintillation
and watch your ablution with pieces of me.

I lost you many years ago. 
Why do you still make me lose time?
Why it befell on me 
this need to immortalize
our awkward tongue pirouette?
Because it was the only real thing
we shared, which is now
frozen in continuum?
Because your words, 
your meaningless symbols
masqueraded as
verisimilitudes of unending affection?
Because I still hope that
you will come back?

Music
is my dementor's kiss in reverse.
Puts the soul right back in.
And makes the neurons giddy with love.

Tracing the 
blanched blotched skin on my burnt leg
takes me back to the days of
undulating cotton skirts and unblemished skin
under some summer sun.

Glorious low-hung autumnal sun.
Sunlight captured
in the halo of  my dandelion puff.

I sit by the window
overlooking a pretty garden
the laptop screen and I
awashed in the 
dull afternoon golden glow

No furrowed eyebrows
no taut forehead
no teeth clenched
no walking on eggshells
no crying

you're finally gone.