Your words are art.

They dance off your tongue into the air
Sharing the atmosphere with my stunned silence.

Each string of twenty-six tragically overused letters
You sculpt together effortlessly in a matter of milliseconds.

Your words are art,
And you paint my fading reality anew with brilliant colors.

The moles on your hunched back
form themselves into constellations
each dot connecting to its neighbor.

I've become endlessly starry eyed
gazing at the wonders of your galaxy.

Those old dusty blinds opened
Allowing the rays of sunlight
To once again shine into the room
Coloring the blank white walls.

Reflecting through the empty spaces
It fills my soul with the promise of another day.

I stroll down memory lane
Because I love running into you.

Underneath our
bruised mask of skin,
We are the same.

You had the ocean in your eyes.
The sea held the power to crush anything in its path.
Those tragic, rolling waves of deception, destruction.
I'm drowning beneath the surface as you take me    u
                                                                                            n
                                                                                                  d
                                                                                                        e
                                                                                                            r.

Salty tears streamed down my face
filling the deep sea of sadness.
,            ,        ,
        ,          ,          ,
    ,    ­       ,
           ,         ,
With my head bobbing between every crushing wave,
you taught me how to     s  w   i   m.

I want to flip through the delicate,
worn pages of your life's story.
Past the detailed table of contents,
experiencing each chapter for myself.
Every small ink splatter between the
spaces of your soul's dialogue
forms tears descending on the page.
Instead of a period signaling the end
of your life's long sentence,
you courageously turned it into a comma
so that your story would never truly end,

Trapped in an
suffocating cage
of self-doubt,

I fight back.

The ace of spades
The queen of hearts
I don't gamble, but if I did
I'd bet on you.

Home.

It's not a place made of four sturdy walls,
built from strong brick and stone.
It has no windows to peer out of,
nothing to conceal, to keep hidden.
There's no roof above to protect,
to shield, to encase.

Home.

It's when I look into your glossy eyes at 1 a.m.
before we fall deeply together into an effortless slumber.
It's where my fingertips slowly graze your shoulders
delighting at the slightest touch of your soul's vessel.
It's what keeps me safe at nightfall when I stroll down the boardwalk
in sync, in perfect rhythm with your footsteps moving beside me.
It's why I look at my bare feet and shyly smile when a subtle compliment
travels from your muffled throat to fill my ears with joy.
It's who I open my tired, restless eyes to see every bright sunrise
filling me with the courage to face another cycle of hours, minutes, seconds.

Home.

It holds the answer to every question I've yearned to uncover.
My home will always be with you.

Never once has a
dictionary defined this
infatuation,
adoration,
l  o  v   e.

Jagged,
Scuffed,
Cut...
Alone.

A part of me is missing.

The roots of my fingers sprout small flowers
Each fragile stem intertwined with its neighbor
Growing and flourishing in a matter of a seconds
Carefully blooming right before my very eyes
Aching to touch the outstretched stems from your fingertips.

The birth of a new plant.
One body, one mind,
One heart.

Shattered, we stand tall.
Torn, feeling the pain within.
Bruised, but not broken.

My tired eyes catch a small glimpse
of the sunset outside my bedroom window.

It reminds me of you.

It has the rosy pinks of your cheeks,
The soft blues of your eyes,
The faint yellow pigments of your skin.

As long as the sun in the cloud covered sky will set in the west,
Transforming so the stars may fill the spaces of the vast darkness of night,
You'll be here, with me.

Twirling my coal black fine-tip pen
In the vacant gaps between my restless fingers,
My wandering mind is filled only with thoughts of you,
Desperately longing for your strong hand
To effortlessly fill the
S      p      a      c      e     s
Between my own.

An
                     a
                              v
                         a
                                   l
                                         a
                                                    n
         ­                                        c
                                                          h
   ­                                                                 ­e
Of goosebumps,
One after another
As a result from just one touch,
One flick of your fingertip
Sends my body into a mass of tingles,
Never yearning for stillness again.

I don't think we are afraid of the dark.
No, more of what it so effortlessly conceals.
An unforeseeable threat lurking in the infinite darkness.
It plays a sly little waiting game,
Like an opponent anticipating the move of a chess piece,
Sure to be the next tragic victim...
Until,

Checkmate.

You took your limbs
and twisted them around me
like snakes
squeezing my ribcage

It was no warm embrace, no
I was holding on by a thin thread
And you knew...
And still continued.

Your life is written on your palms
the creases anxiously spreading
all leading to unique paths
changing, for nothing is predetermined.

As it ever so lightly touches your lips
The liquid disappears
Just as your soul does.

It all turns to black.

