as i'm laying down tonight
i think of how exhausting it is to wash you off my fingers
even if it's not like i ever get to hold your hand
or touch you, for that matter.
but everynight i have to wash your essence off my fingers
like trying to get rid of gasoline but always ending up
setting myself aflame. and that despite
knowing how dangerous and hazardous that **** could be
you just couldn't stop because you love the smell of gasoline
that fills up your lungs like pumps of adrenaline
right before the stench of your own burning flesh
chokes you to death. most nights, i wash you off like paint.
you can tell that i'm trying to forget what
i bled after your face appeared on the plain canvass
when my hand automatically reaches up and
perfectly colors your lips, and i couldn't help
but resemble them to pastel pink petals
of the roses growing in royal gardens
and i know i'm fooling everyone
making them believe that such expertise
is achieved because
your bottom lip have felt my gentle stroke when i
don't even know how your lips would feel when they quiver
under a curious and longing touch.
so i watch the colors spiral down the drain.
i watch my hands brush against each other
so intensely, trying to scrub the paint gone even
if it won't go away. even if the blood is clean.
even if i look clean.
how can loving you secretly be ever clean?
i'm scared it will never go away.
i am a painter in my own sense, capturing a glimpse
of something so intoxicating and aesthetically forbidden
then turning it into something tangible.
this is how painters show that their hearts
collapse with just a name
with just a glance not meant for their way.
and they paint what little of the hope
that shouldn't have been there in the first place
and every night. every single night they would aim
tirelessly to turn it into something they could allow.
something that could exist not only in my head.
something that i can call mine even if you
don't know that i am yours
and i knew this because your face
have begun to fill every blank wall
in my ******* house and i wonder how it is
possible to fall in love with someone the whole world
believes you shouldn't.
they say that when we turn our hands into fists
it is the size of our hearts.
and sometimes after the long hours of painting
i wash my paint-stained hands clean of
an abstract myriad of yellow and blue and black
and red. red for blood. red for love. red for fire.
i wash my paint-stained hands
turning them into fists
so maybe, just maybe
it will be the same
as getting rid of the colors off my young broken heart.
colors for you.
yet i always end up washing them off
with ******* gasoline.
and you still dare to call me 'smart'

golden written poems
reflect my aching soul,
i hope you see
what you're looking for.
and though it shows
that try you must,
what you should find,
you'll never know.

i won't apologize for,
the run down home
with faded bright paint,
art hung on tilted walls.
it served as solace
when nights turned sour,
my clandestine sanctuary
in the darkest hour.

it may seem to you
how unconventional -
that of my liquor at dawn,
and breakfast at twilight.
when i breathe fire,
i do not wince,
it triggers my passion -
my soul just grins.

you, however
speak in arrogant tongues,
because you can't see my heart.
the noise you make,
repudiates my art.
though you feel superior
and put me beneath your boot
i'll rise in time,
and retrieve my worth.

i'm different, it's true --
disarray of vivid colors,
an underrated being
of unseen collections.
and so i should not
explain to you just why,
it's useless to show you
for you see in only black and white.

damage has always been your forte -
an expertise,
your recalcitrant venom.
you annihilate
before they could burn you
and your fortress is painted
in a deep, metallic rouge.

you wear the word 'vicious'
like a crown;
loyal weapon tucked neatly in the
taverns of your mouth.
you are adroit with words, after all.
such a fine weapon,
such a clean cut.

realms bow down, subjects to terror.
sweet vilification's best served
in your court.
not one soul would dare to beard
the lion,
no single breath,
shall make your empire topple.

the caucus adjourns; your grip is slipping
you may be the head,
but we
are
the
body.

your realm will rot
from the inside.

we comfort our souls with lies
and we
burn our homes to be free.

we dab perfume on our dead bodies
and we
stitch smiles on faces to be happy.

we turn up the music (too loud)
to be deaf upon the cries of our names
wedged between curses
and scorching regrets.

we try to dance along with the songs
of ghosts -
whose skeletons have been
long forgotten in our antique closets.

we drain bottle after bottle,
light a cigarette after another,
**** ourselves so we don't die -
a surrender to loneliness is worse, after all.

and so...

we say goodbye without considering
that we are worthy enough to stay,
we apologize for the words
we actually meant to say.

we crawl back to our hollowed grounds -
yet we love with the strength of that
who has never been loved.

we travel barefoot on unknown,
desolate roads
in the hopes to find where we belong.

we do the mistakes we've done before,
not because we are stupid,
but god, because we've learned.