you carry the burden of our histories on your shoulders,
not to repeat them but to know where we went
wrong to end up this way.

You carry the pride of our histories in your heart,
not to repeat them but to know someone's always cared,
and that it's our turn to care now.

इस बोझ को अकेले मत उठाना, इस ख़ुशी को बिखेरके चलना।

The silence and darkness are like twins joined at the hip,
like lovers holding hands,
like tress rooted to the soil.

Why do you let fear fill up these crevices
that form because
anything dim yearns for the quiet,
and silence curls her fingers around the dark,

The bond remains, however twisted,
till the end of time,
a bond of love.

When I was fifteen, there were only three more years
until I could leave.
I numbered the days like some people count calories
or steps
or breaths
onetwothreefourfivesix
counting until there was no air left.
Out of breath, out of step, out of line,
one more time;
try a little harder,
push a little faster,
be a little better, a little stronger,
smarter
sweeter
tougher.
Braver.

I'd spin in circles until I was dizzy,
around and around andaroundaroundaround
before starting all over.
Out of control, too fast to ever really stop.
And then back to the beginning again
where I first began,
reduced to less than nothing,
just a slip of the person I'd hoped to become.

When I was fifteen, life was a game
where there were winners and losers
and then people who didn't ever quite make it.
Neither a winner, nor a loser,
neither a hero nor an enemy,
just nothing at all.

I ran around, afraid of everything,
hoping if I ran fast enough, whatever was lurking in the shadows might never catch me
consume me.
I ran until one day, I slipped and fell down the rabbit hole,
past where anyone could see
or hear
or reach.
I fell through the cracks I sidled around everyday walking home from school,
books in one hand,
memories in the other,
clinging to both for dear life.

I was just a sprig with dead leaves and a damaged stem,
no petals or blooms,
flowerless,
my roots growing in the wrong direction, defying gravity.
Empty hands reaching up into the air,
grasping for something to pull me back to earth,
push me forward into the world.
Desperately searching for something to believe I was enough,
believe I was worthy.
Believe I wasn't a mistake,
a surviving **** in a blossoming garden.
Hoping.

When I was fifteen, there were only days
weeks
months
Every minute accounted for
yet all forever lost in one sleepless dream,
in one fell swoop.
Time lost, standing still, forgotten,
my watch the only thing keeping each day from running into the next.

I am not fifteen, anymore.
I have found my roots,
my time,
my place,
It's safe, it's home.
There's hope.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Time is not forever,
but neither is this.

It'll be okay.
You'll be okay.

I'm in a beautiful place,
a place where the wind blows and the people smile,
the trees sway and time flies.

I am where I thought I wanted to be,
then what is this crushing feeling that won't let me breathe?

the regions that mother nature spares,
the places saved from raging oceans, and trembling grounds,
from erupting fires and disease and drought,

those are for you to go and ****,
with knives and words,
guns, bombs and
those are the regions for humanity to destroy.

Let me tell you about that fleeting moment
when I felt an emotion
that I cannot describe.

LIGHT.
drowsy and switched on by that little flutter in your heart,
the shine glides across the space
till it has molded the world
around it into warmth.

DISTANCE.
far enough to be another world, yet just close enough to be real.
the warmth is out of reach now
but we’ll get there someday, soon, but
the metres between turn my sight blue.

BODIES.
his hands twirling her and her hands guiding him,
their movements spell out words and raw beauty.
so while the world falls deaf to my ears and
their shadows dance with them-
I hear echoes of laughter, clinking glass and…love.

HAPPINESS.
I feel it all at once, yet the words escape my mind before I can
make a sound to spit them out, I don’t understand
what this feeling is.

It’s a wish to see that happiness reflect in my life,
a wish to not fear the future.
So I, a boy with the world at my fingertips and
a cloud over my heart,
describe that fleeting moment
in an attempt to understand it.