It was after a long-awaited response
(Which turned out to be a slap to the face
Rather than a fresh kiss tinted with sunlight)
That, instead of mournful silence
(It is silence that I often miss),
I giggled at a thought;

I feel like a dog running alone in
A cantaloupe field,
Just a little melon collie.

A small girl taps on my shoulder while
I try to nurture the small smile playing on my lips.
My face scolds it and life returns to its
Regular programming,
Leaving me with the wisp of happiness
And the sense that he was wrong.

It is the most intimate a situation he had ever found himself in.
On a public transport, after someone had left their roost,
He had replaced himself in their seat.
An odd sensation went through him as he sat down,
The feeling that he was trespassing in someone else's skin,
Learning things about them they hadn't meant to leave behind.
He felt their warmth, the way the seat contoured to them
And he knew not their name.
There were feelings left in the seat
Sadness, depression and pain saturated the resting place,
Yet something lifted his heart out of his chest,
Rising from his perch and flying to the sky.
Hope had also been found through the prior resident,
Remaining in the seat like a lost wallet.
He drew on this remarkable gift amid the monotony of the rocking subway;
The gratification he felt toward this unknowing Maecenas was not to be extinguished,
At least for that one blissful moment found on
Public transportation.

It's strange how
there are pros in golf, medicine, and even body language,
but no one will admit that they are pros at
tracing the lines on their thighs from old scars
or knowing their hands’ feelings when they see an ex’s face
or dodging people’s inquiries about their wellbeing.
There are unrecognised experts
in all fields of sorrows and pains in our human experiences.
Shame that those most familiar with the least explored topics
tend to give up or give out
while those least familiar attempt to drown the veterans’ cries with
I know how you feel
You’re not alone
It’s okay
I understand
And we who know best
smile and nod, thinking forward to when we will be home alone
thinking backward to
all that was
all that is
and when it was simpler
and before this.

My soul envies my eyes, my heart longs to see
Just for one moment. For my eyes have done what I
Have failed to do: held you.
How long have I looked at you laugh
And cried inside? How have I drowned
I love you
From fighting to your lips but with my tears?
And yet I strive, I yearn, I hope
You will see me and
An envious heart in your chest might revolt;
I might inspire some holy endeavour in your soul
You look into my eyes, hold my gaze

I look away
You understand now
I was too open too fast and again you know me better
All of me was in my eyes but I couldn't find your heart
I suppose it wasn't there for me to find.

3.36 found my eyes open
Alone in a bed, a drought amidst
Cracking thunder and abusive rain.
My farflung thoughts dodged droplets
As they struggled to reach you.
You were dancing with Jupiter,
Quickstepping through asteroids and waltzing over elden craters
Creasing the face of our peaceful watcher of the night.
As you passed by, I
Reached for you, attempting to defy the tethers at my feet.
I glanced down at them--realized they looked like hands;
Hands I knew held me from you as if
You were some toxic drug and they were doing so
"For your own good," like they would know
What good you could do for me.
Can they not feel my desert heart
Nor see rain forest eyes?

You were scheduled to return yesterday,
Then today, then hope slipped from my scope
Pointed to the stars, searching for your
Blazing trail of fire. The sky is dark.
Still I say my prayers
That, in your brilliance and splendor returning,
The pyre consumes you not.

I'm pressed and stressed, my
Heart
Pounds, echoes across the far-flung corners of the world
Where you stole away my heart, then
Dashed it against the ice of your own,
Beyond hope of recognition. I wish there was a chance
That a small fragment of me still clings to your cuff,
that you might still carry a part of me with you.