As the leaves change their pigment
and fall through the brisk autumn air
Darling, don't you go changing on me too
for I will catch you if you begin to fall.

There stands the frozen man
In which time stands endlessly still
Only a distant memory, fading with age
Trapped in a quaint box, his life sentence.

Everything goes in, rushing quickly
Only to realize there is no way out
Lost in darkness that seems endless
Until a small pocket of light appears
In the far far distance
It gets bigger as it pulls everything closer
Only to disappear as suddenly as it came.

The violence of my vast imagination
wraps around me,
grabs a hold of me,
tight,
tightly,
tighter,
until there is nothing left.

You cocked your head to the side
And parted your lips slightly to show a sly smile

Slowly, you raised your lightweight shirt
To show the words that would be permanently sketched on your body

Forever

Your body is a canvas
and you decorated it like so

It's beautiful.

Sprawled out
Body spread
Arms open
Heart beating
Eyes closed
Lips yearning

You're here.

Your lips part
At the nape of my neck

You brush them
Against my tingling skin

Closing my eyes
At the slight touch of them


I'm home.

Stand tall.

Inked forever on my shoulder
In cursive

It gracefully dances
When I move

In joyous celebration
Of its worth.

All it took was a swipe.
One small, insignificant swipe.
You took your finger and erased my name,
Erased me.

I won't let you erase my identity.

I was told I would be a hero.
A true hero,
Giving my life for my country.
I’d make my family proud.

I now look at the fear stricken faces,
With tears running down their wet cheeks,
About to pummel into the bottomless sea.
I am deeply saddened.
They never got a chance to say goodbye.
Endless screams is all I hear as the plane drops,
Falls,
Dives,
Crashes.

I am no hero.

Where in the world is Waldo?
He blends in the endless crowds that clog the city streets.
No way to turn, no way out.

Where in the world is Waldo?
He finds himself at a beautiful beach,
overtaken by a tidal wave of emotions.
Filling him up to the brim, to his full capacity.

Where in the world is Waldo?
Lost in the physical and emotional world.
Never to be truly found.

The cream lace dress falls to the floor.
The bright morning light fills the empty spaces.
The many layers pool around my feet.
The structure, the texture, the workmanship.
They all fill me with delight and splendid wonder.
I throw my head back and gently close my eyes.
I wonder how my mother felt in this dress.
Her dress.
Many years ago.
When she danced with my daddy at the prom.
Looking into his big, brown eyes,
Lacing her fingers together around his strong neck,
His hands placed ever so lightly on her small waist,
I wonder if she loved him then.
I wonder if she always had.
And always would.
I never knew my mother.
From the pictures, I could tell she was beautiful.
I never felt a true connection with her,
Although I had longed to.
Until I tried on the cream lace dress.
Her cream lace dress.
I felt like she, instead of the fabric,
Was wrapped around me.
Embracing me tightly.
I never want to lose her,
Even though I never truly knew her.
But this dress,
Her dress,
Allowed me to find what was always lost.

We all are hiding from something.

Someone.

The bystanders circling around us
Like trees, stretching their branch-like arms
Trying to grab us with all of their might.

We peek out of our shells
That we have created for ourselves
To protect us from the poisonous world we live in.

Clenching our fists and
burrowing our heads

We wait

Inevitably for the next attack
For we know we are the society’s next victim.

The strong tree bends down towards the rippling sea
As if to see its reflection in the waves crashing against the jagged rocks.
The thick trunk, about to break, stretching its roots as far as they can go,
Sees only a blurry black shadow staring back at him.

Soon I will be a ghost.
Nothing but a figure of the forgotten past.
Slowly but surely fading away.
I will still reside in this upstate loft.
Sitting in that cocoa brown armchair.
Watching the future live on in a front row seat.

Just because you are gone
Doesn’t mean you haven’t left your print in the world
I close my eyes and pretend my fingers are laced in yours
And all I do is smile and the tears fade away.

Our eyes locked.
You sitting on the left.
Me sitting on the right.
You lightly touched your blond hair.
Tousled it slightly to show your beautiful blue eyes.
Your smile.
God, that smile.
After that moment, I knew.

Now, on our wedding day,
I give myself to you.
Right by the very track we met.
You are still as beautiful as the day I saw you across the train.
You sitting on the left.
Me sitting on the right.

We’re all just waiting.
Just waiting for something.
Anything.
Hoping it won’t pass us by.
Completely still, we linger.
Thinking it will find us.
We stand idly by.
Wishing, wanting, needing.
Looking for some sort of sign.
A peek into the unforeseeable future.
We yearn to have decisions made for us.
Not wanting to bear the consequences.
If we always wait, it will surely pass us by.