The moon shines bright overhead, gleaming and proud, the undisputed king of the night. But his reign comes to an end soon enough. Streaking colour shows its extravagant self meekly, under a band of presiding dark blue. The blue marches ever on, stately and cool in his mission. Where he is going I do not know, only that I can never follow quite as quickly. He gives way to dainty pink scars climbing the canvas, much in the way a mum gives way to a child growing in wisdom and in stature. The collection of onlookers isn't quite sure what comes next and hangs in celestial silence as the scene unfolds before them. Behind them, a quiet wonder turns the canvas from blue to purple. No one was more shocked than I to see violet light from the heavens in the face of a yellow ruler. The rebellious purple seems to realise his folly and quickly transformed into a pink of sorts, a much more agreeable shade for the occasion. I miss his first grin though, the unapologetic first hue, the dare to be new. From here it is slow going until it isn't anymore. I stare at the same striped world as handmaidens rush to awaken all who are needed for a sunrise. Even now I can see from where life will rise, such a golden carpet is already rolled out. It will be very long until he makes an appearance, but I shall wait. I will wait for him because he is my love, my heart, my one. I will stay all day and night to see him anew if he decided to stay away for a day.
My world is more sky than land, to which I am tied. Whether an act of mercy or pride, I see the sky every day from afar, always yearning to be drawn closer some day and find myself laying in the hands of the stars.
Finally the scuttling onlookers are rewarded with touches of heat and light and life from my love, and they seem to shrink away. Why would some run from him? What causes one to leave so enthusiastically when he has finally come? It's the jubilation time, what a time to be alive!
The moon hangs nearly where he started, dully marking the sky. Half proud and waning silently, he jealously slinks away, the only one who shines not at sunrise. No one sees him leave.

night is falling,
          falling,
       falling
the clouds rush to and fro,
needless journeys with no end nor beginning
scrolls of verbs written across the sky in messy
tangles
of confusion and stress and mayhem.

wind picks up leaves and dances with them,
but tethered they are and tethered they shall stay
and the wind quickly finds the only companions that are his to keep for a while longer
are birds and misplaced people wrapped in tinfoil.

a noise echoes from far away
singular ears strain toward the nothing that is something
searching for more and more

as something begins less and less to shine
and the stars never rise from bed
except to manifest themselves as wet teardrops
from which everyone hides, sheltering himself,
discouraging any future expression
of weariness and quivering and loss.

the tears meet the grass in a show of quiet surrender
the grass turning to their nighttime lovers
yearning, ever so much farther,
to be reunited with another display of lacerated love
from the shy sky and affected darkness

i also regard myself to the stars’
seeking one lash of freezing acknowledgement,
seeking one who knows what i feel down here
seeking, if only because i am not everyone
nor am i alone a stone,

but i am the clouds,
the stories,
i am the wind, alone in joy and pain,
i am the whisper from the mountains, never heard but always uttered,
i am the stars, never seen but ever seeking,
i am the rain, a magic, shunned by all but those who crave life,
i am the grass, hoping in vain to meet to the one i love in joyful tandem,
i am they, and they are i,
and i sit in a seat to my left and shake as my soul is read from a paled paper
hoping to the roots that someone who is not everyone might come out of their home
and drink the sky with me.

She stepped from their presence
Startlingly, too soon,
And relished the silent moments amid the agony.
For a while it was just her and the new-found joy(and pain),
But too soon was she needed back.
When periodically she would return,
Their well-meaning tendrils of neediness smothered her,
And, well-greased and grinning, she would slip away again.
Self-preservation had always been her shining virtue—or glaring flaw.
When at last the struggling wardens insisted her presence,
She stumbled back to her rightful place,
Dreading all that would come.
But it never did.

She returned to a thriving world,
Having deluded herself of their helplessness without her.
She realized how small she really was and, cradling one larger than her,
Dipped her head in silent acceptance of what she discovered was truth,
And the new woman she had become replaced the replacement of someone past.
She pushed on, borne ever forward by sheer will,
Never nearing who she was before and never far from falling into herself again.

Is it possible to spread your thoughts
on the floor
like a vague flower spreading across a tile world?
Is this what you were trying to do?
If I unfocus my ears, the screams issuing from my mouth
seem an eerie melody, dancing in tandem with tears.
Your ideas came rushing out of your mind
just as I arrived,
they seemed excited for the world to finally see them.
You though a metal barrel would help you survive.
Everything feels numb, everything is beautiful.
I accidentally fall on some dreams as I fall to your side,
crying (I don’t know why; here with you, I usually smile)
in a way that ***** swirling, shivering breaths out of this body-cage.
The growing halo of red reaches the fringe of my dress
black grows around the edges and I welcome sleep with a watery grin.



*
*
I don’t know why; you’re dead.
I burned the dress last week.
Grass is growing on your grave.
Your ideas never got farther than the kitchen floor
where you shot yourself.
We both died, we both suffered, you before and I after.
*
I don’t want to see you now.